Firebreathing Kittens
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Creator: Firebreathing Kittens
Full cast Slice of life Oneshots Audio RPG
Synopsis:
Firebreathing Kittens plays a different TTRPG every week. Four of the rotation of cast members will bring you a story that has a beginning and end. Every episode is a standalone plot in the season long anthology. There’s no need to catch up on past adventures or listen to every single release. You can hop in to any tale that sounds fun. Join as they explore the world, solve mysteries, attempt comedic banter, and enjoy friendship.
Format: Audio RPG
RPG system: Multiple
Continuity: Oneshots
Voices: Cast
Genres: Slice of life, Comedy, Crime and Mystery
Maturity: Young adult
Completion status: NA
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Episodes:
Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Nugh, Bill, and Sadie try to save the town of Hardingwood using the mechanics from the official Alien movie franchise's roleplaying game.
Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Nugh, Bill, and Sadie try to save the town of Hardingwood using the mechanics from the official Alien movie franchise's roleplaying game.
When A Tree Falls (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:07:00 -0400
This Week we join Armando, Sadie, and Yarnak as they play Dicing with Death. We start at the end as this group Grapples with being dead and try to find a way back.
Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:05:00 -0400
This Week we join Armando, Sadie, and Yarnak as they play Dicing with Death. We start at the end as this group Grapples with being dead and try to find a way back.
Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:01:00 -0400
Welcome to a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. This is our rules discussion where we discuss the rules we played in the past dozen games, for Fall 2024. We’ll discuss the ttrpgs 24 Hour Crime Scene, Dicing With Death, Honey Heist, Twisted Wishes, CBR+PNK, Darksome Delve, Lost Roads of Lociam, Exuviae, Sexy Battle Wizards, Roll For Shoes, and LURPS. Let’s dive right in, reading these reviews written by our Firebreathing Kittens players and GMs.
Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Rusty, Leo and Tord rush to the docks of Niqamui when fireworks declare an annual contest. After sign up the group is whisked away and dropped into a winner-takes-all battle to the finish! They encounter many familiar faces as they mow through the competition only to have to face their most deadly threat yet!
Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Rusty, Leo and Tord rush to the docks of Niqamui when fireworks declare an annual contest. After sign up the group is whisked away and dropped into a winner-takes-all battle to the finish! They encounter many familiar faces as they mow through the competition only to have to face their most deadly threat yet!
How To Play LURPS, Lewis' Unified Role Playing System
Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:03:00 -0400
How to play LURPS
Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for LURPS, Lewis’ Unified Roleplaying System. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play your own LURPS game.
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
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Classless point-buy d6 game
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Target numbers
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Critical successes and failures
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How to use a skill
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How to attack
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Armor
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Distances
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How to cast magic
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Flaws
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How to build a character
LURPS is a classless point buy system that uses only normal six sided dice. Classless means any character can learn any skill. Contrast that with a game where only rogues can learn how to pickpocket, or only clerics can learn how to heal, or only fighters can wield swords. Any LURPS character can wield any weapon and learn any skill. Point buy means you spend character points to buy and learn new weapons and skills. The more points you spend, the better you are at that activity. And lastly, LURPS uses only six sided dice, which I will also call d6 going forward.
You will determine your success or failure in LURPS by rolling six sided dice and counting how many of them meet or beat the difficulty. The standard difficulty check, also called a DC, is four. For a DC of 4, each dice you roll that lands on a one, a two, or a three, is a failure. Each dice that lands on a four, a five, or a six, is a success. Every weapon, spell, and skill that you use will have a target number. The target is how many individually passing dice you need to overall succeed at the thing you’re trying to do. For example if your target number is two, then you need at least two of the dice you roll to be a four or higher. The more dice you roll, the more likely you are to hit your target number. If you only rolled one dice, it would be impossible to achieve a target of two. If you were rolling two dice, then it’s possible for both of them to be a four or higher, and for you to be successful, but the odds aren’t great. The higher the target number is, the more dice you need to roll. The probability math is pretty straightforward because each dice you roll has a 50/50 chance to hit a 1, 2, or 3, compared to a 4, 5, or 6. So for each one target number, you’ll want to roll two dice, in general. Of course, the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to hit your target number. It’s reasonable to expect to hit a target number of two rolling four dice. It’s even more likely if you roll six dice. There are some in-game ways to change the difficulty number, for example lock picking tools make the lock picking DC 3 instead of 4.
Rolling a six or a one on the dice are special occurrences. Ones are special because they cannot be rerolled. When you roll a six, you can choose to reroll a failed dice. If you reroll a four and it becomes a six, that’s another chance to re roll one of your other dice. It can get very exciting. The more sixes you have, the better because if you roll more sixes than the target number, that is a critical success. A critical success in combat means you deal full damage. Here is an example. Your target number is two. You are rolling four dice. You roll a one, a two, a three, and a six. The one is a bit of a bummer, it cannot be rerolled. The two and the three are failures, but with your six, you can reroll one of them. So you choose to reroll the three. The dice with a three on it, when rolled again, becomes a six! That’s awesome. Now you have two successes, you meet your target number of two, and you’re going to succeed. You currently have the same number of sixes as your target number, and one reroll left. There’s a chance that you will roll a critical success. That second six entitled you to rerolling one more failed dice. You reroll that dice that had a two on it. It’s also a six, oh my goodness! Now, with three sixes, you have more sixes than your target number of two, so you critically succeed on your hit and deal full damage. Every damage dice your weapon deals is a six of damage. Yaaay. Do always keep in mind: if half of any dice pool you roll are ones, that is a critical failure.
How to use a skill. There are thirty skills in the base free LURPS rule book. You can put character points into a skill to first initially gain access to the skill, and then to level it up. The maximum skill level is seven. To use a skill, roll as many dice as your level. That means the most dice you can roll for a skill is seven dice. Here is an example of rolling your skill level number of dice. If your skill in identifying spells and arcane items is four, then you would roll four dice. If your skill in sailing and vehicles is three, then you’d roll three dice. Each skill has a table that tells you how to interpret how many successes you got, ranging from one to four successes. Here is an example of consulting your skill table. You have five ranks in the barter and appraise skill, so you roll five d6 dice. If you get one success, the skill table says you get about a five percent discount. If two of your dice are successes, you get a ten percent discount and you would know the value of an item to within about twenty five percent of its actual price. If you roll three successful dice, you get a fifteen percent discount in the shop, and you know how rare an item is in this region. If you get four successful dice, you get a twenty percent discount, and you can persuade the merchant to deal with illegal goods. Each skill has its own interpretation table. When you put a point in a skill, add the skill’s table to your character sheet so you don’t have to dig through the rule book later.
How to attack. There are six combat skills in LURPS that you can put skill points in just like any other skill. These are: slashing weapons, crushing weapons, piercing weapons, unarmed grappling, bows, and gunpowder. Like all the other skills, the maximum level for combat skills is also seven, meaning you can roll seven dice. There are tables of weapons starting on page 42. The table tells you the name of the weapon, the skill used to use the weapon, the weight of the weapon, how many hands it takes to use the weapon, how much damage the weapon deals, and a description of the weapon. The weight of the weapon determines its properties, so look at page 40 to understand your weapon. Light weapons need two successes in order to hit, and deal 1 d6 of damage. Medium weapons need three successful dice in order to hit, and deal 2 d6 of damage. Heavy weapons need four successful dice in order to hit, and deal 3 d6 of damage.
Here’s an example weapon attack. You have a dagger and five levels in the piercing skill. You stab your dagger at an enemy. Roll five dice because that’s your piercing skill’s number of dice. Because the dagger is light weight, you only need two successes. You roll a one, a two, a three, a four, and a five. The four and five are successes, so you hit your target number of two, and the dagger embeds into your enemy. Roll one d6 of damage. Great job.
Armor can protect you from physical damage types in LURPS. Armor has three stat numbers or letters separated by forward slashes. The first number is how much coverage the armor gives you, which can range between one and ten. Coverage is how many dice you roll. The second number is the difficulty check, which is the pass or fail number for each dice. The third stat is a letter and represents the type of armor, like it protects you from piercing damage would be a P. Here’s an example armor roll. You have two points of cover from your mythrul plate armor, with DC three, and it protects you from piercing damage. The enemy is attacking you for six slashing damage with their axe. Roll your coverage number of dice, which is two dice. Every dice that gets a three or higher will meet to beat the DC of three, reducing the incoming damage by one for each success. If that was piercing, each of your armor dice would be an automatic success.
Distances. There are five distances in LURPS: immediate, short, medium, long, and very far. Immediate means close enough to punch. Short distance is about how big a bedroom is. Medium distance is still close enough to hit with an arrow. Long means a few city blocks. Lastly there’s very far, which is like from here to that mountain on the horizon.
How to use magic. You can put your skill points in a specific school of magic if you want, just like a skill. There are ten schools of magic. Putting a single skill point into the school gains you access to the full list of spells in that school of magic, and you can cast the spells from that school. By the way, the maximum number of skill points you can have in any skill or school of magic is seven. Here is how you would cast a spell. First, declare the name of the spell and the level you’re casting it at. Then, spend the amount of mana needed to cast that level of a spell. Page 56 has a table that you will want to put on your character sheet if you’re a magic caster that tells you how much mana gets spent at each level. Next, roll the number of dice you have in the school of magic’s skill. The spell’s target number is the level you cast it at. If you have as many successful dice as your target number, the spell was cast successfully.
Here is an example of casting a spell. Your character has six skill dice in the school of healing and abjuration. You declare that you are casting the spell called Heal at third level. The table on page 56 says third level spells cost six mana, so you spend six mana, going down from 45 to 39 mana. You roll a one, a two, a three, a four, a five, and a six. The target number is the spell’s level. That’s a three here because you rolled a third level spell. The four, five and six all meet a standard difficulty DC of four. That’s three successful dice, meeting your target number of three. Excellent, you cast the spell. The person you’re casting heal on recovers three d6 of damage, so you roll three d6 and get a nine, so they recover nine hit points.
Let’s talk about miscasting in LURPS. Miscasting is when you roll the number of dice that you have in the skill and not only do you not get at least as many successful dice as the level of the spell, but also, half or more of your dice pool consisted of ones. Is half rounded down, like one out of three dice, or rounded up, like two out of three dice? I wasn’t sure from reading the rule book, so for this explanation I’m going with the more exciting answer of rounding down, one out of three dice is half. For example let’s say you have six skill dice in the school of healing and abjuration. You declare that you’re casting a level four heal spell. The target number is the spell’s level, four. Oops, you rolled a one, a one, a three, a four, a five, and a six. The four, five and six all succeed. Hopefully that six, which lets you reroll any failed dice that wasn’t a one, gets you a fourth success. You reroll the three, but get another one. Uh oh, you didn’t meet the spell’s target number. And even worse, three of your six dice are ones, so you critically fail and miscast. Consult the miscast table on page 79 to see what happens to you. If you’re a magic user, I suggest putting this miscast table on your character sheet so you don’t have to dig through the rule book mid session. So let’s consult this table. The difference between the number of successes and your target was one dice, so that’s a level one miscast. If it had been two dice, that would have been a level two miscast. There are six possible outcomes for each miscast level. Roll a d6 and see what happens instead of you casting your spell. Miscast outcomes range from minor, like the spell hitting a different target of your choice, to concerning, such as collapsing asleep for one hour per spell level which can totally take you out of a fight, to downright lethal, such as taking five times the mana cost of the spell as lethal force damage. A level five miscast might even instantly slay your character and replace them with a greater demon who has 250 hit points and a good chance of killing your entire party. It’s very unlikely that this will happen, but if it does, it’s quite the story.
Resisting magic. You can cast lots of different types of magic in LURPS. You can blow thick smoke to obscure vision, you can firmly slap a piece of iron, steel, cobalt, or nickel to magnetize it, you can spray a geyser of flammable slippery oil. Not every spell prompts a resistance roll from its target. But if there is one, it means the person you’re trying to hex gets to roll a single dice in their own defense. There is a table on page 56 that has a column labeled resist. Or you can remember that the resistance number is one higher than the spell level number. Or you can use the table. For example, at level three, the target rolling to resist succeeds if they roll a 4. This means that any four, five or six on their single resistance dice will succeed. If they resist successfully, the spell will clarify what happens to them. For example they don’t go blind or don’t become stunned or don’t fall asleep. When a trap calls for you to resist it, it’s the same thing, a single dice will determine if you resisted or not.
Magic damage. There’s a sentence in this LURPS rule book that I will read for you. Quote, “Only Air & Lightning, Fire & Light and Necromancy & Enchantment spell schools deal magic damage.” End quote. Those are the only three schools that can deal magic damage. The other schools of magic have other effects, and lots of them. But let’s spend this moment talking about those three schools, the magic damage ones. When you buy even one skill point in a magic school, you have full access to its entire spell list. It’s your choice what level you choose to cast each spell at. Casting a spell at higher level deals more damage. There’s a table on page 56 that you’ll be wanting to put on your character sheet if you use one of those three schools of magic. The table has the spell level, the mana cost, the damage dealt, and the resist difficulty. Here is an example of casting a spell from one of the three magic damage schools. Your character has five dice in the skill for the school of fire and light magic. You have access to fully all of the spells on that spell list, and can choose which level to cast them at. The target number of successes you need to roll to cast it, is equal to the spell’s level. To cast a level three spell, you would roll your five skill dice and hope that at least three of them are a 4, a 5, or a 6. If not, it’s a failure. If half of your dice pool consists of ones, that’s a critical failure, which when rolling to cast a spell means a miscast. But let’s say you succeed. You rolled your five dice and three of the dice show a four or higher, meeting your target number. The table shows that casting a level three spell from the fire and light school of magic will cost you six mana and will deal 3 d6 of damage. You can roll three d6 dice now and that’s how much damage the target is about to take. That’s a lot of damage, by the way.
Flaws. Flaws are fun roleplaying opportunities. You can invoke a flaw during game play to gain inspiration. Describe how your flaw makes the situation worse in a real way, not just a convenient way, to gain an inspiration. Later, spend your inspiration to turn any check into a DC 2, meaning the number you have to roll on the dice to succeed is a two instead of the standard four. Only rolling a one fails when you have inspiration. Here is an example: Your flaw is that you are a clean freak. Instead of getting ready for your friend to come over your house being a difficulty of four, for you, the clean freak, you spend two extra hours cleaning everything. This impacts the story because it means you didn’t spend those two hours doing your homework, and now you’ll have to face the consequences of that not being done. Your game master awards you an inspiration, which you can spend later to make any roll a difficulty check of two instead of the standard four. The only dice roll that will fail on a DC of two is if you roll a one. Later, you’re in class and you got a zero on your homework because you quickly scribbled nonsense on it. The teacher snarks at you in front of everyone. After class, you make a skill check, a diplomacy and persuasion skill roll, on your crush, asking them to tutor you in the library later to help you raise your grade. Your diplomacy and persuasion skill is not high, only a three. A three in the diplomacy and persuasion skill means you only have three dice to roll. Normally with a standard difficulty check of four, meaning only fours on the dice succeed, it’s risky to hope to hit the target number of two you’d need to persuade this absolute stranger who you think is cute to spend their valuable time tutoring you. Are you cute enough yourself? The skill is how you find out. You spend your inspiration, changing that DC from 4 to 2, and as a result all three of your diplomacy dice succeed. You hit that target number of two, and you two cute people review the course material together and learn a bit more about each other. That’s nice. To summarize this example, invoking a flaw has to have a real consequence on the story, genuinely creating trouble for yourself. If you do really make life harder for yourself, your game master might grant you inspiration, which can be spent later on a future roll to make sure you succeed when it really matters to you.
Building a LURPS character uses its classless point buy system. Any character can use points to buy any skill. You’re not locked out of pick pocketing abilities because you’re a priest, or locked out of axe wielding abilities because you’re a slender elf. Buy what you want. You can spend your character points on stats, skills, or feats. The rulebook suggests spending one third of your character points on stats and the other two thirds on skills. Every one character point can be spent to gain either five stat points or one skill point. You are technically allowed to spend two character points to buy a feat, but it’s recommended that you do this alternative. The alternative is that you can gain two flaws to gain one feat. A character can have a maximum of four flaws and two feats gained this way, and you should, because flaws are fun roleplaying opportunities.
Stats. There are three stats. You can spend a character point to get five stat points. The first stat is hit points, abbreviated HTP. If you spend a character point, you get five hit points. If your hit points reach zero during combat, your character falls unconscious. If your HTP reaches negative half of the maximum, your character dies. For example: your character has twenty HTP. If you reach zero, you fall unconscious. If you reach negative ten, you would die. Pretty simple. The second stat is magical power, or mana, abbreviated MAN. If you spend a character point, you get five mana. You spend mana to cast spells. When mana reaches zero, you’re out of magical power and can’t cast any more spells. The more mana you have, the more spells you can cast before you get tired. Mana refreshes when your character sleeps for a full night’s rest. The third and last stat is speed, or special. It’s abbreviated SPE. If you spend a character point, you get five SPE. You can spend SPE to swing an extra attack on you turn, or to make sure you succeed by rolling extra dice, or to move further by gaining extra movement. There’s a table on how many SPE you spend to get an extra attack, extra dice, or extra movement on page 7, and honestly you’re gonna need a copy of that table in front of you to play LURPS. I recommend putting that SPE table from page 7 on your character sheet, so you know how much to spend, and what you can get.
Freebies. There are some character points that all player and nonplayer characters start with. Everyone starts with two character points in hit points, mana, and special. One character point becomes five stat points. That means everyone starts with 10 HTP, 10 MAN, and 10 SPE. Everyone also starts at rank two in two free skills: Unarmed, and an additional combat skill of your choice. That means whenever you make an unarmed attack, you roll two dice. These freebie starting character points aren’t subtracted from your total character points. It’s similar to starting at level one in another game.
Spending character points to gain skills when building your character can be simple or realistic. You have have a maximum of seven ranks in a skill. That means you can roll a maximum of seven dice. In the simple skill leveling system, improving from rank 1 to rank 2 costs one character point, and improving from rank 2 to rank 3 still costs one character point, every level increase costs one character point all the way up. In the realistic skill leveling system, it costs more character points to level up a rank six skill into a max rank seven skill. The realistic skill level up option is there for people who enjoy how in video games it’s easy to level up in the beginning, but then the level ups need more and more experience, and it takes quite a lot of experience points to reach max level. Both systems exist and the game master can pick the skill level up system they like best.
The players in my upcoming game will all be at maximum power level. For LURPS, I estimate that you can achieve maximum strength if you build a character using 60 character points. That’s probably max. It’s certainly very powerful. Use the simple skill cost guide. That means you spend one character point to increase a skill by one level, regardless of if that’s going from 1 to 2 skill dice, or going from 6 to 7 skill dice. Since we’re playing a oneshot and your character doesn’t have money, you can spend character points one for one for armor coverage points, equipment, and upgrading weapons materials.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing LURPS in a oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to hear an example of LURPS in action. We encourage you to find the LURPS rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.
Wed, 06 Nov 2024 00:07:00 -0400
A familiar face brings troubling news. The veil between what is real and what isn't risks being torn asunder! Join Nugh, Anne, and Armando as they "do anything" to prevent calamity. Nod Again is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.
Wed, 06 Nov 2024 00:05:00 -0400
A familiar face brings troubling news. The veil between what is real and what isn't risks being torn asunder! Join Nugh, Anne, and Armando as they "do anything" to prevent calamity. Nod Again is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.
The Wench's Road (Sexy Battle Wizards)
Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:07:00 -0300
In this not safe for work adults-only adventure, Chian and Sadie play the tabletop roleplaying game Sexy Battle Wizards. Intended for mature audiences only.
Trailer for The Wench's Road (Sexy Battle Wizards)
Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:05:00 -0300
In this not safe for work adults-only adventure, Chian and Sadie play the tabletop roleplaying game Sexy Battle Wizards. Intended for mature audiences only.
Fight Of The Bumblebee (Exuviae)
Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Fight Of The Bumblebee is an actual play podcast using the Exuviae mechanics. Join Bill, Sadie, and Nugh as they investigate a Bee murder in Hardingwood. What will they uncover?
Trailer for Fight Of The Bumblebee
Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Fight Of The Bumblebee is an actual play podcast using the Exuviae mechanics. Join Bill, Sadie, and Nugh as they investigate a Bee murder in Hardingwood. What will they uncover?
Pumpkin Ale (Lost Roads of Lociam)
Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Nothing a good beer can't fix? Join Ailbh and Ivy on another quest as they search for Todd and a replacement for the addictive LifeBru. Using mechanics from Lost Roads of Lociam, the Firebreathing Kittens survive quite a scare as they cross the Fubi Plains.
Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Nothing a good beer can't fix? Join Ailbh and Ivy on another quest as they search for Todd and a replacement for the addictive LifeBru. Using mechanics from Lost Roads of Lociam, the Firebreathing Kittens survive quite a scare as they cross the Fubi Plains.
How To Play Lost Roads Of Lociam
Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:03:00 -0300
How to play Lost Roads of Lociam
Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Lost Roads of Lociam. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Lost Roads of Lociam yourselves.
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
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Every roll is a d100
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In opposed contests the greatest difference wins
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Ten traits
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Gain 1 experience per trait if succeed with that trait during the session
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Professions
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Weapon and armor proficiencies increase your martial trait
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Items
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Exertion reduces trait by 10 to roll a guaranteed 2
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Status effects reduce traits
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Ranged combat
Lost Roads of Lociam is a d100 based tabletop roleplaying game system. Roll dice to randomly generate a number between 1 and 100. A 100 is a botch resulting in personal injury. A natural 1 is a success the rule book calls almost divine in its flawless execution. For any other number between 1 and 100, subtract the roll from the trait. You succeed if the difference is equal to or greater than the task difficulty secretly set by the Game Master before you rolled. Tell your result to your Game Master so they can consult a difficulty table and tell you if you succeed or fail.
For example, your trait is 80. You roll a 20. You tell your Game Master that your trait minus your roll equals 60. The Game Master looks at the table and sees that a 60 succeeds at a "hard" task, which needed a 50 or more. But a 60 fails at an "impossible" task, which needed a 75 or more. The Game Master tells you if you succeed or fail, depending on how difficult the task was set before you rolled.
When you are opposing someone else, for example in combat or arm wrestling or horse racing or sneaking, you both roll dice and compare to see who has the greater difference between their trait and roll. Both people roll a number between 1 and 100, and subtract it from their trait. The person with the greatest difference wins. If both people have a negative difference, neither person was skilled enough to do anything.
For example, person A and person B are in a sword fight. Person A has a martial trait of 60 and rolled 10. Person A's difference is 50. Person B has a martial trait of 70 and rolled higher than their trait, rolling an 80. Person B's difference is -10. Because 50 is larger than -10, person A wins the contest and deals a sword wound of an effect size based on the two peoples' martial trait number to person B, consult the table on page 47. If person A and person B had tied, then the one with the highest trait number would have won. If both person A and person B had gotten a negative difference, neither would have been skilled enough to injure anyone.
There is a table on page 47 showing how much damage people are left with after a combat. A combat might leave your character pained (-20 to rolls), hurt(-30 to rolls), injured(-40 to rolls), or maimed(-50 to rolls). How quickly you can recover from injuries depends on your martial trait number. For example, a character with 40 martial would recover from being pained in a half hour. A character with 90 martial would recover from being pained in five minutes. The recovery table is on page 52.
There are ten traits that every character in Lost Roads of Lociam will have a number in that ranges from 0 to 100. These traits are: Academic, Athletic, Communication, Faith, Forester, Knowledge, Magic, Martial, Perception, Street-smarts. You can use your character's traits to do things. Each trait chapter contains tables of modifiers you can apply to various activities you might attempt using that trait. These include:
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Academic: literacy, mathematics, access to reference books, access to geographical maps, ability to recognize heraldry flags, book learning of history, law, customs, and etiquette.
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Athletics: climbing, falling, guard duty, long distance travel, poison resistance, disease, weather exposure, starvation, dehydration, riding a horse, running long distance, and athletics can also be used for sneaking.
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Communication: communicating in a foreign language, charming, bluffing, and intimidating.
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Faith: praying for advice, praying for creation, praying for destruction, praying for influence, asking for divine favor, or asking for a blessing which adds between 5 and 20 to the next roll. A person can only be the recipient of a single blessing at a time.
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Forester: familiarity with a place, camouflage, stealth, trapping animals and enemies, wilderness survival, tracking and concealing tracks.
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Knowledge: common sense, regional knowledge, historical knowledge, and becoming insane.
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Magic: your odds of success when casting spells, and your ability to sense magic which is called Fathom. To see if you cast a spell successfully, subtract your roll from your magic trait and consult that school of magic's table to see what number is needed to succeed with that spell. If your attempt to use magic fails, you can try again but subtract five from your result for each time you've failed at that spell this session. If you get a natural 100 or 1, consult the botch and critical success table on pages 59 and 60.
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Martial: weapon skills, melee combat, ranged combat, and healing time after a battle. Weapons and armor you equip will modify your martial trait. The cap on positive modifications gained from gear is half your martial trait. There is also a second cap on positive modifications gained from weapon proficiencies, again maxing out at half your martial trait.
