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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Blockhouse posted:

As someone who voraciously reads RPG setting info for games I don't even intend to run Eclipse Phase has never not made me lose interest immediately, not because the setting isn't cool but because the books are so loving bad at making it any kind of accessible. Like gently caress dude if I want to be scratching my head about how I'm supposed to interpret your setting I'll go read Nobilis at least that's intentionally obfuscated and not the result of incompetence.

Listen to Roleplaying Public Radio's Know Evil Eclipse Phase campaign. Seriously. It is what got me into Eclipse Phase.

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/know-evil-an-eclipse-phase-campaign/


Speaking of RPPR games, Red Markets just had a fan-made video drop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UOeznPFhGY

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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
For whomever was talking about running a Cyberpunk game, I suggest looking at the free Quickstart of MoonPunk.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/293755/MoonPunk-QuickStart?src=newest

MoonPunk is a Powered by the Apocalypse rpg that has really good instructions for playing an overbearing government or megacorp that they call The Authority.

I'm using some of these instructions to define the actions a Call of Cthulhu conspiracy will take against players.

For example some of The Authority's hard and soft moves include:
    - Hint at what might happen next
    - Introduce chaos
    - Divide them
    - Give them a choice and tell them the consequences
    - Take away one of their things

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
I'd make a thread in The Game Room aldantefax, then advertise it in TG Game Recruitment Megathread and maybe in the West Marches thread as well.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Found an interesting minimal RPG with a focus on GMing shared by a number of attendants, coupled to a wager and betting system.

It is called The Gambler's Court and it is a short Storygame. One player creates a character (the Wanderer, a person who has become lost in the woods) with a number of freeform talents and items. The others play as a group of supernatural Gamblers (fae, spirits, or lesser gods) who take turns narrating challenging scenarios for the Wanderer (Riddles), and bet gold among themselves along the way.

If the Wanderer makes it through a number of riddles, they win. If they lose the same number of riddles, they become lost forever, and the Gambler with the most gold wins instead. I thought it was a cool premise.

It is free, very thematically illustrated and on itch.io here: https://monchop.itch.io/the-gamblers-court

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Found an interesting Patron on the Wicked Ones discord channel.



Epic Isometric is the Patreon where you can purchase premade isometric maps with monsters and hero packs. Given everyone is social distancing I figured these would be useful for online play.

https://www.patreon.com/epicisometric

The Wicked Ones is a Forged in the Dark game modeled off of Dungeon Keeper. You design and draw out your dungeon and attack the Overworld as vile fantasy monsters. I'm 80 pages in and it is very good.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/338480/Wicked-Ones

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Angrymog posted:

Also started a solo game of Ultraviolet Grasslands, which I'll start writing up and putting on my solo-rpg blog soonish.

I'd love to read these write ups because Ultraviolet Grasslands is my jam and I'll never get to run it.

dwarf74 posted:

Playtesting Frosthaven has eaten basically all my nerding time for the past few weeks, and I've been neglecting both my main weekly game group and my occasional hometown friends group.

I'm as green as a goblin with jealousy.

dwarf74 posted:

I have been playing a Dice Throne Adventures campaign with my kids and that's been going wonderfully. DTA is a really good game, and I made a thread for it.

I've been eyeing that thread rather seriously and you nearly have me sold on the product.

Yawgmoth posted:

I'm also in a Dark Ages V20 game with one other player (everyone else got too busy with life to keep playing). We have woken up and befriended a very old vampire/mummy hybrid, have each diablerized our way to 6th generation, and are generally threatening/stealing/killing our way into whatever secrets of blood magic we can obtain. We're fast becoming the guys you'd fight as an end boss in any other game and it's amazing.

:neckbeard: Glad to hear the campaign is continuing and you are reaching Supervillan status!

