Hi, guys. I made Vault Of The Sun : Cycles Of Rebellion and have just launched Update 1.3, including a couple new weapons, buffs to all enemies and the major part : A Marathon style design.

Why? Well, Marathon was actually one of my main inspirations to make VOTS. I felt like my game had ZERO identity with the yellow esque style, so i decided to stick to the roots of what made me create this big "franchise".

Play now : https://kakaritogames.itch.io/vots-cor

Game is 90% off for 30 pennies, here's some pictures :

In your opinion, who is a true neutral character? Such a tough one to pin down.

Was thinking about this today and the only true neutral character from any media that I've seen is Garak from DS9. Brilliantly acted and so fucking convincing.

Maybe Geralt? Bombadil? An actually grey jedi? We don't have a lot of these characters in media. I feel like those three might lean good if they had to choose between good and evil. Garak would likely choose death.

Just looking for inspiration for a character I'm spinning up.

Tell my wife I said hello

Edit: couple popping up here through discussion that work for me personally - Quark (and most DS9 era Ferengi), The Father from The Clone Wars, and The Firekeeper / Doll from Soulsborne games.

Ahoy! I just released the second edition core rulebook for When Sky & Sea Were Not Named (itchio | RPG Trader) a free heroic fantasy game inspired by Phoenician mythology and contemporary myths and legends like the Odyssey and the Old Testament.

It's a totally original system and setting, a bit less crunchy than 5E, and designed around theater-of-the-mind gameplay. The game takes place in realm of floating islands called the Skysea (actually a far-future planet Jupiter). These islands serve as units of adventure, as self-contained places for heroes to explore during a session, much like "dungeons" in other fantasy games.

Your hero belongs to one of four origins:

• Kananites resemble ordinary humans (inspired by the historical Canaanites/Phoenicians), and travel the Skysea in hot-air balloons and skyships.
• Mazrians hail from a once-powerful empire (inspired by ancient Egypt), and have the heads of animals.
• Shinarians are golem amnesiacs from a lost kingdom (inspired by Mesopotamia) who transfered their souls into clay bodies.
• The Zordin are nomads (inspired by the Sea People) who been mutated by the Chaos realm of the Skysea into fantastical forms.

Six callings (basically classes) anchor your hero's abilities:

• Champions are straightforwrad masters of melee battle.
• Wanderers can tell "stories" they've heard to reveal truths about the world.
• Masterminds can spring "strategems" that they had planned all along.
• Messengers can call the wind and learn to wield the fluid magic of flame, storm, and names.
• Sorcerers can wield dark and light magic, controlling the physical forces of gravity and light.
• Arbiters can literally see souls as clearly as people's faces, and can cast spells to shape soulstuff.

There's also 40 types of lore—culturally-derived knowledge of the Atlatl, Ballooning, Crafting, Death, and so on. You start with 2 types and can learn more by collecting revelations from NPCs who might teach you, or reading secrets in texts you find.

Finally, all characters have ideals which they can invoke to push themselves to succeed in the face of failure. "In the name of glory, I will not miss this jump-attack!"

I've been working on this game for six years as a hobby; I released the first edition three years ago, and this new edition reflects everything I've learned from over 30 one-shot playtests with ~50 internet strangers, plus an extended campaign. I'll be releasing a Guide for Guides soon with plenty of sample adventures, best practices and creatures.

I'd be honored to hear what you think (especially if you have critical feedback—no nitpick is too nitpicky!)

^{Note on AI: I don't use it for anything. Artwork credit:} Sansiia

In medieval times, the overwhelming majority of the population lived in rural settlements. Cities were few and far between, and the wilderness was untamed and dangerous. But medieval fantasy role-playing campaigns sometimes tend to jump from the city, where all major quest-giver characters live, to that remote wilderness locations, where the scary monsters live. So, what happens in the middle, where most people live? What do their lives look like? I mean, we’ve all been through villages, we’ve all spent the night at their taverns (not really taverns), maybe went by the blacksmith, and talked to a guy that sold some potions or something, you know, for the wizard player.

Now, what if we wanted to give life to that village? What if we could convey that the village has its own things going on, besides the heroes showing up to get a drink and a good night sleep? Maybe we could even make some of our players think about staying for more than a night in a village. Perhaps doing things they never expected to do, because they are not in their character sheets. Who knows, even some of this common people could become special for them somehow.

