Velocimancer Games

What the heck, why not another TTRPG Tuesday? There’s no law against it is there? And even if there is, I’d say my approach to this blog makes it abundantly clear that I care little for the breaking of laws.  I’m back with more World Seeds for Spectres of Brocken (link to the upcoming KS: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ehronlime/spectres-of-brocken) just like last time, almost like I kept thinking about them and this is just a part two to my previous entry. Bone Metal Necromancy was supposed to fix everything.  It promised a utopia unending, and instead we got an empire on whom the Sun neither sets nor rises.  People live and toil the same as they ever did, but do so now under black skies as the charnel houses spew their fumes around the clock.  And no longer is death any sort of release, for the souls of the departed now power the mighty constructs that stalk this blasted Earth.  Wrought from obsidian and onyx and tarnished silver, pitted iron and smooth ...

Good evening and welcome back to Tabletop Tuesday! A day for reflecting, a day for ignoring the months of inaction and chalking them merrily up to ReChArGiNg, and for once more visualizing how good it would feel were I to finally get around to playtesting Star Baker.  But actually, for today, I wanted to make incremental progress on the Bulb system - by which I mean Aaron Lim posted the world seeds for Spectres of Brocken (coming soon to Kickstarter!) and I wanted to make some too, and maybe I’ll eventually flesh them out into the format I have in mind for my Bulbs.  Anyway, I’ll use Aaron’s format (from here: https://twitter.com/ehronlime/status/1549437755213561856?s=21 ) to start. Walking Shrines The main societies of this world are inventive, industrious, and often ruthless in their striving for technological superiority.  Travel and trade are easier and more lucrative than ever; war is both brutal, and just another driver of the economy.  But wars now are nothing...

Hello and welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday.  It’s a lovely cool Summer evening, and I have a couple things been kicking around my head lately.  We’ll see how much of it I get out of the old noggin before my laptop battery dies, how’s that sound? First up, I’m still thinking about the Bulb system; what axes should define the first set of nine I want to make, and what questions/fields should be defined in every Bulb.  On Twitter, I mused about an x-axis of Fantasy to Sci Fi and a y-axis of Grim to Hopeful, but the truth is that I don’t usually want to write much Grim stuff, so do I really want to write three settings that fall under that umbrella? Probably not to start! So maybe a better first grid is x-axis Magic, y-axis Tech, yielding: High Tech / No Magic High Tech / Some Magic High Tech / High Magic Some Tech / No Magic Some Tech / Some Magic Some Tech / High Magic No Tech / No Magic No Tech / Some Magic No Tech / High Magic Some other axes to consider are: abstract <...

Weeeelcome to TTRPG Tuesday - or it will be if I actually finish writing this entry.  It’s been a long ass time since I updated this blog with anything at all, but here I am.  No idea how long this’ll be or what I’m working for, but I wanted to get some thoughts together for an idea that’s been kicking around my head: The Bulb System! What kicked this off was my experiences playtesting Aaron Lim’s Spectres of Brocken, and designing Star Baker.  Specifically, the worldbuilding section of both designs.  I love world-building, and I think that developing a setting is one of the most fun parts of running a game, and an important and enjoyable part of a session zero.  But I also think that there is (and always has been) an appetite for pre-written settings.  Existing settings can provide a common foundation, set a tone, serve as a shared vocabulary, and generally do some heavy lifting at several steps of the way.  I’ve also seen creators who’ve made system-...

Hello no one.  New year, new whatever.  I’m back with another TTRPG Tuesday! Mostly I want to talk about the thing I threw together over Christmas break instead of getting ANY playwriting or boardgame writing done: Star Baker! Yes, based on a joke tweet and the response, I got it into my head to design a Great British Bake Off TTRPG, and over the course of about six days  and six pages, that’s what I did.  I actually quite like the system, despite having followed a few dead ends and doubling back.  It’s got a lot in common with Riders, but it definitely honours its subject and may also owe a little to what I’ve heard of Blades in the Dark (namely the flashback stuff).  But I think this one could have legs, as well as a broader civilian appeal than any of my other stuff, and I’ve got feelers out with a graphic designer friend to explore the possibility of collaborating on a polished version to release on itch.  I think it’s on my end it’s a bit overdes...

Hey!  Long time no anything.  How the hell have you been? Me? Constantly drained.  Doing much more playwriting and theatre admin than game writing.  But it’s TTRPG Tuesday and I’m back to report that despite it taking much longer to make  than a pamphlet should, I got the push I needed from MegaCorp/Logan running a Company game jam in the month of October and I got a v1.0 together, edited, and submitted by the deadline.  I met some cool people, gave and got feedback, and had a better product for it. Thinking about it, now that I’ve got my first creator upload to itch, I wonder if I shouldn’t take the opportunity to clean up my creator page and upload my other games; starting with Riders and maybe a cleaned up What Makes It Move; and then perhaps moving onto my non RPG stuff, I dunno, can’t hurt and I can always take it down if I decide to publish, right? I’d like to do another of these; the community aspect was fun, and I’d also like to prove my chops a lit...

Well well, it’s been quite a minute hasn’t it? But we’re back this week, with another TTRPG Tuesday.  I missed the deadline for the 18-card TTRPG Design Contest, but I have so many failed entries that got to 60-80% of the way to a complete v1.0, and this time I wanted to get to 100%, even if just to break my habit of abandoning designs.  I got a first draft of the rules, the character sheet, and the cards, and I’ve printed, cut, and sleeved the cards.  Tomorrow I’ll film a little video (the last requirement of the contest) and put up a tweet with some pictures and links to the rules, and see if there’s any interest in playtesting or providing feedback.  Honestly it’ll also be fine if it just goes on the shelf, and I turn my focus over to The Envy of Ajax.  First though, I wanted to post-mortem my process a little and evaluate what there is. First off, the game feels tough, but I kind of like that.  I think that in 1.0, there might be too much Trait loss and...