Latest Posts by crypticgrapefruit - Page 3
MyHouse.wad
Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.
Calvin and Hobbes - It’s July Already
um... hi? just checking how everything works in this app
Play Thirsty Sword Lesbians
So on bird app I talked about how many community copies of Thirsty Sword Lesbians there was and now 100s of people have claimed community copies of the game [Note Community Copies are free copies of PDFs which are on many itch.io TTRPGs and even community made TSL playbooks]. Since a ton more people now have access to my favorite game and one I've worked on for every edition so far as well as making a fan playbook, I wanted to talk about what is special about the system, what makes me love it so much, and why you might want to give it a try.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a simple game to understand but it refines even the most simple parts of it's design to make a better experience. In Thirsty Sword Lesbian's there is no failure or success. You roll d26 plus your modifier then you are either given a down beat, a mixed beat, or an upbeat. None of these mean you did what you intended. You can have a down beat where you knocked out the guard you had been trying to knock out but it turns out she was your girlfriends sister and without the context she just witnessed you assaulting her family. You may get an upbeat trying to do something and trip and fall and end up landing perfectly knocking away the sacred stone that the villain needs to turn the world into skeletons, with witnesses now thinking your amazing where in truth you have never quite been good at this.
Playbooks are designed with great intentionality to them each is designed with an emotional conflict at the heart. Where classes and playbooks can often be more like picking your powerset, in TSL your picking a struggle. It's not that other things might not be also bothering you but the conflict is something internally you are dealing with that's standing above the rest of the other conflicts you might have. This is an element that just feels very queer, we all have our problems, our traumas, and we work through them together. Each playbook also has a core mechanic that makes it stand out from the others, these have a narrative weight and a textual weight. These core mechanics typically take the form as some advantageous ability but are also deeply rooted in your conflict. They encourage you as a player to roleplay just by using the most basic aspect of your character.
I have to be real though, the thing that first made me fall head over heels with Thirsty Sword Lesbians was how funny and cool the adventures were. When I was reading the playtest version of the game, before I was brought on to write Yuisa Revolution and later The Matriarch, I was just playing a one shot and thought the name sounded fun. I read Best Day Of Their Life and just knew, this game was gonna be utterly my shit. At first I was just skimming like I do with most TTRPGs at first glance, but I read the first couple lines of the setting and I decided "fuck, I have to read all of this." I read the whole thing, made a character for my one shot and right after that session signed up to run multiple one shots of the game so others could get to play it because I loved it so much.
I don't normally like to play in premade settings but each of these are simple enough to really build on with enough going on that made it easier to run if you didn't want to get super creative and make a bunch of new shit. It really made me fall in love with setting writing in a way I just didn't before. I had gotten asked to work on Mutants and Master Minds before I TSL but I thought it was so boring working on the setting I quit and left money on the table. However, when April approached me to write a setting, I said yes, right away, no hesitation and now I work in TTRPG design. I had done TTRPG design work before but I wasn't locked in after quitting comics, it was how exciting the settings were that got me so inspired to create.
While many refer to Thirsty Sword Lesbians as a Powered By The Apocalypse game and by all means it is in a lot of senses, I think Powered By Lesbians is a very distinct flavor. It cuts out everything bad about PBTA and adds so much to the table. Chiefly among them is the smitten mechanic which is a mechanic I wish like every game had. It is one of the most clever pieces of game design ever convinced of. Being smitten has you do a moment of dramatic introspection, while I am one for more bright and cheery and less drama focused stuff, it's amazingly juicy hooks for a GM to get into. It not only allows you to put out your characters personal doubts about a potential relationship but it also says to the GM and everyone playing "I like this character, I want to see more of them, I want to explore where this goes." It's also in addition a way for players to tell each other "I want to be romantic with your character" and if they chose to get smitten back it's mechanically saying without even needing an out of game chat "Let's roleplay some romance."
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is really something special, I could gush on and on but already a lot given I worked on it and am currently working on it but I just wanted to talk about why the system is special to me. I hope I got you interested and I don't make any royalties on TSL sales [yet] so like I am not really biased here outside of the pages I worked on and that I made friends with a lot of folks who worked on it over my time working on it and after. Go clash swords and cross hearts.
the way that taz balance, in the stolen century and in the finale, used bonds as like, a mechanical thing? absolutely choice.
like it's just a box on the character sheet in dnd 5e that most people probably don't really fill out. to take something that's abstract like that, just a flavor element, and make it have like... tangible gameplay utility and repercussions?
i can't put a finger on why but it resonates with me just so much.
