befriend rats & kill god in a lush portal fantasy adventure by jenna moran

come on a journey with me?

there - past the scaffolding, past the rafters, up above past the windows and gables and fire escapes, if you make it to the roofs -

you'll encounter environments not of this world. rooftop gardens that have twisted themselves into dense forests, church spires that have , tiled expanses that stretch into the horizon and become meadows, gutter-lakes, deserts, mountains...

you'll encounter them, too, if you really look: the rats.

they want to show you these places, navigate them, map them, study them, know them. they want to befriend you, guide you, tell you their stories and weave new ones where you feature alongside them. if you want to make any headway, up there on the roofs, you'll need their help.

after all,

this is a place where the gods do tread. if they find you creeping about their domains, they will find you, kill you, transform you, dig their hooks into your very soul and never let go.

the rats know a secret.

gods can be killed.

you are the key.

the far roofs, currently crowdfunding, is home to some of the best role-playing game i've ever had. participating in several playtests has completely sold me on its viability as a system. notable are its set of unique oracle mechanics that tie into its freeform roleplay system, determining the physical and emotional outcomes of different events. gather hands of cards and tiles to weave together magic that can alter even monumental fates, fight peril with dice rolls, and collect components for spells and make headway on character advancement by spending time getting to know your companions, both human and murine.

it is, of course, written by dr. jenna moran, best known for previous innovative ttrpg experiences about divinity, such as nobilis, glitch, chuubo's marvelous wish-granting engine, and wisher, theurger, fatalist (WTF).

the philosophy of the far roofs is that dungeoneering is about the journey - the sights you see, the meals you make, the tales you tell, the companions you gain and lose - as much as the monster-slaying. each combat is a descriptive crescendo of the experiences faced up until that point, encompassing everything you've felt thus far. if any of this intrigues you, then, well... come on a journey with me?

King Death lives on an island on the lake and he looks out from the shore.

Long ago, Grandmother Rat took a raft out on the lake and found herself on the island of the Solitary King.

She was not yet wise, then—just a middle-aged ordinary rat. She hadn’t yet woken up. So when she smelled King Death, she tried to hide, but there was no hiding on that shore. When he came for her she fled; tucked herself away between two halves of a broken branch … but it did not do.

King Death’s hand came for her. He pulled her out and dangled her above his maw.

A cornered rat will fight, even if she is a common rat, even if there is nothing special to her at all.

She twisted. Got her tail and head and two legs free and bit deeply into King Death’s hand. This gave pause to Death.

“So, little rat,” he said. “You would bite Death. Well, you shall know what you have tasted. ...”

Now on Kickstarter!

Dr. Jenna Katerin Moran, Glitch: A Story of the Not

Transcription:

When you have been on fire for long enough it becomes very difficult to disentangle it from yourself. You lurch from place to place screaming and flailing, but you do not think, “There is an underlying self here that would not be lurching from place to place screaming and flailing, were they only not on fire.” You try to concentrate on your work but every time you try to type something your keyboard melts and every time you try to concentrate you get distracted by the awful pain. This, you inevitably take to be evidence of your own poor character. Look at you, always melting keyboards. Always screaming. Where would you be, if you were not on fire? What would you be doing? Are you even really capable of not being on fire? You have long since forgotten such concerns as these, recalibrating your expectations of yourself to match a brand imposed from the outside in.

Posted to Lepontic Record, by Diane Drees, 8/14/17

There is another world, you see. Right next door to our own

If you go up ...

If you go up, and you run the roofs like the rats do, you'll find the roofs getting closer and closer until eventually they merge; until you can’t see the houses any longer beneath them. If you keep going from there, you’ll discover whole landscapes that have been hiding above us: strange fairylands, magic gardens, inexplicable towers; all manner of wonders.

There’s this whole world of magic, and to get there, you just go up, over, and on for a bit.

... regrettably it is the demesne of the Mysteries.

This is Jenna Moran's newest game, using a derivative of Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting's system with some new twists and the introduction of new oracle technologies about going on adventures with rats and fighting terrible and numinous god-monsters, the Mysteries!

Oracle technologies?

You're rolling dice, you're drawing cards, you're assembling scrabble tiles to address your problems. All the classics.

But isn't Chuubo's and all that a whole big family of games I'd need to learn first?

