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 This is the thread for discussing games designed by Jimbozig, Strike!: Tactical Combat and Heedless Adventure plus two newer titles, Ariadne & Bob and Tailfeathers Academy of Magic. Some of this OP will be recycled from the last Strike! thread, but to include info on the other two titles. Click the names below to be magically transported to their respective itch.io pages! Tailfeathers Academy of Magic has the players assuming the role of students at a magical academy, learning to be witches, wizards, warlocks, and all other manners of magical folk. Your table can either use the baked in setting "Tailfeathers Academy" or use the supplied rules for designing your own world and school. Students will attend classes and clubs, delve into personal projects during downtime, and perhaps most importantly investigate the mysteries of the academy and the magic flowing through it. The mysteries of the school represent the meat of the non-combat rules of the game between establishing the function and rules of magic and guiding the students around the academy and between NPCs. When they aren't trying to solve ~magical crimes~ students will get to blow off steam on the court in Kazzam, the official sport of Tailfeathers. A mix of capture the flag, Defense of the Ancients, and chess, the players with clash with other teams both from the academy and from other rival schools to bring home the cup. More on Kazzam later!  Tailfeathers is also [mostly] FREE! You can find the core rules and lore for the setting as well as Kazzam at the above link which includes everything needed to play and then some. Additionally there is the GM's Toolkit available for $12 USD, which will help GMs design mysteries, create new rival Kazzam teams, and much more!Strike!: Tactical Combat and Heedless Adventure is a roleplaying system designed for grid-based tactical combat akin to D&D 4e and simple but flexible non-combat resolution that's a unique mashup of Mouse Guard, Burning Wheel, and plenty of its own ideas. Additionally, Strike is setting agnostic; The rules are designed to work equally well for everything from knights to superheros, from sci-fi to urban fantasy. This doesn't mean the game is omnipotent, simply that, as long as your game is about heroes fighting things and solving problems, Strike is an excellent option to consider. Additionally, the combat and non-combat systems are completely divorced from one another, meaning a character who wants to solve problems with magical kung-fu explosions has their combat tools balanced against the person using a dagger and a lute, while letting them keep their unique non-combat options. Ariadne & Bob lets you answer the age old question, "what would it be like to roleplay as Pinky and the Brain, as well as the studio audience?" In this game designed for 2-4 players, players take on the role of the titular Ariadne and Bob, a know-it-all egotistical genius with lackluster social skills and her well-meaning but put-upon assistant respectively. Think Peabody and Sherman, Rick and Morty, or any other number of such duos. Any additional players represent the Chorus, the collective term for minor roles (think of the various NPCs a GM is typically tasked with playing). All roles have unique playbooks that guide the characters and offer different types of task resolution, not identical but similar to PbTA titles. Great for both one-shots as well as shorter campaigns with reoccurring casts.  Characters in Tailfeathers and Strike have skills like in many RPGs, but they also have plenty of other tools to play with outside of combat. They include: Skills: Skills form the backbone of the two games' non-combat rules, and are used in nearly every scene. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons and some other systems, Skills here are specific - No stretching! While not identical between the two games, skills share significant overlap in their purposes in Strike and Tailfeathers. In Strike players will generally create skills unique to their characters, though Tailfeathers features a set skill list with the ability to create unique ones as needed. Skills, and the many systems which work off of them, use this chart:  Tricks: Tricks are like Skills, but you can't mess them up if you don't want to! Think of them as specific applications of Skills. Things like "Case a Joint: You always know the best way to get into a building" or "Fleet-Footed: My character never loses a footrace!" are great Tricks. Each game has slightly different rules for these, but the idea is similar. Complications: A Complication is a character flaw of some kind. Maybe you're really scared of spiders, or your gun has a tendency to jam at inopportune times. In many systems taking similar flaws is, at best, a way to get some extra points during character construction and possibly just a way for the GM to make you worthless. Complications here however are completely in the player's control; You are able to cash them in to "fail", which nets you Action Points that can be used for Tricks and other