#spindlewheel

[22to22]

I'm happy to introduce J.A.C. Clark's latest deck, Uncharismatic Megafauna! It's a 15 card love letter to the strange and wonderful creatures that have come and gone on this planet. If you've ever gotten emotional looking at fossils, this is the deck for you.

Get it now!

#spindlewheel #tarot #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #fossils #22to22

[crtgirl]

I released a new tabletop game!

Let the Fire Soothe is a two player narrative card game about an adventurer making a deal with a fire demon.

it has beautiful artwork by Drew Shields and is played using Spindlewheel, an interpretive tarot-like storytelling deck.

the game is $10 and you can check it out on my Itch.io page

#ttrpg #indie #fire demon #two-player #card game #tarot #spindlewheel #itch.io #indie ttrpgs #healing #adventure #demon #trans #queer #tabletop rpg #i made this #:D #wow i hate writing tag lists #this game is also about healing trauma and forgetting bad memories!

[partyofonepod]

New Episode: Let the Fire Soothe with Lyra Vega

By a fire, a traveler sits with a demon, a Hearther, who offers up a bargain: Give me a memory, and I will provide you the miracle that can help you on your quest. Together they'll sit by the fire, and talk, and shed the memories holding the traveler down.

Note: Being a setting-neutral game, we played this one in a particular genre that is both timely and close to my heart...

Teenage superheroes in the big city.

I'm really happy with it.

You'll Dig This if You Enjoy: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse/Across the Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Patrick H Willems' What if Wes Anderson Directed X-Men video, big emotions, Megamind, tarot-like card mechanics

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #actual play #podcast #superhero #tabletop roleplaying #spindlewheel #across the spiderverse #megamind #tmnt

[foggyoutline]

The September issue of the Foggy Outline newsletter is out! Our serial continues with part 3, which sheds a little more light on what Callum's doing at this party, and why no one there has been paying him any attention (even as he rifles their purses and snoops through their wardrobes).

running order

prologue: generating a character with Spindlewheel

tonight's performance: in which Mari is late to the party

asides: what's new with Merely Roleplayers, what else I'm making and enjoying, #pinspiration

fin: oracles and divination

#newsletter #foggy outline newsletter #spindlewheel #spindlewheel rpg #oracle deck #emergent storytelling #serial fiction #merely roleplayers #of the sword #actual play uk #interactive soup

[bobthedragon2]

! !! !!!

#spindlewheel #oooooo

[merelymatt]

What's the story?

Sign up now to get the answers on Friday 8 September:

#spindlewheel #oracle deck #writing wip #newsletter #character prompt #character creation #emergent story

[awdawineya]

now with HD remastered graphics

#glass-slipper #apple #spindlewheel #bullshit

[kayleerowena]

✨ ask the spirits your fate ✨

i made some fake tarot cards! all ouija board tier members on my patreon who join by july 31st 2022 will get a random draw of three stickers from this set in the mail next month!

i'm super curious, so put in the tags which card is your favorite! i'm torn between heir of haunts and ghost of masks, personally, which i think is very predictable for me.

#tarot #tarot card #tarot cards #ghosts #horror #illustration #horror art #tarot art #stickers #patreon #i had a lot of fun with these!!! i'm so excited to get them printed as stickers #i may also include a little guide to meanings in the patreon packages because i have some thoughts #i've been using spindlewheel cards as storytelling prompts a lot lately so this was sort of sparked from that! #kaylee.art

[1ore]

currently running the NASA ttrpg campaign in cosmic patrol. i previously had a series of lukewarm ttrpg experiences because of my own brain badness and that turned me away from playing for a while. i forgot how to have fun 😭 but now we're so back baybeeeeeeee

anyway this is Dr. Arecibo F. Paradox (his real legal name.) he's like if one of them billionaires died and all their money went to an eccentric and excruciatingly lonely child. and then he pissed it all away on his childhood dream of imaging black holes.

the hubble space telescope teleported him and his """Co-P.I.s""" to fantasy cici's pizza. and he's having a GREAT time.

