#a collaborative worldbuilding ttrpg

[brewerssupplies]

So I know I retired from making D&D stuff, because of burnout. I did decide it would be okay for me to make my own games. This is a WIP of a short one I’m working on. I’m working on this and three games at the moment. Not all at one mind you. So here I present: Scrolls. It’s basically a joking take on what an Elder Scrolls tabletop rpg might look like. Complete with the ability to glitch through the floor and other bugs.

Still need to make the skill trees.

[PDF]

#rpg #ttrpg #game #elder scrolls #skyrim #oblivion #morrowind #tabletop #tabletop game #tabletop rpg #elder scrolls iv #elder scrolls v #tamriel #meme #joke #The other games are #a tactical shooter ttrpg #a collaborative worldbuilding ttrpg #and a kaiju ttrpg #made the logo myself #getting a pc has allowed me pursue a lot of my interests that aren't just make dnd brews all the time

[silencingspellsongs]

would it be crazy to say that i think playing a ttrpg type game based in the redactedverse would be like so much fun actually 🫣

don't ask me what system or how to adapt it to work because i don't have the technical brain for that, i just know that the worldbuilding and the magic system and everything is so interesting and well thought out and the idea of making and roleplaying ocs in this universe with other fans seems like it would be sooo much fun can you tell i'm having withdrawals from my dnd group not playing for months and so i'm projecting it onto my other interests 🫠

#argent rambles #redactedverse #redacted audio #i see a creative fantasy setting with lots of lore and i want to tell a story in it #collaborative storytelling in the way of ttrpg is just one of those ways i want to do it #but there are other ways too... #like hypothetically have i thought up an idea for a audio series playing an original speaker and their bespoke listener in the redactedverse #that would take place in a different cornerstone city so as not to crossover w the actual canon #but would use the worldbuilding and lore of the redactedverse? yeah hypothetically maybe i have #but lets be honest there are a myriad of things holding that idea back #highest on that list being how to make sure it wouldn't seem like stealing #like even making explicitly clear that it was fan content and not affiliated w actual canon #i would be terrified of overstepping boundaries #and also idk how to write a one sided audio roleplay script in the first place lol #all of this to say i love this fictional universe erik has created and it's inspired me with stories i'd love to tell in it as well

[kirnet]

Planning a rager tomorrow 😏 (paris is gonna come over and we’re gonna play cartography ttrpgs)

#I have a vague map of some landmarks in horizons edge but Oohh babyyy we’re gonna have a nice city map!!! #genuinely I love collaborative worldbuilding I love my player I love my friends it gets me so excited to dm #ramblings #also that bundle I mentioned opening earlier has sooo many different ttrpgs. some are solo journaling ones? #never tried them before but I think I will soon it seems really fun

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Since today is Creator Day on itchio, my games are 50% off! If you're interested in timeskip-based collaborative worldbuilding or The Rapture TM, I'd love if you checked out my games, now in a convenient $5 bundle!

#ttrpg #collaborative worldbuilding #timeskip #d&d

[stateofvulpesia]

Day 0:

Hello, I’m not sure if anyone will ever read this, but I’m keeping this journal as a log for my activities as the new ruler of Vulpesia.

#Vulpesia #StateofVulpesia #worldbuilding #collaborative writing #lore #fiction #fictional nation #writing #ttrpg community #indie ttrpg #rpg

[txttletale]

Do you have recs for combatless rpgs? sorry if someones asked this ! im getting into ttrpgs now and its just pretty hard to find anything non combat focused ?

i recommended wanderhome (melancholy animal roadtrip), dream askew (queer postapocalyptic survival), microscope (collaborative worldbuilding), and crescent moon (kids learning and growing in a fantasy land) in resposne to an ask earlier today. other great rpgs that aren't combat focused include:

chuubo's marvelous wish-granting engine: i'll level with you, if you're just getting into rpgs this one might be A Lot because it's quite mechanically complex. but it's a beautiful game about having ghibliesque coming-of-age adventures in a surreal dreamy world.

nobilis is by the same person (jenna moran, a genuine game design pioneer and genius) -- it's about being godlets, the living embodiments of concepts from the concrete to the abstract. you might find yourself fighting in this game, but it's unlikely to look anything like 'combat'.

brindlewood bay, which is about being elderly women investigating murders.

