#rpgs
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Tales Of Crystals
Hey in the early 90s Hasbro put out a tabletop roleplaying larp for tween girls called Tales Of The Crystals, and there's a lot going on here, so I want to talk about it.
First, I want to give credit to @riseupcomus on twitter for doing a thread on it first. Riseup's thread is linked at the bottom, right after hasbro's pdf of Tales Of Crystals.
Now, what is Tales Of Crystals? Well, it's a journaling game. And it's an indie TTRPG. And it's a larp kit. And it's an audio game. And it's a cryptography kit.
It comes with its own map, rulebook, a cassette tape with multiple scenarios, a non-dice-based resolution system, four player roles, and a ruleset that's split up so that each of the four players is in charge of a different part.
If feels like a high concept, big swing indie title from 2024, but it's got thirty years worth of jump on the modern scene.
The basic premise is that the players are crystal bearers in the court of a fantasy kingdom, and there's an evil nation in the goblin swamp next door, and they have to guard the nation against treachery and ensorcellment and whatnot. It's not super duper fresh, but with how many things the game is juggling it's extremely reasonable that the plot's a little plain.
Each player's crystal comes with a power, and the powers are asymmetrical. The Leader gets the Crystal Of Shimmering Ice, which lets you oneshot enemies (nonlethally, by freezing them for a minute.) The Protector gets the Crystal Of True Sight, and can see through all lies and enchantments and mind control enemies for a minute (tbh this one is just better). There's a healing crystal and an invisibility crystal as well---and interestingly the invisibility crystal is given to the role responsible for journaling everybody's adventures. The game recognizes that at least one player of a fantasy larp for tween girls in the 90s is probably going to be a wallflower writer, and deliberately enshrines that role.
Tales Of Crystals has a solid core loop, with a deck of cards for prompts and a cassette tape for scenarios and a little circle with YES and NO marked on it that you can scatter your gems onto to get oracle answers to questions during play. It also has a LOT of gimmicks.
There's a tube of powder you can sprinkle on things to disenchant them. There's a mirror you need to read script that's been written backwards. There's three cryptographic cyphers at the back of the book. There's a box specifically for confining the evil Spider Crystal (after you've sprinkled it with powder to neutralize it.) This is a game of dozens of components, and it's a miracle the design is so tight that they all loop together so well.
Now, I don't have sales data (riseup might,) but I suspect maybe this thing didn't sell amazingly. It requires you to set up six or so distinct locations around your yard, pretty much needs a group of exactly four friends to play it, requires you to give clue elements to your parents---you'd have to be cool with it, your friends would have to be cool with it, your parents would have to be cool with it, and you'd have to have a big suburban yard in order to get a proper intended game experience. That said, its larp design is really stable, its gameplay is carefully thought out, and it includes a section at the start to encourage you to play safely and a section at the end to talk about your game together, journal your experiences, and to clean up the game components as a group when you're done.
This is good tech! And it even specifically recommends having a snack and relaxing afterward.
Tales Of Crystals doesn't use terms like bleed and session zero, but it's a good ways ahead of the curve on larp and ttrpg safety.
I didn't find the designer's name (they're listed as uncredit on BoardGameGeek, not mentioned in the PDF, and missing from the wiki page,) but they knocked this one out of the park. There's stuff in here that modern indie ttrpg designers could learn from---myself very much included.
So if you like ttrpgs, 90s magic, and stuff like Tamora Pierce and Sailor Moon, give riseup's original thread a look, and definitely check out the PDF link.
I'm thrilled this thing exists, and I hope more designers get to look at it.
#ttrpg#ttrpg homebrew#ttrpgs#ttrpg design#indie ttrpgs#rpg#indie ttrpg#tabletop#dnd#rpgs#tales of crystals#larp
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Shoutout to the Elder Millennial at the table next to me at the gaming bar, whose barbarian just charged into battle shouting "LEEEEROYYYY JENKINS!!!!"
and then had to stop and sheepishly explain a World of Warcraft meme to his genZ GM.
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The Kickstarter for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Live!!
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is our team’s debut TTRPG, over three years in the making! The campaign will run from April 10th to May 10th!
youtube
How far would you go to learn the truth?
