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Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
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- Jun 4, 2018
Get some Larry Elmore. Return to a more innocent time.
Funny thing: I got a copy of The Complete Elmore (autographed by the man himself) at a past DragonCon. In it, he ruefully comments how some of his earlier work, he had been drawing eyes far larger than he should've been.
I honest to fuck had never noticed this. Some of his Dragonlance novel covers had a vaguely anime-esque look to them, but I didn't even THINK it was the eyes. Hell, it doesn't even look that bad.
Wonder why no one's taken a shot at canceling him yet? My guess is his advanced age, the woketards will probably just wait him out.
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- Jul 12, 2014
I was thinking more of an SJW-meets-Brooke-McEldowney thing with how the mouth is drawn. (The guy loves making big maws full of teeth when doing really expressive stuff.)It's the SJW Art and Extremes version of a Liam Vickers character.
It is a more innocent time in a way. One thing I can't help thinking is that with the really fat ones, wouldn't their bulk get in the way? Lower stamina and stuff.
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- Jan 30, 2019
First time I've ever heard of lamentations, but I've played a fair amount of DCC, and I can honestly say I love that system. Definitely a must-try for both people who want a taste of the oldschool dnd experience, and people who like lightweight systems that actually work
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- Feb 19, 2015
I read the first one and liked it. In the second one, I got the "WTF am I reading?" feeling.
DDBCAE CBAADCBE
kiwifarms.net
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- Apr 12, 2019
Why did I get pinged for this?
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- Feb 19, 2015
Had accidentally dropped in a quote from you.
DDBCAE CBAADCBE
kiwifarms.net
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You dumb piece of shit! Do it again, I fucking dare you!
In other news I found more funny shit from a one on one session on Discord.
This one needs a little bit of explaining. See, I was haggling with this weirdo NPC who decided he wants some of my hair. The DM was being like super weird and fetishy about it. Anyways I'm playing an archer and for whatever reason the DM thinks that my character, an archer who leaps through the trees stealthily, would have waist length hair. What a retard.
Granted, he should have known what my character looked like considering we had talked among ourselves and the other plyers about various aesthetic inspirations for our characters. We were even making and posting memes with our characters in them but he still couldn't remember simple shit.
I don't think I need to explain this one aside from the fact that Estrida was the name of one of the goddesses in his setting.
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Emperor Julian
kiwifarms.net
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- Dec 20, 2015
It's interesting how VIRTUE SIGNAL: THE GAME OF SOCIAL JUSTICE and the social justice counterparts are both essentially targeting current social zeitgeists, effectively trying to target attitudes so sell product-especially considering sjw/anti-sjw are effectively co-dependant at this stage. I often find my wondering how much the people believe the message of the item, especially considering how many sjw types later turn out to be sex pests.
Agent of Z.O.G.
kiwifarms.net
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What, not stats for STUNNING and BRAVE?
I am disappoint.
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- Apr 25, 2020
Don't be silly. It's obvious every player character in that game has +10 to STUNNING and BRAVE by default.
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- Oct 10, 2014
"Raised by Beasts"
That poor kid...
My character concept is that my character was forcefully given tranny pills at the age of 3 but escaped. Now, a half-troon xe seeks revenge on the world. Secretly entering into light hearted flirt battles with only the desire to murder. No conflict will end in a peaceful resolution, only blood.
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- Jan 7, 2020
Thank you, kind sir.
Are you ladies ready for THIRSTY LESBIAN ACTION?
We start out promisingly with a legal sperging and credit page. The legal sperging has a couple of jokes in it, was almost certainly not written by a lawyer, and totally gives me permission to review it. Those of you with sensitive sensibilities will be happy to know that they have not one, but two sensitivity readers. Anything vaguely offensive should be erased from this book under their diligent watch. Blowing past the contents page, we get into the Introduction.
It tells us right off the bat that it wants to be a generalist system that can be used for any type of game. I'm guessing they just didn't want to write a setting and lore. We'll see the truth in that later. But whatever the setting, it promises we'll have three things: Love, Swords, and Adventure, and a Positive Community. I'm not sure if that was actually two things or three so I split the difference. No bigots are allowed in your community, TSL, the people you are defending must love and support you unconditionally! The other two sections basically say you're an RPG protagonist in a game that also has romance and themes of romance.