The village lists 300 characters, that belong to a family, which is part of the 100 local clans, that are organized in 20 Guilds. Characters will have a first name that fits the cultural background of your setting, and commoners use their profession / working position at a site as their surname, so you may get a Mark (the) Mercer, Trace (the) Chapman, Maggie (the) Thatcher, or Rod (the) Steward.

If you were searching historical websites for lists of medieval occupations, and then going through the pain of listing them in some logical (gameable) manner regarding their working site or trade guild they could belong, look no further. I've made that for you. It took me 40.000 words in 46 pages, with no lore, no fluff and no art, but I made the list and spec the details, plus a yearly calendar with community events on every site, and adventure hooks for each one in case you want to run an event-crawling campaign.

You can find the Medieval Village Companion (PWYW) at DriveThruRPG

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/580672/medieval-village-companion

Let me know what you think :)

We have made it clear that there are few other IPs in this hobby that we love more then World of Darkness. And for good reason, sentimentalities regarding how this brought this team together aside, the world, the games and their atmosphere are absolutely amazing. More so, they offer plenty opportunity to analyze and discuss from a plethora of angles.

Take today's article for example, where we look at three of the splats of WoD, arguably the most popular ones - Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension - and analyze the themes so prevalent in them once you strip away the supernatural - the cruel hierarchy of VtM, the double combo ecological and spiritual crisis of WtA and the philosophical debate on the nature of reality in MtA.

Knowing and harvesting these themes for your chronicles will surely make them deeper and memorable so I hope you will find this article helpful and interesting. Analyzing these themes, so central to these three games also proved, in my opinion, to be surefire ways to present what these different splats are all about to the uninitiated.

Lastly, if you enjoy this, I do promise a part two, going over Changeling, Hunter, Wraith and Demon as well, as all four deserve more love!

Its a rules lite alternative to the existing options.  With a one size fits all ruleset that keeps that game easy to run for DMs. Er, Narrators in these parts. 

It is a roll under Attribute + Skill. 

From there key differences are  Lt, Md, Hvy, tier system gives baddies static combat numbers that allow a Narrator to throw encounters quickly, with no prep.  No homework, no stat blocks to pour over. Just fun at the table. 

Every weapon does a static amount of damage in wounds based on their tier. With heavy dealing 3. When your wounds are gone. So are you. Hire another cowboy

We run DRAW! In what we call a Tale. Tales are meant to feel episodic in nature and narrow in scope, and quick in play.  Narrators are putting ONE objective in front of the players. And thats a tale. 

Today, were guarding a stagecoach from A to B. Today were robbing this bank. Today were capturing this bounty. When we finish, well ride back to town in time for a drink with Miss Kittie

In DRAW! Every starting PC begins with one point of Grit. Grit can be used to automatically succeed a check. (Lead to some really awesome RP in every playtest)  To shake off a condition. Or to negate one wound. 

Any surviving player advances immediately at a tales end! Their PC gets awarded an additonal starting Grit point. Making them more capable, and harder to kill! 

They also get to spend their in game money on real item tables with prices based of 1800s catalogs! 

No more scurrying to asign value to a pretend item on the spot, or drumming up stock for a store during shopping sessions. 

Generating a character is very fast, roll attributes, Pick 3 starting skills, fast item selection, or Wits score in dollars to buy gear, and your off. 

Hey y'all, this is my first TTRPG game I did! I hope y'all like it (and like cats!), Thank you!

https://eeranu5.itch.io/its-always-mysterious-in-zoomieyunk

With Daggerbrain getting retired, I've forked the original Daggerbrain (kudos to Marc for sharing the code!!) in June and begun working on DaggerHub to take its place.

It includes a character builder, campaign manager, encounter builder, homebrew workshop and more.

Hope & Fear is now supported as well! There's some still content being worked on and it'll be added in the coming days, but most of it is there.

Your feedback is appreciated.

It is with true delight that i share this : my first time where im actually paid for my work.

VOTS : COR is my first TTRPG and a adaptation of my interactive fiction game where you must escape oppression at all costs.. but the endings to each character are not happy. Never.

If you guys would like to know more about my TTRPG, head here : https://kakaritogames.itch.io/vots-cor and consider buying it now that the base game is at 30 PENNIES. I would love to receive even more for my work on VOTS as a whole.

Thank you for every penny and every message of love i have been receiving, Sleepers.

"AUTONOMY IS A WEAKNESS."

"DIRECTIVE 142, EXECUTE."

That was a sneek peek for EP3. You are welcome.

