u/Awkward_GM

To list the setting genres I think most people are familiar with:

• Theme Genres (i.e. not tied to time period or location):
  • Mystery
  • Comedy
  • Dystopian
  • Utopian
  • Heist
• Fantasy
  • Medieval Fantasy
  • Urban Fantasy
  • "GrimDark" Fantasy
  • Sword & Board
  • Wuxia (e.g. Exalted)
  • Shojo Fantasy
• Sci-fi
  • Space Opera
  • "GrimDark" Sci-fi
  • Cyberpunk
  • Mecha
  • Future Military
• Fantasy Sci-fi/Science Fantasy
  • Magi-punk (e.g. Shadowrun)
• Modern
  • Urban
  • Magical Realism
  • Spy/Espionage
  • Action/Adventure (Very Very Generic 😜 )
  • Pulp
  • Military
  • Mystery
  • Alt History
  • Historical
• Horror
  • Eldritch Horror
  • CreepyPasta Horror
  • Analog Horror
  • Mascot Horror
• Post-apocalyptic
  • Zombie Apocalypse
  • Rapture/Angels/Demons apocaplyse
  • Retrofuturistic Apocalypse (e.g. Fallout)
• Superhero
  • Deconstruction (e.g. The Boys, Invicible)
  • 4 Color (e.g. Gold Age of Comics)
  • Tokusatsu (e.g. Super Sentai)
• Kaiju

Feel free to argue about genre in the comments. 😅 Within the subreddit rules. 😜

Edit: tossing in more genres, Did some sorting

I've had an idea to run a Kickstarter to get a game I wrote out the door as a finished product. The initial idea is that I'd limit the project to a core rulebook (hopefully PDF and POD through DriveThruRPG).

My main goal would be to get funding in order to complete the artwork of the book, hire an editor, and hire a layout designer. I know a few people who could do the work, but haven't gotten estimates yet until I'm closer to turning this project from an idea into an actual project. And I know I'd need to talk with DriveThruRPG about how to publish on their site as a publisher and not just community content.

My hope would be to have the initial goal be: This is as much as I need to afford cover art, an editor, and layout designer. Then every additional stretch goal would be for more artwork, interactive character sheets, dice bot, and eventually I have no idea what more to add.

My thinking is that I'd possibly set the project to once complete any leftover funding would be a bonus split percentage wise amongst the people who worked on the project. Like if its 4 people it would be 28%, 24%, 24%, and 24%. I've never run a business or anything so I'm mainly asking what people have done in the past with projects like this.

How have you all run your crowdfunding if you have done it?

I have the feeling that if someone makes a company, the profits tend to be used to fund the next project, but I'm not sure how likely I'd be to keep this going more than a one off.

Thoughts?

I'm looking to bring up some hot takes about CofD in a future video on my YouTube channel if I have time. I don't have a lot of time to do every idea I have, but thought this might be fun.

I'll anonymize the screen grabs in my video 👍🏻.

My biggest hot take would be that: Professional Training as a merit should have been removed, it gives free dots of Contact Merit meaning you never should take Contacts if you can take this, plus grants bonuses to a specific Skill which tends to attract the "I'm an Investigator, so I get 9-again on Firearms" forms of character builds.

I'm coming up with a list of Rituals to make.

A few I can think of:

* SHALLOW Hal - Cursed to see only people's inner beauty.

* What Women Want - Guy is cursed to hear the thoughts of women.

* Freaky Friday - Cursed to body swap.

* Ted - Inanimate object brought to life.

* Stranger than Fiction - Cursed to hear your life's narrator.

* 13 going on 30/Big - Cursed to experience life as your older self.

* JUMANJI - Cursed board game.

* Child's Play/Talking Tina - Cursed doll.

* Oculus - Cursed Mirror.

I've always liked Dawn of War 2's RPG like mechanics involving upgrading your crew. I've played games like: X-Com and Battletech which hit similar feels, but aren't real time.

I don't want a recommendation like other Warhammer 40k games because I've played most of them already or am waiting for price dips.

Curseborne backed with 3,017 backers. I'm curious to see who backed it but haven't played it yet and why.

I know a few people who backed that are just waiting on the physical traditional print to arrive. One of my players recently got her Print on Demand version which made me jealous 😅.

My best guesses for why people might not be playing even though they backed are:

* Backed it out of curiosity, but didn't get into it as much as they thought.

* Waiting on the physical book to arrive.

