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the-ampersand · 6 months

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Since I am still chewing on the DIE Stapling post, I am going to do another about effort mechanics in ttrpgs because I am trying to write that Blasphemous inspired Trophy Gold hack (placeholder name: Penance). And one of the coolest mechanics for Trophy is its Risk Roll, which is basically an effort mechanic.

"But, Ampersand, what is an effort mechanic?" I hear you ask, dear mutual I am making up in my head. An effort mechanic allows you to reroll an action you have already attempted but failed or to get a bonus to a roll at the expense of some resource. Usually, that resource being the character's health. But it can also be something else like clues in an investigative game or even a narrative consequence (but that's usually called a Devil's Bargain).

The important part is that it gives a benefit but requires a sacrifice. And that's when the whole fanfare of psychoeconomics start. Because you need the sacrifice to be big enough to give the player pause and not use it every roll. And also you need the benefit to be significant enough to make it worth the risk and the expense. If properly adjusted, an effort mechanic can become a slow but sure spiral into the characters downfall.

Let's look at some examples!

Numenera is the first system I learn that had such a mechanic (but certainly was not the first ever). It is pretty straightforward in its implementation, too. You spend a fixed amount of the appropriate life pool and you get to reduce the difficulty of a task. Easy enough. But Numenera, being a tradgame as it is, the power creep upends any weight of the sacrifice. Once you level up enough, your pools become deep enough as to make effort something to just add to whichever skill roll you thought it needed a bit more oomph. This is not something wrong per se, but it can easily make your characters overly competent!

On the other hand, there's Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC is a peculiar OSR game in that it is a really spiced up retroclone, wriggling DnD B/X ruleset to a point where it is almost unrecognizable. I am sure there are plenty effort mechanics peppered in the text, but I want to point out its magic system because I absolutely adore it. To be a wizard in DCC requires active dedication. That is because almost every spell has a writeup of about an A4's length, filled with the various effects a spell may have once the dice is rolled. And the effect can be wildly different from a roll of 5-10 to a roll of as high as 30 or more. There are many ways in which you can tweak your narrative positioning to get bonuses to a spell roll (components, helpers, magic foci, whatever), but when the die is cast and the result is just not good enough you still have a last chance: to sacrifice your own atribute values to get one last push that might be the difference between a proper spell and a fiasco. This is the main cause of withering of elder wizards: they have sacrificed too much in order to achieve the power they sought.

And then, there's Trophy. Both Trophy Dark and Trophy Gold have excellent effort mechanics baked directly into their ADN thanks to the masterful procedure that is the Risk Roll. These are games in which you are tempted first and consumed later by an evil forest. You have a really small ruin pool and once it is filled, you are lost to injury or its dark influence. You are also a destitute adventurer that needs to get any gold or face almost certain death. So you need to get shit done, you need to amass enough successes as to bring bread home and you need to survive the process (or try to, at least). And that's when the Risk Roll comes and lures your with the most satisfying effort mechanic I've ever seen. You can always make a reroll, adding an extra die to your pool to boot. But if those extra dice, dark dice, ever become the highest ones, you automatically mark ruin. You get your success, yes. But you become closer to losing yourself. It exactly hits the spot between actually worth it and inescapably dooming the character.

Obviously not all games need to be about losing oneself to fate or circumstance, but I feel an effort mechanic very much pushes the narrative in that direction. You are sacrificing yourself, in order to achieve your goals.

And I think that's a quite powerful narrative device.

#indie ttrpgs #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #rpg #ttrpg design #osr #numenera #dungeon crawl classics #dcc #trophy #trophy gold #trophy dark

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aeshleah-guildmage · 26 days

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Just picked up this book and I’m immediately impressed that more than half of the page count is adventures and their equivalent of a mega-dungeon.

