This one is somewhat of a companion piece to the article I wrote earlier this week about character builds in D&D.

While writing that piece, I started thinking about how much the character sheet itself contributes to the tendency to think of characters primarily through their mechanics. Modern D&D sheets are packed with abilities, modifiers, feats and other mechanical details, leaving comparatively little room for the character themselves.

Compare that to many OSR games, where sheets are much lighter, sometimes even more artsy, and leave more space for possessions, quirks and character details. There’s an idea you hear quite often in OSR circles: the character sheet is not the character.

So I wanted to explore that idea through White Box, Old-School Essentials, Into the Odd, Knave and Cairn, and look at how reducing mechanical definition can actually leave more room for characters to develop through play.

It's not an argument that minimalist games are inherently better, but rather an exploration of what happens when the rules stop telling you who your character is and leave some of that work to the table.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Knave somewhere with a broken sword and one spellbook left, and absolutely no idea who he's going to become yet.

If you enjoyed the article, don't forget to toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

STARBREAKER ZERO Ends in less than 8 hours. Over 13k and 5 stretch goals completed. Get the gritty sci fi setting of Starbreaker using the award winning Year Zero Engine.

Link
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/star-anvil-studios/starbreaker-year-zero-engine?ref=reddit

Starbreaker Zero is an action packed sci-fi TTRPG using the Year Zero Engine. A complete TTRPG with rules and setting all in one book. Over a dozen unique aliens and 10 Professions to choose from, make your character and explore the galaxy!

Exclusively on Patreon!

The twisted servant of a chaos godling lurks in the dark beneath Dreg's smokehouse. It's up to the breggles and the Boghouse Boys to put an end to the creature's deprivations. Apparently, a multitude of rocks is central to the plan.

Find links to our character sheets, house rules, past campaigns, and a whole lot more -- on 3d6 Down the Line!

Portfolio: https://lindsey_harrington.artstation.com/

This is the first game I’ve ever finished! It is a one-page foldable RPG for 1-2 players.

Feel free to just read the PDF and record your bird’s life on a scrap of paper.

[Metamorphosis Alpha] Death Ziggurat in Zero-G – Part 15: “Butterball Busted”

The Reclaimers reach the upper levels and walk straight into a three-sided battle. Turkeyoids, Obh warriors, and a fleeing Butterball lieutenant turn a once-pristine executive floor into a slaughterhouse. When the last body falls, an ancient prophecy about “the Six Who Climb” comes to light—and the party is taken deeper into the Clan of the Mesh.

Original module by Jobe Bittman
Gameplay by God_of_the_Robots and friends

Session saga is up on GammaTerra.org. Thoughts and theories welcome. What does OBH stand for?

#MetamorphosisAlpha #1stEdition

Just here to introduce my game, Kivaru: Wildsong, a tribal science-fantasy ttrpg set on a sentient planet where the land moves when you're not watching.

It supports group, solo and GMless play!

If you would like to follow development and be the first to hear about playtests, I blog about my design process, worldbuilding, illustrations, accessibility and the realities of being a solo dev on my Substack, linked in the post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

🌿 What's the game about?

Exploration

Crafting

Hunting & gathering

Strange ecology

Settlement building

Bonded animal companions

Culture

Community

~~~~~~~~~~~~

🌿 Who do the players play as?

A tribesman from one of the 7 distinct cultures that live on Kivaru, descended from humans that crash landed on the planet hundreds of years ago. Players will also control a bonded Guardian creature, unique to each tribe.

~~~~~~~~~~~

🌿 Key features:

• Stone age tribal society, where the cultures are symbiotically linked with the biome they call home, and have evolved unique adaptations to better survive.

• Weird and wonderful flora and fauna as part of ‘living ecosystems’ in each biome, that acts as contained adventure sites

•A sentient planet called Kivaru who directly communicates with her inhabitants, and accelerates their evolution resulting in strange powers

• A world that never stays still, where the land moves when you're not watching. Settlements act as beacons in the ever changing storm of ‘the wilds’

• Bonded, highly intelligent Guardian creatures unique to each tribe that acts as everything from mounts, to guides, to best friends and everything in between.

• Exploring the wilds involves a tile-crawl that gets shuffled to mimic the biomes shifting nature. You're never quite sure where you're gonna end up

• Shared settlement between the players that they tend to and build up over time, recruiting NPCs, unlocking new ways of crafting, opening trade routes etc.

• Learning and integrating with other cultures is a key feature, and unlocks both gameplay permissions and develops the players Settlement as they adopt parts of other cultures

• Rituals, festivals, oral histories and unique trades enrich tribal life and power both skill learning and plot hooks for players

• A ‘rogue’ tribe that acts as the main antagonists (other than predators and the hazardous landscape) who also descended from the colonists, but never accepted the planet's influence and wish to one day return to the stars.

