Skip to main content

TTRPG Tuesday: Remember When I Did Boardgames

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-agnostic settings that can be adapted to whatever system.

I think what I’d like to create is a set of worlds that all have certain parameters in common: Each world will have lore, factions, geography, some key historical and active personnel, notes on tone and genre (geared towards helping GMs determine whether it’d be a good fit for a particular system) and enough gaps to create a potter’s edge that entices the GM and players to come in and graft on that connective tissue.  I was toying with calling this the cartridge system because you could slot it in and press play, but I’m going with Bulb because of the plant/electric double-meaning.  An inert little globe that can come to life in the right hands, in the right place.

Maybe target 9 Bulbs, for a range of different types of world; the nine points on DnD alignment-style axes? I’ll figure out what the parameters for each Bulb should be and what the axes are later; that’s enough for now and I’m sleepy.  Catch you on the flipside, and tune in next time for another T-T-T-TTRPG T-T-Tuesday!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TTRPG Tuesday: Three Means Of Resolving

Hi it’s another TTRPG Tuesday! First of the year.  Let’s get right into it. Saw a challenge on Twitter to make some resolution mechanics.  I can do those! Here we go: Hand to Hand The player performing the action and the person running the game or otherwise opposing the action both put their dominant fists toward one another, bounce them three times to get a rhythm, and reveal a number with their fingers, 0-5.  Sum the two numbers, and if the number is greater than 5, subtract six, so that the final number is always between 0 and 5.  On a 0, the action fails catastrophically, on a 1-2 it fails, 3-4 it succeeds, on a 5 it succeeds spectacularly.  The player taking the action starts the game with all five fingers up on their non-dominant hand; after an attempt, they may lower fingers on that hand to add to the sum of the attempt. Ex. Alice attempts to seduce Cat’s character over to the coup conspirators.  They put their dominant hands together (right for ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TTRPG Tuesday: Minimum Viable Product for WWDW?

Hello and welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday! I’ve put together a barebones introductory document for We Won, Didn’t We? and, well, I think it speaks for itself.  Check it out HERE ! This introduces the skeleton of the game, as well as walking through the steps; I’d say next up is a rudimentary character sheet, and maybe I can bring this to a Playtest Zero session and see what folks think of character creation within one of the starting Bulbs.  I’ve opened the doc up for comments, so if you have thoughts dear reader, fire away.  Brain fried, go read the doc, til next time!
Post a Comment
Read more

TTRPG Tuesday: Beliefs as Roles

  Hello from high above the Rockies, as I make my way back to Chicago from Big Bad Con 2023.     This was my first con in five years, and only my second ever.     I had a better time at it than I did at GenCon, which I understand derives largely from this being an industry con vs a consumer show.     I made a modest number of purchases but it was easy to stick to the constraints of my limited luggage space, which was fine; shopping and new releases were not the attraction here.     Gaming, panels, and (as I soon learned) networking were. This con was certainly less overwhelming and I think my expectations were clearer and my FOMO much lighter, but I’ll readily admit that I had a lot to learn.    I misunderstood or made mistakes regarding almost every event I signed up for, including happy accidents like sitting in on the wrong panel only to learn a ton, or expecting a mending workshop to be about fixing one’s writing when the app...
Post a Comment
Read more