I recently got roped into "playing" the wargame Star Wars: Armada with some friends on the East Coast. Since I can't be there in the room with the miniatures, I can't actually move the pieces around and fight ship-to-ship combat. So I was given authority to control three pirate fleets, the Mandalorian fleet and a Mining guild fleet in terms of making their strategic moves (ie what planets the fleets try to occupy/raid) to take some pressure off of the GM running the story behind the wargame. My pirate fleets are happily bumbling about the Outer Rim, acting as commerce raiders and targets for the main players of the wargame to blowup and take over their ships.

I'm reading Wicked Ones which is a Forged in the Dark game that is basically a Dungeon Keeper tabletop where the players are monsters. I don't have much game time, but I can see myself playtesting the game once (or twice) because the cooperative narrative play and the mechanics are very cool. Maybe this month? We'll see.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

aldantefax posted:

I need more coffee. I was thinking of Frostgrave.

Frostgrave is talked about here I think: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3253037

Personally, since I've been on a Sci-Fi kick for like a year now, I can't wait for Stargrave.



https://ospreypublishing.com/stargrave

quote:

In a galaxy torn apart by the Last War, vast pirate fleets roam from system to system, robbing, extorting, and enslaving. Amidst this chaos, thousands of independent operators - smugglers, relic hunters, freedom fighters, and mercenaries - roam the dead stars in small ships, scratching out a living any way they can.

In Stargrave, players take on the role of one of these independent operators, choosing from a range of backgrounds each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and associated powers. Next, players must hire a crew for their ship, recruiting a lieutenant with a unique skill-set and a handful of soldiers, mechanics, hackers, and other specialists. Some captains may even recruit strange alien lifeforms with abilities no humanoid could ever possess.

Once the players' crews are assembled, they are ready to dive into a campaign. Over a series of games, their crews will have the chance to carry out a variety of missions - recovering lost technology, stealing data, freeing slaves, and fighting back against the pirate fleets. In time, as the crews gain experience, they will become more powerful and hire more talented specialists. The more they grow, however, the more likely it is that a pirate fleet will take note of their activities and come after them!

Publication Date: 29 Apr 2021

Like Frostgrave, it is a miniatures agnostic system.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

aldantefax posted:

I never really played Delta Green before, but I did play Black Ops once or twice. I think there are some people who wrote Delta Green published adventures that hang out on here too! I'd love to hear more about that.

Delta Green is great. You don't have to make up dumb hooks why a party of wildly diverse backgrounds (in the 1920s usually) will want to get together and solve Mythos mysteries when they really should be running the gently caress away from anything that even hints at the gribblies. In Delta Green you are part of an illegal (or quasi-legal) Conspiracy that is probably embedded in the US government to shut down supernatural phenomena, that if left unchecked will lead to a worse situation. Therefore you can plausibly have a professor of archeology tagging along with a couple of law enforcement officers and a cryptographer out of Quantico because everyone has had experience with the unnatural and has been tapped by the Conspiracy.

Melonbread (and I think Elendil004) (corrected below) Elendil004 and Ed Possing run a yearly "Shotgun Scenario" contest on the Fairfield Project wiki (DG wiki) where authors submit a short Delta Green scenario and there are prizes given for the top three. In 2020 there were 75 entries the judges had to wade through. Some published RPG authors, including our own goon Clockworkjoe (of Roleplaying Public Radio and Base Raider fame), submit every year so the quality of submissions are pretty good in my humble opinion.

http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/

https://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/category/systems/call-of-cthulhu/delta-green/

Also Caleb Stokes, a goon of Roleplaying Public Radio and Red Markets fame, has been tapped to write some official Delta Green material. One of his first (?) Cthulhu inspired adventures, Lover in the Ice has been translated to the DG system. He is currently writing the series God's Teeth for DG and has been tapped to finish off ARCHINT and add to The Labyrinth. I think his goon handle is Cthuluzord? Not sure.

