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alexissara · 1 year

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My Currently [Or Recently Active] TTRPG OCs.

The best part of TTRPGs for me as a GM or a Player is making characters. As a story teller I have always been a character driven woman and I've always enjoyed a big cast of characters since I really enjoy characters in general. I wanted to share some of the characters I've been really enjoying playing as recently while I've been playing TTRPGs.

Feel free to share yours as a reblog and if you like my OCs and want to see work featuring these or similar characters in the future you could run on over to my patreon or ko-fi and help me have the money to make more cool art.

[Art By https://twitter.com/Atobe_draws ]

Lena and Nela Arondite [She/Gay]

System: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Playbooks: Scoundrel, Ensemble, Matriarch

Blood Princess Lena Arondite, Captain Lena Of The Liberators, a woman of several titles who is always ready to defy fate. Lena is plural and her headmate Nela shares the body with her, they both use the name Lena with most people. Lena was a runaway princess, not wanting to marry the man her parents set up for her. So after a few failed attempts to escape with her beloved she ran away on her own which lead to her becoming Captain Of The Liberators. After years her crew were captured by a Bounty Hunter Lena played a game of cat and mouse with forcing her to surrender herself for their sake. She was forced back into being a princess but this time serving a different country reporting back any and all information to their head of information.

The disaster Lesbian fell in love with a lot of people, went through a big encounter finding out she is plural and that their purple eyes weren't an accident but that The Pure Lady, a twisted parasite goddess had intended them to be part of her plans inserting a piece of herself in them when they were yet alive. Lena was captured by her and saved by her friends and new lovers she made at the Academy she had been forced to attend.

After this she playbook changed representing the relationship between herself and Nela as they began to really understand the powers granted to them by the defeated goddess and more about themselves. During this time they also had a couple of babies. Becoming a family woman with both new babies and dating a mother of twins paired with her found family she switched over to a Matriarch. Gay are dealing with the conflict of wanting to do it all for everyone and be it all for everyone. Lena loves her family, wants to make the world a better place, has obligations to the kingdom again for a long term plan to remove the throne, and is helping fight in a revolution all while trying to be with all the people she loves.

[Art by https://twitter.com/matte_bat_ ]

Selena/Selene Tsukino [She/Her]

System: Super Idols RPG

Playbook: The Actor

Queen Selene built an indie pop power house with her dear friends. She created the new band The Powder Kegs gathering who she thought were the best indie talents on the table to win the battle of the bands reality show The Tour. Selena's parents were part of an international mob her mom and dad ran the Japanese part of the operations but they would often take her traveling with her. With that they imparted the importance of her learning English along with her families native Spanish and Japanese. She would eventually move to America with her aunt once her parents were in hot water. The pop star hoped that her music could inspire other trans women and lesbians to be fully themselves but also hopes that it can inspire people to oppose the oppressive structures of power that lead to her family being involved in stuck in mob activity.

As a super idol she has the power to create things with her voice and shapeshift. She is not great at fighting and is far more of a tactical mind putting together schemes, flirting, seducing, manipulating, and a pretty good shot if she has to. Queen Selene is determined to win the gameshow and boosting Empress Records to make her dreams come true. Even then though, her secret dreams may come to clash with her new friendships and partnerships and it's an exciting ride.

[Made With https://picrew.me/image_maker/1414503 ]

Arma Guardiana [She/Gay]

System: The Watch

Playbook: The Lioness

Arma has recently been turned into an NPC for the story the next character is in but I still wanted to go over my poor traumatized transbian. Once, Arma was in love with a girl named Elspeth. They were from separate flocks, ones that had a centuries long grudge but she demanded their love be respected and it was at the very least tolerated. Traveling together with a group to gather resources for their peoples Elspeth was among the first few to be corrupted by The Shadow, a force that turned men into terrible monsters and seeked turning others mostly into things of beauty of objects.

Arma defeated the corrupted Elspeth but didn't kill her hoping she would return to normal one day. She joined The Watch a group of women set to fight The Shadow taking care of her own Talon of Soliders. Eventually leading to her facing off against Elspeth once again only now she was far more powerful, thinking she was totally lost she killed her only to find she was in fact still in there, knowing there was some way to heal her she had not thought of.

After that battle she was even more jaded defying orders to face the Shadow at it's source with her talon. Together they defeated it removing it's sway over their continent but refused a hero status becoming a wander after suddenly taking care of a baby.

[ Made With https://picrew.me/image_maker/1630807 ]

Lethe Guardina [She/Her]

System: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Playbook: The Naga

Born of the shadow and her mother Arma Lethe was always a strange girl. Her mother raised her to hide her true nature, her flame powers and her origins. Even she isn't sure how Lethe came to be or why, all she knows is she looks a whole lot like her now long dead girlfriend Elspeth. Lethe became a healer using her powers to heal "The Scared" from their shadows letting them go back and live life no longer monstrous and a threat to others.