boons. Fail proudly and fail often. Tailfeathers introduces a few unique systems like these as well, including but not limited to: Tomes and Topics: The students of Tailfeathers all carry a number of tomes, study guides on various magical minutia. These can be used to gain bonuses and give help when performing tasks related to the tome in question. After enough time spent with a tome players are able to master their contents and gain the appropriate Topic to represent their new knowledge, allowing them to keep the tome's bonuses while freeing up space for a new tome on their person. Implements: When creating their characters the players will get to make the first implements for them. These come in a number of shapes (wands, staves, and even swords) and materials, each with their own bonuses for the various parts of school- and sports-life. And most importantly, they're essential when performing... MAGIC!: Unlike Strike, Tailfeathers features numerous list of spells and quasi-magical feats for students to sink their teeth and wands into. Divided by school and difficulty, learning and applying magic is perhaps the most important thing in Tailfeathers, and ultimately frames most of the game's action. Students will be acquiring new abilities as they take classes and seek artifacts, and use these new abilities to solve mysteries, prank each other, and much more.    Strike also has several non-combat modules that work with the above tools to offer fast, novel ways to approach a conflict that isn't worth breaking out the tactical combat grid for. They're basically mini-games, and each one is a conflict resolution system that keeps short cinematic moments from simply becoming a single skill check: Chase: The Chase rules are for those times where the players are barreling through the crowded CyberStreets of Neo New Detroit in hot pursuit of a fleeing data dog hacker, or when their caravan is being chased by another caravan with flames painted on the side. During a Chase, the Runner team secretly pick an action from a list of things like Flee, Double Back, and Hide, and the Chaser team attempt to guess which option the Runners selected. Each option offers different rewards and its up to each side to choose which will best get them what they want (or which the other side is least likely to guess). After everyone has made their choices, results are revealed and each group rolls appropriate skills to see if the Runners have gotten further away, if the Chasers have closed the distance, or if something else entirely happened. Chases are very quick and are perfectly appropriate for a single player to participate in if it doesn't make sense for the entire squad to be involved. Team Conflict: Designed for quick fights or other situations where two groups would be butting heads like a debate or a heist, the Team Conflict rules break a challenge into multiple rounds where the players must declare what their character is doing from a set of choices which modify skill rolls for attack and defense. Once everyone has explained what they're doing and rolled the appropriate skills, the totals are tallied and compared against the GM's "team." Depending on how well or poorly each side did, the situation changes in some way and the next round happens until one group withdraws or is soundly defeated. Tean Conflict also works well when you want the group to act as a single unit but to contribute individually, like 5 heroes in a giant mech cockpit each working different stations.  Based heavily off D&D 4e's combat, Strike's tactical combat streamlines the process while retaining the tactical depth and, more importantly, the fun of getting to control a specialized character in a fight with your friends. Unlike 13th Age and other retro-style games which seek to streamline combat by adding systems like "Close, Near, Far" ranges or abstracting the battlefield in some other way, Strike instead simplifies the math. Characters begin the game with 10 HP and 6 Speed, and that number never changes short of a very small list of feats or bonuses that will modify them. Similarly, while characters have at-will and encounter powers ala 4e and roll to see if these abilities hit, that roll never changes:   No matter what level your character or the enemies are, you'll always know exactly what happens as soon as the die hits the table. Powers, similarly, generally don't grow as your character levels up (though you do get more of them), and small bonuses have been replaced with a much faster Advantage/Disadvantage system. Combined with the static attack rolls, combat moves exceptionally quickly in Strike without sacrificing anything. In fact, the addition of glancing hits means players are often making more decisions over the course of a fight. Character combat growth is handled through additional Powers, passive abilities, and Feats, the last of which are more rare but significantly more potent than their D&D counterparts. Combat also features the titular Strike system, where winning a fight isn't merely ending it with your party still on its feet. Characters receive Strikes