Lover In the Ice
Actual Play : http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-lover-in-the-ice/
Game : https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184098/Delta-Green-Lover-in-the-Ice

God's Teeth Actual Play: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/gods-teeth-a-delta-green-campaign/

Caleb working on ARCHINT and The Labyrinth: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcdream/delta-green-the-role-playing-game/posts/3072517

I'm sure I'm missing other DG authors that are goons too.

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Feb 5, 2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Foolster41 posted:

I've been itching to do some sort of star wars RPG, and I've been fluctuating between trying to run EotE again, or do something like a FATE hack (i saw there is at least one already made, called "Star wars fate edition" but I don't know how good it is). Also, I'm not sure I have the energy to do two RPG things a week. plus my weekly game design playtests.

Have you considered the Forged in the Dark game Scum and Villainy? Should be easier on a GM since the players contribute to the setting. :shrug:

https://www.evilhat.com/home/scum-and-villainy/

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

mellonbread posted:

Hey there!

I don't run the Shotgun Scenario contest. In previous years, it's been run by Ed Possing, and in 2020 it was run by Elendil004. Maybe you thought I ran it because of my FATAL and Friends series on the winning entries?

I have never written a published Delta Green adventure. I write a bunch of stuff for myself though, which you can find here.

Elendil004 posted:

Hi it's me. I've run almost all the Night at the Opera contests, including the current one going on right now which people should submit stuff into.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rd5K5u9di1fAMiCR9LyNNVhF4h1uYmc4uKXgpuR6jFo/edit

I also did run the shotgun contest this year because Ed Possing had to step down for work reasons and because we can't have nice things they're still getting uploaded to the Fairfield project but Ed is doing it and some are going to transition formats poorly.

I've put my own stuff here:
https://sites.google.com/view/kevinhamdeltagreen/home

Thanks for the correction gents.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

aldantefax posted:

What is a "Great Pendragon Campaign"?

If you wanted to hear an Actual Play of the Great Pendragon Campaign, our very own Grey Hunter has uploaded 83 half an hour videos to youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6WX0yyxWfVSpoZNoP9Q-dqD-9dU7Lwdp

His group is currently doing Lancer here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6WX0yyxWfVTykiCt3_nWwvzH0BDyilWW

And that just scratches the surface of the number of Actual Plays and Let's Plays featured on his youtube channel. Seriously, no one knows how he does it.



drrockso20 posted:

So Fragged Empire recently released a Cyberpunk variant called creatively Fragged Cyberpunk, currently it's a digital only product as a trial run to decide if it's worth doing a print version of, anyone here given it a once over yet?

I am also interested in a review.

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Feb 5, 2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
I like procedural generation in gaming supplements because it usually makes it fun for me to whip up something that will have features I do not anticipate.

Scenic Dunnsmouth (published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but it's system agnostic) takes a dice-and-deck-of-cards approach to building a unique decaying backwater with plots, hooks and treasure.

I recently saw that Mothership - Dead Planet had a dice-and-tables method for making the entire floorplan of a derelict spaceship. Included are rules for procedurally generating hidden airduct connections. The rules are quick and easy.

In addition if you are looking for tables for nightmares, weird weapons caches, personalities of space cannibals, or a module for a planet like in Dead Space, then Mothership - Dead Planet is for you.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/249108/Mothership-Dead-Planet

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
If you guys were ever interested in Warhammer/Warhammer 40K games for PC there is a tremendous deal if you buy the physical copy of the 462nd issue of White Dwarf for $9.

quote:

The 12 games provided as part of the promotion are: Total War: Warhammer (plus the Call of the Beastmen DLC), Warhammer: 40,000: Dawn of War, Warhammer: 40,000: Space Marine, Warhammer: 40,000: Armageddon Da Orks, Warhammer: 40,000: Sanctus Reach, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Warhammer: 40,000: Space Wolf, Warhammer Quest, Warhammer Quest 2: The End Times, Warhammer Underworlds Online, Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus, and Talisman: Digital Edition.
...
The code also redeems a 75% off voucher for 4X strategy Warhammer 40,000: Gladius, and a Legendary Khorne pack for Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest, a free-to-play MMORPG/strategy hybrid.

