Just wondering if enough people are here for posts and discussion about what people are creating for their table top games. If you are and want to share a snippet about what you’re working on, that would be great!
I’m working on and off on writing new content for Opus Anima (only available in German) which has an amazing steampunk horror setting and a very simple but flexible D2 pool system but sadly got abandoned by the publisher after only the core rulebook and a softcover book with an alternate subsetting.
The world that Opus Anima is set in used to be an outer space colony, so aside from humans, we get several other sentient species such as the Brunad (spider centaurs), Abara (genetically engineered humanoids with four insect-like arms on their backs), Sanherib (somewhere between frogs and flightless birds) and Tel’Pathar (hybrids between humans and an unknown humanoid alien race that can read other peoples’ feelings). A few centuries ago, the planet almost got destroyed and now people live on huge shards that float around what’s left of the planet’s core. In the post-war charos and because of the dense cloud of dust and debris (called the aether) around those shards, all outside contact was lost and most technology regressed to about the late 19th/early 20th century. The setting draws a lot from Victorian England and the German Empire. Technology is mostly driven by steam, scientists constantly (re)discover the secrets of the world, aethership captains explore and colonize the world beyond their home shard and engineers have built a huge steel scaffold that connects several shards to form a thriving empire. What used to be lower layers of the planet’s crust is now just the underside of a shard and can be mined for fibrite, a metal that seems to be able to react to emotions and occasionally change its form on its own. A broken tool made out of fibrite might mend itself if its owner has always treated it with respect. Fibrite has become an important resource for all sorts of technology from cameras to steampowered robots that have reached almost human-like sentience and are currently protesting in the streets to be accepted as first class citizens.
But the planet’s destruction has also caused some less obvious changes. In some areas, the laws of physics are just ever so slightly off. Mirrors show images with subtle differences from reality, shadows fall in the wrong direction and solid rocks gently float downwards when dropped. In other places, it’s more extreme: trees start growing human organs and words disappear from books after someone reads them. There are even rumors about people being able to conciously manipulate these phenomena to become invisible, heal mortal wounds, shapeshift into other faces or absorb the knowledge of a whole library within seconds. Scientists are currently investigating this so-called “distortion” and theories range from a side effect of the use of fibrite to some property of the aether dust to outright supernatural causes.
The main setting lets you play as a “soulless” who got most of their soul stolen by an ancient cult. Most people die from this procedure but the soulless got saved by a godlike entity who filled the void where the soul once was with a tiny bit of their supernatural essence. While this costs them most of what made them human, they slowly learn to use this essence to unlock supernatural powers that aid them in the search for their lost souls.
I’m mainly writing campaign modules for the spinoff setting Opus Anima Investigation which lets you play as members of the “Investigation Group for Bizarromancy and Occult matters” of the local police force. Imagine something between X Files, Fringe, Warehouse 13 and SCP. Their job is to uncover, investigate and contain instances of distortion that could pose a danger to the general public. So far I’ve written six modules, some inspired by SCP entries, some entirely my own.
Edit: I’m in contact with one of the original authors and there’s a chance that if OA ever gets a second edition or an English translation, some of my works might get included.
That’s very cool! Hopefully a second edition gets made since that would be amazing to get your work included!
i’m running a fabula ultima campaign and it’s been a lot of fun. very lightweight, JRPG-esque ruleset. I have barely DMed before so it’s a new experience for me, but I’m enjoying it despite the challenges.
On the topic of JRPG rulesets, I will someday run Ryuutama…
What would you say you like about or are challenged by Fabula Ultima?
What I like:
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very very lightweight. My players do not want to crunch and this games system is perfect for that. Combat is snappy
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feels like a jrpg. The fabula and ultima mechanics, and the way combat is paced, both feel great.
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on the topic of ultima, designing villains is a lot of fun
What I don’t like
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combat is tough for me to design around. I feel like every encounter has been way too easy. But I am also out of grad school now, so I can spend more time on interesting fights.
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initiative is a little weird
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you’ll probably burn through the bestiary pretty quickly, so you end up making a lot of unique monsters. Which is fine, but sometimes you just wanna throw a couple skeletons out lol
A lot of the don’t likes are probably just based on my inexperience tbh.
There was an article that I can’t find at the moment, that talked about monsters that changed the way I approach them.
The idea is, monsters are a symptom. There’s something else that’s wrong. You might need to kill them but that won’t solve the problem and eventually a new monster will appear.
So the way I approach things is by thinking about what’s wrong and how that might manifest. Often the same “monster” works in multiple cases and the underlying cause makes each instance feel different because it acts differently based on the cause.
Ooo, thanks for the tip!
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I’ve been working on a D6 based RPG set around the Mediterranean, with establishing trade routes to the east as the main objective. It’s currently a mass of ideas and world building and a random splatter of the actual game mechanics. It’s something I only get to work on every couple of months for a handful of hours so it’s slow going, but it’s really fulfilling to work on.
I prefer Oldhammer to modern 40k tonally, so have created shall we think of it as a fork from the 40k universe. The conceit is a sector that has been cut off from the outside galaxy by constant almost nearly impenetrable warp storms for the last several thousand years.
Within this bubble my personal Space Marine and Imperial Guard forces exist, as do Ork forces run by a friend. They have history and fluff. I make fluff for the planets and major figures in this sector, creating a personal canon with 40k’s canon being a foundation that I feel comfortable being loose with.
So far most actual gaming has been done with the OnePageRules systems, though I am trying to drum up interest in playing 2e or 3e games for novelty.
The lore around 40k is interesting but I’m not a huge fan of grimdark. My settings and stories are on the noble side (though they can be rather dark, and I’ve inflicted sanity damage on players before.) What would you say is the difference between modern and oldhammer that draws you to the older tone?