* Can't find players.

* Can't find a GM willing to run it.

* Currently running something else, but you'll play it when you can.

Any other reasons?

Back during COVID I ran a Chronicles of Darkness West Marches game, under the premise of taking odd-jobs within a city.

I was originally planning a Warhammer 40k West marches but didn't have much interest from friends. The idea being that players can have multiple characters in different Factions dealing with a sector of space I generated from Stars without Number. Plus a Space Hulk for dungeon crawling.

Another one I had was Fallout 2d20. With the idea of taking Fallout 4's settlement mechanic and doing a bit of post Fallout 4 exploration in the Commonwealth.

Any other games you feel work surprisingly well in West Marches?

What happened:

Sometimes when I play either Curseborne or Chronicles of Darkness (though they aren't the only games I've encounter this problem as I'll go into later) I as a GM want to lean more into the horror aspects of the setting. When recruiting players ahead of time I'll let them know "I'm looking to lean more into the survival aspects of the game" and "Please bring a backup character, just in case".

When we get to the more dangerous and/or deadly aspects of the game I realize a problem I am focus firing on one PC. But at the same time if I spread out damage, I am actively making the encounters too trivial.

This was a technique I learned playing Dungeons and Dragons 4e and 5e. Players should focus fire on enemies as damaged enemies are as lethal as undamaged ones, and you need to remove actions from the board in order to win, otherwise you are fighting an uphill battle.

Doing this as a GM is what I'd like to call "picking on a single player" and tends to end up a negative play experience for the players. Typically, I'll pull back when I notice I'm only targetting a single player. Because I try to be observant when a player is not having a good time, having a negative play experience, or checked out.

You don't want a situation where one player realizes "I'm dead next turn, and then I'll have to wait an hour for my party members to clean up the enemies". The player being unable to interact with the game for a long period of time.

BUT!! If I do dial back the difficulty I tend to find that very quickly that potential TPK has become trivial. Maybe the enemies are only doing half the damage the players are doing overall in a round of combat, or hitting less frequently. Meanwhile I can see that the enemies have no chance (when I played wargames I learned to recognize no-win scenarios in order for one of us to concede so we could play another game as opposed to feel obligated to play out a forgone conclusion).

The System is only part of the equation

The systems themselves aren't highly deadly in the same way that Call of Cthulhu or Dark Heresy are. But having run Call of Cthulhu and played Dark Heresy, those systems are highly punishing when it comes to attacks.

• Call of Cthulhu 7e - You can easily kill a PC in one-hit with a single gun shot as the system itself emphasizes realism and danger. I personally can't make "challenging" encounters in CoC, because the system itself actively punishes players for combat.
  • My first experience with this as a GM was hitting a player character falling out of a 2nd story window from a ghost pushing him and winding up so injured that the damage rules stated he required 1 month of treatment at a hospital to be playable again.
  • My second experience with this was a single gun shot hitting a PC. The PC would have bled out and died within a couple of turns.
  • Since then, I focused on combat being very puzzle based where the enemies would target NPCs or obstacles before immediately one-shotting the PCs. Or if an enemy was meant to be a combat encounter they'd do small amounts of damage so that players could be grazed by non-fatal hits that would scare them, but not immediately grind the game to a halt because we had to do a time skip that I wasn't planning for.
• Dark Heresy/Fantasy Flight Games Warhammer 40k games - Unlike CoC, the FFG 40k RPGs don't emphasize punishing the players for combat (except for maybe Only War), they are trying to emphasize the brutality of the setting. The danger of a player character dying is because of the Critical Wounds system. If you do enough damage or critcal hit someone, you have the potential to finish them off in a vulgar display of violence (in a good way in regards to emulating the setting).
  • Such as decapitating opponents only for their head wound to cover the entire area in a fountain of blood. The thing is, the enemy can do this too, and results in moments where compentent players suddenly have to deal with the possibility that their badass character is going to be disintegrated like a Fallout: 3 lvl 1 Raider shot by a laser weapon.

