Thanks for checking out Strange Times! A streamlined, highly hackable RPG system that emphasizes roleplay and narrative choices.
Strange Times is a setting-agnostic investigative horror RPG that uses a d100 roll-low system.
Played in any time period and setting, it combines the competency of detective narratives with the powerlessness of horror stories. In Strange Times, player characters are obsessed with learning about the dark forces hiding in their world—be they monsters, aliens, or ghosts. Every dive into the dark unknown will wear them down until they need to claw their way back into the light...
New stuff: Free modules every week in October!
House of the Dead
Beyond Myth
STIMULANT
#4 (coming 10/26)
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Fantastic news: I am officially a doctor!! And I have a new job!
With moving and getting settled in at work the year will still be hectic, but I'm hopeful I'll be able to return to this blog soon!
Gavin is starting work on more Strange Times content and I am looking to run Shadowdark for a megadungeon, so expect to be hearing about that in the new year :^)
Since I've had a few people asking about megadungeon stuff recently, and I am an avowed megadungeon megafan, I thought it might be fun to walk through an actual example of megadungeon play that exemplifies what I like best about it.
This post is going to be the first in a series talking about a room from a megadungeon that I ran over 20 years ago (brushing past that fact quickly lest the horrors set in.) It was a major room, probably the most complex and important in the dungeon, and the players passed through it frequently throughout the campaign. In this post I'll introduce you to the room, and then in later posts I'll talk about what it does well and how to use that lesson more generally. Below the cut is a reproduction of the map as I remember it.
Without getting into The Lore too deeply, some dwarves accidentally dug into hell, as one does. Classic trope, nothing wrong with using them. They quite sensibly shut the mine down and sealed if off, but word got out. A human king heard about this, and took over the mine, expanding it into a temple complex to curry favour / barter with hell. It went badly, as such things do.
This concourse connects several wings of the dungeon, spanning several floors. An enormous devil face statue emerges from the northern wall, above the second floor balcony and below the fourth, and a column of light shines through a hole in the ceiling onto the center of the floor. Several floors of balconies overlook the chamber, though the stairs to the fourth floor balcony have long since collapsed.
This chamber was not too far from the main entrance, with the party first encountering it on their second delve into the dungeon, though it would take two more delves for them to gather the courage to enter it. At the time they first encountered it, it was swarming with imps and other little devils worshipping the big face.
I'll summarize the key:
A. Hallway from the Entry Chambers, the first and easiest section of the dungeon.
B. Doorway to the Pilgrim's City.
C. Doorway to the Unholiest of Unholies. Sealed and warded against simple spells.
D. Doorway to the Old Dwarven Quarters.
E. Doorway to the Nobles' Section. Barred from the far side.
F. Portcullis to the Pilgrim's City. The mechanism has rusted out and no longer functions.
G. Doorway to the Halls of the Clergy.
H. Doorway from the King's Inner Sanctum.
I. Doorway to the Archive.
J. Doorway to the King's Inner Sanctum, locked.
K. Doorway to The Indulgences.
Stairway from floor 1 to floor 2.
Light from the hole in the ceiling.
Broken stairs from floor 2 to floor 4.
Big ole devil face. Its eyes are a one-way illusion, allowing anyone within the face to view the room below.
Okay that's a lot, thanks for sticking it out. While I don't want to wander too far off topic into the rest of the dungeon, I'll just briefly note that the Pilgrim's City and Old Dwarven Quarters are easier sections of the dungeon, the Nobles Section and Halls of the Clergy are slightly more difficult, the King's Inner Sanctum, Archive, and Indulgences are very dangerous, and the Unholiest of Unholies is, as one might expect, where the worst things (and best loot) in the dungeon are. This was 2nd edition AD&D, so there was not a presumption of fights being balanced, and traipsing through more dangerous sections of the dungeon at lower levels wasn't uncommon. The players also understood the varying levels of danger fairly implicitly, since the custom at the time was that any time you went a level further away from whatever the ground floor was, things got more dangerous. The only exception to this is the Unholiest of Unholies and I think we can agree that when it's beyond a magically sealed door under a giant devil head the danger is telegraphed.