for a host of things over the course of a fight, and ending over a certain threshold changes the effects the fight has on the situation as well as each individual character's physical and mental state. For instance, getting 3 Strikes will get a character a Minor Condition, something akin to being winded or angry, and these conditions can affect events going forward. And if the party itself has a certain amount (based on how big the party is), even the fight itself may have different results. A decisive victory against the prison guards results in a clean escape, but taking a few too many Strikes may result in the fight being overheard by people on the next floor, or perhaps the party has difficulty navigating the prison itself. Monsters are also very easy to make on the spot, or you can plan elaborate setpiece battles with unique powers and environments. The monster creation rules make it very difficult to have situations where parties are fighting appropriately-leveled monsters and getting trounced (or the opposite, the fight just being too dang easy). There's even rules for "Adversarial Play" which keeps both players and GMs honest and fair instead of simply hoping everyone Games With Honour.  Perhaps having access to a copy of Strike's combat rules, the ancient wizards of Tailfeathers devised a sport for students to play where they can bash each other's domes in with spells and swords, without causing too much damage - Kazzam! Kazzam is a fundamental part of Tailfeathers, both the game and the academy, and the average 4-year academic campaign of Tailfeathers will feature dozens of matches (including rematches against friends and rivals). Using the core tactical combat rules outlined above players will match up against an equal number of NPC opponents to attempt to score 10 points first. Points are gained primarily through two means: capturing orbs and punching nerds. Each team has a handful of team-colored orbs which must be protected as the other team attempts to squirrel them away back to their own base for points, but you can also unleash hell and get points by attacking the opponent (and some neutral units called "creeps") directly, either banishing them to the Dungeon to respawn next turn or destroying them outright, respectively. Students use their favored implements to modify their abilities as well, replacing Feats in Strike with something more thematically appropriate. A sword-user will deal extra damage up close and deflect enemy sword-users, a staff-wielder is able to snipe enemies from afar though lacks mobility, and a wand-haver has mobility in spades. As the characters level up these will blossom into more extreme and esoteric versions, such as letting wands choose between parrying swords or applying Effects when those would normally be blocked. Tailfeathers includes a good number of sample enemy teams and creeps for GMs to use, as well as different maps with their own unique traps and hazards, such as the example below. And of course you can find rules for creating your own in the GM's Toolkit.   In both tactical systems the traditional combat roles have been cleanly separated from classes, resulting in, well, Classes and Roles. When you make a character in either game you choose one of each, with your Class determining what sort of mechanics you use to beat up the bad guy and your Role telling you what your position within the party itself is. In Strike, Classes and Roles are also setting agnostic, and the names for them and their powers are more an organizational tool than any concrete statement about what you do. People here often call this "Reskinning," and it's an incredibly important part of Strike's identity. Reskinning is taking a Class, Role, Kit, or similar mechanic and changing its flavor to meet your needs. “Martial Artist” is a class, but it doesn’t mean you must use it if your character is a monk. Instead, Martial Artist is for characters who want to switch stances in combat and modify their basic attack. This could be a monk, a shapeshifting druid, a bender controlling multiple elements, and more. Similarly, your monk may be better served as a Duelist, or perhaps a Warlord, depending on how you want them to act in combat. Tailfeathers ties its Classes closer to the baked in lore of Kazzam, but you are still able to reskin them as is appropriate! Each game contains 10 Classes and 5 Roles, though Roles are handled slightly different in Tailfeathers. You're encouraged to use Tailfeathers' Classes and Roles in Strike, though Strike's aren't recommended to be used in Tailfeathers. Please note that at the time of writing this Tailfeathers classes/roles only go to level 6, though levels 7-10 are being worked on for later. Strike's Classes: Necromancer, Duelist, Archer, Martial Artist, Warlord, Magician, Bombardier, Shapechanger, Summoner, and Buddies. Strike's Roles: Striker, Defender, Leader, Controller, and Blaster. Additionally there are two other classes available on Jimbozig's itch.io page, The Rogue and The Ogre, the latter designed by yours truly and also something you get for free with Ariadne & Bob. As Tailfeathers' Classes and especially Roles function a bit differently from Strike's I wanted to provide some more information here. Unlike Strike you are only allowed a single player per Role, and each Role has four specializations available. They are: quote:
