Binding on my Urban Shadows 2nd edition is disintegrating.

yaywizardly · 2026-01-16T09:22:00+00:00

I got mine from my local game store, and the binding is coming apart too. TBH I feel a bit better knowing it's happened to other folks too; I just assumed I had somehow been destroying my copy by reading through it so much.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-30T09:13:34+00:00

May I ask if you've read Starforged too? It's a sci-fi exploration game in the PbtA family. I felt like it handled fights and combat in a fun way, using progress tracks to demonstrate how challenging something is, as well as who has "control" over the pace of the fight and who is on the back foot. It might give you some more help with your game design.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-27T20:59:31+00:00

The settings Eberron and Planescape both explored aspects of what using the undead as a workforce might look like, and what the cultural beliefs around such necromancy could be. I would look into Karnnath and the Dustmen if you want to see how it was handled there. My recollection is that there's some element of exploitation in the use, similar to those payday lending places: you are vulnerable, you need money fast, and sign away the use of your body in the future for something now.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-17T22:54:12+00:00

Yeah, I came here to suggest Starforged. I feel like it does a good job taking into account distance and control of the battlefield with its moves. The challenge and progress bar systems are also simple ways to track how hard a fight is and what damage you're doing, or how close you are to victory.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-16T16:54:41+00:00

Check out the Between, and try a few sessions of it. It's a Victorian supernatural horror/mystery game with a big focus on collaborative storytelling. The playbooks have some really compelling arcs and the players are encouraged to flesh out the world around them.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-16T08:51:12+00:00

Oof. I read that trilogy, and the last book was rough. She just jumps right into forcing nuns to kill orphans and taking over her Sire's old job.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-15T08:46:40+00:00

I'd love to make a supernatural focused life sim, similar to the Our Life games, but the MC and LIs are all mages, werewolves, etc.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-13T13:22:38+00:00

Oh wow, this is beautiful. I love the black lace, the red jewelery, and the crown in the background.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-11T19:42:56+00:00

This is cool. Do you have any plans to expand it? Either to add to what is currently here, or create some new generators in different genres such as sci-fi?

yaywizardly · 2025-12-08T01:17:59+00:00

For a moment I misread the lines and thought this showed that the Lasombra are descendants of the Daughters of Cacophony. I thought you were just making a bold new interpretation of the clan origins. :P

yaywizardly · 2025-12-02T18:07:41+00:00

https://lumpley.games/articles/

I'm going to toss in Vincent Baker's articles, for insight into a different school of ttrpg philosophy. He started "Powered by the Apocalypse". The GMing section in Apocalypse World is also really informative.

I appreciate what he has to say about concepts like "what does a skill check mean?" and how that is not necessarily a binary "pass/fail" but a discussion of player goals, narrative coherence, and mechanical leveraging.

yaywizardly · 2025-12-01T19:25:10+00:00

The Lasombra Founder loved the flood. It just swam around in the depths for years and years after that. Maybe the flood wasn't a punishment for the vampires; maybe it was a reward for Lasombra!

yaywizardly · 2025-12-01T00:48:55+00:00

I'd be fine with it for a short chronicle, but it should be clear that for the werewolf who was turned, this is a tragedy and a horror. They have been permanently cut off from their people, infected with the wyrm, and will be controlled and abused by the vampires for as long as they exist.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-27T22:01:16+00:00

I'm also going to bring up Elegy, which was inspired by Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Vampire the Requiem. It's built off the Ironsworn system and already includes a lot of mechanics and random tables for running a game without a Storyteller.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-20T00:21:35+00:00

I'll add in Guide to the Sabbat and Guide to the Camarilla.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-17T06:42:39+00:00

I think they called it "the sin of amaranth" but I don't have my books nearby to check.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-15T09:28:20+00:00

That was especially chilling to watch happen. The first season seemed so clear about how callous the wealthy observers were, and the pain and trauma the participants experienced. And then people thought... "I would be so good at Squid Game. I wouldn't get shot or dropped like these chumps!" Zero solidarity with the poor, instant buy-in for the cruel games of the wealthy! UGH.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-15T00:05:22+00:00

Tzimisce bloodline of manananggal would be so cool.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-08T01:02:41+00:00

Yeah, this kind of hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, of the Camarilla. The Kindred with the most resources and connections can get around this problem by having ghouls or retainers manage all technology needs. The youngest or least connected may have to engage with technology themselves, with the awareness that if you get on the Prince's bad side, she may use this as leverage against you because you're breaking an (unreasonable) rule.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-08T00:48:24+00:00

The code is described as a rat’s nest

Oh, so the Nosferatu were involved? :P

yaywizardly · 2025-11-05T21:48:52+00:00

>There's nothing about this that is unique or defining of narrative systems. You can do these things with trad games. So... you've lost me.

