#valor: the heroic roleplay system

[taliadoesrpgs]

As long as I’m putting myself out here, I make a living by selling my services as a game master through StartPlaying.Games and I have two new offerings for next month.

First off, there’s a fantasy adventure in Valor: Heroic Roleplaying. Discover why that’s my favorite tactical RPG ever in The Siege of Verdholtz Manor!

Then there’s my swashbuckling, chanbara-inflected space opera using Fate Core, for all your space cowboy and star samurai needs - Fate of the Galaxy!

I’m advertising both as oneshots with the option to expand into a campaign.

I’ve got 18 positive reviews attesting to my patience with new players, ability to roll with crazy PC complications, and evocative world building.

Have yourself a grand biweekly adventure by playing in one of my professional games!

#tabletop game #professional game master #fate core #valor: the heroic roleplay system #my work

[tiny-design]

With a focus on creating a system that encourages combat interactions, while also not limiting the setting or theme that any given play group may wish to enjoy, Valor: The Heroic Roleplay System very deliberately sets up the player's abilities so they can be defined and customized with careful consideration. This extends to Skills (active or passive abilities that define how effectively a character to succeed during a challenge or combat scenario) and Techniques (actions that are specific to that character), with each giving the player a set of workable components to build them out. In order to ensure that these abilities can be varied in application, while still maintaining their core, detriments like Flaws and Limits are also available for the player to apply to their Skills and Techniques respectively in order to gain the ability to extend those capabilities even further.

#valor: the heroic roleplay system #valor #valorous games #2019 #tiny design #game design

[drawncyclone]

realized my two currently-active tabletop characters both had aggressively pink supermodes, so i did art about it,

#shovel knight valor #kingdom valor #hammer knight #nagisa #valor: the heroic roleplay system

[smallmediumproblems]

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I ran a Lasers and Feelings game?

For anyone unfamiliar with the premise, Lasers and Feelings is a tabletop roleplaying game system, heavy on the roleplaying. The mechanics are simple: First, pick a number between 2 and 5. This is your only stat. Throughout the game, you will be asked to roll for a challenge that requires either the lasers skill (from the book: technology; science; cold rationality; calm, precise action) or the feelings skill (intuition; diplomacy; seduction; wild, passionate action). Lasers require you to roll below your stat, and Feelings require you to roll above your stat. There’s more to it, but that’s the base mechanic.

Anyway, the link is here, it’s an incredibly simple, fun, and most importantly versatile system, feel free to read under the cut to find out how I completely cannibalized it.

Basically the thought I had was, you can substitute any two traits for Lasers and Feelings, as long as they’re reasonably different from each other. The one I ran was dubbed Goblin Quest, where the two stats are, naturally, Goblin and Quest. “Goblin” is all things chaotic, daring, mischievous, and unexpected, while “Quest” is for heroics, chivalry, valor, and not getting distracted by food. Today I stumbled across the notes I kept for it and wanted to share. tl;dr, the party ended up joining a circus and living happily ever after with the king of the goblins, surrounded by fried food and luxury.

The Pitch

Your clan of goblins has discovered the location of the kidnapped Goblin King, whose name is Thom Hanx, long thought to have been killed, lost, or hidden in seclusion. And by long, I mean that it's been like a week. Goblins have fairly short attention spans. Anyway, he's being held captive at a circus called Bingo's Menagerie of Fancy and Laughs. The circus will move soon, so your window of opportunity to rescue King Hanx will last approximately 24 hours. If you can rescue the King, you are sure that your clan will be rewarded handsomely, and your legacy heralded among the Goblin peoples for generations to come. Or at least for another week or so. Did I mention that Goblins have pretty short attention spans?

The Characters

(I made a bunch of pregen characters for my group to make things even easier, although I let them pick their stats)

Captain Knifeman Cracklebeard: Once a famed sea captain, Captain Cracklebeard was forced into a land-faring life when he was cursed by a sea wizard. What the curse was, exactly, is a little vague, but sailors are an extremely superstitious lot, and he has found it difficult to get work ever since.

Jib Nibblezwib: A skilled court magician and jester who was exiled from her previous kingdom after she was framed for a terrible crime by a dastardly half-elf con artist who stole her place. Although respected by her clan, her honor weighs heavily on her mind, and she takes every opportunity to prove that she is still the powerful and majestic spellcaster that she was at court.