#he has a former labrat named cygnus x-1 who lives in his labcoat as an emotional support animal but i forgot to draw him ): #its so funny to have to design another mad scientist type right after noa. #listen. spindlewheel said 'eccentric heir cosplaying as a scientist that nobody wants around but he's funding their research' not me #i think he could hunt elon musk for sport #uncaptioned tag #sorry friends

[checkoutthisguy]

Episode 13 spindlewheel spreads & Atropos

#podcast #ttrpg #oc #spindlewheel rpg

[22to22]

It's my birthday

and the thing you can do to celebrate is check out Spindlewheel, a tarot-like storytelling system where you weave a story from card to card.

Spindlewheel is a unique system where the deck has as much to say about the story as you do, but the story is bespoke to you and your friends every time. Every Spindlewheel game is a constructed scaffolding for story structure, ranging from western four-act stories in Spindlewheel Classic, to tense bombastic duels to the bitter end in Meet Me In The Field of Honour At Dawn, to sorting out a trio's complicated feelings for each other in Love Machine.

The goal of Spindlewheel is to tell a satisfying story. Your character might win wealth and fame, or they might crash and burn. Both of these are victories if they fit the arc of the story you’ve told, and bring satisfaction to you as a storyteller.

How do you play? Well, I'm glad you asked!

Spindlewheel’s fundamental verb is interpretation.

Each card’s text evokes an idea.  The upright and inverse text are different. Sometimes they’re diametrically opposed; often, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Use the card as an anchor for the part of the story that you’re telling.

A card can be a person, an event, an attitude, or a physical object. Use as much as the entire card, or as little as a single word. A card is interpreted twice: once when it enters your hand, and again when you play it. It does not have to be the same interpretation.

FOR EXAMPLE: I might draw the Hearth card and Reflect that I feel like people closed their doors to me; but I might Engage that card later, declaring I won’t do the same to someone else, and play it to invite someone into my home.

It's a really excellent one shot system: it takes no prep, every setting is procedurally generated for each table, and most games are GMless. The games that are GMed are designed to support improvisation and provide coherent throughlines so the GM can focus on moment to moment play. It also works as a GM tool within other systems for when you need an ominous portent or an answer to a question where a dice roll just won't cut it.

It also makes for pretty damn good radio. Check it out on Party of One, An Atlas of the World Unknown, You Don't Meet In An Inn, Follow the Leader, and played extensively in the devlog Spindlewheel Stories where you can listen as the game takes shape over time.

Did I mention it's got an open SRD? Anyone can hack the system and sell their games. Here's a collection of people who have done just that!

Curious?

There's lots of ways to try Spindlewheel online for free! give @spindlewheelbot (by Caro Asercion) on twitter an @ for a "classic" spread inspired by the celtic cross, or a single card "vibe check"; print and play the deck with the original legacy art or play it on playingcards.io; or play it on Tabletop Playground and Tabletop Simulator.

Convinced?

Head over to www.teacabbage.com/spindlewheel to pick your digital copy of Spindlewheel on itch.io and roll20!

#spindlewheel #indie ttrpg #tabletop #tarot #gmless #been meaning to make this post for a while #sorry my whole life is wrapped up in this game if you're tired of hearing about it but also: it's a good game so idc

[constantron]

I've been reading The Devil Is A Handsome Man in between bouts of sleeplessness and my brain has apparently internalized parts of it to create a horror ttrpg setting.

The city is old, run down with store fronts that have seen better days, buildings that need maintenance. This version of Night City has four 'seasons' that roll in depending on which way the wind is blowing from, which drastically affect the environment.

There's the Beekeeper's Harvest during which every plant in the city blooms. The light from the moon doesn't change but the light from every bulb intensifies as well, particularly the street lamps.

The other season which came up was the one preceded by citywide klaxons because the Cryers (think zombies, but instead of shambling corpses they are people with blacked out eyes crying a continuous stream of inky tears) swarm in from the city edge and pick off anyone they can find.

The system was largely based on tarot / a deck of cards with colour indicating success/fail and card meaning or value determining flavour or nuance to it.

#later ref #read later #world building #I've been absorbing a lot of spindlewheel as well

[sonar-taxlaw]

as soon as spindlewheel (Physical) is in my hands i'm gonna lose my shit

#thinking about sosa hours also thinking about spindlewheel hours

[deluxeyellowflower]

Hmmm. Spindlewheel hack with Mitski dice….

#I kind of want too creative Spindlewheel cards based on Mitski’s albums #just realized the vibes of both are like. really interesting and comparable. #working for the knife inspired card? #combined with the dice that have words like stay and soft and eaten on them #I need to actually use my Spindlewheel deck tho lol #oops I think there’s a typo in the tags

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: Magic and Mystics

This week's games are all magical in nature, whether they be solo games, supplements, or something as big and as grand as a wizard's tower!