Urban Fantasy concept: Minotaur as an emergent phenomenon. Any sufficiently labyrinthine structure, left unattended for long enough, has a chance of generating a minotaur, if the area is properly “primed” by any kind of mass “sacrificial” death; from there the minotaur self-perpetuates by murdering Urbex practitioners, health inspectors, and dumb teens looking for a hangout.Â
Premodern Minotaurs were generated at human sacrifice sites and perpetuated themselves due to, you know, already existing at human sacrifice central. Contemporary Minotaurs are generated at the sites of major industrial accidents resulting from negligence, such as the triangle shirtwaist fire, mine collapses, and the Chernobyl meltdown.
Broke: an infinite superstructure that personally hates you
Joke: an infinite superstructure that is crushingly indifferent to you
Woke: an infinite superstructure that loves you so suffocatingly much, and will grind itself to dust to give you what it imagines you want
Short response to the 1-page RPG you read/played.
Talk specifically about the game mechanics, your experience playing the game, etc. Publish your post wherever you will be doing the work for this course (a blog, Medium, Google Drive, somewhere else). Share a link to your work in the #our-work channel on discord. Make sure your work is viewable by anyone with the link.
The one page rpg I played was called “Wonder,” and it was about a band working to make one last one hit wonder. Our band was made up of me “Jerk Jacob” on Keys, Dylan “Dynamic Mess” on Bass, and Loklin “Hopilite Harry” on Lead Guitar. Our band was called “Robot War,” and we worked to make an 80′s ballad. We decided to divide the writing in half to speed it up, so we made a 12 line song instead of the 24 line one. Each musical instrument gets different restrictions on how they can add to the song, which introduced specific challenges. Also, whenever you disagree with someone’s lyrics, you mark down a tension, and when you hit three marks, you flip out literally and leave the band. My character would only approve a lyric if they could change at least one word, and once Jerk Jacob got fed up, Mellow Mary popped in and convinced the other two members that the song should end with accepting all people on earth as one person, unified in their love for each other. The song lyrics slowed down as we got near the end, but it was fun to do, and definitely wouldn’t be my first choice for a one page rpg.
every so often i try to lick my elbow just to feel something, anything
Long Stair Vibes
Labyrinth Crossing I saw this photo in a world building prompt post and I had to draw it, adding some elements from my Monster of the Week game. My players went through a labyrinth type dungeon recently so I felt it fitting to put them here :)
i always thought that scene in the taz balance finale where merle reconnects with pan and casts zone of truth to burn away the hunger was kind of a tongue in cheek moment where clint casts his signature spell and griffin as the dm humors him by given it a huge affect. like fun but not too noteworthy. but i literally just realized what a phenomenal moment it really was. because the hunger is nihilism. it's hopelessness and pessimism. but the zone of truth dispels all lies and dishonesty. they cant exist under its spell. and that's what nihilism is. a lie. and so when merle cast zone of truth he burned away the lie of hopelessness and if you don't think that's the best thing ever i don't know what to tell you.
I will do this
Play your favorite TTRPG, but with Calvindice rules:
• Make up every rule as you go along, starting at session zero
Only the Beholder is a true pokémon; “Behold…behold!”
The Monster Manual exists in-universe as a handy PokeDex style device that updates itself with new information as you fight more monsters, including all sorts of fascinating (and possibly not true) trivia.
Corpse Wrangler sounds so fun
Necromancer?
More like "Cowboy for Corpses"!
background: illinois
Warlock patron: Corn
hmm yes evil librarian
Monster Manual entries often (especially in earlier editions) have throw away lines like "Betentacled Faceslurpers are often hired by evil historians for their ability to recall the memories of every pereon whose face they've slurped", or "Literary Horrors often make their nests among well stocked bookshelves and for this reason evil librarians will employ them as security" and then never elaborate on what these evil versions of regular professions are like.
Fix this by running a game where the entire party is comprised of evil versions of mundane jobs. If they won't tell you what an evil cartographer or archivist even does you'll find out yourself.
i need this for if i ever do a pirate campaign!!
Ahoy, matey! Be ye ready fer the adventure o’ a lifetime?
