Next TTRPG setting idea: ghosts plus exaggerated analogue technology…think video cassettes, big clunky cameras, phones that need to be plugged into something and washed up detectives in Ford Cortinas… ‘Analogue Gothic’
Skull kid regional manager: we need to talk about your doot output, also you’re behind on your mandatory training and we need you to dance overtime this week.
Hey all, @geewaf.bsky.social and myself write TTRPGs on top of a custom, free to reuse rules system at dicepunk.press.
Message me if you’re interested in play testing or proofreading some half finished game settings!
A busy week so far doing IT and tech security shenanigans so sadly little time for posting about TTRPGs… still working away in the background though. Trying to can up with an all-at-once combat system that doesn’t totally break movement.
Wanted to get the Open D12 combat rules updated over the weekend but had to focus on some life and work stuff… So instead, a question: what’s your favourite TTRPG combat system? What’s your must-have feature for combat in a TTRPG?
GitHub is not the friendliest place for non-coders to find things so you can now get the latest version of Open D12 on itch as well. dicepunkpress.itch.io/open-d12
It’s #SelfPromotionSaturday so let me tell you about Open D12 a free and open rules system anyone can use to make a TTRPG. You can use the core rules to build a short play game or mix in the optional extensions to make something longer and more complex. dicepunk.press/open-d12
Asking the difficult questions: lists or tables for TTRPG rules layouts?
Work on Depths of our Mountain has yielded some useful updates to the Open D12 combat extension. Hopefully online sometime this weekend. Check it out if you’re looking for a core TTRPG rules that’s free and easy to hack on top of. dicepunk.press/open-d12/
Was recently reminded how beneficial (and difficult) it is to have simple and honest relationships with your work. It's not that your work can't be complex, just the more you can tune out your own narratives, anxieties, and self-judgement, the more you can enjoy the process and make something cool.
Struggling to sleep so hacking on Depths of our Mountain instead. As much as I love working on this project I hope this doesn't become a regular thing... but if it does then I need to hide more notebooks and pens around the house.
I'd suggest it's healthier to think our your TTRPG rules as civil infrastructure rather than fineart. They'll get stepped on, ignored, graffitied and generally not used in the way you intended... and that's fine because at the end of the day the goal is to support people to have an experience.
Process for outlining new TTRPG ideas:
- Setting: what’s the world like and who’s in it?
- Scope: what roles can the players take on in the game? (e.g adventurer/investigator/duck)
- Stakes: what drives the drama, conflict and narrative in the game? (World ending horror vs misplaced house keys)
Right, that’s spell casting sorted for Depths of our Mountain (or DooM)… at least until the play test.
What’s your favourite TTRPG spell casting mechanic?
A gentle reminder that the best people to work with are those who both care about you and believe in you. Plenty will do neither (and that sucks) and some will do one or the other… hang onto the ones who do both.
Hacking on the 'ol website while the toddler sleeps and the coffee machine runs its cleaning cycle.
Folks can new preview our upcoming TTPRGs here: dicepunk.press/games/
It’s the solo from Baker Street but backwards.
Recently I've really enjoyed 'There is No Spoon' and 'Lasers and Feelings' both short-play games (and systems) with really tight rules that work well. Slight preference for 'There is No Spoon'.
We're also working on our own system for building TTRPGS called open d-12: dicepunk.press/open-d12/
Open D12 character creation: Skills are in groups, you invest points in groups not skills. Specialise in a skill to get a bonus dice for that skill. Roll less than or equal to your skill level to succeed. Each bonus die gives you an extra dice to roll. Use the lowest number rolled. Pick a cool name.
First reasonable night of sleep this year, ticking over from pouring-hot-water-straight-into-the-box-of-tea-bags exhaustion to regular old exhaustion.
I find that the wisdom of releasing early and often doesn’t just apply to software development. My brain naturally wants to work on 100s of ideas at once, if all of those ideas are small and go in more or less the same direction then not only does progress happen, but I also enjoy it more.
TTRPG Setting Snippet: Then there is gold. Almost all dwarves respect fine craftsmanship and admire the sight, feel, taste, or sound of a thing well made. But for some this love can fester into a sickness. A sickness that brings with it the whisperings of things long buried deep beneath the Mountain
So, how do people feel about healing skills in TTRPGs? Is it a must-have mechanic or do some games work better with minimal or no healing?
My toddler will sometimes recite snippets from books/songs/poems totally out of context… it’s like having breakfast with ChatGPT…
I kind of want to see what will happen if I ask him to maximise paperclip production.
PDF version of the Open D12 rules now available for all your TTRPG crafting needs: github.com/dice-punk-pr...
.. and with that time to do the washing up.
Cool! Let us know how it goes if you give it a try.
TTRPG work in progress recap from a rainy car journey back home: Beneath a Shroud of Lights (deco-punk, detectives and airships), Unnamed steampunk solo-play RPG (make a crew, explore, again with the airships), Pride and Preju-dice (farcical regency short-play game, mostly for the puns).
If anyone is looking to build a new TTRPG I’d humbly ask that they take a look at what we’re working on over at dicepunk.press/open-d12/
So how does this work... I post what I'm thinking an then stuff happens?