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Perception: searching, alertness, becoming afraid, and overcoming fear.
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Street-smarts: familiarity with the local area, disguise, impersonation, escaping from ropes or shackles, selling stolen items, forgery, lock picking, pick pocketing, stalking a mark, and stealth.
You gain one experience point for a trait by succeeding with that trait on a roll during a moment of important consequence or danger. Only one point can be gained per trait per adventure. At the end of the session, pool all these experience points together. You can spend experience points to level up your traits. Consult the tables in the rulebook to see how many experience points you need to spend. It depends on which trait, the trait's current level, and the level the trait would become.
For example, the athletics and perception traits cost less experience points to improve than the faith and magic traits do. They have different tables in the rule book for leveling them up. Leveling up low number traits costs less experience than leveling up high level traits. Improving a trait from a lower level like 20 to a middling level like 50 costs fewer experience points than improving the trait from a middling number to approach a trait of 100.
Here is an example of how to read the experience table on page 21. Let's say you currently have a 0 in your forester trait. It would cost 2 experience points to increase your forester from 0 to 5, and 4 experience points to increase your forester from 0 to 10.
Here is an example of how to read the experience table on page 20. Let's say you currently have a 50 in your athletics trait. It would cost 4 experience points to increase your athletics from 50 to 55, and 8 experience points to increase your athletics from 50 to 60.
Here is an example of how to read the experience table on page 22. Let's say you currently have an 80 in your magic trait. It would cost 32 experience points to increase your magic trait from 80 to 85, and 128 experience points to increase your magic from 80 to 100.
Please note that page 87 has a table meant to be used when leveling up faith. Those who follow commandments faithfully during the session will find it easier to level up their faith trait. You can appeal for your roleplaying during the session when you did something to adhere to the tenets of your faith to be applied as a modifier to decrease or increase the experience points needed to level up your faith.
When building a character, see if your specific character would fit with a profession listed on pages 60 to 62. If any of those professions match your backstory, you can choose to spend 20 experience points if your magic trait is below 55, or 15 experience points if your magic trait is 55 to 75, or 10 experience points if your magic trait is above 75, to learn all lower magic abilities listed for your profession.
Weapon and armor proficiencies cost 10 experience points for a first level proficiency, 15 additional experience points for a second level proficiency, and 20 additional points for a maximum third level proficiency.
One level of weapon proficiency increases your weapon modifier by 1.5x. Two levels of weapon proficiency increases your weapon modifier by 2x. The maximum three levels of weapon proficiency increases your weapon modifier by 2.5x.
For example, your character with a martial trait of 40 has two points of proficiency in military weapons. They have a sword which gives a +5 bonus to their martial trait. Because of their two levels of proficiency in military weapons, this bonus is doubled from 5 to 10. Neither modification nor proficiency bonuses exceed half of their martial trait of 40 which would be 20, so you're all good. You can roll as if your martial trait was 50 instead of 40. Forty from your base martial trait, five from your sword, and five from your proficiency, for fifty total in your martial trait after weapons and proficiencies.
When you buy an item in Lost Roads of Lociam, the cheaper price on the left of the slash is to buy it used, which has a minus five modifier to its roll when you use the item. The expensive price on the right of the slash is to buy the item brand new, which gives a plus five roll modifier and lets you use the item.
Exertion reduces your trait number by 10 to count your d100 roll as being a 2. Lower rolls are better, so the two is like a guaranteed success.
Status effects such as over burdened, maimed, and terrified decrease your trait by an amount ranging from 5 to 50.
During ranged combat, only combatants with a ranged weapon can apply their weapon's bonus to their martial trait. Armor benefits are half against ranged weapons. A melee combatant winning a contest against a ranged combatant just means they didn't take ranged damage, they can't deal damage to a ranged combatant unless in melee distance.
For players in my upcoming game, you all will be at 70% of maximum power. For Lost Roads Of Lociam, I estimate that you can achieve that if you build a character using eight hundred experience points. I also estimate that owning ten items, which includes all equipment, weapons, armor, knickknacks, consumables, etc, should be appropriate for this level.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing Lost Roads of Lociam in oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to see an example of Lost Roads of Lociam actually being played. We encourage you to find the Lost Roads of Lociam rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.
Core Delvelopment (Darksome Delve)
Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Hospital visiting hours, accusations, ledgers recording foul deeds, storm clouds, missing cows, church sermons, and carriages. Core Delvelopment is a Darksome Delve actual play podcast.
Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Hospital visiting hours, accusations, ledgers recording foul deeds, storm clouds, missing cows, church sermons, and carriages. Core Delvelopment is a Darksome Delve actual play podcast.
Wrestling With Cases (CBR + PNK)
Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Wrestling with Cases is an actual play episode of CBR+PNK. Bill, Nugh, and Rusty are hired to steal a case filled with unknown items that will help the town of Hardingwood.
Trailer for Wrestling With Cases
Wed, 02 Oct 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Wrestling with Cases is an actual play episode of CBR+PNK. Bill, Nugh, and Rusty are hired to steal a case filled with unknown items that will help the town of Hardingwood.
Your Twist Is My Command (Twisted Wishes)
Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Your Twist Is My Command is an actual play podcast of Twisted Wishes and Tricube Tales. Nugh, Ailbh, and Sadie fill in as temp genies, twisting the wishes to never grant exactly what the wishers want.
Trailer For Your Twist Is My Command
Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Your Twist Is My Command is an actual play podcast of Twisted Wishes and Tricube Tales. Nugh, Ailbh, and Sadie fill in as temp genies, twisting the wishes to never grant exactly what the wishers want.
Bee Lines And Bear Hugs (Honey Heist)
Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Nasty, Marty, and Sadie get in touch with their primal sides as they attempt to save the world (per usual) before completely losing themselves to the beast within in this actual play podcast of Honey Heist.
Trailer for Bee Lines And Bear Hugs
Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Nasty, Marty, and Sadie get in touch with their primal sides as they attempt to save the world (per usual) before completely losing themselves to the beast within in this actual play podcast of Honey Heist.
One Flew The Coup (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:07:00 -0300
On a plea from an injured pigeon, Bill and Sadie take to the skies to infiltrate a dangerous mountainside fortress, with more at stake than they realise... One Flew the Coup is an actual play podcast of Dicing With Death.
Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:05:00 -0300
On a plea from an injured pigeon, Bill and Sadie take to the skies to infiltrate a dangerous mountainside fortress, with more at stake than they realise... One Flew the Coup is an actual play podcast of Dicing With Death.
Old Cases New Faces (24 Hour Crime Scene)
Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:07:00 -0300
A haunting crime is relived. A cast of suspects is identified. Will the truth be revealed and justice finally prevail? Join Nasty and Sadie as they help Armando solve his parents' murders! Old Cases New Face is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.
Trailer for Old Cases New Faces
Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:05:00 -0300
A haunting crime is relived. A cast of suspects is identified. Will the truth be revealed and justice finally prevail? Join Nasty and Sadie as they help Armando solve his parents' murders! Old Cases New Face is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.
The Involuntary Time Detectives (24 Hour Crime Scene)
Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Ozob, Ailbh, and DI Deviteaux are thrown back through time to solve a long-unsolved murder. What secrets will be revealed? Who's the real murderer? And how scandalous can we make this? The Involuntary Time Detectives is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.
Trailer for The Involuntary Time Detectives
Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Ozob, Ailbh, and DI Deviteaux are thrown back through time to solve a long-unsolved murder. What secrets will be revealed? Who's the real murderer? And how scandalous can we make this? The Involuntary Time Detectives is an actual play podcast of 24 Hour Crime Scene.
How to Play 24 Hour Crime Scene
Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:03:00 -0300
How to Play 24 Hour Crime Scene
24-Hour Crime Scene is a tabletop RPG in which the players collaboratively solve a murder mystery, by inventing the clues and attaching them to suspects and locations themselves. Ultimately, the solution to the murder is something they come up with together, and not something pre-planned by the GM.
In the episodes, I will be facilitating the game, but it can easily be played without a GM entirely.
There are three sheets of paper that are shared among the players in this game-- a crime scene to show the location of the murder, a Victim sheet as the players uncover clues about the victim, and some suspect sheets to track clues that connect to the suspects.
During the game, the players decide where the murder happened, and who the victim is, and establishing some clues.
Then, the players take turns. On each player's turn, they draw a card and answer a prompt associated with it. For purposes of the episode, the facilitator will draw from a single deck of cards and read the prompts to the players to answer.
Then, the active player takes an action which may result in a scene. They can investigate by establishing something about the crime scene, the victim, existing evidence, or one of the clues. They can inverview a suspect, which means they will narrate some information that the suspect reveals during the interview-- that information is recorded on the suspect's sheet. They also can find a new suspect, and reveal what their link is to the victim, crime scene, or a clue.
Finally, on a player's turn they can Consult with the other players to determine some facts about the case. These questions should never be completely closed or absolute-- instead of "Did this person kill the victim?" they can ask "who seems to be more guilty?"
Once the player has done both things-- answered the prompt and taken their action-- the next player takes their turn.
When all the cards have been drawn and the last player finishes their turn, the players will have a final Consult scene to decide which suspect to charge with the murder. This discussion ends in a vote by the players. Whichever suspect gets a majority is charged with the crime, and justice shall be served.
Some tips for playing are to play with a very "yes and" mindset-- don't have an idea of who committed the crime in advance, and leave it open for interpretation. Do make a lot of connections between the various clues, evidence, and suspects so that they won't seem to be a random collection of things, but instead tie together into a complete story.
Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:09:00 -0300
Welcome to a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. This is our quarterly rules discussion where we discuss the rules we played in the past dozen games, for mid year 2024. We’ll discuss the TTRPGs Psychic Cat Chaos, Dicing With Death, Alaria Valor and Company, Community Radio, Risus Epic, When Sky And Sea Were Not Named, Daggerheart, Roll For Shoes, Pocket Gumshoe, and Good Society.
Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Does your heart go out when players actually cry during an episode? Don't miss Trauma Poetry, in which Mary, Zidane, Bill, and Nugh play Good Society. Look alikes and mistaken identities abound, one character loses their magic, and we all suffer terribly for our misdeeds and bad reputations!
Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Does your heart go out when players actually cry during an episode? Don't miss Trauma Poetry, in which Mary, Zidane, Bill, and Nugh play Good Society. Look alikes and mistaken identities abound, one character loses their magic, and we all suffer terribly for our misdeeds and bad reputations!
Drinking Your Feelings (Pocket Gumshoe)
Wed, 07 Aug 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Oh what people will do for love. Join Ailbh, Arethor, and Rusty as they prove that their friend Tess is innocent of a crime she was, admittedly, going to commit and in the process, discover a greater conspiracy to turn friends into lovers. Listen into this actual play podcast while we play Pocket Gumshoe to find out who is at the centre of this conspiracy.
Trailer for Drinking Your Feelings
Wed, 07 Aug 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Oh what people will do for love. Join Ailbh, Arethor, and Rusty as they prove that their friend Tess is innocent of a crime she was, admittedly, going to commit and in the process, discover a greater conspiracy to turn friends into lovers. Listen into this actual play podcast while we play Pocket Gumshoe to find out who is at the centre of this conspiracy.
Wed, 07 Aug 2024 00:03:00 -0300
How to Play Pocket Gumshoe
Pocket Gumshoe is a very short, genre-agnostic implementation of the Gumshoe investigation game system. You play a character in a mystery, which you must solve by finding clues. Clues that must be found in order to progress the mystery are called Core Clues, and you cannot miss them. If you spend time in a scene where there's a core clue, and you use an appropriate approach to looking for the clue, you will get the clue. No dice roll required. You do use a six-sided die for other types of actions and for combat.
In Pocket Gumshoe, you have three investigative approaches: Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical, and for each of these you can have a number of tags that help define how you use that approach. In this game, each player starts with one rank in each approach, and can add two more ranks (distributed as they see fit). I gave players three tags per rank in an approach-- Pocket Gumshoe leaves this and skill points up to the GM's discretion.
Here's an example of using an investigative approach. I'm playing Tom, an elderly wizard who knows a lot about medicinal plants and likes to paint. I've been hired by a nobleman to find a stolen family heirloom, a necklace. I'm in the kitchen, where there's an elderly cook and a maid, working. I could use an interpersonal approach, and maybe one of my tags is "elderly," so I get along pretty well with older folks. I chat up the cook and learn that the lord fired a footman last week. On my character sheet, I have one rank in Interpersonal, and I want to get a little more information about this footman, so I spend it to get some more dirt. The maid overhears us and shares the gossip that the footman was always flirting with the nobleman's son. From the GM's side of this, the fired footman is a suspect, and the core clue was that the footman was fired-- I want the players to go interview the footman in a future scene, so this sets them up for that. The gossip about the footman is an extra clue, and may even give them leverage when they talk to the footman. When they go talk to the footman, I can still use my interpersonal approach and tags, but I no longer have a point in Interpersonal to spend and get extra clues or benefits. I can still use the ability, but I don't have extra points to spend. In a Gumshoe one-shot, your investigation approach points will not refresh, so use them wisely!
In addition to the investivative approaches, you have General Skills, and for this game, the players had 50 points to spend on the general skills. General skills are for actions that don't fall into clue-finding. They're things like athletics and driving, but also include your health points pool. Everyone starts with one point of health and stability. In Pocket Gumshoe, the GM can decide which skills to include or exclude. For our adventure, I excluded Shrink and Stability, as those are for mental health consequences and fit more into a horror investigation rather than fantasy action. I also added a Magic skill to give a general-purpose skill for Firebreathing Kittens who have magic abilities or knowledge. In this case, I also made a special rule that you cannot use a magical ability without spending a point, which we will talk about next.
When I want to do something that has a decent chance of failure and is not gathering a clue, I use one of the general skills and roll for it. For most skills, you do not need to have points in the skill to attempt to do it-- my custom Magic skill is an exception to that rule. Health and Stability skills are also not rolled-- they represent your physical and mental health points, and you lose them when you take damage.
When I roll in a test-- that's a static check to see if I succeed at a task, the GM usually tells me the difficulty, and I can spend some of my skill points to add to my roll. I roll one d6, and for each general skill point I spend, I add a point to the dice result. The skill points all must come out of the skill I'm using.
Let's say my character is inside the treasure vault at the castle, looking for clues. Just after he found a clue, the GM says "hey, roll Sense Trouble for me." I have a lot of points in that, but I decide that I'm a little cocky and hey, I just found a clue, so I only spend one point of Sense Trouble. I know that most of my general skills will not refresh in this one-shot. In a campaign, they refresh between adventures, or for physical abilities they refresh once per day. Health is regained when someone uses the Medic general ability, or at 7a rate of two Health points per day of rest.
I erase the point from my character sheet. Sense Trouble is another skill that works a little differently-- the GM tells me the difficulty after I spend the points, and in this case it's 3, which should be very easy, but wouldn't you know it? I roll a one, and even with my plus-one, I fail in my roll.
Now my character hears the ominous sound of the door clanging shut! Someone has shut him in! Now he needs to try to get out of here-- and he does so by looking at the general skills and saying "well, if I were a younger man, I'd use my strength to try and push the door open, but, alas, time has taken its toll. So instead, I am going to say that I PREPARED for this possibility, and I have a key to get out of here." The GM tells me the difficulty of that-- since it also now requires there to be a key and a keyhole on the inside of the vault-- is 5. That's VERY hard to do, but I have a few preparedness points, so I spend 3 of them. I roll my d6 and get a 3, but with the +3 from spending my Preparedness points, I succeed in the test. I open the door with the key and step out of the vault!
Unfortunately, the footman who had locked me into the vault is standing right there, with a cudgel, and he takes a swing at me! We're in combat!
Combat in Pocket Gumshoe goes like this: The GM decides which character acts first in the combat. In this case, the footman surprised me, so he'll go first. When someone acts in combat, they use a relevant skill-- if they're in melee, it might be scuffling. If they're ranged, it'll be shooting. They can spend points from their skill pools to add to their to-hit numbers. The difficulty to hit, unless there's a special circumstance, is 3. If the character has at least 8 ranks in Athletics, it increases to 4. When you hit, you roll a single d6 for damage, and modify it based on your weapon and if the target is wearing armor. Armor reduces the damage, but does not prevent you from getting hit. At the end of the character's turn, they decide who goes next in combat. The last person to act in the round gets to pick the first person to act in the next round-- which can be themselves!
I don't have much Athletics, but the footman's no fighter, either. Because I have fewer than 8 ranks in Athletics, the difficulty to hit me is 3. He spends an adversary point, and with my bad luck, he rolls three, which turns into a 4 with his +1. He hits. I don't have armor, and he's using a club, which gives a -1 to damage. He rolls a single d6 and subtracts one from the roll-- he rolls a three, and I remove two points from my health points. Ouch!
Now it's my turn to fight back. I'm really bad at fighting-- I have no ranks in it, and the GM describes the footman as being quite spry. But I do have magic, and I decide I'm going to teach this young punk a thing or two. I tell the GM I'm going to shoot bolts of lightning from my fingers, which we agree normally does +1 damage. I decide it really matters to me that I hit, so I spend three of my Magic skill points, which means I will definitely hit. I hit, and when I roll my damage, I get lucky and roll a 6, for 7 total points of damage. The footman's hair stands on end as I essentially taze him with magic. The GM says he's pretty dazed by that. Since it's the end of the round, I get to pick who goes next, and I decide to take the next turn and finish him off. I use my Preparedness again to declare that I have a set of manacles, and I'm going to use them on the footman, since he's at a disadvantage right now. The GM rules that since he's dazed, the footman isn't putting up much of a fight, and the difficulty is three. I spend the rest of my Preparedness points to ensure success. I roll a 1 on the die, but with my plus 3, I am guaranteed to succeed, and I have captured the footman in manacles!
The GM now gives me a chance to investigate him, perhaps by rifling through his pockets or interrogating him. I decide to rifle, and find the missing necklace! This is a core clue, so there's no dice roll involved. Success! I return the necklace to my employer, and turn the footman over to the city watch to face justice.
Finally, since I know it's going to come up, you might be wondering about what happens when characters want to help each other. Piggybacking is when one character takes the lead and the rest spend one point from their own pools to share the results. For example, let's say the footman escapes the manacles and runs away. I team up with my pals, Harry the spry rogue, and Richard, the armored knight. When we finally catch up to him, he's inside a hideout, and we need to sneak in to catch him. The GM tells us the difficulty is four. Harry has a bunch of points in Infiltrate, so he's ready to take lead. I have Infiltrate points as well, so I spend one to share in his result. Richard, wearing heavy armor, is not sneaky and doesn't have points in Infiltrate. He's still in the group, but because he can't be sneaky, the difficulty goes up by two. Harry needs to roll a 6 to succeed, so he spends four of his Infiltrate points, gets a 3 on the dice, and we all sneak into the hideout.
Later, Harry and I are trying to disarm a trap together. Richard's no good with mechanical things, and is standing watch, and Harry spent his skill points in other stuff, so I'm on the spot for disarming this trap. Harry has two points to spend on the attempt, and when the GM says it's a very difficult trap, with a difficulty number of 7, he spends all of them. I get to add all those points, minus one, to my dice roll, plus all the points I want from my own pool-- I spend all four of my Mechanics points, so between the two of us, I have a +5 on the roll. I roll the die and get a 1. The trap goes off, snaring both Harry and me in it, and Richard, who stood far enough back to stay out of range of the trap, laughs heartily, and then comes over to help free us.
Thanks for listening to this overview of how to play Pocket Gumshoe. Each Gumshoe game is a little different-- some add custom rules to give a particular tone to the game, or to support a specific genre. For example, in high power games, it's a common rule that the number of points you spend to attack is the minimum damage you can deal in damage. Pocket Gumshoe doesn't have that rule, so we will not be playing with it in this episode.
The Party Gets Real (Good Society)
Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:07:00 -0300
In this playthrough of Good Society, we follow Marty, Sadie, and Arethor as they dance through the salsa of salacious gossip and the polka of political maneuvering, to earn their crescendo of consequences.
Trailer for The Party Gets Real
Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:05:00 -0300
In this playthrough of Good Society, we follow Marty, Sadie, and Arethor as they dance through the salsa of salacious gossip and the polka of political maneuvering, to earn their crescendo of consequences.
Telenovela Verde (Good Society)
Wed, 24 Jul 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Scandals, lies, and intrigue fly as Ailbh and Armando join Ivy at her high society birthday party! Does love win out? Are the rumors true? Tune in to this actual play of the Good Society TTRPG and discover which bombshells are revealed!
Wed, 24 Jul 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Scandals, lies, and intrigue fly as Ailbh and Armando join Ivy at her high society birthday party! Does love win out? Are the rumors true? Tune in to this actual play of the Good Society TTRPG and discover which bombshells are revealed!
Wed, 24 Jul 2024 00:03:00 -0300
How to play Good Society.
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Good Society. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Good Society yourselves.
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
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Theme
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Tokens:
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Resolve tokens
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Monologue tokens
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Five tone setting questions
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Building your major character
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Desire cards
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Relationship cards
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Family background
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Role sheet
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Reputation conditions
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Inner conflict
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Connections
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Public information sheet
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Eight phase cycle of play
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Novel chapter
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Reputation
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Rumor and scandal
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Epistolary
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Novel chapter
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Reputation
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Epistolary
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Upkeep
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The theme of Good Society is that you’re playing as a character who would have fit in comfortably in a Jane Austen novel. This game is a fictional portrayal of the genteel social class in England in the 1810’s. These people aren’t royalty, so they don’t have any royal obligations, but they also are so rich that they never have to work a day in their lives. How is that possible? Through the system of primogeniture, where only one child inherits all of the family’s money, concentrating everything on them so they can pass on the family name and social status. The other kids are out of luck. If you are born into the genteel social class as a boy then your job is to make sure that you’re the one who gets your family’s inheritance. If you’re born into this social class as a girl then your job is to marry a rich husband. Fail to marry well, and you might have to get a job, which means you have lost the game and are out of the genteel class. Maybe your old friends will hire you to sew them a dress for a party one day, but that’s the only time you would ever see them or your old lifestyle again. For the guys, if you fail to make yourself the one who inherits all of your family’s money, the military is an option for working a few years and retiring on a hefty officer’s pension. You just have to hope you don’t die while serving, and hope you’re not too old to find a wife by the time you get out. Your life path is up to you. Your imagination is your only limit in this fictional portrayal of the genteel social class in the 1810’s England. You lose if you have to get a day job. And also, in the words of Jane Austen herself, “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.” That was the theme, now let’s talk about Good Society’s mechanics.
Tokens. Spending tokens is the major mechanic of Good Society. You won’t be rolling dice or drawing cards. Instead, you have a limited resource action economy in how many tokens you still have left to spend. Each player starts with two resolve tokens on each character they control. The facilitator starts with three resolve tokens. You spend resolve tokens during the novel chapter phase, reputation phase, and epistolary phase. You get more resolve tokens from reputation tags and during the rumors and scandals phase and the upkeep phase.
Resolve tokens represent your character’s determination to pursue their goals. You don’t need to spend one for most actions you want to do. Simply speak as your character and act out the role play of your character talking to your fellow players, who will respond speaking as the characters you are talking to. But you will need to spend a resolve token sometimes. Specifically, when you want to compel someone else’s character to do something, add a twist that makes the game more interesting, make a momentous change that significantly alters the story, establish a past relationship with a character you up until now didn’t know, ruin the plan or harm the interests of another player’s character, or learn about a delicious piece of gossip you would have otherwise been unlikely to learn. Doing these types of actions will require spending a resolve token, and if you’re out of them, then you can’t.
I made this quick acronym for remembering when you need to use a resolve token: C for compelling someone else’s character to do something, I for making the game more interesting, M for momentous, big changes, E for establishing a prior relationship with a character where none existed before, R for ruining the plans or harming the interests of a major character or connection, U for unlikely or difficult actions succeeding. Compel, Interesting, Momentous, Establish, Ruin, Unlikely. Kimeru, use a resolve token.
Do you want to compel Emma’s player to have Emma accidentally trip the Duke’s wife at a ball, or fall in love with a person of ill-repute, or arrange a meeting between your character and Emma’s brother? Spend a resolve token to begin negotiations with Emma’s player. Do you see a point where you could punch up the plot and make the storyline of someone else’s character more interesting? Spend a resolve token, and make the suggestion. Does Fitzwilliam’s player want to make a momentous, significant change to the story such as making Charles’ carriage overturn on his way to the estate so he misses the ball? Spend a resolve token and enter negotiations. You can also use a resolve token to establish a relationship with a character where you two didn’t know one another before. Spend the resolve token and start a flashback, acting out a scene from the past, establishing that connection. Do you want your character Lady Thorn to overhear gossip learning that Agnes is illegitimate? That’s harmful to Agnes’s player’s interests and unlikely to happen just by chance, and definitely qualifies to have a resolve token spent. Enter negotiations with Agnes’s player. Compel, Interesting, Momentous, Establish, Ruin, Unlikely. Kimeru, use a resolve token.