Shankzabelle Mixmaster: Through a string of bad luck, ironic coincidence, and a little bit of old-fashioned racism, Shankzabelle has been cheated out of the credit for more inventions than most people know exist. Or, at least, that's what she claims. Now, she uses her inventions to improve the life of goblins everywhere, and to further worthy causes like the rescue of King Hanx.

Buglass Sabannadamana: Friend to all beasts and men, whether they like it or not. Buglass has had a quite successful career luring large, dangerous beasts away from places they shouldn't be. He does, however, have a problem with them showing up again at inopportune moments.

Ted Bigsnuggle: Fourteen years ago, a very small human boy wandered off into the woods at night and was presumed to have been eaten by bears. This was not the case. He was in fact found and raised by goblins, who loved him and cherished him and raised him as their own.

The Baddies

(Straight from the DM notes, which is why it’s thinner and less polished)

Mr Magenta and the Blues Boys: Clowns :o Should be genuinely threatening and scary, maybe inspired by the Sharks from Westside Story?

The Illustrious Henrietta: Lion-tamer lady, with like a whip and a cool costume, except she wrangles a bear. The bear is a druid named Katya, and they are married, Katya un-bears at the very end of the game for dramatic effect but until then is just a Very Smart bear chasing the party

Rick Sharps: Knife thrower dude, should have an obnoxiously thick cockney accent

Dr. Glamtasm: A fortune-teller, this is the magician who framed Nibblezwib

Big Dave: Just a big alligator, the kind you pay $2 to see at a county fair

Bingo Bamspackle: The ringmaster. Actually an android being piloted by Thom Hanx, exactly like Scrappy Doo at the end of the Scooby Doo movie (2002). In reality, King Hanx ran away to the circus to escape the stress of his kingly responsibilities and has been living his best life the whole time, absolutely does not want to return to the kingdom

#not podcasts #rpg #spoilers for the Scooby Doo movie (2002) #cw goblins #??? #I think there's some discourse surrounding that #If I have upset anyone please let me know #I like to be sensitive about The Issues but I have a hard time gauging that sometimes

[taliadoesrpgs]

My story The Wonders of Mundus, or Isekai/Online in a nutshell:

#isekai/online #original fiction #deedee yeowoo #the wonders of mundus #valor: the heroic roleplay system

[taliadoesrpgs]

Okay. I have one sign-up for an Original Valor Adventure workshop tonight (Sundays) and would like more players. This is a commercial game, $25/session, biweekly. We’d be spending today brainstorming a premise and making characters. Link below if interested. https://startplaying.games/adventure/clry85rjj001408l93deyceik

#tabletop game #valor: the heroic roleplay system #commercial game #startplaying.games #the build an anime workshop

[taliadoesrpgs]

In this introduction to the Valor tabletop rules, your character is cordially invited to get way too into hit VRMMORPG Another World Online!

An accident (act of sabotage?) has trapped the Western US server in the gameworld, and your characters are now stuck exploring the kingdom of Caelibyrn, looking for a way home, answers, or just hot food and a warm bed.

This is a professional campaign through StartPlaying.Games, so it will cost $25 a session. We play through voicechat on Discord and maps on Roll20.

Come and explore Mundus with us!

#startplaying.games #valor: the heroic roleplay system #professional game master #lfg #isekai/online

[taliadoesrpgs]

Running some free demos of Valor: Heroic Roleplaying, as well as professionally running some professional campaigns. Take a look!

#tabletop rpg #valor: the heroic roleplay system #isekai/online #startplaying.games #free demo

[taliadoesrpgs]

all of the cool kids are doing Disco Elysium skill-sets so I’m making one for Deedee and got @quantumvaudeville to illustrate it

she’s a Valor character originally so it’s going to be 5 sets of 5 skills across Vigor, Agility, Spirit, Mind and Resolve anyway I call it No Truce With The Furries.  enjoy.

Pain Threshold: You can take it!  They’ll have to hurt you more!

Great for: Adventurers; Martial Artists; Clerics of cruel Gods; Masochists.

Pain Threshold is your capacity to endure, even enjoy, pain; your ability to push past the limits of your body when you need to push on.  At high levels, you can laugh past almost any amount of pain and turn it to an endorphin high - which can be a problem if it’s the kind of thing you seek out.  With a low Pain Threshold, though, you won’t be able to fight alongside your party, and the adventuring life will be almost unbearable. 