I hope this helps you see where I'm coming from. From my perspective I've got two types of RPGs I'm dealing with:

• Games where the PCs are competent in combat, but tension is lost in that they'll survive 95% of encounters.
  • The other 5% typically, being as a GM, actively putting players in unfair scenarios only to dialback the danger as I realized I've fucked up.
  • For example, >!I once had Nosferatu nearly TPK an entire group of players (including a Mummy: The Curse 2e PC which are demigods) because my players told me Obfuscate meant the players couldn't see where the Nosferatu enemies were (VtR 2e rules). One of the enemies bit into the Mummy and I said "Okay, his Obfuscate breaks because he attacked" only to find out that in VtR2e that it breaked only for the enemy attacked not for everyone witnessing the attack. So the Mummy had this gaping wound from his neck and none of the other PCs could attack the area where clearly an invisible vampire was biting into him. (Later on I discovered the Obfuscate ability had a one line clarification that you could do a Perception check to target an Obfuscated enemy by reading context clues such as scuff marks on floors, foot prints in dirt, smells, etc...)!<
• Games where the PCs are incompentent in combat, and combat is purposefully punishing or rewarded for avoiding.

Somewhere in this is a middle ground I have not found. I think of the many game systems I've played none have a straight forward way of helping the GM design encounters that feel dangerous without being unfair.

Thinking back to a lot of encounters I've run over the years I don't think I've ever really hit that sweet spot as a GM and I don't know if my players feel similar. Typically, I have players who are less focused on combat, but as a GM and a hobbyist game designer I want to improve.

If you are going to say "then just don't do combats", that advice is something people put out as a "quick and easy" solution that doesn't solve the problem when the game books include Combat ability options for PCs and the players want to engage in both Combat and Non-Combat encounters.

How have you found the sweet spot in Difficulty when it comes to combat encounter design?

Sorry for the long post, I tried to edit out a lot of what seemed superflous, but I probably didn't get everything.

I've had a lot of conversations with friends about "oh I can't wait for this game to come out" only to be the one to say, "it's already out".

Thought maybe some people could mention some games they've had that moment with.

I've had friends say "I wish there was a Fallout RPG" and I'd point to modiphius's game. Or if that's not their cup of tea lvl to xps' DnD homebrew version.

I was listening to a podcast/panel today about how a lot of smaller game studios closed down due to increases in costs. Anyone know of any that closed this last year or had to cancel projects to stay afloat?

They mentioned that they may be lesser known companies so I'm curious if anyone knows of any.

Recently I am working on a lot more basic abilities in regards to a few archetypes I took from D&D 4e. Specifically I am looking at this in a little bit of a wargame/skirmish game perspective, but to translate that into a TTRPG.

4e monster roles:
Note: Modifiers are qualities that stack with other qualities.

• Modifiers:
  • Minion (Modifier) - Statblock that dies in 1 hit. (e.g. Zombie, Skeleton, Kobold, Goblin)
  • Elites (Modifier) - Statblock designed to be a mini-boss or upgraded version of an existing enemy type. (e.g. Veteran Soldier, Royal BodyGuard)
  • Leaders (Modifier) - Support/Healing. (e.g. Cleric, Squad Leader, Goblin Shaman, Orc Warlord)
  • Solo (Modifier) - Statblock designed to be a single enemy vs an entire party. (i.e. Dragon, Lich)
• Main roles:
  • Skirmishers - Melee DPS. (e.g. duelist, wolves)
  • Artillery - Ranged DPS (e.g. goblin with bow, ranger)
  • Soldiers - Tank that takes hits for allies. (e.g. bodyguard, golem)
  • Brutes - Tank with high damage. (e.g. fighter, Ogre, Troll)
  • Controllers - Area Control/Effect (e.g. Wizard casting fireball)
  • Lurkers - Ambusher (e.g. rogue, giant spider)

My main idea is to have abilities that are very simple for players/GMs to understand without confusing them.

Examples of what I'm working on:

• Support:
  • Bodyguard - When a nearby ally character takes damage, this model can take it instead.
  • Spotter - Nearby ally characters gain a bonus to ranged attacks.
  • Back to Back - Nearby ally characters gain a bonus to melee attacks.
  • Retaliation - If a nearby ally character is attacked, this character makes a free attack against the enemy attacker.
• Tank
  • Regen - Character heals a small amount every turn.
  • Armor (temp hitpoints) - Character gains armor that stacks on top of their hitpoints.
  • Armor (Reduction) - Reduce incoming damage.
  • Taunt - Nearby enemy characters have a penalty for attacking other characters if they could attack this character.
• DPS
  • Marked for Death - Target character takes more damage on future attacks.
  • Piercing - This character's attacks ignore armor/damage reduction.

Any ideas what games might work well to do more research?