pasión de las pasiones, a pbta (powered by the apocalypse) game about doing ridiculous romance drama shit based on telenovelas

monsterhearts, about teenaged monsters having weird drama and exploring their sexuality. think buffy or twilight, but queerer

pigsmoke, about being professors at a college of magic and competing to see who can publish the best paper (yes, really)

the girlfriend of my girlfriend is my friend, about... i mean i think the title makes it pretty clear! being gay and poly and kinda broke

it's been a long, long, time, about two people who used to date, their relationship, their lives after it, and their reunion

sagas of the icelanders, about being viking settlers in iceland during the saga period and playing out quasimythical dramas

hieronymous, about being a bunch of sinners making your way across hieronymous bosch's garden of earthly delights

thousand year old vampire, a solo journalling game about being a vampire and living through long stretches of history

blow up hamlet, where your table performs hamlet while changing the plot and improvising new plot beats at semi-random

slugblaster, about being rowdy teens hoverboarding through interdimensional rifts in the spirit of 90s teen movies

woo! that's a fuckin' lot of ttrpgs, but i wanted to give a lot of suggestions because i think it's so important for people getting into the hobby to understand the breadth of games out there and how far from the popular image created by D&D they can go! there are two-player and GM-less and even one-player games on this list. you can do anything! the world of rpgs is so fucking wide and beautiful. good luck and i hope you find something that speaks to you!

(oh, also, my game, most trusted advisors -- about being the untrustworthy privy council to a dipshit king and falling over each other's nested dipshit schemes -- has no combat in it. just saying!)

#ask #ttrpg

[goblinmixtape]

I wrote a TTRPG that inspired a ballet in NYC!

The World We Left Behind is a two-player worldbuilding game about exploring a deserted planet and learning what happened to the aliens who called it home.

Your characters will take multiple trips to the planet as they attempt to answer the question “what happened here?”

TWWLB was commissioned by BalletCollective to be used as Source Art in their upcoming 2023 season, THE MOMENT IS IMMINENT. BalletCollective has created a ballet inspired by TWWLB, which is being performed in NYC this fall by dancers from New York City Ballet.

Performance dates are:

Tuesday, October 31 at 7:30 PM

Wednesday, November 1 at 7:00 PM – Gala Performance

Thursday, November 2 at 7:30 PM

Tickets are available here.

A free livestream of the The November 2nd 7:30 PM performance will be available to watch at balletcollective.com/live (this webpage will become available closer to the performance).

TWWLB was designed in collaboration with Troy Schumacher (choreographer) and Phong Tran (composer), who created the music and the choreography for the ballet.

#IM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!! #ttrpg #my ttrpg #ballet #balletcollective #the world we left behind #indie ttrpg

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any TTRPGs where 'Genderfuckery' (i.e. playing around with gender in some form - trans characters, nb characters, in-game genderbending, crossdressing, etc etc - anything that 'fucks around' with gender and conventional ideas of gender) is a central mechanic or thematic element in some form?

Heaven is Here, by Rae Nedjadi.

This is a game that is deeply stepped in magical surrealism, it is desperately mundane, it is laughter in a coffee shop, and sacrifices made to the moon. It is friendship bound up in art, in gender, and what it means to be human.

This game uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system, which encourages collaborative storytelling with simple rules. You are artists, people made of many layers caught up in entanglements with one another. You are magical beings, because to create art is to create magic. Art is expression and creation, tied intimately with who you are and who you wish to be. Discover what inspires you and what holds you back. What does your art mean to you? How do you feel about the art others create? What new forms of inspiration will you uncover?

Rae describes gender in this game as ever shifting. As artists, your gender is connected to your art and what you love. It is a game about big questions in mundane scenarios, called Moments. Currently there are four playbooks and four Moments, as the game is still in development, so it is likely best experienced in a smaller group.

Giant Metal Bodies, by TheGiftofGabes.

You have a Giant Metal Body. If you run out of juice, you’ll probably die, but you might just flee to die another day. If you survive at the end of your mission, it doesn’t matter. The war will continue to try and kill you another time. If you die, it doesn’t matter. The war doesn’t care about your sacrifice.

Giant Metal Bodies is a game about what it means to be a Giant Metal Body in a war much bigger than you, that doesn't care about you, and which will destroy you no matter what.

I know that there’s been a lot of talk about trans allegories in mech stories, so this game feels like a very fitting way to talk about the trans experience using tragic themes. It was also submitted to the Trans Fucking Rage Jam on Itch a year or so back, which likely has a number of submissions that you might find interesting!

Expanse, by TheTrueToad.

Expanse" is a short solo-RPG made for pondering and expressing one's own gender. Create an expansive map of values, colors, and textures for the landscape of your gender.

I love the example aspects that you can choose from in this game. You have your traditional genders, such as Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous, but you also have options such as Purple, Timid, Voidlike and Witty. You will map out a landscape that represents your gender by drawing from a regular deck of playing cards, and reading the associated prompts. Each house in the deck responds to a different categories of aspects. I definitely am interested in how this game can provide alternate ways to think about gender; and you can create a lovely map along the way!

This game was made for the Trans Joy Jam, the counterpart for the Trans Rage Jam.

Elf Genders, by Lucian Kahn.

Elf Genders is a worldbuilding tool for creating your own new systems of fantasy genders. Most humans are women, men, or nonbinary, but maybe elves are… something else? Elf Genders helps you decide what!

