Coming from Blackburn (not the one in West Lothian as several people in Edinburgh have assumed over the years) I have a specialist interest in burns and them being black and / or polluted. 😉

This is why I put a version number 😁

V5 is the latest iteration of Vampire a handful of years old, not the OG one. On this occasion your lack of 90s breadth is not at fault. Someone unkind might say it's more of a contemporary oversight. Other people. Not me. 🙂

I'll be at Chaosium Con next month, running some Pendragon every day and co-hosting a seminar "Running Thrilling Chaosium One-Shots!" on Saturday from 10:00am. Come along and say hi, or ignore what I'm doing and play Runequest or immerse yourself in Call of Cthulhu. The world is your mollusc!

What up my #ttrpg fam? Has anyone got a recommendation on hopeful / upbeat / good vibes one on one #ttrpgs? I want something for me and one other, and while my normal oeuvre would be grim, dark and high challenge; I fancy something a bit different. A change is as good as a rest, as they say.

Vampire v5 has this - three rounds and you're out. Although it does give other options too!

Cortex Prime Community Licensing

RUSTY SELLSWORD DESIGN X CORTEX
Huge news for fans of the Cortex system and more news to come. I’ve been working for a long time to get to this point and I’m thrilled to share the announcement!

news.direwolfdigital.com/cortex-prime...

Great news about Cortex Prime licencing clawing out of the mire - here's to more Cortex games.

If you're curious as to how it plays, check out our Hammerheads one-shot here:
youtu.be/_nrLLAF6cHA?...

I'd also cut Dragonbane's list down, if I was in charge 😂

At least there's not a separate head butt skill in RQ now. 😁

Does Cthulhu need Intimidate / Persuade / Charm / Fast Talk? No.

Folk can get too simulationist and lost sight of what will happen at the table (and how often).

I like Savage Worlds for the list of about 20 skills and I could prune that more if I was in charge. It appeals to me having Shooting which you can apply to any setting so it could be bow or laser gun, but you're basically saying "I'm good at shooting stuff from range" whatever the world you inhabit

Have professions like in 13th Age, don't have skill checks per se, use stats and if you can bring in one of your "skills", e.g. University Professor then you get a bonus.

Have domains like AGON and specialise in Arts & Crafts or Blood & Valour and don't sweat the small stuff

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Have "professions" (cultures, ancestries, whatever) instead of individual skills like Unknown Armies where you have a penumbra. The Professor knows how to use libraries, has contacts among intelligencia, can call on resources etc. Thief can climb, fence goods, get the word on the street etc.
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The Bone Alchemist - Dungeon Masters Guild | DriveThruRPG.com Adventure! A missing prince, nefarious magical goings on and fantastical beasts combine for a thrilling adventure taking

My least favourite cover for any scenario ever but it was my first go with filters and a ttrpg thing for Drivethru is The Bone Alchemist. The adventure is a great Arabian Nights style romp though and I think the maps are still cool (example in the OP):

legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/3561...

Cool pictures draw people in. I've lost count of the number of times I ask what's good about a game and people just send me some images. Sure, they're nice pictures, but is the game any good? What's it like? 🤷

Folk do seem to judge books by their covers though.

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Create your own, it's great fun! Or maybe it isn't for you, but you're retired and have time on your hands. It's better than water colours. 😁

Dyson Maps and other have loads of free to use dungeon maps. Sketch maps or node maps are useful too (check out the OSR scene for examples).

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I'd also love to see a professionally produced Blakes 7 TV show :-)

And the tragic One-Winged Stiv, the bird person lookout who kept lonely vigil in the crow's nest just to feel the wind in his wing. A short rest story revealed the fire cannons of a dwarf pirate (who had been in the story earlier as a foil) had burned his wing away. Great unprompted reincorporation!

Great fun playing #Daggerheart with noobs yesterday. I was unsure how they'd deal with "tell me about a crew member each", as they haven't experienced player author roles before. It was all cool though, we had the chain-smoking, jaded turtle person slowly but surely making the ship work was done 1/2

Session zero has nothing to do with system, its about play culture, ensuring everyone is on the same page, clear up any lines and veils etc.

If you're with a regular group you can probably short cut a lot of that, and I normally get some play in after doing the S0 bits so dice hit the table

Goblins are having a team talk before joining the fray in today's Daggerheart for the boardgame crew. Terrible rolls haunted the first half, so maybe the players will do better after comprehensive dice changes. I did try to warn them about dice swapping...

*Procrastination Monkey kicks the doors in*

Lads, lads, lads. What if we do Earthdawn but using Daggerheart?

Me: Go away monkey, I'm trying to prep a normal intro game for tomorrow.

Monkey: Yeah, but it'd work right? We've got all we need right here, we just need to look through all these cards.

Fun times playing some @bastionland.bsky.social Mythic Bastionland last night for the channel. Horrible creatures of all types waylaid our curious knights, and we suffered the loss of one of our favourite own! Entertaining evening uncovering fascinating myths and sticking a lance in them.

In retrospect, I think that the montage in this adventure worked particularly well because it took place along a magical pathway. We were free to invent challenges and solutions that were dreamlike, and we knew in advance that they had no bearing on the everyday world to which we then returned.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

I'm not sure what "karaoke-level" means 🙃

Do you have high system engagement or is it more of the story and having good times barely rolling a die?

Is there a youtube link or are you twitch only?

So, to recap, people like different levels of complexity just generally

It behoves designers to build in clever things that promote the sort of play they encourage at the table (if they want)

You can bosh out a dead simple system, but drown your game in coolness and it'll deffo have an audience

Vampire v5 is pretty terrible at telling vampire stories (although the new Hunger rules are great), but the Storytelling / Storyteller system has historically been so misaligned I challenge anyone to point me at a Vampire actual play with the rules being utilised fully, including the official one
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Do your clever bits add to the function of the game and the stories it's trying to tell? Or are you just being clever for the sake of it (for a given value or clever).

Savage Worlds is great for action adventure.

Hot War is great for hidden agenda games

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I'm high system engagement and using the correct system for the type of game I want to play. Other folk don't give a monkeys and want to be told what to roll. Another cohort don't mind some complexity as long as they know what their chances of doing the thing are (# never tell me the odds, kid)

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People want different things, right?

As a rule I find the *Borg games weak sauce mechanically (although often high on flavour or vibes) so I don't particularly want to play them. There's not enough gaming meat.

Other people feint at the thought of adding 3d6 together

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I'm sure you are looking forward to your next D&D campaign where you don't have the "stress and worry" of deciding which spell your cleric casts etc. as new, improved DmitryBot takes all your moves for you. And then gaslights you when you challenge why it just cast Cure Serious Wounds on your foes.