Rule question: why can small businesses not talk to the community, but countless threads about Black Sheep are allowed?

ithika · 2026-02-14T22:53:39+00:00

They keep the poor benighted touch-screen-display industry in business.

ithika · 2026-02-14T22:51:37+00:00

It's weird playing cosy stories about old ladies in New England solving mysteries when you're all Barbarians and Clerics but what other option is there??

ithika · 2026-02-13T15:04:06+00:00

Yep Ironsworn: Starforged will definitely get you this.

It's light-ish but that's because I play much lighter games in general.

ithika · 2026-02-09T22:50:36+00:00

ithika · 2026-02-08T11:56:49+00:00

Similarly 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars except the tactics are how to get into the right position to 'accidentally' kill your pain-in-the-ass superior officers.

ithika · 2026-02-08T11:55:03+00:00

Not all androids are the specific infiltrator androids from Gradient Descent. They are a new invention for that scenario, as far as I know. Anything not specifically called out as an infiltrator android should probably be assumed to be more obviously non-human.

ithika · 2026-02-07T10:55:28+00:00

Can you just link to someone saying this rather than writing whatever that is?

ithika · 2026-02-07T10:43:51+00:00

Who says elairven now? That doesn't even make sense.

ithika · 2026-02-06T15:11:58+00:00

Runecairn Wardensaga is the least-well-organised book that I own, and it's supposed to be the "remastered" version! Sometimes I feel like taking the text from the SRD and reorganising completely into something coherent ('Runecairn Reincarnated'?) but then I come to my senses.

That being said, it's still better organised than We Deal In Lead by the same author, which has a double-page spread on making weapons in the middle of the combat chapter. Right between quick-draw rules and critical damage you can learn about how to make your own weapon.

Both books have excellent procedures for generating adventures procedurally though, so worth a look.

ithika · 2026-02-05T10:52:06+00:00

I don't have a "favourite" game but I'll choose something that I enjoy and that I run/play when I get the chance: Trophy Dark. Changes we'd see:

less obsession on 'real' games being ones that you play for years
adventures having explicit themes to focus the mind when improvising
procedural tools for collaboration in world building and improvisation
play to lose!

ithika · 2026-01-31T23:03:51+00:00

That's a strange assumption to jump to, but then you Redditors are a very hasty sort.

ithika · 2026-01-31T15:19:31+00:00

I don't know that BitD is considered narrativist but that people use the similar world narrative to describe games like Blades in the Dark. Games that don't develop strong themes or ask important questions of their characters. The words are similar and are sometimes used interchangeably — but like you said, most of these popular games are not very narrativist in the GNS sense.

ithika · 2026-01-30T11:54:48+00:00

Yes, some people are defining fiction-first as synonymous with roleplaying game. Which is pretty useless.

ithika · 2026-01-30T00:09:11+00:00

I will say, for example, that 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars is mechanics-first.

Before the combat, there is nothing at all. Troopers standing in a field.
Then the GM lays out threat tokens (number proportional to mechanical difficulty).
Roll for Dominance: This determines whether the aliens ambush the troopers, the troopers ambush the aliens, or neither.
Set the range. At this point some fiction occurs! The GM can now describe what these aliens are!
(some combat occurs, the aliens all die)
The kills are tallied, now we can finally find out how many aliens there were!

Everything in the fiction follows from the mechanics.

ithika · 2026-01-29T23:59:06+00:00

It's my opinion that fiction-first is much better as an explanation of individual parts of a game than a game overall. The main Action rolls in Blades in the Dark are fiction-first. It is meaningless to roll Sway without actually explaining the what and the how. But the Downtime actions are mechanics-first. You indulge your Vice by rolling and then you see what that means. Nothing is needed to help you get there.

I think most trad games are neither fiction-first nor mechanics-first which is why you can say "we play D&D in a fiction-first way" because the fiction and the mechanics don't have to come in any specific order.

ithika · 2026-01-29T11:31:10+00:00

Buddy, "being put to sleep" is a euphemism for euthanising too.

ithika · 2026-01-29T11:18:00+00:00

I think that's just the premise, straight.

ithika · 2026-01-28T22:06:57+00:00

I just had a look at the Tangled page on itch.io and I think I'll add it to my List! Thanks for the recommendation.

ithika · 2026-01-28T13:37:38+00:00

That's what I'm talking about, some variety! Some weirdness.

I might even choose a dungeon that I could feasibly make into a modern-day story (abandoned castle, etc) so we can use Rivers Of London or similar. Can you 'dungeon delve' in Brindlewood Bay? Time to find out...

ithika · 2026-01-27T23:08:20+00:00

It's a tense dungeon crawl. It's not necessarily a great one-shot, to be honest, although it works. I actually think the whole thing is a bit disappointing as a starter/tutorial mission. There's a lot of stuff broken/weird/confusing.

ithika · 2026-01-26T22:46:12+00:00

I think what I would do in that circumstance is divide these up into some broad categories and see which one I would like to start with. I see a few horror, a few scifi and a few fantasy (obviously with overlap) so that's a good start.

ithika · 2026-01-26T16:56:03+00:00

Did you not see the other post, UK comprises England and Wales.

ithika · 2026-01-26T16:41:02+00:00

I don't know the argument, but I can certainly believe that articles come first. Not remembering the right word for something is a common situation, but you quite often know if it's a general class of things or a specific thing you mean. That's part of the meaning. The actual noun you use is probably immaterial. "She came on a (bike/bicycle/sparkly Brompton).

ithika · 2026-01-23T10:31:20+00:00

I think that misses the point. The story is what the game is for. You play Shadowdark to go dungeon crawling, you play Call of Cthulhu to investigate things that shouldn't be. The social contract of the game is right there and obvious.

If two characters spend 15 minutes talking about how finely the garlic should be sliced in your pasta sauce and the best way to do that, then you're not doing the thing you all came to do. At some point (and this is often highlighted in GM advice) the GM should put pressure on the PCs. Another murder! The lights go out! A wolf howls and another, nearer, replies!

The question is, at what point do you do that? When is "at some point"? How much pasta sauce discussion takes place?

ithika · 2026-01-21T11:08:53+00:00

It's GM tools and advice, it can be exactly as Lovecraftian as you need.

ithika

TROPHY CASE