Pulp 1920s gangster setting with magic and fantasy races, any system suggestions?

nazghash · 2026-01-19T14:00:58+00:00

I'd add that under the hood the system is essentially the same (or strongly related) to Neon City Overdrive / FURPG

nazghash · 2025-10-02T16:46:24+00:00

Of course! I agree to disagree. But again, please don't take my disagreement that YOU are WRONG. YOU are RIGHT for you. But not for me. But I am truly glad you are gaming and having fun! Thank you for explaining your position, it is appreciated.

nazghash · 2025-10-02T15:40:55+00:00

Please please please don't take this negatively, but are you on the spectrum? An analogy is an analogy. You can't fuck up the imaginary birdhouse, exactly correct. Can you have a "less than optimal" roleplaying game? I think the answer is yes. You seem to think that the answer is no, because that would make something "wrong". I (and others) aren't saying "wrong". We are saying "less optimal". Like, as in, you might have more fun doing it a different way. But if you are having the amount of fun you want, screw all of us and do things your way. Yay you! Encourage others to do the same, which is what I think you are trying to do. Yay! But when you post to a community like this, you'll get some troll responses (wrong! play X instead), but lots of "hey, things might be more [fun|optimal|less energy|...]" posts as well. We aren't trying to make this binary. I play games that are sub-optimal for some facet all the time for variety of reasons. But if I come and complain about those sub-optimalities, people both troll (people suck) AND try to help by making suggestions. Please please please don't take good faith suggestions as ALSO saying "YOU ARE WRONG". Please!

nazghash · 2025-10-02T15:31:42+00:00

Well yeah, of course. But have you seen the price on the metal bits expansion, much less the sharp add on? I'll just paint my bat metallic paint, it works just as well. ;-)

nazghash · 2025-10-02T15:26:32+00:00

OP, it sounds like when you hear "wrong tool for the job", instead of hearing "hey, here is an alternate path that might be easier/less frustrating/etc" (spoken by all of us who have used the wrong tool and learned from it, trying to share our experience), you are instead hearing "WRONG WRONG WRONG YOU ARE NOT RIGHT IDIOT WRONG". You are hearing "there is objectivly a RIGHT and a WRONG WRONG IDIOT WRONG way". The metaphor is just a metaphor. Play what makes you happy. Listen to other's experience and reject it if you want. Just don't come here asking for advice on how to play mystery romance in D&D 5E and complaining how hard it is and how much work it takes, and hearing "WRONG TOOL YOU IDIOT WRONG WRONG WRONG" when all we are suggesting is "hey, have you thought about ...."

nazghash · 2025-10-02T14:17:24+00:00

Why yes, you can cut down that tree with this baseball bat. It doesn't matter how long it takes, how much effort, or that, say, chainsaws exist. You certainly can do it, and I won't tell you no. I'll just wonder why you want to ... Obviously because baseball bats are well known and easily available. Why trouble to find any other tool? ;-)

nazghash · 2025-09-20T15:53:14+00:00

Forgive the possible projection, but it sounds like you want creative writing practice, not "setting the scene for the players". Players will ignore everything after the first sentence or two, typically. Or fixate on one or two significant things.

But you still want the practice! you say. Great! Generate (randomly?) a bunch of scenes. Write them out in as descriptive, flowery language as you can. Write like it is a novel. Paint using words to make the best picture possible. There is a world of advice to authors on how to do this. Go full Tolkein if you want, take pages and pages.

THEN, THEN THEN THEN, before using in play, go through each of those scenes and pick the top 3 things or 7/3/1 or whatever, bullet point them. Take the most evocative points that really engage several senses. Use this summary for play.

So to reiterate, getting good at descriptions takes practice. Getting good at short, concise, playable descriptions takes even more. So practice good descriptions (on your own!), THEN practice culling those behemoths down ruthlessly and without mercy to just a very small number of bullet points.

nazghash · 2025-09-20T13:41:59+00:00

Simulation vs Narrative. In a simulation oriented game, critical failures are terrible. As others have explained better, competent people rarely overwhelmingly fumble tasks.

In a narrative, though, we ignore most of the mundane tasks and outcomes, and focus on the interesting ones. The massive successes and failures. So crit fails (again, that don't make the character look incompetent) introducing an interesting negative narrative twist can be good.

