Tabletop RPGs in 2018

I can explain it a bit. Basically each player will get a playbook with a series of “moves” they can make. These are actions designed to exemplify what makes your character type cool. They are not combat focused, they are more narrative focused. They also largely drive the game with rules for resolution that often lead to new and interesting problems. A general goal of the design is to make players the drivers of the action, largely through these moves. So much so that in combat, for instance, you don’t roll initiative you just act in whatever order the players would like and a consequence of attacking is the possibility that the enemy will hit back.

The DM gets a playbook also with moves, but it’s a bit more tips on how to get your players to get into the drivers seat.

I think a lot of storytelling centered role-playing games before Apocalypse World were designed genre agnostic. The thing that makes Powered by the Apocalypse games cool in my opinion is that the rules are very tightly linked to the genre and produce stories in that genre.

You can get a sense for how this feels by checking out the Apocalypse World playbooks (first link). But it is worth noting that to me these games feel distinctly story-telling focused and are not attempting to be a crunchy RPG like D&D or Pathfinder. They’re cool if that’s what you’re looking for.

A quibble: Moves aren’t just from playbooks - any given PBTA game will have a set of “basic” moves that anyone has access to that represent the core mechanized actions for that game, as well as potentially various supplementary/peripheral moves that are also not specific to a given playbook but are specialized enough to see less use. Playbook moves let you do special stuff that not everyone gets to do (though most of the games let you snag moves from other playbooks as your character advances). If something’s not a move in the game the GM can write a custom move if they feel like there should be mechanics behind it, otherwise you just follow the fiction. Mechanics are only engaged by moves.

Playbooks also bundle all your other character creation choices with neat little groups of suggestions for cosmetic stuff and choices for things like gear and playbook special stuff (e.g. in Apocalypse World the Savvyhead gets a workspace they detail and rules for doing special tech projects; the Hocus gets a cult; the Battlebabe gets a custom weapon, etc.).

The other big thing is that PBTA generally handles dice resolution by having the relevant player roll 2d6+stat; on a 6 or less, they fail and the GM gets to fuck with the players somehow (mostly freeform according to their principles and movelist, but occasionally prescribed by the move just failed). On a 7-9, they get some sort of mixed or lesser success, and on a 10+ a full success. (Sometimes there’s another tier of success for 12+, but that’s much rarer and often reserved for higher level characters.) The GM generally does not ever roll.

Yeah, I was not interested when I first heard of it and didn’t check the KS page, but the setting feels pretty unique and surprisingly dark…

I set it to “remind me”. will probably back.

I just wanted to share this link from @Rod_Humble about playing solo RPGs.

https://youtu.be/pfnFp83pvKM

Do you want to join an ongoing tabletop RPG game?

We have room for 1 more player to join the 4 other players in our “Perilous Frontiers” game, which I have described above. The next session is Wed 14 Nov at 7pm Eastern US time. We play online using Roll20 for the map, character sheets and dice, and Discord for voice.

The system is the “Freebooters on the Frontiers” variant of Dungeon World. Its an OSR-like game with a focus on random generation, exploration, and set-piece dungeon crawls. We follow a Westmarches-like approach with a safe town and an unknown wilderness.

PM me if interested.

The best example of the game are our summaries:

Session 04:

Summary

The party stood in the mouth of the cave and looked out across the dim, rainy forest. They realized that Scrydan, the seasoned human fighter, was in good health and always ready for a fight. Tobrek, the human cleric of the god of fear and insects, encouraged Scrydan to consider re-entering the caves. Zarl, the portly human thief, agreed especially since he knew there was still treasure inside. Scrydan paused for a moment, then suggested they go kill the queen spider. Tobrek lit their last torch and they re-entered the dark cavern.