No worries! While The Far Roofs is a Chuubo's spinoff, it's written to be standalone and playable without any knowledge of the setting- in fact, it's written such that many games can be set in your normal life, like a sort of portal fantasy situation full of cool rats

Tell me about the cool rats

The Fortitude Rats are rats that gained gained intelligence and grew to be two or so feet tall when they stood upright (which they can do). They're a bright and passionate people, and they make it their business to fight with the Mysteries, numinous monsters and gods that exist on the Far Roofs. Everyone sets out with a group of rats, who in this game are described with various archetypes, like some sort of commedia dell'ratte

Will I get to sit with my feelings as I look out over windswept familiar-yet-alien roof vistas before going to fight a terror that's haunting my life, but also maybe that I've fallen in love with?

Oh You Know It

It's a bonus episode! This time around we read a book which is about one hundred different things but may be primarily a cautionary tale about trying to raise children to be heroes. With special guest Leora!

Pancake Week

Today is the fourth day of Pancake Week: a day heavily focused on fighting, particularly grappling.

The Flood is a tabletop game by Jenna Moran about poetry mutilation and farmland financialization. Last August, Farn, Zero and I all played it. These are the results:

Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein (maimed by me)

There is a place where sidewalk ends And right before the long street bends, And there the grass grows soft for friends, As under sun the road it wends And there the moon-bird rests from flight To cool in the peppermint night. Let’s leave this place where smoke blows white And dark streets wind away from sight. Yes, Ickle, Pickle, Tickle Too Go o’er sidewalk with flying shoe. “Hooray! What fun! It’s time we flew!” Say each and every -Ickle Too And Captain Ick drives Pick down streets While Tick cooks stews with beans and beets And higher, higher, in their seats Ick Pick and Tick chase sidewalk’s sweets. Past pits where asphalt flowers grow We walk a walk measured and slow, And watch where chalk-white arrows go To reach where sidewalk dare not flow. Yes, walk a walk measured and slow, And go where chalk-white arrows go, For children mark, and children know Where sidewalk ends, it ends fo’ sho’.

Question, by May Swenson (vivisected by @eternalfarnham)

Body my house my horse my spouse How will I rouse when you are soused Where will I sleep What tea will I steep What prey, like sheep Upon shall I leap Where can I go With my to all fro too late for the show How will I know in thicket ahead If my genes will spread when Body my shed- raised dog is dead How will it be to lie fancy free without cash to buy A house in Mai Lai With cloud for shift how will I grift? Body, mortgaged horse and house And rouses GDP from the thicket How can I rest? I’ll sell my shed-raised dog And we all lie fancy free in Mai Lai To profit without needing any grift But how am I meant to grift When I own such a profitable house, Comparable to a timeshare in Mai Lai And bring with them a faithful little dog Called Body to investigate thickets? Your wallet will ever be thick. It Will let you achieve results without grift Your investors? Like sheep. Just trust me, dog, Your body, like a temple, but, a house On such a venture? You can’t let this lie! But if you don’t want Mai Lai Or to eval treasures in the thicket, Away this deal, then turn to theft and grift Then let the cops slam you in the big house Where you’ll be eaten by a faithful dog. In this race I have no dog. Do I seem like the kind of girl to lie? If so, I’ll return to my giant house, Because I left you in the cruel thicket, And need therapy. But my guy has grift And back the world’s most profitable dog: The body of this poem is no grift. You can’t let this venture eternal lie As if dead, never roused from the thicket. You’ll thank me when you beat the gambling house. A thicket fit for capital’s running-dogs, In you I lie, and profit without grift.

untitled, by @cloakofshadow (grievously injured by Zerovirus)