With her two fellow healers at her side they are traveling the lands helping heal people one person at at a time. Yet, on their latest mission they had managed to heal someone only to let someone else escape and grow more powerful in the pull they had from the shadow. The trio are now licking their wounds at their own failure as they return to the city unknowingly getting wrapped into something bigger.

[Made With https://picrew.me/image_maker/1650524 ]

Tiara Tamer

System: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Playbook: The Chosen

The key to the gate between worlds, Tiara Tamer knows her destiny is important yet firmly disagrees with her mothers approach to her destiny. Tiara is set to be wed to the number one player of Essentia: The Summoning in the world with her card and the Key's to her mother's company all gifted to that top player if they can manage to stay on top. Tiara cooked up a scheme with her best friend Ariana for them to take the number one spot. Yet, Ariana ended up betraying her when she became number one serving her mother as dutifully as the last number one.

Tiara heart broken clings to just a few sparks of joy left in her, her childhood best friend Bell and a new group she has been assigned to work with that seem like maybe, just maybe they won't be the same kind of users she dealt with her whole life. Still the card game playing Lesbian's willpower and confidence is faltering as she faces heart break after heart break.

[I can't find the source picrew I used]

Serena Owlnight (She/Gay) [Four Houses Edition]

System: Thirsty Sword Lesbains

Playbook: The Chosen

The Vampire Witch Serena Owlnight was reanimated in a strange way unlike any vampire before her. She became a vampire after totally breaking the mind control of The Pure Lady [Remember her from Lena's info] having lived as her twisted Paladin for some time. The witch had lived with her adoptive mother Jillian Owlnight helping her with cases and living life as a chill flirty lesbian. Until when she was looking into some missing persons for someone and found a Pure Light outpost preparing to mind control a group of people. She fought to set them free but was captured after getting everyone else out. When she was set free by the party she returned to her mothers side only to eventually move with the rest of the party to help her best friends and girlfriend all of whom had decided to take up home with the parties.

Serena is looking to uncover what it means for her to be vampire all while Elder Vampires look to turn her into their own tool. This is all happening while she helps no the front lines of the revolution of her home land. She is a organizer for the anarchist movement across Dragonia and doing her best to make sure the labor forces in the revolution don't crumble. In secret she worries she is a danger to everyone around her due to the nature of her transformation and the trauma for being made to fight against her core Values for years under The Pure Ladies control.

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devilishdelights · 1 year

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lowkey wanna design an outfit for tsl mc/henry

#like idk I finished that bit in lesson 40 somethin where they were all in that rpg. and I’m just imagining a knight holding onto a tiny #fairy lucifer. he didn’t wear the fairy costume but i can Do What I Want #plus their tsl outfits are so fucking cool dude #like initially I’m thinking they’re just in silver armor with pale purple and pink accepts to match the sheep but.#hmm #accents*#o god… are there cosplays of the tsl brothers

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corvid-gae · 2 years

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WIP of one of my DND characters (might just draw all of em I'm playing atm)

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #drow #this technically isnt dnd #its tsl #thirsty sword lesbians #but it makes it easier just to group him in with the others since he WAS dnd before i repurposed him LMAO #ttrpg #tabletop rpg #tabletop roleplaying game #some dumb art tag #digital art #sketch #wip #work in progress

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thatwitchrevan · 4 months

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Telling you to play Knight of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords is going to mean nothing if you haven't played Knights of the Old Republic, are down to play Star Wars games in general, or want to get into the nitty gritty, philosophical jank of Star Wars and are willing to play a game that is also jank in a technical sense to get it. But if those apply to you and you haven't played The Sith Lords you'd be doing yourself a favor. Get the restored content mod.

#if you like star wars and/or video game rpgs for the CHARACTERS you also need to play tsl #just know it's going to be rough 👍

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indie-ttrpg-of-the-week · 4 months

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Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

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txttletale · 8 months

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youve mentioned offhand ur issues with thirsty sword lesbians, have u talked at length abt this somewhere before and if not do u want to? i want to hear ur thoughts hehe

now before i get into this i want to clarify: i like thirsty sword lesbians, overall! i think it takes some of the best stuff from monster hearts and refines it -- i think it does great and exciting things with pbta playbooks -- i think anyone making a pbta game should check it out because it's full of valuable ideas -- and i've had a lot of fun playing it!