Next post I'll start talking about what made this room work so well in practice.
Recontextualization is a word I use pretty much every time I talk about megadungeons. Let's talk about what I mean.
The first time my players reached the concourse, the room represented a fight. Light matters a lot in dungeon crawling, and the concourse is illuminated by the skylight in the ceiling, so when the thief, scouting for the party, looked down the hall into the room, they could make out most of the layout without risking being seen. They did not like what they saw. Multiple tiers of balconies means multiple places for enemies to shoot from or throw stuff at you, and makes it that much harder to get at them. Meanwhile, the entryway is very exposed, and the enemy would be sure to see them coming. On top of that, there was the giant devil face and the column of light, neither of which posed any actual danger, but both are the sort of thing that sets off alarms in the minds of cautious adventurers, especially since the thief could see the imps very specifically avoiding the light.
As I mentioned in the first post, it took several more delves for them to decide to actually risk the room. Only once they felt they'd gotten everything they could out of the entry chambers were the party willing to brave an attack on the concourse. Justified caution. It was a difficult fight, with the imps on the balcony using their breath weapons to make the party's life miserable, and one of the PCs died. But, victorious, the room suddenly presented a lot of possibilities. Before taking the room, they'd essentially exhausted all the dungeon they had access to. Now they had access to three new wings of the dungeon, and the concourse represented the frontier.
So far, this is all standard dungeon stuff. Nothing mega about it. But the party had already done enough delves into the dungeon to face restocked rooms, and after how hard the fight to take the concourse had been, they were not looking forward to the possibility of new monsters moving in. Especially scary was the fact that there were doors to a higher floor in this room, which presented the danger of monsters from those levels coming in and taking the concourse. They checked all the doors they could access, and when they found that they could open G, they spiked it shut. (Incidentally, this was a smart choice. The first time I rolled to restock this room, they totally would have gotten monsters from the Halls of the Clergy if the door hadn't been spiked.)
For the next few expeditions, the concourse became base camp. Then, during one of their delves into the Pilgrim's City, they triggered a trap that caused a room to rotate, cutting off their path back and forcing them into an unknown section of the dungeon. For several terrified days, harried by spectral nobility, they skulked through dark and deadly halls looking for a way back to safety. And then, with several party members on the verge of death, they reached a barred door, opened it, and found themselves back in the concourse. Nobody has ever been so happy to see a giant stone devil's head before. Having finally unbarred door E from the far side, they immediately spiked it shut.
By this point, the party had needed to re-clear this room several times, and it had sucked each time. So, when they solidified an alliance with some dwarves living in the old dwarven section, they persuaded them to take control of the concourse. This finally made the room safe, and it effectively became the base of operations for the party for a while. It was the room they came back to to rest in, store stuff in, and they really felt rewarded for their alliance.
But they'd still never been to the fourth floor, and reader, some of those doors were not locked.
After more than a dozen sessions of having this room be their safety, the party managed to piss off the creatures in the Archives during one of their delves. Blissfully unaware that they had done that, they continued merrily on their way. Meanwhile, the Master Archivist, quite a powerful wizard, came out of door I and threw fireballs off the balcony until there was nothing left to fireball. By the time the party was done with their expedition, they came back to find their allies, their base camp, and their sense of safety nothing but a smouldering mess.
Without knowing what had done that (the popular theory was that something had finally triggered the devil head), the party spent a while not really trusting the concourse. It went back to a space that they moved through cautiously, a nexus of wings, but always with a constant looming danger.
But with the dungeon getting riled up, a local knightly order showed up to shut down all this dungeon delving nonsense and barred the party from entering, fully collapsing the tunnels previously used to enter. Denied access to the dungeon entryway, the party found another use for the concourse. They climbed up on the mountain, found the hole of the skylight, and Feather Falled down into the room. While the party would find a few other ways in and out of the dungeon, for a while their primary means of access was to Feather Fall in and Levitate out of this room. (After a troublesome fight Feather Falling into some oozes that had seeped into the room during restocking, the party wizard also started throwing a fireball down the hole first, just in case.)
