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[Tabletop Roleplaying]: Anyway Nazi punks fuck off
Endless_Serpents
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In this thread we will discuss roleplaying games: hosting them, playing them, designing them. There’s at least a zillion out there. Some simple, some strange, some old. Fit for one-shots or built to go the distance. In a bunch you only roll six-sided dice, a few use ‘oracles’—a deck of cards with corresponding questions and scenarios, and in others you don’t roll dice at all.
Consider:
ICON
Made by the chap who is currently finishing up the last volume of Kill Six Billion Demons and creator of LANCER (with help), ICON is a fantasy game that shares more blood with Final Fantasy Tactics than Lord of the Rings. Using past tactical games and his own experience with LANCER as the building blocks for this streamlined heroic system, as well as the smooth narrative mechanics cribbed from Blades in the Dark, it looks set to become one of the finest games of this year. Currently still in the playtesting phase.
https://massif-press.itch.io/icon
Frontier Scum
One of the most artistic books around, rivalling and possibly surpassing MÖRK BORG for how on theme it is at all times. Call it Acid Western, call it Spaghetti Poisoning. In this game you’re wanted out on the Lost Frontier, with nothing to your name but a gun and strange, whispering relics.
https://gamesomnivorous.com/products/frontier-scum?variant=43398380716265
Mythras
So I think… I think it’s Rune Quest? Somehow? Mythras as it stands has been built out from many games reaching as far back as the 70’s. A percentile system focusing on a sense of realism, or at least, genuine weight to your size, fighting style and moment to moment choices in order to create a level of combat and action that feels true. The default Bronze Age setting is fresh in the face of so many not-medieval faux-Europes, and aims for a manner of heroism more like Achilles than Melf the Elf.
https://thedesignmechanism.com/
Anyways, have some character inspiration. Today’s theme is fashion!
Consider:
ICON
Made by the chap who is currently finishing up the last volume of Kill Six Billion Demons and creator of LANCER (with help), ICON is a fantasy game that shares more blood with Final Fantasy Tactics than Lord of the Rings. Using past tactical games and his own experience with LANCER as the building blocks for this streamlined heroic system, as well as the smooth narrative mechanics cribbed from Blades in the Dark, it looks set to become one of the finest games of this year. Currently still in the playtesting phase.
https://massif-press.itch.io/icon
Frontier Scum
One of the most artistic books around, rivalling and possibly surpassing MÖRK BORG for how on theme it is at all times. Call it Acid Western, call it Spaghetti Poisoning. In this game you’re wanted out on the Lost Frontier, with nothing to your name but a gun and strange, whispering relics.
https://gamesomnivorous.com/products/frontier-scum?variant=43398380716265
Mythras
So I think… I think it’s Rune Quest? Somehow? Mythras as it stands has been built out from many games reaching as far back as the 70’s. A percentile system focusing on a sense of realism, or at least, genuine weight to your size, fighting style and moment to moment choices in order to create a level of combat and action that feels true. The default Bronze Age setting is fresh in the face of so many not-medieval faux-Europes, and aims for a manner of heroism more like Achilles than Melf the Elf.
https://thedesignmechanism.com/
Anyways, have some character inspiration. Today’s theme is fashion!
A duck! on
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Uh, does anyone know how to publish a game?
Got ‘em? I barely knew ‘em!
Ligma.
Someone who wanders around Sigil, the home of the Lady of Pain, and points newcomers in the direction of food, drink, lodging, pleasure, or knowledge as they require.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
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A freshwater salmonid fish
I might try starting a group for it soon if I can convince some folks
https://makapatag.itch.io/gubat-banwa
It seems perfect for a kill six billion demons style game, even more so than Broken Worlds; not sure about the narrative/tactical mix though
For what it's worth on the narrative/tactical mix: It's pretty firmly about fighting. Not in a D&D 'this is where the mechanics are' way but literally the fiction and focus of mechanics is on doing violence and what that means for you and your loved ones/nation.
Otherwise the non combat stuff is either downtime where you explore relations and obligations or rolls for resolving skill check style stuff using various element themed approaches.
Alright you sonsabitches, you've got my interest
I have the pdf from a bundle, but I haven't really gotten around to reading it, I just leafed through slightly. The sheer focus on how violence is good and important seems like it would make it a terrible fit for my group, they're very much the kind to mostly get out the swords only when talking to people fails and/or stuff like slavery is involved.
You can be both noble upholders of good morality and also people who do violence for a state, family or grudge.
GITS but more queer and british and uncomfortable
Stargate Atlantis but fitd
Resident Evil X Hunt Showdown hosted by the roman empire
I have to admit I'm just stuck in finding violence as the default for PC's and examining why that is.