This is not an rpg, but if you want to fuck with the genders of your fantasy game, this is a great place to start. This is a game session (or sessions, if you get really into it) to help you establish a setting and lore details of your elven folk, and what gender means for an elf. If you or your game group already have a game in mind, this is definitely worth looking at.

AetherNet, by Legendary Vermin.

The Internet as we know it ceased to exist after The Incursion, and in its place the sprawling Virtual Hyperreality of the Æthernet stretches horrible and festering in every direction. Plumb its depths in search of riches, miracles and ruins that the keepers of the mundane world will pay heartily for, just beware of the Daemons and UNGODS waiting for you in its depths, hoping to bend and shape your flesh to their own ends.

Make a character in seconds, ruin them for hours. The Player Book contains the minimum essential rules and setting information, and the Ref's Handbook fills in the other rules and tables you need to run the game.

The game itself takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk future where magic and technology are connected - and dangerous. There is actually a section in AetherNet titled “Genders” that asks you to roll 1d2 (or flip a coin) and roll a d6. This will give you one out of 12 options for your gender, which include options such as “a daemon bound you into a pact” or “once, you were a ship or space station and its crew”. Your Gender can also be changed or corrupted as you play, gaining qualities such as “without fear” or “too persuasive.” This is the most wild example of gender I’ve seen in a game so far, and I definitely recommend you check it out.

Sleepaway, by Possum Creek Games.

Sleepaway gives us long hazy days, chilled summer nights, kids screaming and chasing fireflies, crackling campfires, and a gaunt, cruel monstrosity forever hiding just out of sight, always asking, “What do you do next?”

In Sleepaway, you play as a group of camp counselors at a not-so-ordinary summer camp besieged by a strange and ominous cryptid, the monstrous Lindworm. It is a GMless horror game for 3-6 players, which uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system created by Avery Alder and Ben Rosenbaum. In it, players take control of not only their characters (which include archetypes like the Lifeguard, the Songleader, the Crafter, or the Athlete) but also the world around them, picking up Setting Elements to react to their friend's decisions. As the game goes on, the players also invite the Lindworm to play with them, causing horrific events to callously occur throughout the place space.

A Belonging Outside Belonging game, Sleepaway is a game that can be played without a GM, because each player will pick up a setting element sheet and be responsible for it throughout game play. This is the closest to what I was looking for when it came to gender, because your characters have gender options such as “A Robin,” and “A Particular Colour.” The game itself is a great setting to explore danger and liminal spaces, as summer camps are excellent places for self-discovery, as they take place away from your typical surroundings. Also, Possum Creek Games has a well-deserved reputation for making games that play well and make you feel something. You should definitely check it out.

Games I've Recommended in the Past

Women are Werewolves, by 9th Level Games.

Wanderhome, by Possum Creek Games.

Blood Feud, by Bläckfisk Publishing.

Gay Crime, Sapphics Against Capital, by Evey Lockhart.

Here, There Be Monsters! by wendi yu.

Dream Askew / Dream Apart, by Buried Without Ceremony.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #gender

[keplercryptids]

for my new ttrpg campaign, Choir (scifi, multi-system, set in a homebrewed universe based on the machineries of empire books' setting), we've been playing a bunch of worldbuilding games in preparation, including one- or two-shots for each PC to play out specific moments from their backstories. (for more general campaign info, see this post!)

anyway, i thought i'd write up brief summaries as to how these backstory games have gone, because they've been a blast and i highly recommend doing this for a campaign that'll involve deep character exploration.

1. Love Triangle in a Death Cult Regency

PC: Idona Noci (they/he)

TTRPG: Good Society, "a collaborative regency rpg that seeks to capture the heart, and the countenance, of Jane Austen’s work."

Backstory situation: How teenage Noci chose duty over love.

Present-campaign Noci is a trained torturer and professional indoctrinator, but they were just a teen once who had to choose between an arranged marriage or a continued relationship with a lower-class boyfriend. We played out one week set 25 years pre-campaign to show how Noci chose marriage and responsibility over love. The setting was a space station that floods with time-keeping tides, set during a week-long celebration of the faction's revered saints. Good Society was such a fun vehicle to play out the intricacies of a death cult space society, and the two-shot was honestly so moving???? i have not stopped thinking about it???? A++++.

2. Chase Through Space

PC: Moment's Pallor (she/zie)

TTRPG: HOUNDs, "a dice-stacking roleplaying game about the bond between a mech pilot and their robot companion."

Backstory situation: How Pallor was caught trying to run away with a stolen, sentient spaceship.

