the-ashen-gm

[the-ashen-gm]

guess who made a wargame with thirteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine unit statblocks

#oh god #ttrpgs #ttrpg indie

[the-ashen-gm]

Have you played BAD SEX : The Roleplaying game ?

By Juhana Pettersson

Bad Sex: The Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game about bad sex. If you want to feel the cringe, embarrassment and humor of sex that goes bad, this is your game. In Bad Sex, the sex is always between consenting adults. They want to have sex with each other but for whatever reason, the results are mediocre at best, mortifying at worst.

The style of the game is collaborative. The players experience the game by emotionally relating to their characters and their embarrassments and failures. Everyone works together to make each sex scene fail in an interesting way.

The book features guidelines on how to run and play sex scenes and bad sex scenes. It has two complete ready-to-play scenarios, The Grim Cheaters and Condoms On the Dancefloor. It provides suggestions for further bad sex scenes as well as scenarios expanding it from its realistic contemporary style to scifi, fantasy or historical fiction.

(Poll runner note : tempted to put "No but I had some" in the poll)

#ASDFGHJKL #there be some specific ass rpgs in this world #ttrpg #tabletop rpg

[the-ashen-gm]

Leaving D&D: Things to Watch Out For

This is gonna sound nutty, but I have experience in two wildly separate areas of my life that I am going to connect together for the sake of helping folks who are currently thinking about dropping D&D with the leaked OGL 1.1 shenanigan, so please bear with me.

Okay, so basically, in pagan and heathen circles, there's this phenomenon a lot of us refer to as "Latent Christianity" where, even if you've forsworn Christianity and might even have replaced it with another faith, there's this tendency where you bring all this emotional, spiritual, and cultural baggage from being raised in a predominantly Christian environment that bleeds into your worldview and everyday approach to life. things like believing any crime, no matter how small, stains your ability to be a "good person;" or a strong desire to abstain from sex until you're married in the interest of keeping yourself "pure;" or even something as widely recognizable as a secret, lingering fear of going to hell for being "wrong" even if you don't necessarily believe in hell. This stuff can be deeply ingrained into your brain and it can take years of deprogramming before you can truly learn to let those kinds of beliefs go.

In the same vein, there's this tendency to view TTRPGs in a similar light: through the cultural lens of Dungeons and Dragons, a sort of "Latent D&D" if you will. If you've only ever played one game and have spent years doing so, there are going to be a lot of assumptions you take as a given that simply don't apply to a lot of RPGs, and these assumptions can bleed into your approach to game design or even reading and playing other existing games.

I've seen and experienced this firsthand: I've heard people say things like "XP systems aren't my thing" even though they've only ever played D&D and haven't experienced what another XP system feels like, or "I don't like combat, it's too slow" when other games don't even differentiate combat from regular gameplay and fights are smooth, fast, or might not even be a main draw of the system.

So, in the interest of helping people understand what biases they might be carrying over from D&D into the wide-open world of TTRPGs, I have a list of things you should think about when approaching other games (or even writing your own), titled: "Things I Wish I Knew About Before Trying Other Games":

Adversarial GM'ing: The idea that when you play an RPG, the players and Game Master are inherently at odds with each other and serve as each other's opposition, and that "making the DM/Players cry" should be a goal of the game. Many games stress the GM as being a supplementary role or someone who should be "rooting for" the players, and lots of games don't even need to have a GM at all.

Roll Dice To Make Stuff Happen: The idea that any situation must map to a specific skill and must be rolled to see if something happens, instead of simply allowing that something to happen on its own or only rolling dice when specific criteria or triggers are met. Most games don't have an exhaustive list of possible skills or require dice rolls to decide every small even that happens.

Massive Tome of Rules: The idea that all RPGs have or should have a metric shit-ton of rules for every situation, and that rulebooks are all these thick, ponderous tomes that need to be sifted or flipped through to understand/play the game. Most RPGs have significantly smaller page counts than D&D and don't require rules for every possible situation you come across: You'll find lots of books and zines that are less than 200 pages long for the whole game.

Not Enough Time or Money: The idea that all RPGs cost the same amount of time, money, and brainpower to invest in as D&D. This goes hand-in-hand with the above point, but TTRPGs in general are not an expensive hobby to get into: D&D is. Most games are self-contained in a single book that costs less than the 5e PHB, and can be quickly read through for a refresher if you put it away and pick it up later. There is no need to memorize the entire ruleset, and if there is, it's small enough to where it's not a huge investment to do so. There are also loads of free and cheap games on itch.io that you can check out.

