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dice-wizard · 1 year

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Hello everyone looking for a new fantasy tabletop game!

As it nears backer release, there's never been a better time to pre-order Exalted: Essence

Pre-ordering gets you access to the beta document and the early release backer pdf.

What's Exalted you ask?

Exalted is an epic fantasy TTRPG where players play the titular Exalted - humans elevated to superhuman/demigod status - in a wild and unique setting that draws inspiration from the ancient world rather than medieval Europe. Creation (the setting) draws key inspirations from the entire world. If you're used to having to make yourself visible on your own in other fantasy, there's probably some representation in Exalted.

It has explicit queer and trans themes about finding your people, creating your own identity, and having the power to punch back at the people who hate you. This isn't incidental. The writing staff is queer as hell. You can hear me break this down more here.

Curious to learn all you can? Well you can get a detailed overview of the entire game on the podcast Systematic Understanding of Everything hosted by myself, @presidentofbirds and @phillycuriosity

If I'm used to D&D 5e why should I pick this up?

Well, I presume if you're reading this post you're already interested in trying something new, so:

The entire game in one book. Exalted: Essence is self contained, character types, equipment, enemies and all!

An exciting style of fantasy that's different than classic D&D but like, textually gay, and very easy to have scenes like ballroom fights, epic galas, and touching homoerotic healing scenes - no house rules required.

But also, tactical depth and combat you can really sink your teeth into if fighting monsters and villains is your bag.

An excuse to use all your d10s at once

Character building and advancement mechanics designed to be familiar to a 5e audience. Characters "level up" based on story beats, and have Advantages, which are functionally similar to class and race features.

A world welcoming to most heroic archetypes, so it's easy to convert your favorite OC.

Extremely kissable dragons, demons, gods, elementals, ghosts, faeries, and unnamed ancient horrors

I'm a fan of a previous edition, what's Essence got for me?

Design focused on alleviating some of the previous versions' missteps

Virtues are back, baby

2e fans will find it an improvement from second edition's mechanical strengths - it's pretty easy to convert all your favorite 2e Charms to XS.

Streamlined versions of familiar rules to make it painless to introduce new friends to the game we love.

The Cliff's notes on Ex3's new Exalt types.

Did I mention it's all of Exalted in one book?

How does it play?

d10 dice pool looking for 7,8,9 as successes. 10s count as two successes, which can lead to explosive, heroic outcomes

Combat system designed to keep all players engaged the entire time - even characters who aren't focused on fighting at all.

Combat also narrows the gap between experienced and new players and players who want to win at RPGs and players who just wanna vibe so GMs aren't tearing their hair out trying to balance encounters.

Social system designed to resolve in a single roll so you can be immersed in role play and not interrupt it with constant rolling - without sacrificing a variety of social approaches

"Ventures" system for characters working on long term projects from traveling across the world to crafting magical wonders to building communities without forcing this to be "downtime" activity

Characters have access to Charms - exception-based special powers that make them extremely good at whatever they focus on.

It's easily my favorite game (and the project I developed that I'm the proudest of), so I'm excited for everyone to try it out.

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rottenshotgungames · 1 month

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I’ve spent three years working on a game about motion

Footfall Devlog 1

It’s really hard for me to talk about my games. It’s even harder to talk about something I’ve been keeping so close to my chest for so long, but it’s time to do so.

This Devlog will be covering the basics of what Footfall is and the first few challenges of making a game so heavily inspired by immersive sims.

So, without further ado:

What is Footfall?

Footfall is an occult-industrial stealth-action rpg inspired by Dishonored, Assassin’s Creed, and Bloodborne. It aims to emulate the systemic ecosystem and emergent gameplay of immersive sims, and particularly the fast, creative, movement-centric gameplay of Dishonored.

You play as Gifted of the Watchman, the god of stories and action. You are functional demigods, arcane in nature and forever part of a great cosmic play of chaos and change.

