tissek @ tissek @ttrpg.network

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233

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2 yr. ago

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Baldur's Gate 3. Don't think I'll have much time for other games.

I agree with you, somewhat, that PbtAs do away with situational modifiers. If we consider a clean or barebones (pure?) PbtA. But that isn't so true anymore considering the whole family. City of Mist (mentioned) above is a PbtA that is all about situational modifiers and how to exploit them. Lots of floating numbers from all those tags. Ironsworn have a bunch of add+N among its moves and even more among the assets.

So there are PbtA that do embrace situational modifiers and introducing Scene Tags to them wouldn't alter things that much.

Fate! I knew I knew of a system where everything is tags. Well aspects. Read and played it so long ago that I don't remember that much about it. Think it was the "lite" version I played and ran. Didn't really stick with me back then.

O Brother where art thou

The music, the pacing, the twists, the characters.

Not that much. Manners, how they speak and what they are saying are for me much more important than good acting. I'm mostly acting (hehe) as a narrator until something sticks and it becomes easier to do it in first person. But even then the narrator comes in to clarify and emphasize things. Like if there is anger in the voice. If they avoid a topic.

Also narrating things goes so much faster.

In my opinion if the player doesn't tell me their Intent, what they are trying to achieve, how can I assess difficulty? Assess danger? Imagine consequences? I also want the tools for the task they set themselves upon. For the barbarian weapons used, positioning etc. For the talker their arguments. Acting out is not necessary.

Or just use an apocalyptic principle: "to do it, do it". If the character doesn't do anything that triggers a move no move is triggered.

If there is a side track that interests players/characters they swear a vow for it. Multiple concurrent vows that possibly intersect I've found to be the norm. If you have a big quest (vow) it is often smart to divide it into minor quests (small vows). Honestly vows are just quests by another name.

And yes you can run very long campaigns. Things may start peter out when you run out of interesting assets for the characters, when they are "complete".

Or it us just the ferryman escorting spirits of the recently dead to the next place. With none to usher them forward the dead are left wandering. But Death will reform and gather up the lost souls. So the dead of the party now have to find something else to inhabit so they are no longer technically dead. Time to build a mechanical construct? A flesh golem? Or find a few unbaptised newborns to be born again in?

Genesys is kinda good. My preferred generic system. Enough crunch and customization to give it meat while still flowing nicely. Only downside would be if you and your group needs physical dice as it uses proprietary ones.

Ironsworn (especially with Starforged) can almost be used as a setting generic system. Change up Oracles and Assets and you have a whole new setting.

You can also look at families of games, such as Crawford's X without Numbers. There you will get a system made for a setting but it still being oretty much the same system.

Sent you a dm

Copy this into your search and you will find something

!ttrpglfg@ttrpg.network

It being compatible with PF2E makes this look so much more attractive. Because PF2E is good.

When I ran more impromptu or loosley scheduled stuff I used a site called Doodle. I entered when I could run and potental participants could mark available etc on them. Worked well enough. Would have loved something where sessions could be suggested but that never really became an issue. You could do that with a google calendar. Someone adds a potential session, sends invites to everyone who then can mark their availability. Should work. You could also look into workplace meeting or planning apps.

Nowadays I never ever, not even if bacon flies, reschedule. Cancel sure but never reschedule. I don't have the time and most of those I play with don't have the time. To keep things running I recruit to five, have an ideal group size of four and run if three or more are available. Barely ever any cancellations. Only ones if I'm not available or if there is SIGNIFICANT plot development.

Oak, burch and hazel groves. No other reason than those are my favourite trees.

We are kind of blessed that this and Shadow of the Weird Wizard launching at the same time. But also when looking at this I felt fantasy fatigued, so much fantasy going on now.

Also because Tolkien wrote it like that.

Pretty much yes. From the Blades' SRD

Tier

Each notable faction is ranked by Tier—a measure of wealth, influence, and scale. At the highest level are the Tier V and VI factions, the true powers of the city. Your crew begins at Tier 0.

You’ll use your Tier rating to roll dice when you acquire an asset, as well as for any fortune roll for which your crew’s overall power level and influence is the primary trait. Most importantly, your Tier determines the quality level of your items as well as the quality and scale of the gangs your crew employs—and thereby what size of enemy you can expect to handle.

What the SRD doesn't mention in that part is that when there is a tier difference between your crew (your tools etc) and your opposition you get more/less effect. Generally how I run it if there is a +/- 1 tier difference I change the effect. Larger difference I either set up a clock or let the player's know they don't have what it takes (impossible task within certain parameters), that is if the opposition is higher tier. Flipped if the Crew overpower the opposition by that much there is no need to roll, they just do it.

https://app.diagrams.net/ I use this for all my mapping needs. From dungeons to quests and relations.

For this I used

• Line width 5 for direct relations
• Line width 3 for direct relation to their relation
• Dashed line width 2 between factions twice separated from the crew and put these lines behind everything else

And arranged factions is a somewhat pleasing manner.

The roman numerals is the tier of that faction, Bluecoats being tier 3 and Fog Hounds tier 1 for example. And the double line to Circle is that the crew have +2 relations to them, only +1 to the rest. Missed to explain this.

1. FIRST RPG played (this year)
   Beginning with a double whammy. First played (at all) is DnD 5e, the gateway system being the gateway. First this year (checking calendar) also DnD 5e since the first Tuesday was before the first Friday (Torchbearer night). That Tuesday group have been together for probably five years now. Thinking that being a good track record for an online group of strangers.
2. First RPG GAMEMASTER
   D&D 5e. Gateway drug being gateway drug and wanted to see if I could. Well, I could.
   This year - Blades in the Dark. This game is run as the tertiary game in my D&D group so we have something to do when the DM is away.
3. First RPG BOUGHT (this year)
   Went though my account and saw HumbleBundle January 1st and got excited, but it was just the bank date. Humble's purchase date was December 30th. It was the #Vaesen & #ForbiddenLands bundle.
   A bit further I found an 11SEK purchase from Drivethough on the 10th. Apparently it was a sale going on the then as I got #BasicRoleplaying for 1US$. Kind of a steal. Have yet to actually download the PDF and read anything. Just an offer too good to pass by.
4. Most RECENT game bought
   July 8th Swords of the Serpentine. A #gumshoe Sword and Sorcery game. Bought it for the #swordandsorcery wibes but will run it because Gumshoe looks pretty awesome.
5. OLDEST game you've played
   7th Sea (1999). Nothing else comes close. Ran a kind of long Thea-throttling campaign. Enjoyed the system but wouldn't return to it. We tried 2ed when it came out but it wasn't for us. We did swap Thea over to 2e though for the cleaner lore.
6. Favourite game you NEVER get to play
   After a fair bit of thinking as what I want to play I just run I've come to an answer. And that would be some Runequest (or mythras) in Glorantha. Buuut with a GM and other players that are really into it. Aaaaaand really leaning into the cult and mystic side of it. Yes, I think that would be my white whale.