I can't believe it. My first #ttrpg book is nearly done. I remember when it started as "just a 10 page zine" and now it has over 100 pages of content with dozens of illustrations.
So satisfying, I can't wait to start conversation with some publishers to see how far I can take this. @rpg@RPG@ttrpgs#art
What is it about? The images not readable for me sadly. Is it a game system or setting? Or something else. How long did it take you to write it? Did you do the illustration yourself? I have a lot of questions.
@RQG thanks for the genuine interest! it's a game system called Dungeons of Galora and it focuses on solo delving. It has it's own setting as well, but to be honest the system could work with any setting the player chooses.
I did all the text, book design and illustration, the only thing I didn't work myself was the logo, designed by Andriy Lukin who's an amazing logo designer!
This project goes in and out of the drawer for years now, but I think overall it took me a year to get it to this state
I’m not throwing out D&D. I love D&D. This love does not extend to Hasbro.
I’m a fan of many of D&Ds designers but not a fan of Hasbro’s push to a dominant digital walled garden. That cuts its customers off from the larger hobby instead of expanding it.
I’m happy to play other RPGs but I still love D&D.
Can anyone point me at a good star system name generation table? Not an online generator that spits out names, but something I can actually roll on? #SciFi#TTRPG#RandomTable
Tonight I'm pulling it all together on one of the tiny city's tiniest neighborhoods, Wighthaven, home of The Zorya (Hammondal's largest theater), Saint Kendan's, and Bowerly House. I guess it's kind of a Bohemian neighborhood, and it's home to a mildly famous heresy.
With just seven named streets and a dozen keyed locations of note, it's a gentle entry into assembling a complete neighnborhood chapter.
Except they invariably latch onto the one character who is only covered in my GM notes as “try to remember to toss a generic cleric NPC into the tavern on the mountainside if the party needs healed mid-session”.
“Oh, you mean that John McHealsAllott. Yes, he’s still here. No, you’re not able to get him to open up about his past.”
@golgaloth as always comes up when someone posts this, it's not true that "literally nothing happened". Something DID happen: one of the journalists who broke the story was assassinated.
This is, of course, completely the wrong sort of something to happen. And meanwhile literally nothing happened to the people the article was about.
I'm seat-of-the-pants about #WorldBuilding in some ways, but there's some arbitrary math guiding the scope of #Hammondal. The most important is probably the 1/8th rule, which says I cannot explicitly describe more than 1 location in 8 ... for every building/etc I describe, I need to leave 7 for the GM and/or later development. This is both a maximum and my target, so I'm trying to get very near to that 7:1 ratio but without exceeding it, price-is-right style. [continued] #TTRPG#TTRPGDesign
A second numerical rule is the "Five Excitements" rule, which says that, for each of the neighborhoods, there must be a bare absolute minimum of five reasons I'd be personally excited about PCs visiting there. This one isn't like the 1/8th in that it's not also a target; it's just a ground floor that I'm happy to exceed by as much as possible. Mainly it's to remind myself that even the smallest neighborhood needs to deserve its pages or else be made to sit in the corner until it apologizes.
@sdunnewold asked to write some recommendations for the #DiceExploder blog festival, so here we go!
My first recommendation is the interview with Jay Dragon on the #QueeRPG podcast: Violence Is The Loudest Person at the Party (https://queerpg.com/podcast/press-pause-lets-chat-1/). Jay is one of the most original and insightful voices in the indie RPG scene, and this interview perfectly demonstrates why.
I also very recommend Player's Principles and Agenda (https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/1-forward/players-principles-and-agenda) from the Plus One Forward podcast. It demonstrates beautifully how you can use your agency as a player to not just improve your own enjoyment but that of everyone at the table.
As a GM how do you handle player backstories in #ttrpg. Here are a few opinions, and while mine is not popular, I STAND BY IT!!! @ttrpghttps://youtu.be/CyMOwMA61pY
@DeadUnicorn@ttrpg I don't hate the idea. I'm currently in a game as a player where everyone got absolute free reign to make any backstory...and there are things that don't feel like they fit. Meanwhile, the game I run I worked closely with everyone on their backstory. Every single character fit the world and the plot. They were still crafted by the player but with input from me to make sure it made sense.
@tierran@ttrpg that’s a great point. Taking the time to sit with your players and have a real convo about where they not only fit into your world but your campaign is time well spent to make a great story. If done early enough, can even help a GM fill in the blanks in their own plot to make the game that much richer.
#TTRPG memory
Our eldest had a 13th birthday during the pandemic lockdowns. So we organised an online #DoctorWho RPG for him and some friends.
They played Torchwood operatives, and at the start this woman appeared. She gave them some information, warned them not to harm the creature ("I know what you Torchwood people are like!"), then disappeared.
It was some minutes later that they realised they'd had a call with The Doctor. Their reactions were fantastic :)
This week I taught an ethics session in a class on engineered living materials. Before class we read about a brick made of plant fiber, fungus, and programmable bacteria, which could make temporary structures in disaster areas. In class we played a game about decision-making in that context, and discussed their ethical reasoning.