Fully more than a year into this campaign, they'd get one last recontextualization of this room in the adventure. The Damned King, within his inner sanctum, had been a recurring antagonist as they progressed in their exploration. After finally confronting and defeating him, the party opened door H, and found themselves looking at the concourse from out of the devil's eyes. It chilled them to realize that all the time they'd spent in the concourse over such a long campaign, the King had been watching them from inside this room. It was also here that they found the lever to open door C and delve into the darkest part of the dungeon. With that, the concourse became the threshold of the final wing of the dungeon, and the gates of hell.
When I talk about recontextualization, I'm talking about a relationship to the space. Within this campaign, this room was a looming fight, a costly victory, a wild frontier, a foothold to be defended, salvation from disaster, home base, the site of a tragedy, shattered safety, a secret backdoor, treachery revealed, and the threshold of hell itself. That's an intense journey to take with a space, especially given that nothing in this room even does anything. There's no traps, no mechanisms aside from a simple door lever, no enchantments or magical effects. It's just a central space within the dungeon, and the player choices and megadungeon mechanics create the story. Important story arcs that formed the backbone of the narrative, like the dwarves falling to the Master Archivist, emerged entirely unplanned. If I were to run some version of this dungeon again, it would likely tell a completely different story, but I have every confidence it would be a compelling one.
Howdy all! Good news: I am closing in on the due date for my doctoral thesis (yay!)
This is super time-consuming so I will not be active on here until that is over. Then I'll have to deal with finishing up my job hunt, moving to a new place, and finishing up some other random academic papers I've been working on
I will likely see you all in January! Stay cool ttrpg friends, very excited to see you all again soon ✌️
Hello all, unfortunately we have to cancel the free module that was supposed to release today. Life got in the way big time (everything is okay, just have a Lot more to deal with at our jobs than expected)
Sorry everyone! We'll try to do something extra special next month to compensate.
In addition to writing the Strange Times RPG, Gavin also writes for a local newsletter! Once a month, he showcases a non-dnd ttrpg. From the archives (June 2025), we have Blades in the Dark. You probably know it, you might love it, this game sees players embodying crooks and criminals in the gothic city of Duskvol.
"These spotlights are not reviews. I don't aim to criticize games here, but rather showcase what I liked about them, what design choices I feel worked, and what makes them special."
See the full spotlight under the read more!
I want a redo. This time last year, I published a review of Blades in the Dark to a whopping 15 people and it was bad. Not only was it my first review before I really understood what I was doing (at least to whatever extent I understand it now), but I wrote it in 4 days as a last-minute substitution. I look back on that Blades spotlight and cringe; it was rushed, poorly written, and my arguments did not convey my feelings. D+ work at best. However, I don’t blame myself. With a year’s worth of experience under my belt, I still find it difficult to adequately articulate all of the things that make Blades such an amazing system within a reasonable word count (or what I consider to be a reasonable word count). But I think I am approaching this thing all wrong. Blades is a game about thieves, right? So rather than try and explain the system like I normally do, I am just going to tell you all of the rules I think more people should be stealing from this book. Most systems are lucky to have one system worth taking, Blades has a dozen, so let’s get into it.
Clocks
Clocks are timers counting up to an event happening. They are usually either 4, 6, or 8 segments, and once all segments are filled, the thing occurs. Let’s look at an example that uses a positive and negative clock. Maybe the players are trying to escape a crumbling necropolis before the doors are sealed shut. Did the players succeed at jumping over a destroyed bridge? Add a segment to the “Escape” clock. Did a player fumble sneaking past the wandering ghosts? Add two segments to the “Locked In” clock. Any roll can contribute to either clock depending on the result, and, since clocks are made public, there is a visible threat/reward the players are aware of. They know the consequences of rolls, which makes the dice all the more thrilling. It is also a perfect way of modelling otherwise abstract outcomes to make them feel less arbitrary. If I say “the door shuts” after a series of bad rolls, it will feel like I just decided that’s what should happen, versus a clock that signals the risk ahead of time.