Half-Light: Listen for bumps in the night, and bump back.

Great for: Whoever is on guard duty; Scouts; Sylphanites; Paranoids

Half-Light is your ability to choose Fight or Flight over frozen terror, your attunement to danger and to the things that lurk between dusk and dawn on Mundus.  It’s your mousehunting ears, your ability to make your problems have problems with you.  With high Half-Light, no monstrous growl will go unanswered and you won’t hesitate in the face of a threat... real or imagined.  But with low Half-Light, when it is dark out and no one is around to help, you are likely to walk right into the slavering jaws of some grue or another.

Endocrine Promenade: Take back the fantasies you were denied.  Love and be loved.

Great for: Courtesans, Queers, Inquisitives, Bicycles 

Endocrine Promenade is your id, long repressed, finally off the leash; the beast within unchained; an estrogen-soaked second puberty ready to make up for losing the first one to excessive testosterone.  Promgirl is back at high school homecoming, ready to dance and damn the consequences; it knows how to flirt and all the punchbowl gossip.  With high Endocrine Promenade, you’ll have a finger on the pulse of every scandal and romance in the village - but you’ll also throw yourself into the deep end of the gossip pool, becoming the good time had by everyone but those who’d resent you for it.  Without Promgirl, though, you’ll be too innocent to understand love and vice on Mundus, and you will miss clear signs of relationships vital to completing your quests. 

Physical Instrument: Flex powerful muscles.  Enjoy healthy organs.

Great for: Warriors, Punchwizards, Laborers, Muscleheads

Sifu Physical Instrument is here to pump you up, to put muscles on your muscles and take cholesterol from out of your veins.  She’s your ability to precisely control each tendon of your body to effects both artistic and forceful; a dance of the body electric.  With high Physical Instrument, you’ll bend bars, lift gates, bounce around like you’ve got wires on your girdle - and waste no chance to flex your muscles, even when it would be the height of arrogance.  Without Sifu Physinst for a tutor, though, you’ll have all the martial and athletic prowess of the 44 year old, heavyset otaku wearing a VR helmet that you were before you came to Mundus.

Neutral Game: Heaven or hell, let’s rock.  Round one, fight!

Great for: Adventurers, Monster-Slayers, Mercenaries, Violent Bastards

Picture yourself a good two meters from an opponent.  Maybe they have a knife, maybe they’re unarmed.  You’re counting down the seconds before they make the first move, or you do.  Welcome to the neutral game.  Here, in the vital fractions of a second before you can close or open range, is where you can take and hold the advantage in combat and put your opponent on a defensive that they can’t break out of; it doesn’t matter how much meter they can burn on magic bullshit if they’re too busy blocking your strikes to strike back.  With high Neutral Game, your foes will never get the chance to use their cheating bullshit - and you may well forget you have it, too, as you try to clown on foes without burning Tension.  But without a decent Neutral Game, against a halfway decent opponent, you’ll be backed into a corner and spitting teeth.

#isekai/online #endocrine promenade is frankly the best one of these I'm not topping that #deedee yeowoo #Disco Elysium #valor: the heroic roleplay system

[taliadoesrpgs]

Arabella Weaver is from one of those elder fae families, in her case Autumn Court elves who made such a fortune in the spider silk industry that most of them being on the spectrum gets called 'eccentric' instead of insults.  In her case, she's obsessed with all of the Dark But Not Actually Evil Arts - the Contract of Bone, healing through Bloodwork, the Winterpacts, and of course her passion for spiders and insects which she will happily go on about at a moment's notice.  Unfortunately for everyone, her parents and Baldrick's think an alliance between powerful Autumn and Spring houses is a great idea and furthermore that her crush on Upper Class Twit Of The Year Baldrick is cute, when she terrifies the living daylights out of him. A playable character for High School Faerie Blues.  Art by @beedokart.

#valor: the heroic roleplay system #high school faerie blues #tabletop games #arabella weaver #beedokart

[taliadoesrpgs]

I’m running another one of these on Wednesdays, starting on July 6th.

If you’ve been interested in learning Valor, give it a shot!

#startplaying.games #valor: the heroic roleplay system #the build an anime workshop #Tabletop RPG #tabletop game

[taliadoesrpgs]

In which our desperate heroes' situation goes critical.

#isekai/online #volume 2: out of bounds interactions #scribblehub #original fiction #valor: the heroic roleplay system