I keep mentioning negotiations as I talk about resolve tokens. What are negotiations? They are a way to formalize consent during this Good Society role playing game. If you’re spending a resolve token so your character can accomplish something unlikely or to make a momentous change to their story, the resolve token is simply spent and returns to the bank. But if you’re affecting another player’s character, consent is the name of the game. The negotiation process helps both parties reach an agreement they are satisfied with. If the negotiation is successful, the person whose character is affected gets your resolve token instead of the token going to the bank. That player can spend that resolve token later.
A small note for clarity: helping one player in a situation where two players’ interests are competing is not considered harming the other player. For example, if two people are both plotting to marry the same target, spending time with the target is not harmful to the other person’s interests even though wooing the target makes the other player less likely to win their affection. The token spent to gain significant alone time with the love interest doesn’t need to be negotiated with that player and would go to the bank.
Here are the steps for negotiating. Negotiation step one: Player one offers their resolve token to the player who controls the affected major character or connection. Player one clarifies exactly what they want to achieve with the token. Negotiation step two: The affected player can choose to accept the token, can accept the token with a condition, or can reject the token. If they accept the token, then exactly what player one specified, happens. Go ahead and role play that. The token goes to the pool of the character who was affected. If the player whose character is affects puts a condition on their acceptance of the token by saying “Yes, but only if…” and explains a condition required for them to accept the token, then the player offering their token can either agree or withdraw their token offer. Here is an example of a successful conditional negotiation from the rulebook. Tammy controls a connection named Geoff, a rich young bachelor. Edwin controls Charlotte. Edwin offers a resolve token to Tammy and says, “I want Geoff to invite Charlotte on a beautiful nature walk around his estate.” Tammy replies, “Yes, but only if Geoff also brings his sisters.” Edwin agrees, and hands his token to Tammy. Tammy puts it in Geoff's pool of resolve tokens. Edwin is already thinking about Charlotte's schemes for how to get rid of Geoff’s sisters during the walk. Lastly, if the player whose character is affected rejects the token, then the person who offered the token can’t spend it. They keep it, and the proposed event does not happen. You can try a different approach, or you can move on.
Monologue Tokens. Along with resolve tokens there is a second minor type of token, monologue tokens. Everyone starts each cycle with one monologue token, so that’s one per session. You can play your monologue token on another player at any time. Hand them a token and ask them a question, for example, “Who does Henry actually love?” Ohis example question asks about their plans: “Does Emma intend to go through with this marriage?” The monologue token is then consumed and discarded. That player must immediately do a monologue, truthfully revealing their major character’s inner thoughts, feelings, and plans. Depending on how much hidden information you’ve set your session of Good Society up to have, a monologue can be game changing. You only have one monologue token. Use it wisely, but like, do actually use it. If you don’t use your monologue token during play, you have to spend it during the upkeep phase at the very end of the cycle. They don’t accumulate. One last thing to think about for monologue tokens is that if there is a mechanical way in the game to force a character to tell the truth, that implies that you don’t have to be telling the truth the rest of the time. Good Society is a hidden motivations game, with a clear divide between public and private information. Lying is part of the game. Or I guess I should say, flattery.
Game setup begins by answering five tone setting questions. In Good Society, each group of people playing can choose the tone of their game. There are five questions on pages thirty three through thirty five that the group should have an answer for together before the start of the game. Question one: What tone should the story have: drama, romantic comedy, or farce? This can determine the playset you use, which character roles you can play and what motivations they can have. Question two: How important is historical accuracy: a little, somewhat, or very important? Question three: How will we treat the gender power balance: historical, off, or in reverse? The authors would like to note that Jane Austen’s work never grapples with racial prejudice, so in Good Society it does not exist and characters may be of whatever race they choose without incident. Question four: How much hidden information will be used in the game: none, or will each player’s desire card be hidden from other players? In that case, share the information from the public knowledge section of the desire card. Question five: Is there anything our game should avoid?
Building your major character: You’re going to be role playing as more than one character when you play Good Society: one major character and a few connection characters. The major character you’ll spend most of your time roleplaying as is built by choosing a desire which comes with a relationship, choosing a family background, a role, an inner conflict, and some connections. Let’s count those things: desire one, which has a linked relationship two, family background three, role four, inner conflict five, and connections six and seven. Your major character is defined by these seven aspects in Good Society.
Desire cards are reddish pink colored. They have a front and a back. The desire card front has a Jane Austen quote. The back has specific details about how that desire motivates your major character. New players are probably going to want to read both the front and the back when choosing their major character’s desire. Once you’ve played Good Society a few times, you can use the front quote as a character creation randomizer to add replayability to the game. Because one front quote is shared by multiple desire card backs, even if you play Good Society a lot and eventually memorize all the quotes, you won’t know specifically which desire card back you’re picking. Experienced players can choose their major character’s theme by choosing their quote, and then look at the desire card’s back to see the specific details. Here is an example desire card front side quote. “Our scars make us know that our past was real.” End quote. That is shared by desires number four, thirteen, and fourteen.
There are twenty one different desires to choose from. Here is an example desire card: Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure. That is the card’s Jane Austen quote front. The back says four things. First: Best or humiliate your cousin in every matter and win your uncle’s inheritance. The second thing on this card is: Your uncle has recently turned his mind to settling his affairs. As he has no children of his own, his substantial inheritance can fall to only one of two parties. Yourself, or your infuriatingly perfect cousin. The third thing on the card says: This wealth will elevate you from among the poorest of your peers to among the richest. Your cousin may have bested you many times prior. But from this day forth they shall never best you hence. And lastly it says: Create your uncle as a mandatory connection. Because that is desire card number seventeen, you get a specific relationship card for that desire. Check the playset for which number relationship is linked with that number desire.
There are twenty one different desires to choose from. Here is a second example desire card. The front Jane Austen quote says: There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. The back says four things. First: Save your family from financial ruin so you can break off your engagement. Second: The irresponsible actions of your spendthrift family have left you all in dire financial straits. And you are the one to suffer for it! Your father refused to sell the family estate; instead he arranged for your engagement to some insufferable rich person. Three: You must act before you find yourself married. Sort out your family’s financial problems- whether by selling the estate or marrying off a more willing sibling- then call of the engagement post-haste. Four: public knowledge: you are engaged. That’s right, all the other players know is that you are engaged, not how you feel about it or what you’re planning to do about it. Because that is desire card number fifteen, you consult your playset, and get the corresponding relationship card for that desire.
Relationship cards are automatically determined by the your desire card’s number. You can consult the playset to see which relationship card is linked with the number of the desire you chose. For example, desire card number sixteen gets you relationship card number thirty one. The playset sets the tone and might change the relationship card you receive. For example in a romantic comedy, desire card one gets relationship card twenty four. But in a drama toned playset, that same desire card one gets a different relationship card, number twenty nine. Before the game starts, each player needs to determine which relationship card is linked to your desire, and then give your relationship card to a fellow player. You should receive exactly one relationship card from someone, and it should be from someone other than the person you gave your card to. If you see the words giver and taker on the relationship card, ‘Giver’ refers to the person who picked up the relationship card originally with their desire card. ‘Taker’ refers to the person who will take the card from the giver. Here is an example relationship card. The public information side of the card says Acquaintances. The giver and taker of this card became friends during a season in London three years ago. The private side of the relationship card says Secret Fiances. The giver and taker of this card have been secretly engaged for years, despite the disapproval of one of their families. While the giver wishes to go ahead, the taker has become reluctant. The taker is higher in social status or wealthier than the giver. Before the game, you should have two discussions with the two players you gave your card to and received a card from, about what that means for the relationships between the characters you control. Remember, you control not only your main character, but also two connection characters.
Family background. Every player character has a family background sheet. It looks like a thin column that you can add on to the role sheet, the main character sheet. Your family background will determine your starting reputation tags, and will tell you what criteria to meet to raise your reputation, and what sorts of situations will lower your reputation.
The positive starting reputation tags are listed after the triangle shape. For example, the old money family background has the possible starting positive reputation tags of sensible, well-connected, dependable, generous, and caring. Choose one of these positive starting reputation tags at the beginning of the game. Negative starting reputation tags are listed after the upside down triangle shape. For example, the Old Money family background has the possible negative starting reputation tags of old-fashioned, miserly, overbearing, self-obsessed, and tasteless. Also choose one negative starting reputation tag at the beginning of the game.
The family background sheet also explains the criteria for how to raise and lower your reputation. There are three ways to gain a positive tag, and three ways to gain a negative reputation tag. For example, if someone from the old money family background acted in obedience to society’s conventions despite considerable hardship in doing so, they would gain a positive reputation tag. If someone from the old money family background shamed or embarrassed the family name, they would gain a negative reputation tag. Another example is that if someone from the military publicly displayed strong emotions, they would gain a negative reputation tag. If someone from the clergy background rejected a heartfelt request for help, they would gain a negative reputation tag.
During the game, you can exchange reputation tags for resolve tokens. Invoke that word in the thing you are roleplaying to receive a resolve token that you can offer to another character. If they accept the resolve token, erase the reputation tag from your sheet. Here is an example: William does something purehearted for his uncle, and exchanges his reputation tag of purehearted for a resolve token that he offers to his uncle’s player in exchange for being forgiven enough for his past gambling to be invited to his uncle’s dinner. That’s a way to use your reputation tags. Trading negative tags for resolve tokens is one way to get them off your sheet so they won’t count towards reputation conditions.
Once you’ve chosen your family background, you can add that to your role sheet. The family background is like an extra column of paper that fits on the side of the layout.
Role sheet. Each player character has a role sheet, which is a bit like a character sheet or a playbook in other games. A role can only be played by one person in each group of players. The sheet has a picture of a person in the outfit fitting their role, and a big name, like The Dowager, or The Tutor, or The Hedonist, or The New Arrival.
Chapter 9 in the rulebook on characters starting on page 213 discusses strategies for how to play the role you picked. For example as the heir, the strategy guide section talks about how the heir is plagued with financially motivated suitors, how to see through the gold diggers, ways to roleplay being weighed down by family pressure and obligation, how to take advantage of the benefits of nepotism, and suggestions for who to make as your connections.
Fill out the description of your character. Write the starting positive and negative reputation tags you chose, one of each, from the family background sheet.
Each role sheet has four reputation conditions on it. These are inactive to start the game. You can activate one of your two negative or positive reputation conditions by getting three reputation tags of that type. Reputation tags are adjectives describing how society sees you. The triangles are next to positive words everyone thinks about you, and the downward pointing triangles are next to negative tags everyone thinks about you. You gain reputation tags during the reputation phase if you met the reputation criteria listed on your family background sheet when you were roleplaying during the novel chapter phase.
Inner conflict. Write something your character needs in the left inner conflict blank and a contrasting need in the right inner conflict blank on your role sheet. An example of inner conflict is being torn between your desire for revenge and need for acceptance. Another example is love and duty. Another example is being torn between family and independence. Your character could be juggling their anxiety and maintaining their mental health, versus their need for control, power, and order. At the end of the cycle of play, so at the end of a session, look at the checklist and reflect on your character’s behavior. Mark where the character has acted on one side of the conflict or the other, or both. Gain one resolve token for each box you marked, to a maximum of two tokens per cycle. Update the public information sheet to reflect how many boxes you have filled in, too. Boxes stay filled in until the inner conflict is settled. When it is, at the end of the session you can create a new inner conflict, and you get to take an expanded backstory action. The expanded backstory actions are: create a new connection, play an extra connection, change a connection’s fortune, establish a relationship, or create a new major character.
Connections are people who know a major character and are important to them. For example a grandparent, sibling, school friend, potential suitor. The role sheet might have a mandatory connection, you have to create that person first. The remaining connection spots should be filled with people who have strong feelings towards your character and will put pressure on you. To create a connection, pick a connection card, and note that the two sides, a, and b, are two options. They’re similar but slightly different people. Pick one of them. Fill out a connection sheet with the connection’s name, relationship with the major character, who the major character is they’re connected to, the connection’s opinion of the major character, and the connection’s age and card number.
You are creating connections related to your main character and then handing those people to the other players and facilitator to role play. The rulebook suggests each person roleplays as one major character and one connection, and the facilitator roleplays as the remaining connections. When you are role playing as a connection, try to be a tool in the major character’s plots and schemes. Make it your goal to complicate the lives of the major characters. Connections start with two resolve tokens each, which the person controlling them can spend to impact the story. Here are some example things you can do when roleplaying a connection. If you play their parent, express disapproval over the person they want to marry. If you play their old flame, tell someone about your past together. Connections should be open to participating in schemes. If a major character tries to trick you, believe them for a moment.
Great! Your characters are built. Let’s talk about the phases of gameplay.
Public information sheet. When playing Good Society, everyone should be able to see this document. The public information sheet tracks collaboration decisions, rumors and scandals, major character information such as their reputation tags, connections, and monologue and resolve tokens. This can be a printout that you write on if you’re playing in person, or a doc file visible to all if playing online.
The cycle of play is a series of eight phases. First is novel chapter, second is reputation, third rumor and scandal, fourth epistolary. Repeat those without the rumor and scandal phase, and do upkeep. Do that once and it’s one cycle. The rule book says you can expect each cycle to take two to three and a half hours, and suggests that one cycle is perfect for a single session. A full game of Good Society lasts between three and eight cycles.
Novel chapter is the in-character role playing phase. This is when you speak as your character to pursue your secret desire. It’s called novel chapter because if someone wrote down the words you speak during this phase, it’d read like a portion of one of Jane Austen’s stories. This phase is what you will be doing the majority of the time you’re playing Good Society. There are three types of novel chapters: events that star the whole cast at a party or gathering, visitations that are opportunities for more intimate conversations with fewer than the whole cast often featuring a few different visits between two or three people, and split chapters, which portray simultaneous but related events in different places, happening in parallel.
Reputation is the phase where everyone pauses roleplay to track the rise or fall of each character's reputation. Step 1: assess character behavior against reputation criteria. Step 2: create reputation tags. Step 3: Trigger reputation conditions. Step 4: Remove reputation conditions if tags have fallen below three.
Reputation criteria are actions your major character has to do to raise or lower their reputation. If your major character did something to meet a positive or negative reputation criteria during the novel chapter phase, create a reputation tag for them. Reputation tags are adjectives that are either positive, upward pointing triangle, or negative, downward pointing triangle. Writing a third reputation tag of a type triggers a reputation condition, which is listed on your role sheet. Choose one of the two reputation criteria of that type, either positive or negative. The reputation condition remains active as long as you have three tags of that type.
Here is an example. Beatrice already has the positive reputation tag brave and ladylike. During the past novel chapter, she fulfilled the positive reputation criteria that said “act in the service of duty or morality in a way that compromises their desires.” She went and played lawn croquet on a team with her father, who doesn’t want her to get fond of or marry Henry, when he called, even though she was talking to Henry at the time. During the game she helped her father talk to Judge Eustice and his daughter Penelope. Everyone had a great time and the judge invited them to attend his large party next month. The player adds the reputation tag Pleasant Sporting Partner to Beatrice’s role sheet next to an upward pointing triangle. This is Beatrice’s third positive reputation tag. She now activates one of the two positive reputation conditions on her character sheet. She chooses to activate “Stay With Us. You are a welcome guest in any household, and may stay wherever you choose while this boon remains active.” The reputation condition stays active unless she drops below three positive reputation tags.
Rumor and scandal is the only phase of Good Society that happens once per cycle. Everyone pretends to be society as a whole instead of their individual characters, and collaboratively creates rumors. This phase determines which rumors were merely whispers, and which become full blown scandals discussed in every drawing room in town.
Step 1: Players go around in a circle and either create or spread a rumor. Create a rumor by writing it on the public information sheet. Put a checkmark or an X in the circle next to the rumor to show it has been spread. When you reach the end of the circle, reverse it and go back, each player getting a second turn. The person who goes first will also go last. A rumor can only be spread once ever. Rumors that were not spread start to fade, and rumors that were spread have now been heard by all the characters. A player can spend a resolve token during the novel chapter phase to have a widely spread rumor affect the story. Cross off the rumor after spending the resolve token.
Step 2: Add a fading symbol like the stock market going down next to any rumor that was not spread this phase. Cross off any rumor that already had a fading symbol from a previous rumor phase. People can no longer spend resolve tokens to have that crossed off rumor affect the story.
Epistolary is a phase for writing letters. You can correspond with someone you trust, confessing your inner thoughts and feelings, or perhaps send a missive to set up a machination, preparing to enact a scheme in the future. Each player should write up to two letters from either your major character or a connection you control. State who the letter is from and who it’s to, and then dictate its contents. You can also use a resolve token to initiate a letter written to you by literally anyone. For example, Frances’s player can spend a resolve token to receive a letter saying that his aunt is sending him a horse. Or someone can offer a resolve token to George’s player and negotiate George receiving a letter saying that his student loan debt payment is two weeks past due.
Repeat the novel chapter, reputation, and epistolary phases again to role play, track the changes in reputation, and then write about what happened. The final epistolary is your chance to write your character’s epilogue and future plans.
Lastly, the cycle ends by performing upkeep. Spend your monologue token if you haven’t yet. Adjust your desires and inner conflicts so that next time you meet, your character can continue on a path to their goal. We are going to play Good Society in just a single session, but the authors recommend playing Good Society for three to eight cycles. They estimate you can probably fit in one cycle each session.
Here are some specific instructions for players in my game. The rule book has some setup guidelines for us because we will have three to four players and a facilitator and will be meeting for fewer than four cycles. Page 50 says each player should create two connections. Page 28 suggests not using the inner conflict on the role sheet or the expanded backstory rules for short campaigns, but we’re still going to because we won’t have another chance to see all the mechanics. Page 28 also says rumors don’t fade out during the rumor and scandal phase, we can do that. Also, don’t change your desires during the upkeep phase, and every player gains one resolve token during the upkeep phase. Those are the set up guidelines the rule book recommends for us.
The very last part of this how to play guide is where I talk about my instructions for my players as your facilitator for this upcoming game session. Given that we’re using Good Society in our existing setting with characters we’ve played lots of times, I want you to feel comfortable with your character’s Good Society portrayal, and I want you to embrace the changes to your character’s reputation and possibly marital status after this oneshot. Accurately portraying who they are is important. So consider this my ‘custom playset’ for oneshots for characters we have grown fond of playing in other ttrpgs. The following is my way to help these mechanics adapt better to your beloved characters and encourage a fun Good Society experience. Okay, here goes. First, desires. Normally in Good Society you look at a playset, such as the drama playset, farce playset, rivalry and revenge playset, et cetera. These playsets offer one more desire option than the number of players. For example, the romantic comedy playset limits you to choosing between desires number one, three, five, or nine for three players. For my custom playset, because you’re trying to fit your existing character in to Good Society, I think you can choose which desire card you pick from the entire desire deck, rather than picking from a limited list. More options should help you find one that make you comfortable adapting your character to this world. Next, relationships. Please consult all the prewritten playsets on pages 185 through 199 to see which relationship card is linked with the desire card you picked. Most of the desire cards seem to be linked with just one relationship card. If you find two relationship cards linked with your desire card because it appears in two different playsets, you can pick which one you use. Any relationship card you can find linked to your desire card in one of those playsets is completely valid. If none of them fit and you find an alternative relationship you like more, talk to me, I’m flexible. Third, choose a family background and choose one starting positive reputation tag, and one starting negative reputation tag. Fourth, role sheets. Please select your choice of role sheet from the entire list of options. The one that most suits your existing character works for me. The Good Society rules do say that you shouldn’t use a role sheet another player in your game is using, so if you can avoid that it would be great. If not, then accurately portraying your existing character is the priority. For this three player one session game, everyone should have two connections. Pick one side to play from the listed double sided connection card. Make each of your connections a sheet that says the player character's name, your relationship, and the connection's opinion of the player character. Each connection starts the game with two resolve tokens.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat, which is a bit more like social combat for this game, and skills. For everyone listening, we encourage you to find the Good Society rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. And if you’d like to hear an example adventure, I’m looking forward to playing Good Society in an upcoming session.
A Nod To Mother (Roll For Shoes)
Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Bartholomew, Nugh, and Mervon receive a late-night cry for help. A gleaming wizard's tower and family issues? Don’t sleep on this episode! A Nod To Mother is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.
Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Bartholomew, Nugh, and Mervon receive a late-night cry for help. A gleaming wizard's tower and family issues? Don’t sleep on this episode! A Nod To Mother is an actual play podcast of Roll For Shoes.
A Collaborative Effort (Daggerheart)
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:07:00 -0300
After a harrowing welcome to Silverwood Haven, Arethor, Qigiq, and Sadie embark on a quest seeking The Alchemist for… something. This episode uses v1.4 playtest rules for the Daggerheart game system.
Trailer for A Collaborative Effort
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:05:00 -0300
After a harrowing welcome to Silverwood Haven, Arethor, Qigiq, and Sadie embark on a quest seeking The Alchemist for… something. This episode uses v1.4 playtest rules for the Daggerheart game system.
Tales Of The Wind (When Sky And Sea Were Not Named)
Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Floating jungle islands are rare so when they show up somebody has to explore them. And who better than Qigiq, Ivy Green, and Colette three of the Firebreathing Kittens? Come listen as they find wind monsters, become influencers amongst lizard people, and find something quite unexpected at the center of this mysterious island! Tales of the Wind is an actual play podcast of When Sky And Sea Were Not Named.
Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Floating jungle islands are rare so when they show up somebody has to explore them. And who better than Qigiq, Ivy Green, and Colette three of the Firebreathing Kittens? Come listen as they find wind monsters, become influencers amongst lizard people, and find something quite unexpected at the center of this mysterious island! Tales of the Wind is an actual play podcast of When Sky and Sea Were Not Named.
Investment Assessment (Risus Epic)
Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:07:00 -0300
A simple errand turns into an impromptu audit as Sadie, Mary, and Bartholomew investigate the astronomic inflation in Shireford Upon Emou. Tune in to this Risus Epic adventure to see if they can solve the town's financial woes!
Trailer for Investment Assessment
Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:05:00 -0300
A simple errand turns into an impromptu audit as Sadie, Mary, and Bartholomew investigate the astronomic inflation in Shireford Upon Emou. Tune in to this Risus Epic adventure to see if they can solve the town's financial woes!
All That Glitters Is Fools Gold (Risus Epic)
Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Join Bill and Maeve as they battle capitalism, Ponzi schemes, and fool's gold.
Trailer for All That Glitters Is Fools Gold
Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Join Bill and Maeve as they battle capitalism, Ponzi schemes, and fool's gold.
Niqamui Frequency (Community Radio)
Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Welcome back listeners! Today, Fennis, Mervon and Sadie are playing "Community Radio". In this episode, we draw back a bit, instead of following a single adventure, Niqamui itself is the focus, more specifically- the local radio station's coverage of some of the supernatural events that take place in Niqamui's casual day-to-day. Breaking Council Decrees! Cult politics! 24hr coverage of the slow encroachment of ominous fog! All this and more are coming up, so don't touch that dial!
Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:03:00 -0300
Greetings and welcome to the Firebreathing Kittens. This is a short overview of how to play Community Radio.
Community Radio is a story and improv focused game. We don't have character sheets. Instead, the players play out slice of life moments from a strange community, while the GM plays the Host of the community's radio station.
The mood of a Community Radio game captures the voice of a community the way Welcome to Nightvale or Northern Exposure can capture the voice of a community. The game is written by Quinn Murphy and is available at thought crime games.itch.io. A second edition is currently in development. The Firebreathing Kittens will be playing version 1.2 of the game. Community Radio is also the basis for the excellent game Radio Free Kaiju, which centers on a community surviving a world populated by giant, deadly monsters.
Prior to the game, all the players have submitted to the GM the following ideas: * An Innocent Person * A Terror * A Place of Interest * A Mood * A Strange Item * Up to 3 original songs or poems to be aired on the radio station. * Optionally, up to 3 decrees from the Niqamui Community Council, to be read on air.
The GM has taken these elements and shuffled them into a very loosely connected series of slice of life scenes that the players will play out in an improv manner. Each slice of life scene is 3-5 minutes long.
After a slice of life scene, there is a short musical interlude. During the musical break, players who were just in the scene write decrees, sometimes about the scene, or about a previous scene, or just about something else entirely. These decrees are secretly passed to the Host, who selects from the available decrees during the Radio Scene.
Radio scenes have a bumper, a report from the Host reacting to and interpreting the slice of life scene, and lastly a decree by the Council. The Host is not allowed to break Council decrees, and the decrees often respond to actions during the slice of life scene.
You'll notice there is nothing about "how do you fight in this game" or "how do I convince someone to do what I want." As an improv-heavy game, Community Radio relies on players to adjudicate using "yes, and" to narrate what their characters are doing and how successful they are. The game is heavily player-generated, with the Host acting as an interpreter more than anything else.
For purposes of the Firebreathing Kittens format, I have added some structure to the scenes so they aren't as random as suggested in the Community Radio rulebook. The key elements are all provided by the players, however, as are all the decrees.
I hope you enjoy our episode featuring Community Radio.