quote:
 Below is a list of miscellaneous resources. I'll be adding to this list over time, so feel free to suggest additions if I missed anything! Jimbozig's Itch.io page and The Strike! homepage - Just what it says on the tin. Guide for Strike character creation and leveling chart - I made this for my irl play groups and they found it helpful, so I'm sharing it here. The previous Strike! thread and The thread before that - The first one has some useful info, though the latter is mostly here for historical purposes. Using Roll20 for Strike! and setting up macros - A more elegantly formatted version of my guide from the last thread. Roll20 is, in a lot of ways, one of the best avenues for playing Strike, and this should help you make the most of it. Highly suggested for online play.Fillable black-and-white Strike! character sheet - Created by megane. Strike Core Book Errata - A few changes to core book mechanics. Strike! Enemies Spreadsheet - Handy list of monsters that can be copy/pasted to your heart's content. Created by Gort! Also shoutouts to Ferrinus for his gorgeous art used in both this thread and the various games' manuals.
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Jan 16, 2023 16:23
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Cool thread.
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Jan 16, 2023 20:37
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Character generator for the original Strike!: https://hyphz.github.io/StrikeGen.html
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Jan 16, 2023 21:09
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Holy poo poo, I had no idea Tailfeathers was out! (or that Ariadne & Bob was even a thing) Have to grab that later in the week. Strike! is legit one of my all time favourite RPGs, hope this brings some more eyes to it too. Just an absolutely excellent tactical system.
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Jan 17, 2023 00:01
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ZearothK posted:Holy poo poo, I had no idea Tailfeathers was out! (or that Ariadne & Bob was even a thing) Have to grab that later in the week. Tailfeathers is a stronger experience generally. The Kazzam matches always have the sports-related tactical objectives mixed into the combat; even more so than Strike!, it could be a game unto itself. On the other hand, your Kazzam opponents are usually your classmates, potentially your friends and biggest rivals, so the connection to the non-combat play is strong too.
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Jan 17, 2023 17:09
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ZearothK posted:Holy poo poo, I had no idea Tailfeathers was out! (or that Ariadne & Bob was even a thing) Have to grab that later in the week. Well I had just made public all the Tailfeathers stuff the night before countblanc posted this thread. I'm still in the process of trying to get the word out. I'm super busy, so I'm trying to squeeze in little tasks here and there - I just sent out the email to my mailing list, for example. If anyone reading this thread also posts other places - other forums, reddit, twitter, etc, then I'd really appreciate any help you can give in letting people know about the game. The longterm plan goes like this: 1. Get as many people as we can playing the game. 2. Finish writing levels 7-10 of Kazzam and years 4-5 of the non-Kazzam part. 3. Do a Kickstarter so I can do a print edition and pay for more art (Ferrinus did the logo, Kazzam illustration, and cover diagrams, but most of the art I have so far is my wife's, which is why I've got full art for the familiars - she loves drawing animals) If you know of anywhere I should go to post about the game, let me know. Lots of places rightly look askance at people waltzing in and shilling their products without any other interaction, and I don't want to be that guy.
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Jan 17, 2023 20:36
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Jimbozig posted:Well I had just made public all the Tailfeathers stuff the night before countblanc posted this thread. I'm still in the process of trying to get the word out. I'm super busy, so I'm trying to squeeze in little tasks here and there - I just sent out the email to my mailing list, for example. If anyone reading this thread also posts other places - other forums, reddit, twitter, etc, then I'd really appreciate any help you can give in letting people know about the game. Just downloaded Kazzam and it looks really interesting! Where’s the best place to provide feedback? One thing that might help is including a brief example of play - not a full 5-a-side match, but just a couple of example turns to help showcase the flow of the game and some of the neat things that players can do.