Stress
Stress is a penalty in Blades that players can optionally gain to help shape the story the way they want. The most simple example of this is that players can choose to gain stress to give themselves or another player a bonus on a roll. This is great. Giving players agency to give themselves an advantage allows them to signal to the GM what they care about and what they want to have happen in the story. Shouldn't there be a reward for caring? Stress can also be gained to let the characters say “no” when something bad is happening. If the GM narrates how the character gets stabbed with a sword or is seen by a guard, the player has full control to refuse by explaining how their character avoids the consequence and then takes a variable amount of stress. This allows for players to always feel like their characters are competent and aren't at the mercy of the dice. Should the character ever reach their stress limit, the character gains a Trauma; something that makes their character a little worse, but also a little more interesting. This makes gaining stress a gamble that players will need manage, but it is often worth the risk. Of course, there needs to be a way to clear stress, which brings us to…
Downtime
Downtime is a part of all RPGs, but Blades makes it a clear system with listed options. Think of it as a mini game between events players can engage with. During downtime, players can make fortune rolls to acquire items, train skills, reduce stress, and heal. The thing is that they can only do two of these things each downtime, which makes for really interesting decisions. Did you spend a large amount of stress in your last outing? Then you probably need to spend time gaining that back. Want to purchase a specific magic item? Make a luck roll to find it in the city. Do you think you need to heal now, or can you wait another day? It turns sitting around the campfire into an engaging activity that players are interested in and skips all the boring stuff in the way of the story progressing. Though, I have left out the most interesting downtime activity.
Long Term Projects
Long Term Projects are another downtime activity, but I think you can add them to your games without the needing the downtime portion in its entirety. Long term projects are goals the players can work towards in the background (modeled by a clock). Whenever they have a minute to work on a project, they can make a roll to increase the project’s progress until its clock is full and the project is finished. The project can be anything: hire underlings, bribe city officials, make robotic constructs, create a ritual, etc. A player can really dictate whatever they want as a project, but it is up to the GM to determine how long it will take. A simple task such as translating a book might only be a single 6 segment clock, whereas constructing a jet-pack might require multiple clocks and exotic materials that need to be sought after. Again, this is clear way for players to tell the GM what they want in the story and give them a mechanical way to work towards it.
Flashback
Flashbacks are ways for players to communicate actions their character would have taken in the past to assist with the present situation.. If there is a guard in front of a door, a player can call for a flashback where they befriended that guard at a local pub. There is some drawback to this (often the character gains stress based on how unlikely the flashback is), but it is still an incredibly useful tool for players. They no longer have to worry about saying everything their character does to prepare for a mission; they can determine it in the moment. This is probably the founding ethos of Blades: less prep, more action. An easy addition to any system.
Players Determine Attribute Rolls
Rather than the GM telling players what attribute to roll, the players dictate and justify the attribute to the GM. This seems small, but it can be a feel-bad when a player assumes one stat is used for an action only for the GM to have a different opinion. It also allows players to approach obstacles in different ways. If there is a locked door, one player might choose to lock-pick the door with Finesse while another player justifies how they would roll Wreck (they have a more liberal definition of "lock-pick"). This creates an opportunity for their character's personality to really shine through their actions, but the GM still has power by altering the consequences depending on what approach was used. The player using Finesse can probably get away without much issue, whereas the player using wreck might damage the lock making it obvious someone broke in regardless of the roll. This further helps color the action with the character's personality and also prevents players from always choosing a single attribute for every task as it might be harder to justify or cause more problems.