Miniature Wargame Simulator 5000: The idea that all RPGs have granular combat and assume you're using a battle grid. D&D is actually very unique in this regard: The idea that you need a tabletop representation of the battlefield is actually a carryover from earlier editions being spin-offs of wargames. Plenty of RPGs don't have structured combat, and those that do have much more loose interpretations of the action that give it a cinematic feel and rely more heavily on theater of the mind.

Grand Sprawling Epic Syndrome: The idea that RPG sessions should be at least 3-4 hours long, and that campaigns should always be sprawling, big-ass epics that span several years worth of story. If you can do this, and like to, then that's awesome! But not everyone has time or a steady schedule to commit to this. Most games are centered around short-form play such as one-shots or campaigns that only last a few sessions. Many have advancement systems that can be maxed out within a handful of games. In addition, lots of games only need 2-3 hours to play a single session, and, with rules that are more focused on narrative rather than keeping track of every possible combat scenario (see number 5), you can actually accomplish a lot more story-wise in a shorter amount of time.

Dice Goblin Crack: The idea that all games need to use the full set of polyhedral dice. There's nothing wrong with using lots of cool dice: I love them! But most games usually commit to one or two die shapes for the sake of convenience. Lots of games only use d6s or d10s to work its mechanics. Plenty of games don't even use dice at all! Some use playing cards, tokens, or other tools to resolve conflict and keep track of resources. You don't need a big bag of dice to play most RPGs.

Nobody Plays This Game!: The idea that D&D is the only game with a dedicated community and that you will struggle to find people to play/run it with you. Lots of places online exist to talk about other games if you look for them! Forums, subreddits, twitter and facebook groups, etc., all are really good places to find people willing to talk about and play these games, though, admittedly, this is more true for games that are more well-known like Blades in the Dark or Mork Borg. Also, part of the effort comes from you! One way I got more people talking about different games was to introduce them to my group and offer to run it for them so we could all try it out. Physically bringing the game to your group can start a conversation about them!

So this is really only scratching the surface of what to look out for, but I hope this helps some folks!

[the-ashen-gm]

Monster Care Squad Is Free

You've heard of Monster Care Squad, of course, the TTRPG where you play as unstoppably cool elite veterinarians traveling a world unlike any fantasy land you've set foot in? The one that's about investigating a mysterious sickness that sends the guardians of this world berserk? It's the one with dozens and dozens of unique towns and magical creatures, illustrated by @leafie-draws? It's like pacifist and communal and all about those small stories but with a big actiony set piece? It's the one with the space station and the lil goat with opposable thumbs Anyway, it's free, right here https://monstercaresquad.web.app/

#ttrpg #ttrpg art #monster care squad #free games #indie ttrpgs

[the-ashen-gm]

once you realise it you’ll never unrealise it, but it’s fucking insane how prevalent trans girls are in tabletop rpg culture/spaces in real life when you compare that to the supposedly queer big budget live action actual play podcasts that tout themselves for having “trans representation” which in this case seems to refer almost exclusively cafab trans people playing almost exclusively cafab trans characters

[the-ashen-gm]

Okay, I don't know if you do this, but can you recommend me a ttrpg that has a cool as hell character sheet? I'm infinitely more excited about a game if I can print out a character sheet that is stylized and exciting. (If you don't do this, feel free to nuke the ask I won't be offended)

Mothership (a pretty dang cool old-school sci-fi horror RPG) has probably the coolest dang character sheet I've ever seen

#hell yeah! #mothership fucking slaps #mothership rpg

[the-ashen-gm]

you're just jealous because my mech extended its thermal control radiators from its back and they look like glowing red angel wings and yours is overheating because it was not designed for space combat

#lancer rpg

[the-ashen-gm]

Mint's Played Games

I've created a folder on Itch.io of games that I've played!

I just figured I'd share it because it might be neat for people to see.

[the-ashen-gm]

Hi, hello, writers? This is how you do a cyberpunk game.

#fuck yeah #i should grab some mork borg hacks #cy_borg #mork borg #cyberpunk

[the-ashen-gm]

I've been trucking away all winter on my next big project, BLOOD BORG, and I'm one month away from hitting go on Kickstarter so I wanted to share it here.

Blood Borg is a vampyric gutter punk ttrpg built on the sturdy back of swedish doom metal rpg MORK BORG, inspired by early 00's vampire media like True Blood and Buffy mixed with punk nihilism like SLC Punk and Uncle Peckerhead.