however, i think it's just as flawed as it is brilliant. there's a few different flaws but the biggest one for me is a catastrophic clash between two things the game is trying to be. one on hand, it wants to be a catradora rpg. there's no shame in that, i love games that wear their influences on their sleeves--TSL¹ wants to be a game about kissing your rival after you've both been disarmed, about having a fraught and complicated relationship with your girl best friend who abandoned you to serve the dark lord, about having homoerotic sword duels where your blades lock and you stare into each other's eyes for just one second too long before one of you kicks the other in the chest. i think that's an admirable goal for an RPG and one that TSL hits a lot of the notes of--the fact that the move to "Figure Someone Out" has special questions you can only ask someone when you're duelling them is incredible design. the Strings system, adapted from Monsterhearts, the ability to fluster your enemies when you use the Entice move, the constant focus on what characters desire and how their actions conflict with those desires--so much of the game is working towards that!

unfortunately, the game also wants to be about queer resistance to homophobia and capitalist/imperialist hegemony. this is clear in its sample settings, with their eyerollingly on-the-nose conflicts like defending 'queertopia' and fighting the evil sorceress 'repressia'. but much more importantly, it's clear in the game. several of the playbooks are defined by their relationship to sexual hegemony--the beast is about someone who is othered and monsterised for expressing their existence and the seeker is about someone sheltered and prejudiced moving past that and discovering themselvs and others. like, it's not subtle--

and to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that, either. just as i like a lot of TSL's swashbuckling girl-romancing flirting-at-swordpoint mechanics, i really appreciated how (although the game's outlook on what these forces are is predicably liberal and its tonal approach to these things is one that i personally find teeth-grindingly insufferable) these things are actually integrated into its mechanics. playbooks like the beast and the seeker (and the rest!) imply something about the world the game is set in and its sexual politics. this game is meaningfully queer in the way something like dream askew is, in that its mechanics ask you to actually explore your character's queerness specifically. this is good, and it's something that elevates it above about 90% of ttrpg stuff that sells itself as queer.

so if both these things are good, what's the problem? well, it's that they're two great (or at least--interesting) tastes that go fucking horribly together. the fundamental problem that i have with TSL and one that i think takes a lot of work to get around in your own campaigns is that it simultaneously wants you to be fighting (on the individual level) a lot of antiheroic ultimately sympathetic hot girls you can flirt with and kiss--a lot of 'i can fix her's or 'she can make me worse's--and on the broader narrative wants you to be fighting institutional queerphobia (and often, although this is nowhere near as actually supported by mechanics, a more generalized 'imperialism' or 'capitalism' or 'bigotry'). so you end up fighting 'those stupid sexy homophobes'--people who are according to the text (not just 'lore', but the rules text, the mechanics you're playing with!) simultaneously the violent enforcers of cisheteropatriarchy and a bunch of fuckable lesbians with sympathetic backstories.

& i just think those things are fundamentally at odds. the result is a game that if you try and play it at face value works at cross purposes with itself, attempting to do two perfectly valid things without considering what happens when the streams cross.

it also has a few other flaws--like many other PBTA games, its balance falls apart if you play any long campaign (my group and i had to figure out special alternative level-up rewards!) but it comes with no inbuilt way to neatly conclude a campaign or character. its tone is something that, as i often mention, i absolutely cannot fucking stand--it has a certain sense of humour that feels profoundly dated to me and was never my cup of tea when it was in vogue. this is something i try not to hold against the game bc it is very much a personal taste-level 'cringe' reaction but the game lays it on pretty fucking thick.

more to its detriment, it is profoundly, gratingly liberal in the exact way people who deploy that tone usually are. its understanding of anything outside queerphobia specifically is just a purely aesthetic & thoughtless 'imperialism is bad!'. it manages a more nuanced understanding of homophobia, but it only manages it on the individual level--for a game about queerness and about fighting systems of cisheteronormativity, it has no systemic or material understanding of these systems and no interest in establishing one.

and finally--and this is just one paragraph but it's so fucking awful i feel the need to complain about it here because i think about it often as an example of something i never want to write:

this sucks! real bad! so deeply fucking silly to reassure people in your game that you called Thirsty Sword Lesbians that it's okay if you want to be cishet. like, it would be one thing to make a game where you can neatly extract the lesbianism and have the same game, a surface-level aesthetically queer game with no actual interest in queerness except as a marketing term. it would fucking suck but this paragraph would at least describe such a game. but TSL isn't that!!! . 'thirsty sword cishets' would be a very different and much worse game! awful and self-defeating paragraph. deeply silly concern to address and give airtime to. i didn't buy a game called 'thirsty sword lesbians' to be told 'its okay to be heterosexual i pwommy'

so yea just to reiterate: i like the game overall, i think there's a lot of good valuable stuff in there designwise despite all this. but i'm very ambivalent about it--ironically, i feel a love-hate relationship with this game about love-hate relationships. i admire it and yet i despise it! i long to put it at the tip of my sword and slowly tilt its cover up so that the pages look up at me coquettishly but with burning anger in their page numbers. if this book was a person id hatefuck it, is the joke, thats the joke im making, here, in this post. thanks

¹ i call it TSL whenever i can because the name 'Thirsty Sword Lesbians' makes me cringe out of my fucking skin. genuinely horrible name. i'm sure it's funny the first time you hear it, i got a mild chuckle the first time i heard it to, but it's such an obnoxious thing ot have to say repeatedly when seriously discussing it. should have stayed a placeholder name amiguitas

#ask #ttrpg

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theresattrpgforthat · 1 year

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THEME: The Locked Tomb

I’m in love with The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir, and I know I’m not the only one! For that I am extremely grateful, because there’s quite a few ttrpg designers who also love The Locked Tomb, and have designed games meant to evoke the themes or setting of the novels. Here’s a few of my favourites!