Tower & Town, by Ari Calix.

After years at the Mages’ College, you have finally completed your studies and acquired a tower of your own. What better use for your new arcane residence than pursuing a wizard’s favourite pastime: magical research! The College, of course, has high expectations and anticipates regular reports on your progress.

There is, however, a complication. Your new tower is far from the distractions of the city, but it’s only an hour’s walk from a small town very eager for your magical assistance. You may have plans to revolutionize magical science, but the townspeople are really more interested in your warding their chicken coops against thieving sprites.

Tower & Town is a solo RPG about a rural wizard managing their time, making friends, and changing magical scholarship forever—while trying not to be driven out by an angry mob or lose research funding.

This is a neat little game that provides you with a balancing act: keeping up on your research while also doing favours for townsfolk in order to keep you in their favor. You’ll use two skills, Arcane and Mundane, and two specialties, one that informs your magical abilities and one that demonstrates your non-magical competencies. Your Reputation exists as two tracks that will move up and down depending on your success in meeting demands. The game provides a structured set of stages to ensure your wizard will receive many requests, and there’s enough moving pieces to keep your game playing over an extended period of time - so you can play a little bit every day.

Spellchitects!, by Viditya Voleti.

You craft and design the spells and rituals that are being cast all around your world. Using your advanced knowledge of how magic is weaved, you mark out the symbols, colors, and components to craft the desired effects. 

Sometimes you make spells for customers, sometimes you make spells just for the heck of it! As Spellchitects, it’s all about experimentation, collaboration, and fun!

As a spell-crafting game, this can be a fun little exercise on its own, but it could also be a way to design a magic system for a larger game. Each player will use a variety of different-coloured writing instruments to create elements of the spell. The colour and the marking involved in the sigil will each communicate something about what the spell does. The players will also have to assign a spell component for each extra symbol invoked in the creation of the spell. 

If you bought the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality a few years ago, you already own this game! 

Summoner’s Fate, by Rae Nedjadi.

You are STUDENTS at a Learning Institution that focuses on the esteemed and complex art of ARCANE SUMMONING. You have learned how to call upon beings to be an extension of your own will and power.

A CONFLICT has arisen, an ADVERSARY reveals themselves. The stakes are high, things are dire! You few are the only thing standing in the way, there’s no one else. You have to rise to the challenge and trust that you’ve got what it takes!

This game takes inspiration from both Spindlewheel, by Sasha Reneau, and Royal Blood, by Grant Howitt. It has a Game Facilitator, also known as Fate, as well 2-4 players. It uses a Tarot deck to determine elements of the game: the Major Arcana provide story aspects and character elements, while the Minor Arcana are used for moments of the story where your summoners will make a wager in order to overcome a challenge. Your characters can summon Powers or Daemons to help them - but doing so also means that you could lose that which you wagered, cracking or shattering one of the crystals from which you draw your power. 

If you like heavily interpretive games, or you like playing with Tarot Cards, this game might be worth checking out!

Research Arcanum, by J. Evan Nyquist.

Research Arcanum is a PbtA game about learning the secrets of a fantasy world for 2-5 players including a GM. It can be used as a supplement to augment an existing tabletop roleplaying game or played on its own to generate the academic history of an Arcanist or to plumb the mysteries of a setting’s magic.

This game is something that you could run as a one-shot inside a larger campaign to give your characters a chance to really delve into the lore of a world, or to role-play the arduous journey of tracking down a specific magical solution to an urgent problem. If you like the idea of magic being something you can study in an institution, this game will give you a chance to really explore that.

I can also see this game being easily hacked into a sci-fi setting as well! Instead of a wizard university, your characters may be seeking information from an alien repository or a Jedi library. Just make the sources places like The Library Planet or Xritex, an alien researcher, and spheres things like Warp Travel, Robotic Intelligences, and Twi’lek Culinary Techniques. 

Wizard Pals, by Tadhg Lyons.

The world is a wretched place, and life is awful. Thankfully, You Are Magic, and even better, you can Do Magic, and it rules. Anyone can be a Wizard, and a Wizard can be anyone.

