This clarifies a great deal about how I should be handling position in #BitD:
• Give controlled position to character acting on their expertise
• Players decide whether to take a consequence or re-approach on controlled rolls
• Rerolling (as risky) improves overall odds for success
• Position is built to cascade down the scale, with possibilities to re-roll until you fail on a desperate action.
A short post on the logic behind Tribes in the Dark playbook design.
I started playing around more with Obsidian, particularly the Juggl plugin, after I saw a post about it. I have to say...big learning curve. But at the same time, super flexible. I love that all of the notes and whatnot can be graphed. It eliminates the need to have the notes in one app and any relationship map ln another app. Just drop a note with the details, tag it correctly, and Obsidian will take care of the rest.
A thing I've started doing a lot is rolling a die when I need to know something about the detail of the fictional world. Can ghosts communicate with the living? Can skeletons write? Sometimes this leads to delightful surprises and exciting turns of events. Sometimes it leads to things that feel a little... "off" I guess. There's many cases where reasoning from principles and making a ruling is the better choice. I'm still figuring out what that line is.
Tips for distinctions in Cortex Prime
http://aggregatecognizance.com/p/cortex-dissecting-distinctions/
I'm in the #QueerGamesBundle with my game Turn, a sliver of life supernatural game set in rural small towns where you play shapeshifters finding balance between human habits and beast instincts, building community, and trying to life life as someone who just isn't like anyone else. Themes of identity, community, & growth are big in this one!
Get the bundle here:
https://itch.io/b/1404/queer-games-bundle-2022
PWYW:
https://itch.io/b/1405/queer-games-bundle-2022-pay-what-you-can-edition
#sales #bundles #ttrpgs
The Xenobiology Codex is live, weee!
https://screwylightbulb.itch.io/xenobiology-codex
"An AI-generated compendium of 96 pages of alien flora and fauna with fantastical sketches, illustrations, and scribbled notes and annotations, resembling the Voynich Manuscript."
96 page high-res print-ready PDF. Images created in MidJourney.
CW: AI-generated art
Sometimes I just like some relatively mindless boot-stomping noise. #industrial #music
https://youtu.be/ga-h3nxXMTI
Lifted is Cortex Prime superheroes + Jahmal "Mad Jay" Brown + a killer creative team + an iconic premise:
"Lifted Vol 1 is a roleplaying game about people manifesting superpowers in a world unbalanced by treacherous secrets and advanced technology run amok."
"Lifted is inspired by comics like WildCATS, Stormwatch, Planetary, and The Authority, and of course all the X-Men books."
This looks like a home run.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/madjay/lifted-vol-1-indomitable-rpg/description
Just backed Mad Jay's latest Kickstarter - bringing '80s style "underground strike team" supers to Cortex Prime. Check it out!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/madjay/lifted-vol-1-indomitable-rpg
I've been going back through the document to make some updates and clean up a few things, and I'm in awe that this is a thing I helped create. It's pretty damn good. And once I'm done with these corrections/updates, I'm going to continue expanding out the rather skeletal playtest rules into fuller, detailed text. The "how to play" chapter is next, and I'm pulling out all of the stops in terms of advice, examples, etc.
When we made the playtest document for Tribes in the Dark available, we hewed relatively close to the FitD SRD in terms of the amount of content, which wound up being a 60-ish page PDF. There were some deviations, largely in terms of rules changes and setting-specific stuff (the playtest is doubling as a "quick start"). We got positive feedback on how we recomposed the FitD material, using a single column plus sidebar layout like Tribe 8 had. #ttrpg #TribesintheDark #FitD
Holy shit: Jeremy Strandberg (author of the amazing Dungeon World blog Spouting Lore) archived 31 Google+ communities by converting them to WordPress posts, preserving 37,000 G+ posts in the process.
I stumbled across this today. It feels like finding a literal treasure trove.
https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-g-archives.html
Put up a little primer about narrative gaming terms. Please don't judge me, these are my definitions.
https://aggregatecognizance.com/p/narrative-gaming-basics/
I've written a piece about custom advancement in Apocalypse World. It raises ideas beyond this one application, so if you're interested in PbtA or working on a PbtA game, you might find it useful!
https://lumpley.games/2022/05/28/apocalypse-world-custom-advancement/
(He/Him)
Be a fan of your players
Tribes in the Dark lead designer: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/377688/Tribes-in-the-Dark--Playtest
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