The Serpent and the Spider, by Junk Food Games.

The Serpent and The Spider is a tiny ttrpg for 2 players. One player takes the role of The Serpent, a charismatic sword-wielder. The other player takes the role of The Spider, a highly intelligent necromancer.

Your souls are bonded together. You will fight against corrupt corporations and explore your relationship.

Note that this game has references to violence, death, combat, and implied self-harm. To play the game, you need something to write with, two 4-sided dice, and two 8-sided dice.

I’ve talked about this game before as a duet game. This is probably the best game for exploring the relationship between a necromancer and their cavalier, because it’s designed to be played just between two people. It includes 9 session prompts (again, a tribute to the Nine Houses), and presents you with a setting that is inspired by The Locked Tomb while still allowing you as a pair to fill in details that will make the game work for you.

Thirsty Space Necromancers, by Understory Games.

Thirsty Space Necromancers is a Thirsty Sword Lesbians supplement based on The Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir. It's Gideon the Ninth as a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG.

You play as Necromancers and Cavaliers in a space-faring culture. Paired and trained to fight together, you will solve mysteries and fight ghosts, and probably other necromancers, as you explore new planets.

This is a game that requires another game to run, but considering the tagline of Gideon the Ninth as “Lesbian Necromancers in Space”, Thirsty Sword Lesbians sounds like another great match for this kind of game. TSL focuses on love and relationships, and is also great for telling grand, epic stories. I’m interested in the additional rules to add the Dead to your game, as well as how the game plays when each player has a counterpart that they’re responsible for and/or devoted to, especially since multiple players can choose The Cavalier, while each Necromancer playbook is separate.

(Understory Games also has a collection of Locked Tomb fan rpgs, where I got most of my recommendations from!)

Heart of the Emperor, by deathmeetauthor.

Heart of the Emperor is a hack of Monsterhearts 2, centred in Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb series. Rather than playing a cohort of teenagers who are secretly monsters, you may be playing a soldier of the Cohort, a teenager, or openly be a monster—perhaps even all three!

The characters of Gideon the Ninth etc. are lonely, brokenhearted, and struggle to communicate their needs and feelings, all of which are perfect for a Monsterhearts game. As with many Powered by the Apocalypse games, the focus is on how the characters relate to each-other, whether that means getting into fights, horribly misinterpreting what your crush/rival says, or uncovering deliciously horrifying secrets that will fundamentally change how you see the world. The scope of this game will be more personal than Thirsty Sword Lesbians - the future of the world isn't quite as important as your future with the the people around you.

The Empire Undying, by Glaive Guisarme Games.

You climb aboard the shuttle which is intended to convey you off this dingy planet. Embedded in the metal walls of the shuttle are bones, sun-bleached and carved with innumerable runes of protection. The only seats in the shuttle seem comfortable enough, although they have the familiar texture of human-flesh leather, tattooed over and over in a crabbed, spiky hand.

It fucking sucks. Just an abysmal experience, and the chairs make your ass hurt after like ten minutes. But if you’re going to be a necromancer there’s a whole, like, aesthetic to deal with.

Hope you like skulls, fucker.

There are two sorts of people that matter in the decrepit star empire: the necromancers who create the undead abominations upon whose skeletal backs civilization rests, and the knights whose sword duty is to defend the necromancers from undead abominations which aren't behaving right now.

In this game, you will play a group of necromancers and knights, stuck in some corner of the vast empire, attempting to solve a mystery that is, in turn, attempting to kill you all. The bad kind of "kill," the sort you don't bounce back from. Explore ancient sites and forgotten ruins, unravel conspiracies which have endured for millennia, and make out with one another, because you are hot and hurt and surrounded by bones so you have to get that tension out somehow.

Tone-wise, this game slaps. Mechanically, I like that it’s not too complex (it borrows from Lasers and Feelings) while still leaning into the number 9, which is heavily significant in The Locked Tomb. It has players explore relationships, while not necessarily expecting them to pair up - instead, you have to decide how another person’s character has power over you, which also feel so much like The Locked Tomb (think about Dulcinea’s relationship to Gideon, or the relationship between the Fifth House and the Fourth House). There’s so much to this game and it’s not even that big! If you want something that feels like it was written by Gideon herself, I’d definitely recommend checking this out.

