tissek

joined 2 years ago
[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 3 points 2 weeks ago

Shawn Tomkin's Ironsworn series. Delve I regularly use for setting up point crawls. Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles have great collections of random tables, I use the book thematically most fitting for the situation at hand. The core tables of Action, Theme, Descriptor and Focus all get heavy use.

Kevin Crawford's [SOMETHING] Without Number series have awesome tables as well. These however get more use when I need more detail. Prep stuff. Again most thematic book is picked first but I do have used Cites (cyberpunk) for fantasy cities.

When I want to create background for "medieval fantasy" characters I pick up Burning Wheel and burn something up. Through that I get a good selection of relevant skills to sue (for flavor)

Anything related to cosmos and mythology I say HELLO! to my growing collection of Glorantha material. From cult books to magic tomes and Atlases.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Another Himedere checking in. I love setting up situations where the players and/or the characters squirm in anguish about what to do.

My favorite so far was an estranged princess living as a man and hostel owner. He had turned his back on the throne and wanted little to do with it. As a bonus he was the only child of the king's only remaining child. Fast forward a bit and he needed a (legal) favor from the king. Went to court and met with his grandfather. The king would do it, no strings attached if a) he returned to court and resumed his duties as prince and b) sired an heir.

There were a good thirty minutes of the players anguishing if he should accept while going deep into character motivations and the setting. During that game I don't think I did as much concrete worldbuildning as during those thirty minutes. I loved it, the players loved it. Great time.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 1 points 6 months ago

Issue in that case I rather see as why is it allowed to enter into legally binding agreements when you aren't sober. Why there isn't a (forced) period to review the papers.

Marriage is a legally binding agreement. Let's treat it as such.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As long as the Russian bear is around to scare the west and occupy our mibds the Chinese dragon is at much more liberty to do whatever they want.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 31 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Love the addition of "again".

I mean if you don't want your yacht sunk then don't sail it where orcas sink yachts. Sorry but actually not sorry for the casual victimblaming.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 4 points 8 months ago

How easy it for those speaking the different languages to understand eachother?

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So many. And the answer to all "why nots?". Time. It's time. So off the top of my head

Eat the Reich - "The year is 1943. You are a team of crack vampire commandos with one mission: drink all of Hitler's blood"

Conan 2d20

Legend of the Five rings (5e)

Stoneburner - Deep Rock Galactic the TTRPG

Vaesen - Call of Cthulhu but rooted in nordic mythology

Heart the City Beneath - an award-winning complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 1 points 8 months ago

In a game a while ago there was a FtM prince turned hosteller. Left court and royal duties due to disillusioned and wanting to do actual good. But then they were a PC and quickly needed some help from granddaddy the king. I wondered what the king wanted in exchange. And it was clear - the royal line continued. In other words get an heir.

I checked with the player that this was an OK path comfort and safety wise. Afterall one way to solve it was for the prince to get pregnant, force upon themselves a gender they did not want etc. We talked about it and had regular checkins.

The moment that made this an awesome world building moment was when I realized magic impregnation wasn't an impossibility. Nor pregnancies without the biological bits. Because Magic!

Unfortunately we never to to that part before scheduling did its thing.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 13 points 9 months ago

Cat is grumpy because someone stole its humans

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 1 points 9 months ago

The more abstract the map is the more of a support for TotM it becomes. I selfom do a map, rather a flowchart. Quicker, easier and knocks out the last desire to measure things.

[–] tissek@ttrpg.network 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This brings us back to zones, a good middle ground. Draw rough map, or great map, and on it mark intresting combat zones. Some are separated with emptiness, others by obstacles.

For example a tavern brawl. Zones could be the Bar, Kitchen, Common Room, Balconies, Private Rooms, Out Front and Out Back.

Fighting on the Balconies could be tight, only one in width and with the risk of being thrown off it into the Commonroom. In the Kitchen there would be fire hazards, improvized weapons, knifes and the Stew. Not to forget other ways to spice things up in there. Around the Bar there would be some cover fighting someone on the other side, bottles to be broken and combatants to glide alond the bar for maximum mental damage.

And so on. Make each zone memorable and with special features. Did I mention drawing it out really helps?

 

Agter our latest DnD game our regular DM once again thought loudly on how to make dragons have more teeth. And it got me thinking about how Dragonbane handles capital M monsters differently.

DnD Monsters tend to have a slew of ways to nullify the PCs disabling abilities (magic resistance, legendary resistance). What those does are forcing the party to spend a couple of rounds having their cool stuff be nullified. For me that is boring. Without it though - CC fest and an underwhelming fight.

