#ofhomestuckandoranges

[cameoappearance]

you aren't tumblr famous (yet, i'm still trying to inflict you with that curse), but i keep seeing you in random posts and tbh that makes you tumblr famous in my heart

I accept your curses with open arms 🖤

[penguinkinggames]

Good morning! I was wondering, would it be alright to hack one of your free titles (in this case, OLAF HITS THE DRAGON WITH HIS SWORD) for a game jam on itch(.)io? Obviously released for free with proper credit and links back to your site, and not just a word-for-word copy, we'd be happy to send you the document for perusal first or answer any questions.

Knock yourself out. The protestations of certain prominent publishers notwithstanding, you can’t copyright a dice-rolling mechanic -- as long as you’re not lifting the text of Olaf Hits the Dragon verbatim, it’s all cool. That goes for anybody else reading this, too!

[prokopetz]

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All requests from the Void will be directed to Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, a game of unlikely saviours in a world that does not, properly speaking, exist. Players are divided into Fatalists (who have authority over the setting lore), Theurgists (who have authority over the game’s rules), and Wishers (who have authority over the social contract of the table), and between them they must invent the game that they are currently playing, thereby speaking the world into being. A bare-bones dice pool mechanic provides a means of resolving disputes when players disagree about the current state of the rules and lore; with very good rolls you can even depose the GM and take her place!

[cameoappearance]

ofhomestuckandoranges replied to your post:

i cant believe famous tumblr blogger cameo j appearance is a watermelon in disguise

You didn’t see anything, human

[prokopetz]

Good evening! I was tossing around a setting idea in my head earlier, when I realized I couldn't think of a non-magical RPG set in, say, Classical Greece, or one meant to be set in a similar type of setting (low tech, no magic, etc). Without consideration for genre, do you know of any like that? Besides the generic choices, like skinning Fate SRD or something.

It’s funny that you should mention Fate. If you don’t mind going Roman rather than Greek, you might have a look at Eagle Eyes; it’s a Fate Accelerated Edition hack where you play as secret police in the service of the Senate during the waning days of the Roman Republic. Tonally it’s very film noir, and it does a reasonably good job of reinterpreting the tropes of the gritty private detective genre through an Ancient Roman cultural lens.

If you’re prepared to be flexible in your definition of “magic”, you might also have a look at AGON. It’s definitely on the mythic side of things; player characters are capable of mildly superhuman feats, you’ll fight monsters, you can get mechanical bonuses for suitably propitiating the gods, etc. However, there’s no real concept of playing a dedicated “magic user” or casting any sort of spells, nor are magic items presumed to be commonplace, and the tech level is strictly Bronze Age. You could dial it a fair ways toward the the non-magical end of the spectrum simply by asking your players not to create half-god characters and putting them up against mostly human opponents. (I’d still keep the bonuses for suitably propitiating the gods, though, because it’s a huge part of the cultural milieu.)

[prokopetz]

If you haven't already done it (and if you have, I couldn't find it), what system do you think would make for a good Bloodborne kind of game, combat or tonally? Combatwise, I was thinking a re-skinned Feng Shui would work, but I have no experience so could be totally wrong on that one.

You’re not going to get anything like a 1:1 mapping at the tabletop because so much of Bloodborne’s gameplay loop depends on it being a largely solo exercise with very limited opportunities for cooperation. The best way to go is probably going to be to decide what in particular about Bloodborne you want to capture, then pick a game that’ll give you that in a party-based environment.

For example, if you want tactically dense setpiece combat with a strong emphasis on battlefield positioning, you might give some thought to reskinning Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. While 4E has a semi-deserved reputation for being tough to homebrew for, it’s remarkably easy to reskin existing content, and it does the gonzo fantasy martial arts thing - at whatever level of bloodiness you care for - very well.

(Note that I mean 4E in particular there; 5E has a weaker tactical game, and 3E/Pathfinder has issues keeping melee combat viable at higher levels.)

Alternatively, maybe you don’t really care for fine-grained tactical positioning, but you want something that captures the rhythm of Bloodborne’s combat system; in that case, you might have a look at Anima Prime, which uses mechanically abstract manoeuvres to fill up dice pools that are then wagered on decisive strikes; by default it’s really more suited to Final Fantasy or RWBY style games, but if you’ve already accepted that you’re going to have to some reskinning to make things work, there are worse places to start.

On the flip side, maybe you’d rather gloss over the blow-by-blow of combat and focus on the over-the-top survival-horror stuff, in which case you could possibly reskin Don’t Rest Your Head to good effect. It’s one of those games built around a gimmicky dice trick, but I think it’s one that would work well for this particular source material, especially in light of Bloodborne’s thematic focus on dreams and what can happen to the protagonist in some of the endings.

Finally, this one isn’t a proper recommendation, since it’s a game that isn’t out yet, but you may wish to keep an eye on Rose Bailey’s Miserable Secrets, a self-described “Casvlevania-punk” RPG that alternates deliberately paced investigative phases with tactically crunchy hunting phases; it could be useful if you want to delve into the worldbuilding and still break out the battle grid at key moments. There are no public previews at this time, but you can score a playtest draft via the author’s Patreon. (Just don’t pledge to download the PDF and immediately cancel, because that’s not cool!)

[prokopetz]

Any suggestions for a game based on Where the Water Tastes Like Wine style Americana? Almost, but not quite, American Gothic?

You might have a look at Unknown Armies 3rd Edition. The default setting is rather more modern than Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, even if it is American, so you’d need to do a fair amount of reskinning in terms of the milieu, but the system should work pretty much as is. Notable features include a magic system based on embodying cultural archetypes, and a character building system where your skill ratings are directly tied to your exposure to particular psychological traumas; e.g., getting hardened to violence makes you better at fighting, but also impairs your ability to emotionally connect with people.

[tamuru]

In a similar ask-meme vein, Breath of the Wild, and failing that, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine?

BOTW

never played | want to play | terrible | boring | okay | good | great | a favorite

Where the water tastes like wine

never played | want to play | terrible | boring | okay | good | great | a favorite

I’ve said about it, Playing BOTW makes me feel like the first time I played Ocarina of Time as a kid.