In Extremis, by Keganexe.

In Extremis is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for 2-6 players, about fighting back the man using necromancy, that uses the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell. Inspired by The Locked Tomb trilogy, players take on the role of exceptionally powerful witches who use their mastery of life, death, and the human condition to keep them and their own safe from other planetary invaders who want to steal their land.

As a Necromancer, you are one of a handful of hideously powerful death witches that protect the planet Hecate, the final holdout for The Coven, from the ever encroaching war of the Corvus Dominion.

In Extremis differs greatly from some of the games on this list because it focuses on combat, rather than on relationships. The game is inspired by the Locked Tomb, but doesn’t seek to replicate it. All of the players are necromancers, and all of the players are built for combat. You will go up against a terrible, powerful foe, while you yourselves are small in number, although extremely powerful. I appreciate the attempt to make this legally distinct from The Locked Tomb - there’s enough here to absolutely appeal to fans of the series, but the creator has given themselves enough license to focus on the themes of this series that appeals to theme - particularly the theme of kicking ass.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Tomb Candles, by deecity. (A hack of Ten Candles)

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #dnd #tabletop games #game recommendations #necromancy #indie ttrpgs

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open-hearth-rpg · 8 months

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Campaign Playbooks: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Six

I’m getting ready tonight to do the first session of Girl By Moonlight. It’s a Forged in the Dark game with a wide premise– ranging from Magical Girl to Paprika to Evangelion-inspired stories. We’re doing On a Sea of Stars, the one most influenced by mecha, teens, and tragedy. Girl By Moonlight is one of two recent systems which take Forged in the Dark’s Crew mechanics and change them into a tool to redefine the game collaboratively.

The other one, and the one I’ve already run, is Vergence. This is a FitD game heavily influenced by the Chronicles of Amber. It mixes things up in some interesting ways. For example, it has a trio of factions rather than the binary two courts of Zelanzy’s original novels. That smart move offers players a more complex web of interactions. In particular I dig that each faction has its own set of playbooks highlighting their themes.

Vergence also takes a nod from the earlier Amber RPG (which I’ve also run). In that game you had two modes of play: a standard campaign and a Throne War. The latter had its own set of special rules, aimed at playing out a tighter series or even a one-shot with different play goals. Vergence also allows for several different modes of play, each with a strong sense of structure and purpose:

The Dark Conspiracy: An unknown enemy has chosen to act directly and violently against the PCs and all they hold dear.

The Expedition: The PCs are part of a journey of exploration to a forbidden world.

The Game of Houses: The PCs undertake a series of missions to support a chosen Vergence faction.

The Masked Ball: The PCs will attend a Royal Masked Ball and try to accomplish various goals without ruining their reputations.

The Pursuit: The PCs are chasing a vile enemy through the Umbra. What happens if they catch up?

The Siege: The PCs are trapped in a city under siege. They must fight, escape, or go over to the other side.

The different campaign frames have distinct usual lengths. For example if you want a one-shot, you would do The Pursuit. For a longer campaign (4-10) sessions, you might pick Masked Ball, Expedition, or Seige. If you’re looking for an ongoing, episodic campaign you would pick Game of Houses.

Each of these campaigns, called Challenges, has its own playbook, the equivalent of the crew book from Blades. Each challenge offers guidance for setting up relationships, possible starting upgrades, and choices of special abilities. They also have a set of unique milestones and other details. There’s some overlap between the Challenges but they feel nicely distinct. It does a great job of setting expectations right away. In our play-through we dug the mechanic, but wanted a little more.

Girl By Moonlight provides that more– with the different campaign structures at the heart of play. Each of the four series presented has a distinct “series playbook” set up quite differently from one another. For example On a Sea of Stars has both the Flagship the characters are travelling on and the mecha, Engines, they are using as a the campaigns framework. I especially like how asymmetrical these playbooks are. They feel like pieces from distinct and different games. They’re a great tool to shape play.

It would be interesting to see more games offer these kinds of tools– in combination with a CATS document. For example, I love the campaign frames from Thirsty Sword Lesbians, probably more than I dig TSL itself. It would be really interesting to have some richer worksheets and choices which could be made to add to the collaboration and mechanically vary play. There’s a little bit of that in the recent Codex of Worlds for Monster of the Week.

#ttrpg #rpg #rpg mechanics

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revuestarlight-pbta · 4 months

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Rules Preview: Defy Disaster, Figure Out a Person, and Soothe

Here's a preview of more of the Basic Actions that all characters will be able to utilize in the Revue Starlight tabletop RPG.

Mechanically, these are equivalents of TSL's Defy Disaster, Figure Out, and Emotional Support, and they serve much the same purpose (though Figure Out a Person's questions have been slightly altered!)