Roots Of Corruption (Alaria Valor and Company)
Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:07:00 -0300
FBK is hired to protect two children as they undergo a pilgrimage. What no one yet realizes is the true danger spreading in the blessed grove. Join Bill, Qigiq, and Armando as they seek a sense of justice and work to become true heroes in this actual play podcast of Alaria Valor and Company.
Trailer for Roots Of Corruption
Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:05:00 -0300
FBK is hired to protect two children as they undergo a pilgrimage. What no one yet realizes is the true danger spreading in the blessed grove. Join Bill, Qigiq, and Armando as they seek a sense of justice and work to become true heroes in this actual play podcast of Alaria Valor and Company.
How To Play Alaria Valor And Company
Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:01:00 -0300
How To Play Alaria Valor And Company
Booty Behind Bars (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 29 May 2024 00:07:00 -0300
During a regular shopping trip, Demyan and Jimmy Potatoes are rudely whisked off by pirates to break into a mysterious complex, which holds secrets that could change the face of the planet... This episode uses the 'Dicing With Death' Playtest TTRPG.
Wed, 29 May 2024 00:05:00 -0300
During a regular shopping trip, Demyan and Jimmy Potatoes are rudely whisked off by pirates to break into a mysterious complex, which holds secrets that could change the face of the planet... This episode uses the 'Dicing With Death' Playtest TTRPG.
CATegorical Success (Psychic Cat Chaos)
Wed, 22 May 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Fennis, Sadie, and Mervon get body swapped with their furry friends. Can they get back? Are greebles real? SHOULD they be? Tune in! CATegorical Success is an actual play podcast of Psychic Cat Chaos.
Trailer for CATegorical Success
Wed, 22 May 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Fennis, Sadie, and Mervon get body swapped with their furry friends. Can they get back? Are greebles real? SHOULD they be? Tune in! CATegorical Success is an actual play podcast of Psychic Cat Chaos.
Wed, 22 May 2024 00:02:00 -0300
Mervon The Stolid Interview
Vested Interest (Summer Camp Slayers)
Wed, 15 May 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Marty, Colette, and Sadie are thrown into a most terrifying retro horror story using Summer Camp Slayers game mechanics. Tag along and see who survives the night, and whose light fizzles out.
Wed, 15 May 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Marty, Colette, and Sadie are thrown into a most terrifying retro horror story using Summer Camp Slayers game mechanics. Tag along and see who survives the night, and whose light fizzles out.
How To Play Summer Camp Slayers
Wed, 15 May 2024 00:01:00 -0300
Hello everybody this is a special episode of the Firebreathing Kittens podcast. I am the Gamemaster for an upcoming episode where I’ll be using the mechanics from the tabletop role-play game, summer camp slayers. You can catch me as ‘Tord Unfrid’ playing a similar game that uses a different flavour of the same mechanics called Pirates of the Bone Blade in episode 266 of the Firebreathing Kittens Podcast. Summer camp slayers is a table top role-play game designed by Richard Woolcock from Zadmar Games using his universal Tricube game system and you can find this and more on DriveThruRPG. I will speak more on the TriCube system towards the end of episode here but for now let’s get into those game mechanics.
General Mechanics:
In summer camp slayers, you roll between one and three D6 6 sided dice, depending on your characters archetype and you compare your highest result against the difficulty set by the game master. For instance, you may roll two 6 sided dice and have a 3 and 5 on the dice the game master set the difficulty at five meaning you have one success. You start with 2D6 add a die to your roll if what you’re doing falls in line with your trait and you remove a die if what you’re doing falls outside the scope of your concept but we'll get into that more during the character creation section. The main thing to remember going forward is that together your trait and concept make up your characters archetype forming half of your character design, the other half of the character design comes from your perks and quirks.
Perks and Quirks (Archetype) Overview:
Speaking of perks and quirks, they allow you to influence the difficulty of the challenge you face. You can influence the difficulty of the task by expending one of your karma points to reduce the difficulty of the task by 1 if you can explain how your perk aids you in that moment. You can also decide to make the difficulty of the task harder before rolling, increasing it by 1, describing how your quirk negatively effected you. If you fail the task when using your quirk you get a karma back but if you succeed you can choose to regain a resolve instead if you'd like. If a player runs out of resolve they are typically removed from the scene and gain an affliction. Afflictions are described by the victor and are treated as temporary quirks for your player. A character with three affliction is retired from play, although they can be brought back if one of their afflictions is cured. Now that we've talked about how to decide the outcome of a challenge let's find out what happens if you succeed or fail.
Success/Failure:
Succeeding a task with one single die above or meeting the difficulty rating will result in a normal success, any additional successful die roll will be a exceptional success. Exceptional successes typical provide additional removed effort tokens or beneficial effects as decided by the game master. The same is true however for failures as well with the distinction being that you have to roll all 1’s on your dice for it to be a critical failure, this typically involves losing double the amount of resolve or additional negative effects as decided by the game master and player such as gaining an affliction. Some tasks are simple and only require a single success to complete them, there are however harder tasks and in these instances effort tokens will be used. A harder task can require anywhere from 2-4 successes or more depending on the situation to whittle down that encounters effort tokens.
Character Creation:
Now that we know how the game works, let’s talk about creating a character. In Summer Camp Slayers you select from a list of four different options during character creation, those four options as discussed earlier are Trait, Concept, Perk and Quirk. At first all the these four terms may sound the same however they do function differently from each other, let’s get into that.
Traits:
We’ll start with trait, in this game system a trait is always the same, regardless of the flavour of the system you’re playing. A trait is one of the following: Agile, Brawny or Crafty; the ABC’s of Tricube! Agile covers things like quickness, dexterity, reflexes, or stealth; they also roll 3d6 for ranged combat. Brawny covers things like strength, toughness, stamina or athletics; they also roll 3d6 for melee combat. Crafty covers things like charisma, intellect, willpower or perception; they also roll 3d6 for mental combat (magic, persuasion, intimidation). Unless something falls within your trait you will roll 2d6, if it does happen to fall within your trait however you get to roll 3d6 instead! For example. A brawny kid would roll 3D6 when trying to lift something heavy off their friends, but only 2D6 if they were trying to avoid getting pinned by the same object as it's falling as that would be an Agile roll.
Concepts:
Next let's talk about concepts, as it is a bit more of a loose idea and changes depending on the flavour of the game type and world you're playing in. The concepts provided for Summer Camp Slayers are Counselor, nurse, lifeguard, groundskeeper, cook, activity leader or kid. Your concept may provide you additional knowledge or information in interactions with NPC's but mechanically it is only used when you're doing something outside the scope of that concept. Let's put that into perspective, let's say you're a Crafty Kid who is a Bookworm and Cautious, if you were to try to impersonate a police officer to cover a story you had about trying to sneak out late at night to investigate the weird things happening in the woods that would most likely go against your concept as a kid as it would be unbelievable. When something falls outside of the scope of your concept you lose a die from your pool before you roll, making a challenge more difficult. This can be offset with your trait, for example if you were instead trying to hotwire a car it would still be unlikely to happen as you're a kid but more likely because of your crafty trait leaving you with the normal 2D6 to roll.
Perks:
Now that we have gone over what makes up your archetype, and the type of traits and concepts, let's move on to talking about how to influence the difficulty of the roll using perks and quirks and which of each exist in this game. Let's start with perks, as they give you the ability to spend your Karma points to reduce the difficulty of your roll making your chances of success better. The perks available in Summer Camp Slayers are Bookworm, occult insight, quick, perceptive, persuasive, advanced combat training, or supernatural ability. If you can describe how your perk aids you during a challenge you can expend 1 Karma to reduce the difficulty of the check by 1. For example, a player with the perk of persuasive might be trying to impersonate a police office and that character has the persuasive perk they could expend 1 Karma to reduce the difficulty of the check by 1. In addition when making group checks there may be times where your perk allows you to bypass a check altogether, doing so still requires 1 Karma however. For example, a character with a supernatural ability may be able to open a locked door with their powers but doing so would still require the expenditure of 1 Karma, if the character is out of Karma describe how their perk comes up short in this moment.
Quirks:
Quirks are things that define your character and may make you more pre-disposed to having a difficult time in certain situations. The Quirks available in Summer Camp Slayers are Hothead, prankster, cautious, show-off, suspicious, sarcastic, or haunted. You can use your Quirk to make the difficulty of any check harder by 1, if you fail you gain 1 Karma but if you succeed you can choose to regain 1 Karma or 1 Resolve, if you regain resolve describe how your success even when facing insurmountable odds emboldens your resolve.
Karma and Resolve:
Let's talk now about Karma and Resolve. Each player starts with three of each and can spend, lose and regain both throughout the game session. When you run out of Karma nothing bad happens to your character, you just aren't able to influence the difficulty of checks positively anymore. If you run out of resolve however you could be temporarily removed from the scene and at best gain an affliction; if not both. For example, if your character is trying to jump off a roof to a nearby tree and fails their check and you only have 1 resolve remaining, reducing you to 0, your player may go unconscious temporarily and when they awake have a 'concussed' affliction. In another case your character may be trying to like we said before impersonate a police officer and if they fail perhaps they gain the 'untrustworthy' affliction.
Afflictions:
Affliction can be temporary or permanent depending on the severity of the failure. For instance if we use the examples above the concussed affliction would be temporary while the 'untrustworthy' affliction would be a more permanent one. Permanent afflictions cant be turned into quirks when leveling up to take advantage of them to regain resolve instead of them just being a hindrance. For example turning the untrustworthy affliction into a quirk might allow you to lie easier in the future as your reputation fades but the ability to land a false truth sticks like glue.
Leveling Up:
Speaking of leveling up, when doing so in this system you typically choose a new perk or quirk each level and increase either your karma or resolve by 1 every other level. You can opt out of choosing a new perk or quirk and instead choose to turn a permanent affliction into a quirk upon leveling up.
Combat and Challenges:
Now that we know how to create our character and the mechanics of the game, let's talk about combat and challenges. Generally in combat the Game Master will go around the table asking each of the players their actions for their turn choosing the turn order based on what narratively makes the most sense. The players will each choose their action and the game master will set the difficulty and the trait of the action. For example, a person swinging a sword at a Goblin with 2 effort tokens would have to roll a Brawny 5 check, if they were to shoot it they would roll a Agile 5 check and if they were to use magic against it they would roll a Crafty 5 check. The player would take into account their Trait to see if they could add any dice to their 2D6 pool, your concept does not matter during combat as it is assumed each character is trained in some form of combat. The player has an opportunity to make the difficulty higher before the roll using their Quirk or make the roll easier after their roll using their Perk as they see fit. If they roll a 5 or better on one of the dice the attack lands and one effort token is removed from the goblin, if they have more than 1 dice meet or beat a 5 they would remove 2 effort tokens and effectively remove the goblin from combat. The GM will go around the table having each player take a turn until all enemy combatants are removed from combat. Challenges are non-combat events that come up during a game like talking to NPC's, sneaking, lockpicking etc. and work in a similar way with the distinction being that challenges take into account your Concept as well, remove a dice from your 2D6 pool if it is outside your scope. For example, a Brawny Groundskeeper trying to use a flamethrower against zombies would only roll 1D6 as they don't benefit from their Trait and burning the well kempt nature of the camp would go against their concept.
Spells:
Many fantasy, horror, and even science fiction settings describe characters with supernatural powers such as telekinesis, alchemy, psionics, etc. These arcane gifts can be easily represented as perks. A character with such a perk can do anything a trained person in the setting could achieve with
appropriate tools, as long as it thematically fits their type of magic. Spending karma allows the mage to perform even greater feats of magic, overcoming any challenge a professional could manage with specialized gear. Mages can choose three spells during character creation; these determine how and when they can use their magic. Each spell needs to have a name and a limitation—e.g., “fiery bolt (destructive),” “lightning shield (personal),” “illusionary disguise (ritualistic),” etc. You can create more potent spells by giving them additional limitations. This narrows their scope, and the GM should be more flexible when interpreting their effect. Perhaps your “invisibility sphere” is ritualistic and requires a focus, but can be used to conceal the entire party. New spells are learned during play, at the GM’s discretion—perhaps a wizard can learn from scrolls or spell books, or maybe the GM awards sorcerers a new spell each time they gain an advance.
For the players in my upcoming session, please level up twice. Each level up will allow you to choose either one additional perk or quirk, if there aren’t any on the list that appeal to you feel free to come up with your own. Additionally please choose either your Karma or Resolve and increase it by 1 to a total of 4.
Hopefully this information regarding the rules is helpful to my players as they build their character and try to understand the mechanics of this game system. For everyone listening, we encourage you to find the Tricube system and other variants of it like Summer Camp Slayers for yourselves, and play a game with friends. If you'd like to hear an example adventure, I'm looking forward to playing Summer Camp Slayers in an upcoming session. Thank you everyone for listening and take care.
I Eat Challenges For Breakfast (LUCAS)
Wed, 08 May 2024 00:07:00 -0300
When Demyan and Armando find out a sneaky rabbit has stolen a Bag of Tricks, they hunger for justice! Will they follow their nose and find the culprit? Or will they be serially thwarted by multiple challenges? I Eat Challenges For Breakfast is an actual play podcast of the LUCAS rpg system.
Trailer for I Eat Challenges For Breakfast
Wed, 08 May 2024 00:03:00 -0300
When Demyan and Armando find out a sneaky rabbit has stolen a Bag of Tricks, they hunger for justice! Will they follow their nose and find the culprit? Or will they be serially thwarted by multiple challenges? I Eat Challenges For Breakfast is an actual play podcast of the LUCAS rpg system.
Come Fly To Space (No Port Called Home)
Wed, 01 May 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Ivy, Tord, Fennis, and Colette have to save a soup kitchen! Naturally this means a heist of a huge diamond, a fake murder, a duel, a pop song from the 70s, and a spaceship?! Join them on this exciting episode of Firebreathing Kittens! Come Fly To Space is an actual play podcast of the No Port Called Home RPG system.
Wed, 01 May 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Ivy, Tord, Fennis, and Colette have to save a soup kitchen! Naturally this means a heist of a huge diamond, a fake murder, a duel, a pop song from the 70s, and a spaceship?! Join them on this exciting episode of Firebreathing Kittens! Come Fly To Space is an actual play podcast of the No Port Called Home RPG system.
How to play No Port Called Home
Wed, 01 May 2024 00:01:00 -0300
How to play No Port Called Home.
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for No Port Called Home. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play No Port Called Home yourselves.
There are a dozen different races to pick from in No Port Called Home. They include humans, giant jotunn, amphibious nix, genetically enhanced vesp, nomadic hedonistic fae, indestructible robotic archon, freed former worker drone tsuku, and more. When you build your character, you will pick one of these races. Use the race’s character sheet as your starting character sheet, that you’ll add more and more things to later. The rule book has an example crew mate named Zephyr who is a tsuku race, a freed former worker drone. I will refer to Zephyr’s character sheet throughout this how to play guide, using Zephyr as an example.
Let’s talk about classes. No Place Called Home has nearly forty classes. You will pick three of them to build your character. These classes include a calibrist who obsessively optimizes a firearm, a swordfiend who stabs opponents with point objects, a martial artist who fights with their hands, a brute who fights with this chair they happened to find, a fortress that gains defensive bonuses as long as they hold their position, an engineer who can maintain and improve the team’s vehicle, a strategist who can delegate extra actions to their teammates, a con artist who and lies and fibs, a changeling who can rearrange their limbs, a conduit who can splice their mind into machines to remote listen to conversations, a swarmmaster with clouds of loyal insects, and more. Doesn’t that sound like a lot of fun options? Great news, you get to pick not one, not two, but three of them. Which three should you pick? The rule book suggests picking a combination of classes that empower you to take action both in and out of combat. Don’t limit yourself to only in-combat effects. For our example character build, Zephyr has the three classes of: martial artist who fights with their hands, freerunner who sprints and runs and does flips, and ranger, who prevents their teammates from setting off terrain effects through their expert guidance. Each class has some questions to think and write about. For example, among other questions, the ranger asks you to list four places you have been. The martial artist asks you, among other questions, if you advertise the fact that you are skilled in combat, or do you allow others to underestimate you? The freerunner asks you what you would do if a situation forced you to leave someone behind who could not run as fast. The three classes you pick will have questions that help you think about how your character would act.
Let’s talk about skills. There are four categories of skills: physical, social, knowledge, and practical. Physical skills include agility, dexterity, strength, your ability to orient yourself in zero gravity, stealth, endurance, and how well you squirm. Knowledge skills include your knowledge of biotech, history, people, places, engineering, computers, and medicine. Social skills include your ability to soothe, entertain, deceive, manipulate, persuade, command, and read people. Practical skills include your perception, survival, research, crafting, and piloting skills. There are more than twenty skills overall.
When you pick three classes, each class will come with points in skills and stats. Start out with a zero in all skills, and then add the numbers from your classes and write the total on your character sheet. For example, Zephyr is a martial artist, freerunner, and ranger. The martial artist gives them +2 in all physical skills, so that’s a 2 in agility, dexterity, strength, zero-g, stealth, endurance, and squirm. The martial artist also adds 2 in people reading. The freerunner adds 4 to agility and zero g, bringing those up to six, and adds two in stealth, endurance and squirm, bringing those up to four, and also adds two to entertain and perception. The ranger adds two to agility, endurance, stealth, knowledge of biotech, knowledge of places, soothe, perception, survival, and craft. That bumps Zephyr’s agility up to eight, and at six their endurance, zero-g, and stealth are pretty high, too. This has been an example of how to add your three classes’ skills together to get your character’s starting skill numbers.
Here are some example skill rolls Zephyr could make in No Place Called Home. Hungry in a field outside town, Zephyr might roll a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, and add their survival skill to forage for edible greens. If Zephyr was trying to think of a low cost bakery in town, you would roll on a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, plus their places skill number. If Zephyr was trying to persuade a non player character, or NPC, to give them a discount on day old baked goods, you would roll a d20 and add your persuade skill number. If you were trying to sneak past the baker to get into the kitchen, that would be a stealth roll of a d20 plus your stealth skill. If the baker found you and you wanted to jump out the window, that would be a d20 plus Zephyr’s agility skill. You would roll like this using your skills when attempting to accomplish a goal outside of combat.
Let’s talk about stats. Your character’s starting stats are the sum of the stats they get from their three classes. Add together the numbers in the symbols from each of your three classes and your race to get your starting stats. There are eight stats in No Place Called Home. Hit Points, attack, defense, initiative, skills per level, willpower, reflex, and fortitude.
Hit points are the cross symbol. If your character reaches negative ten hit points, they die. Zephyr has twenty two hit points, so if they take twenty two points of damage they would reach zero hit points and fall unconscious, and if they take thirty two points of damage, they would hit negative ten and die.
Attack is the symbol that looks like a sniper scope, and defense is the shield symbol. The attack skill is the number you add to a roll of a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, when you attack. You hit your target if you meet or beat their defense roll. When someone attacks you, roll a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, and add your defense number. If you beat their attack roll, their attack missed you and you take no damage. For example Zephyr has a three in attack and a four in defense. When trying to attack someone, Zephyr rolls their twenty sided dice and adds their attack of three. When being attacked by someone, Zephyr rolls a twenty sided dice and adds their defense of four. Because the average is a ten on a twenty sided dice, Zephyr’s average attack is thirteen and average defense is fourteen.
Here is an example attack. From their class bonuses, if they’re attacking unarmed, Zephyr gets two more conditional attack bonus from martial artist and one from freerunner. Their hands are 2 d4 bludgeoning weapons from their martial artist class. Zephyr swings a punch at their target. You roll a d20 and add your base attack, which is three, and also add your conditional attack because you are attacking unarmed. That’s a ten on the dice plus three base attack plus two plus one for conditional attack bonuses for being unarmed for a sixteen total to hit. Meet it to beat it. You would hit any enemy that has a sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, etc lower defense. To calculate the damage dealt, you would roll two four sided dice, also called d4, and add the results together. For example if one dice was a a three and one dice was a one, that would be four bludgeoning damage total from your martial artist’s fists.
Initiative is the symbol that looks like a diamond floating above a ripple on a pond. Initiative is the order people take action during combat. When a fight starts, everyone rolls a twenty sided dice and adds their initiative number. The highest rolls go first. For example Zephyr has a four in initiative. If Zephyr rolled a ten on their dice and added their four in initiative, the total would be fourteen. With fourteen as their initiative roll, Zephyr would take action before people who rolled a thirteen or below. But someone who rolled a fifteen or higher would get to take action before Zephyr.
Skills per level is the symbol that looks like a concave triangle with three dots on its three sides. Your character’s skills per level stat is how many skill ranks you gain each time you level up. These skill ranks are spread out amongst all your skills. When you level up, if you have the skill point for it, you can increase a single skill one point. Zephyr has a six in their stat of skills per level. This means that of the twenty six skills, they can increase six of them by one point each time they level up. For example, they level up and choose to increase their agility, dexterity, stealth, endurance, craft, and piloting skills by one point each. Because we’re talking about leveling up, I should mention that when you level up, you get to pick two feats that must be in different classes. My players, you will be leveling up twice, so you should have four feats total, with at most two of them in the same class.
Willpower is the circle symbol, reflexes is the diamond symbol, and fortitude’s symbol is a rectangle wider at the base than the top. Willpower, reflexes, and fortitude are all resistance bonuses. When a danger is attacking you in a specific way, your game master might prompt you to roll a saving throw. Zephyr’s willpower is 2. If the game master says the enemy is very scary and Zephyr should roll a willpower saving throw to see if they’re afraid or not, they would roll a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, and add their willpower of two. For willpower, Zephyr’s lowest possible roll is a three and highest possible roll is a twenty two. Zephyr’s reflex stat is seven. If the game master says the floor is collapsing under Zephyr and a successful reflex save will let them jump out of the way instead of falling, Zephyr would roll a d20 and add their reflex stat, seven. For reflex, Zephyr’s lowest possible roll is an eight, and highest possible roll is a twenty seven. The last resistance type is fortitude, which Zephyr has a two in. If the game master says that Zephyr has just been poisoned, Zephyr would roll a d20 and add two to their roll to resist this challenge to their fortitude.
Along with numbers for stats and skills, your character’s three classes will also come with a variety of other conditional bonuses and physical equipment. For example the ranger gives Zephyr the equipment of a tent, ten meters of rope, a compass, matches, a 2 d4 hunting knife, a water filter, sturdy shoes, bug spray, and sunscreen. The freerunner gives Zephyr an extra reaction per round, and +1 to attack when attacking unarmed. The martial artist gives Zephyr a +2 to attack when attacking unarmed, and Zephyr’s hands now count as 2 d4 bludgeoning weapons. Write these conditional bonuses, equipment, and other details from your three classes on your character sheet.
For the players in my upcoming session, please level up twice. Each level up will increase your feats and your skills. For feats, choose two feats that must be from different classes. We’re leveling up twice, so you should have four feats on your character sheet for this session. For stats, with each level up you can increase the level up stat’s number of skills by one. For example if you have a five in your level up stat, you can increase five stats by one point each time you level up. You can choose different skills the second time you level up if you’d like.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat and skills. For everyone listening, we encourage you to find the No Port Called Home rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. And if you’d like to hear an example adventure, I’m looking forward to playing No Port Called Home in an upcoming session.
The Show Must Go On (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Embark on a thrilling journey with Demyan, Nugh, and Maeve in a Dicing with Death adventure! Watch as they cast roles, conquer fate, and spice up the stage to save the play!
Trailer for The Show Must Go On
Wed, 24 Apr 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Embark on a thrilling journey with Demyan, Nugh, and Maeve in a Dicing with Death adventure! Watch as they cast roles, conquer fate, and spice up the stage to save the play!
Aura Of Mishui (Cascade Effect)
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Bartholomew, Fennis, and Sadie respond to a request for help from Mishui to investigate an epidemic of memory loss. This episode uses the gameplay mechanics from the system Cascade Effect.
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Bartholomew, Fennis, and Sadie respond to a request for help from Mishui to investigate an epidemic of memory loss. This episode uses the gameplay mechanics from the system Cascade Effect.
Can't Be Hot And Guilty (Pirates of the Bone Blade)
Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Marty, Demyan, Tord, and Sadie use the Pirates of the Bone Blade system to rescue a bad boy who might not be so bad.
Trailer for Can't Be Hot And Guilty
Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Marty, Demyan, Tord, and Sadie use the Pirates of the Bone Blade system to rescue a bad boy who might not be so bad.
Dreamscape Divers (Ludus Nightmares Into Reality)
Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Bo, Marty, and Sadie use the Ludus: Nightmares Into Reality system to dive through layers of dreamscapes and rescue someone from Bo's forgotten past.
Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Bo, Marty, and Sadie use the Ludus: Nightmares Into Reality system to dive through layers of dreamscapes and rescue someone from Bo's forgotten past.
How To Play Ludus Nightmares Into Reality
Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:01:00 -0300
How To Play Ludus: Nightmares Into Reality.
Hello! I’m the GM running the game Ludus: nightmares into reality in an upcoming episode of Firebreathing Kittens. This is a brief introduction to the game’s mechanics to help familiarize our players and listeners with the game before we play.