They were soon standing in front of the thick webs of the far chamber. Tobrek held the torch to a strand, and it blackened and burned through. He burned them all, being careful of their last torch, and they pressed into the inner chamber. Inside was a cocoon suspended in the center of the cave by a halo of thin threads of web. Scrydan took out his dagger and began to slice them, and they parted easily. This alerted the giant spider, who appeared at the far end, past the cocoon, on the edge of the darkness.

Scrydan charged. The queen spider shot a strand of web at him, and he threw himself into a slide, coming right under the monster and piercing her belly with an upward thrust from his warhammer. She scuttled up and plunged her fangs into his arm, crunching through the chainmail, drawing blood, and searing his flesh with her poison. Scrydan knew he had to get some pressure on the bite quickly, before the poison spread. Tobrek also charged, losing his main weapon to another stream of webs, but drawing his backup weapon and smashing one of her legs. She used her other clawed legs to slash at him, drawing blood.

Tobrek dropped his torch in the battle, and Zarl dove in and tried to grab it. The queen spider though he was charging for her, and she shot a stream of web at him. Zarl was quick on his feet and jumped back in time, and the webs coated the torch and extinguished it. The party was plunged into darkness. Sounds of combat continued while Zarl ripped off his shirt, starting desperately striking his flint and steel, and managed to light the shirt on fire to illuminate the room. The queen was now on the ceiling, scuttling quickly overhead, and Scrydan drew his crossbow and took a shot. She sprung away from the ceiling and plunged on top of Zarl, driving her fangs deep into his chest and holding him fast.

Tobrek knew the flames would go out soon and he chanted a prayer to summon a firefly to light the room. The small insect burst from a boil on his forehead and floated around the room, shedding dim light. Tobrek then charged the spider but she covered him from foot to mouth in thick webs, holding him fast. Scrydan knew this was his last chance and threw everything he had into a massive swinging charge that smashed her with his weapon and knocked them both into the wall. The queen spider died, Zarl was badly wounded but alive, Tobrek was webbed but able to breathe, and the firefly winked out returning them to darkness.

They feared but could not see the cave fill up with hundreds of hand-sized spiders. Scrydan slowly crept over and started to carefully cut the webs off of Tobrek. Zarl sliced his trousers off and lit them on fire. He gasped in horror at hundreds of spider eyes reflected across all of the walls of the cavern. It was too much for him, he fled towards the entrance and the light disappeared.

Scydan took a deep breath, calming his nerves, and finished the job of cutting Tobrek free from the floor. He slowly, carefully, with great mental focus, began dragging the cleric out of the pitch black cavern. Zarl, in another passage, realized that alone and pantsless he might have a chance of sneaking into the elven woman’s chambers and stealing some treasure. He almost went through with it, but his conscience again got the better of him and he returned to help light the way for the party. Everyone dragged themselves back to the mouth of the cave. It was still grey and raining outside. They had left the corpse of the spider queen in the far reaches of the dark cavern, and many were wounded, but all lived.

The party set off for Laborton, they were out of supplies and Zarl was near death. The cold rain was too much for Scrydan’s old bones. When they were halfway home he stopped, set up a small camp at the edge of the forest, and said he was retiring into his tent for the night. Zarl took this opportunity to convince Tobrek they should go try and grab a sun pearl or two, and the two of them set off. Tobrek hung back for a moment to hiss “your weakness disgusts me” at Scrydan, which deeply insulted the grizzled fighter.

Soon the two humans came to the edge of the open, circular grassy glade. The rain and dim clouds made it less appealing of a place than their last visit, which was in the warm sunshine. Zarl was inspired by the mud and rain, slathered himself in wet brown dirt, covered himself in grass, and began to crawl on his belly through the tall grass inching his way to the stones. Tobrek was looking around, warned about the guardian Dryad who had chased off the party on their last visit.