Defy Disaster is a versatile catch-all to many different situations you may encounter that don't particularly correspond to any other move. In some cases, you might liken it to a "saving throw" seen in other TTRPGs, but it also serves to mechanically represent a variety of different improvised actions the players may attempt. It takes a creative GM to make the most narrative impact out of it!

Figure Out a Person is a tool to help players understand the world and people around them, giving them insight on how to understand other characters that they can utilize to craft a strong narrative. It's definitely very helpful to allow you to play a smart & perceptive character without having to be all that clever in real life.

On the other hand, Soothe is a recovery tool great for providing aid and comfort to allies, whether through the form of a falling action post-Revue scene (like Mahiru and Hikari in the image!) or shouting words of support to an ally to help them keep going in the midst of a tense duel.

#revue starlight #revue starlight ttrpg #dev blog #pbta #tsuyuzaki mahiru #kagura hikari #saijo claudine #tendo maya

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the-auguer · 6 months

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I just read The Forbidden Book of Forbidden-ness and HOLY SHIT IT WAS INCREDIBLE. like everyone was so in character, that moment where Asmo's emotional intelligence comes through and he knows exactly what Mammon is dreaming of, and Mammon, our wonderful first man, figuring out that it's not real because he doesn't feel overwhelmingly in love with mc before anything else tips him off, because Mammon may get tricked when it comes to grimm but his feelings towards mc can't be faked or imitated in a dream?? I am in LOVE with your writing

it made me curious what all the other brothers would experience if they were cursed by the book and how they'd wake up, or who would have the hardest time waking up. Levi would definitely be in an rpg game or the tsl universe with mc, he's the easiest one to imagine, but I wonder if Belphie would end up in a dream universe where he never tried to kill mc, like if he had been reminded of ch16 by somethingjust before opening the book and thought to himself that he wished he'd never hurt them

Thanks so much!! That was awesome to hear! I’ve alway been lowkey obsessed with perfect dream worlds and the willpower to reject everything you’ve ever wanted just for the harshness of reality. ig Gravity Falls ruined me.

I never really thought about the other brother’s dream world, other than Levi’s idea of what it would be, tbh.

I kind of really wanted to add them to Mammon’s dream so that it would be harder for him to leave. I played around with the idea of Mammon like, rushing home to tell Lucifer that something is up, and Lucifer pats his head and says he’s so proud of his cute little brother, and did you win big at the casino baby 🥹? Are you hungry? And Mammon obvs flips out. And Lilith is there and alive and everyone’s happy and also him and MC are engaged and gonna be married soon.

I feel like that would have been Mammon’s REAL ideal universe. But hey, I wanted it be a one shot that I could just play with and not a ten chapter, meticulously thought out story the way that would be, so it was scrapped. And I imagine that the other’s ultimate dreams would be much of the same, with Levi’s probably taking place in an RPG like you said, and MC is Henry and they are eternal best friends only, wait, MC just kissed me!!! 🤯❤️❤️

Again, thanks a lot!!!

#augury speaks #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me

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nyvirea · 1 year

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So while reading through the additional Thirsty Sword Lesbian playbooks (which are amazing) I got an idea. The Ensemble playbook instantly reminded me of the Stereo Lovers from (one of my absolute favorite games) Sayonara Wild Hearts, and I was thinking; the SWH setting is incredibly conducive to a TSL game. It's all there. The love, the emotional conflict, the style, the swords. The lesbian part is a little complicated because there's a solid interpretation about all the bosses really just being personifications of grief, but there's smooching so I'm counting it.

And I was thinking about how a campaign or something inspired by SWH would go, and remembered the little prompt from the TSL rulebook about traveling matchmakers.

So what if the players are interdimensional agents of love, travelling to different realities and helping lesbians find love. And to do so they have to defeat personified versions of the things holding them back. Defeating could mean helping a personification of insecurity find confidence, or just straight up killing the motorcycle-riding, rainbow-laser-firing manifestation of someone's self-loathing.

It was also at this point of developing this idea that I noticed I would run risk of running an RPG of Persona, but I'm not gonna acknowledge that because otherwise my friends will call me a weeb again.

Anyways, I'm thinking up all sorts of different settings that the players can travel to now, and the characters they'd need to help there. The lack of a major, overarching story so far might be useful too, means players could join on a play-by-session basis.

#thirsty sword lesbians #RPGs #rambling into the abyss #I'm really excited for this now and I already know a few people who might be interested #sayonara wild hearts

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gorgonarcher · 10 hours

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11th Game - Thirsty Sword Archery Lesbians

I'm currently involved with an RPG Book Club and we've chosen Thirsty Sword Lesbians as our first book to read through. So that means that gorgon archer number eleven is going to be built in this game. Only we're making a Thirsty Archery Lesbian...??? Thirsty Lesbian Archer??? ArRuhRoh *shrugs*

This is Powered by the Apocalypse game meaning that it operates with playbooks in a manner similar to how the Forged in the Dark games I've already looked at Candela Obscura and Band of Blades work. I'm actually a bit surprised that this is the first time I've approached a PbtA game in this blog. I know why Monster of the Week isn't here (I'm waiting for something specific to happen) but still a bit odd.