I played Clayton Moore, a first-footer prospector who made his fortune early and now earns his way by leasing equipment and providing seed money to younger prospectors, and making a profit on the interest
He has a robot sausage dog with a concertina body
Ages ago I made a setting called New Zellatia. I’ve run it in d20, simplified PbtA, as part of modified Quiet Years, but honestly? I just want to world build in it, no strings attached. It’s a calming little thought box.
Right now I’m making a language for it! There’s several intelligent species living together in one place after defeating a colonial force that shifted a lot of groups around, so upon the founding of their new nation a project was set up to codify the most common language (itself a pigeon of all the others) and create a writing system.
What this means is, unlike say Tolkien’s refined Elven, New Zellatian is about as fucked up as English. However, much like Korean, the writing system, being designed in one go by a group of scholars, is supposed to be pretty slick.
Because, you know, you may as well go the scenic route rather than making an alphabet, in this language you write a consonant, then attach a vowel to it. I’m making extra rules as I go to accommodate times when that isn’t gonna work. Right now a single vowel gets a long line attached to it. Since there’s a bunch of times when one letter has a different sound to it, I’m sticking an umlaut over the vowel.
Overall the language is supposed to look like trees, boats, fish and little people.
Have this for no reason.
Somebody translated the old original Record of Lodoss War d&d campaign report articles from the 1986-87 Japanese magazine it was published in, Compatiq, written to get people interested in the recently officially localized D&D tabletop game. This campaign continued on to become a very popular long running thing and became a big cultural touchstone influence on japanese D&D-style high fantasy stuff, in anime and games and all sorts of shit, though it was not the only thing creating that wave of interest in high fantasy swords and magic stuff. Dragon Quest had been released in '86 inspired by computer games like Ultima, and Final Fantasy released in '87, heavily cribbing from both Dragon Quest and D&D. There was a broad surge of interest in tabletop fantasy games and media inspired by them at this time.
It's viewable on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation
Excited about my character concept, a teenage tiefling girl who was raised by priests of Mystra and became a wizard. Was thinking of multiclassing into an arcana domain cleric of Mystra later, since it'd be easy to justify. Left the temple to see the world and new magics, etc., but never stopped being intensely devoted to the goddess. Gonna be difficult to roleplay a bubbly teenage girl, but I'ma give it my best shot.
Her physical appearance is based solely off Tony DiTerlizzi's work, as I find his tieflings way cooler than the current crop of "just normal humans but with pink/purple/blue skin and horns" tiefling designs I see everywhere.
He normally is open to it for one-shots and stuff, but for this he's just doing purely official material. I believe he's going to be running Dragon Heist, which will be his first time using a module and he's been playing since the late 70's, so he doesn't want something new or too weird to keep track of.
So of course I'm using the tiefling of Mammon subspecies from Mordenkainen's ToF. Nobody in my group even knew those were in there, they only knew about the Asmodeus tieflings (ie, the "default" ones) 🙃
My brain translates everything Planescape-related in DiTerlizzi's style. I care not for modern-style tieflings.
I don't dislike modern-style tieflings, but compared to DiTerlizzi's style they're so boring. I don't like all of DiTerlizzi's artwork but it is definitely unique and has a cool, ethereal style. The way modern tieflings are depicted to me feels like they were created by a marketing team based on consumer metrics, and it just gives me corporate social media account vibes.
So much as like, they're supposed to be weird, half demon spawn things that unsettle people. So it's odd how they have pretty uniform appearances in settings.
It'd lend a bit more credence to them apparently being weirdos if there was a less consistent frame of reference for them in setting. An entire species that conjures thoughts of the uncanny valley and monsters. Not because they're ugly or monstrous inherently but because it's hard to recognize them as a singular, safe group by looks.
I like the old tables you could roll on for tiefling attributes, like goat legs and having six fingers (mine has both of those!), smelling like rotting meat, big horns or small horns or none at all, a lizard tail, forked tongue, etc.
I get why they did the whole, "Asmodeus made a deal with a whole nation and turned em all into tieflings, so that's why his tieflings are so prevalent" thing. It makes it easier to consolidate tieflings into one box than to keep em a weird mixed bag, since simplifying and condensing stuff was 5e's whole thing. But I feel like they lost out on a lot of the uniqueness of tieflings when they did that.
If you wanna get all reductionist then yeah sexy elf with goat legs (and a tail!) isn't all that neat. But when she's supposed to be the same as the species of people that are all basically just "regular humans with red skin and devil horns and tails" it's at least something different and unusual. Part of the appeal for me, I think, is also DiTerlizzi's art style. I think he could make even the current tieflings look interesting. Maybe I'm just being an old man yelling at clouds, mad at <popular thing> for being popular.