Zarl made it to the circle of round stones, and rather than rolling one back he realized this was his chance to roll two back. It was hard work, the stones fought him every inch, and it took all of his strength and focus to roll them forward while they attempted to roll backwards. He saw the Dryad appear over Tobrek, realized that she could not see him, and kept his head down and his mouth shut. The Dryad fired a bolt of painful lighting down at Tobrek, who spooked and ran back to Scrydan’s camp.

Tobrek pleaded for Scrydan to come and help Zarl, who they feared was dead. Scrydan, with a long and dangerous look at the cleric, came out of his tent, equipped himself, then coughed up a glob of mucus. He was going to have to deal with the sickness he knew would come after more time in the rain, for he was not going to ignore a companion in need.

They returned to the glade. They saw nothing. As they stepped out into the field an unnatural wind began to blow in circles around and around. After a few feet they found Zarl, crawling slowly like a worm, using every ounce of power he had to slide the stones forward inch by inch. He saw them and groaned “drag them”, and his companions leaned down to help with the stones.

This was too much for the Dryad, who darkened the sky and began to summon lightning. The party kept pushing the stones forward. Lighting arced down and seared Scrydan. They continued forward with the stones, only paces away from the edge of the forest. Lighting arced down again and fried Zarl, who fell smoking to the ground. Tobrek and Scrydan both dropped their stones, Scrydan attempting a prayer to scare the thief away from the afterlife, while the fighter tried to figure out how to bandage a full body burn. Alas, it was for naught, and Zarl the thief died in the grass.

Scrydan knew the only way to avenge his friend was to muscle one of these stones out of the glade and bring it home for booty. He picked it up and the Dryad shot down another bolt of lighting, bringing him to within an inch of his life. At this he dropped the stone for the last time, and turned to find Tobrek hunched over Zarl’s body, trying to wriggle it out of the steaming leather armor and emptying the corpse’s pouches. That was it, Scrydan snapped. Flying into a murderous rage he lept over the body and slammed his warhammer down on the cleric’s head, cracking his skull with a mighty blow. Tobrek looked confused, then went limp as his lips whispered a final curse.

Scrydan dragged the two corpses to the edge of the wood. He looted the cleric then left the corpse there to rot. He carried the body of his companion - no, he called him a friend - Zarl back to the campsite. He stripped the corpse of valuables, wrapped it, and then collapsed into his tent.

Just before lunch the next day Scrydan appeared at the gates of Laborton. He was coughing heavily, drenched by rain and mud, limping slowly, and carrying the wrapped body of the fat thief over his shoulders. The guards looked at him in amazement as he staggered past. He ignored them and brought the body to the same church where they buried Tildur, and spent some of the dead cleric’s coins on healing.

Scrydan returned to the Deer’s Perch Inn, walked over and placed Zarl’s favored crowbar inside the trophy case, then sat and wolfed down a steaming hot bowl of stew. It was time to find more companions. Now that he was the only vote he was quite sure they were going to change course and explore Prospector’s Rock. He stared grimly ahead, his hands occasionally scratching at the small red bites bites that covered his body and face. The cleric’s dying curse of fleas was not improving his mood.

Session 05:

Summary

Leon the magic user rejoined Scrydan the fighter. Schaffa “the nose”, human thief and treasure hunter, signed on to the party as did Gilliam O’Connor, small halfling fighter with a big ego. They scanned the map and agreed to head to Prospector’s Rock. Scrydan shared some additional silver and they bought basic supplies, negotiating over who would get space on Xavier the mule.

They set off over the open grass outside of town and headed north in the hills. Later that day they came across a fresh blood smear where an animal had been killed and dragged off. The party decided to investigate, climbed a short ridge, and looked down to see a grizzly bear eating a deer. The group was intrigued by the dark cave behind the bear, and didn’t want to leave a predator walking free in the hills, so they decided to attack.

Leon cast defensive miasmas over Schaffa, and Scrydan and the fighter went charging down the hill. He gulped loudly when he saw the bear stand up to its full height, but got lucky and was able to duck under its paws and smack it in the head with his hammer. This stunned the beast for a moment, while Schaffa threw a knife into its shoulder, and Scrydan was able to finish it off. They were glad they didn’t have to test the strength of its jaws.