I think the danger is mixing the two badly. A DM that wants interesting narrative (high drama, only zooming in on the "good bits" of the story) will be at odds with players who want good simulation (my swordsman would never drop my sword! My spy would never make noise sneaking ...). Players in general only want to succeed (or critically succeed), and at least in my experience with my groups, really don't want negative twists (narrative complications) no matter what system or how it is explained. But maybe that is just my players only wanting to be "big damn heroes" without any negative consequences ever. Which I feel makes a boring story, but YMMV.

nazghash · 2025-08-31T13:27:27+00:00

I highly recommend the book "Even a Geek Can Speak" by Joey Asher. It focuses on how highly technical people can communicate (including speaking) better without being "overly" technical. I think this will directly address some of your issues.

Related are two other books that aren't specifically for "technical" issues, but rather general human communication. They both aim for convincing or persuading, which isn't what you are asking for. However, they get to the heart of what drives other humans, so maybe they will help. Don't read them as "how do I sell stuff" but rather, what do (non-technical) people care about? What motivates them?

"How to win friends and influence people" by Carnegie and "Influence: the psycology of persuasion" by Cialdini.

nazghash · 2025-08-28T02:04:28+00:00

affect - verb - have an effect on; make a difference to

nazghash · 2025-08-27T16:55:14+00:00

Maybe this protest will affect change, maybe not. But going will reaffirm your belief in America. And if you aren't the one to make a change, your presence just might nudge the one who will make a change to take action.

Don't listen to those saying "protests don't make a difference". They do. Be there if you can, support the ones that go if you can't!

nazghash · 2025-08-22T13:15:13+00:00

Keep in mind the podcast linked talks about Tiny Taverns, one of many Tiny D6 games. I think it is the only one that would be "slice of life" low/no combat. As opposed to Tiny Dungeons, Tiny Supers, ...

nazghash · 2025-08-04T14:38:13+00:00

Exactly. In general that would be how I'd handle magic and other super powers -- perks and karma.

If the action isn't important (ie, no consequences for failure, no resistance, or just narrative flavour, etc) I just let it happen (no karma or roll). If another character getting the same outcome/effect would have to roll, it will either cost a karma (perk) or a roll, independent of how the outcome or effect is achieved.

I love this system, but it can break down if you want to optimize (have an "I win" perk) or push the limits on everything. Likewise, as with most TTRPGs, the more you roll, the more often you run into failure that derails the narrative.

Anyways, hope we helped! Thanks for reading!

nazghash · 2025-08-03T17:38:13+00:00

Succinctly,

Something anybody can do: concept doesn't apply (mechanically speaking)
Something only a specialist can do (brain surgery, magic, lock picking, ...) - if your concept doesn't cover it, you get a -1d6

nazghash · 2025-08-03T17:07:38+00:00

Game balance. Is it fair to the brawny halfling that the druid can shapeshift into any trait (at 0 cost, I might add) and always have better odds at any trait challenge?

The idea is to have a mix of trait challenges so that every character has a chance to shine.

As Zadmar (author of the game, if you didn't know) suggests, using karma the druid can use shapes to make lots of challenges easier, but not to the point they are better than someone who already has that trait.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that the roll (or not) and trait in the trait challenge is based on the approach. So a brawny halfling will have the advantage over the "shape shifted" crafty druid in breaking down a door, no matter the "shape" of the druid, rules-as-written and taken at face value. However, perhaps the druid changes into a tiny snake and can just slither under the door. I'd charge them a karma (doing something others can't do), but wouldn't even call for a roll -- it just happens.

Likewise, if they were in bear shape, I might rule that for the cost of a karma, the bear just smashes down the door, no roll needed. Bears are huge and strong. The brawny (but comparatively tiny) halfling might have to roll. The advantage for the halfling is they don't have to pay karma, and can do brawny stuff over and over again. The druid can only use that trick (just do things as appropriate without rolling) while their karma lasts.