These are all available with one Steam key.

https://www.ign.com/articles/free-warhammer-games-white-dwarf-march-2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Big news!

:frogsiren: Wicked Ones now has a Free edition! :frogsiren:

Now you all can try it!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354307/Wicked-Ones-Free-Edition?src=discord

quote:

FEATURES (FREE EDITION)
You can get the full game for free. Try out building your own dungeon together with some friends or use the tools the game has to improve your other games! The full game includes:

● Forged in the Dark: Built on the framework made by John Harper for Blades in the Dark, with significant changes to better represent monstery gameplay.
● Build a Dungeon: Rules for building and drawing out a dungeon together, including traps, tricks, creatures, locks, minions, and things you discover underground.
● Cycle of Play: Four phases of play (lurking, calamity, raiding, and blowback) that set the pace of dungeon life.
● Dark Hearts, Dark Impulses, and Going Feral: Game mechanics that reinforce that you’re a monster.
● Flexible Spell System: Players choose a specific path of magic or god they worship, then flexibly create spells of different power levels on the fly.
● Powerful Ritual Magic: This extends magic further, allowing the creation of very powerful magical effects, though you must fulfill some special requirements and fight off those who might seek to stop your rituals.
● Monster Science: A robust crafting system to create whatever contraptions and alchemical concoctions you can imagine.
● Safety Tools: A write-up on recommended safety tools (X-Card, Movie Ratings, Lines & Veils) to help your group with sensitive subject matters.
● Nine Monster Playbooks: Play as several different types of monsters, each of which have a lot of room for making unique characters. Play as a Brute, Conniver, Crafter, Hunter, Marauder, Shadow, Shaman, Warlock, or Zealot.
● Five Dungeon Themes: Each theme has a unique core function and list of rooms that can only be built within that dungeon, allowing your dungeon to match your group’s preferred playstyle. Build an Enclave, Forge, Hideout, Stronghold, or Temple.
● Quiet Valley Sandbox Map: A regional map to give a place to build your dungeon within and rules to set up factions on that map cooperatively with all players at the table. This group worldbuilding fosters a great sense of co-authorship and buy-in from the players.
● Primal Ability: Choose any monstrous race and represent them by building their own unique abilities.
● Easy Start: A clear session 0 / session 1 starting scenario to get your dungeon up and running while teaching all players the game mechanics.

Also this game may not be suitable for those under 13 years old. I think this references the interrogation of adventurers rules. If I could ever get a group together, I would not use those rules, just fade to black about what's going on.

Expansions to Wicked Ones to come soon!

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

John Romero posted:

are there any game deals Twitter accounts like wario64 but for traditional games

I love deals

You mean the TG Deals and Steals thread thread here? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3534648

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Zorak of Michigan posted:

I take game logs on my laptop and keep them in a wiki with the semantic extensions, so I can easily cross-reference which NPCs showed up in which sessions.

Yeah, any advice on how to set something like that up would be much appreciated.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Zorak of Michigan posted:

Here's the wiki page for my favorite of all the AW games we've played: https://aafnrp.cipul.com/wiki/index.php?title=Brink

Wow. This layout is really nice.

Thanks for all the wiki advice all.






On a completely different note, I like randomizers for world building and adventures. I recently got recommended a 100 page zine called Rakehell which describes a contested land between two kingdoms filled with fantasy weirdness, strange cults and adventure. It was only $3 as well.

https://goatmansgoblet.itch.io/rakehell-1

quote:

The Rift of Mar-Milloir will always be contested between two kingdoms, though neither will ever have the means or desire to enforce that claim with true rulership. Each year, the representative courtiers will send spies and assassins to one another’s court, to beguile, berate, and suffer further insult to see the conflict never ends. No one goes to Mar-Milloir who has a choice, it is a wretched and perfidious region of serpent-haunted mountains, wayward nephilims, and heretical holdouts who refuse the reformation of the Grand Heliopapacy of the Cathedral Tempestuous.