Present-day Pallor is a coder, a scientist, has already been executed once, and doesn't understand why it didn't stick. We changed HOUNDs to be about a computer coder/hacker and a sentient space-moth that had been harnessed and augmented into a ship. Five years prior to the campaign, Pallor connected to said moth, realized that it was sentient, liberated it and tried to escape the empire. Zie was caught and executed for this, then brought back to life under mysterious experimental means. HOUNDs was so much fun and did a great job ramping up the tension of the chase and allowing touching, calm moments too. (We play online, and used Tabletop Simulator on steam for the dice-stacking, which worked very well!) I love this mothgirl and i can't wait until zie can be with hir moth again wahhhh.

3. Divorce Negotiations

PC: Attra Rose (she/her)

TTRPG System: A Long Night in the Mech Bay, "A TTRPG about Relationships Reforged in Conflict."

Backstory situation: Rose and her wife (an NPC) negotiate a divorce while reminiscing about their relationship.

One year before the campaign starts, Rose got divorced (but they will be on the same crew once the campaign starts, oops). We used an albeit incredibly hacked version of LNitMB to play out the seven years of Rose and Han's relationship, from meeting up until and through the divorce negotiations. This was mostly accomplished by completely rewriting all the questions so that they were specific to this couple, and reversing which kinds of questions were asked first, so that it started with happy memories before we entered The Agonies. We also added NPC opportunities and setting description stuff so that the other two players could contribute, but the basic framework was still really useful for this kind of exploration, and I love the idea of starting a brand-new campaign with scar tokens lollllll. anyway i am unwell and having a GREAT time.

#choir campaign #dm stuff #idona noci #moment's pallor #attra rose #stel han'ae #execution #execution mention

[jamphibiann]

sitting down with tortilla chips and sweet tea to listen to my first episode of cantripped :] only 6 minutes in, and your worldbuilding is so impressive, and i already vibe with the way you're running the campaign. im getting more into dnd lately, and this has increased my passion for it so much more. thank you for creating what i am sure is about to become somewhat of a comfort listen for me. and also a thanks to your awesome party <3

Thank you so much, I am glad you’re enjoying it! I’m glad that Cantripped can be a tool to get people more into dnd/ttrpgs in general.

I’m a big proponent of the normalization of playing the game how you want to and what fits for your tables storytelling methods/desires over following the rules. Though my band of idiots may not be able to teach you dnd combat very efficiently, we sure will show you how much fun collaborative storytelling can be >:))))

#cantripped #dnd #dnd podcast

[utilitycaster]

From all the TTRPG shows you've watched so far, do you have any favourite player character builds, or builds that you think were especially well suited to the campaign/setting that the character was in?

You'd have to narrow this down - there's a lot (I stopped keeping my massive spreadsheet of character races and classes in actual play updated bc it was getting ridiculous but it's at over 100) so I'm just going to call out a few players who consistently hit this mark in everything they do.

Surprising no one, Emily Axford. Truly one of the biggest reasons why I get annoyed at the "haha Emily will DESTROY this DM" is that Emily has an incredibly good eye towards party composition and collaboration with DMs while also pulling off some wild multiclasses. This serves her in NADDPod especially, since they're a small party and everyone needs to be versatile. I will say that while I love Callie's build and think it mechanically works very well and made sense for her background in Mothership, it feels like it needs more in-story explanation that we haven't quite gotten to, but I also trust that we will.

Surprising no one with taste, Travis Willingham. Even in cases where we know it was off-the-cuff (Grog) he did a lot of work establishing why Grog was the class he was and how he felt about it; and in cases where it was pre-planned, the amount of backstory and mechanics work he does before and during the story is admirable to the point of ridiculousness (updating Chet's backstory to accommodate what Matt said in a flashback sequence? bananas). His multiclass choices always fit both the base build and the story admirably, and always fit a niche within the party that is very much needed, and the choice to play someone like Cerrit in Calamity or Fjord in general would put him here on their strength alone.

Again surprising no one, Aabria Iyengar; DMs make the best players. Capable of some great optimization (Deanna, Laerryn, whatever the hell Antiope had going on) or just playing a character with a simple build but with a strong understanding of the setting (Myrtle the Bitch; Suvi). Really, Suvi alone puts her here in that Aabria maybe more than anyone (though she might be tied with Emily Axford) understands wizards and understands that your character is a part of the DM's worldbuilding and needs to reflect that, while also serving as your contribution to that world.

And finally, Lou Wilson. He often does fairly simple builds - Nydas and late-game Fabian are the only ones with significant multiclassing beyond barbarian/fighter level dips - but he always knows precisely what his character is here to do from the start and why, can adapt on a dime, and he has a fantastic eye for subclass choice.

Honorable mentions:

Zac Oyama tends not to go for incredibly complex mechanics, but he has a great understanding of building a character who fits into the world in a way that both reflects and expands upon it, and has a great sense of subtlety, restraint, negative space, and comedic timing. (I've been meaning to make a negative space/comedic timing post but honestly just watch Zac and Travis.)

