Visualizing @haveyouplayedthisttrpg's data
A while ago, I posted this over on the Indie RPG Newsletter but forgot to also put it here. If you haven't heard of Have You Played This, the blog runs polls about various RPGs and people can reply if they've played, read, just heard of it, or not even that.
Here's the highlights:
On average, these polls get 470 votes.
For the majority of these polls, more than 50% of respondents said they’d never heard of the game.
Out of 81 games that have been polled, only 33 games had even reached the eyes and ears of more than 50% of the respondents. Most people haven’t heard of most of the games!
And here's the chart showing how those 33 games look like based on votes:
The image is a bit compressed. So if you’d like to read it comfortably, you can head to my google sheet and see it at full scale.
While this far from definitive (there’s also a huge variance in the number of votes for each game), it’s interesting to get a sense of what games are relatively popular. For example, Thirsty Sword Lesbians seems to be about as well-known as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on tumblr. Would you have guessed that? Actually, maybe, you could’ve. But would you have expected to see that Mouse Guard and Mausritter are roughly as popular – maybe tumblr just loves mice equally.
Also bless everyone who said they’d never heard of Pathfinder.
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They Came from the Cyclops's Cave!
The first game I've ever pitched and developed is out!
They Came from the Cyclops's Cave! is a game of fantasy cinematic adventure. Part of the They Came From series by Onyx Path Publishing, Cyclops's Cave is completely standalone, an awesome game covering fantasy in all its shapes.
Each They Came From is a love letter to a given movie/media genre zeitgeist, and I pitched Cyclops's Cave to be unique and do the whole fantasy genre. It allows to play from Harryhausen movies to The Lord of the Rings, passing through Xena, Ladyhawke, He-Man, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Black Cauldron, and Dragonheart.
Seriously, I can't overstate how much range this game has. Like, it *technically* covers TV shows and movies from the 40s to the 90s, but I am who I am, so you'll find nods to Adventure Time, Zelda, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and many more in here. Of course you will, this game's my baby, and I wanted it to commit to fantasy at its fullest.
Here you'll find:
- Tools to create your own heroes, be them warriors, gorgons, pixies, slimes, or mimics
- Cinematic powers that replicate movie beats.
- A vast collection of antagonists and creatures.
- Two ready-made scenarios.
...and much more!
Seriously, I love They Came From, how it combines comedy and devotion to media at the table through honest love. This baby of mine is the result of so much hard work, done by a team of awesome people who poured their love for the project into all pages.
Please consider checking it out! That would mean the world to me.
(Also: Cyclops's Cave is the foundation for the upcoming They Came From Witchford Academy!, its very cool upcoming Magical School supplement!)
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TITANOMACHY: Dreams of the Hue | Omens 05 & 06
Art credit to the incredible Jonatan Anjos
Aqua/Marine | background: SALT OF THE EARTH | hustle: TRAUMA TEAMSTER | specialty: CYBOTEUR (L)
RUFUS | background: POSTHUMAN (MARIPOSA) | hustle: HAULER | specialty: CHARIOTEER (R)
Vroom-vroom, Omens, this world won't fell itself.
High-octane action is a centerpeice of TDoth, you are highly empowered individuals setting out to fundamentally change the world - we assume you have the proficiencies to do as such.
Omens move fast, and the Charioteer is the queen of keeping that speed assured. Rufus here has taken control of a truck from the hood using her BlackThumbs augs, plasma leashes giving her control of any vehicle she can get within a whip's length from. As well, her Chuggaway Mag-Boots keep her solidly (and stylishly) affixed to any metal surface.
Behind her, her Friend-in-the-Chair Aqua/Marine furiously types away on her Hardened Cyberdeck, assuring Aqua's safety on the highways they're precariously traveling.
These two are our first glimpses of Omens engaged in a Strike, the core structure of TDoth. Similar to Cyberpunk's Runs, Blades in the Dark's Heists and Wildsea's Voyages, Strikes are distinct missions with an end-goal of weakening a Titan's power one way or another. Many are high-energy, combat filled take-downs, and some are subtle social soirees simmering with explosive tension.
We got plenty more coming, including some devlogs from yours truly! I hope you can join us over on our playtest Discord, where we continuously refine and expand our playtest program to make this the best game it possibly can be.
As always, hope to see in there. We'd love to have you~
-Sillion
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What if I put out a setting supplement for my book (to learn about my book about growing up in your late 30s, being the product of a monkey's paw wish, and crazy wizard duels follow @gaywizardemporium) and then called it "System agnostic" but it's clearly meant to be run using Exalted
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Promotional art by team artist @chaospyromancy
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a neo-noir investigation-focused RPG with (as you can probably guess from the title) a supernatural twist. Eureka fills several voids we have noticed in the TTRPG space. Eureka supports investigation to a degree we haven’t seen before, ensuring that searching for clues is a granular and player-driven process, but also ensuring that the whole story doesn’t grind to a halt after one single failed investigation check.