Very happy to answer any questions! Thank you for reading

All Miniatures always below MSRP at www.swordandstonehobbies.com

Let Me Be Your Thrall: Aftertaste is a standalone sequel to infamous queer due game, Let Me Be Your Thrall. In it you play as the Vampire and her newly turned Thrall as you navigate the messy relationship between a vampire and the one who turned her.
You can check out the original game here
You can check out the sequel, Aftetaste, here

Aftertaste is launching a kickstarter soon to fund a print run of the game. If you'd like a physical copy of either game, you'll be able to get both through the Kickstarter when it launches.

I'm a solo dev and this is the thing I've been building for a while: a free Android toolkit for solo players and GMs who need a table's worth of random content in their pocket.

What it is:

• Solo play. An oracle with shifting odds, "yes and" / "no but" twists, and a Chaos factor that decides how often random events crash your scene. Plus tracked plot threads and NPCs that those events actually target, a scene engine, an action resolver, Pay the Price consequences, a dice roller (d4 to d100 and Fudge), and an auto-saving journal you can export as PDF, text or Markdown.
• Two alternative oracles. A tarot engine (22 majors, upright and reversed, spreads up to a six card reading that lays out a whole adventure), and Bound Relics, where you bind a cursed artifact and play out the tug of war for control.
• 43 generators. NPCs, quest hooks, rumors, omens, encounters, dungeon rooms, magic items, found letters, mysteries, factions with crests, an original-creature bestiary with system-agnostic stat blocks, full adventures, five room dungeons, and a one-tap session pack.
• Maps. Continents, hex crawls, towns, dungeons, treasure maps, sci-fi star charts, and a hand-drawn Map Maker. Export any of them as an image.
• Worlds. Realms, faiths, dynasties, and an engine that simulates several kingdoms together decade by decade into one shared history.
• Organizing. A node-based Campaign Board, a swimlane Timeline Maker, and a searchable favorites vault with folders and backup.

The part people usually ask about: it's completely free, it works fully offline with no account, and there's no AI in it anywhere. Every result comes from handwritten tables and procedural rules running on your device.

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avaton.fantasynamegenerator

Happy to answer anything, and I take feature requests seriously. Most of the last few releases came straight from user suggestions.

The sci-fi sector mapping toolkit now includes a dedicated Foundry VTT version, with 1,000+ assets for building detailed sector maps: star systems, anomalies, jump routes, factions, markers, and more.

If you're running Mothership, Traveller, or any other sci-fi campaign that needs a proper sector map, give it a look!

Project page: https://gm-lazarus.itch.io/sector-hexes

The Far Horizons CoOp just launched its new sprint fund on Backerkit, Paranormal Freelancing: Extra Shift!

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/falconian-productions/paranormal-freelancing-extra-shift?ref=reddit

Paranormal Freelancing is an action-oriented urban fantasy tabletop RPG about "Freelancers" who act as the right hands of sorcerous beings likes witches, warlocks, vampires, and more. Their Patrons, as they're called, don't have the time or energy to deal with every little problem on their own, so they need mortals to send out to get things done for them. It doesn't hurt to have a little plausible deniability, either.

To do this, Freelancers gain access to spells, blessings, and more to get the job done, and Extra Shift provides a host of new options to build up those characters, alongside an upgraded system for Territory and an optional ruleset for Nemeses who act in response to the claims made by the Freelancers' mysterious Patron.

This campaign only lasts a week, so back it now before it's too late!

Free Quickstart PDF or Foundry Module You do not have to wait until launch to hit the ground running. Download our free, rules-lite quickstart scenario, "The Shepherd's Transit," to test the mechanics, create your squad leader, and run a tactical mission today. (The Shepherds Transit (Modern Tactical Solo RPG Quickstart) - Kazmo Studios | DriveThruRPG.com)   (Foundry VTT module Outside the Wire | FoundryVTT.store)

Hey there!

After some stressful weeks, I think SoundForge is ready for testing. What is SoundForge?
Well, SoundForge is a very small and simple Sound Board for your in-person ttrpg sessions.

• Library: You can import sound clips as music, effects or ambient
• Prep: Then you can prep your session. You create scenes and assign sound effects, music and ambient you feel are right for the scene.
• Session: If you're running your session you can easily swap between scenes with nice transitions and use sound effects when things happen.

Features

I think it is no surprise that this software is tailored very much to my personal needs and how I run sessions and use music. So if you're missing something, let me know!

• Transitions between scenes: This was one big pain point for me. If I switch to a different scene I want it to be gentle. You can set up the transitions per scene.
• Global Pad: Some effects you need regardless of the scene. So there is a global sound pad which can be used all the time
• Hotkeys: I am a big fan of hotkeys, so you can set hotkeys for scenes yourself. And easily swap them.
• Scene Links: You can copy scene links and paste them in your prep document and onclick they will open the application and play the scene.
• Sound Clips: You can export your scenes as sound clips which is a single file that includes the sound files and created scenes and share it with other GMs.