Some basics about how the game is played before going forward:

You get 3 Action Points at the beginning of your turn, each action point representing a period of 2 seconds.

Movement is measured in ~3 foot increments labeled "Strides." These are about the average length of a walking stride, and tend to be measured with one's arm.

You get powers which move you and others in interesting and unique ways (e.g. teleporting, creating portals, time manipulation, etc.)

Designing a Tabletop ImSim: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Physics Engine

This game is, first and foremost, a stealth-action game, as such one specific thing was very important to get right: movement. My most important design goal, from the beginning, was to create interesting systems that interact in cool ways, particularly in regards to movement (otherwise, the stealth would just be boring and the action wouldn’t be bombastic enough). Generally speaking, there are a few ways to do movement in TTRPGs:

Narrative abstraction (PBtAs). The strength of this one lies in its lack of necessity of maps, which is not a strength particularly necessary for a game where movement mechanics are a core pillar.

Landmark-defined zones (ALIEN RPG and Celestial Bodies). This option’s strength also lies in its abstraction. You can have tactical combat and actual movement mechanics, but you don’t need codified distances (just a big rock that tells you where you are).

Short grid-based movement based on character stats (Tactics RPGs like Fire Emblem). The strength here is in the tactical importance of moving even one tile. Moving *feels* important because you get to do so little of it in one round, and it makes each tile moved feel like a long distance.

Simplified but simulatory grid-based movement (D&D). The strength of this system is, generally speaking, how thorough yet digestible it is. You’re given jump mechanics, falling mechanics, running mechanics, and they’re all simple enough that you can (usually) remember how they work without opening the book. The issue is that they don’t tend to be very interactive—“Yay, I can jump across a 10-foot gap without that impacting anything other than my positioning. Yay.”

Without beating around the bush, none of these options appealed to me for this project. Option 4 came the closest, but the issue with it is the same as with all of them: these movement systems tend to be very . . . “confined” to only affecting positioning, whether narratively or tactically. I pretty quickly realized that I had one option in front of me, make something I had never seen before:

5. A tabletop physics engine.

First thing’s first, I laid out a few key goals for my physics engine:

Strive for playability, not accuracy. People aren't computers, I don't want you to have to perform complex calculations constantly (unless you want to and therefore choose to).

Interactivity and impact. Even if those decisions aren't codified in the physics engine itself, I want the physics to inform multiple gameplay decisions through its interactions with other systems.

Flexibility of simulation. This is a physics engine, if it breaks when someone tries to jump (which it won't) then it's not working very well, is it? People should be able to toy around with it and get cool interactions out of it without it suddenly turning into a hell of, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DRIVING A CAR KILLS ME???"

Pretty simple stuff altogether, right? . . . right?

Alright, so what went wrong the first time? Well, I took the last point too far, to the point that I shirked the golden rule: "Strive for Playability, not Accuracy." It would be impossible to accurately model how gravity works in real life without a single round of physics-heavy combat taking 4 hours, which may be your jam but definitely isn't mine. The first version of the physics engine included such awful rules as:

Ground acceleration to model running - "If you move in a direction using 1 action point, and continue moving in the same direction with the following action point you begin to sprint. Your sprint will continue as long as you keep following up one movement with another in the same direction. Your movement speed is considered to be double its base amount and any attacks made with a bow or powder arm that target you have a minor disadvantage to hit if your last action point on your turn was spent sprinting." This was just . . . way too confusing and difficult to track, to the point that it actively disincentivized going fast.

Just straight up incorrect gravitational-acceleration math - It's still not wholly accurate, but I tried for way too long to make it wholly accurate.

An attempt to model fall-damage based upon Momentum - People accelerate downward faster than most people think they do. You will fall about 96 feet (over 29 meters) in a matter of 2 seconds. 1 Action Point. Yeah, there's just no calculating fall damage without relying solely on distance or some over-complicated math that still relies on distance.