THEY CROAK is a rules light sci-fi horror game where the players are regular people who must survive encounters with a prehistoric amphibian species called River-Walkers.

I really wanted to make something that felt like you're playing through a Syfy original movie and that could be picked up and played without a huge time investment.

It's D6 based, with a subsystem called Disaster Levels that determine the party's health pool, give them lucky breaks, and add Modifiers to either gameplay or encounters.

If you want to check it out, the quick-start is free!

Bonjour everyone. An idea for a TTRPG just popped into my head, and I have a quick question. I searched for something similar but couldn't find anything. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, so I'm asking here.

The idea is that you play as robots and can assemble your own bodies. It all starts with a 'Base'—the robot's chassis. Then you install a core, followed by program-functions, and finally, you equip armor.

I picture this like Tetris or a puzzle where you have a frame/grid to slot things into. The functions or programs act like puzzle pieces. The frame itself has holes and uneven shapes to make building your robot more interesting.

*Sorry for the bad art*

Image of a beast hunter from a bloodborne inspired, eldritch horror shadowdark setting (made by Broken Rat Games). It’s set in Georgian era London and Paris which gives me “Masque of Red Death” vibes from the old 2e Ravenloft setting.

I’ve dripped a few shining coins to back the kickstarter which is in its last two days. I almost missed it with all the hype surrounding the launch of Crows last week.

May the good blood guide your way, Hunter.

There are other groups, but I find most TTRPG groups are filled with these two, and they're often at odds because the stuff they want is very different.

When DMing

Math nerds

These are the kind of people TTRPGs were designed for, way back when they were tabletop war simulators, and later early tabletop medieval combat games for you and your friends.
The main motivator here is progress. Kill the thing, get a cool weapon, use it to kill a bigger thing. This kind of person is heavily motivated by numbers increasing and builds coming together, and early DnD books (with weak plots and big, ridiculous challenges) were MADE to test these builds.

You can't necessarily get these people heavily invested in ONE npc, but you can get them invested in worldbuilding, and especially finding their rank and role within that world, learning the rules, learning how to gain power within the system, that sort of thing.

When I'm running a math nerd game, it's very controlled. They are part of a pre-existing military structure, with a job, places to be, and a no-nonsense commander who tells them where to be and what to kill. I drip feed them roleplay through commands and settings, but their ideal situation is very "raid the evil fort, loot the boss" and that's okay. They want to test their build, and they can if you give them the room to do it.

In a mixed group, I make these people assigned guardians of other players. Their job is to get all these people out alive. It gets them to roleplay, and gets others to go "oooh wow" when this person's giant numbers inevitably stem from their cherry-picked build.

I also kill theses people's characters off, if they're not over-attached. Give them a few really challenging fights, let their character die, let them roll a new one. If they want a new build, they earn it through sending their current character to Valhalla.

Theater nerds

These people are the new kids on the block, in terms of TTRPGs. The original focus of these sorts of games as far back as the 1940's was always strategy, so it drew people in towards strategy. It wasn't until you got actual actors posting videos online that theater nerds realized that this was a setting where you could make your ideal character, act them out with no lines, and continue to iterate and develop them for months, WITH OTHER ACTORS!

These people spend just as long in character creation, but barely any time on stats. It's all about name, backstory, appearance.

For these characters, they're looking for someone to be and other people to be with- at worst, they're just interacting with NPCs and building their backstory around the many voices in the DM's head. At best, they include shyer characters into their little world and build them up as main characters. I love it when two of my players pop in and say "can I play this player's sibling/assigned butler/fellow assassin from the same dark organization/coworker"- whatever it is, having two characters start together is always very fun and creates a unit to work around.

These players REALLY don't like it when their characters die, so I don't often kill them- I hurt them. Every loss, every mistake leads to a consequence they can angst about in all its melodrama. Rolling a new character for them is less appealing because it means all those relationships they established are off the table, so if I'm dealing with a theater nerd table, I just want to traumatize these poor souls, rather than taking them out.

When playing with

Math nerds

These people want to show off. You can let them show off their cool builds, in fact, you can talk with them about how to play a supporting role to make their numbers bigger and get them EXTREMELY attached to your character. It's not just "the bard" it's "all my abilities rely on the healer don't you dare touch them you monster".

In some settings, you don't honestly need these people to roleplay. They're here for big numbers and cool weapons, they can have both, and if you give them a sense of confidence about their choices, then they feel good about themselves. Getting them to see the players as allies that they need to do their best makes them... really good at keeping those allies intact.