Schaffa took his time skinning the bear, and Scrydan hefted it over his shoulders. The bear’s intact pelt would bring a hefty price back in town. This slowed down their progress and they had the camp for the night, setting up their tents in a dry creek. Gilliam annoyed Leon by trying to whip up some food for everyone, which was Leon’s job, and then the new halfling mucked it up and wasted a bunch of provisions. Is there nothing sadder than watching two halflings pester each other in a field kitchen?

At midnight Scrydan, who was on watch, heard a trickle of water become a torrent, but could see nothing. Then his breath got cold, he got suspicious and shouted to wake up the team. The sounds of water got louder as a white mist formed around them. Out of the mist appeared two ghostly apparitions who appeared to be made from flowing water. They streaked towards the party, ignoring Leon who stood completely still, and rushed for Gilliam who ducked and hid behind Schaffa. The rogue didn’t like when he saw his blade pass harmlessly through the ghosts, and liked the ghost’s icy touch even less as it wounded him.

Scrydan grabbed a burning log from the fire and began to swing it towards the ghosts. That worked! It partially dissipated one, but angered the other, who reached out with an icy tendril of liquid ectoplasm and froze a section of his skin. Gilliam became desperate, lit his bedroll on fire and began to wave it towards the ghosts. This drove one off entirely, but drove the second one on top of Scrydan who was almost killed. As his blanket went out, Gilliam lept into the fire, kicked a burning log into the ghost, and stood there laughing … and burning as his trousers caught on fire. The fire was too much for the ghosts. They vanished, leaving the party to relocate their camp, bind their wounds, and try to get some sleep.

The next morning was rainy but uneventful. The party returned to Laborton triumphantly carrying the heavy, wet bear skin. They sold it for more silver than they had yet seen on this adventure, bought some healing from the temple, and returned to the Deer’s Perch Inn for a few drinks and companionship. Scrydan purchased a cart, the party loaded it up with more supplies, and they headed out the next morning under clear skies. It was the middle of the tenth month, the weather was holding up, but they knew eventually it will get much colder.

That day was spent wandering through the hills. They spied another party of the boar-men, who Leon discovered were called “Scrofa” in the old books they found in the spider caves, and choose to avoid an encounter but also managed to get lost. They had to double back a few times, and decided to set up camp and try fresh in the morning. That night a full moon shone brightly, and wolves howled all around, but nothing attacked.

The next day the party, their cart and their wagon arrived at the base of the mountains. They rolled out from light woods and started to cross a large open dirt field. On the far side was the boarded up and abandoned entrance to a mine. There were warning signs around it, but they were too far away to make out any detail. Above the mine entrance was a steep rocky slope, almost a sheer cliff, that rose for 50 yards above the dirt field.

The ground began to rumble ominously as the cart creaked across the dirt field. There, in front of them, was a crest of dirt moving rapidly towards them. Leon turned the cart and whipped the donkey, Scrydan jumped off, and Schaffa called out for Gilliam to distract whatever it was. The crest turned into a massive wave of dirt and rock, larger than their cart. The halfling fighter ran right at the dirt, which turned and began to rush towards him. A large, armored, four-legged animal the size of the cart burst from the ground, its angular head open to reveal scissor-like jaws larger than a halfling. Gilliam dropped and froze. Luckily the motion of the beast carried it over the halfling, and it crashed into the ground and vanished beneath the dirt.

“Run!” screamed Schaffa. Leon called up a defensive spell to protect the cart and whipped the mule even faster. Gilliam scrambled into the treeline. Scrydan, brave Scrydan, walked out into the middle of the dirt field, trying to get the beast away from the halfling. The crest of dirt appeared again. Scrydan stood his ground. The crest turned into a wave. Scrydan stood his ground. The armored jaws of the beast started to rise from the ground - and Leon threw a can at the monster and screamed at it. The monster turned, its nostrils flaring with anticipation, and headed towards the halfling mage. Scrydan was in position to smash it with his hammer but the thing’s armor was too thick.