Listed out, specific momentums that add damage to your strikes - "When an object or creature lands a strike while in motion, the energy imparted onto their target deals additional damage. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 24 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d4 of damage on your strike. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 48 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d8 of damage on your strike instead. If you have a momentum equal to . . ." God, this was so stupid of me. It's a really simple formula now: "When making an attack, for each 4 Strides per Action Point of Momentum a creature has in the direction of their target (if the target is in some combination of directions, such as Forward and Left, use the higher of the two) they deal an additional point of damage."

There were more, but it's really not worth going on and on.

Upon revising the physics engine, which was part of a whole system overhaul in the year of our lord 2022, I had one goal: "Simplify the math without simplifying the impact." Which, as you can probably tell from the second to last bullet of the prior list, I did.

The physics engine, as it is, is actually quite simple in practice. You can read the whole thing if you decide to grab the free playtest (which will be releasing soon, just have to finish up some final adjustments and get some art in), but for now I present to you . . .

The Footfall Physics Engine Quick Reference

Momentum: Strides moved in a direction since the beginning of your last Action. Momentum is directional (Forward, Backward, Left, Right, Up, Down). You may change facing at the beginning of an Action. Changing facing mid-air costs an Action Point. Move in the direction of and Strides equal to Momentum when in the air.

Gravity: When not standing on solid ground, you fall. Creatures gain 32 Strides of Downward Momentum at the beginning of each Action Point spent falling. Gifted may choose to halve this to 16 Strides.

Concussive Force: +1 Damage on attacks for each 4 Strides of Momentum in direction of Target. When hit by an object, damage die = +1 die size per 7 Strides of Momentum (1d2 at 7, 1d20 at 42). Throwing an object increases its Momentum by 21 Strides.

Fall Damage: When you hit the ground, damage die = +1 die size per 4 Strides fallen (1d2 at 4, 1d20 at 24). +1d20 for each 4 Strides beyond 24. Gifted falling at 16 Stride Gravity cannot take more than 1d20 Fall Damage.

Wall Damage: When you hit a wall, damage die = +1 die size for each 5 Strides of Momentum beyond 9 (1d2 damage at 9, 1d4 at 14). If damage die > d20, add a new die and start over.

I'm actually really proud of this physics engine. So far, players have LOVED playing around with it, and even some fairly math-dense people understood it after looking at the powers section for a little bit. I can't say for certain if I've accomplished all of my goals, and public playtesting may prove that it needs simplified further, but the successes I've had surrounding the physics engine are what told me that taking the effort to design Footfall wasn't a fool's errand. People used to tell me that movement is boring, it's just the thing you have to do to get to the fun stuff; and I feel as though I've proven it can be interesting, digestible, and—above all-else—fun.

It's fun to move yourself forward multiple strides using a power, then launch yourself into the air where you can soar across the battlefield and directly into a specific foe for increased damage. It's fun to have your buddy sit in a momentum-generation-machine constructed with two vertically aligned portals that triple her downward momentum each time she passes through, then watch as she swaps spots and momentums with a giant enemy monster, which you promptly send hurtling into a wall at 18x terminal velocity with your portals. Honestly, it's just fucking cool.

I'm so excited for people to get their hands on it.

Conclusion

Honestly, I have no idea what design lesson to leave you with. The best I can say is this: Fuck the haters. If you have an idea, and you really believe in that idea, follow through. Anything is possible given some time, planning, reflection, and a willingness to revise.

If you think something would be cool, and nobody's made it yet? Make it. Do it, right now. You can, I'm proof. It's gonna be great, I know it.

I believe in you.

Self Promotion

Welp, it's that time again folks. If you wanna check out my other games, and get updated when the Footfall free playtest goes live, follow me in Itch.io! If you want more devlogs, and more rpg design talk, follow me here or on twitter.

You really can't go wrong either way.

