#batbrobeyond

[herbertwest]

Thoughts on Waluigi?

It's a crime against humanity that he does not have a solo game yet. I once posted just the word 'Waluigi' on facebook and confused my older relatives so badly.

[prokopetz]

I'm designing a tabletop RPG of my own because I'm not entirely happy with anything else I've seen (Traveller is too crunchy, Star Trek is too tied up in its own lore, etc) and I enjoy the process anyway. Looking for other RPGs to compare against and study from. My system is GM'd, roll-the-dice-do-the-thing, built for the adventures of a small starship crew. Other things I've already looked at: Mindjammer, Stars Without Number, Danger Patrol, Adventures of the Space Patrol.

I can think of a few other RPGs-in-space that might be worth stealing from in service of that premise, apart from those already mentioned:

Ashen Stars - A relatively slow-paced sci fi game that focuses on the investigative procedural side of the genre – which covers rather a lot of the classics, to be honest; there’s a great deal of crossover between planet-hopping sci fi and detective fiction, especially in the early days. It’s built on a GUMSHOE System variant, which means it straddles the line between dice-based and diceless games: your action skills are of the conventional roll-the-dice-to-do-the-thing variety, while your investigative skills provide pools of points that can be spent to automatically receive various clues. The idea behind this split is that the player characters’ attention is a resource, and how they choose to spend it is a more interesting question than whether they make their Perception checks.

Beautiful Anomalies - Strictly speaking this is more of a time-travel RPG than a spacefaring RPG (and very obviously inspired by Doctor Who – not that that’s a bad thing!), but there’s enough thematic overlap between planet-hopping sci fi and time/dimension-hopping sci fi that most of the mechanics are readily transferable. Its rules are pretty meta compared to anything else on this list – it’s more concerned with getting the pacing right than with directly simulating anything in particular. If that’s not a deal-breaker for you, it’s got some great ideas to steal, including a novel reverse death spiral where your virtuous traits get more game-mechanically powerful the deeper in trouble you find yourself.

Lady Blackbird - A no-prep minigame from the authors of Lasers & Feelings, this one bundles pregenerated cast of characters and a oneshot adventure together with simple core rules based on wagerable dice pools. It’s a decent system to adapt for any rules-light game where resource exhaustion is intended to be a bigger threat than getting stabbed or blown up – like, say, the flight of a fugitive starship crew. There are a number of other titles that have borrowed Lady Blackbird’s mechanics, most notably the standalone cyberpunk campaign Always/Never/Now, but the original is probably the most directly relevant to what you’re trying to do with your own game.

Scum and Villainy - This Star Wars pastiche is one of the first standalone games to be published under the “Forged in the Dark” imprint, meaning it’s based on the system initially developed for Blades in the Dark. Like its predecessor, it’s a gritty heist caper game that pairs in medias res action framing with flashback mechanics that let you retroactively have planned for unexpected twists, plus a rigorous downtime system for sketching out what your characters get up to between crime sprees. This one really plays up the idea of the party’s ship as a character in its own right, to the extent that the ship has its own character sheet, and what kind of ship it is basically determines what genre of game you’re playing.

Also, if anything in Mindjammer grabbed you, it might be worth your while to track down its less gonzo quasi-predecessor, Starblazer Adventures. It’s sadly permanently out of print due to an expired license, but copies have been known to turn up from time to time.

[ghoulsey]

What are some good video games you have played this year?

I’ve really enjoyed playing Tyranny in small spurts (I’m bad at isometric games), civ 5, shadrowrun dragonfall, jotunn, and darkest dungeon.

Unfortunately I haven’t had tons of time to play games so I’m like so behind on everything I want to play :(

[ohhicas]

Junkrat or Hanzo

Han may be My Boy but JohnnyTest was my first main so

[laundryandtaxes]

batbrobeyond replied to your post “Literally just saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in person in my...”

You got a gun.

Oh, don’t tempt me!

[herbertwest]

I'm actually trying to listen to 50 albums by 50 new (to me) artists this year and have been taking recs from my friends and would love one (or more) from you!

But in the spirit of the game I'll first give you the song DragulAPT by DJ Cummerbund.

WHOA that is a MASHUP. That should NOT work as well as it does. I love it.

I want to give you some Weird and Obscure stuff, so here we go!

Let's start off with Arkhitektonika, with Господин Градиент (Mr. Gradient)

I love the video because they are clearly showing off stuff they had in their basement. One guy does a backflip for no reason. it rocks.

Next up is Mind Control by Eric Bass Presents. Eric Bass is the bassist for Shinedown...I don't like Shinedown, but Eric Bass' album, I Had a Name is a super fun cheesy dystopian concept album.

An artist I've been digging recently is Moon Walker. Here's his song, New God.

And let's go with one more...Disco Lizard is a Croatian artist, not to be confused with the British Disco Lizard. Why there are two, I do not know. Here's his song, See You in Paradise

[herbertwest]

Sapphire, Raspberry, and let's throw in a 🍓 for good measure.

I think fighting god under a microscope is the plot of ant man or something haha

As for 🍓: I love hearing about your RPGs, you take such care in their construction and it's so obvious that you want to make them Maximum Fun. Truly delightful!

[herbertwest]

🛸

The Conspiratorial Oracle has taken note of you! The Conspiratorial Oracle constantly spews messages over the radio waves, but they are all in code. It is said that three people on Earth know the cypher. No one has ever seen the Conspiratorial Oracle straight on, but it appears in blurred photographs and children's drawings.