Ludus is a game where the players influence a dream using “twists” and try to turn it into a true nightmare. There is no character sheet, nor weapons nor magic. Technically, it doesn’t even really need a GM. The players are in charge and it’s very improvisation-heavy.
That’s not to say there isn’t a mechanic. There is, but it’s rather tricky to explain so I’ll do my best.
The game starts with the characters establishing a dream. Then, they take turns adding a twist to the dream until they reach 20 twists or they decide they’re done. A twist is basically “yes, and…”-ing. So if the dream is sheep hopping over a fence, a twist would be “the fence has barbs”, then another twist is “the fence starts to grow and the barbs get closer to the sheep”, etc. etc. until the players decide to stop.
This is where the game’s core mechanic comes in. The mechanic to determine whether or not the dream successfully turns into a nightmare is a cursed formula. The best way I can describe it is this: x(y@zD#w). I encourage you to write this down, so I’ll repeat it: x(y@zD#w). Where x = the number of twists; y = the dice to roll based on the number of twists to the dream; z = the number of players; and w = the number of dice values that equal the wild die’s value. @, D, and # are placeholders within the formula and hold no alternative meaning. The equation will be explained further in a second, but with the addition of twists, we get three values to plug into the formula: x (the number of twists), y (the dice to roll based on x), and z (the number of players). The game rules include a table that tells you which dice to use for what number of turns.
So, we have three values. Now we roll the dice, represented by the variable y. This can be anywhere from one to three dice; no matter what, one of the lowest dice Must be designated as the wild die. If the wild die hits its maximum value, then it explodes and you roll another die of the same value. If that die also explodes, you repeat the process until it no longer explodes. For example, if your wild die is a d6 (or your common six-sided die) and you roll a 6, you roll another d6. If that die also rolls a 6, you roll another d6, etc. etc. until you don’t roll a 6.
Next, you sort the dice from lowest face value to highest face value going from left to right. Count the number of dice that have the same face value as the wild die, including the wild die itself. This number is the w variable in our equation which again, is x(y@zD#w). We’ve finally finished writing our equation. Now we have to resolve it.
Starting with the lowest die, count, from left to right, the number of dice equal to our w variable. The die you land on is the number of Rounds you have to do things in the Ballad section (more on that in a bit). Next, starting from the highest die value, count, from right to left, the number of dice equal to the z variable. Add up the face values of the dice you counted. This sum is the Success value.
Now, compare your Success value to the number equal to your x variable. If the Success value is greater than x, the dream is twisted into a true nightmare. If the Success value is less than x, the dream gets weird but resolves as a dream normally would.
After the resolution of the Success value, we move into the Ballad section. This is where the dream fully manifests into a failed or true nightmare. The players go around taking turns describing what happens, again using “yes, and…” to craft the nightmare. This “yes, and…” is known as a verse in the Ballad section, rather than a twist like it was in the dream section. A round is made up of each player contributing one verse, and the entire Ballad section has a number of rounds equal to the w variable. The nightmare should be a full story that resolves at the end of the last round.
And that’s how you play Ludus! In the game I’m running, the players will need to make three true nightmares to succeed in their quest. Before we begin play, though, we’ll also go over player comfort and safety. I don’t want any of our fellow Firebreathing Kittens to feel overly uncomfortable, and this game has the potential for disturbing stuff to arise. We’ll be talking about lines, veils, and x-cards before we play. Lines are firm boundaries: any topic that is a line for a player won’t be brought up, period. Veils are more loose, things that players may feel uncomfortable with but also feel ok exploring. X-cards are for players to use if those veils are explored and they don’t like how it makes them feel. Anything that is x-carded will be treated as
a line and the subject will be dropped. For anyone playing with me, I encourage use of the x-card. You’re the only one who knows your boundaries, so please share them if you are truly discomforted. We’re all friends here.
Well, that should do it! I hope this was a helpful guide to understanding the game of Ludus: nightmares into reality. If you’re interested in playing the game, I hope you listen to the upcoming game. Let us know what you think of it! Thanks for listening. Bye!
Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Actual play podcasts of the solo play role playing games "You, Beyond The Pale", "Artefact", and "Thousand Year Old Vampire".
We Carry Stuff And Get Paid (Salvage Union)
Wed, 27 Mar 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Nugh, Ozob, and Colette are hired to use their salvage mechs to brave rock slides, biotitans, and magic scepters to bring back valuable relics and valuable loot on behalf of their employer. We Carry Stuff And Get Paid is an actual play podcast of the Salvage Union RPG system.
Trailer for We Carry Stuff And Get Paid
Wed, 27 Mar 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Nugh, Ozob, and Colette are hired to use their salvage mechs to brave rock slides, biotitans, and magic scepters to bring back valuable relics and valuable loot on behalf of their employer. We Carry Stuff And Get Paid is an actual play podcast of the Salvage Union RPG system.
Electric Boogaloo (Salvage Union)
Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:07:00 -0300
Electric Boogaloo is an actual play podcast of Savage Union. Join Crud and Demyan as they mount their mechs and search for artifacts and treasure. Our adventures arrive in Havas Sands after a recent earthquake uncovers a ravine. Can these two with Zahra get to the artifacts before other teams do? Listen to find out!
Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:05:00 -0300
Electric Boogaloo is an actual play podcast of Savage Union. Join Crud and Demyan as they mount their mechs and search for artifacts and treasure. Our adventures arrive in Havas Sands after a recent earthquake uncovers a ravine. Can these two with Zahra get to the artifacts before other teams do? Listen to find out!
Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:01:00 -0300
How to play Salvage Union.
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Salvage Union. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Salvage Union yourselves.
The sections I’ll talk about are:
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Writing prompt
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How to attack
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Distances
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Actions
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Initiative
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Character creation
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Pushing a mech
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How to salvage
Writing prompt: The general idea of this system is that you and your mech are exploring the wasteland of a ruined civilization. You have friends who also have mechs and are exploring with you, which is good, because you wouldn’t want to be alone, not with all those Bio-Titan behemoth monstrosities that are amalgamations of creatures and machines, roaming the scrap filled battlefields. Can you salvage something useful from this scarred region, creating opportunity from the debris? Let’s find out, in Salvage Union.
How to attack: I will describe the general idea first and then dive into specifics. The general idea is that to attack, first you choose a target you can see who is within weapon range. Next you roll to hit. If you successfully hit, then you inflict your weapon damage. The game master subtracts your weapon’s damage from your target’s either hit points or structure points. Biological things like pilots have hit points, and constructed things like mechs have structure points. Most player characters start at 10 hit points. Most level 1 mechs range between 9 and 17 structure points. Most allied non player characters have 4 four hit points. Tech level 1 weapons deal between 1 and 4 damage per hit. That means that on average it takes as few as three or as many as ten strikes to reduce something that had 10 HP to 0, at which point they fall unconscious and are at the mercy of a mortal blow or not.
Now let’s discuss specifics. Salvage Union uses a twenty sided dice, also called a d20. There are no modifiers or bonuses to add onto the roll. If you get a 1, you fail horribly. You miss the target you’re attacking, you suffer something called a Setback with a capital S, and a severe consequence of the Game Master’s choice happens. Setbacks can affect your health, your reputation, your items, your environment, et cetera. For example with health: you could get hurt, such as taking two HP damage out of your 10 HP total, or roll on the critical injury table, or your module is destroyed. Some examples that affect your reputation are that you could lose an ally, a bounty could be put on your head, you could realize you broke a law and are now cast out of a community. Example setbacks impacting your inventory are that your weapon jams or runs out of ammo, you lose one of your treasured possessions, or your weapon’s effectiveness is now less than it should be. Example environmental setbacks are that your path is blocked by debris, or the town you were heading to got decimated by Bio-Titans before you could get there, or enemies are now flanking you. Those are just some of the potential consequences of rolling a 1 on the d20. If you roll between a 2 and 5, you fail and still face the Setback with a capital S, but without the severe consequence. If you roll between a 6 and a 10 on the dice, then you succeed at what you were trying to do, but you face a tough choice. Your gamemaster will give you a choice between setbacks. If you were attacking, you still hit, but you’re also going to have to make a tough choice. If you roll an 11 to 19 on the dice, you succeed! If you were attacking, you hit your target and deal standard damage. If you weren’t attacking, you achieve your goal without any compromises. And lastly if you roll a twenty on the twenty sided dice, you nailed it. You manage an outstanding success, and may achieve an additional bonus of your choice as well as your intended action. If you were attacking, you can choose to double your damage or do an appropriate bonus effect.
Here is an example of how to attack. You’re approaching a scrap heap, preparing to harvest it in your mech. You reach out your mech’s left hand. Like a pit trap spider, an amalgamation of machine and biology clamps down upon your mech’s left hand! It starts to drag you into its pit! You attack the enemy bio-titan with your mech’s chainsaw arm. You roll a d20 to see if you hit. You roll a 10, so you do succeed and hit, dealing two damage with your chainsaw arm to the pit trap creature-machine, but your game master gives you two Setbacks with a capital S to pick from. Either the module on your left hand was damaged by the bite, and your rigging arm now takes three energy to use instead of its normal two energy, or something unspecified and negative has happened in the town you were heading to. That’s an example of an attack in Salvage Union. You can also roll that d20 to do most skill actions you would do in other roleplaying games, such as convincing an NPC to tell you something, or intimidating an enemy. If you’re interested in sneaking, stealing, and performing similar rogue activities frequently, consider the ranger skill tree, where you auto-succeed at those activities if you take the infiltration advanced move.
Distances: Distances in Salvage Union are: close range, medium, long, and far. Close range is like, you can walk up to it in just a second or two. Medium range is you could throw something and hit it. Long range is you can still see it with your unaided eye, and discern its outline. Far range is outside of the accuracy of most weapons.
Actions: Salvage Union defines lengths of times by using a word and then the word action. A downtime action represents one week. A long action takes about one hour. A short action takes about ten minutes and is too long to be during combat. A turn action is something you could do in a minute or so. Yes, you can do a turn action in combat as your whole turn. One turn action is needed for a mech to start up or shut down. A free action doesn’t take up much time at all. Talking to other characters is a free action. And lastly a re-action is less than ten seconds and is so fast that someone could re-act on someone else’s turn.
Initiative: You and all of your fellow players and allied NPCs act together in what is called a group. The enemy band of five wastelanders that ambushed you also count as one group. This first round, the wastelanders ambushed you, so they go first. One of them takes their action, firing a ranged attack at the players before ducking behind the scrap heap. Then after they’re finished, if you’re still alive, it’s the players’ turn. One player can move and take one action, and as many free actions as you like. Then it’s back to the enemy group, where again one enemy can attack your group. Then it’s back to your group, where one player character can move and perform an action, and as many free actions as they like. It goes back and forth between groups like that. Once everyone has acted, the round is over. At the end of the round, one player character represents everybody and rolls a twenty sided dice. They consult the group iniative table to see what the next round is like. If they roll a 1, well, you’re ambushed again. That means the wastelanders attacked you, then hid, and you don’t know where they went. Imagine an old west movie with a shootout, and you can’t see where they’re coming from. If they roll a 2 to a 5, one NPC of the GM’s choice, probably an enemy, gets one turn in, and then play passes to the player group. If they roll a 6 to a 10, then one NPC chosen by the players acts first. Then the player group can go. On an 11 to 19, one player chosen by the player characters can act first, with play then passing to the enemy NPC group. And lastly if you roll a 20 on the group initiative table, two pilots can act before the enemy group can go.
Character creation: You’re going to be creating three different things in Salvage Union: a pilot, a mech, and a crawler. The pilot is your character. The mech is their vehicle, or steed. The crawler is a slowly moving setting, like a cruise ship.
The pilot starts with their appearance, 10 hit points, 5 ability points, 6 inventory spots, a core class, a starting ability from your core class, two tech 1 pilot equipments, a call sign, a background, a keepsake, and a motto.
Let’s build an example pilot named Sadie. She’s a shy macrotous elf, with big old ears sticking out horizontal from her silver hair. Sadie starts with 10 hit points, 5 ability points, 6 inventory spots, the core class of Hacker, and the starting ability of Well Actually… This lets her ask questions about systems, modules, or technology. When she asks a question, her player rolls a twenty sided dice, also called a d20. On a 20 she can ask 5 questions and get legitimately true answers. From 11-19 she can ask three questions and still be getting truthful answers. From 6-10 she can ask two questions and get one true answer and one false answer. From 2-5 you have to make up an answer to your own question. And on a one, everyone knows you don’t know the answer. She’s got two tech 1 pilot equipments, which are a first aid kit and a portable comms unit. The first aid kit has three uses. It lets Sadie give a target creature in close range 3 hit points as a turn action. The portable comms unit lets Sadie communicate with anything else that has the communicator trait within medium range as a free action. They both take up an inventory spot. Inventory spots are also taken up by weapons, which take up one inventory spot, and scrap, which takes up three inventory spots, so make sure to keep track of how many open inventory spots you have left. Continuing, Sadie gets a call sign of Silver Mouse, which people can call her on their communicator. She gets a background of Corpo Exec, which represents that she comes from being at the top of its hierarchy, and that something caused her to stray away from the luxurious life it gave her. Her keepsake is one of her mother’s earrings. She’s looking for the other one. And her motto is: be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. You can spend your five ability points on anything you want, have fun browsing through the things that cost AP. There seem to be a wide variety of ways to customize your pilot. Advanced and Legendary abilities can be unlocked at high levels. For my players in my upcoming game, I recommend choosing one of the character paths or mech builds that gives you access to the salvaging trait, so that you can participate in salvaging, see page 248.
Second, you’re going to be building a mech. Your mech starts with 20 tech 1 scrap. You can spend this scrap to pick your chassis, which will come with its own stats and ability. You can also spend this scrap to pick your tech 1 systems and modules. Also choose your mech’s quirk, appearance, and pattern name.
Let’s build an example mech. Sadie’s mech starts with 20 tech 1 scrap, which you use as currency to buy the mech based on its salvage value, which is like its cost. The symbol for salvage value is a gear, so if you see a 10 inside a gear with a lot of teeth, that’s a salvage value of 10. Sadie spends 10 tech 1 scrap buying the 10 salvage value chassis model called the spectrum. That’s half her scrap, so she writes down that she has 10 remaining to spend on systems and modules. Systems and modules include things like weapons and salvaging tools, so you might not want to spend all your salvage value on the chassis alone. The spectrum chassis has a bunch of stats, so she writes those down, too. The spectrum comes with 17 structure points, 11 energy points, 3 heat cap, 7 system slots, 4 module slots, 6 cargo capacity, tech level 1, 10 salvage value, those all go on the mech’s character sheet. The symbol for systems and modules is a triangle, so if you see a 1 inside a triangle that means it takes up one module slot. From this example, this mech had a maximum of four module slots. Energy points are something you run out of, and heat cap is something you don’t want to build up to, or your mech can overheat. The mech also comes with an ability, which for this example is called Data Scanner. This ability lets you spend two energy points to scan a single object in close range. It can be a mech, system, module, vehicle, creature, artefact, structure, fauna, flora, anything. You can ask two questions about the object and the answers given must be true. You also now have its blueprint if it was an intact mech chassis, system, or module. This is a neat combo with Sadie’s other ability. She’s going to get so many rewards for asking questions during the game. Maybe having all these good possible outcomes will motivate her to overcome her shyness, speak up, and ask a question. If she can just overcome her fear of new people enough to ask a question, so many good things will happen. It’s neat when mechanics encourage roleplaying. Next she pick a quirk for her mech, for example the cockpit has far, far too many buttons. And an appearance, which is that it has spiky bits, the better for extending to probe objects it’s investigating. Lastly, she gives it a pattern name: Tickle Monster. And voila! Sadie has a mech. For my players in my upcoming game, I encourage you to take a look at the rigging arm on page 167 so that you’ll be able to participate in rigging salvage action, see page 249. Triangles are how many system or module spots you need open to take it, the T number is the tech level, and the number inside the gear is the salvage value.
Lastly, the party is going to be sharing a crawler. Someone, possibly the Game Master, will pick a crawler type, writing down its ability, stats, bonuses, structure points, upkeep, and upgrade cost. Choose a tech 1 weapons system for your crawler, and give it a name and tag number. Name the crawler’s NPCs and give them each their own background, keepsake, motto, and 4 HP each. You Game Master might hand everyone a page with their crawler information on it before the game starts. If you’re a player in my upcoming Salvage Union game, that’s what I’m going to do, so you don’t have to build the crawler yourself. But since this is an example of how to play Salvage Union, let’s build an example crawler together.
A crawler is basically a roaming settlement. Imagine a tour bus with all the members of a band on it, or a cruise ship, or a generational space flight. In this example, we’re building a trade caravan crawler, so imagine a series of covered wagons rolling out from Saint Louis to head to California back in the eighteen hundreds. This crawler has an ability: improved trading bay. When you begin to roll for what is available in the trading bay, use an improved table instead of the one generally available to most players. It also comes with an NPC who is an experienced trader. For example Khairul Smith is on board and they’re really good at getting deals on boats. They’ve got a keepsake of cool person hair gel, and a motto of “success is the best revenge”. By being present, Khairul Smith reduces the cost of any mech chassis, system, or module available in the improved trading bay by one scrap, with a minimum cost of one. And they have 4 HP, so if you let them die you lose that bonus to your trades. Righto, we’re done with character creation. We’ve created a pilot, we’ve created a mech, and we’ve explained how to build a crawler, which I imagine might be done by your game master.
Pushing a mech: You can push your mech to add two heat to it and re roll a d20 dice. First, resolve all the effects of the re-roll. Then add two to the mech’s heat and roll a heat check d20 dice. If your mech has less heat than the number you roll on the dice, it’s fine. If your heat is equal to or greater than your roll, then your reactor has overloaded. Roll on the reactor overload table. Your mech might shut down, blow a module, or explode and be completely destroyed. That’s no good. To reduce how much heat you have, shut it down and let it cool off for one hour. After the hour, heat resets to zero. While it’s shut off, it’s vulnerable and takes twice as much damage from attacks.
Here is an example of pushing. A behemoth bio-titan dragged one of the party members back to its lair and has spun it up in a silk cocoon to eat later. The bio-titan is currently sleeping its physical damage off in one corner of the lair. You are trying to sneak your way into the lair to rescue your friend unnoticed. You roll a d20 to make a stealth check. The d20 lands on a 4, which means you fail and are about to experience a Setback with a capital S. Based upon the roleplaying situation, you are guessing that the GM is going to do an environmental Setback, where the behemoth bio-titan wakes up. But you know you’re not match for that machine-creature. That’s what you told your friend earlier, the one who’s now in a cocoon. Even though your mech only has a heat capacity of three and pushing would add two, you think this is worth it, and you push your mech. First, you re-roll that d20 dice. Success! A 15! You succeed at what you were trying to do, which was to sneak up to that cocoon without waking the behemoth up. You achieve your goal without any compromises. Now that we have resolved the effects of the re-roll, we add two to the mech’s heat and we roll a heat check. You’re haven’t reached your mech’s heat capacity of three, so that’s good. If you had, you would have to make a heat check every turn you start at your heat capacity. But you’re not there yet, so it’s just one heat check for having pushed and re-rolled the dice. You roll for the heat check and consult the table on page 235. You get a 12, and see that from an 11 to 19, your mech reactor has overheated. Subtract two, the number of heat you currently have, from your structure points, which are like hit points for mechs. The mech shuts down and gains the vulnerable trait, where it takes double damage from any attack. It will re-activate at the end of your next turn, and won’t decrease how much heat it has until you shut it down and let it cool off for one hour. But in this example, pushing the mech was worth it. You’re at the cocoon with your friend and can beging to cut them free, the bio-titan behemoth none the wiser.
How to salvage: Players who posses the salvaging or rigging traits can area salvage, mech salvage, scrap, repair, patch up, load, mount, and craft. If that includes you, it’s not a bad idea to print out or screen capture pages 248 and 249, which lists your salvaging moves. There are five types of item you can find in the wasteland that can be useful to you. Chassis are the core frame of the mech, the part that has all the stats. For example a jackhammer, mule, and kraken are three chassis good at mining, carrying cargo, and swimming, respectively. Systems are hardware that can be mounted on a chassis, such as excavator arms and weapons. Modules are software that you can upgrade your chassis with, like a better sound system or faster RAM. A vehicle is something like a carriage or a wagon that isn’t quite a mech. And lastly, scrap is that very last working part pulled from an otherwise completely broken junk heap, a component that might be useful for crafting something one day. The wasteland leaves objects in a range of conditions, ranging from intact, to damaged, to destroyed. To salvage an area, roll to area salvage and if you’re successful, reduce the supply of that area by one. Most areas default start at five supply. Chassis, systems and modules take up as many cargo spots as their salvage value number. Each piece of scrap you harvest takes up one mech cargo spot, or three pilot inventory spots.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat a bit. And for everyone listening, hopefully now you’re excited to find the Salvage Union rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. I’m looking forward to playing Salvage Union in an upcoming adventure.
Friends, Fables, And Puff Pixies (Witch Scouts)
Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:07:00 -0300
A precious familiar is missing from Camp Fable and it's up to the Firebreathing Kittens to find it! Join Arby, Bill, and Mary as they search for Puff and unlock the true power of friendship in this Witch Scouts actual play.
Trailer for Friends, Fables, And Puff Pixies
Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:03:00 -0300
A precious familiar is missing from Camp Fable and it's up to the Firebreathing Kittens to find it! Join Arby, Bill, and Mary as they search for Puff and unlock the true power of friendship in this Witch Scouts actual play.
Ferris Whee (Horrible Henchmen)
Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Ferris Whee is a Horrible Henchmen actual play podcast episode.
Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Ferris Whee is a Horrible Henchmen actual play podcast oneshot episode.
Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:05:00 -0400
When did this old parchment arrive on the jobs board? Join Armando, Sadie, and Bartholomew as they investigate. Be A Doll is an Adventurous actual play podcast.
Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:03:00 -0400
When did this old parchment arrive on the jobs board? Join Armando, Sadie, and Bartholomew as they investigate. Be A Doll is an Adventurous actual play podcast.
Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:02:00 -0400
Hello listeners!
This is a short episode of firebreathing kittens where I am going to quickly describe the rules of the TTRPG Adventurous. You can find Adventurous that is spelled A-d-v-e-n-t-u-r-o-u-s by Dawnfist games on drivethrurpg.com.
I will be going over the Core Mechanics
Aiding other players
How to roll for initiative
Actions and Movement
Attacking and Defending
How to sneak
Injuries and Death
The Core Mechanic:
In Adventurous the core mechanic is attributes which range from 1 to 5. Your primary attributes are:
Strength: Physical strength, Dexterity: Nimbleness and agility, Willpower: Mental strength and composure, Knowledge: Accumulated Knowledge of the world, and Charisma: or your force of personality. When forced to attempt something risky, challenging, or dangerous you make a check based on an attribute and roll that number of dice. A single 5 or 6 is a weak success. More than one 5 or 6 is a strong success. No 5's or 6's rolled is a failure, although you receive 1 exp.
For example: Mindy wants to try and hit a very menacing goose with a baseball bat so she makes a strength check, her strength is 4. Mindy rolls: 5, 6, 3 and 3. A strong success! We will explain damage later.
This type of check is the core mechanic of the game. Rolling double 6's for some abilities grant special effects so keep that in mind and results in gaining 1 exp and the party gains momentum.
Advantage and Disadvantage: Advantage and Disadvantage may apply due to environment, abilities, or perhaps the assistance of other players. Advantage grants you an extra 1d6 on a test to a max of 6d6, and disadvantage reduces your dicepool by 1d6 to a minimum of 1d6.
Momentum is a binary party wide resource, the group simply has momentum or does not have momentum. It may be used to fuel certain abilities and may also be used to grant the reroll of a single die in a check.
Influencing NPC's: You can influence NPC's by making a Charisma test, often this might be made easier by offering or negotiating with NPC's. Whether a weak success or strong success is required to influence an NPC is ultimately up to the GM.
Aiding other players:
There are a few ways to assist other players for example you can, encourage them to use any available momentum, assist them and grant them advantage, and finally in the unfortunate situation that they begin to bleed out you may make a Knowledge test and mark supply in order to stabilize them and save them from an untimely demise.
Initiative:
In Adventurous, turn order is determined by rolling initiative by making a Knowledge test. All PC's that succeed go before the opponent. Those who fail go after the opponent. Initiative is re-rolled at the beginning of each round.
Actions and Movement:
Each turn a creature gets to make a move and an action
Examples of an action: attacking, using an ability, or drinking a potion.
In Adventurous distance is measured in zones, the zones are: Close, Near, Far, and Distant in that order.
A creature may move one band and make an action or move two bands and take no action on its turn
An example: An angry goose wants to get in melee range with Mindy. It is Distant from her, so it will move twice. It moves from distant, to far, and ends its turn near her. It is unable to act because it moved twice.
Attacking and Defending:
Melee attacks are made with Strength tests, and ranged attacks use Dexterity tests. Damage for weapons and abilities is described such as W2/S4 this stands for Weak 2/Strong 4.