Grouping Taliesin Jaffe and Siobhan Thompson together because they are both very strong mechanically and not afraid of a wild min-maxed triple multiclass on occasion, but more specifically because they've both made at least one character I really did not vibe with and also absolutely could not fault in any way other than "not my thing, personally." Related to that, both of them bring an "I'm a generous and skilled player and I don't really give a fuck what the audience thinks" vibe that I (the audience) respects the hell out of.

Jake Hurwitz is the rare player who 100% knows his wheelhouse and embraces it whole-heartedly, and he puts in the character and setting work to keep it interesting.

Justin McElroy is mechanically competent but nothing impressive, but he absolutely thinks about his characters and the setting and how they fit together in a deep and interesting way and which sets him apart in TAZ. Kind of with Jake in that he 100% writes what he knows; I think this kind of player is underrated and having played with some, they shouldn't be.

And on the rare chances Brennan Lee Mulligan gets to play, not only is he min-maxed to the hilt but he always is working with the DM in a truly admirable way, even as he builds a little guy who cannot roll below a 25 deception or who has somehow managed to get sneak attack twice per round or something wild like that.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #actual play

[higgsbison]

Dungeon World anon (shy), Thank you for letting me use your art! I'm very excited!! The campaign will be a homebrew plot set in the world of the disc, specifically in the Watch setting. It will be set after Men at Arms but before Night Watch, and the recurring Watch cast will serve as my NPCs. Since I'm very nervous as a first-time GM, I had the idea to use my love and extensive knowledge of discworld as a sort of safety blanket, so I'm using it as a springboard for an original detective style mystery similar to the earlier Watch plots. My PCs will be tasked with solving and surviving the ensuing chaos that that would traditionally entail. They collectively have almost zero knowledge on discworld, which I will delight in taking advantage of at every opportunity. Dungeon World is an improv-heavy, collaborative storytelling TTRPG, which I think makes it the perfect system for a discworld mystery.

oh that sounds super fun, never tried dungeon world specifically, but imo powered by the apocalypse systems are always better than straight up dnd for storytelling and flow for both players and dm's, so I'm sure it will go great, esp with this kind of worldbuilding behind it!

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Stuff I do masterpost

Probably the biggest thing I do is run a Youtube channel that covers indie ttrpgs. Big focus on Asian designers and comparing games to other media.

I also write tabletop games! A lot of my work uses collaborative worldbuilding elements and interrogates themes of imperialism, but also I just love big stupid monsters.

I’m also a novelist/fiction writer. Actually got my start writing Monster Factory Fanfiction in 2017 (hence the blog name), but have since had a few short stories published!

I also do two podcasts! The first is Bible Boys, where me (an ex catholic) and my two friends Michael and Josh (ex evangelicals and current siblings) watch unhinged Christian media! The second is Mortified! The Friendship Quest, where me and my friend @leylses try to discuss a different media object and do pretty insightful analysis of what makes that object work or not.

You can find my main website at aavoigt.com for contact info and my resume, if you're looking to hire a writer, but otherwise, check out the stuff I make! It's good!

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #aavoigt

[equalseleventhirds]

Hey, do you have any recs for long form, more serious ttrpg systems for fantasy settings? I feel like I hear a lot about short/definitively-lengthed systems, but I've been yearning for a DnD-esque system without all the baggage of equip loads and complicated Challenge Ratings and other rules-y baggage I don't super care about.

do i! do i ever!

serious & long-form systems do on the whole tend to be crunchier than shorter systems (not always, but generally); nevertheless, i've picked out a........ handful......... ok there's Several, i did try to control and limit myself but u kno.......... games......... anyway, here are some that are considerably less crunchy than d&d but still lend themselves to long fantasy campaigns.

uh. under the cut for. oh god it's so long. it's so long. tried my best to explain them, u see. (which is also why it took me so long to reply lol, sry abt that)

godeater (& godeater 2.0): play in a broken, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where dead and dying gods warp the land, and you raid their bodies for divine magic to help support humanity. 2d10-based, get weird & funky with it! i admit a small preference for version 1.0, which gave u some loose examples but left much of the worldbuilding and even character building up to u to create; 2.0 has some extra books that go with it that i haven't much looked into yet, but seem to give more solid lore to work with, if u would like that.

when the guilds pay in copper, crime pays in gold: alchemical guilds pay shit wages to use people for magical experiments. go do crimes on 'em with your own magic. d6 base, assign dice to stats to make ur own dice pool; fairly light rules and in fact very little in the way of instruction or hard lore on the gm's side, so better played with an experienced gm who's good at making their own stuff, but certainly campaign material for the right gm!