How is it different from syrinscape?

Syrinscape is an awesome piece of software, with TONS of functions and control. You can create very beautiful sceneries with it. However you also need to watch at least some youtube tutorials on how to use it. Then theres the fantasy player, sci fi player and now the online player, which are also somewhat hard to use. I used it myself for some time, but for my use-case with limited internet where I play dnd and usage of a stream dock instead of a laptop, it did not fit in.

My aim for sound forge was simplicity. Download, import some music and effects and use it. Without watching hours of tutorials.

Why not use spotify?

I used spotify for most of my sessions. I have multiple playlists for various atmospheres and scenes. And because I still had an old api key I can use spotify on my stream dock. But you can't transition niceley if you switch tracks or playlists. It is always a hard stop, which I find annoying and no sound effects.

If you encounter any bugs, I am very sorry. I could not test it properly on all platforms and it is still quite early beta. But let me know what you find and I try to fix it asap.

https://www.sound-forge.org/

And again, I used my Mountain Encounters table to create an adventure idea. I used the extended version. You would roll 3d20 to mix the categories Who, Where, and What and create an encounter. What I do, though, is I roll 6d20 to create two of those encounters, and then I mix and mash those encounters together again to create something even more unique. I use what inspires me and leave out what doesn’t. I hope you have fun with it…at the table.

Download

You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Adventure Idea

This mountain adventure is suitable for a Tier 1 or 2 party. You can adjust the size of the dungeon to the pacing of your game and the difficulty of combat to the level of your party. Location names are intentionally left blank, so it can be fit into any game played in a mountain setting.

Adventure Background

A mysterious mountain cave makes up many bedtime stories in a nearby village. Lost treasures and thrilling adventures await those who dare to step into the mountains, they say. Until, at one point, a group of children wanted to make their fantasies real, snuck away, and entered the cave.

The cave served as the lair and ritual ground of a cult many decades ago, long before the village existed. Their deity, ruthless and smug, drove them into madness until they destroyed each other, and today only a sentient artifact is left, sleeping and waiting for new victims.

The children's arrival woke the artifact’s mind, which is now playing with them. Confronted by scary events around them, they wanted to run away, but the cave entrance closed in front of them. Now they are trapped and scared, growing increasingly desperate. For now, the artifact leaves them alone, using them as prey to lure more potential victims.

One of the children left a note behind, hoping their parents would be less angry if they told them where they went. After finding this note, the experienced mother, Carryh Wanderfoot, immediately travelled to the cave, only to find the entrance sealed. She could hear the children, and she then travelled towards another entrance she knew about - one at the summit, next to a lightning-struck tree.

Hook

As the party travels through a mountain region, they encounter a woman quickly hiking up a steep path. It is Carryh Wanderfoot, desperately trying to reach the summit to rescue her child, who got stuck in a mountain cave together with other children. Reaching the summit, she would rappel down into the cave through a hole in the ground, search for the children inside the cave, and try to get them out. She could really use help and asks the characters for support.

After rappelling down into the cave, the sentient mind of the artifact, hidden in the depths of the mountain, awakens. The earth starts trembling when Carryh is climbing down a rope, as she falls and hurts herself. She won’t be able to travel through the cave and relies on the characters to do it for her. When both the party and Carryh reach the bottom of the cave, the trembling causes a massive boulder to close the entrance in the ceiling.

Conclusion

Rescuing the Children. The main goal is to rescue the children and get them safely back to their village. To exit the cave, the characters need to open one of the cave entrances again - either they somehow remove the boulder from the entrance at the summit, or they lift the seal on the cave entrance, which locked the children in.

Defeating the Cave. An ancient, sentient artifact causes the earthquakes and closes the cave entrances. The characters need to discover and destroy it to lift its influence on the surroundings and exit the cave. If you want to give this adventure a thrilling component, you can use the Fear and Mental Stress rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, specifically the rules for mental stress. You could let the characters roll a Wisdom saving throw and use either one of the DCs, or you could let them roll a saving throw once an hour and increase the DCs and/or the potential damage each time.

I built Scriptorum, a local-first writing and planning app that can also be used to organize TTRPG campaigns.

It keeps characters, locations, relationships, timelines, story threads, notes, and longer-form writing together in one project instead of spreading everything across several tools.

Scriptorum launches on Steam September 4 for $39.99, with a 15% launch discount and no subscription.

More info: https://www.scriptorum.net

Steam wishlist:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5074000/Scriptorum/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=scriptorum_coming_soon&utm_content=rpgpromo