When an attack is made: On a weak success the weak damage is inflicted on an opponent. On a strong Success the strong damage is inflicted. If it is a failure your character misses and nothing happens.
When a Player is defending: Strength is used to defend against melee attacks, Dexterity is used to defend against ranged attacks, and will is used against magic attacks.
If the defensive test is a weak success: the Player takes the enemies weak damage to its HP.
On a strong success: The player avoids all damage
On a Failure: The player takes the enemies strong damage to its HP.
Armor in this game is a value from 1-3 that subtracts from the damage a creature receives. However damage can only be reduced to 1 HP, never to zero.
Massive Damage: Certain situations such as a sneak attack might grant a player's attack Massive Damage. Massive Damage doubles the damage dice of the weapon attack so a W4/S8 damage sword would instead deal W8/S16 damage.
Sneaking:
In order to sneak a PC makes a Dexterity test. It is up to the GM to decide if a strong or weak success is needed to succeed in sneaking.
Sneak Attacks: Attacking a creature from stealth that is not engaged in combat may inflict massive damage, this may only be done with a one handed weapon.
Massive damage doubles the weak or strong damage of the weapon based on the result of the attack. Example: W4/S8 becomes W8/S16
Injuries and Death:
When a PC is reduced to 0 HP it becomes wounded and rolls on the Injury chart using a 1d6: on a 1-2 the character dies a terrible death, 3-4 you are knocked unconscious for one hour and are bleeding out, 5-6 you are knocked down and are bleeding out.
Bleeding out: A PC that is bleeding out must roll a 1d6 each turn, on a 5-6 they survive another turn. On a 1-4 they die immediately. Bleeding can be stopped through magical healing or by performing a knowledge test to stop the bleeding through first aid and mark supply.
Alternatives to death: Adventurous does not really pull any punches when it comes to lethality in adventuring. The chances of dying seem pretty high if you drop to 0 hit points since you have about a 33% chance of rolling a 1-2 on the injury table and you need a 5-6 each turn that you are bleeding out to keep from dying. So its good to have this in mind and perhaps find away discuss this with your players before playing. Some people do not find character death to be a fun experience.
Thank you for listening to my Rule summary for the RPG Adventurous by Dawnfist games! Check it out at Drivethrurpg.com!
Family Heirloom (Fantasy World)
Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Armando takes up a quest to find a mysterious book, recruiting Sadie and Zidane for it, inadvertently finding a relic of Zidane's past. Family Heirloom is an actual play podcast of Fantasy World.
Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:03:00 -0400
Armando takes up a quest to find a mysterious book, recruiting Sadie and Zidane for it, inadvertently finding a relic of Zidane's past. Family Heirloom is an actual play podcast of Fantasy World.
Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:02:00 -0400
How to Play Fantasy World
Fantasy World is a powered by the apocalypse fantasy RPG with magic and heroic fighting. It's billed as "dramatic fantasy," which means it's about becoming heroes in a fantasy setting, and making ourselves care about their story.
Like all good PBTA games, Fantasy World has some core principles that guide how we play. First, there is a One Golden Rule, which is that if anyone at the table thinks "this seems wrong, I don't like it," they can and should say so, and only one unhappy voice is a veto. It's like an X-card built into the rules of the game.
The world itself has some core things that are true: Magic is Real. The Gods are Silent. Cities are Rare. Travel is Perilous.
Finally, the game master, called The World, has three items in their an agenda: Play to Find Out, Make Sense, and Rock the Boat. Play to Find Out means there is never a railroad in the game. Instead, we have a setting full of interesting people and ideas and things happening, but those may be discarded at any point when the players go in a different direction.
Make Sense means that all of those interesting people and ideas need to make sense in order to feel like a reasonable world in which the adventurers live.
Finally, the adventurers' lives are interesting and exciting, and we accomplish that by Rocking the Boat. NPCs will act in their own self interests, and how that interacts with the adventurers is what creates an interesting story.
Basic Dice Mechanics: The basic dice mechanics of a PBTA game are that you and your friends describe yourselves doing stuff, and the GM representing the World reacts to your actions appropriated. When you get to the point where you trigger a move, you roll two 6-sided dice and usually add a stat modifier.
If you roll a 10 or higher, you succeed at what you were doing, and the move may tell you what happens.
If you roll a 7 to 9, you succeed at a cost. Usually, the move tells you what the cost is-- it might be implied in the move, or it might be something really specific. For example, the Sway move says that when used on an NPC, on a 10, you get a YES, and on a 7-9, you learn what would get a yes.
If you roll a 6 or less, the World has what's called a "World Reaction." A World Reaction is like a move that the World does-- in other games it's called a GM Move, or a reaction. The World never rolls dice. When the World makes a Reaction, it's certain and automatically succeeds. A typical reaction might be to reveal an unwelcome truth, or put the characters at a disadvantage. It's important to know that a 6 or less isn't *failure*. Whatever you were trying to do might happen-- the World is free to describe it happening, in a way that you didn't expect and probably don't want.
In addition, when you roll a 6, you gain an expedience point. So, during the play session itself, every time you roll a 6 or less, you gain one of those epedience points.
Character Creation and the Fellowship
Characters are drawn from the playbooks, which are downloadable from fantasyworldrpg.com. There are ten playbooks, which are basic archetypes. For purposes of the Firebreathing Kittens' session, the characters are assumed to have a couple of sessions, but have not yet earned a full advancement. As a result, they start with a basic playbook and 10 expedience points. Expedience Points can be used to buy growth points, or can be spent during the session to gain advantage or use more than one utility move during a long rest.
When you create a character in fantasy world, you download their playbook and then make a few choices about the character. For example, the Knight needs to state what chivalric order they belong to, who they are sworn to serve, and what their core value is that gives them some power.
The second page of each playbook has their growth moves, which add special moves to the character as they advance.
The Fellowship is a special way to frame the story in Fantasy World. There are four Fellowship types: Shields, who protect a local area, Knives who pursue personal wealth, Hearts who are on a single quest, and Coins, who go where the job takes them. For the Firebreathing Kittens episode, the Fellowship is the Coins, as they are a group of troubleshooters and problem-solvers for hire.
Further Reading: If you'd like to play Fantasy World, and you have someone who will be running the game, read the Fundamental Knowledge and Essential Mechanics section of the rules, and then read the playbooks and Game Moves to pick your character and understand what will trigger a move in the game. Remember, anything that isn't a move can still happen, it just doesn't trigger a dice roll.
Not Enough Duct Tape (Everything's Going To Crab)
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:09:00 -0400
Join Demyan, Nugh, and Mary as they try to fix a ferry and a crabby situation! Can they thwart the imitation crabs before it's too late? Find out in this Everything's Going to Crab actual play episode!
Trailer for Not Enough Duct Tape
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:07:00 -0400
Join Demyan, Nugh, and Mary as they try to fix a ferry and a crabby situation! Can they thwart the imitation crabs before it's too late? Find out in this Everything's Going to Crab actual play episode!
You Are What You Eat (Everything's Going To Crab)
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Join Bart, Reg, and Crud as they crab walk their way around an island to save people from an impending tsunami! You Are What You Eat is an actual play podcast of Everything's Going to Crab!
Trailer for You Are What You Eat
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:03:00 -0400
Join Bart, Reg, and Crud as they crab walk their way around an island to save people from an impending tsunami! You Are What You Eat is an actual play podcast of Everything's Going to Crab!
How To Play Everything’s Going To Crab
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:01:00 -0400
How to play Everything’s Going To Crab.
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Everything Is Going To Crab. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Everything Is Going To Crab yourselves.
The sections I’ll talk about are:
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Writing prompt
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Character creation
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How to use skills
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How to attack
Writing prompt: The general idea of this system is that you start in your normal forms and must turn into a crab if you want to survive a giant wave that will hit your town in 24 hours. If you can convince a Non Player Character (NPC) that they need to become a crab, too, then they’ll head to the beach and do their best, and will also survive. The more NPCs you can save, the better. How good are you at convincing people of something they don’t want to believe? This games finds out.
Character creation: There are three categories of traits: eyes, hands, and feet. Each has analogies in your starting and crab forms. Eyes in your starting form, versus crab eyes stalks. Hands in your starting form, versus crab pincers. Feet in your starting form, versus crab legs. Eyes are used for guessing at how much someone believes you that they need to turn into a crab, or reading a book or a town sign. Crab eyestalks are good at seeing through disguises and spotting hidden predators. Hands are used for repairing broken items and high fiving someone, while crab pincers are good at holding on to someone against the might of the sea or snipping something small. Feet are used for driving a car, walking in high heels, and sneaking, while crab legs are good at climbing up rock walls and for scampering at speed. To create your character, put 100 percentage points each into these three categories. Split the percentage points between your current and crab form. The maximum you can start with is 79 percent crab during character creation. Please start with fewer than 80 on the crab side so you don’t have to explain why you look like a crab at the start of the game. Here is an example. Yolanda puts 70 percent into eyes, and 30 percent into crab eye stalks. She puts 60 percent into hands, and 40 percent into crab pincers. Lastly, she puts 75 percent into feet and 25 percent into crab legs. Yes, you can start with 100 percent in the starting form traits.
How to use skills: Rolling lower than your trait means you succeed in what you try to do. If Jerome wants to spot a hidden lever, he’d roll a d100 and try to roll lower than his crab eyestalks, which are good at spotting things, like hidden levers. With 50 percentage points in eyestalks, a 40 would succeed and a 90 would fail.
As you play, your points will change. After every roll, you can change your ratio from starting body to crab body in one category. 80% will trigger a metamorphoses into that type of form for one limb, 100% will metamorph both limbs. At the end of the game you need to have 80% in all three crab traits to survive the giant wave. For example, Jerome just finished rolling to spot a hidden lever. Because he rolled, he can choose to adjust the percentage points. He’d previously had 50 points in eyestalks. With the end of the game and the giant wave approaching, Jerome decides to bump his eyes up to 80%, triggering a form change and he describes how one eye pops out into a crab eyestalk. Because he’s above 80 in all traits now, he will survive the giant wave. If he wants both eyes to be eye stalks, he could change his number to 100%.
How to attack: The wave wasn’t just a naturally occurring event, but a planned apocalypse designed to wipe the town off the face of the earth. Some of the townspeople are imposters, and are secretly crabs. You might find yourself in combat with them. Combat rolls are opposed checks. The enemy has between 40 and 70% in each trait. If both you and your enemy succeed your roll, then the person who rolled closer to their trait’s number wins. Players win ties. Here is an example. JimBob the harbormaster is secretly a crab. You want to spread a rumor about him so that everyone in the town believes the coming wave is JimBob’s fault. Seeing through lies is a starting form eyes trait, so you have to roll a d100 and try to get below your starting form eyes percentage. JimBob still looks human at this point, so he has to roll under a 70 to succeed. He rolls a 20, which is 50 points under, and passes his roll. You’ve been slowly turning into a crab this whole time, and your eyes are mostly eye stalks at this point. You’ve only got 20 point in eyes; it’s 80% eyestalk. You cross your fingers and roll your dice, and you get a 15. That’s a success. It’s five points below its trait number. Both opposed checks succeed, so the one that is closer to its trait number wins. Because you rolled five points below your trait number and JimBob the harbormaster rolled fifty, you are closer, and your rumor is successful. The two NPCs, JimBob’s harbor attendant employees, who had been listening to JimBob’s advice to stay in town, believe your rumor and skedaddle on a boat, escaping the wave.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat a bit. And for everyone listening, hopefully now you’re excited to find the Everything Is Going To Crab rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. I’m looking forward to playing Everything Is Going To Crab in an upcoming adventure.
Puzzling Portals (Sexy Battle Wizards)
Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Dimension hopping, bloody trees, and seducing fire giants? Listen at your own risk! Join Arby, Guvo, and Sadie in the episode Puzzling Portals featuring the one-page RPG Sexy Battle Wizards!
Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:03:00 -0400
Dimension hopping, bloody trees, and seducing fire giants? Listen at your own risk! Join Arby, Guvo, and Sadie in the episode Puzzling Portals featuring the one-page RPG Sexy Battle Wizards!
Gifts Of The Past (Mall Zombies)
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
What can a memory hold? The joy of an old friend? The fear of a nightmare? Perhaps something even more. Join Sadie, Bartholomew, and Armando as they find out! Gifts Of The Past is an actual play of the Mall Zombies TTRPG.
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:03:00 -0400
What can a memory hold? The joy of an old friend? The fear of a nightmare? Perhaps something even more. Join Sadie, Bartholomew, and Armando as they find out! Gifts Of The Past is an actual play of the Mall Zombies TTRPG.
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:01:00 -0400
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Mall Zombies by W.H Arthur. In this episode, I’ll share my thoughts after reading the rule book. Hopefully this episode will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Mall Zombies yourselves.
Set up
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Get a deck of cards, preferable a zombie themed deck for that extra narrative spark
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Separate the cards into three piles, all of the number cards, the court cards (aka, j, q k), and the two jokers.
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We now shuffle the number cards together and create 7 face down piles of 3 cards by drawing from this deck.
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Once we have these 7 face down piles, we turn over the top card in each pile.
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Each pile should now have 1 faceup card and two face down cards underneath.
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We’ve just created our shops for the players to scavenge from.
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The top card number tells us what the Prompt is for that shop. This is a list of names given in the rules. Such as, Wisdom, Luxury, Power, etc. You can come up with the rest of the name of the shop yourself. If one of the piles has 6 as the top visible card the Prompt indicates it is an Eletrical store, so we could call it, Roberts Bits and Bobs. So we know what type of items might be in that store. (We will go into what our players want later on).
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We take the remaining cards we didn’t draw and shuffle the two jokers into it that pile to create the “main deck”. The players will be drawing from this Main deck during the game when scavenging through the shops.
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The court cards are shuffled and set aside as the Zombie Deck. We draw from this deck when the players are attacked by the zombies.
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This completes the set up!
Before we go on, let’s discuss what our players are looking for during the game.
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The group first discuss what things the colony needs to survive. (e.g. food, batteries, heating, clothes, medicine, entertainment).
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Once they have decided on 5 needs this will be the basis for your players to focus on what they are scavenging for. So lets look now at how to scavenge the mall!
Scavenging examples
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During the game the players will be scavenging for supplies by looking through the shops. Mechanically this is by searching through the piles of cards one after another.
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Example. Rosie, a widowed survivor of the colony has spotted Roberts Bits and Bobs and decides to scavenge through the shop to find some useful tools for the colony.
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Rosie describes how she would find her husband, Barry in the shop every time they went to the mall together thumbing through the bargain bins looking for a great deal on hammers. It would annoy her at the time, but now it just makes her miss him even more.
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The more narrative detail the better in this game, encourage your players to really go ham in their descriptions taking as long as they want.
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The GM now turns over the related pile of cards with the number 6 on and shows the group what they have found with their initial scavenge.
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The cards turned over now read the following. 6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades.
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So, what are we looking for here?
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The players are trying to find one of three outcomes related to a poker hand. This being a “three of a kind”, aka 3x3, or 3, 10’s, etc. A straight flush, aka, 123 of hearts. If this outcome is reached the players “You find more than what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs, and how it's better than what you expected.” Or, a Straight or flush, this is 123, in any suit or 3 cards all hearts, spades, etc. If they get this outcome, “You find what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs.” and lastly, a pair, aka, 2x2’s or 2,10s, etc. If this is the outcome, “You find something, but it is either defective or of an inferior quality. Elaborate on the details.”
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If none of these outcomes happen, they find nothing of use, aka, it doesn’t match any of the groups needs for the colony.
Push your luck
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Now, what happens if the first three cards don’t give them what they want? Well, they can push their luck and draw from the main deck, (the ones with now jokes, aka zombies in..oooooo).
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Rosie draws “6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades” That’s two spades, with is close to a flush, and two 6’s which is close to a three of kind.
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Rosie decides to draw from the main deck and “pushes her luck”.
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When a player pushes their luck, they must describe what they’re doing to do this. e.g. breaking down a locked door, removing rubble from a blocked corridor, etc). Rosie breaks through the employees only door at the back of the shop.
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The GM draws this card from the main deck and adds it to the pile. It’s a 6 of clubs.
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This gives Rosie 3, 6’s and a three of a kind. This means “You find more than what you need. Describe how the item fulfils one of the needs, and how it's better than what you expected”.
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Rosie describes finding a pile of brand-new tools from saws, hammers, and hand drills, perfect for fixing and building a better shelter for the colony.
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These cards are not placed back into the main deck once an area has been scavenged, they stay out in their respective shop piles.
Zombies!
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What if Rosie drew a Joker card from the main deck. Well, this is where the brutality of the game comes into play.
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Rosie draws a Joker and the GM indicates she stumbled into a zombie attack!
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The gm draws a card from the “zombie deck” aka the deck of court cards and tells Rosie what she is facing.
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J : You survive by fighting or escaping from the zombies. How did you do it?
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Q : You are attacked by an infected survivor (an NPC). Tell us whether you noticed their strange behaviours recently. You are dead.
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K: You are attacked by a swarm of zombies. Tell us how you die.
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The zombie deck is reshuffled afterwards with the court card being placed back, and the joker is then shuffled back into the main deck.
So how can you mitigate these effects? To have a little more sway or edge over the randomness of the decks?
Character creation:
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Creating a character is very simple, each player takes control of a survivor in the zombie apocalypse giving their name, pronouns, and choosing one “special ability”.
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These special abilities give the players tools to look through the main deck before drawing from it.
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Careful : Look at the top card of the main deck in secret. You may put it at the bottom of the deck.
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Daring : Look at the top two cards of the main deck in secret. You may shuffle the deck.
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Wise : Look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. You may put them back in any order.
Scavenging with Special abilities.
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Let’s now rewind time and figure out how Rosie could have mitigated the zombie attack!
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Rosie has the ability “wise” which means, Look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. You may put them back in any order.”
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She enters Robers bits and bobs, does her description, looks at the cards, “6 hearts, 6 of spades, and 10 of spades”.
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She can now use her special ability to look at the top three cards of the main deck in secret. She draws three cards in order, Joker, 6 clubs, 8 spades.
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It’s a good thing she checked as she would have drawn a joker. She now puts them back in this order, joker, 8 spades, 6 clubs. So, the next card drawn will be the 6 of clubs.
Escaping
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Once the PCs have found all they need, it is time to leave the mall.
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Or, if they are dying out too quickly, it’s time to escape and take what they can with them.
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Of the remaining surviving characters, a leader is chosen from them who will be drawing from a new set of cards created by the gm.
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The leader and push their luck as normal and if a joker is revealed standard zombie attack rules proceed.
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Three of a kind / Straight Flush : All remaining PCs escape. Describe how the group outsmart the zombie horde.
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Straight / Flush : One PC sacrifices themselves to allow the others to escape. Narrate their sacrifice.
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Pair (Only works if you have 1+ remaining PC): The leader can choose a single PC to escape. Describe what happens. (The remaining PCs can find an alternative exit by drawing a new set of three cards.)
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None of the above: You cannot escape.
The ending
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If the scavenged supplies fulfil all of your needs (with less than half of them defective), and at least one PC is alive. : Your colony thrives. Describe how the living condition improves.
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If the scavenged supplies fulfil only some of your needs, and at least one PC is alive: Your colony survives. Describe how the colony aces setbacks from the unfulfilled needs.
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If all PCs are dead: Decide as a group if the scavenged supplies reach back to the colony. If so, apply the above ending that fits. If not, apply the ending below.
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If you fail to scavenge any items: Your colony collapses. Is there anything left?
and epilogues
surviving players now describe what happened after in the colony, and dead players can describe their after life as a zombie.
Get this game for “pay what you want” on drivethru RPG.
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 02:05:00 -0400
We discuss our thoughts about the rules for the tabletop roleplaying games we played in the past few weeks: Resolute 2e, Root Quick Start, Christmas Capers, The Witch Is Dead, Adventure Dice, LURPS, Desperado Quickdraw Edition, Dicing With Death, and New Edo.
Rolls Off The Tongue (New Edo)
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 01:07:00 -0400
Zidane, now slightly seasoned, leads newcomers Nugh and Sadie through an alternate version of Niqamui to save reality. Rolls off the Tongue is an actual play podcast of the system "New Edo".
Trailer for Rolls Off The Tongue
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 01:05:00 -0400
Zidane, now slightly seasoned, leads newcomers Nugh and Sadie through an alternate version of Niqamui to save reality. Rolls off the Tongue is an actual play podcast of the system "New Edo".
There Can Be Only One (New Edo)
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
There Can Be Only One is an actual play podcast using the New Edo system. Legends and Godhood are born within Arby, and a Highlander style clash unfolds as Guvo faces his alternate self in New Niqamui.
Trailer for There Can Be Only One
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:03:00 -0400
There Can Be Only One is an actual play podcast using the New Edo system. Legends and Godhood are born within Arby, and a Highlander style clash unfolds as Guvo faces his alternate self in New Niqamui.
Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:01:00 -0400
How To Play New Edo, a tabletop roleplaying game. Transcript: Hello! I'm the GM for an upcoming episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I'll be running using the gameplay mechanics from a game called NewEdo, a Neon Samurai role-playing game. This is a rules discussion episode meant to help teach my players and any listeners the basic mechanics of NewEdo so it's easier to begin playing. I'll be going over two main topics. The first topic is character creation, where I'll discuss Paths, Lineages, and the Priority Buy System, that’s B-U-Y buy, with its five associated Priority Abilities. I’ll explain starting equipment and cash at the end of this topic. The second topic is gameplay mechanics. Since NewEdo is a 300 page rulebook, I won't have time to go over every single mechanic, but I will go over mechanics that pertain to some of the characters playing in my upcoming episode, as well as common mechanics used in most TRPGs. I'll also discuss Legend and Fate, two important mechanics that are exclusive to NewEdo.
With that said, I'll begin discussing character creation, starting with Paths and Lineages.
Paths
A Path is similar to a class, but instead of defining your character's archetype going forward, it sets up your character's purpose with some starting features and equipment, allowing you to build yourself however you want. You can decide which Path best suits you and what it provides starting on page 72.
Lineages
A Lineage is what would be considered a race in other TRPGs. With the exception of Hisanaka, you have unrestricted access to all Lineages, each with two Cultures to choose from, providing unique gameplay differences. Hisanaka is a special Lineage only available with a Priority A Ranking in Augmentations, and has no special Culture. Lineages are found starting on page 132.
The Priority Buy System
After deciding your Path and Lineage, you need to decide what order you prioritize your Priority Abilities. You have five Priority Abilities to consider:
● Backgrounds
● Magic
● Augmentations
● Skills
● and Core Traits
You must assign Ranks A through E (highest to lowest) between these five Priority Abilities in order to determine your character building resources. Refer to the Priority Buy Resource Allocation Table on page 58 to know what you get at each Rank.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are associated with your character's backstory and grant certain benefits. There are five Backgrounds you can invest points into:
● Contacts
● Followers
● Soul
● Status
● and Wealth
You can study up on what each Background provides at each Rank starting on page 144. Refer to the Background Score to Rank table on the same page to know how many points are needed to increase your Rank. All Backgrounds begin with 1 point each, and no Background may be higher than 61 at character creation.
Magic
Depending on your Path, Lineage, and Priority Rank, you can gain access to Magic. If you’re looking for a Path with access to multiple spells, called Rotes in this system, choose Shugonshi. If you just need a single Rote, such as an attack or heal, look through TIer Zero through Three for an appropriate Rote, then choose D through A for a Magic Priority Rank that gives you access to the Rote you chose. Keep in mind the Casting Skill associated with each Rote, as you need to roll that Skill plus Shinpi Rank to cast.
When you gain access to Magic through methods mentioned earlier, you should receive a bonus amount of Shinpi. Shinpi is a special Core Trait that, unlike other Core Traits, begins at zero instead of ten. You’ll need to raise your Shinpi Rank through bonuses mentioned previously and Trait points received from Priority Buy in order to cast Magic effectively.
If you happen to choose the Shugonshi Path, Awakened Kitsune Lineage, or Priority A Magic, you gain access to a Mikata Kami. You can choose any Kami you have access to and gain the associated Mikata Kami bonus. A Mikata Kami is also a pet with its own character sheet. For more details, read pg. 268 through 274.
Augmentations
Each Augmentation, or Aug, has a Noise Rating and Biofeedback Percentage. The points from the Priority Buy System are spent on the combined Noise Ratings of each Aug you get. If you increase an Aug’s Rank, you multiply the Noise cost by the Aug’s Rank. You need to have enough Core Trait points to install any Augs. If the combined Noise of a single Trait from all Augs exceeds the associated Trait, you can’t install anymore with that Trait.
For any leftover points, you can spend four points for a permanent 1d4 bonus to any Skill. This doesn’t count as a Skill Rank; rather it’s an external bonus to those Skill rolls. Any other leftover points may be added to the Wealth Background one for one.
Biofeedback Percentage is added to the Fate Card for each Aug you gain. Keep in mind the percentage does not multiply with each Aug Rank. So if you install a Rank 5 Aug with 1% Biofeedback, it’s still 1%.