third empire - violence + beauty: the world sucks, and has sucked for a while, through two oppressive empires and into a third one. you play adventurers who are trying to carve out a little goodness, a little justice, a little vengeance, in the world. y'know. lasers & feelings based, but expanded beyond the original (which also comes with it if u get it!) into more lore, more character choices, very collaborative worldbuilding, downtime mechanics, etc etc.

ruby radiance 6e: streamlined dungeoneering built to let ppl play the way actual play podcasts sound, essentially. d20 pool system, based on trophy mechanics but v much adjusted. lots of choices to make during character creation & leveling, but much much less to keep track of during the playing part. u get it.

wizard pals: all of you are wizards, going on adventures and trying to accomplish your goals in a fantasy world. d12-based, fairly lighthearted (can lean silly but u could use it for more serious if not super grimdark adventures), much worldbuilding left up to the gm, but very simple rules, so.

grimblade rpg: (speaking of grim lol,) action & adventure in a grim fantasy world; things like character creation and rewards (and magic) fully imply a fantasy world, but worldbuilding is left up to the gm, altho there are many tables to roll on to give some help. uses d4, 6, 8, and 10; all rolls are contested rolls, with dice picked based on how serious the gm feels this roll is.

shattered aether: post-apocalyptic science fantasy, you roam around a fucked up magic world and protect ppl from various dangers. 2d6 based, based on the lumen system so fairly combat-forward in a very high-action very cool asskicking way. for some reason the font chosen for this book is murder on my eyes, but if u can get past that (or just zoom in lots and read a bit at a time) it's straightforward, simple, and fun!

familiars of terra: this one may be a little too crunchy, but i love it a lot and rly the most crunch is in character creation and tracking experience, actual gameplay is (imo) pretty easy. post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, some science fantasy elements depending on where you choose to focus, bcos there are absolute PAGES of lore on this extremely cool and enormous world; you and your party go around with your soul-bonded animal friends to spread hope and healing and also do cool shit. y'know. card-based, again it is probably more crunchy than ur looking for but less abt tracking what you can do during things and more abt tracking experience in order to level up stats, so.

1400 quest: ok that last one was crunchy, this one's very uncrunchy. pick a handful of things and get going! clearly inspired by d&d, but very very streamlined, so things that were pages of mechanics are like, one or two sentences. gm's side of it is like, a handful of rollable tables and then do whatever, so prolly for the more experienced gm. d6 based, but you may have occasion to use other dice. also if you like this one there's others by the same author focusing on other things (1400 mage, sneak, etc), or you can check out others in the 24XX type of games, which started out sci fi but has since been expanded to a bunch of other stuff. u kno.

beast dream: pokemon-inspired game where you make friends with magical beasts and go on magical adventures! d6-based, forged in the dark, so there is a little crunch wrt deciding on position etc and stuff like stress, but the author rly wanted to focus in on letting u adventure and have fun without getting bogged down in numbers and i think that shows, stuff like load and reputation aren't so much a thing.

cognatons: play as sentient, magic-filled automatons doing whatever fantasy adventures your robot heart desires. d4-based, caltrop core, so you get a fairly simple & defined set of actions; less to keep track of, easy to follow.

dethrone the divine: you're gonna overthrow the gods, and also take their places. you're already either divine, semi-divine, or magically powerful in other ways, and you adventure with the goal of gathering power and followers so you can take the place of the shitty gods in power. d6-based, pretty straightforward system, makes characters v cool and powerful, which is always fun.

perilous: do you love dungeon crawls bcos i love dungeon crawls... streamlined and easy to understand fantasy dungeoneer adventures in this one! d20-based, leans towards tags instead of complicated numerical skill stuff to keep track of. go to dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. simple n good. (adds in some metaplot, like who sent you, how will this affect the people living here, whatever, but rly strong with the very old core of d&d-style 'go do a dungeon' kinda thing, if that's what u like.)

high magic lowlives: ok my latest obsession bcos i'm currently planning a big ol campaign for friends in this one. there are classic adventurers in this world, out there cleaning out monster nests or whatever, but they're usually in the employ of the immortal aristocracy. you? you make your money by stealing from and humiliating the immortal aristocracy, because you're a lowlife. it's a dangerous gig, but isn't it better than going into student debt at wizard school? melds high fantasy aesthetics with like, magical twitch streaming aesthetics. fun as hell. uses all the dice and also sometimes tarot cards (mostly just for character creation, u kno). easy to understand rules, i'm having a great time.

ellipses rpg: setting-agnostic system (make ur own setting!) with simple, streamlined rules and an emphasis on improvisation. d20 based, rly just some very basic foundation and then a lot of encouragement to make things up and do what's fun. so like, loosey goosey & not super structured if you want structure, but could be fun!

unbound: setting-agnostic system but with much more formal structure, got structure around how to collaboratively worldbuild your setting and everything. obvs this means some crunch, but it's still not super crunchy, nice and straightforward rly. lotta character options but not so complex and math-heavy, u kno. card-based system. designed actually for a series of short campaigns in a linked world, tho, so if ur not up for exploring new characters a lot, may not be for you.