Play amateur detectives caught up in things they barely understand, and explore how the lives of your characters unravel as they push themselves to dig deeper into the unknown!
Tense investigations!
Delve into an investigation-focused mystery and horror system that lets players take initiative and use their characters’ unique strengths to find clues and deduce conclusions themselves. A few bad rolls won’t get the party hopelessly stuck, but at the same time Eureka respects their intellect and lets them take charge of solving the mystery!
Character-driven gameplay!
Stats and abilities are based on who your character is as a person. Freeform character creation allows you to build a totally unique little guy, and have a totally unique gameplay experience with him! This is supported by the backbone of the Composure mechanic. Stress, fear, fatigue, and hunger will wear your investigators down as they trudge deeper into the unknown. Food, sleep, and connections with their fellow investigators are the only way to keep them going!
Secrets inside and out!
Any investigator could be a monster, helping their friends while trying not to reveal their true natures. The party will learn to trust and rely on each other, or explode into a tangled net of drama!
Intense, tactical combat!
Hits are devastating, and misses are unpredictable–firing a gun will always change the situation somehow, for better or for worse!
Now in Technicolor!
Evocative artwork from talented femme-fatales @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot and the mysterious @theblackwarden paint a gorgeously-realized portrait of a world with shadows lurking in every corner.
Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. We are almost at the end, we just need some financial support to put the finishing touches on it and make the final push to get it ready for official release!
With every stretch goal we meet, the game gets better and better. Tons of beautiful new artwork, new options for gameplay, and even two entirely new playable Monsters could be added to the book, so visit the Kickstarter and secure your copy today!
If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!
If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!
You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!
Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!
We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.
#eureka: investigative urban fantasy#ttrpg#rpg#roleplaying#tabletop#eureka#coc#monsters#indie designer#indie#indie games#indiegames#indie game#ttrpg design#ttrpg tumblr#ttrpg art#indie ttrpg#ttrpg community#ttrpgs#free rpg#fantasy rpg#rpgs#supernatural rpg#tabletop roleplaying#roleplay#critical role#roleplaying games#tabletop role playing game#friends at the table#tiny table
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redoing poll bc i forgot some shit
the poll mostly about character creators with humanoid options, like your typical make your own char RPG. define stuff like "idealized" however you like
(if the answer is "well its complicated it depends on the game and...", choose whatever your favorite/most fun option is)
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I've finally gotten my new workspace set up in our new place! Dice restocks are now up in the shop. We've got most of the pride colors back in, plus a new color inspired by the move, Mountain Mama! Come check out my shot and treat yourself ;)
My shop here!
#dice#dice sets#pride#trans#gay#asexual#aromantic#lesbian#pansexual#genderfluid#genderqueer#rpgs#ttrpg
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Spice up your dungeon traps with warning signage!
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"Le standard rpg moralistic choice™️" is one of the most boring tropes in western rpgs imho.
What I prefer and what I think pretty much everyone enjoys more are choices based on ideology and how you want to do things, not "do you wanna be good? or a mass murderer?"
I'm talking "choices" like disarming the nuke in Megaton in Fallout 3, or, fucking nuking the entire town. Or more recently, do you save the tieflings and the druids from the goblin army bent on wiping them out? Or do you decide to just slaughter them all?
Like, Bioware had data from the Mass Effect series which showed that less than 10% of players went Renegade on a first playthrough, when all you do is offer people a choice between being good, or bad, most people will just choose good, because that's usually what makes most sense for the story.
Compare that to (take a shot) Fallout New Vegas, just one quest, that being fixing the Helios One solar power plant and deciding who should get the power.
Should you distribute the power equally among the region, even if that means nobody really gets a lot?
Should you send it to Camp McCarren and the Strip since they are vital to protecting New Vegas from the Legion?
Should you send it to the slums in Fremont and Westside since that might help their situation the most?
Or should you use the power plant to fuel a giant space satellite laser, just for yourself!
New Vegas is filled with actual choices like this, and, if you can't even do that, you coulds try what (act surprised) Knights of the Old Republic II does and make meta comments on the futility and bizarreness of binary good/evil choices.