Players create NPCs
Going further with player agency is how NPCs are created. More often than not, significant NPCs are created by the players, not the GM. If a player decides that they want to meet with a friend who can get them inside the mayor’s house, then that just happens. That friend exists. The player even gets to name them! I have talked about before about why I think this is such a good decision, but to recap, players will be far more invested in characters they created. It also is more fun for the GM who has to worry less about making engaging NPCs and focus more on playing with the player's creations. What is that? A player wants to meet with a war buddy who is neurotic and makes experimental weapons? I can’t wait to play that character!
Group Character Sheet
In Blades, every crew of characters has a crew sheet. Functionally, this is a character sheet for the party that, just like PC character sheets, can level up, gain abilities, and increase its stats. Typically, the improvements on the crew sheet are way more powerful than those on the individual character sheet, meaning that if characters really want to expand their capabilities, they need to work together to upgrade the crew, not just themselves. This is such a great way to break "main character syndrome." By putting more emphasis on the group, players feel more compelled to interact and negotiate with one another to make sure the group's goals are met. It also allows for more interesting roleplay as characters now have a real justification for being with the other PCs even if they don't like them. Enemies can still work together because, at the end of the day, they both care about the group. We might even get to see them overcome their differences, or fall in love, or kill each other!
Roleplay for XP
If you are going to take one thing from Blades, it should be its experience system. XP is the easiest tool for encouraging player behavior, and yet most GMs remove it from their games. This isn't without reason. XP is tedious! But I think that is often a failure of game systems. How many games reward XP only for slicing down monsters? Players were going to do that anyways, so what is the point other than an accounting exercise? This is a real shame because gaining XP is exciting; players like to have clear progress towards gaining power. So, what does Blades do differently than most other games? It rewards XP based on three questions asked to every player at the end of each session.
Did your character do things specific to their class?
Did your character express their goals, beliefs, desires, or background?
Did your character cause problems due to their vice, trauma, or troubles?
Every questioned answered “yes” rewards the player with XP. Set this rule and see players find excuses to talk to each other about their characters' backstories. Watch them play into their class and engage with its aspects. Observe how they will create more compelling drama and problems by showing off their character flaws, bringing their PC into the 3rd dimension. These are aspects I feel every player should strive for and it is great to have a system that rewards them.
Conclusion (Not a Mechanic)
I could go on, but there is just too much in this system to love. The beauty of Blades in the Dark is seeing all of these mechanics work in symphony together, each one contributing to the system’s goal: to tell interesting, player driven stories with the least amount of fluff in the way. Players get to tell the stories they want, GMs get to be surprised and delighted, and more games will be unique as everyone works together to find the narrative. There is a reason so many new RPGs are using the Forged in the Dark system for their games. If you aren’t interested in the supernatural criminal underground of Blades in the Dark, you can still experience these systems in the mech fighting game Beam Saber, or the military conquest game Band of Blades. You can even set sail with a chainsaw boat along tree tops in the fantastical far future of The Wild Sea. But no matter what you are playing, I think adding in some of the magic of Blades would go a long way.
Drained — A sci-fi body horror nightmare with nowhere to run
A distress signal from a nearby moon base quickly turns into a fight for survival
Meadows & Mischief — A paranoia-filled adventure of discovery and dread
Discover a new town’s past and uncover secrets long buried
The Shadow of Doubt — a slow-burn, sprawling mystery that gradually converges on a single location
Investigate a small town where someone goes missing every month
The home of the Strange Times: An Investigative Horror RPG
Just in time for spooky season 👻 the Strange Times rulebook comes with 3 ready-to-play modules. Try out Strange Times for free and run a streamlined horror-mystery adventure, or adapt any of these modules to a system of your choice!
I wanted to show off an example Strange Times character sheet featuring my very own character: Atticus Micheals, a down on his luck tape salesman (I had recently learned that tape was invented in 1925, and our game was, much to the chagrin of the DM, set in 1927)
Download a hi-res pdf of the blank character sheet here!
We can see that Atticus pushed himself to the brink, spending down his Saves to succeed at failed rolls and taking damage directly to those Saves when hostile encounters didn't go his way. The Body Save in particular is dangerously low, putting Atticus close to death...
