#SeptembeRPG (English thread)
1. A great #TTRPG first played this year
#LaGriveNoire from @Mila is a PC-less (no typo) game where we play natural and social forces that compete over the direction of the narrative. This is very much an exercise in style of description by zooms or leaps through analogies. There are codified ways of requesting speaking time.
#LeTTRPG
#SeptembeRPG #TTRPG
2. A cool mechanic and how it manifested in play
"What are you expecting?"
This question from kF's #laCléDesNuages sets that my description of the next place will be improvised. I'm not coming with my preconceived scenario that I will slightly alter to fit your input. I am asking you a base on which to improvise an environment, and then you will improvise back the actions of your character in that place that would not exist without your initial input.
#RPGasConversation
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3. A new GMless #TTRPG played this year
Melville's #INSURRECTION is a #NoDiceNoMaster where each plays a single fixed role, either a frame or a character. We play in whatever setting we want, but at a time when the social status quo is wavering: will the Order (police) follow what the Power (ruling class) commands? Will the indistinct protests of the People be relayed by the Media ? What will be the characters' trajectories in this trying time?
#LeTTRPG
#SeptembeRPG
4. A #TTRPG designer you can't wait to play more games from
kF has blasted my mind several times with #laCléDesNuages #Weird or #Cimetière There is always a high theoretical concept behind but seamless play.
With #PetitsDieux #VagabonderDansLesEtoiles and #LaGriveNoire @Mila has also hit my sweet spot with great efficiency each time. She deconstructs what "telling a story" means and puts great attention into playing material.
#LeTTRPG
#SeptembeRPG
5. A personal change you felt in your games in the passing year
Last year I was just out of GMing a 2 year campaign of #Nephiloth, my own retake on #Nephilim mixed with #laCléDesNuages and a short attempt of GMing @comemartin 's #TwoSummers. I was tired of being the GM.
In the fall and winter I was gladly a simple player on several games. In spring I tested more new things, GMed a few OS of #Horrifique.
Maybe I am ready to GM something now.
#SeptembeRPG
6. That #TTRPG you really want to play but can't seem to find the right group or time for
I would love to play #TwoSummers with the friends I was roleplaying with in high school. Double dose of nostalgia and unpredictable interaction between real life nostalgia and in game nostalgia. I don't know if it's a great idea or a terrible idea.
BTW, most of them are not roleplaying anymore.
And I'd like someone else to be GM so that we have equal experience of the game. But private jokes
#SeptembeRPG
7. A #TTRPG that made you think
#WEIRD■ by kF questions what is real for everyone and what is a subjective construct, like E.A. Poe stories. A single character played by a single player, all the others describe the environment with limited private communication between them. This naturally makes places, situations and NPCs at least a bit inconsistent, flickering between different realities. It's like an exercise in gaslighting.
https://kfff.itch.io/weird
#LeTTRPG
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8. A #TTRPG that gave you weird feelings and you liked it
My most emotionally intense game was my first game of #Coma by Adrien Cahuzac. I played the dying protagonist I could freely create, someone else helped me explore my memory of 5 important times in my life. I created these memories, but the other player could twist them and mix them.
In bled in on purpose by creating a protagonist who was my late grandmother (in space), her memories being real anecdotes of her life
1/2
Coma est un jeu de rôle pour deux joueurs. Durant une partie de Coma, les joueurs explorent les souvenirs d'une personne au seuil de la mort à travers un dialogue entre la voix de sa conscience et celle de son inconscient. Très intimiste, Coma se joue au calme et hors de portée d'oreilles indiscrètes. Pour toute question à propos du jeu, merci de me contacter à l'adresse suivante : [email protected] Note : malgré l'indication "intérieur couleur", l'ensemble est en noir et blanc.
#SeptembeRPG
9. Plz someone run me this #TTRPG
I'd love to experience my own #Nephiloth as a PC. But that requires me writing it. 😬
#Headspace maybe? More generally I've never been a PC on a PbtA (short) campaign, only one shots that felt too short.
#SeptembeRPG
10. A mashup of #TTRPG you did or you're thinking of doing
Inserting a #laCléDesNuages session inside whatever campaign I am running when a single player is available. Or to deal with a dream or paranormal experience of a single PC.
