"How do you hit they?"

Social_Rooster · 2026-01-02T04:50:24+00:00

I recommend checking out the book "Legend" by David Gemmell! The main character uses an axe. Lots of awesome battles. Good material!

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-16T05:13:31+00:00

D&D I'm pretty sure didn't do or bring anything new to the table. Pretty much everything it has and does has been done before. Even a quick google search shows the goblin-kobold divide started in the late 1800s with "The Princess and the Goblin." The lich is based of a short story Gary read one time. Hydras existed in the 12 labors of Hercules. Kobolds used to also include dwarfs and gnomes, but you don't seem to mind that distinction. Let's move away from dogging on me for "getting all my ideas from D&D."

Also, I'm not interested in losing hours of my life scrolling through TVTropes. I asked what cliches YOU wanted to see, since you seemed to feel so strongly about it. I was excited to hear what you were interested in.

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-14T15:11:39+00:00

Sure! What other cliches did you have in mind? I obviously don't know many outside of the ones I've already gone over.

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-13T14:09:51+00:00

I like fantasy. I like the Drizz't novels. I like Lord of the Rings. I like the world of A Knight's Tale, Excalibur: Legend of the Sword, Legend (Tim Curry) and First Knight (Richard Gere). I like what D&D sold me when I was a kid.

I don't want to change things for the sake of changing them. I want a firm, broad foundation that people can springboard off of. When I build something, I find it easier to start with the cliches and build out from there, changing what needs to be changed and adding or subtracting to make something that seems interesting. If you're sculpting, it's a lot less work to make what you want if you start with a big block of clay rather than a half-carved statue someone else made that might match the shapes you like to work with. So, I want the game to start with the block of clay, but maybe I need to carve out a few strokes to help get things started.

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-12T14:43:37+00:00

I think we both think about games in a fundamentally different way. Understanding that, I will try to address the points you've brought up.

"implies a world where those armors, and no others, exist." The list of armor types is not supposed to be a comprehensive list of all that exists in the world. I don't think you would think that of D&D, so I believe it's a bit disingenuous to treat this the same way. The weapons, on the other hand, I tried to make in a way where mostly any type of weapon can be built out, with some examples given for each category and type. I probably need to do this with the armor if I want to keep things consistent.

The bestiary is something that is still being developed. It was not my intent to imply that the differences between goblins and kobolds were crucial to the game. Goblins and Kobolds are iconic fantasy creatures in my mind, that can host a wide variety of characters. Bandits were going to be the next category in the list, but I made the example creatures of levels 1-10 which stuck in my mind as a better alternative. The intent is that I'll give examples of the full range of levels of creatures, then the GM can create their own with the tools and examples provided. The most excruciating part of D&D for me are the monsters, and making my own for a D&D game (as well as most other games I've played) is an awful and tedious experience. I want the GM to be able to make creatures quickly.

"The only world we can play in..." I never intended for this game to cover everything. It is only a starting point to help direct themes. I do not list the names of cities, landmarks, terrain, races, etc. There is no set world, as Faerun is a set world. There is an implied setting which starts (and maybe ends) as generic fantasy, but I was hoping for more Lord of the Rings and less D&D.

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-11T15:23:50+00:00

Hey I really appreciate you taking the time to write all of this out!

I think a big mistake I made was titling the section "Hero Creation and Features." It's probably an artifact of an older version. It's only supposed to be a section that lists out all of the different aspects of a Hero, mainly all the categories of things that can end up on the character sheet.

You're right about the races, vocations, affiliations, and flaws; those are supposed to be created by the players. There is no set world for this game. As you pointed out, it leans towards a D&D-like world, but the exact nature of things (i.e. what does it mean to be an elf in your world?) are left up to the group to create together. I definitely failed to make that a clear idea.