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Jan 24, 2023 05:28
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I will never tire of touting Strike! as what it is: one of the best things to come out of d&d 4e! Looking forward to checking out Tailfeathers, too!
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Jan 24, 2023 14:27
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Featherless Biped posted:Just downloaded Kazzam and it looks really interesting! Where’s the best place to provide feedback? If it's feedback that you think would potentially make for good discussion, just post it here. Otherwise, you can PM me or email me: jmcgarva at gmail. An example of play is in the works. I just took turn-by-turn notes of our last match and I'm going to pick a segment of that to expand into a proper example of play.
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Jan 24, 2023 16:13
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Jimbozig posted:If it's feedback that you think would potentially make for good discussion, just post it here. Otherwise, you can PM me or email me: jmcgarva at gmail.
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Jan 24, 2023 16:33
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NGDBSS posted:Last round: opposing team finally breaks out of jail, Gisela dunks, and JJ once again shows us the joys of griefing. The most useless round in terms of explaining game mechanics, but perhaps the best in showing character expression within the system?
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Jan 24, 2023 16:35
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Jimbozig posted:If it's feedback that you think would potentially make for good discussion, just post it here. Otherwise, you can PM me or email me: jmcgarva at gmail. It’s mainly just clarifications from my initial read-through, but I’ll try a test game soon: Reactions and interrupts- My 4e brain thinks these should be limited to 1/turn but I can’t see that restriction mentioned. Hexer - Two powers have the same name (Homard’s Patient Shot) Wandslinger - It seems that Ricochet Shot (ignore LOS and cover on basic implement attacks) would allow those attacks to be made into / out of the Dungeon. Is that correct? Tinker - Voko’s Lariat and Irena’s Cloak are duplicates of each other. However the correct version of Irena’s Cloak appears in the stat block for Hayward Marquiss on pg 60. Charmer - How does the Lasting class feature interact with Effect 2 of the Luck Charm encounter power (pass all saves until you fail a save?) Tamer - The Scalehound’s Hissing Howl appears to work against the creature’s intended tactics - pushing enemies away from its free end of turn grab, or out of an existing grab. Role Boosts - do these apply on attacks that do not roll to hit - eg Tamer’s Creature attacks for Spitting Tree and Scalehound?) NPC Teams - Each NPC team has a special team ability (Team Effort / Agile / Untouchable etc). Are PC teams supposed to have something equivalent, or is that what Miss Tokens are for?
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Jan 26, 2023 23:20
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I endorse this product and/or service (but not JJ).Featherless Biped posted:It’s mainly just clarifications from my initial read-through, but I’ll try a test game soon: They're not limited by default, actually, so you can use multiple per round - per turn, even. Most reaction powers/abilities are, however, explicitly limited to one per round (e.g. defender reactions are encounter powers that refresh at the start of your turn). There is also Electrified, which is limited to once per enemy per turn. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 00:06
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Featherless Biped posted:It’s mainly just clarifications from my initial read-through, but I’ll try a test game soon: quote:Wandslinger - It seems that Ricochet Shot (ignore LOS and cover on basic implement attacks) would allow those attacks to be made into / out of the Dungeon. Is that correct? quote:Charmer - How does the Lasting class feature interact with Effect 2 of the Luck Charm encounter power (pass all saves until you fail a save?) quote:Role Boosts - do these apply on attacks that do not roll to hit - eg Tamer’s Creature attacks for Spitting Tree and Scalehound?) quote:Tamer - The Scalehound’s Hissing Howl appears to work against the creature’s intended tactics - pushing enemies away from its free end of turn grab, or out of an existing grab. quote:NPC Teams - Each NPC team has a special team ability (Team Effort / Agile / Untouchable etc). Are PC teams supposed to have something equivalent, or is that what Miss Tokens are for? Giving PC teams their own Team Sheet with abilities they can advance is something I considered, but I didn't do it mainly because the game already has a lot going on and adding another layer of complexity seemed too much. I have got a bit written about achievements and team rewards that can be a little along those lines without adding in more abilities, and once I've got the dents hammered out, that'll go in the GM's Toolkit. There have been a few things we tried that got cut for being more trouble than they were worth. We playtested the idea of the team's captain calling plays, which gave situational boosts to certain actions (e.g. for this round only, gain an extra action to use for interacting with the arena/orbs), but having this collective decision at the top of each round slowed things down and was more annoying than the benefit we got from it. Specialists had a Role Action about being a rules lawyer and putting restrictions on the other team that they would take strikes for violating - again, a cool idea but not actually very fun in practice. Thanks so much for catching those errors on the powers! I'm fixing them right this second and will have updated files posted on all the sites in a few minutes.