Oh I like the dark. The darkness is very important for 40k.
A massive difference between old and current 40k is the amount of mystery and vagueness that existed in Oldhammer. The Primarchs were dead and gone. Everything about the Emperor was a question mark. There were only the smallest snippets of fluff about the Horus Heresy.
It created a particular tone about a universe where the glory of the past was long ago and never coming back. The current universe was sinking stagnation and fighting an eternal fight after humanity had already gotten to the “bad ending”.
Modern 40k has had the Horus Heresy novels, which replace the classy vagueness and mystery with detailed play by plays. Perhaps characters inside the universe don’t know about the details, but we as the audience do, and that changes the entire tone. Rather than Primarchs, the Emperor, and the Heresy having tantalizing rare clues scattered in the lore, you have thousands of detailed pages to explain them all.
Now with Guilliman back, the stagnation is gone and the door to flooding the setting back with Primarchs is open. Every single Little Timmy is screaming that they want their favorite primarch to show up. The setting has this distinctly power rangers and plot moving forward kind of vibe, which is completely opposite to the stagnation of eternal war.
I’m more a fan of what is usually described as middlehammer with 4th Edition where I got my start and maybe some 5th Edition. It used to be just fluff and background in a setting for your dudes. But nerds today need to have ‘lore’ for everything and it needs to explain all the things in excruciating detail.
Things used to be so much better with the old stuff.
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Aside from the elemental planes, what sort of themes are you looking at exploring?
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Currently I’ve been reading Witchburner as a side plot line in my current Pathfinder world. I’m using the Midgard setting as a base. Right now I’m trying to write a vampire world takeover that involves them trying to kill Baba Yaga while the PCs attempt to find out this plan and stop it. I’m also working on implementing mechs into it because I’ve been bitten by the Xenogears bug.
**CONTENT WARNING FOR CYBERPUNK Sexual Abuse, Drugs and Murder **
Additionally I’m writing a Cyberpunk Red homebrew campaign that discusses topics such as parasocial relationships, the dangers and downsides of becoming too involved in them, and porn addiction. The players have stumbled upon a terrible human trafficking ring, funded by SovOil’s CEO after killing his daughter due to her mind being taken over by a relic which contained an anticorporate revolutionary hell bent on freeing Neo-Soveit Russia. It’s really dark but I felt like CBP was the world to tell this in
A really cheap way to do mechs might be to steal the Synthesist Summoner as a gestalt class. Otherwise, Lancer is sort of the go to for mechs which shouldn’t be too hard to just bolt on the mech parts.
I’m not familiar with Witchburner, what’s that about?
Lancer is, the problem with Lancer I’ve been having is trying to get humanoid and organic enemies. So while I think of a way to do it I’m running Pathfinder.
Witchburner is an OSR module that’s about the players being Inquisitors sent to burn a witch in a remote location. SPOILERS ahead.
|| There is no witch|| And the players have to prove that there is either a witch amongst them (frame an NPC) or run away (if they can, it’s dangerous in those woods. It’s a social deduction adventure and less centered on any kind of complex combat and more on the relations they have with the NPCs
I wonder if Summoner Eidolons might not just be the way to go then? They come in a variety of forms and Synthesist gives you a framework for how they merge with people. Obviously there will need to be some narrative restrictions in place to make the whole “it’s actually a mech” work but otherwise it’s at least premade and works with the Pathfinder rules.
In retrospect, I don’t know what else Witchburner could have been about lol.
I’m not doing anything other than character building for my current DnD game. At one point, I was playing both Pathfinder and 5e at the same time and realized just how bad 5e defined grappling. I spent a couple of weeks in my free time coming up with a way to define what you can do while grappled/grappling in 5e. I tried to make it more viable of a playstyle while not making it too broken. Sadly, I never got to actually playtest it with a group as we were swapping people around for DMing so they could all get a taste of it and none were experienced enough to allow for the playtest.
I would be more than happy to share some about what I had done, I would just need to find the document. I would really love the idea of a character that is a bar brawler that just grapples and throws people around!
I have and do regularly struggle with how to make non-attack builds viable. I have a game that does a good job of it, but it’s not really setup for being a D&D replacement since it’s a very narrative game that takes inspiration from Technoir, Fate, and to a limited extent Blades in the Dark.
I like playing things that aren’t typical or really useful in some ways. I just want the experience to be unique and fun. What are some of the non-attack builds that you have thought about and/or tried that really stuck out for you?
I’m a huge fan of flavor>>>>>usefulness. My current character has a self imposed fault that causes me to roll wisdom saves when I use fire spells from my top two spell slots. If I fail, I get disadvantage on all mental stats and advantage on all physical. It hasn’t happened much yet. Mainly when a friend is being dangerously hurt. Then my guy gets a little heated and burns spells at high level and faces the consequences, but it is worth it at the time.
One we tried to do recently is an MMO style tank. We were playing FF14 and wanted to do something similar. Aggro is kind of complicated and 5e (for instance) hamstrings you with limited reactions if you can’t find a door to block.
Our solution was that Aggro is a condition, similar to Fear but reversed. You can inflict it on someone instead of attacking. It’s automatic with a removal DC equal to 8+Con+Prof (using 5e math, we use Knave so it’s just Con defense.) On turn or whenever someone deals damage they can Wis save to remove Aggro.
That is a really cool idea. Sounds like it could have been a lot of fun and really scary at the same time in some situations.
It worked fairly well. We went through a number of designs and that was the simplest we thought would work. There’s still a fair amount of difficulty establishing Aggro against groups but that’s basically a feature.