The beast was now in pursuit of the cart, and no-one wanted to think about what might happen to their beloved donkey Xavier should this foul beast catch the cart. Scrydan dashed forward and managed to cut the ankle of the beast, which dove back under the ground. Scrydan, Leon and Schaffa quickly rode off in the cart. Gilliam watched the dirt field for a while. He noticed that the rumbling had caused a small rock slide down the side of the cliff. A dark crevasse was exposed, showing a different way into the side of the mountain.

The party gathered a safe distance away. A serious debate ensued. Gilliam knew exactly what the beast was. This was a bulette, or “land shark” as his halfling granny had called it, and he didn’t know much about it except for its legendary hunger for the sweet taste of halfling meat. Gulp. This didn’t help Leon’s nerves, who was strongly in favor of going to bother the mysterious elven women reading in the spider caves. Schaffa would have none of that, and described a few ways where his light feet and hopefully nimble mind would lure and trick the beast so the party could sneak past it and into the mines.

In the end it was decided to take the cart and ride around the next valley to approach the mines from above. This was easily done, and in another hour the party was looking down on the dirt field from 50 yards above. Scrydan took a rope from the cart, firmly attached his grappling hook to the top of the cliff, and gestured down the rope. Everyone took a few bumps and bruises as they scrambled and swung and slid down the steep rocky face, with Leon getting a nasty cut.

The party stood safely on a rock ledge, 30 yards down from the top but still 20 yards above the open dirt field and the mine entrance below. Their cart and steadfast donkey were tied up above, and they had carefully chosen the equipment they could carry. The dark crevasse revealed itself to be an opening into a smooth stone hallway that had been exposed by the small rock slide. The hallway ran straight into the side of the mountain. The party looked at each other, waiting to see who would enter first.

This amused the crap out of me today:

Friday night I got to enjoy a really delightful brainfuck.

So, as I’ve mentioned a few times on the boards, our local RPG Meetup, RTR, runs large-scale Semi-Organized Play campaign seasons all year long, in the vein of Pathfinder Society and D&D Adventurer’s League, but using other games and featuring storylines written by our large team of dedicated GMs.

One of our most successful SOPs, “New Guard,” is a teen superheroes game using the Mutants & Masterminds 3E ruleset; each player takes on the role of a (now Junior) student at Claremont Academy in Freedom City, balancing classes, missions, and interpersonal drama (omg I don’t have a date to the homecoming dance!) each week as the GM team leading the SOP slowly unfolds each season’s story. We’ve all gotten pretty damned attached to our characters and the world at large over the last three years, to the point that we’ve got more active, interested players (about 2 dozen active characters) than we have GMs to run tables (the small team of four can only reliably run three sessions/tables each week–each with a unique adventure!).

So we’ve taken to running a Delinquents Table with the folks stuck on the Waitlist (signups on Meetup.com are first-come, first-serve, so there’s always a rush at 1PM when SOP signups go live!), where people can bring boardgames and hang out with the larger group, still earning an XP-like Power Point for showing up and staying a part of the community. Ostensibly, the Delinquent’s Table is supposed to be done “in-character” as your New Guard toons to justify the Power Point, and to keep folks engaged in the campaign while they’re missing out on an actual mission.

This week, I was one of the unlucky few who missed out on a spot at a real table, so I volunteered to run a session of “Demons & Delvers” in-character for the Delinquents. Demons & Delvers is an RPG parody one of the “New Guard” GMs made up in the first season that my character played weekly all through the second season with what he thought was a reformed villain, Doc Otaku, but was in fact an evil android replicant sent to spy on us. “New Guard” is complicated :)

Anyway, the in-character idea was that my character, a wannabe goth superhero who calls himself Twilight and watched The Crow with his dad a few too many times growing up, would try his hand at running a game of it with his friends that were stuck at the dorms for the weekend while everyone else was out on missions.