#footfall rpg #game design #indie ttrpg #tabletop #ttrpg #ttrpg community #tabletop games #role playing games #rpg #dishonored #stealth #i do not recommend making a physics engine in a tabletop format #this is not a normal thing to do please dont be me

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fantasyfictionfables · 1 month

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- 5 Songs & 4 Outfits -

- | Athena Dekarios née Asteriadis | -

Songs

Ella, elle l'a by France Gall

Miserere by Gregorio Allegri, Tenebrae

Victoria - The Suite by Martin Phipps, Medieval Baebes

Renaissance by Paolo Buonvino

I Will Never Abandon You by Efisio Cross

Take a look at @elspethdekarios 's post!

I tag @gufu-vire

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localghostgorl · 3 months

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I recently compiled all the RPGs that I have on my computer into a google drive. If anyone wants to peruse, here's the link! I have a bunch of the D&D 5e stuff, as well as a few other systems (including but not limited to Blades in the Dark, 13th Age, and Vampire: The Masquarade 5e). Go forth and have fun :)

#tabletop rpgs #dungeons & dragons 5e #vampire: the masquerade #blades in the dark #ttrpg #not art #i personally love 13th age. it's fantasy d20 and is better than dnd to me. its more loose with rules and encourages you to be very creative #with like everything. spell effects only do exactly what they say unless you have ritual casting/have a cool gm #i do really recommend it #i will probably be updating this every now and then with new rpgs that i get

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intothestacks · 4 days

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Cool Board Games for Your Library

Night Witches – $31.95 CAD

Type: RPG Players: 3-5 Playtime: 120 mins for one game, or can be a campaign Age: Older Teen or Adult Skills You Practice: Strategy, Storytelling, Cooperation

Night Witches is a tabletop role-playing game about women at war. As a member of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, you’ll answer the call of your Motherland in her darkest hour. Can you do your duty and strike blow after blow against the Fascists? Can you overcome discrimination and outright sabotage and rise above your sexist comrades? Are there limits to patriotism—or endurance? Play Night Witches and find out!

Why it’d be good for a library collection:

Small Storage Space

Minority Representation (Female)

Popular Topic (World War II)

Group Game

#rpg game #roleplaying games #tabletop games #game recommendations #game night #tabletop roleplaying #libraries #librarylife #libraryland #canada #public libraries

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scratching92 · 1 year

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So, in light of everything with WOTC, I think I’m gonna spend this year exploring other games systems. I’ve already kinda been bouncing off of D&D for a bit, but I think now’s a good time to actually commit to either playing or running games in new systems like I’ve been wanting to do. And since I’m sure there are others who might want to hear about some other TTRPGs, I figured I’d share a short list here. In no particular order:

Genesys - a setting-agnostic RPG that makes use of Narrative Dice, which generate not only success and failure, but also positive and negative complications that lend themselves to interesting narrative consequences. An example I like to use is attempting to bluff your way into a mob’s headquarters, so you lie and pretend to be a member of the mob named Jerry. You roll a success with threat, so they successfully buy into you being Jerry, except as it so happens Jerry’s in shit with his superiors at the moment, so you get dragged off to be disciplined instead of having free reign to look around. If you’ve ever played the Star Wars RPGs by Fantasy Flight Games, the system is near-identical, save a few small things here and there.

I’ve run a game or two of the system before, but I’d really like to go back to it at some point and maybe run a short campaign for some friends.

Lancer - a space opera tactical mecha RPG. I’m actually running a game of this in about two weeks or so! The mechanics seem really neat, but one thing I was not expecting when I read the core rulebook was the lore. My god! The Lancer setting just has... so much, I don’t even know where to begin. Earth (or Cradle, as it’s known in the Lancer setting) is a socialist utopia trying to share its utopian project with the diaspora, which is fraught with dystopic corpro-states, myriad worlds in various states of technological development, hacker-cults, and a bizarre paracausal entity that stole one of Mars’ moons (and isn’t even the only one of their kind!). It’s absolutely wild.