Can be extended to 2 PCs with #laCléDesSonges. Experienced that as a player bringing back and other PC from the real of the deads, as Orpheus would do.
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11. A #TTRPG you love but really needs a new edition
In #MagistratsEtManigances we play a Tang dynasty Magistrate and his assistants investigating crime and maintaining the peace of a district. With deep thinking about improvising intertwined investigations à la Juge Dee or Juge Bao.
Back in 2016, @Rdhuissier and Benjamin Macbeth Kouppi published it in 3 parts in a magazine. It is high time that it gets a standalone revised edition, and why not an English translation. #LeTTRPG
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12. A game that changed your perspective about #TTRPG
#ForTheQueen changed everything. I can play with anybody, with no prep and with concrete instructions on easy to handle cards. That can be after a weekend lunch on friends' proch. That can be online to cope with lockdown. That can be simple, that can be philosophical, that will be full of drama.
By the way, if you don't know forthedrama.com rush there to see all #DftQ games waiting for you.
#SeptembeRPG
13. A #TTRPG you always return to
I have been imprinted on #Nephilim, where you play magical entities doomed to inhabit human hosts since the dawn of time. You may have been a Celt princess, a Greek god, a Renaissance painter and a Victorian Lady, all of that while pursuing esoteric symbols and lost knowledge, and being pursued by Templar kningts and Freemasons.
That is so 90s in its rules and concepts. But I so much want to make modern games out of it.
#SeptembeRPG
14. A solo #TTRPG you played this year
Playing TTRPG or board games is a big part of my socialization. I meet people through games and stories, and I'm here for the people, for what I discover of the people through the game.
Therefore no solo TTRPG for me.
People who are into it seems to have fun
#SeptembeRPG
15. A fun scene you played this year
I remember a scene, or at least a situation in my own #TTRPG called #Saperlipopette that emulates narrative structure of Franco-Belgian comics (e.g. #Tintin).
In this game, a 1st player came up with a (ridiculous) secret society. Then a 2nd secret society emerged, then every new clue was explained away by yet another absurd secret society, driving everyone to laugh and tears.
#SeptembeRPG
16. A character that became something completely different than the original plan
When we played @Khelren's #Dominion (=Dune or game of thrones in space), I took the high priest in order to play a mystical character that could put religion above house interest.
But when linking PCs together I was given life and death power the other PC that could be the effective head of the house. As consequence, I became de facto head of the house and had to align house and religious interests.
#SeptembeRPG #TTRPG
17. A piece of media you want to plagiarize. What system would you use for it?
I want to take @aliettedb's #Xuya universe (Vietnamese space empire and sentient spaceships with family ties to humans) and have murder mysteries tied to Confucianist societal issues ; in space. Of course with Benjamin Macbeth Kouppi and @Rdhuissier 's #MagistratsEtManigances system that does all that out of the box but in historical Tang dynasty China.
#SeptembeRPG
18. A great action scene you had in a #TTRPG this year
We have awesome action scenes in #TripToSkye. In this universe "top" and "bottom" are reverse for some characters who are falling up. Fight scenes in closed space become 3D ballets. BTW, we are doing all of that with very few rules, everything stemming from descriptions and logical deductions.
And so, we ambushed the group of assassins following us through a cave complex, including my nemesis…
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19. An emotionally intense scene you had in a #TTRPG this year
… at the end we were both wrecked but she was the one bleeding to death. Her companions tried to sneak her out, I insisted to take care of her. I pleaded that she was the midwife that spared my life despite the birthmark of the devil I bore, although she tried to "right this bad deed" by killing my companions and me several times. I wanted to prove her I was not the demon of her beliefs. She died in my arms. #TripToSkye
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20. A scene that made you laugh this year
While walking in a forest, I introduced to my family a subset of rules of #TheHotelOfTheRedLion by @comemartin. We had to describe a place collectively. At your turn, repeat all what was said before and add one more sentence to this description.
My son started by "this is a perfectly normal house", but soon it had a ski slope in the basement, due to a dripping faucet upstairs and alien invaders chilling in the patio.