He's a very talented salesman, getting bonuses in situations where he can use his Smooth Talk skill, but the emotional and physical injuries he's sustained will hinder him when he tries to run or keep cool. The Possession condition is particularly bad, requiring successful Spirit saves to maintain control of his body during dramatic moments.
He's also obsessed with Egyptology, as his involvement in the paranormal started during a horrific encounter with a mummy during his... less ethical business days. The DM is able to use his obsession to compel him into dangerous situations, but with his briefcase full of tape, Atticus was able to get himself out of most scrapes! Seriously, the tape came in handy more often than the revolver.
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If this kind of flexible character building and high-stakes stat system sounds up your alley, give the free Strange Times demo a try! It's got rules, GM tips and tricks, and 3 adventures ready to drive your character to their wit's end
An alert awakens your crew... the Vasquez research station has been radio silent for days.
Your team works for Cardis Insurance, your employer and debt holder. Tasked with settling the case and clearing the station of any threats to the salvage teams, your job is to find any reason to void their insurance claims or die trying.
This October only, download this one-shot, trifold adventure in hi-res for free on our website or Patreon, with new one-shots coming out every Sunday!
Content Warning: This module features extreme gore and self-inflicted harm. Talk to players before running this module.
- Story Spoilers for GMs -
Spoiler-heavy overview: The characters will discover that the facility, while damaged, appears to be fully functional. Damage from an asteroid field has released a genetically modified creature. It has killed most of the crew, but that is not where the horror ends. The pheromones the creature produces, the reason it was modified in the first place, has caused a madness among those who have come into contact with it. They roam the station seeking sensation and excitement at any cost.
This trifold features a mapped out 13 room space station. The station has fresh horrors and delights in every room, and we suggest connecting it to a larger campaign as follows:
CAMPAIGN STARTER: Consider using the Orion 6 Data Disk as a
campaign hook to discover more military-funded horrors.
I actually got to play it earlier today!! Meet Sirs Periwinkle and Violet, their battle was legendary
We did have two questions about the game after playing: 1) it says half of the attack bonus on the shield should be added to counter, is that a typo? 2) who wins in a tie? (We just rerolled all ties)
And by everyone I mean mostly Slimuel. But for real it has been an absolute blast entering the ttrpg community on Tumblr. Everyone here is really lovely and I've gotten exposed to so many cool games
An alert awakens your crew... the Vasquez research station has been radio silent for days.
Your team works for Cardis Insurance, your employer and debt holder. Tasked with settling the case and clearing the station of any threats to the salvage teams, your job is to find any reason to void their insurance claims or die trying.
This October only, download this one-shot, trifold adventure in hi-res for free on our website or Patreon, with new one-shots coming out every Sunday!
Content Warning: This module features extreme gore and self-inflicted harm. Talk to players before running this module.
- Story Spoilers for GMs -
Spoiler-heavy overview: The characters will discover that the facility, while damaged, appears to be fully functional. Damage from an asteroid field has released a genetically modified creature. It has killed most of the crew, but that is not where the horror ends. The pheromones the creature produces, the reason it was modified in the first place, has caused a madness among those who have come into contact with it. They roam the station seeking sensation and excitement at any cost.
This trifold features a mapped out 13 room space station. The station has fresh horrors and delights in every room, and we suggest connecting it to a larger campaign as follows:
CAMPAIGN STARTER: Consider using the Orion 6 Data Disk as a
campaign hook to discover more military-funded horrors.
If you don’t know, anon is asking about A Pilot’s Purpose, the tactical, mechsploitation TTRPG!
In between missions in A Pilot’s Purpose, pilots take three “downtime actions,” which all do something discretely beneficial for the players, such as lowering their Frenzy, affixing new parts to their mech, giving them free Equipment, and so on. You can see this kind of mechanic in other games, namely His Majesty the Worm, Blades in the Dark, and Ars Magica.
Something cool about A Pilot’s Purpose is that in addition to the benefit, each downtime action has a small table of random events! For each action taken during that period of downtime, the player rolls on that action’s table and writes down the result on an index card. Then, they hand it to the GM (or, as we call them, the Director.)