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Jan 27, 2023 03:03
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Just saw a couple more duplicated ability names: - Hexer (pg 17): Foyle’s Patient Porcupine - Wardmaster (pg 19): Wild Rage Also I just realised the Lasting / Luck Charm interaction would also make subsequent Effect 2s on that target last indefinitely as well. Will try that out in my test game! The unlimited reactions thing is interesting - although it looks like there’s only one ability that forces opponents to grant an Opportunity (Charmer’s Antigravity Jinx). Will try that too. The only other thing I’m a bit confused on is the Porter’s Involuntary Lift. How does a ranged Grab interact with the rules on page 12? Eg is the Porter limited to 2 grabs at a time, is “moving out of reach of the grab” via forced movement based on the Porter’s implement range, and does the target move too if the Porter undergoes forced movement?
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Jan 27, 2023 05:34
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Featherless Biped posted:The unlimited reactions thing is interesting - although it looks like there’s only one ability that forces opponents to grant an Opportunity (Charmer’s Antigravity Jinx). Will try that too. Involuntary Lift follows the usual rules. It says in the power you can maintain it as long as they are within implement range, so basically it just replaces the usual "within reach" to "within implement range." Use the usual rules for forced movement under the Grabbed entry in the glossary - if the porter gets pushed out of range, then the target makes an escape attempt and is dragged along if they fail it.
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Jan 28, 2023 04:54
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Following!
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Feb 12, 2023 08:52
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I just wanted to slide back in here again to gush about Strike! I've been playing it for years and using it to play all different manner of settings. Fantasy/Sci Fi swashbuckling in space? Check. Traditional Fantasy as a DnD replacement? Big check (played a campaign spanning years for that). High school Persona-inspired mystery game? Check. I've even done a one-shot of a bunch of guards in over their head a-la Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. We're considering a Pokemon game too, since Strike suit that well too! As the one running a lot of these games, this system has drastically reduced the amount of work I need to do for prep work, and the skills, kits, and combat alone are more than enough to suit my needs and adapt to things on the floor, letting me only break out the other rules as necessary. Love the system, keep up the fantastic work.
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Feb 27, 2023 15:18
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If you're starting a new campaign you should definitely download Tailfeathers (it's free/pay what you want on Itch currently) and steal the Roles from that first, imo they're just a straight upgrade in terms of fun factor. The Tailfeathers classes also work for Strike though they're a bit more esoteric, and if you do end up using some of them they use Implements instead of Feats (explained in the book)
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Feb 27, 2023 15:58
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Countblanc posted:If you're starting a new campaign you should definitely download Tailfeathers (it's free/pay what you want on Itch currently) and steal the Roles from that first, imo they're just a straight upgrade in terms of fun factor. The Tailfeathers classes also work for Strike though they're a bit more esoteric, and if you do end up using some of them they use Implements instead of Feats (explained in the book) Anything you need to watch out for besides "don't use the Hunter if you're not using creeps"? Also I somehow completely missed that Tailfeathers & Kazzam were fully released. This has made my day; I'm always telling people about Strike! and I'm very happy with the iteration on it in Kazzam. Especially like the idea of the Dungeon as a way to make taking a player out into something interesting. Might run a one-shot for some friends soon. Otherkinsey Scale fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 20:56
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Juggernaut uses Ward, which is fairly common in Kazzam but absent in Strike, so you'd probably want to make sure players are familiar with how that works. Additionally Kazzam assumes no role overlap, so that's probably worth considering as well - pretty easy to do too since the various subroles tend to bleed onto each other (ie. Smasher Defenders being Striker-ish).