This game reflects a lot of similar themes of one of my favorite other releases, Cybermetal 2012, in that it focuses on the lives of everyday people who are objectively not heroes who struggle to survive in an antagonistic world. Cybermetal was intended as a reflection on my 30's and current way of life: finding community and trying to do good by one another. While writing, I sort of discovered Blood Borg is a reflection of my 20's: the idea that we are young forever and never going to die, running through alleys at 3 am to nowhere, pulling day-old bagels from the dumpster like we discovered gold, and yet feeling the discordance of chronic mental illness compounded by the regular pains of growing up and the futility of fighting back against the inaccessible systems that run the world.

A longer more involved artist statement is one of the hidden stretch goals for this project, I'm excited to write at length about what these things mean to me and how they are cooked into the systems of the game.

I'm really proud of Blood Borg and it does what a lot of my games aim to do: engage philosophically with what it is to be a person in a society, the importance of support communites, the otherness of being for better or worse, all while simultaneously being a gonzo blast of a game that is fun as hell to play.

APRIL 9, Blood Borg launches on Kickstarter. I'll have the beautiful hardcover book, a screen-printed variant cover, a bunch of fun merch, and more available. Visit bloodborg.com to pre-save and get notified on launch.

Blood Borg is designed/written by myself, Adam Vass, and illustrated by Mitchell Van Dyke in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

#OH HELL YEAH #im actually excited for this one #blood borg #mork borg #ttrpg community #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #horror art #vampire

[the-ashen-gm]

Heya! I could swear you once posted about how there are a lot of parallels between PbtA and OSR games in terms of desired playstyle, but I'm no longer sure if you posted it here on Tumblr or elsewhere? Do you remember ever making a post like that or did I dream it?

OK SO here we go, this is a list of parallels in no particular order: -both are extremely fiction-first, with the conversational back-and-forth the default mode of play only occasionally punctuated by mechanics. -both tend towards the rules-light end of the spectrum. -both are deeply concerned with rewards and feedback mechanisms as drivers of play. -both reject the idea of a general mechanic that you apply however you want, at the gm/table's discretion, with wiggle room on what it means. Instead both tend to have a single distinct mechanic that you apply in a very specific situation that's fine-tuned for that situation. -both are concerned with emulation, either of genre or of setting. -both have simple pre-packaged character options - classes or playbooks - and tend to be fairly low on character optimisation and customisation. -both focus very heavilly on 'play to find out', aka 'emergent narratives' aka 'player-driven sandbox games', and strongly reject linear pre-planned plots. -both tend to encourage stepping away from actor-only immersion as the only stance, encouraging you too see your character not as an avatar of yourslf but as a pawn with which you interact with the world. In practic I've found that playing/running pbta makes you better at osr and visa versa. They occupy a similar space of being fiction-first generators of emergent narratives that punctuate the conversation with occasional codified mechanics. It's a third point both share that's quite distinct from trad games and very narrativist games.

[the-ashen-gm]

I think we should make the Ultimate D&D, built on the best concepts and mechanics from the game's history, one that truly supports the Three Pillars: Dungeon, Wilderness, and Town.

[the-ashen-gm]

Diagrams from a thirteenth-century version of the Ars Notoria.

#my ttrpg will look like this #ufg

[the-ashen-gm]

Have you played BRINKWOOD : The Blood of Tyrants ?

By Far Horizons Co-Op

Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants is about a group of rebels working to build a rebellion against the rich and powerful vampires that oppress the lower classes, with the help of the fae and a set of powerful masks, which function as classes and can be switched out between missions.

[the-ashen-gm]

Protect The Child

Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known. Monsters are too strange, too dangerous, too alien. They cannot possibly know anything about parenthood.

You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed. 

You have a human baby. And your charge wants a blankie.

Protect the Child is a Forged-in-the-Dark game about monster babysitters, caring for a supernatural child. Create your own setting and your own unique monsters, watch your child reach special milestones and learn how to be parents when the world is telling you that you can’t.

This game is free while it is in alpha playtest!

https://mint-rabbit.itch.io/protect-the-child-playtest

Mod Note: This game looks very creative, its a bit niche but im sure someone has wanted to play an Aah! real monsters ttrpg or whatever

#ttrpg of the day #fitd #ttrpg #indie ttrpg

[the-ashen-gm]

The Monster Manual but it's blatantly written by the monsters

[the-ashen-gm]

Proficiency in both ranged and deranged combat

#hold up... let them cook 👀