Here's an example~! You can see the Pilot's name and callsign at the top, the downtime actions they took, and the results they rolled!
The GM then lays out each player's card before them, and, reading the results, decides which scenes to play out, which to pass over, and in what order!
For a real example that occurred in one of my games: a pilot named Angel decides take Digging action as part of her Downtime, which allows her to progress one of the campaign's Intrigue Tracks. Having seen something curious at her Handler's apartment earlier in the campaign, she chose to progress the "Personal" Intrigue track, hoping to reveal more about her Handler and the rest of the HQ's staff. She notes down the benefits she gets for taking the action, then rolls a d6 for the random result: a 2.
Looking at the result, Angel's player tells the Director that Angel probably snuck back into her Handler's apartment to go through her things.
The Director agrees this is is dramatic, and describes how Angel finds sepia-soaked pictures of her Handler's father founding the Company and building the HQ. Not only does this reveal that the Handler is the heir to the Company, but family photos also reveal that the Handler is one of Angel's fellow pilot's sister. Frustrated that her teammate is rich and connected enough that she could have any life, and chose to be a pilot, Angel screams and tears up the photos. Only to realize her Handler is standing behind her, gun pointed at her head.
What follows is a brutal scene of the Handler leading Angel back to HQ at gunpoint, then throwing her around by her hair and forcing her to clean up the dead body of someone else who dug too deep into the Company's doings and origins.
Everyone at the table is engaged, afraid for Angel’s life. Then, the Director reads that the second Downtime Action Angel took was Chilling Alone, and she rolled a 3.
Not sensing much drama there, the players and the Director briefly describe what that looks like, how Angel is feeling post-body cleanup, then move on quickly.
Even without such a reveal, you can imagine how this mechanic drives fun and drama. Since the rules say that if two players are taking the same downtime action they are most likely doing it in proximity, and the story of the campaign is in part explored through downtime actions (ask me about that next), the game encourages novel, plot-propelling scenes with ever-changing combinations of player characters.
Downtime Cards allows the Director and the players to collaborate and create the most dramatic narrative possible using their characters and the rules of the game. The game uses randomness to suggest scenes, but players deciding themselves which scenes to explore, in what order, and in what detail, is SO fun. Speaking humbly, of course.
So, those are downtime cards! They’re a vital part of the game and perhaps the single most novel part of A Pilot’s Purpose. Although that title may go to the brainwashing…
I feel like a lot of the time I go on tumblr I see people with very creative ideas but no outlet, its a shame. Fortunately, there's a lot of resources out there for people willing to look! and I have some right here that you all can peruse at your own leisure
"I wanna make a TTRPG but I can't draw!"
While right off the bat this is a bad excuse because you can make a ttrpg with no art, if you really need images to go along with your ttrpg you can always look at public domain images! A lot of ttrpgs use public domain/free to use images in them in order to demonstrate certain mechanics. some mix it together with image editing for very unique aesthetics such as Cain, where Abbadon's unique and strange art style is mixed with backgrounds of real images to emphasize the alien nature of the creatures within. Some public domain image archives include:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/
https://pdimagearchive.org/
"I'm not super experienced with Game Design!"
This is a valid excuse, but one that can be fixed! As well as a lot of TTRPG discords having game design channels and people who would gladly help you with Game design questions and basics, there's also plenty of resources out there for learning how to make fun and interesting games with relative ease
https://levikornelsen.itch.io/the-deck-of-rules
This is one of my favorites, it gamifies the process of making a game by turning key points in your game's design into puzzle pieces to put together
https://levikornelsen.itch.io/cycles
https://levikornelsen.itch.io/fundamentals-of-tabletop-roleplaying https://levikornelsen.itch.io/manyfold
While less Fun than the Deck of Rules, these documents by Levi Kornelsen go over basic game design principles and getting started on your own TTRPG, its a worthy read for any aspiring developer
"I wanna make a TTRPG but I don't wanna make a full system from 0!"