#LeTTRPG #TTRPG
#SeptembeRPG #TTRPG
21. A scene that creeped you, but in a good way, this year
#Horrifique gave me plenty of that, as a player or as a GM.
A PC clergyman reaches an isolated community on Christmas Eve, looking for the local priest. Everyone seems to know the PC, welcome him, wait for him for the midnight mass. The local priest is nowhere to be seen so the PC celebrates. After, the PC looks for the local priest in the presbytery. The portrait on the wall is himself.
#SeptembeRPG
22. A #TTRPG with 2 or more systems that work in great synergy
In @comemartin's #LHotelDuLionRouge we describe a 1930's grand hotel. Each type of room has its own description system:
- a customer room must be described from minute details as if it was a crime scene
- description of corridors must be repeated entirely before adding a new sentence
- in the aquarium one must mime aquatic animals while the others play customers having a conversation
- etc.
Synergy to the absurd
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23. A cool class/archetype/playbook ability you played this year
In @cendrones #GreenSkyRadio we play the crew of a local radio of a recent settlement on a planet that forbids telecom except for very powerful pulses that only a small town can afford. We are the link between dispersed settlers, airing local news, answering loneliness, investigating and collecting soundbites.
I was the announcer, whose voice everyone knows. So cool to play online whispering close to a good mic.
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24. A really short (in pages/In play length and sweet #TTRPG
In #ALastDrink by Guylène Le Mignot we play people who had it but lost it. We're in a bar, and we take turns to narrate our rise and our fall. "Poor you. But if you knew what happened to me…"
Everyone takes 3 pieces of paper, writes on it a name and minimal description of a NPC important in their story. When it's your turn, put those where the other players can reach and take the part. That's it.
#LeTTRPG
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25. A rule/mechanic you bring to the table regardless of the #TTRPG you play
Bringing a rule regardless of the game is something I've actively tried to reduce, questioning my assumptions about what a ttrpg should be. Even something as straightforward as "If you don't know, ask a question to someone else" can be broken on purpose.
The fixed points I like are more at the frontiers between in and out of the game : emotional safety rules and vocabulary, necessity of a debrief, etc.
#SeptembeRPG #TTRPG
26. Safety mechanics saved the fun when:
we put them in place and can go full throttle because we know they are there and everyone around the table care about safety mechanics.
Safety mechanics enable my fun for years.
Do you ask a rock climber "ropes saved the fun when" ? Except for a few, rock climbers wouldn't climb that high without the rope.
#SeptembeRPG #TTRPG
27. A prompt that blew your mind
First game of #ForTheQueen. Just after the general context "The Queen chose you because she knows you love her". My first prompt: "The Queen is responsible for the death of someone you love. Who was it ? What happened?"
Keeping both context and prompt in mind built such a complex character and story in one fell swoop!
(I defended her at the end)
#SeptembeRPG
28. The dream game you want to exist. Tell us, maybe someone made it
I am really looking forward to the next step in game design that will make #TTRPG even easier to fit in our lives. Previous steps being eliminated preparation, commute, the need of someone having a free appartement/basement/castle, large and numerous books with sexist covers, cumbersome material (both to the backpack and to the mind), etc. What games will make roleplaying even more accessible?
#SeptembeRPG
29. A great #TTRPG to play one on one
I haven't talked enough about #LaCléDesNuages by kF, a game of symbolism and poetry.
https://www.dystopia.fr/a/collectif/la-cle-des-nuages_numerique
One is the Mage, exploring ruins. The other is Image, describing the ruins. The player of the Mage decides in secret what is the quest of the Mage and how it affects the appearance of the Mage. Mage also comes up with a symbol (a key) of their power. Image comes up with two keys (e.g. key, tree, smell of garlic, running water…)
1/2
@gherhartd Let's refine it though.
Many people take safety rules in #TTRPG as helmets in cycling: a hurdle most of the time, useful if you are doing something really dangerous. Promoting helmets deters people from commuting by bicycle instead of car. And boasting not having a helmet reinforces gender stereotypes.
(In reality, put your helmet 🙏)
Having ropes allows a completely new sport, that you can only taste when climbing up and down two meters on a tree
Mathieu Lam Son Leocmach
Gherhartd S.
Cendrones