Skills
The list of Skills starts on pg. 191. You have a certain amount of dice to spend on Skills called Focus. You’re limited to three Focus per Skill at character creation. Each Focus you put into a Skill increases that Skill’s Rank, which may grant a bonus. Bonuses can be found under each Skill’s description.
Traits
There are seven Core Traits to choose from:
● Heart
● Power
● Reflex
● Presence
● Perception
● Savvy
● and Shinpi
Each of them, except Shinpi, begin with ten points. Shinpi begins with zero. For every ten points in a Trait, you gain a d10 to all associated checks. You can only invest up to 15 points in any Trait, though bonuses from things like Lineage and Backgrounds don’t count towards this limit. At the end of character creation, your highest Trait becomes your starting Legend Score. There are also four Derived Traits that are affected by the previously mentioned Core Traits:
● Resolve
● Move
● Initiative
● and Defence
Starting Equipment and Cash
You gain basic starting equipment from your Path. The Path descriptions each include a note on starting equipment, and all of them grant at least one weapon. That weapon, and any other items, will be described only by its Quality rating. You can look up item qualities on the tables in Chapter 13 starting on pg. 233. In addition, you start with cash equal to a Wealth roll, 1d10 per Rank in the Background, times 100.
That wraps up Character Creation. I’ll now begin going over various combat mechanics that my players and I will be using in our upcoming session. Again, this won’t be a list of every mechanic in the 300 page rulebook, but I’ll be going over some universal actions and their mechanics in NewEdo. I’ll end with an explanation of this system’s unique Legend and Fate mechanics.
Movement
One of the first things everyone needs to understand in any TRPG is movement. In NewEdo, your Move determines how many metres you can shift per turn. Move is equal to your Reflex and Heart Trait divided by your Size rounded up.
Moving takes up a Move Action, which is one of three types of actions a character can make on their turn. The three types of actions are:
● Move Action
● Quick Action
● and Full Action
You can make one of each of these actions per turn. As I mentioned earlier, moving uses up a Move Action, however there may be other actions that specify using a Move Action other than just moving, such as Taking Aim or driving a vehicle.
Attacking
Another common mechanic in any TRPG is attacking. An attack is usually a Full Action, but can also be a Quick Action in some cases. Two common types of attacks are Melee and Projectile. I’ll explain the mechanics of each.
● Melee Attacks are made by rolling Power plus the appropriate weapon Skill, and your
Target Number is your opponent’s Defence.
● Projectile Attacks are made by rolling Perception plus the appropriate weapon Skill, and
your Target Number is your opponent’s Size multiplied by your weapon’s Range Modifier.
○ You may call Raises before attacking to increase damage. Each Raise adds five
to your Target Number, but increases the weapon’s damage by 1d10. After hitting with an attack, you need to roll for damage. Here’s what you need to roll:
● For Melee, roll Power plus the weapon’s damage dice.
● For Projectile, roll the weapon’s damage dice. Remember to add any d10’s from Raises.
Taking Aim, Advantages, and Disadvantages
When setting up for a Projectile Attack, you can use your Move Action to Take Aim in order to gain an Advantage. An Advantage is simply an extra d10 added to a roll, one that can explode like a Trait dice. A Disadvantage is the opposite, removing a d10 from a roll. If there are no d10’s remaining, you remove the highest dice instead. Advantages and Disadvantages come up in many different scenarios, and can cancel each other out if both are present. Taking Aim is one of the most common ways to gain an advantage in combat.
Rolling Skill Checks
To determine what dice you roll during an attack or skill check, you need to check the appropriate Trait and Skill. For your Trait, the tens place of your Trait determines how many d10 you can roll for the check. Keep in mind that d10’s explode, meaning that if you roll a ten, you can re-roll that dice and add the next result to the total. After determining how many d10’s from your Trait, add the Focus Dice from the appropriate Skill. These dice can range from a d4 to d12, but they don’t explode on rolling max. The Target Number of non combat related skill checks is determined by the GM based on the difficulty. A Sample Contest Target Number table can be found on pg. 212.
Casting Magic
Similar to attacks and skill checks, casting magic also uses a Trait and Skill. All Rotes use Shinpi as its Trait, and with the exception of the four Common Rotes, all Rotes have an associated Skill that is rolled when casting. For example, the Soothe Rote uses the Meditation Skill, so if you plan on using Soothe, it's recommended you also have training in Meditation. You can find a list of all Rotes starting on pg. 158. Each Rote lists the following:
● Name
● Action
● Target Number
● Legend Cost
● Range
● Duration
● Casting Skill
● and a Description
Restoring Legend
If you find yourself casting a lot of magic and running out of Temporary Legend, you can use your Followers Background to restore some lost Legend Points. Rolling for Followers takes a Full Action, and you roll d10’s equal to your Followers Rank. You can roll Followers once per session.
Stealth
To make an attempt at Stealth, there must be some reasonable chance of you not being seen: darkness, fog, a distraction, someone or something blocking sight of you. You don’t necessarily need to know where your (potential) observers are to attempt Stealth, but if you’re able to scout out all observers (guards, cameras, etc.) prior to or during your Stealth attempt, you gain Advantage on subsequent Stealth rolls.
A Stealth roll is made as an Opposed Contest, where the character attempting Stealth rolls Reflex plus the Stealth Skill against any opponent’s passive or active Perception. Passive Perception is a Free Action, rolled using only Perception, and is for situations where no one’s actively watching. Active Perception is a Quick Action Interrupt, rolled using either Perception plus Survival or Perception plus Investigation.
While in Stealth, you may only move at half your Move speed and must end your turn obscured or hidden in some way, or you immediately lose Stealth. If you dash across an open space while in Stealth, you may become Exposed if any observers catch sight of you.
Cover
Cover can only protect you from Ranged attacks. There are three types of Cover:
● No Cover: Protects less than 30% of your body. Provides no bonuses.
● Half Cover: Protects between 30 to 95% of your body. Ranged Attacks against you have
Disadvantage.
● Full Cover: Only 5% of your body is exposed. You can’t be targeted by Ranged Attacks
barring a few exceptions.
With some of the basic mechanics out of the way, I’d like to focus on some specific Skills that certain players for my upcoming game have chosen. There are 37 different Skills to choose in NewEdo, so this is only a small fraction of what’s available.
Dodge
Dodge is a unique Skill that adds to a character’s Defence against Melee Attacks. An invaluable Skill for an up close and personal fighter. At Rank 3, you can start Dodging Projectile Attacks. Dodging is a Quick Action Interrupt, so it’s useful in conjunction with moving and acting while being attacked. Perfect for a martial fighter or ninja.
Banter
A fun social Skill that uses the Reflex Trait. Banter is used to steer a conversation with multiple people, helping or hindering others. At Ranks 2 and 3, you gain the Abilities Chime In and Burn, which allow you to make a Quick Action Interrupt to either add or subtract your Banter Roll from someone else’s Social Roll.
Athletics
Like in most TRPG’s, Athletics is your physical prowess in running, jumping, climbing, swimming, etc. In NewEdo, you unlock some special bonuses at later Ranks. At Rank 2, your Climb, Swim, and Lifting modifiers all increased. At Rank 3, you gain Tumble, an ability that allows you to reduce falling damage by the amount rolled from an Athletics Check.
Unarmed
Unarmed is your ability to fight without a weapon. It increases your ability to Grapple, and quickly increases damage to unarmed attack early on at Ranks 1 and 2. At Rank 3, you gain the ability to call Raises with unarmed attacks, a mechanic usually reserved to Projectile Attacks.
Tactics
Tactics checks are made right before the beginning of a fight. The leaders of both squads roll Savvy plus Tactics plus 1d10 for every active teammate to determine who’s superior. The losing team begins combat Demoralized, a status condition that reduces their Initiative and Resolve by 5 each, and they can no longer take Quick Action Interrupt Attacks against Exposed targets.
If you need to look up other Skills and what bonuses you get at each rank, begin on pg. 191. I’ll finish things up by going over two of NewEdo’s unique mechanics: Legend and Fate.
Legend
Legend is your character’s overall power level, and measures how “Legendary” you are in the world. At a certain Legend ranking, your Path is increased, giving you new abilities. In addition to acting as your power level, it also fuels a resource known as Temporary Legend. Your Temporary Legend is restored between sessions, and it’s used to cast Rotes and activate certain abilities, usually from Skill Ranks. It also acts as a last ditch HP Pool, known as Burning Legend. If you take damage past zero, you begin burning through Temporary Legend. Once all of your HP and Temporary Legend are depleted, you die for good.
Fate
Every character has a Fate Card, which acts as a personal random d100 roll chart. There are many things you can add to your Fate Card that come from character creation. You can roll for Fate once per turn, unless otherwise specified, to gamble for good fortune versus bad luck. When rolling for Fate, it’s important to remember you can only roll when there are stakes, and only before you roll for a normal check. If you roll a Critical Success, you automatically succeed. Rolling a Botch means you automatically fail.
And that concludes this episode of Rules Explanation for NewEdo! I hope that my players can use this to help prepare them for their upcoming game, but it should be noted that there’s much more to learn than what was mentioned here. I encourage my players and anyone else listening to read up on more of the rules, especially those that pertain to your character. This is a large game, so it’ll require a lot of trial and error, even for veterans like myself, however this system holds a lot of potential for detailed character development, tactical combat, and immersive storytelling. If you haven’t picked this game up yet, and it sounds interesting, please consider buying it from Salty dash Games dot com. That’s Salty, HYPHEN, Games dot com. If you still aren’t convinced, please listen to my upcoming episode, listen in on our game, and decide then! Thank you, and goodbye!
Dead Ringers (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Dead Ringers is an actual play podcast using the Dicing with Death TTRPG system. Join Arby, Bo, and Mary as they navigate through the Land of the Dead, meeting old faces and working to return home.
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 00:03:00 -0400
Dead Ringers is an actual play podcast using the Dicing with Death TTRPG system. Join Arby, Bo, and Mary as they navigate through the Land of the Dead, meeting old faces and working to return home.
You Only Live Twice (Dicing With Death)
Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Join Maeve, Bartholomew and Armando as they punch parents, fight fish, and bribe boatmen to get back from the land of the dead before it's too late! You Only Live Twice is an actual play episode of Dicing With Death.
Trailer for You Only Live Twice
Tue, 09 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Join Maeve, Bartholomew and Armando as they punch parents, fight fish, and bribe boatmen to get back from the land of the dead before it's too late! You Only Live Twice is an actual play episode of Dicing With Death.
Stab The Crab (Desperado Quickdraw)
Wed, 03 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Bartholomew, Guvo and Zidane, as new members of the guild, offer to go rescue the sheriff of Karmic Hills and uncover a problem affecting the tiny town. Stab the Crab is an actual play podcast of Desperado Quickdraw Edition.
Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:05:00 -0400
Bartholomew, Guvo and Zidane, as new members of the guild, offer to go rescue the sheriff of Karmic Hills and uncover a problem affecting the tiny town. Stab the Crab is an actual play podcast of Desperado Quickdraw Edition.
How to play Desperado Quickdraw
Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:01:00 -0400
A GM’s thoughts on how to play Desperado Quickdraw.
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Desperado Quickdraw. In this episode, I’ll share my thoughts after reading the rule book. Hopefully this episode will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Desperado Quickdraw yourselves.
The sections I’ll talk about are character creation, how to move, how to attack, alternatives to character death,how to use skills, how to help your allies, and spellcasting.
Character creation: Desperado Quickdraw provides some handy dandy character creation randomizers using a deck of cards. Don’t know what character you’re going to play? Draw from a standard playing card deck to generate your character’s name, background, combat stats, feats, starting items, and ammo. For example if you draw a diamond your background is the gambler, who has 2 grit, 4 wit, a firearm aim of 2d12, and a melee aim of 2d12. Here in Firebreathing Kittens, for my players, because we are the same character all season, please feel free to pick from these random lists to build your character. You can also change the flavor; a ranged weapon can be called a bullet, arrow, fireball, etc.
How to move: You can move as many yards as your grit score at the start of your turn. If you move while attacking it makes you less accurate, decreasing your aim DC.
How to attack: Here’s an example melee weapon, the dagger. You can either pierce or cut with a dagger. If you’re piercing, it takes one action to draw the dagger from its sheath, and one action to attack. A dagger gets plus two steps to its accuracy and has a wound DC of 3. Here’s an example attack: You are standing within a yard of an enemy. Your dagger is drawn. You try to stab the enemy with the dagger, so, being a gambler, you roll your melee aim of two d12 dice. The dice result is 12 overall. You add plus two for the dagger’s accuracy, so that’s 14. The person’s right next to you, so your aim DC was zero, so you hit them. The wound DC is plus 14. The 3 wound DC of the dagger is increased to 17. That’s not twenty over, so you didn’t insta-kill your target. They are wounded and must make a fortitude check. They roll grit and compare it versus their total wounds received overall, which so far is just this one stab. Your GM announces they failed their roll, so they take one grit damage. Remember your gambler statted player characters has 2 grit, so taking one grit damage means this NPC probably is pretty badly injured.
Next, let’s talk about ranged attacks. Desperado Quickdraw requires you to draw your weapon, load it, chamber a new round, cock the weapon, fire, and eject the round. That’s about five rounds of preparation for one round of dealing damage, which is different than other tabletop roleplaying game systems you might be used to. Here’s an example weapon, the Baron Lawman single action revolving pistol. This is a short barrel weapon that can hold six shots. Its ammo is 0.44 magnum. It has a wound DC of 6. To fire this weapon, you’d need to first spend one action to draw it from the holster, three actions per cartridge being loaded (one to draw ammo, one to load, and one to rotate the cylinder), an action to fire it, and then three actions per shell expelled to open and eject and rotate the cylinder. Here’s an example of an attack with a single action revolving pistol made by the friend of the gambler. Friend of the gambler, fellow player, your target is ten yards away from the party, which is about thirty feet, so the Aim DC is 4. You make an aim check, which since you’re a gambler means you roll 2d12. The result is a 14. You beat the aim DC by 10, so your wound DC is increased by plus 10. The six wound DC of the pistol is increased to 16. The GM does the fortitude check for the enemy, and announces they’ve taken one grit damage. This is the second grit damage that NPC has taken, so they drop to zero grit. At zero grit, they fall unconscious.
Alternatives to character death: When you fall to zero grit, you’re unconscious but not necessarily dead. Desperado Quickdraw has a list of lasting wounds you can take such as injured arm, leg, eye, etc, which affect your stats. I like systems that have alternatives to permanent character death. It makes me less stressed out as a GM. I don’t have to worry as much about my player needing to make a new character unless they want to.
How to use skills: Desperado Quickdraw lets you hide, listen, spot, bluff, charm, use medicine, and make insight checks. Roll a size of dice based on your ability level, like d2, d4, d6, d8, etc. Then add either grit or wit as a modifier, depending on the skill.
How to help your allies: You can do a first aid check. That’s the medicine skill. If your check is higher than your friend’s wound DC, they can ignore that wound for now. Beware: later first aid checks don’t stack, so if you try to medicine check their next wound, you have to roll against your friend’s total wound DC including that first wound they had been ignoring.
Spellcasting: Desperado Quickdraw is only a portion of the rules that Desperado has to offer. If you’d like to learn about spellcasting, check out the full version of the rules. Based upon all the cool backgrounds and items in the Quickdraw rules, the spells in the full rulebook are probably really fun, too.
I’m looking forward to playing Desperado Quickdraw in an upcoming adventure. Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat a bit. And for everyone listening, hopefully now you’re excited to find the Desperado Quickdraw rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.
Mon, 01 Jan 2024 01:05:00 -0400
Zidane Carmichael Interview
Novel Announcement: Masquerade Madness
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:45:00 -0400
Hello everyone! We have a special announcement today. Tom Maygrove has written a full novel length adaptation of the Firebreathing Kittens podcast adventure Masquerade Madness! This is great news. Now, you can find a comfy spot and experience this ballroom cat burglary mystery as written word.
If you want to help Firebreathing Kittens out, please pick up a promotionally free ebook copy of Masquerade Madness between July 16th and July 20th 2022. After that time window, the ebook will return to normal price. We would really appreciate it if you could get a copy and leave a five star review. Thank you. The link is: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6B8TRK2
Radio Play Announcement: Polymorph and Porcelain
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:09:00 -0400
Hello everyone! We have a special announcement today. Gareth John Jones has written a radio play adaptation of the adventure Mouse and Teapot: A Love Story! This is great news. Now, you can find a comfy spot and experience this shape changing adventure as written word. Or if you’ve got some friends, you could put this script on as a show! Here is the radio play’s link, description, and then I’ll play a snippet of the podcast it was based on. Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2K7C6KC/ The radio play’s description is as follows: Blursed items and a policeman with a penchant for pottery? Join Tornan, Furious and Rollo as they investigate Niqamui police department's 1,000th crime of the year in... Polymorph and Porcelain, a radio play adaptation of the actual play podcast, "Mouse & Teapot: A Love Story". Please support us and pick up your copy of Polymorph and Porcelain from amazon.com, and tell your friends about us. Thank you! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2K7C6KC/
Audiobook Announcement: A Bully Good Time!
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:05:00 -0400
Hello everyone! We have a special announcement today. We have released an audiobook for Rachel Lindley’s full novel length adaptation of the adventure A Bully Good Time on audible.com! This is great news. Now, you can put on your headphones or turn up your speakers and experience this bayou delving adventure as spoken word. Here is the back of the book and then a brief excerpt; I’ll play you the audio sample.
The back of the book:
Frogs, boats, and beignets! The Firebreathing Kittens venture to the south of the fantasy world of Guaso to investigate a missing persons case. There's Pidge, a plucky gnome with shapeshifting magic; Moka, an angel's daughter with miraculous healing powers; and Manford, a nihilist and would-be scoundrel with a heart of gold. Within a world of vine-choked cypress and murky water, the three discover unlikely allies, strange philosophies, and danger. They must triumph against the swamp before they disappear themselves. In her debut novel, Rachel Lindley offers a tale of exploration, mystery, and friendship, where the next good thing might be waiting a few steps beyond the river's edge.
Please support us and pick up your copy of A Bully Good Time from audible.com, and tell your friends about us. Thank you!
Novel Announcement: Ice Cream Notions and Energy Potions
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:05:00 -0400
Hello everyone! We have a special announcement today. Gareth John Jones has written a full novel length adaptation of the Firebreathing Kittens podcast adventure All Work and No Play that is called Ice Cream Notions and Energy Potions! This is great news. Now, you can find a comfy spot and experience this urban fantasy festival adventure as written word. Here is the back of the book and then a brief excerpt; I’ll read you chapter one. The back of the book: Cults, mystery, comedy, and ice cream: something is wrong in Niqamui again. It all starts with a missing child, but the real danger could be far more insidious. https://books2read.com/u/bpaxaE and it’s also available on amazon, too. Please support us and pick up your copy of Ice Cream Notions and Energy Potions from amazon.com, and tell your friends about us. Thank you!
Audiobook Announcement: An Existential Crisis
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:05:00 -0400
Hello everyone! We have a special announcement today. The full length novel adaptation of An Existential Crisis written by T. A. Lore now has an audiobook! This is great news. Now, you can listen to this reality bending adventure as written word. Here is the back of the book and then an audio sample. The back of the book:Entangled realities, temporal tampering, and an interdimensional sphinx: weirdness has run amok in Niqamui where sinister schemes are afoot. When Pidge, Borb, and Nesgrax wake from a strangely realistic dream, all three intrepid adventurers must set forth in search of answers. Unfortunately, in pulling at loose threads, they quickly find themselves ensnared by a more complex mystery than anything they could ever have imagined. In fact, they may be forced to unravel the very fabric of existence in order to escape. They really are in a pickle this time... or at least pickles are somehow involved. You can support us by ordering your copy of the new audiobook for T. A. Lore’s An Existential Crisis at https://www.audible.com/pd/An-Existential-Crisis-Audiobook/B09QMTF8XD Here is the audio sample, read by the narrator:[audio sample here] Once again, that’s An Existential Crisis by T. A. Lore, on audible at https://www.audible.com/pd/An-Existential-Crisis-Audiobook/B09QMTF8XD
Season 2023 Finale: The Fire Inside (LURPS)
Wed, 27 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
A celebration turns to chaos as mysteries are brought into focus. Join Errol, Reine, and Lothario as they strive to save Errol, and the world, from their doom. The Fire Inside is an actual play podcast of LURPS.
Tue, 26 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
A celebration turns to chaos as mysteries are brought into focus. Join Errol, Reine, and Lothario as they strive to save Errol, and the world, from their doom. The Fire Inside is an actual play podcast of LURPS.
Love Scattered (Adventure Dice)
Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Ava, Chico, and Reine on a quest to save a princess that turns into struggle against existential forces beyond mortal comprehension. "Love Scattered" is an actual play podcast of Adventure Dice.
Tue, 19 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Ava, Chico, and Reine on a quest to save a princess that turns into struggle against existential forces beyond mortal comprehension. "Love Scattered" is an actual play podcast of Adventure Dice.
Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Rufus, Lothario and Ignatious as they battle their way to win the annual fighting competition. No Rules Just Right is an actual play podcast using the LURPS rule set.
Trailer for No Rules Just Right
Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Rufus, Lothario and Ignatious as they battle their way to win the annual fighting competition. No Rules Just Right is an actual play podcast using the LURPS rule set.
The Eyes Have It (The Witch Is Dead)
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Freida Frost has been killed, and it's up to Barbara, Ignatious, and Jack to find a way to bring her back. The Eyes Have It is an actual play podcast using the mechanics of The Witch is Dead.
Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Freida Frost has been killed, and it's up to Barbara, Ignatious, and Jack to find a way to bring her back. The Eyes Have It is an actual play podcast using the mechanics of The Witch is Dead.
All I Want For Niqamuismas Is You (Christmas Capers)
Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Errol, Flex, and Pearl as they navigate a deathtrap, a budding romance, and bad holiday music. All I Want For Niqamuismas Is You is an actual play episode of the one page RPG Christmas Capers.
Trailer for All I Want For Niqamuismas Is You
Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Join Errol, Flex, and Pearl as they navigate a deathtrap, a budding romance, and bad holiday music. All I Want For Niqamuismas Is You is an actual play episode of the one page RPG Christmas Capers.
The Root Of War (Root Quickstart)
Wed, 22 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
The possums are here, and they've got knives! Join Barbara, Errol and Kit as they delve into a subterranean forest to rescue a friend, and discover something much more sinister happening just below our feet. TTRPG: Root (Quickstart). The Root Of War is an actual play podcast episode featuring the quick start of the Root tabletop roleplaying game.
Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
The possums are here, and they've got knives! Join Barbara, Errol and Kit as they delve into a subterranean forest to rescue a friend, and discover something much more sinister happening just below our feet. TTRPG: Root (Quickstart). The Root Of War is an actual play podcast episode featuring the quick start of the Root tabletop roleplaying game.
Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Starring Cal, Chico, and Barbara, Hello Citizens is an actual play podcast of the Resolute 2nd edition role playing game.
Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Starring Cal, Chico, and Barbara, Hello Citizens is an actual play podcast of the Resolute 2nd edition role playing game.
Nov 2023 Quarterly TTRPG Rules Feedback Chat
Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Quarterly TTRPG Rules Chat. Episode Title (TTRPG Sytem). Festival Of Lies (Space Knights). You Don't Know Jack (Trove Foundation). Old Man Strength (BRAWL). Hella Confidence (Monster Of The Week). I Dreamed A Dream (Wake). Kitchen Coven Chaos (Tarot Byte). The Greed Of Mr. Greenleaf (Dragonslayers 2e). Companion episodes The Voice Of Magic and Cracking Up To Victor-y (Risus The Anything RPG). Astral Maids (Astral Tourists). Harvest Hijinks (Heroes Of Adventure). Happy Bean Juice (Dungeon World).
Happy Bean Juice (Dungeon World)
Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Happy Bean Juice is an actual play podcast of the Dungeon World RPG system. Join Barbara, Chico, and Norage as they are invited to Giant's Landing for Norage's redemption.
Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Happy Bean Juice is an actual play podcast of the Dungeon World RPG system. Join Barbara, Chico, and Norage as they are invited to Giant's Landing for Norage's redemption.
Harvest Hijinks (Heroes Of Adventure)
Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Errol, and Ignatious as they try to convince Xavier to spill the Deep Ooze's secrets. Harvest Hijinks is a Heroes of Adventure actual play podcast.
Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Errol, and Ignatious as they try to convince Xavier to spill the Deep Ooze's secrets. Harvest Hijinks is a Heroes of Adventure actual play podcast.
Astral Maids (Astral Tourists)
Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Astral Maids is an actual play podcast of the Astral Tourists RPG system. Join Errol, Kit, and Norage as they travel to the Astral Plane to help clean up a mess of Eldritch proportions.
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Astral Maids is an actual play podcast of the Astral Tourists RPG system. Join Errol, Kit, and Norage as they travel to the Astral Plane to help clean up a mess of Eldritch proportions.