Very excited to dive in

#trophy gold #indie ttrpg #jesse ross #ttrpg #ttrpg community

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upsidedownsmore · 6 months

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A little pencil sketch of my Trophy Gold character Gourn, a fanatical woodcutter who takes pleasure in freeing souls from particularly twisted trees

#my art #sketch #pencil #Trophy Gold #character #my character #character art #oc #UpsideDownSmore's art

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snakeswithttrpgs · 2 months

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Trophy Gold, Bees and Betrayal

The longer you play, the worse it gets

Dark Fantasy

Character Generator with interesting results

You can influence the world AND create problems for other players

You'll probably die, so *not* dying feels pretty amazing

Since I've only played this game once with <5 brain cells this is more like recalling a fever dream instead of an overview.

Dice checks were pretty simple, 1d6 if there's nothing helpful and 2d6 if you can convince your GM that you're competent somehow

At times you get additional dice, the price being new problems introduced by your beloved fellow players

If your amount of ruin gets too high, you die. If shit hits the fan, you die. If you don't bring home enough gold, you're doomed too. I've never seen such unhappy adventurers.

Thanks to the character generator, our group was made up of a widowed blacksmith (the normal one), a half-dog person with an additional dog (there's a chance that the player was secretly the small dog), and a cook with a goat (for emotional support)

My characters gathered wisdom:

Bees are evil

Bees trying to murder you to steal your identity are even more evil

If you spend 20 minutes discussing how to get the treasure without triggering the traps, just do something instead of walking away to look for tools, because if you do, you'll get attacked. By bees.

If a person changes their appearance to match yours, don't try to rip their mustache off to see if it's as fake as your own, because you'll rip a hole in their face, find out that the whole body is made out of wax operated by hundreds of bees, and then you'll get attacked. By bees.

If an apparently nice woman tries to tell you that she only murdered her parents because they were evil, don't trust her

If she stops you from saving someone to question him, claiming that he's evil too and therefore has to die, don't trust her (more so if your GM sounds way too happy about it)

If you hear weird voices from dark caves claiming that bees are evil, don't follow that voice, because it could always be a flesh-eating plant trying to eat you. But it's also telling the truth, as it turns out.

If the weird lady gives you drugs to see in the dark and tells you that the bees have a weakness against them, she's lying (and you'll find out in the worst way possible, right before dying)

Splitting the party can save your ass - can't die if you're locked out of the boss fight

The true treasure was the trauma we got along the way (and the knowledge that bees are going to rule the world)

I hate bees

#ttrpg #trophy gold #I enjoyed the adventure more than the game itself #and I have no idea how only 1 person died

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dustfiremediafanatic · 4 months

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Trophy Campaign Update:

Today the Forge had another episode of Trophy, with Danny as GM. Joining us again as players were Steve, Johnny, Justin and Nick! Since this is a Patreon only show when released as podcast, I won't go into specifics but I would like to talk about the experience I have when I join in the Livestream.

First of all, anyone can join the stream chat. Though it's a Patreon only show later, it's free for everybody to drop by on Twitch to take a look! I'll add their usual link to the bottom of the post.

A Dustfire Media Livestream is an absolute riot of a time. Watching people make their jokes live helps add a feeling of realism and inclusivity, like what I'd imagine going to a live comedy show would be like. They're hilarious above table and in character these players know how to be diverse with who they represent, and yet still so very them.

What makes the Patreon episode streams that bit more special is most likely the Devil's Bargain mechanic. Usually, like with the streams for The Professionals (as far as I know, I'm dead to the world when those streams are live because it's 1-3am in my time zone), the GM can present a consequence that must be accepted by the player if a player wants an extra dice. A trade off of sorts to help progress the game with certain actions. If they don't accept, they don't get a bonus dice to the roll.

With the Trophy streams however, a Devil's Bargain is open to ANYONE to suggest - other players, or chat. So we the viewers get to add in our own potential consequences to the plot. This makes for some hilarious twists and turns, trust me.

