Proposed Game List

This was the right of it, but it’s mostly to have process so that we’re not fumbling around saying “well I like everything” or “I have no strong opinions.” Really it can be deviated from at any time, it’s just a good starting point.

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Sounds like a good/better version of what I said.

If I had to provide a list of seven right at this moment, it’d probably be:

[EDITED]

  • Apocalypse World - possibly for the fae-pocalypse “Ironwall” thing.
  • Demihumans, which is also an AW game, really.
  • Mouseguard - because I think we could do something pretty good with a one-year (four season) arc, and I’ve never run it that far.
  • Stonetop - DW with all-different playbooks and community building
  • Scum and Villainy, for caper sci-fi.
  • World Wide Wrestling
  • Zombie World - PBTA game using card-draw mechanics, about … community. And zombies.

Come Monday, I’ll list them off with pros/cons. Feel free to disregard unless you want to prep an x-card.

4 posts were split to a new topic: Game Pitch: Stonetop

4 posts were split to a new topic: Game Pitch: Henshin

I have a few other thoughts here, which I’m mostly sharing to solidify them in my mind, prior to Monday.

Full confession - I’ve never read the rules all the way through - they flummoxed me in the early betas, and it wasn’t until Dungeon World that I really saw the point of the system, to be honest. This isn’t a detractor, but it’s worth noting. Both running AW straight and Demihumans will need me boning up on the assumptions of the game, which is at least in part “the world you knew ended, this is after that, and if you want to hold your community together, you’ll need to manage the maelstrom.”

I like the mechanics. The setting is … sort of a demonic-lightning-punk Victoriana. The assumption that you’re bad guys out for yourselves is… baked in pretty hard. Even with the Vigilantes play set, you’re really just getting on the side of the angels about as far as Daredevil, Punisher, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones.

Now with all that said, the biggest turn-off for some of us is PvP, not tone. So we’re all in the same gang, and on the same side, so that’s fine. Tone can be modulated. Goriness is in narration, which we control, etc etc. With group consensus and conscious effort we can very forcefully AIM at The Palace Job, but those 7-9 results are mechanically where the game is going to land a LOT of the time. But bad things happen, and that can be a bummer for some of us.

It’s worth noting we’re not marrying any of these games - a shorter-run thing might be good, so picking something that we wouldn’t necessary want to see run for 10 months may be a gift.

  • Stonetop - DW with all-different playbooks and community building

I’ve actually got a pretty good feeling about this one. I imagine the village leaders arguing about solving problems via reckless means. “Yes, the ruins are dangerous, and yes, strangers have gone in and never come back, but those were idiot strangers; the last time WE sent people (coffthree generations agocoff), they came out with treasures that kept us in steppeland wool for years. I say we go!”

Of these two, I’m leaning toward Scum and Villainy. ID doesn’t really have the ‘caper’ aspect reflected in there mechanically, the way S&V does. More on that as I read more into both rules sets, and maybe listen to some APs. S&V doesn’t seem to have the same darkness Blades does, either.

  • Zombie World - PBTA game using card-draw mechanics, about … community. And zombies.
    [/quote]

In this case, I’m most intrigued by the NPC/enclave/background creation - the slow timed exposure of PC backgrounds/history. I’m also morbidly interested in a high-lethality PBTA game, but I’m a zombie apocalypse guy - it’s just my jam This is one of those “well, we already know it’s a shorter-run game” types of ideas.

9 posts were split to a new topic: Game Pitch: World Wide Wrestling

I’ve been ruthlessly pruning game-specific discussions out into their own topics, let me know if I missed a post. There’s a specific pitch post for Stonetop, and might be one for Henshin! if I see much more movement there (or if someone beats me to it and just spins up their own).

VERDICT: Scum and Villainy, zany scifi adventure.

Like many people, Robert Bohl migrated off G+ to his own blogging platform, which I followed. I updated the Demihumans link above to reflect the new place he’s posting play material.

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Mouse Guard in the news!

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http://www.infinitegalaxies.net

This game feels like it could be used for 50s style space sci-fi romps such as Rocky Jones Space Ranger, minus the sexism, but as a pbta game it feels frustratingly unfocused. Still, might be neat to try some time.

So the guys behind Fellowship have started a Kickstarter for their second edition and it is the oddest Kickstarter I’ve ever backed.

The second edition book is already done and if you had bought the first edition PDF on RPG Drive Thru/RPGNow, you get the second edition for free. The funding for the Kickstarter goes towards two books in the game line (one of which is getting made regardless of the outcome of the campaign). It’s unusual, but it fits Liberi Gothica’s oddball publishing history.

I won’t say its a great game (it’s basically a more typical PbtA Dungeon World without a lot of the carried over D&D-isms) but it’s one I’ve always been sort of kind of interested in.

So, if not Mouse Guard, perhaps … https://tsaomengde.tumblr.com/post/184005691582/gemstonechronologist-monkeysaysficus

(via @fragolakat)

Tangentially related. Over the weekend I got to play the Mice-Men of Mirewald, which is a fun Mouse Guard-inspired Lasers & Feelings hack. It was quite fun. It doesn’t have anything in the way of long-term advancement, but it was still fun.

This one’s for Doyce:

(Well, a bit for me, too.)

Well, not to name names, but…

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A new Magpie PBTA game on Kickstarter:

Opens in a few days. The link is to their draft Kickstarter proposal.

Looks fun.

I added Demigods to the list. I played a session of it and it feels fun and well thought out.

I updated the Demihumans link, it’s now being published by Evil Hat.