Though most PCs will be mundane humans—or perhaps because most PCs will be mundane humans—Eureka also supports playing monstrous PCs, such as a vampire, in a way we have never seen before. This isn’t just a watered-down stat bonus, it’s like playing an almost entirely different game, with all the monster’s strengths and weaknesses to account for while solving the mystery, plus the added incentive to keep it a secret from the other PCs as well as their players.
If you like or are interested in Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Dresden Files, X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Apocalypse Keys, or Gumshoe, you’ll probably find something in Eureka to really enjoy.
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!
If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!
If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!
You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!
Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!
We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.
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being a GM is really fun because sometimes you can make your players go through some really traumatic Evangelion bullshit, but other times you can force them to go bowling for no reason
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Haunted by a fantasy world where "adventurer" is handled in the same way as "assassin" in John Wick. An ifykyk secondary economy running on gold coins where everyone knows each other but no one acknowledges the elephant in the room because we have manners about our weird-ass line of deadly desperate dangerous work.
Rolling into town, looking immaculate. Checking into the Inn. Not an inn, or the coaching house, or the traveler's hostel. The Inn. The one that takes my ridiculous oversized coin and says that my room is ready, and will I need to visit the Smith today? Perhaps a meeting with the Vintner? Shall I send up the Gourmand?
"Good afternoon, Master Whicke," the Smith says, putting aside the barrel scraper he's been working on to flip a switch beside the forge. Racks of tenpenny nails and trowels and hammers fold back to reveal the glittering points and edges of a score of swords and axes and spearpoints lit with the flicker of finely-tuned enchantments. "Shall we tour what's new?"
"What sort of occasion are we hosting, Master Whicke?" The Vintner asks, pocketing the coin with a sigh. "A funeral," you say.
"Ah, well perhaps something light to start, then," she says selecting a straight-walled flask that glitters with contained starlight, proof against the touch of the undead. " And something for remembrance," she plucks a small crock of something evil-smelling and phosphorescent. "And then something to really bring down the house." She gingerly selects a double ampoule of energetic looking jellies.
The Gourmand carefully runs his knife through the salted flank of a cockatrice with a pursing of the lips. "So many neglect trail rations, Master Whicke, and it is their shame. Paired with goldenwheat pancakes and carrion honey, a mouthful of cockatrice--properly seasoned of course--will keep the mummy rot at bay, even post-exposure. I have been given to indicate by the Management that your current escapade may make such information useful to you. I will of course wrap your purchases exceedingly carefully. Rot will be your constant companion in the Black Pyramid."
There's something here.
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Was talking about sandbox design in a ttrpg server, and though this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think these really are good things to consider when you approach sandbox design in a ttrpg (and elsewhere!)
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This Discord Has Ghosts In It
It doesn't get talked about enough, but This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a rad example of how you can adapt game design to your surroundings.
Basically, This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a digital larp. It's Phasmophobia played by chat. Your group creates a discord server to function as a haunted house, then you all explore it, building new 'rooms' out of channels as you go.
Some players take the roles of ghosts, and are muted but can affect the environment in the haunted house.
Other players take the roles of explorers, and can talk, but the ghosts are all listening.
Discord wasn't built to be gamified this way, but that doesn't matter.
As long as you can guarantee consistent behavior from a thing, you can build mechanics off of it.
Anything in your environment can be turned into a game.
And in this particular case, it's a really good one!
The mechanics lend themselves well to the kinds of pacing, limited communication, and untrustworthy setting that any good ghost story needs.
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Pro tip for world building: if you have an entity designed for the players to fight in combat, don't name it "pirate", "raider," "soldier" or something equally generic. And ESPECIALLY don't name their faction that!
It's much more characterful to give them a place or people that they come from.
Easy example: Fallout 3 vs Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 has raiders, raiders, and more raiders.
New Vegas has Great Khans, Fiends, Powder Gangers, Jackals, Scorpions, Vipers, and Greasers.
All of the above are effectively "raiders" but New Vegas offers 7 different (or at least theoretically different) raider cultures with their own histories, while Fallout 3 has 1, maybe 0, raider cultures.
Even just naming these NPC groups will develop the world because it'll either make the players or YOU, the designer, ask questions about why they are named that.
In short: every NPC has a group they belong to, so at least name the groups.
PS: if you want more game design thoughts from me, my Patreon is here.
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Review: So You Want To Be A Game Master by Justin Alexander
I was reading Justin Alexander’s book So You Want To Be a Game Master this week and something very obvious sneaked up on me. When someone says a book is for “new GMs”, they’re going to have to imagine some kind of person when they say that. When you say “new GMs”, what do you imagine to be their past experiences, their wants, their needs?