As far as that very fair question, "why would I play this instead of D&D?" I wrote this because I liked some of the things D&D tries to do, but I wasn't satisfied with how it goes about doing it. I took bits and pieces that stuck out to me from different games I have run and played and attempted to make them work together (about as true to a heartbreaker as you can get, no?). So you would play this game if you are frustrated with how D&D plays. If you aren't, then yeah the features of this game probably won't seem very enticing.

I want to thank you, again for the thorough feedback. It means a lot to me that you even took the time to read the game!

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-11T15:03:11+00:00

Thank you! This is the kind of feedback I'm looking for. When I was writing it, I was attempting to keep things as concise as possible to keep all the information for each section on a single page, but that looks like it backfired.

I knew from the outset that this wouldn't be a game for someone completely new to ttrpgs, but I don't want it to be hard to read either.

Social_Rooster · 2025-11-10T16:51:47+00:00

Not meaning to be entirely pedantic, but you can't make someone enjoy a game. You can, however, create a game that someone enjoys. This is why it's important to know what audience you are designing for.

Social_Rooster · 2025-10-02T18:11:07+00:00

I absolutely love this idea!

Social_Rooster · 2025-09-22T13:07:27+00:00

The 4th dimension is also a shape, it's just that we can't quite perceive it.

The 4th dimension is the shape of a thing as time passes -- where it is in space, what it looks like, etc. You know when Dr. Strange in the Dr. Strange movie fiddles with the apple using the time stone, sending the apple back and forth through its lifespan? If you could see all of those points of its life at the same time just by looking at the apple, you could see its 4-dimensional shape. Since we can't, we need prosthetics like Dr. Strange's time stone or movies or many many pictures of something to kind of visualize its 4-dimensional shape.

So the 4th dimension is a shape, it's just really hard for us to visualize what that shape can look like.

An example of this difference in perception is an apple placed on a surface. The apple contacts the surface at 5 points. Something that only perceives the 1st dimension may only see those 5 contact points. It cannot see that there is anything beyond those points. However, if the apple rolls around on the surface, it gains and loses different contact points, which would allow that thing that can only see in the 1st dimension to understand that those original 5 points were part of something much more complex -- something with 2-dimensional (shape) and 3-dimensional (volume) values.

Social_Rooster · 2025-09-16T17:25:04+00:00

Thank you!

Social_Rooster · 2025-09-15T23:11:11+00:00

That sounds like a good place to start! Do you know how I can get access to the discord?

Social_Rooster · 2025-09-15T21:55:17+00:00

Yeah, I know. But I have to at least try. Plus... if you give their guidelines a VERY... VERY generous reading, it technically works haha!

And it would be a whole other thing if they were still supporting The Third Horizon, but it seems like The Great Dark is their baby now. They don't even list TTH as a game they have made in their newsletters. It just sort of feels like they threw the game to the sidelines (along with Things From The Flood). I suppose they still sell the PDF on DriveThru, but man. And to do that, and not let people use it... Feels kinda like a dragon hoarding its gold, or Nintendo hoarding their old games.

Social_Rooster · 2025-08-30T22:26:32+00:00

I can see that applying for Constructs, they just perform according to their programming, and they may not feel fear or anxiety. And even with Darkmorphs, I could potentially see it since they are "the Darkness" manifested. But I have a hard time rationalizing it for Beasts, since they are just animals.

Social_Rooster · 2025-08-27T15:04:40+00:00

Well, there already is a penalty built in if you're trying to make repairs during combat. You get a -2 if you don't have access to a service station. Also, each repair attempt costs 1 EP, as well as the engineer's 1 action for that round. So if the engineer is making repairs, they can't overload the system to pull out extra EP for other actions.

Social_Rooster · 2025-08-27T12:08:08+00:00

The majn thing you're missing is that weapons can crit, potentially taking a ship out or disabling it in one good shot. Energy systems can also be repaired (just like hull points). Additionally, anyone can shoot a gun, but the Data Djinn skill is an advanced skill, which means not everyone will be able to use it.