Anyway. So playbooks in PbtA games feel on the surface like they are a D&D style class template with a set of abilities they are built around. To some degree this is true, but in a lot of the best games, the abilities of the character are far less important to the playbook choice than what story you want to tell right now. I've often described character sheets as a road map to what the player wants to see in a game and it is very clear in this case.

TSL is much more explicit about this than other PbtA games and each playbook comes with a section about what real world emotional conflict the playbook represents. This is a section I've seen appear in other PbtA games such as Masks, The Fellowship, and Avatar; but TSL goes into much more detail than most other systems do.

With that said, while I own Advanced Lesbians and Lovers, for now I'll stick to the book that the RPG Book Club is reading and that is the core book. So let's break down what we'd get here:

The Beast - A gorgon who is immersed in the truth and glory of who they are and struggles to fit in with "civilization".

The Chosen - A gorgon marked by destiny, struggling between who they truly are and the expectations placed on them.

The Devoted - A gorgon who has devoted themselves to a cause, people, or other thing. Great at protecting others, bad at self-care.

The Infamous - A gorgon known wide as a villain who now truly has decided they want to redeem themselves.

The Nature Witch - A gorgon who is new to the world and struggles with naivete and awkward social interactions.

The Scoundrel - A gorgon who is flirtatious and exciting but fears any sort of commitment.

The Seeker - A gorgon who comes from a toxic society that is seeking a new path forward.

The Spooky Witch - A gorgon with unseen monstrous friends struggling to be accepted without giving up their friends.

The Trickster - A gorgon who never wants to show their true feelings, hiding them under a mask either literal or figurative.

I'll have to go back and look to see whether my gorgons so far are more broody or more light-hearted. But in this case, I think I will go with something more light-hearted at least on the surface. But that doesn't really narrow down since any of these playbooks could hide their individual pains under a pleasant smile. So let's rule some out.

The Beast, because I want to focus less on the animalistic side of thngs.

The Chosen, I don't really want to have expectations placed on her, besides I did that in the Hero System gorgon.

The Infamous, I don't particularly want her regretting horrible deeds.

The Nature Witch, I'm not particularly interested in making a naive character here.

The Devoted, too focused here I think. The lack of self-care is far too deliberate for what I'm thinking.

The Spooky Witch, because I'm not really interested in playing out the Unseen monster angle in this character.

The Trickster, I want them to be open with some of their emotions and have the concealment be less deliberate. Same issue as Devoted.

So that brings me down to The Scoundrel and The Seeker. The Seeker is sort of the "that's me" playbook here, and if I get to play out this game, I do have a Seeker in mind... though that would change based on setting. As a rule, I tend to avoid playing hella flirty characters because... well... check out the PFP. I be ace y'all. Flirty is just not really a personality I fall into automatically, so it usually doesn't occur to me.

I think in this case, I'm going to try for Scoundrel. So, we've got a flirty disaster lesbian going on here.

So that's step one, we've chosen the character's playbook. Now we fill out the abilities.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is pretty simple here. You have three categories to establish how your character comes across. There are some examples but you're also invited to create your own if you feel like none of the provided ones fit. So we're going to go with the following:

Serpentine Glamour

Shimmering Clothes

A Beautiful Bow

On top of this we'll pick her pronouns: She/Her and her name "Cherase".

Stats

There are five stats in Thirsty Sword Lesbians, each very broad in a narrative sense:

Daring - Skill at arms, and forcefulness.

Grace - Eloquence, poise, and agility.

Heart - Emotional awareness and expression.

Wit - Cleverness and knowledge

Spirit - Metaphysical power and integrity.

For each playbook there are two columns that they can choose between and then they can add +1 to two of those options. For the Scoundrel the base options are:

Daring +1, Grace +1, Heart +0, Wit -1, Spirit +0

Daring +1, Grace +0, Heart -1, Wit +1, Spirit +0

Since we're going with archery rather than swordplay, I'm going to aim at the one that involves better Grace. And for the +1s... one will go to Grace to put it up to +2 and the other will go to Spirit +1 resulting in the following stats:

Daring +1

Grace +2

Heart +0

Wit -1

Spirit +1

This fits the idea of someone who means well (good integrity with Spirit +1) and is very forceful and agile (Daring +1 and Grace +2) but is a bit unobservant (Wit -1) and doesn't have a particularly good or bad sense of either self or other-awareness (Heart +0). Perfect set-up for someone out to have fun and who just doesn't think through the consequences.

