I’ve enjoyed running Thirsty Sword Lesbians so far :)
Agree, this is what I look at as well. I try to have the XP difficulty match close to the party's "xp budget". I like using the encounter difficulty calculator at https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/ because it shows both CR and XP, it's very basic and minimalistic.
and hopefully better quality link - https://imgur.com/a/WpLi1wN
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I made a Strings page for Thirsty Sword Lesbians. free to use. And in the same imgur link is an example of how I set it up in roll20 with labels too
I’ve been slowly collecting resources for this system, but a free Strings page is one I haven’t been able to find yet. My players struggled with tracking strings with just the character sheets, so I cigured I’d share for anyone else who runs TSL :)
I use an inspiration variant, allow free switching of weapons, and don't track encumbrance (the line is narrative ridiculousness basically.) So far I've seen players use inspiration more but I'm always looking to encourage it. We've tried a couple of variants.
The second book, Advanced Lovers and Lesbians, has more encounters / game prep help in it. overall it's a small system. There's not a lot of resources for it yet sadly. I prepped by watching some other groups on youtube play one shots for more examples of how the game works.