The long and short of this meant that I got to roleplay as an angsty 16-year-old goth kid sulking because he didn’t get picked to save the world, running an RPG for the first time, while the other players at the table got to go two levels deep, roleplaying as their “New Guard” characters roleplaying as the Demons & Delvers PCs they rolled up in-game. That’s right folks, RPG INCEPTION ACHIEVED.

IRL, I used the Fate Accelerated rules, goofily renaming things to Demons & Delvers-appropriate names (those aren’t Created Advantages on the table–they’re Demonboons! Those aren’t Fate Points your character’s earning, they’re Delver Points!). I also got to mess with the players at two separate levels, tempting their “New Guard” characters via their Mutants & Masterminds 3E “Motivations” with Hero Points, while my “New Guard” character, GM Twilight, got to tempt their characters’ Demons & Delvers characters with “Delver Points” to Compel their Aspects. . .

One of the NG characters, Deaglan, is half-dulahan fae, so he cast a working to animate Twilight’s minis and dry erase map into a living representation of his dark gothic world (so dark, so gothic, so tortured, as only a tryhard 16-year-old could envision). Another NG character, Cass, is a superscientist who kept rolling her Expertise: Engineering against Twilight to prove to him that her D&D character, a sexy alchemist, could totally do ridiculous stuff like make a fire extinguisher potion to lob at a hellhound using only ingredients found in a standard medieval-era kitchen.

Meanwhile, an ongoing storyline for my NG character, Twilight, is that he’s feuding with his soon-to-be-stepdad, Devin, a serially unemployed stoner loser/hot yoga instructor who his mom fell in love with a few years after Twilight’s biological father died in a supervillain attack. So, of course, the plot of the two-levels-deep D&D session was that a vile, charismatic, but ultimate lame Demon named Devos was trying to seduce the Dark Lady of Durafell, Yunalesca into marrying him, and it was up to the player characters’ player characters to stop him by revealing how stupid and dumb he really was.

Of course, Deaglan’s monstrously high +12 Insight let him easily see through the emotional baggage Twilight was bringing into the game, and he convinced the player NG characters to just let the gothy GM work through his shit without commenting on it.

Nevermind that Deaglan recently had a brush with a gateway to hell, tainting his fae magic with hellfire, such that the little hellhound mini leapt up onto Twilight’s bed midgame and set it on fire. . . luckily Cass had bossily made an actual homebrew fire extinguisher in the NG game, so she was able to put it out, and another one of the players’ NG characters, Timothy/Fixer Upper, used his superpowered nanobots to repair the sheets, accidentally recreating them as infinite-thread-count supersheets.


Point is, motherfucking RPG inception, and fun was had by all. However, I will say that DMing a 3-hour RPG session as a tryhard gothkid who tries to sound like Christian Bale’s Batman, if Christian Bale’s Batman’s voice still cracked sometime, was really fucking murderous on my real-life voice, haha.

Tremendous indie RPG deal in the latest Bundle of Holding:
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Cornucopia6

Dusk City Outlaws is a pretty cool fantasy heist game - not sure it’s quite as masterful as Blades in the Dark but on the other hand it’s a fairly different take, much more Ocean’s Eleven than Peaky Blinders.

The Spire is a fabulously inventive game about being drow resistance fighters (terrorists, even) in a high-elf ruled massive living tower city. It’s just full of amazing classes, setting ideas, etc.

I don’t know the other three, but shit, the bundle’s worth it for the three I highlighted by themselves.

Red Markets is a brutal game of economic horror and survival in the part of America that got left behind when the zombie war ended. And, yes, it’s another zombie game, but it’s a really, really smart one. It deserves your time and attention.

