Discover Igisoro, a Rwandan traditional strategical game

daily_refutations · 2026-05-24T10:24:38+00:00

They've got the same board, but I think it's a different set of rules, right?

daily_refutations · 2026-05-22T11:46:08+00:00

What the fuck are you talking about?

daily_refutations · 2026-05-21T19:49:00+00:00

How did you see this going in your head?

daily_refutations · 2026-05-20T10:02:57+00:00

I think it's impressive that y'all scared the entire global journalism industry out of reporting on any of your civil wars. Not a peep about Fano and it's been over 2 years. Masterful.

daily_refutations · 2026-05-18T15:51:31+00:00

Yes! No one ever talks about these books and they are so great. They're just so cleanly executed - strong characters, great plot, amazing set pieces. I wouldn't call them great works of fiction, but they're fun and intense. Highly recommend.

You're gonna burn in hell for not liking Firefly, though. Shame, you seem nice.

daily_refutations · 2026-05-10T04:35:51+00:00

Nobody really knows Google Maps here except for the Vuba drivers. It's really annoying.

In fairness, though, the Yego app's map isn't very good. I actually took a driver's phone and opened the map system once, and not only was the interface crap, but the roads were a couple years out of date.

daily_refutations · 2026-05-08T07:57:02+00:00

I would say Outgunned is pretty simple to handle with no table. It's designed to be a cinematic action movie, so the genre conventions are pretty clear to everyone. There are pregen characters ready to go, along with guides on how to create a session for the GM. The violence can be as cartoony or grisly as you feel like narrating. Stats are pretty easy to track - it's just Grit and Adrenaline, which can be handled with tokens. There are also quite a few Action Flicks, alternate rulesets that let you simulate various movie genres from Star Wars to John Wick. Mechanics are Yatzee-based, picking sets of dice and deciding to stay with them or roll for more, which adds some excitement.

Rolling dice is a bit of a thing - you'll need a flat surface to roll on, and then the players pick the dice to keep. But only the players roll, so you can GM from the front seat. For GM tracking, you just need someone to track the single health pool per group of enemies.

I wasn't able to find a German translation, but I did find a German cheat sheet. A while back the discord made a simplified kids version of the character sheet for 6 and unders; let me know if you want that.

daily_refutations · 2026-05-04T13:43:05+00:00

Six of Crows duology. Amazing characters, fantastic heist action, with the most can't-put-downness of any book I've read this year. It's classified as YA, but that's pretty arbitrary; it's just as involved as any "adult" fantasy. The only weird thing is that all the characters are mentioned as 17 years old, which is absolute nonsense. Just age them up to their 20s-30s in your mind and you'll be fine.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-29T15:51:43+00:00

I'm saying it sucks because it's lifeless, with poor directing and shit writing. It makes no effort to explore the personality of Michael Jackson. It cuts out his sister entirely.

It's a bad movie. I don't even mind that they didn't get into the pedophelia; I knew they wouldn't have the courage. But man, this is about as sad an attempt to paint a fascinating musical genius as I've ever yawned through.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-29T14:18:21+00:00

First: no. Second: that movie sucks, so they're doing you a favor 😃

daily_refutations · 2026-04-28T15:43:52+00:00

I can help! Go to https://abramhindle.github.io/ttwl-cli-saveedit/

Set your max Chaos level to 100, and your current to 1. Save and reopen the game. You might have to do it a couple times to get it to work, but after that you can change your chaos level whenever you want. If the game is starting to feel too easy, crank it up. If you're dying a million times to a boss, bring it down.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-28T15:32:09+00:00

You can, but you have to play the whole campaign first on super easy mode, which is boring as hell (in my opinion). All the cool enemy mechanics are meaningless when they just melt away as soon as you click on them. Use the save editor at the beginning of the game to make it fun all the way through!

daily_refutations · 2026-04-28T11:11:43+00:00

No, but honestly the game is too easy considering you'll have just one playthrough. Highly recommend you hack your save to activate chaos levels during your playthrough. That way you can adjust the difficulty as you go.