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Feb 27, 2023 21:04
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Otherkinsey Scale posted:Anything you need to watch out for besides "don't use the Hunter if you're not using creeps"?
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Feb 27, 2023 21:09
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Yeah, to add to what NGDBSS said, the specialists can benefit from certain encounter design ideas to make them more effective. The Trapper probably holds its own outside of Kazzam if you pair it with some forced movement to shove people into traps, but it's best if the enemies have places to go so the Trapper can really get into that area denial stuff The Runner is the inverse: they do well when there are places to go, reasons to want to sneak there, and stuff to snatch. Doing those things makes your combats more dynamic and interesting anyway. Terrain Artist should just work as-is, especially after getting a boost in the next revision. It's getting a bit stronger, but mainly getting a lot more interesting. It didn't have that coolness factor as it was before, and giving it some fun new terrains to work with is going to help. Not sure when that revision is coming out because I took a break to write a little game called Hellrunners (coming soon!) and I'm now on vacation for a week. The Hunter, like you said, needs creeps or something equivalent. That's a bit harder to add to a game without a specific idea for how it fits in.
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Feb 27, 2023 23:48
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That's good advice, thanks. Am I missing something, or does Kazzam just not have a character sheet? (That is, it doesn't seem like there's anywhere to put your Kazzam info on the Tailfeathers character sheet, and the Kazzam pdf doesn't separately address the point.) Otherkinsey Scale fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 28, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 04:29
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Otherkinsey Scale posted:That's good advice, thanks. That's correct for now, although I'll get to making one once I figure out what it should look like. However, the thing you most want to have as a handy reference are your powers, and there are power cards! Other than your power cards, you just need to reference your class features, role boosts, and maybe the rules for your implement. It's tough to make a character sheet that works for those because some classes have very little to reference and others have a lot. Compare Hexers to Tamers, or whatever. Hexers need a couple of lines, Tamers need a large portion of the page. I was thinking of making something like a power card for each role specialization and each class feature rather than having a sheet. A full sheet seems silly if it's only got a few lines because you picked a simple class and simple role. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Mar 1, 2023 |
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Mar 1, 2023 16:51
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Updates! Hellrunners: Hellrunners is a game about breaking the rules of reality and the afterlife the same way speedrunners break the rules of videogames. You take on the roles of: The Client, who has a mission; The Runner, who knows the tricks to get to hell and back; The Damned, who suffer in torment; and The Crowns of Hell, who play the devils, angels, cops, and bosses who keep the system of suffering going. Based on Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and Utopia of Rules, this is a small easy-to-pick-up and quick-playing RPG for 4 players. The Kickstarter will launch on Monday! Follow it here. Kazzam Files Updated: I've just uploaded a new Kazzam.pdf and GM's Guide.pdf with updates to the Terrain Artist to make them way cooler and better, and to simplify how Wards work (the stacking/non-stacking thing was too complicated). Projects in the pipeline: Kazzam: I've been writing levels 7-10 for Kazzam, and am 60% done the alpha version of those. They will be made available to people who bought the GM's guide once they've had a bit of revision and I can call them beta. I'm taking back over the GM's chair in our playtest group after a few months break, so that means I'll be writing new creeps and making new arenas on the regular again. I'll release those to people who bought the GM's guide, too. A New Project: I'm writing a self-contained game/campaign based on The Legend of Zelda. The way it handles items and information is very fun and video game-y. I'm excited to playtest it and see how it feels in play. quote:Destiny decrees that in every age the hero of courage will save the princess of wisdom from the monster of power. But now the monster has caught the hero. Princesses from different ages must come together to save him. Old project: I've just remembered I have a nearly-finished 4-on-4 PvP Strike! 1-shot and never put the finishing touches on it, so I'm considering whether to finish it or save it for a more opportune time. It's called Robbing Mr. Seagull and it's about two teams of criminals (who are also animals) trying to pull off a heist at the same casino on the same night. Does anyone have interest in such a weird product? If so, let me know!