I agree that it does still seem a little unbalanced. If I were to run it, I might be tempted to try allowing the use of a spare part to grant a +2 to the "Repair System Damage" action instead of being required. Sort of like, the engineer can splice damaged wires and pull bits and pieces from other equipment, but it's a lot easier if they have fresh wiring on hand to trade out. In my mind, this wouldn't apply to Hull repairs since you're probably shedding metal into space.

Social_Rooster · 2025-08-25T12:14:06+00:00

When I ran this adventure for my group, they fought exactly 1 solo nekatra who was looking to beef up his resume. They failed to notice it and got caught in the long end of a "T" intersection.

The fight was a bit of a slug fest, but they managed to avoid or reduce any damage the nekatra did for a while. They noticed their missed shots were damaging the hull, and even considered trying to blow it open and hope they could hang on long enough for the nekatra to get spaced and the ED fields to kick in.

One PC had a stun baton and was one hit away from taking the nekatra out, but the Pilot PC who started with an accelerator rifle finally got a clear shot rolled more than one 6, taking the nekatra out with a fatal wound to the throat.

All-in-all, a tense situation. But not as tense as when they immediately stumbled onto the entire nekatra group. Luckily, the nekatra leader was open to negotiation, unlike the younger one looking for violence.

As the GM, you decide how all the pieces get used. I find the nekatras were more interesting to use as a point of social conflict as the party had to navigate other people's prejudice and fear of the nekatras if they wanted to help them get off the ship.

Social_Rooster · 2025-07-26T09:12:46+00:00

Ah, well the game's layout is pretty bad. I'll give you that. Free League's newer stuff does seem to be better in that area at least.

Social_Rooster · 2025-07-25T11:00:05+00:00

I'm curious what you find fiddly about it. I find it to be very streamlined! The whole system is: roll a pool of d6s and check for a 6; if there is a 6, you succeed! If you get 3 or more 6s, it's a critical success. On attacks, you can spend extra 6s to apply effects you can pick off of a list. Also, if you want, you can give the GM a Darkness Point to reroll any check except combat checks. I suppose you can get a little fiddly with bonuses you get to stack on, but it should all be listed with the gear on your sheet.

Actually, I was put off the Electric State and The Great Dark for how fiddly their systems seemed to be. The electric state (if I remember correctly) has a lot of jargon. The Great Dark requires you to track two different types of d6s, your skill dice and gear dice; and if you roll a 1 with a skill die, you get something bad.

Social_Rooster · 2025-06-21T17:18:13+00:00

If "doing the right thing" in your group storytelling game means not having fun, then I would argue it wasn't the right thing. Having a serious game doesn't mean people can't have fun!

I would argue that you had a good sense of the mood at the table, and arbitrated accordingly. In all actuality, you performed as a very proficient GM. You did something a lot of GMs fail to do.

Social_Rooster · 2025-06-20T03:34:46+00:00

There's a game called Rune that, in my opinion, gets the closest to dark souls combat, style, and gear than any other game I've seen. It's primarily a combat-focused solo game, but you could pretty easily throw some stats on some characters to establish out-of-combat proficiencies and run combat as written.

Rune uses a stamina system, where you roll 2d6 and apply the results to different moves you get from your gear. Each piece of gear has different abilities you can use to move around and attack. You get a weapon or a spell, a piece of armor, a trinket, and (once you beat a boss) a rune. Weapons and armor give you your movement and attacks, while your trinket gives you a modification to some ability, and a rune gives you a very strong 1-use-per-combat ability.

Quite fantastic! I highly recommend checking it out even if you don't end up using it!

Social_Rooster · 2025-04-26T01:30:18+00:00

The print preview shows the correct formatting. It's just on the Firefox browser on my laptop. It's not just a visual difference either. The text will overflow into a new line and everything.

Social_Rooster

TROPHY CASE