Thanks for the tips, @malkav11. Those all do around interesting, perhaps I’ll jump on it. I did get the Bundle of Tentacles just a few weeks back, though. Hmm.

It also seems like @ArmandoPenblade might be interested in the current Bundle of Fate- it seems I remember him being interested in Fate-powered Space Opera stuff, and there’s Bulldogs, Starship Tyche and Elysium Flare in there (among others).

That sounds incredible. Fantastic idea.

Pelgrane Press has a 20%-off deal on some of their titles:

https://www.pelgranepress.com/shop/default.asp

Commissioned some character art for my teen superhero described above, Twilight. Empowered by a deal with an Unseelie Fae prince, he has forged two “magical girl”-style transformations to show off all of his complicated teenaged emotions: the Umbral Warden, a shadowy stalker and nightmare-inducing representation of his dark side, and the Quicksilver Chevalier, a rainbow shining unicorn knight of purity and cleansing light.

It’s all ludicrous high camp, but it’s almost certainly the kind of hot nonsense I’D have done at 16…

Very interesting, the pic made me read your “RPG inception” post above, which I’d missed. Question; what are his powers?

As a normal human kid, none, apart from him being modestly more agile and persuasive than the typical teenager. His magical jacket, his patron’s first gift, is faintly alive, however, granting him substantial (superhuman) bonuses to Dodge and Parry (as the buckles move to intercept blows or drag him out of harm’s way). His patron’s primary gift, the Chains of Perdition, are semi-animate, striking with unerring accuracy, dealing significant physical damage, locking down foes (and granting Twilight the power to drag and throw people easily 5x his own size), and eventually filling them with feelings of crippling guilt that incapacitates them if they don’t break free.

When he transforms over into the Umbral Warden form, he gains limited flight from his Sephiroth-inspired angel wing, an enormous bonus to Intimidation, generates a sphere of harrowing darkness that cloaks him and his allies and hampers foes, and enables him to “cast” Harrowing, an effect that forces foes to relieve their worst memories and deepest fears, incapacitating anyone with a weak will in a large area around him.

Finally, in the form of the Quicksilver Chevalier, he gains a magical unicorn steed who can run over water or along walls, deal excessive Charge damage with her horn, and makes flowers grow. His armor in that form reduces his Dodge/Parry noticeably, but grants him superhuman toughness and immunity to most weaker attacks. Finally, he is able to create a burst of brilliant rainbow light, blinding and stunning those too slow to react.

All of that comes at the significant cost of his mortal soul, and he’s recently learned that every action he undertakes with his powers spreads the name and influence of his patron in not just the fae world, but the mortal one as well. It would appear the Twilight Darkness seeks to expand its domain into the realm of humanity in the near future. . .

Thanks for the description, Mando.

Anytime, Gun-o! :-D

Along the lines of Four Against the Darkness…

Interesting old BGG post positing that Empires in Arms (a board wargame) is the ultimate RPG.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/322452/eia-ultimate-role-playing-game

For anyone interested in Pathfinder Humble Bundle has a big deal going right now for the Pathfinder 10th Anniversary.

Well, here’s a thing. In a full 180 degree change from what they’ve always said about the project, Monte Cook Games has just announced you can buy Invisible Sun in PDF form- $99 for the whole shebang. Which seems expensive for a digital-only thing, but it is very nice digital versions of everything in that absurd minimum-$250 box they produced. According to the site:

  • The four corebooks, fully hyperlinked and bookmarked.
  • The roughly 1000 cards, laid out in a printer-friendly format.
  • Approximately 70 additional files including handouts, props, an art book, big maps, five different character sheet designs, secrets, posters, and much more.

I admit, I’m tempted. As I said back when the original Kickstarter was running, it’s right up my alley, even if I’ll never play it. Perhaps this summer when I have some extra cash.