A big pile of games. Fedora Noir Sign Zoetrope: death didn't take Royal Blood The skellingtons Bump in the dark Follow Girl underground A cool and lonely courage Kingdom Cosmic Dark Once more into the void Slugblaster Deadline

Games I hope to play over the next year.

These are all games I've taken from my shelves because I haven't yet played them* but am excited to do so. Time to get cracking!

*Except The King Is Dead, which I'm in the middle of playing.

A big pile of games. Fedora Noir Sign Zoetrope: death didn't take Royal Blood The skellingtons Bump in the dark Follow Girl underground A cool and lonely courage Kingdom Cosmic Dark Once more into the void Slugblaster Deadline

Games I hope to play over the next year.

These are all games I've taken from my shelves because I haven't yet played them* but am excited to do so. Time to get cracking!

*Except The King Is Dead, which I'm in the middle of playing.

Ex Tenebris part 32 (episode 200!!!) Links to this episode on: Apple podcasts Castbox Pocket casts Spotify We are playing Ex Tenebris: a star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG. You can make a late pledge to the Ex Tenebris Kickstart…

The latest episode of Ex Tenebris is up! The investigation is hotting up, with tense interrogations, a noir detective monologue (sort of), the walls of reality breaking down and another letter from the mysterious Black Gate serial killer.

#rpg #ttrpg #actualplay #realplay #spacegothic

It's our 200th episode of Black Armada Tales! 5 years of indie game actual plays! 14 different games, scores of characters, one award nomination and a whole lot of banter about food, regional accents, exercise, and all sorts of other silliness.

We're still having a great time making it!

Ex Tenebris part 32 (episode 200!!!) Links to this episode on: Apple podcasts Castbox Pocket casts Spotify We are playing Ex Tenebris: a star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG. You can make a late pledge to the Ex Tenebris Kickstart…

The latest episode of Ex Tenebris is up! The investigation is hotting up, with tense interrogations, a noir detective monologue (sort of), the walls of reality breaking down and another letter from the mysterious Black Gate serial killer.

blackarmada.com/ex-tenebris-...

That would actually make a surprising amount of sense. Also: why is the mcguffin the Matrix.

Oh hey me too! Little Josh's pocket money went on a weekly copy.

Cover of "Last Fleet". A fleet of spacecraft of various configurations try to fly away from a portal that has opened in space, out of which reach many ship-sized dark tendrils that attempt to grab the fleeing ships.

29. Last Fleet by @armadajosh.bsky.social

An alien armada has destroyed human civilization. All that remains is a ragtag fugitive fleet of spacecraft, under the protection of a single capital warship. And the enemy is in relentless pursuit. An RPG directly inspired by "Battlestar Galactica."

Which is the feeling you get when you put the game in your mouth

If we're doing that then the dice need to be shaped like the food, even if that means the rules become a total nonsense.

You are completely right.

Is this actually an "effort" scale as opposed to a "challenge" scale?

The grand brunch track, showing the level of mechanical detail you'd normally apply to, like, drowning or something. Crucially for these purposes scones are the second highest level of challenge. Oh also there is a picture of some bacon and waffles and suchlike, with a multi-box checkbox track embedded in it.

Been reading Yazeba's and I have something to say.

It is ridiculous (ridiculous!) to rank scones as high-diff. If anything pancakes are harder since (as @beckyannison.bsky.social says) you have to turn them. And jumping from scones to croissants is INSANE.

My alt baking diff table is PWYW on itch

The game of "design mechanics about baking", is what I'm assuming you mean

Oh that's more of a character thing, I would think. Weakness: fear of baking.

This sounds like fictional positioning to me "GM can I have reduced difficulty for my +1 food processor"

Damn, you're right. We're gonna need a table detailing degrees of success/failure to make this work properly.

I feel like this should be a multi-dimensional table, with "number of steps" just one dimension.

Sensitivity to small variations would be another dimension.

Complexity/finnickiness of technique another.

Yes, they ARE different but super hard to figure out the detail of those differences.

When Yazeba's designers wake up they can explain this in full I'm sure.

Good point.

I had not considered the challenge of door-opening in my analysis

But seriously YES, poached egg is a great example because it isn't just time sensitive (like the way bacon will burn if you don't watch it). Even people who think they know how to do it right will get it wrong.

(Omelette is probably great too, I'm not really an omelette guy)

These are eggsellent suggestions.

Here at Black Armada's baking game design laboratory we are currently proposing eggs benedict (with homemade hollandaise) as the highest difficulty in terms of actual technical challenge.

More research clearly needed though.

There's a real game design challenge here in identifying something harder than pancakes but less hard than croissants. I mean really croissants are more arduous than difficult - it's the sheer amount of work that makes them "hard", but you're more likely to burn a pancake I think?

So true, and would have been in my post if it weren't for the wordcount limit.

Proper difficulty analysis
* How time-sensitive is it (fried things burn if you don't watch them)
* How difficult is the technique (scones are basically just rubbing flour into butter)
etc etc

The grand brunch track, showing the level of mechanical detail you'd normally apply to, like, drowning or something. Crucially for these purposes scones are the second highest level of challenge. Oh also there is a picture of some bacon and waffles and suchlike, with a multi-box checkbox track embedded in it.

Been reading Yazeba's and I have something to say.

It is ridiculous (ridiculous!) to rank scones as high-diff. If anything pancakes are harder since (as @beckyannison.bsky.social says) you have to turn them. And jumping from scones to croissants is INSANE.

My alt baking diff table is PWYW on itch

It's Easter Sunday.

That seems like an excellent day to fund a murder.

All of this has happened before, and will happen again (BSG)

Empireworld by Sathnam Sanghera

Particularly enjoyed The King Is Dead. It's only the second time I've played a Firebrands-inspired system and I like the way it breaks down situations into a menu of beats and then lightly mechanises them. It inspired us to make some cool choices in play.