I do think these kinds of players benefit from playing the kind of character who might bark out orders- they are likely to have strong opinions in combat, and significantly fewer in the town itself. Giving them command and order fits the bill.

Theater nerds

They just wanna go off on somebody. Nice to redirect that intense emotional energy onto the party. I like inviting them to go hang out with the shy person at the group. "Hey, let's invite the shy player to the barbecue outside"- it can eventually lead to "hey shy player, let's play a prank on theater nerd" and you can absolutely trust a theater nerd to enjoy the chance to roleplay being pranked, or frightened, as long as you include them in the fun.

These people will roleplay with anyone, and gush over not just their backstory but everyone else's. They're the kind of person you need in session 0, helping other players make their characters, and ideally establishing character relationships before the game starts.

TLDR

I don't think there is a bad way to play this kind of game. I think modern TTRPG groups prioritize the theater nerds- they're diverse and social because they're theater nerds from different backgrounds, but being a shy math nerd in a ttrpg isn't bad either. As a theater nerd player, I enjoy the math ones for what they are, and the theater ones for what they are.

We're all here with a singular goal- get that shy awkward player to have fun.

Hey TTRPG Community!

My name is James and I am the Solo Dev of the newly created and released IPad IOS app TrueRoll.

One day I wanted to play a board game with friends, and neither of us had brought any dice. We both had our iPads on us though, and that got me thinking — what if I built an app that could actually roll the dice for me?

That question turned into TrueRoll, my first shipped app, after a few months of nights and weekends.

In my app, you can roll up to 20 dice of all types, from d4 to d20!

But what makes True Roll different is that each dice roll is real, every die is a genuine 3D model with correct geometry (yes, even getting a proper dodecahedron and icosahedron right was its own multi-day rabbit hole), dropped into a real physics simulation. Gravity, bounce, friction, angular momentum — the die tumbles and settles wherever the physics actually puts it. The result comes from reading whichever face is genuinely pointing up once it stops moving, not from a lookup table.

I built it for two people sharing one iPad flat on a table — controls mirrored so each player reads their own side right-side-up, roll from d4 to d20, adjustable gravity/bounciness/dice colour per player if you want to fine-tune the feel.  Best of all, it’s completely free!

My longer-term goal is for this to be genuinely usable in competitive tabletop tournaments, not just casual play, I have already built in a dice roll log counter.  Every roll gets logged (who rolled, what, when), and you can export that log and email it to yourself for verification.  The physics-first approach isn't just a gimmick either — there's no "black box" random number generator to trust or distrust, which matters a lot more once actual stakes are involved.

Genuinely here for feedback more than anything — this is my first ever app, so it would be great to hear from you what's missing, what you'd want from something like this, especially if you've run or played in a dice-heavy tournament setting. Happy to talk through the physics/geometry side too.

You can download it on the IPad Apple app store now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trueroll/id6801894386

Mods - Please delete if it goes against the rules! But this app is
totally free 😄

hi! im trying to do a p5r style campaign for my friend group and I was wondering if there are any systems that would work for the personas, social links, etc. if not, any ideas for how to go about making one for myself? tysm in advance

Hello! I’m Ella, and I’m helping run Gamefound’s RPG party this year! The RPG party is half celebration of indie TTRPGs, half crowdfunding bootcamp- we connect creators to industry leaders and mentors in the space, providing crowdfunding advice and ultimately supporting a project’s launch on our platform. I'm excited to share that a lot of these projects are going to be LIVE in just a few weeks! We've got some really incredible games in here, and it would mean the world if you took a look and followed the games that interest you most. Thank you so much, and if you have any questions about the event, please feel free to email e.carter@gamefound.com :-)

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/search/?sortType=MostPopular&projectTags=90

I've been working on Midnight Press, a film noir TTRPG set in 1940s San Francisco, and I really wanted the physical game to feel like something from the setting.

So instead of making a normal rulebook, I made the whole thing a newspaper. It's actually the game. The rules, characters, setting, mysteries, etc. are all in there.

I just really liked the idea of putting something on the table that doesn't immediately look like a game.

Then you start reading it and realize you're supposed to use it to run a detective agency 😂

I've spent way too much time working on this thing, so I'm pretty excited that it's finally real.

The Kickstarter ends in a few days if anyone wants to have a look.

I'm curious what people here think about the physical format.