You have been sent here, if not to die then to profit your betters. You are a blaggard, a knave, a blackguard, a rakehell, and an out-and-out scoundrel; whether you desire such a title or otherwise.

Survive. Change your fickle fortunes. Take the Rift for yourself. Praise be to the Sun and those who have inherited its grace; with ambition enough, you will stand among them.

Here are some of my favorite bits from the random tables:

quote:

What have I heard about this wretched place?

Eat no fish within the Rift, the rivers run polluted with dragon’s spume and each fish is wretched with their lies.

Eat only fish within the Rift, the locals known a particular and delicious means of frying them with wild garlic. It brings out their taste and puts bones easily to rest.

What am I to expect of these backwoods yokels?

No women among them, all the men breed with pig sows to breed forth the next generation of misbegotten youths.

Only womenfolk out here, they grow tall and big and burly as any man. They breed only with foreigners, cut them to pieces once they’re done harvesting what they want.

You can expect about as much of them as you can from any city-folk. They’re just people, with their own customs and their own failings. They aren’t monsters.

Arms and Armor

Schiessjoppe ringmail jacket and trousers, marked with decorative badges.

Antiquated linothorax depicting icons of a seldom acknowledged Sun of Cerulean.

Kurkel bow [Two-Handed] made from the rib patterns of a traitor from the Kurkel Bridge massacre.

Phallic brazen war-pick blessed with kisses by two dozen pilgrims. Smells of grease.

Raggedy tattered cloth shawl, made from a mouldering old war banner and spare fabric.

Brass krug-style disc brigandine, with a scowling fanged sun upon its belly, supported by a sash of white and orange.

Shepherd’s castration knife, warm to the touch, ram’s head carved into the hilt.

Petrified wooden pig-sticker of the First Men, it catches mist when used at night and gives the wielder a feeling of sublime purpose.

In addition to the above, Rakehell also has details about strange factions, a black market, a brigand fort, a Wyrm's lair, giants, fiends and the ruined First-Men's crypts. All of these include random tables to ensure no encounter is the same twice.

Here are two of the factions:

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

slap me and kiss me posted:

Everyone wants to have a Blackbird Dreaming but no one wants to post.

Blackbird Dreaming was the original reason I joined the forums. And to date I have only finished reading a third of it. :negative:

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

whydirt posted:

Maybe a useful exercise would be to recommend authors who similar to Howard and Lovecraft but are less racist or are even minorities themselves?

Laird Barron writes like Lovecraft except instead of a universe of Cosmic Horror it is a universe of Carnivorous Horror. Barron has also made the point of writing gay and lesbian main characters and in my view did a very good job in one of these two stories. Mysterium Tremendum is just a gobsmackingly fantastic slow burn. Instead of relying on traditional tropes to generate isolation and fear, Barron presents the isolation and hate caused by some parts of American society on the queer community to ratchet up the tension and generate a situation where the main character, his partner and their buddies are truly alone; cosmically, personally and from a society standpoint. It's chilling and real good. I've read it about four times and each time I get more insight on how deftly he crafted the story.

Here is an analysis and review (read the story first please) of Mysterium Tremendum's queer themes: https://www.thepunkwriter.com/article/strange-flesh-the-use-of-lovecraftian-archetypes-in-queer-fiction-mysterium-tremendum

So I am a Barron fan (obviously) but the story he wrote about the lesbian protagonist and her partner...well I personally think you can skip it. Not because the story is bad or the main characters are written poorly, but because it telegraphs the story theme too much (maybe that makes it "bad"?). I don't even remember the story's name but you can totally tell (Major Spoilers) its a werewolf story. In my view it doesn't quite deliver as a gothic horror either but maybe I'm being too harsh on it.