Fabula Ultima - an RPG inspired by classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. I only learned about this one a few days ago, admittedly, but I’m kind of already in love. It has a sort of job system in place where characters have access to 15 classes, which they can take levels in as they level-up and add skills from those classes. It’s also very collaborative with its narrative and worldbuilding, with both the GM and the players having a say in what the world is like prior to play. I’d like to play a few sessions of this when I can, because it looks fun.

These are the three main games I’m interested in playing this year, although I’m gonna be on the lookout for any others that might be interesting.

#Tabletop Roleplaying Games #TTRPG #Genesys #Genesys RPG #Lancer #Lancer RPG #Fabula Ultima #Please share with me your own recommendations!#These are just the three that had the most impact on me when I heard about them/read their rulebooks

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diamondpython00 · 1 year

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You know, I am sometimes struck by how obnoxiously weird my tastes in media are, and by obnoxiously weird I mean I find things I really like, that change my thinking and inspire feelings I can’t name, and then like two people have heard of it. The latest example of such is Jon Bois’ Football 17776, or What Football Will Look Like in the Future. It follows three space probes - Frontier 9, Frontier 10, and the Jupiter Icy Moons Exploration probe, going by the names Nine, Ten, and Juice - who gain sentience from being left to run unhindered for 15000 years. In the meantime, some unexplained event in 2026 caused everyone on earth to become immortal, stop aging, and become infertile. (It’s an odd premise, but stick with me here, it will get weirder.) The world is post-scarcity, post-death, and basically a utopia. Because there’s such a lack of purpose in this world, the entire population of earth spends most of their time and energy playing sports, and we follow several games of American football played in this world, the players who play them, and why they play the game. Because the players are immortal and invulnerable, the games can get truly ridiculous - without spoiling too much, one game involves a football field several thousand miles long and 1 yard wide. Among all of these ridiculous games and seemingly meaningless play, however, is a story about why we care, what immortality would actually be like, and how much people can care about things that don’t matter. It’s about how when we are faced with a seemingly pointless existence, we see all those things without meaning and we say “I’m going to care anyway”. I loved it. Please read it.

#football 17776 #what football will look like in the future #jon bois #i found this through a minor mention in a jacob geller video #while he’s certainly not as obscure i would also recommend his channel #while i’m here please also watch alfabusa’s Hunter: The Parenting series #it won’t make any goddamn sense at first bc it’s based on the established lore of a series of tabletop rpgs #but you don’t need that context to watch it it’s just good #Football 17776 is also full of raw ass lines right next to jokes about lunchables #which sounds right up tumblr’s usual alley

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prokopetz · 2 months

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Bizarre question (though probably not the most bizarre you've seen today,) but do you know of any (micro) TTRPG about a dragon eating an adventuring party? As in, one of the players is the dragon?

Depends. Do you mean a game where the dragon player's character eating the other player's character is merely a possible outcome – typically a failure state for the non-dragon player – at the game's conclusion, or are you looking for a game whose narrative is explicitly vore-driven, with the non-dragon character being eaten by the dragon character comprising the meat of play?

If you meant it in the first way, I happen to have written one myself. If you meant it the second way, while I'm aware of several vore-centric micro-RPGs, surprisingly, none that spring to mind specifically involve being eaten by a dragon. This blog's followers may be able to point out any I've overlooked, though!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #tabletop rpg recommendations #vore mention

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dude-the-ancient-dragon · 10 months

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I have a new character that I feel deserves proprietary dice. Should I get a space pirate themed dice set for my boy?

#OOC #Feel free to make recommendations #Rpg #tabletop rpg #Starfinder #He's also a furry

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arsene-inc · 1 year

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For the RPG CharacterCreationChallenge, a character for the solo RPG Colostle, Pierce Castillan. I will develop and play him, I swear. (May also be a prelude to a personal project but that’s for the french speaker)

Colostle is a game I really enjoyed reading. I really like the idea that the world is an immense castle, with rooms the size of country. The system seems simple and efficient, based on cards. The prompts and the blend you can make of them are interesting.