Cracking Up To Victor-y (Risus The Anything RPG)
Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Avast ye matey! Join Errol, Reine and Rufus on a thrilling airship journey as they investigate Drawes' out-of-control-magic! Cracking Up To Victor-y is a Risus The Anything RPG actual play podcast episode.
Trailer for Cracking Up To Victor-y
Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Avast ye matey! Join Errol, Reine and Rufus on a thrilling airship journey as they investigate Drawes' out-of-control-magic! Cracking Up To Victor-y is a Risus The Anything RPG actual play podcast episode.
The Voice Of Magic (Risus The Anything RPG)
Wed, 11 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Irresponsibly abandoning the guild's insidious possum problem, Barbara, Chico and Kit fly to the North Pole to investigate the mysterious mangling of magic causing chaos in Niqamui. The Voice Of Magic is an actual play podcast of Risus The Anything RPG.
Trailer for The Voice Of Magic
Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Irresponsibly abandoning the guild's insidious possum problem, Barbara, Chico and Kit fly to the North Pole to investigate the mysterious mangling of magic causing chaos in Niqamui. The Voice Of Magic is an actual play podcast of Risus The Anything RPG.
The Greed Of Mr. Greenleaf (Dragonslayers 2e)
Wed, 04 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Everyone loves a circus! But how long is too long to stay? Join Errol, Barbara, and Lothario as they find this answer and more! The Greed Of Mr. Greenleaf is an actual play podcast of Dragonslayers RPG.
Trailer for The Greed Of Mr. Greenleaf
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Everyone loves a circus! But how long is too long to stay? Join Errol, Barbara, and Lothario as they find this answer and more! The Greed Of Mr. Greenleaf is an actual play podcast of Dragonslayers RPG.
Kitchen Coven Chaos (Tarot Byte)
Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Errol, Kitschy and Pearl as they bounce between bingo and a bake off, yet the true danger lurks among them! Kitchen Coven Chaos is an actual play podcast using the Tarot Byte TTRPG system.
Trailer for Kitchen Coven Chaos
Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Errol, Kitschy and Pearl as they bounce between bingo and a bake off, yet the true danger lurks among them! Kitchen Coven Chaos is an actual play podcast using the Tarot Byte TTRPG system.
Wed, 20 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Jack, Cal, and Clarissa go on a trippy adventure using the Wake ttrpg system. Come along as they battle inner demons by method of battling very outer demons. Listen to the end to find out who will wake from this dream, and who will be locked in the nightmare forever.
Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Jack, Cal, and Clarissa go on a trippy adventure using the Wake ttrpg system. Come along as they battle inner demons by method of battling very outer demons. Listen to the end to find out who will wake from this dream, and who will be locked in the nightmare forever.
Hella Confidence (Monster Of The Week)
Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Pearl, Errol, and Chico as they have a hell of a good time saving a birthday and Hell Casino. Hella Confidence is a oneshot actual play podcast of the Monster of the Week roleplaying game.
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Pearl, Errol, and Chico as they have a hell of a good time saving a birthday and Hell Casino. Hella Confidence is a oneshot actual play podcast of the Monster of the Week roleplaying game.
Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
The Multiversal Tournament of Champions is coming to Niqamui! Can Camilla, Grantham and Reine prevail against the likes of Gravedigger and The Avalanche? Find out in Old Man Strength, an actual play podcast of BRAWL!
Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:05:00 -0300
The Multiversal Tournament of Champions is coming to Niqamui! Can Camilla, Grantham and Reine prevail against the likes of Gravedigger and The Avalanche? Find out in Old Man Strength, an actual play podcast of BRAWL!
You Don’t Know Jack (Trove Foundation)
Wed, 30 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Errol, Reine, and Jack set off on a dream fueled quest to save the world one handicapable robot at a time. Come along on this actual play podcast of the Trove Foundation TTRPG and try not to step in the ecological disasters along the way.
Trailer for You Don’t Know Jack
Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Errol, Reine, and Jack set off on a dream fueled quest to save the world one handicapable robot at a time. Come along on this actual play podcast of the Trove Foundation TTRPG and try not to step in the ecological disasters along the way.
Festival Of Lies (Space Knights)
Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Chico, Luna, and Lothario mentor scouts at the Junior Adventurer's Festival. As they traverse the events, a dark purpose is uncovered... Festival of Lies is an actual play podcast of Space Knights
Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Chico, Luna, and Lothario mentor scouts at the Junior Adventurer's Festival. As they traverse the events, a dark purpose is uncovered... Festival of Lies is an actual play podcast of Space Knights role playing game.
TTRPG Rules Discussion July 2023
Sat, 19 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
We discuss the rules for the tabletop roleplaying games Crowns, Dragon Slayers 2, Foretold, Specters and Spurs, Brains & Brawn, Ironsworn, Spellcore Mafioso, LURPS, Lasers & Feelings, Welcome to the WWA, and Sexy Battle Wizards.
Here's a list of each episode and TTRPG system we played this quarter.
Otter And Odder was an actual play podcast of Crowns.
Code Purple was an actual play podcast of Dragon Slayers 2.
Snackspionage! and Backup Pan were actual play podcasts of Foretold.
Bloodletting It Go was an actual play podcast of Specters and Spurs.
Gravity Boost was an actual play podcast of Brains & Brawn.
Eat Humble Pied was an actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
Corpses Don’t Honk was an actual play podcast of Spell Core Mafioso.
Water Rising was an actual play podcast of LURPS.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better and Minimum Rager were actual play podcasts of Lasers & Feelings.
Trash Can Do was an actual play podcast of Welcome to the WWA.
Frigid Beach was an actual play podcast of Sexy Battle Wizards.
Frigid Beach (Sexy Battle Wizards)
Wed, 16 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Kitschy, Dominque, and Flex Arcana dive into a Winter Wonderland threatening to ruin the bi-monthly FBK beach party, and rekindle a few fires along the way. Frigid Beach is an actual play podcast of Sexy Battle Wizards by Grant Howitt.
Tue, 15 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Kitschy, Dominque, and Flex Arcana dive into a Winter Wonderland threatening to ruin the bi-monthly FBK beach party, and rekindle a few fires along the way.
Frigid Beach is an actual play podcast of Sexy Battle Wizards by Grant Howitt.
Trash Can Do (Welcome to the WWA)
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Trash Can Do is an actual play podcast of "Welcome to the WWA". Join Avarice H., Errol Corvidbough and Ignatious Cogbright as they wrestle their way to the heart of a kidnapping and water conspiracy.
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Trash Can Do is an actual play podcast of "Welcome to the WWA". Join Avarice H., Errol Corvidbough and Ignatious Cogbright as they wrestle their way to the heart of a kidnapping and water conspiracy.
Minimum Rager (Lasers & Feelings)
Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Whisked away into a series of escape rooms, Ava, Norage and Reine have to puzzle and fight their way to the 'hoard' waiting at the end. Minimum Rager is an actual play podcast episode of 'Lasers & Feelings'.
Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Whisked away into a series of escape rooms, Ava, Norage and Reine have to puzzle and fight their way to the 'hoard' waiting at the end. Minimum Rager is an actual play podcast episode of 'Lasers & Feelings'.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better (Lasers and Feelings)
Wed, 26 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Lothario, Errol, and Chico as they solve puzzles to get their sweet, sweet prize in this Lasers and Feelings game!
Trailer for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better
Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Lothario, Errol, and Chico as they solve puzzles to get their sweet, sweet prize in this Lasers and Feelings game!
Wed, 19 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Kitschy, and Reine as they party on the beach and encounter a mysterious island fraught with danger. Water Rising is an actual play podcast using the L.U.R.P.S TTRPG System.
Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Kitschy, and Reine as they party on the beach and encounter a mysterious island fraught with danger. Water Rising is an actual play podcast using the L.U.R.P.S TTRPG System.
Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Kitschy Carovnica Interview
Corpses Don’t Honk (Spell Core Mafioso)
Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A mysterious woman comes to Dash, Kassie and Horatio with an offer they can’t refuse: stealing the prized possession of the Safiosi crime family. The reward? LOTS of money. [TTRPG: Spell Core Mafioso]
Trailer for Corpses Don’t Honk
Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A mysterious woman comes to Dash, Kassie and Horatio with an offer they can’t refuse: stealing the prized possession of the Safiosi crime family. The reward? LOTS of money. [TTRPG: Spell Core Mafioso]
Wed, 05 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Chico, Robin & Reine are on the job to stop a cruel poaching operation targeting pied-morph minkbirds. Can they prevail against organized crime? Find out in Eat Humble Pied, an actual play podcast episode of Ironsworn.
Tue, 04 Jul 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Chico, Robin & Reine are on the job to stop a cruel poaching operation targeting pied-morph minkbirds. Can they prevail against organized crime? Find out in Eat Humble Pied, an actual play podcast episode of Ironsworn.
Gravity Boost (Brains and Brawn)
Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
“Gravity Boost” is an actual play podcast of the Brains and Brawn RPG system. Join Errol, Ignatious, and Norage as they travel to the Realms' Fair, where technological marvels and peril awaits.
Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
“Gravity Boost” is an actual play podcast of the Brains and Brawn RPG system. Join Errol, Ignatious, and Norage as they travel to the Realms' Fair, where technological marvels and peril awaits.
Bloodletting It Go (Specters And Spurs)
Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
With blood as the ticket, the tourist trap Sangui-La opens its turnstiles. Join Ava and Reine as they encounter unwelcome acquaintances, search for a blood-sucking monster and explore Sangui-La. Bloodletting It Go is an actual play podcast episode of the Specters and Spurs TTRPG System.
Trailer for Bloodletting It Go
Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
With blood as the ticket, the tourist trap Sangui-La opens its turnstiles. Join Ava and Reine as they encounter unwelcome acquaintances, search for a blood-sucking monster and explore Sangui-La. Bloodletting It Go is an actual play podcast episode of the Specters and Spurs TTRPG System.
Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Reine, Graveyard, and Cheryl are enlisted as counter spies at a food and beverage expo. Using their newfound powers of influencing fate (a la the TTRPG system Foretold), will the party be successful in thwarting corporate espionage?
Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Reine, Graveyard, and Cheryl are enlisted as counter spies at a food and beverage expo. Using their newfound powers of influencing fate (a la the TTRPG system Foretold), will the party be successful in thwarting corporate espionage?
Wed, 07 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Follow the story of Ava, Errol, and Vincent in this adventure as they bend fate to prevent corporate espionage at the Banilla food Konventions center. Snackspionage! uses the Foretold RPG system. Companion episode: Backup Pan.
Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Follow the story of Ava, Errol, and Vincent in this adventure as they bend fate to prevent corporate espionage at the Banilla food Konventions center. Snackspionage! uses the Foretold RPG system. Companion episode: Backup Pan.
Code Purple (Dragonslayers 2e)
Wed, 31 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Vincent, and Chico in Code Purple, and actual play podcast of Dragonslayers 2nd edition rpg.
Tue, 30 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Vincent, and Chico in Code Purple, and actual play podcast of Dragonslayers 2nd edition rpg.
Wed, 24 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Flex, Norage, and Ignatious as they are sent to Lake Carashae to obtain a mysterious sample for corporate thief Edmas Thomison. There will be monasteries to explore and unfriendly wildlife to contend with on this week's edition of Firebreathing Kittens. Otter And Odder is an actual play podcast of the Crowns system.
Tue, 23 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Flex, Norage, and Ignatious as they are sent to Lake Carashae to obtain a mysterious sample for corporate thief Edmas Thomison. There will be monasteries to explore and unfriendly wildlife to contend with on this week's edition of Firebreathing Kittens. Otter And Odder is an actual play podcast of the Crowns system.
Mon, 22 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Norage Fleshripper Interview
TTRPG Rules Discussion May 2023
Sat, 20 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
We discuss the rules for the tabletop roleplaying games D6 Feet Under, Relic Hunter, Swamp Troll Witches, Lasers and Feelings, Fairy Heist, Shepherds, Ironsworn, Super Punk, Crash Pandas, Imperium Magisterium, Dungeoneering, New Edo.
Here's a list of each episode and TTRPG system we played this quarter.
A Storm, A Ship, And A One Way Trip: actual play podcast of D6 Feet Under.
Stop Dragon My Heart Around: actual play podcast of Relic Hunter.
The Potion Commotion: actual play podcast of Swamp Troll Witches.
So Then I Started Blasting: actual play podcast of Lasers and Feelings.
X Marks The Spot: actual play podcast of Fairy Heist.
Deli Of The Beast: actual play podcast of Shepherds.
Sworn To Be Wild: actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
HR Violations IN SPAAAAACE: actual play podcast of Super Punk.
Trickamui Drift: actual play podcast of Crash Pandas.
Blues Ooze: actual play podcast of Imperium Magisterium.
Mine Sweepers: actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
Sanctuary: actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
To Koboldly Go and A Shot In the Dark: actual play podcast of Dungeoneering.
Hare Raising Wedding: actual play podcast of New Edo.
Hare Raising Wedding (New Edo)
Wed, 17 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A mysterious message arrives, a divined adventure begins, & a wedding invitation catches up with Chico. Join Chico, Errol, & Lothario in their adventure based on the mechanics of the New Edo system. Hare Raising Wedding is an actual play podcast of the New Edo tabletop rpg system.
Trailer for Hare Raising Wedding
Tue, 16 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A mysterious message arrives, a divined adventure begins, & a wedding invitation catches up with Chico. Join Chico, Errol, & Lothario in their adventure based on the mechanics of the New Edo system. Hare Raising Wedding is an actual play podcast of the New Edo tabletop rpg system.
A Shot In The Dark (Dungeoneering)
Wed, 10 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
In this week's Dungeoneering game, join Ava, Flex, and Olathe as they delve deep for ancient artifacts and is that a robot? A Shot In The Dark is an actual play podcast of the Dungeoneering tabletop role playing game.
Trailer for A Shot In The Dark
Tue, 09 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
In this week's Dungeoneering game, join Ava, Flex, and Olathe as they delve deep for ancient artifacts and is that a robot? A Shot In The Dark is an actual play podcast of the Dungeoneering tabletop role playing game.
To Koboldly Go (Dungeoneering)
Wed, 03 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Graveyard, Rufus, and Tamara as they dungeon delve for riches, glory, and friendship? This episode uses game mechanics from the game Dungeoneering. "To Koboldly Go" is an actual play podcast of the Dungeoneering table top role playing game.
Tue, 02 May 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Graveyard, Rufus, and Tamara as they dungeon delve for riches, glory, and friendship? This episode uses game mechanics from the game Dungeoneering. "To Koboldly Go" is an actual play podcast of the Dungeoneering table top role playing game.
Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Dierdre, and Krista as they travel through a pocket dimension and decide which stupidly wealthy sister is right and which needs custodial care in this week’s Ironsworn adventure.
Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Errol, Dierdre, and Krista as they travel through a pocket dimension and decide which stupidly wealthy sister is right and which needs custodial care in this week’s Ironsworn adventure.
Mon, 24 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Errol Corvidbough Interview
Wed, 19 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Ignatious, & Zak as they answer the call to action from Hellwig the kobold miner, whose mining companions are trapped due to a cave in and need rescuing. Mine Sweepers is an actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
Tue, 18 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Join Chico, Ignatious, & Zak as they answer the call to action from Hellwig the kobold miner, whose mining companions are trapped due to a cave in and need rescuing. Mine Sweepers is an actual play podcast of Ironsworn.
Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
What kind of world has lazer bears, werewolves, skyrates, and a “hero” run by three gods? A game world within a game world! Join Ava, Lori, and Kit on this meta-adventure where things get real weird real fast.
Trailer for Meat Puppet Saves Universe
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
What kind of world has lazer bears, werewolves, skyrates, and a “hero” run by three gods? A game world within a game world! Join Ava, Lori, and Kit on this meta-adventure where things get real weird real fast.
Blues Ooze (Imperium Magisterium)
Wed, 05 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
What oddities appear in the desert? What secrets are gleaned from a mysterious runaway? Pearl, Lothario, and Zak find out during a mission set at the iconic Hangout Music Festival! Blues Ooze is an actual play podcast of the Imperium Magisterium role playing game.
Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
What oddities appear in the desert? What secrets are gleaned from a mysterious runaway? Pearl, Lothario, and Zak find out during a mission set at the iconic Hangout Music Festival!
Blues Ooze is an actual play podcast of the Imperium Magisterium role playing game.
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:05:00 -0300
April Fools 2023: An actual play oneshot podcast of A Role Playing Game You Can Play With Your Cat.
Trickamui Drift (Crash Pandas)
Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Trickamui Drift is an actual play podcast of Crash Pandas. Get ready for the Fast and the Furriest as Graveyard Shift, Ignatius, Catherine, and Chico get turned into raccoons and race through the streets of Niqamui to catch a cop killer!
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Trickamui Drift is an actual play podcast of Crash Pandas. Get ready for the Fast and the Furriest as Graveyard Shift, Ignatius, Catherine, and Chico get turned into raccoons and race through the streets of Niqamui to catch a cop killer!
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
Ignatious Cogbright Interview
HR Violations IN SPAAAAACE (SuperPunk)
Wed, 22 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
HR Violations IN SPAAAAACE is a SuperPunk rpg actual play podcast oneshot adventure starring Cal, Lothario, and Jill.
Trailer for HR Violations IN SPAAAAACE
Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
HR Violations IN SPAAAAACE is a SuperPunk rpg actual play podcast oneshot adventure starring Cal, Lothario, and Jill.
Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A pirate, a devil, and a (bug) assassin walk into a bar… and they go to fight in a faraway arena. Will Rufus, Ava, and Euphemia rock their challengers’ worlds or taste defeat as bitter as poisoned flour? Join FBK as they try the Ironsworn system for the first time!
Sword To Be Wild is an Ironsworn actual play podcast oneshot episode.
Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0300
A pirate, a devil, and a (bug) assassin walk into a bar… and they go to fight in a faraway arena. Will Rufus, Ava, and Euphemia rock their challengers’ worlds or taste defeat as bitter as poisoned flour? Join FBK as they try the Ironsworn system for the first time!
Sword To Be Wild is an Ironsworn actual play podcast oneshot episode.
Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Tend to your flocks #Shepherds. Something foul is afoot and Graveyard Shift, Pamela and Barten must find its source. New friends and old rivals await in The Deli of the Beast. #Shepherds #FirebreathingKittens #deliofthebeast
Deli Of The Beast uses the Shepherds role playing game. Deli Of The Beast is a Shepherds actual play podcast.
Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Tend to your flocks #Shepherds. Something foul is afoot and Graveyard Shift, Pamela and Barten must find its source. New friends and old rivals await in The Deli of the Beast. #Shepherds #FirebreathingKittens #deliofthebeast
Deli Of The Beast uses the Shepherds role playing game. Deli Of The Beast is a Shepherds actual play podcast.
X Marks The Spot (Fairy Heist)
Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Dig deep! Lothario, Rufus, and Eddie venture down into a silver mine, and find themselves in a world of giants far too big to handle. But when combat is out of the question, a heist is always the answer!
Using the TTRPG Fairy Heist the three find small solutions to big problems!
X Marks The Spot an actual play of the Runehack: Fairy Heist table top role playing game. X Marks The Spot is a Fairy Heist oneshot actual play podcast.
Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Dig deep! Lothario, Rufus, and Eddie venture down into a silver mine, and find themselves in a world of giants far too big to handle. But when combat is out of the question, a heist is always the answer!
Using the TTRPG Fairy Heist the three find small solutions to big problems!
X Marks The Spot an actual play of the Runehack: Fairy Heist table top role playing game. X Marks The Spot is a Fairy Heist oneshot actual play podcast.
So Then I Started Blasting (Lasers and Feelings)
Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
The FBK Guild takes on a space mystery involving kidnapping, illegal gambling and secret slides! Join Eddie, Olathe, and Brandi as they unravel the chaos that's afoot!
"So Then I Started Blasting" is a Lasers and Feelings actual play podcast. This episode uses the Lasers and Feelings ttrpg.
Trailer for So Then I Started Blasting
Tue, 21 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
The FBK Guild takes on a space mystery involving kidnapping, illegal gambling and secret slides! Join Eddie, Olathe, and Brandi as they unravel the chaos that's afoot!
"So Then I Started Blasting" is a Lasers and Feelings actual play podcast. This episode uses the Lasers and Feelings ttrpg.
The Potion Commotion (Swamp Troll Witches)
Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Lothario, Rufus, and Graveyard take a “land ship” to Gardyloo in the Atchawalla Swamp to fill requisition requests they found on the quest board in the FB guild hall. They soon learn this will not be the bog-standard fetch quest they were imagining.
"The Potion Commotion" is an actual play podcast of Swamp Troll Witches, a table top role playing game. This episode of Firebreathing Kittens is a Swamp Troll Witches actual play podcast.
Trailer for The Potion Commotion
Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Lothario, Rufus, and Graveyard take a “land ship” to Gardyloo in the Atchawalla Swamp to fill requisition requests they found on the quest board in the FB guild hall. They soon learn this will not be the bog-standard fetch quest they were imagining.
"The Potion Commotion" is an actual play podcast of Swamp Troll Witches, a table top role playing game. This episode of Firebreathing Kittens is a Swamp Troll Witches actual play podcast.
Stop Dragon My Heart Around (Relic Hunter)
Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
A gigantic sea dragon has washed up on Niqamui's shores! Join Ava, Flex and Olathe as they literally dive into adventure to get to the heart of the matter...
This episode of Firebreathing Kittens is an actual play of the Relic Hunter ttrpg, table top role playing game. "Stop Dragon My Heart Around" is a Relic Hunter actual play podcast.
Trailer for Stop Dragon My Heart Around
Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
A gigantic sea dragon has washed up on Niqamui's shores! Join Ava, Flex and Olathe as they literally dive into adventure to get to the heart of the matter...
This episode of Firebreathing Kittens is an actual play of the Relic Hunter ttrpg, table top role playing game. "Stop Dragon My Heart Around" is a Relic Hunter actual play podcast.
A Storm, A Ship, And A One Way Trip (D6 Feet Under)
Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Graveyard, Rufus, and Lothario take on an escort contract aboard the galleon The Revenge. Soon an unexpected event forces them to think differently about time, consequences, and their own mortality.
This episode is an actual play podcast of the D6 Feet Under table top role playing game. Firebreathing Kittens podcast played the ttrpg D6 Feet Under.
Trailer for A Storm, A Ship, And A One Way Trip
Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:05:00 -0400
Graveyard, Rufus, and Lothario take on an escort contract aboard the galleon The Revenge. Soon an unexpected event forces them to think differently about time, consequences, and their own mortality.
This episode is an actual play podcast of the D6 Feet Under table top role playing game. Firebreathing Kittens podcast played the ttrpg D6 Feet Under.
Mon, 04 Jan 2021 01:05:00 -0400
Hello! In case you're listening to Firebreathing Kittens for the first time and have scrolled to our oldest episode: this is an explanation of what the podcast is, and what you can expect.
Q: What is it?
A: Firebreathing Kittens is a fictional fantasy audio show you can listen to for entertainment.
Q: Who is the intended audience?
A: Adults who enjoy fantasy, mystery, friendship filled adventures. Firebreathing Kittens is not appropriate for children.
Q: What are tabletop role playing games?
A: Tabletop role playing games are mechanics, or rules. Good stories often contain conflict, and having a set of math rules can help to simulate combat. Game mechanics help answer the questions: what was the fight like, and who won? Tabletop role playing games also involve acting out a role. Players can pretend to be various fantasy creatures and martial and spell casting classes. You can be a wizard, a fighter, or whatever you want. Adventures are coordinated by someone called a “Game Master”, or GM. Here at Firebreathing Kittens, we all rotate through being players and Game Masters, which provides a diversity of GM styles and a rainbow of viewpoints for how different people see the world. It gives everyone a chance to tell their story.
Q: Are the adventures sequential? Phrased another way: should these episodes be listened to in a specific order?
A: Nope. This is an anthology, not a mandatorily sequential series that you have to listen to from episode one to the end. Each episode has been designed to stand sturdily on its own two feet without requiring the listener to recall any background information from past history to understand the current story. You have the freedom to listen to these adventures in any order you like. Each one has its own beginning and a hopefully satisfying ending.
Q: Where should I start?
A: Because we have learned how to record better audio over time, we suggest that you start with our most recent season. The older episodes do sometimes have poor sound quality. With that caveat said, we have hundreds of hours of past episodes from multiple past seasons available on Patreon.com/FirebreathingKittens. That’s P-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com. The vast majority of those episodes use the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons.
Q: What if I don’t like one of the adventures?
A: If you encounter an episode you don't enjoy? Skip it. Our cast rotates so the players and game master will likely be a different combination of people in the next one you try. It’s the same group of people rotating in different games, but the combination really changes the style and flow of things.
Okay, so that’s some questions and answers about Firebreathing Kittens. We hope you enjoy our show!
Older Episodes Available On Patreon
Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:05:00 -0400
Hello! If you’re enjoying these newer episodes, you should know that we also have hundreds of hours of older episodes on Patreon. Most of them use fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons mechanics. You can find them at patreon.com/FirebreathingKittens