I will add one criticism of Barron's stories. If it feels like Jack London protagonists have somehow stumbled into a Mythos story you are not wrong. Most of his protagonists (including the above to some extent) are two fisted, hard drinking, wilderness capable human beings. But I like that because it is different than Lovecraft. Your mileage may vary.

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 02:28 on May 22, 2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Leperflesh posted:

If on the other hand you're just interested in finding good cosmic horror/swords & sorcery fiction that isn't racist, I feel like that's a very tangential discussion, albeit a worthwhile one.

Yeah I have another recommendation.

Mike Minnis. The exceptional Lovecraftian writer whom time forgot.

Sometime in the late 90s, a German gentleman by the name of Mike Minnis took pen to paper. What flowed was a heady distillate of cosmic horror in the architecture of a fictional craftsman. He published 40-odd short stories hither and yon about the burgeoning internet, mostly at small congregations of weird fiction devotees with names like “thousandyoung.net”, “netherreal.de” and “nightscapes”.

However, thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine I was able to recover the full text of ten of his stories. I have copied them to pdf, and for the sake of convenience I have posted them to a file sharing service for download. As a disclaimer, I am not benefiting financially from this in any way. I have simply consolidated the pdfs so that more fans of weird fiction can discover and enjoy this great author’s work.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/t6792v35951vg/Mike_Minnis_Wayback_Machine_Archive

If you like his work, just give the man $3 for the kindle edition of Your Poisoned Dreams, a collection of ten Mythos short stories. At that price it is an absurd steal.

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Poisoned-Dreams-Horror-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JPBN0DO

To start, I highly recommend I Walk the World's Black Rim which is a mix of Beowulf and the Mythos.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Plutonis posted:

No Miura (RIP) on the list of influential guys? There wouldn't be Dark Souls and a lot of modern dark fantasy without him.

Never heard of the gentleman. Expound please.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Plutonis posted:

Kentaro Miura, author of Berserk, one of the most sold and praised Manga series in history, that ran for almost 30 years. Tragically passed away earlier this month.

Didn't know the author but I had heard of Berserk (in relation to Dark Souls). Too many people have recommended it, I'll have to put it on my list. Thank you.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Symbaroum

I remember reading portions of the Core Rulebook. I can't speak to the mechanics but I really liked the lore and the setting. Symbaroum portrays their forest wilderness sort of like a post-apocalyptic badlands, where there are ancient ruins everywhere but there are hazard galore. Also their elves are pretty interesting if I remember correctly. The elves have different physical stages of maturity not unlike insects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh1TL7kXJ-E

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 02:24 on May 26, 2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
For anyone looking for random dungeon layouts for an adventure, the developer of the free roguelike Zorbus has released a generator that exports dungeon map pngs.

http://dungeon.zorbus.net/




Also I'm really quite a big fan of Zorbus and if you are interested in roguelikes I encourage you to read through the thread. Zorbus is still under development (although a full game) and the dev added several new mechanics such as tracking and scent in it's latest release a couple days ago.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3926278

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Imagined posted:

I've always enjoyed dungeons that have an in-universe explanation for why such a place would ever exist, ala the kaers (and Parlainth) in Earthdawn, or the Stone Thief in 13th Age. It's just easier for me to get into the spirit of the thing if there's a logical reason a huge labyrinth filled with traps and treasure would exist other than 'I dunno, wizards be crazy, yo'. In the case of the former, it's that people built bunkers to survive the magical apocalypse and set booby traps to keep out the monsters (kaers) or tried to protect their city by turning it into the magical Event Horizon by trying to hide it in another dimension and make everyone forget it existed (Parlainth), or the dungeon is literally a huge sentient sandworm that rolls around gobbling up random magical places, and you're exploring his guts trying to get to his brain (Stone Thief).

If you want a whole game setting that is a living dungeon take a look at Belly of the Beast

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/192736/Belly-of-the-Beast-RPG?language=de

quote:

A tabletop RPG about callous survivors scavenging the abyssal guts of the world-eating Beast that consumed their home.
You are a scavenger. Driven by the primal instinct to survive, you venture into the depths of the Evergut in search of some remnant of the past that will postpone your inevitable digestion.