Early on when you arrive on Nar Shaddaa in KOTOR II a beggar asks you if you can spare some credits, and no matter what your choice, give them to him, and he gets mugged later, refuse him, and he goes out and mugs someone else, with Kreia commenting negatively on either choice you make.
Anyway I'm just really sick and tired of the boring binary morality choices and wish we had more actually intellectually debatable issues, the very fact that even 13 years later people argue over what the best ending to New Vegas is should be proof enough that it's way of doing things is objectively better.
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Videogames romances are like "me and the 1000 years old demonic entity I pulled by dethroning the king and being a little silly"
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I get a little miffed when I see people criticizing common scenarios in games like D&D such as killing bandits for being "violent" or "problematic" and suggesting that people can/should play D&D in a more non-violent way.
I agree that it is very possible to do and I'm cool with people playing games they own however they want to. But the reality is that most of D&D's mechanics were designed specifically with combat in mind. You look at any given class, and that's what the bulk of their abilities are for. For pretty much everything else, you have a "skills" system that functions, but is not developed with much depth. Most of the toys you get to play with are there to simulate fantasy violence. And part of the fantasy in such a game is that you can solve problems, save the day and be a hero with violence. Enjoying that fantasy doesn't make you a bad person, and if you don't enjoy that fantasy, you might be better served playing a game with a different design philosophy and priorities.
For comparison, imagine it's a hot summer day and you're watching some kids play outside. It's your job to keep them entertained, healthy and safe. So you want them to play a game that's going to get them physically active, have fun and cool off.
So you set out a big bin of water balloons and super soakers and a hose and tell them they should all get wet. If those kids pick up the super soakers and the water balloons and start shooting each other and playing war, it would be weird of you to then chastise them for simulating violence. After all, that's basically what those toys are explicitly designed to do. And sure, you could explain to the kids that they could instead choose to spray themselves with the hose or pop the balloons by sitting on them or whatever. There are definitely possible ways to use those toys that don't involve pretending to be violent. But if that's such a dealbreaker for you, you probably shouldn't have bought those toys in the first place. Like, you could have set up a sprinkler or a Slip'n'Slide or an inflatable pool instead. Choose the toys/the game that's designed for what you want.
And don't assume that just because I would relish taking someone out "execution style" with a super soaker that I would approve of the same thing in a non pretend situation.
#to clear I'm not advocating for murder hobo behavior here#but people playing D&D and having fun killing NPCs and monsters is people engaging with the source material as intended#they're not wrong for not going out of their way to play it in a different fashion#RPGs
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TTRPG Design For Evil
In my somehow unending quest to write the worst TTRPG, I have designed the following:
What Little The Flames Leave Us, a game where you light your character sheet on fire and put it out. Repeatedly. To pass basic checks.
Fear No Evil, where you throw a d4 into a room, turn the lights off, take your shoes off, and then stride fearlessly through.
Bottom Gun, where you can only take actions by texting emojis at the GM, who has to interpret them.
Sexyback, where there's one player and like an entire greek chorus of GMs who vote on the player's next actions.
And finally Hot In Here: A Game Of Antarctic Exploration, where you play as members of the Shackleton expedition and the mechanics consist of stripping, but there's also a counter mechanic where you can put clothes on other people.
#ttrpg#ttrpg homebrew#ttrpgs#ttrpg design#indie ttrpgs#indie ttrpg#rpg#tabletop#rpgs#cw theoretical nudity
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When someone asks if Dragon Age is good and five hours later you're explaining Tevinter politics
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#RPGs#NPCs#GM advice#also#show them a picture of the character#and just screencap somebody from LOTR or Star Wars
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People when game characters have their own goals and motivations, aren't yes men to whatever the player says and don't change their views and opinions just cause the player wants them to
#aka the “this character is badly written cause they dont agree with everything I say and feel” crowd#fandom critical#memes#gaming memes#rpgs#rpg#mass effect#dragon age#baldur's gate 3#baldur's gate#mass effect trilogy#dragon age origins#dragon age 2#dragon age inquisition#mass effect memes#dragon age memes#bioware#larian studios
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