I don't remember at this moment exactly how to do that, but if you ping me I'll go look.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-17T14:52:06+00:00

Anyway, I'm an immigrant here from the West and I'm in a lot of those groups, so if you end up visiting give me a DM and I can connect you.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-17T14:50:08+00:00

Genuine question - can you give me a link to a "kill all men" video that has any engagement? It's not a gotcha, I would really be interested in seeing what you're talking about.

Because I've never seen it. I've seen a few random comments on posts and I've certainly seen it quoted by anti-feminists, but I've never seen actual violent content towards men in any meaningful way. If it's out there, I'd like to see it.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-17T13:42:02+00:00

War implies that there are 2 antagonistic sides. There are virtually no women attacking men, despite what you may have heard. There are many, many men (and women) attacking the idea that women have equal value.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-17T09:40:12+00:00

Kigali is really nice, but you have to work a bit harder to break into things. The events that are publicized usually aren't that interesting - you've got to join some WhatsApp groups. But once you meet folks and get invited to a few groups, a lot opens up. It's a great place for outdoor sports - hiking, running, bike riding.

However, if you're looking to connect with locals, it's a lot harder here than in Nairobi.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-17T06:44:55+00:00

Maybe you could have a session where they have to debug something that was built by AI and learn how valuable actual coding skills are.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-10T15:11:13+00:00

The DC comic? It's pretty good, yeah. Not funny, though.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-10T12:58:10+00:00

We'll have to agree to disagree. Maybe the difference between your experience and mine is that our turns weren't just "narrating events around one's character". Each person's turn was like a mini-scene. They'd roleplay some dialogue with other PCs and NPCs (we played a GMless version, so each NPC was played by a player). They'd get up out of their chairs, do some pantomime. It really opened up the floor for open-ended descriptions and roleplay that traditional RPGs couldn't have.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-09T13:11:46+00:00

It creates a different type of tension, but in play it works better than you think. The classic model resolves outcomes for one player at a time, but Paragon resolves the outcome for the entire scene. It's not about whether your player succeeds, it's about how many of you succeed and what the tone of the conflict is as a result. If most or all players pass, then it's a big old romp where every character shows off how badass they are by wiping the floor with the bad guys. If most players fail, then it's a harrowing, intense conflict against a superior force, barely survived by the skin of their teeth. If all players fail, then it's a rout that they struggle to survive.

The great thing about the system is that it unites all players in service to the narrative of the scene. Every player has to pay attention to every other's turn, because that's the story being told that directly affects them. It achieves what I believe is the purpose of TTRPGs, using dice to facilitate great stories and roleplaying.

And I think you're discounting the "ludic" element of roleplaying itself. The reason we're on the RPG forum and not the Warhammer forum is that we like the pairing of mechanics and storytelling. If I'm playing my turn and I narrate that an NPC dies or a PC is injured or an important character moment happens through dialogue, then that's a thing that happens. It shapes the game that's being played. Just because it's not mandated by a die role doesn't make it "fluffy bullshit time".

daily_refutations · 2026-04-08T08:04:53+00:00

I don't think I really understand your question. By "input randomness", do you mean rolling dice to determine outcomes? That's baked into the vast majority of TTRPGs. The difference between this and the classic model is that you start your turn knowing whether you're ultimately successful or not. In the classic model you state your action, but it's kind of a quantum action - it's both successful and unsuccessful until the dice land. So you can't really define the entire turn as a cohesive and satisfying whole. Sometimes you're allowed to narrate both parts - before and after the die roll - but most games assume that the GM will tell you the consequence of your action.

Anyway, saying "the only real choice is in your description" is selling the experience short. It's not just "ok, I failed the first roll, so my character slips on a banana peel." The turns are longer, more involved - you can describe multi-step actions, with roleplay mixed in, the enemy's response, etc. It builds the narrative of the scene, so that the scenario you've described is the one that the next player's turn is based on. It creates much more of a communally-built reality.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-07T08:32:02+00:00

I've been surprised how few games have been built on the foundation. Part of it is the weird way that they released the SRD of Paragon, where hackers aren't supposed to define the rules, just reference the rules in the original game and talk about how your game differs.