Now this book has an answer to that question. But it’s answer that is inherited, rather than made. Because the book is essentially a kind of transmutation of the Alexandrian blog, from pixel to print, the intended reader of the book has to be pretty close to the blog’s primary readership. Which turns out to be primarily, people running D&D 5e, secondarily, people running similar trad games, and tertiaririrally, anyone else.
But the model of the GM that D&D 5e and similar-ish trad games propose is a specific one. You know the model but it’s worth expanding: world-creator, NPC-actor, story-starter, story-ender, rules-teacher, player-manager, pseudo-computer, and so on, and so on. I’m not a fan of this model. For one thing, I think it is too much. I don’t think anyone dreams of doing this much labour.
Ever since the hobby began, people have been trying to solve it. The two broad solutions have been: adventure modules and highly specific games. Adventure modules say, “We got you, boss. Here’s a bunch of work done already. Focus on the other stuff.” Highly specific games say, “We’re world, scenario, rules, everything, all wound up and ready to go. Just follow instructions. Add salt to taste.”
Even as the Alexandrian has a lot of content about “fixing” D&D modules like Descent into Avernus, neither of these two solutions are to be found in So You Want To Be A Game Master. Instead, the book primarily gives you two things: techniques and procedures for running specific modes of play (dungeons have a dungeon turn, raids have raid turns, mysteries have the node structure and the three clue rule) and advice on how to write and create your own play materials (creating dungeons, hexcrawls, and so on). I have no doubt a need is being met here. But focusing on these things presupposes that our conceptual new GM won’t be using the previously mentioned two solutions – modules or specific games. Why?
Maybe it’s because this imagined new GM really wants to write their own adventure material. Fair enough. I’m one of those people. Or I was, when I played 5e a lot. (Nowadays, I’ll do anything to avoid doing anything.) But this isn’t a book about writing per se – as in, it’s not about the act of imagination where your mind goes away and comes back with words. It’s mostly about how to structure the results of that creative act. It’s mostly giving you formats to follow.
So I think we come to the answer finally: This book imagines a new GM is someone who is running D&D 5e or some other un-opinionated game and wants structures to follow when they write their own adventures. There is other good stuff in there for other people but it’s limited: this is who will get the most out of this book.
(This first appeared on the Indie RPG Newsletter)
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Announcing: Restful Actions
(It's here. You can go get it now!)
Restful Actions is a collection of 10 minigames for downtime periods in any TTRPG. They're designed to help players resolve character conflicts, complete goals, heal or explore, and take much shorter shopping trips. (You can, in fact, download the shopping trip minigame as a demo!)
For GMs, the goal is to give you a break, so you can start preparing the next Big Event. The minigames invite players to fill in some details of the world, creating shops, landmarks, even creatures.
You can pick up your copy here:
I've talked about this thing in more detail here:
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Dumb Small Dog
One page RPG jam.
A simple one-page RPG that helps you embody the role dumb small dogs have in our society. It may require skill and practice.
Built on the Essence system
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COMING NOV 22 - CATS KNOW THINGS
CATS KNOW THINGS is a light-hearted game meant to tell a humorous story of intrigue, all while pretending to be a very nosy cat.
But you are no ordinary cat.
You are a very special feline who, through some magic you cannot explain, can communicate with your human, an individual who wishes to make their mark in society by any means necessary. The two of you decide to start a society page, (a very fancy type of tabloid newspaper dedicated to a particular location) revealing the glitz, glamour, and inner turmoil of the town’s most notable individuals.
As the cat you will travel across town, using your stealth and wiles to listen in on the most intimate conversations and encounters. At the end of the day you return to your human to relay to them all the town’s salacious gossip for the society page. The goal is to prepare 6-8 items for the newspaper before your human sends them to the presses for the week.
CATS KNOW THINGS will be available on our Itch.io store at 9am PST on November 22!! Please reblog to get the work out! We're really excited to share this game with you!
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CELESTIAL BODIES IS NOW OUT! GO GET IT!
Our (myself and @basilisika's) mecha game is FINALLY OUT! Go get it here!
(You may have read my post about The Grid™️ a little while ago. This is that!)
We're running an itchfund to raise a little so we can devote the time and energy to create our full vision of what this game can be. The stuff you're seeing here is only a fraction of this game's potential: please help us get the whole way. In exchange, you'll get the Terrestrial Edition right now (a playable version with the base concepts and a smattering of content to get you started). If you give us a little more we'll make more content for you too! Weapons, factions, and even new Frames entirely are on the table.
(We also have community copies available, and those higher tiers will unlock more too.)
What are you waiting for! Go get it!
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