u/FormerlyIestwyn

I'm thinking like Mothership's TOMBS cycle or Night's Black Agents' Conspyramid/Vampyramid - GM-facing tools that help prep go smoother.

For example, while Blades in the Dark has a fascinating heist system (mostly its flashbacks), it doesn't necessarily have any tools to help GMs design the heist in the first place (unless I'm remembering incorrectly).

Any ideas? Thanks!

I just read two great books:

• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which describes an uplifted species of the portia labiata jumping spider
• Semiosis by Sue Burke, which features several species of sentient plants

Both of which were extremely grounded and very well thought-out biologically. The stories were enjoyable, too (both with very optimistic, pacifist roots).

What are some other SpecEvo books you enjoyed that also had a good storyline?

I love the setting and concept behind City of Mist - especially the extensive usage of narrative tags - but it's a tad clunky for my table. (My players are pretty crunch-averse.)

Instead, you can use the rules from Neon City: Overdrive. The original system is for cyberpunk heists, but they can easily be adapted to urban fantasy mysteries. The key thing is that CoM's themes are easily ported over to NC:O's trademarks. Like themes, trademarks are collections of positive (edges) and negative (flaws) tags that influence gameplay. From there, everything else falls into place with minimal adjustments.

I know this is kind of a niche post, but I thought some folks might be interested. If it helped, enjoy!

Several systems include lore that only GMs are supposed to know, at least at the start. Some examples include:

• City in the Mist - >!Avatars of the Mythoi are in charge of the City, but are in a stalemate with the Gatekeepers of the Mist!<
• Eclipse Phase - >!The apocalyptic AIs called TITANs didn't go rogue on their own, but were corrupted by an alien virus from the hyper-advanced Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI)!<
• Delta Green - >!I'm gonna be honest, it's been years since I've read this one, but I think the twist is that there are actually two Delta Green organizations since there was a schism?!<

What are some other examples you like?

Forged in the Dark games have a cycle between jobs and downtime (or a variation), and Night's Black Agents has the genius Conspyramid and Vampyramid. It's been a while since I've read Apocalypse World, but I believe it has a way to organize threats to make it easy for MCs to keep their thoughts straight.

What are some other tools that systems provide to organize campaigns/scenarios?

I really like TOMBS. For those unfamiliar, it's Transgression (a decision or accident that unleashed the Horror), Omens (signs of the Horror), Manifestation (how the Horror is revealed), Banishment (how the Horror is defeated), and Slumber (what the Horror does after it's beaten).

What are some other examples out there, maybe in different genres (mystery, military, etc.)?

I'm reading Band of Blades, and I really enjoy the way that players don't play a single character, but pick from a cast that changes from mission to mission. They also deal with a second mode of play where they collaborate together to lead an army. (That by itself is clever, but not necessarily innovative - I believe the Dune RPG does something similar.)

What system is based on an interesting mechanical or setting premise?

I only just bought the game a couple days ago, so I could easily be missing something. One of the things I got was Another Bug Hunt, and it has a very minimal stat block at the start:

C:75 Claw 4d10 DMG I:75 AP:30 W:2(20)

I've tried to look through the player's and warden's guides, and can't find a guide for this kind of stat block. (The closest thing I could find was the contractors.)

From what I can guess:

• C:75 - The stat for Combat checks
• Claw 4d10 DMG - The amount of damage done on a successful Combat check
• I:75 - Instinct, the stat for all other checks
• AP:30 - Armor Points; until something does at least 30 damage, none of the damage counts
• W:2(20) - Wounds? Somehow?

How does the Wounds entry work? Do I understand everything else correctly?

I just found Mothership, and I have never seen an indie RPG with so many books. I'm not sure how to know what to get.

I've identified the following:

• Player's Guide
• Warden's Guide
• Shipbreaker's Toolkit
• Conversion Guide (has a bunch of stat blocks, I think)
• Hacker's Guide

What other stuff provides tools for wardens?

I'm trying to find a sci-fi system for my crunch-averse players. Cepheus FTL looks promising, but it still has >25 skills and a detailed career-path character creation system. Cepheus Quantum shortens the skill list to 6 and uses point-buy character creation, which would be improvements for my players. However, I'm wondering if there's something in-between - maybe 10 skills with point-buy or skill package character creation?

I know this is a ridiculously specific question, but I'd love to figure this out. Thanks!

I'm trying to find a sci-fi system for my crunch-averse players. Cepheus FTL looks promising, but it still has >25 skills and a detailed career-path character creation system. Cepheus Quantum shortens the skill list to 6 and uses point-buy character creation, which would be improvements for my players. However, I'm wondering if there's something in-between - maybe 10 skills with point-buy or skill package character creation?

I know this is a ridiculously specific question, but I'd love to figure this out. Thanks!

I've been looking for a lighter ruleset to use for the Eclipse Phase setting, and Transhumanity's Fate looks excellent. However, I'm not sure whether I need to read through the entire 300-page core FATE rulebook to understand it.

Is FATE Condensed enough?

I'm interested in starting an Eclipse Phase campaign, but I'm not too familiar with the actual rules (either edition). I am familiar with the transhuman rules for Stars Without Number, but I haven't actually run them.

What are the pros/cons of either option, and which would you recommend? Thanks!

I'm interested in starting an Eclipse Phase campaign, but I'm not too familiar with the actual rules (either edition). I am familiar with the transhuman rules for Stars Without Number, but I haven't actually run them.

What are the pros/cons of either option, and which would you recommend? Thanks!

I got the Acer Nitro V just so I could play some of the newer games that require ray tracing - I don't really care about graphics, just being able to play. But the stupid thing keeps crashing or freezing on almost every game, and nothing that I'm doing is fixing it.

I'm thinking to return it and get a different one, but I still don't have a lot of money to spare. I got this thing for $1,000; how much more would I have to spend to get something that works?

Thanks in advance!

Budget: $1500
Country: USA
Use Case: Gaming — Indiana Jones: Great Circle (for example)
Preferred Specs: Ray Tracing (just for games that require it)
Notes: The cheaper the better, as long as it won't crash all the time

I'd finally scrounged up enough money to buy a new gaming laptop, and I wanted it to be something good enough to play the latest games. Not only do the more intense games crash, like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and FF16, but a lot of the simpler ones, too, like Pentiment. Some work, like Touch Type Tale and Neon White, but it's not what I was hoping when I bought this thing.

Here are my specs:

Nitro ANV15-52

Processor 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13620H (2.40 GHz)

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)

Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU (8 GB)

Intel(R) UHD Graphics (128 MB)

Storage 760 GB of 954 GB used

Device ID B7C00266-669D-4AFB-8E43-85B2DE52359F

Product ID 00342-22659-32806-AAOEM

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Any ideas what I can do? Thanks in advance!