I think my favorite wargames in this regard are things like Warhammer 40k, Killteam, and Malifaux. As far as RPGs go I think D&D 4e was a big impact on this type of mechanics first mindset.

I recently started playing Warhammer 40k Tacticus (yes a stupid Gacha Mobile game), but the mechanics like this are built into it as well.

• For instance, I have a summoner unit that creates Necron Scarabs, but I have another character who can reactivate the summoned units which lets me get more out of those Necron Scarabs (i.e. they either attack again or spawn another Scarab unit and attack again).
• There was this other situation where I had a character I didn't know how to use, his attack was a melee attack and his special attack was just another melee attack(all characters only have 2 active abilities and 1 passive). Looking at his abilities I realize, Oh enemies he attacks but don't kill causes his allies to do more damage against that enemy.
• Another situation was a melee unit with not much going on (Skitarii Ruststalker) and they kept dying quickly. Then I find out that he gets extra attacks if an ally attacks an enemy in melee with him. Suddenly I've got all these combos in my mind and ways to increase my damage output.

Any recommendations are appreciated.

Recently saw in a fan discord mention some of Beast: The Primordial's powers as being extremely cruel:

• This isn't my Skin - Inflict dysmophia
• Soldier's Heart - Inflict PTSD, can even cause breaking points on its own which is rare.

Others I can think of:

• Demon: The Descent:
  • Everybody Hates Him (Exploit) - Makes the target the most hated person to whoever sees them. Essentially inflicts Disquiet if you are familiar with Promethean.
  • Solitary Confinement (Exploit) - Send a target into a void where every hour they experience a breaking point.
  • Stalking Horse (Exploit) - Highlights an aspect of a target (or creates one) causing everyone who meets with the person to immediately know it. For instance, the person is ashamed of something, now everyone who meets them knows that.
  • Unperson (Embed) - The person cannot confirm their identity and people who knew them can't remember them. Including spouses and children... Yeah this also causes breaking points.
• Promethean: The Created 2e:
  • Scapegoat - Let's redirect your Disquiet at a nearby mortal, who now because the subject of people's hate. And additional abilities allow the Promethean to influence animals and people to attack the target.

I've seen a fair number of systems with social mechanics. I'll let players roll for stuff like persuasion, bluff, insight, intimidate, etc... but when it comes to NPCs rolling against players it is usually defensive, such as a player trying to figure out if a character is lying I'll roll bluff.

But when it comes to social skill checks vs PCs, I never tend to do it. What about you all?

Recently I saw a video talking about how the Dark Tide cast shouldn't be able to take out a Chaos Terminator.

&#x200B;

But then I've been rereading a lot of books the last few years and Gaunt's Ghosts has a Guardsman taking out a Chaos Dreadnought. Only for me to read Dark Imperium and Calgar sends a Terminator squad to take out a student rebellion. Mainly as a show of force, but the description is how the Terminators basically tanked the auto gun hits.

&#x200B;

Meanwhile on the table, Terminators can be harmed if the number of shots is big enough for eventual 1s to be rolled.

&#x200B;

Probably no true answer on this but I think it's fun to talk about.

For me:

• The Doctor's Daughter.
• Gus and Perkins (The engineer who knows Tardis mechanics) from Mummy on the Orient Express.
• Rogue (The >!cameo farwell in the finale!< was such BS)

Recently, I've been reminiscing about my first D&D 4e game, which I consider my first true D&D experience (I tried 3.5e and the DM and our group didn't gel... the Paladin and Rogue were paused mid-argument as the Rogue stole money from a religious altar).

The DM's name was an older guy named Chris, he took me and the group out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant and paid for all of it (like 6 players 💸💸💸). He said his old DM paid for him sometimes and he wanted to pay it forward.

When I was in college I wanted to be a game designer on video games. He thought I meant TTRPG game designer. 😂 Now I've got my own TTRPG youtube channel, I am making TTRPG community content on the side, and doing paid GMing. My players mostly appreciate my own sense of humor and GM style that grew from those great early experiences.

This was a time before social media was the first thing people thought to share when meeting new people. And I didn't stick around there for too long as I went on to run my own games. I haven't seen him since running those Dark Sun D&D 4e Encounters and maybe a couple of one-shots.

A key moment that sort of defined how great DMing could be was when he had a "Blacksmith" character that was specialized in making hinges in a non-Dark Sun game, when our caravan was ambushed the Blacksmith came running out wielding a sword made of hinges. So creative! 😂