The land was resplendent once; sprawling forests, massive ranges, glittering coastlines. Hundreds of clans, nations, and empires carved their homes from mountain and glen - living and killing and loving beneath the sun-kissed boughs.

But that was a lifetime ago. For generations the survivors have known nothing but sorrow. The Hungry God consumed all, leaving the world as little more than a skinned carcass moaning to be put out of its misery. Millions were swallowed during the Great Devourer's gluttonous feast; and yet, humanity pressed on.

Belly of the Beast is a tabletop roleplaying game focusing on scavengers: brazen survivors that plumb the depths of a world-eating monster's guts, scouring the remains of the mighty Empires that were eaten by the Beast.
...

System
The core mechanic uses the well-tested Ethos Engine (Vow of Honor, Hunt the Wicked). It is a d6 dice pool in which you gain and spend dice toward your Instincts (Greed, Violence, etc), and roll against the most relevant Skill's rank. The more successes you roll out of your d6 pool, the better your outcome.

The game is certainly task-resolution oriented, and focuses on grim and gritty people and their personal stories, rather than epic or high fantasy. You can check out the quick start rules for a glimpse into how it works.

Setting
Take the trappings of a late-medieval Byzantine Empire and throw it through a blender. The Beast is a monster the size of a mountain range, and it has happily gobbled up all of the world's surface -- including its cities, people, and artifacts. You're one of the survivors, either recently swallowed in the Beast's inexorable buffet, or you were born there in the last 60 years, eeking out a living within the cavernous innards of the Evergut.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Xiahou Dun posted:

Is Laird Barron any good?

Short answer: Yes.

But try his free writings and see what you think. https://www.freesfonline.net/authors/Laird_Barron.html

I recommend Shiva, Open Your Eye, The Forest, Frontier Death Song and Blackwood’s Baby. Don't like one? Jump to another one in the list. They are all quite different.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Cabbages and Kings posted:

if anyone else remembers late 80s 1p rpg book / choose your own adventure clone "lone wolf", an artist on an italian punk collective label has done a concept album based on it :staredog:

https://heimatderkatastrophe.bandcamp.com/album/hdk-60-lone-wolf-ep-1-flight-from-the-dark

This is loving outstanding and I'm very happy you posted it. Thanks!

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Been reading two books.

The first is the Solo Wargaming system 5 Parsecs from Home about making a sci-fi company of about 4-6 characters who fight enemy teams like pirates, mutants or Bloodstone Mercenaries and expand their arsenal of weapons /gear through many random tables at the end of an encounter. It provides plenty of ideas for story hooks if you are into writing up your experiences. Inspirations for 5 Parsecs include Mass Effect, Cowboy Bebop and the Foundation series. Also the designer is a goon.

The second is the wargame Stargrave. That is about ragtag groups of space farers fighting opposing ragtag groups of space farers over artifacts in a universe that is dominated by balkanized pirate fleets rather than governments or corporations spanning multiworld empires. Made by the same guy who made Frostgrave.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Ok. These are awesome. Particularly the Gods of Metal Ragnarock.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Shadowrun? Everyone hates Lone Star.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Rockman Reserve posted:

If I’m having a solo dungeon crawler kind of itch and am pretty bored with the D&D boxed board games, what would you guys suggest? I was looking at both the Dark Souls and Bloodborne board games since I like the franchises, I’ve heard they’re not great but are nowhere near as bad as say, Kingdom Death. Is the Bloodborne game really that much better than the Dark Souls game? And what the gently caress is up with the distribution model, I can’t seem to find Bloodborne anywhere but I’ve been to like four FLGSes in the past week that have had expansions for it. Are there better options for the kind of thing I’m looking for (mid-to-high crunch, solo, explore and loot and punch things)?

Hello, have you heard of our Lord and Savior Gloomhaven? Or the more "casual friendly" Jaws of the Lion?