Wizard Pals is a lighthearted TTRPG/collaborative storytelling game in which every hero is a mysterious and magically powerful being known as a Wizard. To play, you need some pals of your own, some 12-sided dice, and an adventurous spirit. The game itself is easy to learn and approachable, open-ended and chaotic, and perfect for new TTRPG players and veterans alike.

In Wizard Pals, the colour of your robes denotes your area of expertise, your Signature Spells are powerful but require a re-charge, and all of you will go upon a quest to complete a Wizardly Task! There is so much room to make this game as goofy as you like - it’s hard to keep a straight face when one of your wizards is a frog in a top hat, or an ominous floating orb. 

There’s a number of mechanics that remind me of other games, including two abilities and a target number that you must roll under or over, similar to Lasers & Feelings. (The game uses d12s, which is what makes it slightly different!) However, when you’re in combat, your characters will be rolling using something akin to attack and defense, with a stat layout that you have to assign to both. 

This game comes with two supplements: The Bastard of Undertower, and The Haunting of Hobble. These are adventures that a GM can lead the characters through, which is great if your game master wants a little guidance, or just less prep to do. 

What’s So Cool About Street Magick?, by Vincent Quigley. 

So what IS so cool about Street Magick ?  Well... It's a micro-rpg where you play people that have shed the burden of banality and that yield terrible magick for it.  It's a game about the homeless, the vagrant, the people that tend to become invisible in our regular boring ass lives. 

It's a game about finding the fantastic within the rotten. 

It's a game that will need you to make your own. 

This is a simple hack of What’s So Cool About Outer Space?, about magic users on the streets. Follow rumours and fight of arcane threats that nobody else seems to care about. You have power now, but a happy ending isn’t going to just fall in your lap - you’ll have to fight for it. 

This game uses just d6’s and a bunch of imagination. I’d love to see this game in combination with a city-builder, such as I’m sorry did you say street magic, by Caro Acercion, or What is Here? by Matthew Gravelyn. I love the idea of creating a city and then exploring it - it gives me a lot of the same vibes as Urban Shadows or World of Darkness, but with less fiddly bits or chapters of lore.

#magic #wizards #indie ttrpgs #tabletop games #game recommendations #dnd

[theinstagrahame]

One of the things I like to do on Twitter is periodically post all of the stuff I've gotten from various crowdfunding and other Indie RPG sources. I am (apparently) a Kickstarter Superbacker, not in the sense of "Person who's constantly in the comments asking where something is", but in the sense of "Now that I've got some disposable income, I put a lot of it into the Indie and Small Press TTRPG scene."

This represents about 2-3 months of Crowdfunders coming to fruition and a couple of purchases from a couple of stores. Here's what's in the list (and a bit about why I'm hype for it!):

Top row

Arcon: The City of Neon Daylight - This year, I've getting into system agnostic setting guides. I recall hearing a lot about this one, because it set out to make a Cyberpunk setting that avoided some of the problematic tropes that tend to fall in with that aesthetic.

Public Guest 5 - It's an RPG on a poster! I was intrigued to see how it would play out, and really like the aesthetic. I have it framed and sitting behind my desk. Been thinking of working it into a (stalled) Ironsworn campaign to create an in-world artifact.

Die RPG - I'm admittedly a big Rowan, Rook and Deckard fanboy. I also read and enjoyed some of Kireon Gillen's work, and was intrigued by the team-up. Having since read the first 5 issues of the comic, I'm super into this whole thing. It seems like a really powerful skewering of some tropes in fantasy gaming, combined with an emotional intelligence that I'm really curious to dig into.

Upper-middle row

Anyone can Wear the Mask - I'm admittedly a big Jeff Stormer fanboy... (I was doing a bit, but honestly, he makes rad stuff. Check out Party of One asap). I loved Dee Pennyway's work on the system this is based on, and having heard a couple of playthroughs of this game, it's a must-have. Jumped on it as soon as it was available.

Scraps - Cesar Capacle's work in the scene is one-of-a-kind. I have yet to read it, but it bills itself as a crafting RPG with a hopeful streak, which I'm super intrigued by. I think I can learn a lot of design stuff from it, and I think it's going to just be a great game.

Derelict Delvers - Another Capacle banger idea. Again, got it in part because of the creator, but the concept is one I'm also intrigued by. Scrapping in space is something I've been more and more intrigued by. So, I'll have to make some time to get into this one.