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Mar 24, 2023 04:03
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Updates! Hellrunners: final layout and cover art are in my hands, and I'm aiming to have the final PDF published by the weekend. Tailfeathers: Kazzam levels 7-10 are complete. A fun battle goals system is written. 3 new arenas with their creeps are written. I need to level up the NPC statblocks and format stuff and then it'll be ready to send out to the people who bought the GM's Toolkit. Maybe a few weeks - I want to get in another playtest match or two. Other stuff: no progress, been swamped with real life - what time I've had has gone into the Tailfeathers playtests.
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Jul 6, 2023 16:00
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I'm thinking about using the Kazzam roles in Strike from now on. I like how the new roles smooth out the power contours of striker, leader and controller in particular. Have you tried this at all? It seems like everything but Hunter would work as-is.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:21
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm thinking about using the Kazzam roles in Strike from now on. I like how the new roles smooth out the power contours of striker, leader and controller in particular. Have you tried this at all? It seems like everything but Hunter would work as-is. Yes, and I recommend it! Hunter doesn't work, as you said. (Unless you port in Creeps, which could be fun given the right kind of campaign.) If you have a Runner: you want to make sure to have "places to go" and/or "things to swipe" in your encounters. Having those things in your fights is good practice anyway because it makes them more interesting whether or not you have a Runner. A Trapper ideally wants there to be "places the bad guys want to go" so they can lay traps there, but they can also get by just fine by having friends with forced movement powers to push enemies into their traps.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:58
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Hey everyone, just letting you all know that there's now a discord. Obviously I'm very much at home here on SA and I'll always reply to this thread, but I guess discord is more natural for some people, so I've made a server. I'm hoping that it can help people who might be looking for other gamers to play my games with, and give people a place to talk about them. We've already got one person in there posting trip reports about their Kazzam matches. I'd really encourage anyone interested in my games to join up! I don't expect it to be super-high-traffic or anything, but hopefully just a nice chill place. Here's the link Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Aug 6, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 16:32
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The invite link's expired.
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Aug 6, 2023 13:12
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GrayGriffin posted:The invite link's expired. Weird, I swear I set it to never expire! Anyway, I fixed it now. Here's the new one, which claims it's forever: https://discord.gg/SmxeetS Also, in other news, I've made some decisions around pricing and Kickstarter: - Anyone who buys the Tailfeathers GM's Toolkit will get a discount on the eventual Kickstarter. - I'm going to be updating the GM's Toolkit very soon with new maps and creeps and a fun new thing based on Gloomhaven's battle goals. The update after that one will be to add levels 7 - 10 to Kazzam, and will also contain revisions for lower levels. When that second update happens, I will raise the price on the GM's Toolkit, so if you want to get it at the current price, you should do it soon! (The rationale being that after I add those upper levels to the toolkit, you will basically have the full game and the KS will only add art, layout, and a few bits and bobs, so you should be paying basically full price.)
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Aug 6, 2023 16:32
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 12:48 |
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Jimbozig posted:
Robbing Mr. Seagull sounds like a grand old time.
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Oct 15, 2023 14:06
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