Posts

FIVEY Playtest: Justice for Neverwinter!

Image
I ran my homebrew ruleset FIVEY for the first time using the first adventure in the Justice for Neverwinter series, originally (sorta kinda) written for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition . It turned out to be a lot of fun! Though not because of the adventure. Background I feel like I need to explain what this adventure is and justify using it. Justice for Neverwinter is a series of mediocre railroaded adventures that try their very best to model political situations through a gushily rad-lib lens (“peaceful protest!”). The first adventure in the series is about a factional dispute between a mining company (called ForestCo, obviously), its overworked employees, and a tribe of kobolds whose land the company stole to build their mine and company town. The adventurers are sent by ForestCo to deal with the kobold problem by whatever means, but soon they realize the plight of the kobolds and the workers (who are somewhat overeager to work together, even unprompted by the party). Th

Working on a FIVEY Packet

Image
I've had the rules bible for a while, but that's less fun than something I could hypothetically print! They look pretty plain, but maybe that will change. I'm just happy to have the main nitty-gritty rules over one spread. Actually going to run some tonight :)

M. Kirin's Iron Valley: An Informal Review

Image
Iron Valley is a solo tabletop game based on the Ironsworn system, but drawing from farming and village life simulation games as its inspiration (especially Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons , Animal Crossing , and Stardew Valley ). My friend Lino from PinkSpace brought it up, and I asked if we could play in parallel because I wanted to hang out, and also because I so desperately want a pencil-and-paper farming game that I can zone out playing. Here's my short-form verdict by way of Discord message: i think lino should also give a verdict, but mine is: it’s conceptually very sweet but you kinda need to bring your own game (“ fuck you design ”, as per alex), and it also infantilizes the reader and—by making the game overly cozy—swings in the opposite direction because you can’t help but think about how perfect everything is. one example is that, like harvest moon and similar games, it quantifies friendship points via gifts you give them, but it treats it as wholesome and contr

Vent: Gendered Representation

Someone shared a Reddit post , quoted below: Games Made By Cis Women As the title says. Looking for games made or designed by cisgender women. Played most of the indie games I could find that are made by women, but surprisingly few seem to be made (or are designed) by cisgender women. Wanting to expand my experiences. I vomited the thoughts below: i get where they’re coming from and sorta sympathize, but think they’re sorta misattributing the root cause in a way that comes off as reactionary? i always call it tumblr/reddit culture as a shorthand/joke, but there are cultural differences between female and male spaces that rub off on even individuals who transition later. e.g., tumblr trans culture is associated with trans men and reddit trans culture with trans women. it feels weird. attributing it to sex-assigned-at-birth reflects short-sightedness at the least and more likely implicit prejudice, but i’ve asked myself a similar question. not an insignificant number of trans

FIVEY: Abstract Monsters

FIVEY uses brackets to place monsters in one of five categories: mooks, grunts, elites, lieutenants, and bosses. This makes it really easy and quick to come up with a monster and basically speak it into existence! You just need a bracket, a defense class, and some abilities. Monster Brackets Bracket HD GA D/A Mook (M) 1 +1 2 (1d4) Grunt (G) 2 +2 3 (1d6) Elites (E) 4 +3 4 (1d8) Lieutenants (L) 8 +4 5 (1d10) Bosses (B) 16 +5 6 (1d12) Your monster's bracket determines their hit dice (HD), their general ability stat (GA), and their average damage per action (D/A). Hit dice are used to determine or randomize their total hit points: you can roll that many d6s, or just multiply by 4 if you're in a rush. The general ability stat is the monster's base stat for stat checks or contests, which is doubled for tasks at which the monster is considered skilled. Damage per action is basically self-explanatory, especially if you use the example dama

FIVEY: Human Beings in Fiveria

Image
Originally I wanted a way of rationalizing a 120-day calendar. Speaks for itself, obviously! Human Beings Human beings were originally inter-dimensional colonizers who traveled by starship to conquer distant worlds and thus escape the certain destruction of their home planet. One particular fleet targeted a world system called Fiveria for how it so resembled Terra, except with much shorter orbital cycles and exceptionally quick-growing vegetation. They were met however by a united front of Fiverian peoples, for the first time putting aside their particular differences on a social scale, who swiftly and surely defeated the fleet by means of magic hitherto unknown by human beings. The fleet's underlings were granted refuge on Fiveria, and were eventually fully integrated into the world's increasingly cosmopolitan society. Meanwhile, other fleets of human beings still roam the cosmos, conquering worlds and reshaping them in their own image. Fiverian Calendar The solar cycle of Fi

Roople the Dragon Queen

Image
I think RuPaul is fucking hilarious, sue me about it. My brain can't resist the punny potential between drag and dragon , especially when villain characters are so often played out to be extremely gay and campy (because gay people are evil, of course!). The more I thought about it, the more I got really into it. So, without further ado. See the FIVEY monster rules if you need help interpreting the stat block! Though it's pretty bog-standard. Roople, Dragon Queen ( Boss ; HD 16, DC 20, GA +5, MV 8/16) A draaagon queeen? I am the QUEEN OF DRAGONS! Now, sashay... away. Roople, about to annihilate a disrespectful bard. Roople is an ancient dragon with prismatic scales and a silver tongue. She finds beauty in things that reflect her image, and her lair is (in her eyes) the most beautiful thing of all. She hoards fine dinnerware and sculptures made of glass, and the very walls of her lair were carved out from the inside of a ginormous amethyst geode. Many people fear Roople fo