The Vaults of Vaarn - I'm admittedly susceptible to peer pressure... I mean. Wait. No. I've heard really good, intriguing things about this, and Games Omnivorous has made a ton of really amazing, high-quality volumes that I guess I'm starting to collect? Lately, I've been getting a lot of Weird Sci-fi stuff, and I understand this is part of that world.

Lower-middle row

Broken Cities - I picked up another of Come Martin's works, Meanwhile, in the Subway, a little bit ago. It's an RPG printed on a subway map, that takes place in a weird public transit. This game takes place in the city that the transit serves. It's standalone, but I can't wait to see how they connect.

The Fall of Home - Zinequest is a rough month for me, because so many people make such rad stuff that I struggle to control my purchases (see, Superbacker, above). Fall of Home hit a lot of intriguing touchstones, and... well, I'm fascinated by a lot of things, but exploring ruins with a very personal touch just grabs me.

Rad-Hack - I've got a couple of other Skullfungus titles, and I keep hearing about the Black Hack. This was an impulse purchase on Lulu, where Cesar Capacle's books are printed, but I'm curious to see how close this skews to the Fallout series, and whether it's a better fit for my tastes than the Fallout RPG...

Bottom row

Spindlewheel - Honestly, when I backed this, I expected to get a beautiful, tarot-like set of cards to use as an oracle or for games of its own. I underestimated how beautiful this set was going to be. Gold-edged, they're shiny and printed on fantastic card stock. I've mostly stared at these things, I almost worry that if I play them too much I'll damage them.

Down we Go + Beneath the Necropolis - Backed this initially because I've been getting more embedded into the Plus One EXP community of late, and I think this is their flagship title. Having heard a couple of APs, and played around with the system a little, I'm super hyped to really dig into the system.

No Way to Make a Living - Early on in my time in the indie RPG scene, I recall hearing Sandy Pug Games talk about this book. A series of interviews with creators in the space, from huge names down to the more esoteric folks. When I heard this was being printed by Metal Weave Games, it became a Must-have. (Arcon was an impulse purchase to go along with it).

The Million Islands of Doom - I really love Snow's work in general, and again, setting guides are my go-to. It feels a lot like Zelda (a series that means so much to me, my therapist has told me to play more of it as therapy homework...), specifically Wind Waker, but with a more RPG-flavored world. I've skimmed it, but really want to dig in. I'm constantly trying to figure out how I'll pair this up with either Games Omnivorous' Bottled Sea, or Skullfungus' Isle of Ixx.

Dinocar - Dinoberry Press makes the raddest stuff. I nearly passed on this, but I do spend some time with some family friends whose kids are into dinosaurs, the parents are into RPGs, and I figure if we should start them early. Plus, the thought of building a city and sending dinos in cars through it? Yet another of my many jams.

On Twitter, because I kinda hate typing stuff on my phone, I don't really get this deep into why I'm hype for the stuff I get. This was kinda fun, though! Maybe I'll do it again in a couple of months.

Bonus, some other gaming and game-design stuff I've gotten

Thunder Road Vendetta - When I was a kid, a friend's family owned the original version of this game. I never played it, but always wanted to. I very loosely understood some of the components, and wanted to see how they fit together (why it took me to my mid-30s to get into game design, I'll never know). So, when Restoration Games announced a revamp, I was in. I've picked up a couple of their other titles, and they make good games.

Self Made Man - Several years ago, I went to visit a friend in Portland, ME. They had gotten really into the community for a local comic shop up there. Periodically, the owner (and some other folks in that community) make comics, like this one. I like to support them both because they're friends, and because their stuff is always fun.

The Affinity Designer Workbook - I didn't pick up the Affinity Publisher workbook when I first got Publisher, and kinda kicked myself when it fell out of print. When Affinity put out their 2.0 suite, I grabbed it, and Designer is the next on I want to learn, so when I saw it on Thriftbooks, I snagged a copy.

My hope is that these posts don't come off as anything other than me being hyped about all the really rad stuff that the Indie RPG and small press gaming scenes are coming up with. I try to give each of them a similar amount of hype, because there are some really cool designers toiling away in near obscurity, and they very much deserve to be mentioned in the same breaths as some of the bigger names.

So, if any of my hype rubs off on you, go check 'em out!

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg design #scifi rpg #ttrpg