The world was born in flame and gold, By decree of realm’s supreme, Fresh and free of painful earthly debts. You would not dare the market break, The world was born- then torn and sold, Creation’s value pierced the sky It pleases you to buy and buy and buy To know all things would surely grow in price. A thousand graphs housing bearish prices, That quaver tracking values of soft gold, Merchants follow but one goal supreme, Flee from spectres, shadows of your true debt. All souls are born in void, and break, So why not make some cash when they get sold Souls born in an empty void-like sky Know nothing but that they must buy buy buy. And all their reason works to buy Lights that cast no shadows but for price, Each night ursines fight for flecks of gold, Strive and strife and prove themselves supreme. Constant siblings are their death and debt, Each others’s skulls they crack and fiercely break. No use for pebbles that you cannot sell, No need for solid stone beneath the sky. And even you, who seeks the sky You would not dare not to buy; You’ve made the grave your lordly price And drawn all warmth from hoarded gold Atop which you take repose supreme Lest ye be taken by the cursed debt You fear to burn but shall be pleased to break What you hold but know can never sell. An empty place beside the antiques sold Rich linens shipped across the distant sky My lord has said, you shall not buy, You shall not spend, you shall not price, You shall be bold and uphold gold, You shall not fear the doom of debt, You shall fund the one true high supreme, Your assets shall not break. But wake again when you are broke, I make to you a flaming sell- And swear on god who rests in sky, That your name she sure shall buy, And till she returns next with a price, To labor for your pile of gold. Worry not about your debts, But sing praise towards the supreme. This world of gold that does not bend or break Where souls are sold and take with joy to sky The will of god is buy at any price! Debt is frail; your wealth shall reach supremes.

Apologies to the artists involved, but we did survive the Flood and made upwards of thirty three thousand imaginary dollars.

Glitch: A Story of the Not by Jenna Moran

Jenna Moran will write some shit like "The Shadow Is a moral implication, but it does not have one. Construe events accordingly" and you'll have no idea what she's talking about but nevertheless understand that she is obviously correct.

i want to teach you how to play chuubo's marvelous wish-granting engine...

(diceless rpg released by jenna k. moran in 2011)

... in as few words as i can manage!

there's a person running the game and playing the world (here, they're called the hollyhock god or "HG" for short.)

and one or more other people playing several characters who serve as the game's central cast (the player characters, or "PCs" for short.)

if you're one of the PCs, your main goal is to progress through a storyline by earning experience points ("XP") before play, you'll be given a little card with a set of goals on it. this is a quest. it describes the kind of story you're here to tell with your character today.

a quest needs a certain amount of XP to be completed, at which point you earn a reward and proceed to the next quest.

you can get XP in a few common ways:

completing the goals described on your quest card (major goals can only be completed once and give a large amount of XP, flavor goals can be repeated indefinitely but grant a smaller number)

participating in scenes with other PCs and/or the HG, talking to and working with one another and describing how your character feels. (this is an XP action, and you can take one once per scene)

evoking a specific emotion out of the other players that they reward you with XP for (this is called emotion XP)

a scene involves one or more PCs interacting with one another or the world. once everyone's been in two scenes and taken two XP actions, that is a chapter. you tally up all the XP you earned, refresh your resources, and the session is over.

that is the core loop. you try to progress directly on your quest, you spend scenes interacting with other players, and you play into the archetype you've chosen for a few bonuses. finish a quest, unlock a new storyline.

in other words: you have experiences as your character which give them the will to grow and change.

check out this example ^^^

this one's structured for a loner character-- some mad scientist or mage who knows that the world is in danger and is eager to solve that problem all alone.

but... this isn't really a story about singular great men solving singular great problems alone, though. how much can you tell about this character, their conflicts, and where they're headed, all based on the quest structure alone?

your challenge is to:

do the things listed on the card, when possible. take up burdens, structure the weird ominous dreams and portents your character is experiencing, create scenarios where they have to rely on others against their better judgement (quest XP).

spend time with the natural world and/or the other PCs every scene, having experiences that affect your character personally (XP actions).

act as your character in ways that drive the other players to stunned speechlessness, the usual target reaction for this character's archetype (emotion XP).

be loose and have some fun with it. you'll be working with several quests at a time, so try to chain them together and create openings for other players to fulfill their own goals as well.

... and you've done it! those are the fundamental basics of the game!

There is a mystery, and its name is Unicorn ...

You hear hoofbeats where you shouldn’t. You hear the sound of bells. You see flowers growing where they shouldn’t, and the flowers are overpowering in their sanctity. You feel a cold, sharp, fresh wind coming in suddenly from the distant sea. And if you’re vulnerable, if you’ve opened that door in you, you feel it, too:

This is it This is the thing This is what my life is for

But I will tell you now, this is not so.

It is a sacred thing, the sacred thing; but, sacred things destroy.

The Far Roofs, now on KIckstarter. A game of talking rats, and monstrous gods ... and you.

(300% funded, with 46 hours left!)