A small game less than 70 pages, well formatted. A Recommendation.

#character creation challenge #solo ttrpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpg stuff #ttrpg #tabletop roleplaying #Tabletop RPG #colostle #a character per day for january #tabletop rpg recommendations

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krawkpaladin · 11 months

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Also, like, does anyone have any follow recommendations for rpg/worldbuilding stuff? I already am familiar with the stuff that frequently got posted on Reddit previously, like Prokopetz(spelling?) and badrpgideas. I did find there'sanrpgforthat on my own, so I feel pretty smart about that.

#tabletop rpgs #looking for recommendations #my early follows are incredibly basic I know #worldbuilding #can i not reorder tags and only have them in the order I type them in?#oh boy learning curve

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gm-juce · 10 months

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Unveiling the Tabletop RPG Power Hour: Juce's Return and the Future of Master The Game RPG

Calling all tabletop RPG enthusiasts in their mid to late 20s! If you love immersing yourself in the fantastical worlds of roleplaying games, engaging in stimulating discussions about the hobby, and discovering exciting new games, we have some thrilling news for you. Master The Game RPG is proud to announce the launch of our brand-new show, the Tabletop RPG Power Hour. Join us as we delve into the captivating realm of tabletop RPGs, share valuable insights, and discuss a variety of topics that will pique your curiosity.

Juce's Return: A Journey Begins

In July 2023, we are making an exciting comeback with the first episode of the Tabletop RPG Power Hour, titled "Juce's Return." As the host, Juce, is thrilled to reconnect with our amazing community and engage in enlightening conversations. This inaugural episode will provide a perfect blend of nostalgia, new discoveries, and touch on any current controversy happening within the hobby.

Dungeons and Dragons: A Timeless Classic

First and foremost, we'll address the elephant in the room. Despite recent controversies surrounding the company, Dungeons and Dragons remains an incredibly enjoyable game. We'll dive into the reasons why this iconic roleplaying system continues to captivate players worldwide and explore the myriad of possibilities it offers.

Beyond the Dragon's Lair: Exploring New Frontiers

While D&D is undeniably fantastic, the world of tabletop RPGs is brimming with incredible alternatives. We'll shine a spotlight on some exceptional games that are making waves in the community. From the immersive and dynamic Fantasy AGE Second Edition to the eagerly anticipated reworked Pathfinder Second Edition, there's something for every adventurer's taste. Additionally, we'll introduce you to exciting new games that range from 5e clones to revitalized classics, ensuring that there's a game out there for every discerning player.

Live Streaming Adventures: Tales from Tyranny of Dragons and Beyond

As part of our commitment to providing entertaining content, we'll discuss the thrilling live streaming sessions happening on our YouTube channel. Currently, we're embarking on unforgettable journeys through campaigns like Tyranny of Dragons and Kobolds in Avernus. But the excitement doesn't stop there! We'll also provide a glimpse into our exclusive Patreon game in ThaCos, a streaming experience that allows our passionate patrons to become part of the adventure. Join us for insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and maybe even a sneak peek at upcoming one-shot sessions.

Be Part of the Adventure: Your Input Matters

The Tabletop RPG Power Hour thrives on community engagement, and we want to hear from you! We value your opinions and suggestions for future episodes and potential guests. Reach out to us on our various social media platforms and let your voice be heard. Your input will help shape the future of the show and ensure that we continue to deliver content that resonates with you.

Are you ready to embark on a thrilling journey into the world of tabletop RPGs? The Tabletop RPG Power Hour is your ticket to engaging discussions, valuable insights, and entertaining content that caters to your love for the hobby. Join us for Juce's Return, the first episode of our new show, launching in July 2023. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/c/masterthegamerpg to stay up to date with the latest episodes and become part of our vibrant community. Together, let's master the game and embrace the endless possibilities of tabletop RPGs!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel Master The Game RPG and join the Tabletop RPG Power Hour adventure today!

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