Another thing in particular I enjoy specifically is talking with chat about the characters and story events themselves. If (SOMEHOW) you're not a Patreon, then there's likely someone in chat more than happy to give you a quick summary of what you've missed so you can join in like the rest of us. Or even if you just have internet connection issues! (Like me! Lagged pretty bad so a pal in chat helpfully posted the important points I'd missed in the 20 seconds of buffering I experienced).

I also find I learn new words, or even new ways to say certain words thanks to differences in upbringing/accent. Like the word Cuirass (Sorry Justin calling you out here for this particular one since it stuck out to me!) Justin was pronouncing it as "Coo-rass", whereas I've always thought it was pronounced "Cure-ass". I've not really heard the word spoken before however so now I'm curious! Is it just a Justin thing, or is that really how you're meant to say it?

I might have digressed a bit there, but the Dustfire never fails to deliver on great cliffhangers and full-depth stories leaving people eager to know what's happening next. Whether it's a one shot base being worked on and brought to life, or a completely new story created with a rulebook of any game, I'm yet to be dissatisfied with any of their content. Not kidding, it's all amazing!! Doesn't matter who is running the game either, all of them tell incredible stories.

Final note, and weirdly enough the reason I started typing this post; one major change between this session of Trophy and the last is that last session the game was Trophy Dark, whilst this one upgraded/morphed into Trophy Gold. The story is still the same (well, as much as we can tell for it!) And the Dustfire guys have assured us everything will make more sense in the end - alas it's only one episode a month!

Maybe if we get more Patreon participants they can stream it more... Come be a White Lotus Agent with me! More agents against the forces of evil is always a wonderful time ♡

I hope you enjoy your time with them as much as I do. Please find a link to both their Twitch page, and their website below (bonus - they've got merch too!)

#ttrpg #ttrpg community #ttrpg podcast #dustfire media #theprofessionals #podcast #twitch #trophy #trophy dark #trophy gold #patreon

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lordgreenmoon · 4 months

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Bilan Rôliste - Second semestre 2023

Les premiers jours de l’année sont généralement l’occasion des bilans, mais aussi celui des listes de résolutions ou d’objectifs. Voici donc le bilan Rôliste de mon second semestre 2023. Comme attendu, l’été a marqué un ralentissement significatif dans mes activités JdR. Pour avoir échangé sur les différents réseaux, il semblerait que je ne sois pas le seul pour qui le break de Juillet.…

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#2D6 Plus Cool #500 Nuances de Geek #Delta Green #Dominion #Forged in the Dark #L&039;Appel de Cthulhu #La Fabrique Imaginaire #La Laverie #Le Fer et le Froid #Trophy Gold #Voix d&039;Altaride

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fakedtales · 1 year

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The Trophy RPGs are some of my favourite games I’ve run and it’s amazing to actually see the physical versions finally. The books are beautiful and feel nicely sturdy, ready for all the use they’ll be getting in the coming years.

Trophy Dark tells short, tragic stories of adventurers going into places that don’t want them there.

Trophy Gold changes that style of game into a campaign about desperate adventurers trying to make ends meet by going into horrific places to pry up treasure

Trophy Loom is a setting book which embraces a kind of ‘anti-canon’ approach, giving a ton of resources but letting players and GMs build their version of the world.

#ttrpg #trophy #trophy dark #trophy gold #trophy loom #gauntlet publishing #Jesse Ross #my partner’s collection of skulls #my late mother’s woodcarved sword

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juddgeeksout · 2 years

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7 - HARPY, Trophy Gold: Roots of Old Kalduhr

7 – HARPY, Trophy Gold: Roots of Old Kalduhr

It had been a while as our summer schedules took their tolls from our gaming time but we got back to it. https://trophyrpg.com/ Again, I really love the format of Trophy Gold Incursions and Trophy Loom’s odd little details about the setting. They’re easy to use at the table and I suspect they’ll get even easier once I have the books at hand. Our games are short 2 hour sessions with a break an…