If I had the World Breaker's Hand, I'd absolutely use it to shave.

What's the relationship between CMWGE, Nobilis, and Glitch? The bits of understanding I think I've picked up so far are that they're all (diceless?) ttrpgs and are in vaguely the same setting but at least one's setting is an AU of another one's? They sound really cool, but really confusing, but really cool despite and/or because of the really confusing, and continuing to just pick up the random bits that tumbl my way is Not Enough. Help?

Okay!

Let's talk a bit about publishing for background

In 1999, Jenna Moran (formerly R. Sean Borgstrom) published the first edition of Nobilis through Pharos Press, resulting in what is often called the "Little Pink Book". This was a small run, and it proved successful/interesting enough to get picked up by Hogshead Publishing in 2002, resulting in the second edition of Nobilis, which is often called the "Great White Book". This is the one a lot of people think about when they think "Nobilis", and really put it on the map in the tabletop gamer consciousness. In 2011, the third edition of Nobilis was released through EOS Press. There was a lot of drama involving the publishers and distributors for the last two editions but that's not relevant to your question. Also, a fourth edition is in the works.

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (CMWGE) was released in 2015 after a successful kickstarter, initially through EOS Press and then through Jenna's own efforts and the support of a generous benefactor due to her separating from EOS for some of the aforementioned publisher drama. Its technically a multimedia project that also has two associated novels, The Fable of the Swan (2012) and The Night-Bird's Feather (2022).

Finally, Glitch: A Story of the Not was self published in 2022 after another successful kickstarter. This is the most recent of her games within the collective game line, sometimes referred to as "gluubilis" or "the Ash Tree Engine".

Why'd you tell me all that?

So you'd have context for this.

Mechanically, each of these games represents a development on the preceeding works; every later game iterates and develops on the previous games and concepts. This looks something like this

1e/2e Nobilis > 3e Nobilis > CMWGE > Glitch/4e

in terms of major mechanical divisions and advancements.

All the systems are diceless and there's a lot we could say here, but probably the biggest single innovation would be the introduction of Arcs and Quests starting in CMWGE, providing a strong narrative xp framework for all the future games to engage with and be built around.

In terms of the setting, all the games except CMWGE take place on the Ash-Tree Earth in which the universe is a big tree in a cup of fire that's presently at war with the forces of the Void. Nobilis explores play as the Nobilis, individuals empowered by the rulers of Creation to defend it against the Excrucians, the representatives of the Void. Glitch flips this around and has you play as one of those Void beings who used to fight in the war, but is now abstaining from it for any number of reasons.

CMWGE takes place in a world that was drowned in a sort of ontological uncertainty called the Outside. It's set in a possible future where the war of Nobilis and Glitch doesn't reach a conclusive end, but rather the world was cast into an interregnum during which any number of things are possible and also you can have slice of life adventures and shit. None of that background is actually necessary to know to play CMWGE, but I think it's enriching and also it'll help explain some of the various otherwise insane things we the players and fans will say about it. Again, though, nothing actually like. Holds you to that if you wanna do something of your own. CMWGE is notable for being the most customizable of these systems by far.

What's next?

A couple recommendations!

First, I'd recommend reading some of these games! Glitch and Nobilis 3e are imo the most accessible of the game books + they're ones still in use, but CMWGE is also absolutely worth checking out; just be aware that it's handing you a toolbox, so there's a lot more big chunks of mechanics to work through. Honestly, don't be afraid to skip around these books and look at whatever catches your interest. They're very rewarding reads! If you want to read fiction, The Fable of the Swan and The Night-Bird's Feather are both also really good starting points.

Next, talk with people about them! The scene is kinda scattered, but you can still find people on tumblr, Twitter, and cohost at the very least who're talking about this stuff. There's also an official discord and an older fan discord (you can ask me for an invite to that one) where people are pretty active.

Also, just, try playing the games! A lot of the apparent complications are a lot easier to parse and understand when you actually see them in play, and they're fun games.

Finally, don't be afraid to keep asking questions! Given the chance, a lot of us won't shut up about these games, myself included.

hey guess who just wrapped up a game of Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, which is/was (probably) a game that is (probably) made by (probably) Dr. Jenna Moran

it's good it's silly it was a good silly time

(only the first 3.5ish hours are WTF, the rest are a different game)

Pancake Week

Today is the first day of Pancake Week.