Dragonbane being a different beast and makes Monsters dangerous in a different way. With way less disabling abilities the PCs fun stuff isn't nullified and foes don't get CC'ed to death. So everyone can do their thing. Which Monsters can do multiple times each round (multi-attack but full turns) and their attacks always hits. Think about that - Monsters' attacks always hits. That brings danger and tension. The attacks are randomly selected lowering the rise of catastrophe, or increasing it as the GM cannot pull their punches.

To help the PCs out they have the option to take a defensive action (dodge, parry) which have already led to clutch moments. It comes at the cost of having an offensive action and the defensive action cannot be taken if they already have acted this round. Cost benefit choices whoooo! In a way it goes from Monster dodge (legendary resistance) to PC dodge. And PCs can build for defensive actions. And it can give you a counter attack. Defending is cool.

To sum it up. DnD gives monsters staying power by nullifying the PCs cool stuff allowing them to stay fighting. Dragonbane has less disables in general so Monsters have no need to nullify them. So Monsters stay around longer naturally bringing danger the PCs can actively try to avoid.

 

Rumours, speculation and hearsay? "Interesting" at least.

 

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/979480

Lately I've been using solo play tools more and more in my prep. For example instead of just pulling a town out of my imagination or from a bunch of tools. I've (mainly) used Ironsworn to solo play some episodes in that town. Creating details about it as I've gone along. Also used Artefact (more of a journaling game) with good effect to create legendary items. To get into the Glorantha setting, get into the "right" mindset, the solo choose-you-own-adventure I've found great.

But I'm always looking for new tools to, if nothing else, get new perspectives on things. My default Ironsworn is leaning kinda heavily into more perilous and grim episodes.

Happy for any and all recommendations!

 

Kevin Crawford's latest offering Cities Without Number is here. Pretty much more of the same good stuff but this time with cyberpunk flavour.

Cities Without Number is a cyberpunk role-playing game built for sandbox adventures in a dystopia of polished chrome and bitter misery. It's both a full-fledged Sine Nomine toolkit for building a cyberpunk world of your own and an Old School Renaissance-inspired game system for playing out the reckless adventures of the desperate men and women who live in it. Whether polished metal or flesh and blood, your operators will risk their lives and more to seize those precious things a merciless world would keep from them.

Will I run it? No
Play it? Most likely no
Will I use the frikk out of the GM tools? YES!

Link to free version: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/449873/Cities-Without-Number-Free-Version

 

Let me begin by making it clear this is not my invention, I encountered the method in City of Mist but I doubt it debuted there. But it is a nifty method.

The problem I encounter from time to time is that my players don't latch onto my descriptions of the scene, not using things in it to grant themselves advantages (bonuses, extra effect etc). Am I perfect? No. Could I do better? Yes.

Or I can take my fuzzy descriptions and make them mechanical by introducing them as Scene Tags. Market square during market day would get Crowded-Market-1 and during a festival Packed-Festival-Market-2 indicating that there is a lot of people there and also how much advantage one would get by incorporating it into ones action. Or disadvantage depending. Trying to pickpocket someone? Take a bonus. Following someone? They easily get lost in the crowd - penalty.

How dark is the night? Moonlight-Night-1 or Moon-Behind-Heavy-Clouds-2?

Traveling through a mountain pass and how deep is the snow? Ankle-Deep-1 or Up-To-The-Dwarf's-Beard-2? What about that Foul-Voice-In-The-Wind-4?

I play pretty much only online so tossing an index card onto the table with the Scene Tag on it is kinda tricky. Instead, depending on how much effort I've put into the VTT, I either write it in big bold letters on the scene image/map. Or I put down a virtual index card, essentially a small graphical element to bring attention to it (see post image).

One more thing, how much is a Tag-1 compared to a Tag-2 worth? This all depends on your system. City of Mist gives +1 for a Tag-1, +2 for Tag-2 etc. So for pretty much any other PbtA/2d6 systems the same works. For D&D (and other d20 systems) a scheme of +2, Advantage, Advantage and +2. I've lost much of my familiarity with d20 systems due not having ran something recently. So someone (everyone?) else probably have better ideas. In dicepool systems an extra dice for each tag level is appropriate.

That is the basics of it. But what if the players want to create a Panic!-At-The-Market-3? I'll write about that some other time.

PS. Still recruiting for my small sortie into Swords of the Serpentine, Fridays at 19CEST.

 

Blurb taken from the Kickstarter

People liked the game system powering Shadow of the Demon Lord, but some bounced off the game’s tone. (Evil Dead meets Diablo is not for everyone!) Not long after Demon Lord came out, I began working on a family-friendly version of the original game, and the project became something I tinkered with for a long time, moving farther and farther away from the original game in a move to make something new. Where Demon Lord expected, even celebrated, the deaths of characters, Weird Wizard makes heroes of the characters and their story an epic journey. So while much of the game looks and plays like Shadow of the Demon Lord, there are differences enough to make it its own thing. If you want an early look, check out the quick play.

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