#algie talks ttrpgs #i have HUNDREDS of games u don't UNDERSTAND #tried to limit myself. took off some rly more urban fantasy or cyberpunk fantasy or noir fantasy or horror-focused. #took off some more crunchy ones tried to stay with the less crunchy............. #even the ones i took off are STILL not as full of useless-ass rules than d&d but i tried to go for ones with much less to keep track of #took off some ones that are perhaps not as easy for someone moving from d&d eg. gmless ones non-combat ones rly meta ones etc #and still it's like. sixteen here??? which obvs u cannot play all of them lmao #but anyway here u go i hope this helps!! i lov games #long post #just in case the readmore fucks up bcos it's moved itself like three times since i started drafting this

[goldyke]

if you have the time, what are your favorite ttrpgs? I'm interested in getting into the genre but dnd is kind of hard to break into. Again, you don't have to answer if this would take too much time to explain. Thank you!

So I’ve played about 35 different games, mostly one shots. I’ve had the benefit of playing with people I trust which can greatly influence game play. Below I’m going to include the full list of games with brief descriptions, but favorites first.

I definitely prefer non-traditional, narrative, and gmless games, so that will be a running theme.

Tales From the Loop has to go first because it’s the game that made me fall in love with ttrpgs. This game has Stranger Things vibes. You play a preteen in the 80s in a town where weird shit is constantly happening. This game is more on the traditional side. There’s a GM running the story, you roll for skill checks, there’s probably a specific story playing out that your gm will try to hook you on to. This game uses only 6 sided dice. There is a sequel listed below for teens in the 90s.

Fall of Magic is a narrative rpg with at most 3 dice rolls in the entire game. FoM is played on a beautiful, handmade map. Your characters progress through the cities on the map as you collaboratively tell the story of your journey to the birthplace of magic. Every city on the map has locations in it with a narrative prompt. Each player decides what location to visit and acts a scene at the location answering the prompt. Anything you say becomes true. There are no rolls. Nothing makes me want to write an epic fantasy more than a good game of Fall of Magic

Pasión De Las Pasiones is a PBTA game, which is one of my favorite systems. In it you play a character from a long-running telenovela. I suggest only playing with a gm familiar with the genre who can do justice to the setting. There’s lots of scandal and intrigue. In fact one of the possible characters to play is the secret evil twin of any of your fellow players. PBTA gamesone are closer to traditional with dice rolls and a gm, but emphasizes the narrative more. Rolls are based on you committing to certain tropes and are boosted by narratives rather than any sort of character skills. (I also suggest checking out other PBTA games.)

A Quiet Year is a map drawing game. All you need to play are a deck of cards, a printout of what the cards mean, and drawing materials. You tell the story of a community rebuilding after a harsh winter, answering prompts from the cards for each week of the year. As you build the village and create the story, you draw a map to show all you have done. No artistic skill is necessary. You do not play a character in this game. There is no gm. There are no dice rolls. This is the map from my last game. (I prefer to use wrapping paper for more space)

Dialect is a language building game in which you collaboratively make up new words that become completely normal to you through play. You play as members of an isolated community of any sort (lost mars colonies, online message boards, a thieves guild) which breaks down over the course of the game. You play out the evolution and eventual dissolution of your joint language. Each turn comes with a prompt for which you create a word and then play a scene. This is great as a stand-alone but I love the idea of using it as worldbuilding for a larger campaign.

I will hopefully do another post talking more about someone games tomorrow

(Warning for q slur used once below cut)

This is a list of all the games I’ve played with a short description for each. I do not recommend all of these, but feel free to ask more about any of them. I’ll talk more about some of these in future posts.

Masks (teenage super heroes. PBTA)

Paranoia (dystopian bureaucratic comedy horror)

Weave (app based multi genre. Left very little impression for me)

Tales from the loop (80s teenage horror mystery. D6 based game)

Things from the flood (90s teenage horror mystery. Sequel to above)

Descent into Midnight (map drawing game. psychic underwater entities in a community fighting an influence. PBTA.)

Dream askew (queer enclave as society falls PBTA. Book also contains a jewish companion game set in a shtetl, Dream Apart)

Rippers (dark Victorian. supernatural hunters)

Pasion de las Pasiones (telenovela the rpg. NDNM)

Fall of magic (map based, gmless, story telling game. High fantasy. I own but have not yet played their second scroll game City of Winter)

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Fiasco (multi genre heist-gone-wrong game. Gmless. D6 based)

Inspecteres (ghostbusters-esque, bureaucratic comedy. Some mockumentary elements.)