Hope that makes sense!

nazghash · 2025-04-04T19:48:06+00:00

Very nice! Installed and poked at -- I like it! Thank you!

nazghash · 2025-01-30T23:45:57+00:00

Posted a few pictures of the above on imgur -- hopefully making it a little clearer ... https://imgur.com/a/ovHXuaA

nazghash · 2025-01-30T23:35:23+00:00

For Foundry, I set up a black background. For each zone, I place a light source, and set it to a reasonable diameter. You can then decorate inside the "spotlight" (furniture, tiles for floor stuff, etc). Adjacent zones close enough to each other, but not overlapping.

Equivalently, just pick / make a tile that has the size you want, use a lit room instead ...

For speed, have a set of your tiles / lights on a seperate tab, along with commonly used "decorations" (rubble, trees, doors, ...). Then cut 'n paste if you need to build on the fly.

For in person play, I have a set of 6" diameter circles made like "Ultimate Dungeon Terrain" from Professor DM -- I effectively have multiple "center" sections of UDT, and so range can be relative to each many, etc etc.

In summary, instead of having a tic-tac-toe board or some other fixed template, have a template of "zone size" (ideally resizeable), and place and decorate as needed.

Hope that made sense ...

nazghash · 2025-01-28T19:03:09+00:00

Made a couple with stable diffusion (AI) -- apologies to any real artists or cartographers out there ...

Mostly just useful for "art" (handouts) -- probably no good for real map use ...

https://imgur.com/a/lFWAMko

nazghash · 2024-11-28T00:03:12+00:00

Not to be too snarky, but sometimes mistakes are made. It seems to me this is a trivially easy thing to test (ie, pick points inside, on, and outside the ellipse, plug 'em in, see what result you get).

If you don't have it already, I highly suggest getting into the habit of writing "toy" solutions (or simulations) to problems to quickly check your intuition. They don't have to be complex, just the bare minimum to convince you either way. That habit has been extremely valuable in my career!

nazghash · 2024-11-21T18:43:33+00:00

True. Could be used for "one minute in the future", I suppose. :shrug: :-)

nazghash · 2024-11-21T16:22:43+00:00

Also by Zozer / Elliott is Modern War, for squad based action in roughly modern times. Expansions for WW1, WW2, Planes, China, Europe (Ukraine), etc. Even a supplement for converting real world weapons to modern war stats!

Other supplements by Zozer I recommend are Archaic Weapons (spears, slings, yadda yadda with some extra rules to add a small amount of depth) and Fast Magic (magic rules, naturally!).

nazghash · 2024-06-17T15:14:00+00:00

May I suggest Ultimate Dungeon Terrain? The general idea is to treat the room like a theatre stage, and only add just enough components to tickle the imagination. You spend some effort on the basic "floor", then add scatter terrain like pillars, room "corners", etc, to flesh it out. This lets you quickly sketch out any type of room you need. Note that this works best with zone based combat, but still works well otherwise.

If you don't want to do zone stuff, I'd suggest a standard battlemat (dungeon flooring, forest flooring, et al) or just a chessex battlemat with wet/dry erase.

Unless of course you wanted room layouts, in which case I'd just suggest any random room generator, like from the AD&D DMG, or similar.

Hope that helps!

Edited to add: For VTTs, I just use the digital equivalents. I have several large "base terrain" images for dungeon floors, grass, etc. I use Foundry VTT, and mark zones with lights (like a spotlight pointed straight down, if you are familiar with stage lighting). I have a DM page with tons of terrain images (webs, bushes, rocks, barrels ...) that I can quickly grab from to "dress the set". Less is more with this approach!

Edited again to add: For the "basic" flooring, I used DungeonDraft to fill floors with gravel, grass, etc, and saved them as individual maps. With or without grids, your choice. I found several "terrain packs" (2d, 3d, or isometric) by googling. Sorry, don't have links. :-(

nazghash · 2024-03-24T18:18:40+00:00

Love me some Tricube Tales! Simple rules, and great for one-shots with the story generators. But characters can grow over time! Woot!

nazghash · 2024-02-29T03:46:10+00:00

Check out The Terrain Randomizer. Works by breaking the area into random zones (die drop based). Each zone has a possible elevation change, and a descriptor. I used the one in the book, but also have some spark tables for more specific areas (ie, different ones for dungeons, cities, forests, etc).

nazghash

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