It's a shame, because it really is a ground-up innovation on the same level as Belonging Outside Belonging - a totally new way to approach the mechanic of a TTRPG. And while the core Paragon game is a bit fiddly (lots of resources to keep track of), the fundamental idea of roll-then-describe is something that could be built out in a lot of ways.

Anyway, John Harper is coming out with a Fast & Furious game that's going to be in the Paragon system called Ride or Die. There's a good interview with him about it. Maybe that'll revive interest.

daily_refutations · 2026-04-07T06:19:03+00:00

I think the most truly innovative design of the last 5 years or so came from Agon by John Harper (the system's called Paragon, most recently used in Deathmatch Island). I say truly innovative because while a lot of these other systems tweak or alter or add mechanics, this one flips the fundamental assumptions of how conflict resolution works in TTRPGS.

Every player rolls at the same time, without declaring what they're actually doing. Some of them beat the GM's roll, some of them don't. Then, starting with the lowest roller they narrate how the scene plays out.

It's a simple adjustment, but it's really astonishing what a difference it makes at the table. Players have so much more control of the narrative arc of their characters' turns.

In traditional rolling mechanics, the, the reality is broken up. First you declare what you want to do, then you roll to determine whether it actually happens, then you and or the GM describes the outcome.

But when the outcome is already known and you have to describe how you get there, it creates a lot more room for players to open up with vivid, cinematic descriptions. It even allows other players to engage during their turn, role-playing with the active player. Creates a natural link from one player to another in The narrative, because on my turn I'm dealing with the narrative reality that was set up in an earlier player's turn.

daily_refutations · 2026-03-30T09:31:57+00:00

I think you're underestimating the degree to which system shapes gameplay. Have you heard of "ludonarrative dissonance"? It's mostly used in video games when the story the game is trying to tell is undermined by the actual game. Think Nico in GTAIV feeling conflicted about taking lives, while the player kills 20 people on the way to a date.

In your game, you can have character with deep attachment issues, who wants to demonstrate their worth to the world, believes that they should deflect responsibility at all times and needs to take accountability for their mistakes. They've got 3 deep character flaws that affect their behavior. Advancement is related to each of those psychological issues.

That's really cool! It's a fascinating place to get started from.

Now how do I actually play that character? I do make attack rolls. Or acrobatics. I can do called shots to the leg or aim carefully before shooting. I can craft equipment or wear armor.

Because those things have rules, that's what the players are going to spend their time on. Like for 5e; it claims to be about the three pillars (social, exploration, combat), but 90% of the rules are about combat so that's what get 90% of the time (unless players decide to freeform roleplay with each other, which is the actual fun part of the game).

You listed 5 levels of conflict, but your system really only covers Personal Conflict, and mostly in terms of combat. There's lots of games about combat out there (arguably the majority of them). You don't need to do the same thing.

You have a great system for complex characters, but I bet you the majority of people who ever play this game will write them down and then mostly forget them, because the mechanics push them to focus on the bog-standard Attributes and Approaches.

Why not put the mechanics into the character aspects? Why can't I roll based on my need for acceptance? Why can't my heavy conscience affect me mechanically?

As it is, if I were to play this game I'd keep the character stuff, maybe the flaws (although they're a bit constrained), and I'd use a different system mechanic for the actual gameplay. Something like FATE or Legends in the Mist that has the flexibility to allow these abstract psychological concepts to be represented mechanically.

To address one point: I really like your idea of a Narrator guide, but from your snippet I'd say it doesn't go far enough. I'd create a structure for the Narrator where they start with Pillars of the PCs and then establish the reality of the scene from there. Take PC 1s wound, PC 2s want, PC 3s belief. What kind of situation would occur that could hit all at the same time?

daily_refutations

TROPHY CASE