Dnd (we all know this one)

Quiet year (map drawing, gmless game on the growth of community)

Dialect (linguistics based game telling the story of a collapse of community)

Microscope (world-building game played over the course of an era. Great for works building for a larger campaign)

Lady blackbird (single scenario game- helping a noble escape arranged marriage. Steampunk)

Lasers and feelings (Star Trek, basically. One pager. Great for new players and gms. Good system to build a home brew based on)

Castle falkenstein (steampunk+fantasy adventure)

Headspace (cyberpunk, anticorp. Emotionally intense/triggering)

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Mouse guard (mouse fantasy adventures)

Numenara (science fantasy adventure game. Earth based, 1000 years off)

Manifest (sci-fi western)

Damn the man save the music (employees try to save their dying indie record store and achieve their personal goals. 90s)

Ryutaama (npcs travel and experience the joy of existence)

Dead Halt (a hotels AI has gone rogue. You work there. Try to survive. Horror-ish but in a campy way)

Knave (a very simplified fantasy adventure game)

Thirteenth Age (similar to dnd with a few unique interesting features. Made by creators of dnd 3&4)

Anomaly (tarot based gmless game about a sinister organization investigating supernatural anomalies)

Visigoths vs. Mall goths (conflicts and romance between the warriors who sacked Ancient Rome and 20th century spooky teens. Takes place in a mall in 1996)

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Arcana Academy (magic school game. Don’t play with strangers because they will fall into HP tropes)

Alice is Missing (silent game played over discord or similar. A mystery is solved through texts and group chats

Worlds Without Numbers (large world fantasy adventure game. OSR. Similar in concept to dnd but with plenty of differences. More human centric)

Nahual (Mestizo shapeshifting angel hunting underdogs)

Sign (sign language building game. Deaf children develop their language collaboratively in a new school setting. Played silently.)

#ttrpg #ttrpg community #dnd #fall of Magic #tales from the loop #a quiet year #pasion de las pasiones #long post #dialect #dnd isn’t the only game #answered #lucky charms #one of the six or one of one of the sixes

[txttletale]

Because I'm curious now, what are your favorite TTRPGs? One of my personal favorites is the Kids On Bikes system and its variants for their simplicity and ease of access for new players.

so first of all--kids on bikes is very cool. it’s a nice rules-light game with a pick-up-and-play vibe. haven’t ever run it myself but i feel comfortable seconding your recommendation. anyway here’s some of my FAVOURITE TTRPGS.

Blades in the Dark is probably my enduring all-time favourite game. it’s a little flawed in places but its core loop is pure fucking elegance at play. flashbacks (you can spend stress, a metacurrency, to have done something in the past) and resistance (you can also spend stress to evade something bad that happens to you) are two of my favourite mechanics in any TTRPG ever. every player character gets to be a competent badass while also facing real, tangible danger with every moment. not to mention an incredibly well-fleshed out and evocative setting in the gaslamp fantasy nightmare city of doskvol.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self is a game that dares to ask questions like, ‘what if jojo’s bizarre adventure was good’ and ‘what if persona, also, was good’. characters manifest the power of their souls as weird freaks with incredible powers. the ‘reveal your master plan’ mechanic works much like BiTD flashback mechanic and a smart combat system where enemies get stronger as you fight them really makes this the perfect vehicle for creative character-driven superpower-based combat. if you subscribe to the developers’ patreon you can also get access to the draft of the second edition, which does some really cool fucking things like replacing dice rolls with a tarot draw.

Lancer is the game for people who like grid-based tactical combat. it has incredible tactical depth, well-thought out mechanics that interlace perfectly--and best of all, you get to design and customize your own mech from a truly dizzying array of options to find all sorts of fucking insane synergies between abilities like ‘teleport whenever you attack somebody’ or ‘do more damage the more you overheat’. it also has a very comprehensive suite of GM tools that make it a breeze, and even fun, to create and run a balanced encounter with clearly defined and narrativly interesting goals for both sides. i’m not too into the setting for reasons i’ve talked about elsewhere, but fortunately as long as you can accomodate ‘mech combat’ into your setting, none of the worldbuilding is load-bearing to the game’s core appeal.

Microscope is totally different from a lot of TTRPGs in that it’s noit about playing characters, but about creating a world. it’s a beautiful collaborative storytelling tool with deceptively simple tools that can easily add up into your table creating a world that’s way more intricate and eclectic and fascinating than anything one of you could have come up with on your own. good for creating TTRPG settings but also good just as something to play for its own sake!!

Dream Askew would probably round out my top five, but i’ve just posted about that one here--so instead i’ll give this slot to Nobilis 3e, a game that might not be one of my favourite games to actually play, but is genuinely fascinating to read and sit with, a fucking masterful work of both design and literature, something that so distinctly creates a world and a tone that it’s instantly magnetic. not for everyone, but worth checking out.

#ask #ttrpg #fish-king