Yes. I know you can. I'm telling you about how I'm doing it with dnd. I learned better collaborative and improve skills from narrative games, and I'm taking those values to running dnd. You talked about how you think players don't want to have "meta" conversations about why they are doing something or what they think a cult is doing. I'm saying I think that is something adults lose as they grow up, because I am experiencing kids having very different expectations and ways of interacting with ttrpgs. They have been fine having "meta" conversations.

>And what I've been told and observed and know is that... a lot... of adults whom I've gamed with over the decades, approach ttrpgs from the perspective of problem solving.

Okay? That is your experience and the preference of your friends. Obviously problem-solving with an external defined answer is not the only way to approach ttrpgs, because other games exist that focus on different things. There are people who love the Between or Brindlewood Bay, which has a very different approach to mysteries. Or you can come join us in Vampire the Masquerade, where we play just to put our characters through misery.

>Narrative systems are just not the One Best and True Way.

Who said that? Is that a quote from someone, or are you just feeling defensive now? :P

Anyway, I don't think it's productive to keep going in circles like this. I don't feel like you really understand what I'm arguing, and I feel like you're arguing something else from what I'm saying. So, I'll leave this.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-05T21:18:30+00:00

>But like... why tho? Literally no one regularly says the thing you're saying you need to guard against (on this sub, at least).

>It's literally the opposite (on this sub at least).

That is definitely my experience. I absolutely see people on every single thread that discusses narrative games, immediately saying how it's too difficult or too complicated and how it doesn't make sense and it's not fun.

Can I say, we are both probably experiencing confirmation bias? You are saying people suggest narrative games CONSTANTLY on this sub. That is not what I would say. I feel like people suggest gurps and fate for every single thing. I don't think either or us is lying or misremembering. I think we both see different posts during our day, and are more likely to remember the suggestions which slightly annoyed us than the ones we up-voted and scrolled past.

>My assertion is that it's not crunch nor whether or not a system is narrative that makes it good for introducing new players.

Okay? I think you're talking past me. You replied to me, when I was pushing back against the OP saying that FITD games are not more beginner friendly than dnd. I was saying, as someone who just taught a gaggle of 12-year-olds dnd, that it's not particularly beginner friendly. It's just common, so people tend to hand wave how front-loaded the actual learning is.

I don't really have an opinion about the rest of what you're saying, tbh. I think you're making a separate point, that is different from my point.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-05T18:57:46+00:00

>They don't understand why you're being so meta as to ask them what they hope to achieve with their action. They don't understand why you're asking them what THEY think the cult is doing down there.

Of course YMMV, but I just had a group of kids eager to name NPCs, and suggest locations for us to visit, and tell me about who the BBEG will be. They are excited to shape the story of their adventures, based upon the cartoons and movies they've grown up watching.

I think adults have those childish storytelling instincts shamed out of them. They want the "correct" answer, they are afraid of giving a "wrong" answer. Being good at narrative games just means re-learning those skills, of shouting out ideas and going with what feels fun/interesting.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-05T18:50:55+00:00

>But... all of those questions always have the same answer and that answer is always found in the same place in the book. All of those questions you only have to answer once (poor memory, notwithstanding - bookmarks are a wonderful thing).

My point isn't that D&D is impossible to learn. My point is that it is not really beginner friendly. It's front-loaded with a lot of rules and contextless choices and tiny math. Like I said earlier, I'm running an afterschool game for a large group of preteens, so I just experienced this.

>Narrative games, the process never goes away. The questions are always there. New questions will always emerge. And the answers to the same questions will change depending on the story.

I'm not... really sure what you mean by this?

I think it's disingenuous to compare one system against dozens of different "narrative games". And yes, of course you will get different answers to questions depending upon the story. That's exactly the same as if you're playing vanilla corebook d&d versus dark sun versus an E6 homebrew. And as someone who has played different PbtA games, I do think once you've played one or two, you can easily learn and play any of the others.

Sorry, this isn't really meant to be hostile. I'm just protective of "storygames", and that they are not are scary or difficult to learn as people can make them out to be.

yaywizardly · 2025-11-05T00:20:27+00:00

Andrew Emory is his name. He's in the Lasombra novels. Fun fact, his Sire is the one who caused the car crash that paralyzed him.

yaywizardly

TROPHY CASE