That my friends, is where SRDs come in. SRD stands for System Reference Document, and they are extremely stripped down versions of pre-existing games meant for developers to be able to use said SRD in order to create their own original game, WOTC famously had a very very loose SRD named OGL... until it didn't! which caused a months long debacle about copyright and fair use, leading to the creation of ORC, which is Paizo's (which is like the DemSoc alternative to WOTC) response to their OGL, and I haven't really seen much from that front so far but thats for another post. Below are some SRDs, if I'm missing any assume its on purpose and I personally despise the developer as a person
https://bladesinthedark.com/basics
Blades in the Dark is by itself a TTRPG about being a group of criminals planning heists on rich people and growing your own faction. Its SRD is best used for games where players control factions, and games that are narrative-heavy while still wanting a focus on episodic "Missions"
https://far-horizons-co-op.itch.io/brinkwood-srd
Brinkwood is about being a group of Fae hunting aristocratic vampire barons to free society in a very "eat the rich" fashion. I actually have never seen a game using the Brinkwood SRD, but I like Brinkwood so I'm sure you can do some fun things with it :)
https://sealedlibrary.itch.io/wretched-alone-srd
As we all know I despise solo games and think we should throw all journaling game devs into a pit (this is a joke.), but Wretched and Alone has an SRD that you could use to make a simplistic but fun Journaling game
https://gilarpgs.itch.io/slayers-creator-kit
Slayers is a TTRPG about being monster hunters in an endless city , and it has a very open and solid SRD to make games in its style. Slayers is a simplistic combat heavy game so keep that in mind if you're gonna make something for it
https://gilarpgs.itch.io/lumen
LUMEN is a toolkit used by GilaRPG's series of Warframe-inspired ttrpgs... Lumen, I'll give you a warning here: Lumen seems simple on its surface but if you treat it like a barebones plug-and-make engine you are going to make a very very bad game, you need to really focus in and make everything around the basic die rolling and rules interesting and complex.
https://litzabronwyn.itch.io/you-have-two-stats
This is just a guide on making Lasers and feelings type games, simplistic one page TTRPGs with one stat, I think if you're just starting out making a quick and dirty Lasers and Feelings hack is the best place to start out
"Where can I find more not mentioned in this post?"
Well, the website Gift of Dice is a massive archive of TTRPG resources that you could peruse on your own time! This list is just a collection of some of my favorites.
Now go out there and go make your brave little toaster inspired OSR or whatever the hell you people want to make, just don't forget to send it to me when you're done!
The characters are setting up a newly opened private investigation company with an interest in the paranormal. Just as they're putting on the finishing touches, there's a knock at the door.
Velma Callahan needs help solving her husband's murder. She knows who killed him. She did. Bullet to the back of the head. The issue is her husband is still walking and talking, and she needs to know why.
This October only, download in hi-res for free on our website or Patreon, with new one-shots coming out every Sunday!
About the system
Free demo with rules, tips, and 3 modules
15 minutes rules video
This adventure is a one-page trifold designed for the Strange Times RPG, but feel free to hack it into any system you'd like!
Here's how to read the trifold once its folded up:
The cover is 100% spoiler-free and okay to show to players, and the back has a spoiler-heavy overview of the story for the GM, along with helpful notes and key NPCs
The inside of the trifold can be lain flat to show all of the key locations + the clues and NPCs at each location. This is the GM's command center for the game!
You might be wondering why the MIDDLE panel is the start of the adventure, and that's because...
You can fold the right side of the pamphlet to show longer versions of all of the clues that are in these mid-game locations! This gives you all the info you need in two side by side panels.
- Story Spoilers for GMs -
Spoiler-heavy overview: There is a mysterious doctor by the name of Eric Moreland who has a bad track record with patients. He has found the secret to immortality and is now experimenting with life and death. There is no simple way to kill Dr. Moreland, but the characters will follow in the footsteps of his victims to uncover a ritual that can put an end to this nightmare once and for all.