Living in the Moment

One thing I note about a lot of the moves for the game's playbooks, especially these core features, is that they very much built like writing or improv prompts. The game wants to throw up a bone for you and the other players to gnaw at for a few minutes between rolls and the rolled moves provide options that further bring context to the interactions. There's a lot more about asking questions or how characters interact than there is about whether they gain an advantage or damage an enemy.

Masks functions in similar ways, but is a bit less explicit that that is its operating goal, but I'll get to Masks in a later entry.

For now, we need to pick up a thing for our scoundrel to grow past, and as the book states, this can be something you can figure out in gameplay. In this case, I think the Scoundrel just assumes everybody lives in the moment like her and doesn't really understand the need to be clear as to what she expects out of a relationship. Either she's never experienced the idea of truly committing, she's polyam, or she's allosexual but aromantic. Heck, she may be a cuddly ace or demi who is completely unaware that she's giving off sexy vibes. In any case, she needs to figure out understanding other people's expectations as well as figuring out just what she wants beyond immediate gratification.

This core feature comes with the move Heat of the Moment which lets her do some seducing by way of Daring instead of Heart. This way the Scoundrel remains seductive while still having the limited emotional growth necessary to the desired emotional conflict.

Moves

Next we come to her playbook moves, she has two mandatory moves and two that she can choose. The Mandatory moves are:

Lust at First Sight - Which encourages her to become Smitten at the drop of a hat and means that she loses Smitten with anybody who has no strings on her.

Shiny and New - Gives her benefits the first time she receives or gives Emotional Support to someone for the first time ever.

Both of these mandatory moves really hit the idea of someone who flares wildly into infatuation with new people, but has a risk of letting that fire fade in favor of new flames. This is that emotional immaturity in mechanical form.

For the optional moves, I'm going to go with The Main Attraction and assume that she just loves to make an entrance and be the center of attention. This lets her monologue and also provide a distraction for her allies. The other one she's getting is Rrrip! and I'm going to say that she's completely unaware of the effect her clothes tearing scandalously has other people but is also very annoyed because she LIKES her shiny, shimmering clothes.

Okay, Cherase has pretty much moved into "demisexual doesn't know she's sexy" territory as a style of Scoundrel. I think she's polyam-demi who jumps quickly into "let's be friends" but doesn't get "let's be lovers" signals without a lot time and being very clear to her. And doesn't realize her "let's be friends" signals can easily be interpreted as "let's be lovers".

Truths of Heart and Blade

These are a pair of two moves.

To Love and Lose - When she becomes Smitten she must answer the question: "Why would your romance never last?".

Repartee - When she tries to Figure Out a Person during a physical conflict she can always ask one of two questions even if she rolls a 6- (which will happen a lot given her Wit -1 stat): "What would make you run away with me?" or "Where did you learn to fight?"

The final section is a discussion on how to play the Scoundrel and cautions about making sure to be aware when your character is behaving badly and not just being a charming chaos snake.

Cherase (She/Her) - The Scoundrel

Serpentine grace, shimmering clothes, a beautiful bow. Demi/Polyam.

Daring +1

Grace +2

Heart +0

Wit -1

Spirit +1

Living in the Moment: Has to learn what signals she's giving and to make sure she's clear on what she expects and what other people expect out of her.

Moves:

Heat of the Moment

Lust at First Sight

Shiny and New

The Main Attraction

Rrrip!

Truth of Heart and Blade

To Love and Lose

Repartee

---------

As compared to the main PbtA I play (Monster of the Week), Thirsty Sword Lesbians is very much a game about giving people a chance to chew scenery and have great dialogues. The mechanical element is very loose and limited. The focus is less on the physical danger and more on the way that danger can highlight an emotional crisis.

Playing this game, one should be very light on the rolls and give leave for the players to narrate the battle or other circumstances as window-dressing to how their relationships are developing. This is true whether the relationship is familial, antagonistic, sexual, romantic, friendly, or professional.

The game is honest about it, and provides moves that support and give prompts for the players to lean on to keep the dialogue (the conversation?) flowing back and forth.

That said, this is going to be a very different playstyle for a lot of people used to other games and it will take some getting used to. Also, when there are fewer dice being rolled, it's going to be a bit dicier (originally unintentional pun, but realized it as a typed and did it anyway) for the spotlight management task that the GM needs to keep up.

Perhaps a subtle sign for players to try to get to a point where the dialogue can be broken off would be useful. Not necessarily ended, you can always cut away at a big statement or reveal and leave that hanging to focus on another character to let that tension build.

#tabletop roleplaying game #gorgon archer #roleplaying games #gorgons #tabletop rpg #archer #character creation #ttrpg #gorgon #tabletop rpgs #thirsty sword lesbians #evil hat #behold my intentionally unintentionally sexy sexy snaky scoundrel #April Kit Walsh

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