Skip to main content

TTRPG Tuesday: Analog Cousin of Marginalia

Hiya, welcome back to another TTRPG Tuesday! A brief one today, as I just had the barebones of an idea pop into my head and I wanted to gently fan that spark.  One trend in games that I haven’t attempted yet is the journaling form of the solo TTRPG.  I’ve purchased a few, started one, never actually gotten all the way through any.  But I think it’d be fun to do one that has accounting/ledgers as the premise:

  • Perhaps the game is an ledger for a business, and the further into the game you go, the more pages reference previous pages; so the direction of the business is influenced by how faithful the accounting is

  • There are a couple of supplemental materials, mostly brochures; some are referenced by the Ledger, as the prices of products for the business

  • But some of the brochures are costs for various niceties - luxuries, vacations, escort services, offshore accounts, all the big and little things people embezzle for

  • Part of the game is crunching the numbers for the business, but part of the game is squirreling away money and writing or drawing memories after spending it

  • The title of the game: Legerdemain

So yeah, that’s what I’ve got so far.  It feels thematically very close to my long-unrealized WIP Marginalia (right down to the overly fussy name), but analogue, but I like that - I also think that this should be a little more petty and selfish and mean-spirited, as opposed to Marginalia, which more literally involves mean spirits.  Maybe working on one would inspire me to work on the other.  I need to get my hands moving on some kind of design work again soon, those muscles are quite atrophied.

Anyhow, that’s it for this week - as promised, short and sweet.  Til next time.

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

Building My First Deck in Tabletop Simulator

Well well, a new week.  How original.  I had an idea for a possible Mechanic Monday but it turned out to just be Stratego.  C’est la vie! (Although maybe it could still work if the forces weren’t all set in stone, and player’s had a limited number of reserve forces that they could secretly commit prior to each combat, and also instead of larger forces wiping out smaller ones, they would deal the difference in force sizes as damage) (Also note to self: Each player starts with a different hidden amount of VP/Currency that they have to pay (plus interest) at game’s end, as a way to truly hide who’s in the lead.) Anyway it’s Wednesday, so there’s no time for any of THAT stuff.  Today, I’m going to kvetch informatively about Tabletop Simulator. So, TTS is, near as I can tell, an incredibly powerful and useful tool.  It’s also absolute ass to parse, as someone coming to it cold.  The official guides are largely unhelpful for the designers whose experience is limi...
Post a Comment
Read more

TTRPG Tuesday: The Secret Calendar

Welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday! Have I done any this year? Looks like no! On pace to be a pretty low-posting year I guess. Today I actually have a full-fledged one pager TTRPG to share.  I was listening to a Ludology with Camilla Zamboni as the guest and was inspired by her collection Roll for Learning.  The Secret Calendar came to me pretty much fully formed as I walked and listened to the episode, though I do want to acquire RfL to get layout inspo. Anyhow, the first draft can be found HERE .  I think this could be a fun activity for students (was also thinking of Wolfenoot) and maybe I’ll publish it or submit it at some point. Okay I’m out of practice so that's it buh bye!
Post a Comment
Read more