Not sure if the rule set for Gloomhaven fixes that solo dungeon crawler itch? You could always try the digital edition on Steam for $25 (still in Early Access technically but the 17 playable classes have been implemented).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/

I now cede the floor to dwarf74 to explain everything Gloomhaven.


Shrecknet posted:

If you feel like going FATAL & Friends on everyone's favorite romantic gothic superhero RPG in D&D (postin' about politics!) here's your chance!

:cthulhu: should be fun!

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jul 29, 2021

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Xiahou Dun posted:

Sweet baby Jesus I would kill for this.

Especially if they do a similar but stylistically distinct thing with the art.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackchickenstudios/ars-magica-video-game

Didn't make it's goal of $290,000 in October 2012. What could have been.


Imagined posted:

What are some decent EXTREMELY light all-ages board games on the complexity level of Monopoly (but not, obviously, Monopoly), Checkers, UNO, Sorry/Trouble, or Connect Four? Things that don't require more than 5 minutes explanation or setup, and yet don't [completely] suck? Apples and Oranges is out ("Want to play something just like Cards Against Humanity but even less funny?"), ditto Munchkin (I'd honestly rather play Monopoly), Battleship... Code Names and Galaxy Trucker were a little too complex. We liked Forbidden Island/Desert. Is there anything else out there?

I'm going to second the recommendation of Splendor.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
The masterminds behind the Blades in the Dark inspired game Wicked Ones (FREE version here), about a group of fantasy monsters building a dungeon, launching raids on the surface to gather a hoard, and pursuing a nefarious master plan; have a new Blades in the Dark inspired game that will be Kickstarted soon.



One of the creators describes Relic as, "In short, it's kind of like Shadow of the Colossus and Monster Hunter meets Princess Mononoke and Breath of the Wild, with some low-tech steampunk thrown into the mix. Its mechanics are an extension of the work we did modifying FitD in Wicked Ones, so there'll be a lot of familiar territory there."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/banditcamp/relic

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

Back in the 90s, my local shop was selling packs for like a dollar a pop or cheaper, but I could only ever get one character pack. I still have a pile of story cards though, so now with these character packs I could potentially get a game going. I'll post the character standees when I open them later.

Edit:



Got some cards from the main set and the one expansion. I'm a bit surprised that more than one person is collecting them for their fold out character cards. Who knew?

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Anyone remember this occult modern day MMO from 2012?



Funcom has granted a player group the rights to build a tabletop roleplaying game based on the Secret World IP and the kickstarter is slated for next year. Might be good. If its handled by a passionate group of people who know what they are doing.

https://massivelyop.com/2021/09/21/funcom-gave-a-player-group-its-blessing-to-build-a-secret-world-ttrpg/




And another thing I'm really excited for is the Blade Runner rpg. Yes you heard that right, Free League, who created the Alien RPG, is set to make a Blade Runner tabletop game based on the book and the two movies. Set to release in 2022. The news story says it will focus on “investigative gameplay” when you play as a Blade Runner, rather than simple bounty hunting.



https://www.wargamer.com/blade-runner-the-roleplaying-game/reveal

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
A lot of the NPCs in The Secret World were interesting and well written.

Good fodder to steal for WoD games at least!

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009


I've had a lot of fun with the Sci-fi Solo Wargaming system 5 Parsecs from Home, so I decided to write up a narrative after action report of a skirmish game I had with a randomly generated rag-tag crew.

It's here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3959142&pagenumber=9&perpage=40#post518324702

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
Alien? Mothership?

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Nuns with Guns posted:

..ended in a fight with a calzone golem being a fun 1-shot...

I need more details. Did you go after it with forks? Was a pizza oven it's crucible of creation?

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Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Plutonis posted:

RIP Anne Rice, VTM and by extension the world of darkness would not exist without you

drat straight. The 90's roleplaying scene would have been utterly different without her writings. RIP.

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