With the introduction out of the way, it gets to one of the questions we've all been asking: "What is this book?". Unfortunately the answer is "a game for telling queer stories with friends", and I'm sure any story you tell with this system would be quite queer. As always it has the obligatory "Are you for some reason choosing this obscure game as your first RPG? We will carefully explain what an RPG is like you are six years old". They manage to resist giving the GM a silly name and simply go with GM. A player's duties include "Feeling Deeply and Powerfully and Often". You know how show don't tell is a great aspect of storytelling? No you don't! You have to tell everyone at your table how your character is feeling deep inside or they won't know how to coddle your character! The same heading gives us hints at what is to come, mentioning an Emotional Support action and an entire Safety and Consent section coming up in a couple pages. The other headings have less terrible advice but constantly remind you that this is a gay game for queers. Your characters are going to flirt with each other, why bother developing your character while doing it? Just ask the other player how their character wants to be flirted with so you can get it right! Your characters are going to insult each other, be sure to ask the other players what will really hit home so you can effectively insult! Crowd source your insults if you want your character to say something clever but you can't actually think of anything! For a game supposedly all about character interaction, the advice really goes out of its way to avoid having to develop a character for everyone to interact with with their character.
The game then gives you advice on flirting scenarios that could come up in your game. If I was trying to play a game in person and anyone attempted 75% of these, I'd probably cringe to death.
Safety and consent is only a page! It basically says you're game must be a safe space. You'll always be in control of your character, so even if the dice say your character should do something you can ignore that if you feel like! We've explicitly made this a safety goal of our game! We just offer bonuses and penalties that are totally different. Is roleplaying too difficult for you? Break character and just use the mechanics! This is a second safety goal we have set for ourselves! Our third is safety tools! We're not going to talk about them here, we're just going to tell you that you get free EXP if you use them.
Before that, we have to say "No Nazis allowed!". If you want the privilege of playing our super cool game you must follow a literal checklist. If you don't toe the partyline you'll be forced to play something else! It is in the rules. Thankfully I'm not a bigot and will be allowed to read the rest of this unmolested. Double thankfully you are allowed to hate yourself, as anyone willingly playing this game must.
We get two pages worth of Safety Tools in addition to the one page Safety and Consent thing! The X-card makes an appearance, with some more obscure "safety" devices. There is the Palette, where you make a list of things you don't want in your game. Basically make a list of triggers so nobody uses them. Finally is the Check In card, which is like a reverse X-card you use to stop the game and make sure nobody is triggered. Normal people might be able to talk in the group without cheap gimmicks, but it feels like the theme of the game is going to be using cheap gimmicks to communicate so its at least on point there.
Its organized so Core Rules come before character creation. A non-standard choice, we'll see if its worth complaining about. As it advertised its an Apocalypse World game like the Watch. As I discussed earlier, I don't really like the system. You get a list of Moves depending on your character. You roll 2d6+Stat and get an "Up Beat" on 10+, Mixed Beat on 7-9, and a Down Beat on 6-. This is standard for the rules with a new name for the successes/failures (IIRC).
Stats are basically standard RPG things renamed.
Daring: Strength
Grace: Dex
Heart: Charisma
Wit: Wis
Spirit: Magical power
Instead of health points, you take Conditions when things happen. At six Conditions you are "Defeated", explicitly not dead just kinda in timeout for the rest of the scene. The examples are going crazy, getting arrested, and curling up into a useless ball. How ableist. I can't believe neither of the sensitivity writers caught how offensive this is to raving lunatics and useless people. Anyway there are only five listed, so presumably they just couldn't think of any more.
They are Angry, Frightened, Guilty, Hopeless, and Insecure. Each gives a -2 to one action. Each has a brief description of what each emotion is in case you're a robot or something. It isn't entirely clear to me if you can get one multiple times, or if the GM has to mix up attacks to actually threaten the party in any meaningful way. It also means emotions are a weakness that you must overcome, and that all your lesbians are emotional wrecks constantly spazing out at the slightest offense.
You can clear Conditions by using the Emotional Support action. So the game's version of healing is everyone chatting about their feelings after a fight. This game has held up to the promise of being unbelievably gay. Alternatively, you can act out of these emotions and hurt your party to clear them! I'm not sure why SJW games all seem to involve deliberately causing "drama" with party members from petty things. Anger is Break Something, Frightened is Run Away And Lose Something, Guilty is Cut yourself (no, really, it says you hurt yourself to get rid of it)...or throw an item away. Hopeless is goof off, Insecure is "be rash".
You can also inflect conditions on your fellow PCs! Just in case you wanted to harm the other players at your table for no reason. Their DND games must involve throwing passive aggressive fireballs at each other. Apparently players get to choose their own Conditions, but should choose one they don't have. NPCs mostly lose after getting a single Condition, with the strongest having five. So you'll need numbers if you want your PCs to be actually threatened in combat since the strongest enemies are just on the level of the PCs. When an NPC is defeated, the PC who defeated them gets to decide how (subject to GM veto). The example has them poisoning an innocent man who was just arguing with them.
Strings are relationship links. The game suggests you keep track of them in a bizarre and impractical way using colored tokens, and I've read through it several times with little clue how they expect that to work. You can use Strings as currency to influence your party member's actions, because rolling to convince PCs of something is much more fun than actually roleplaying conversations with each other or whatever. If you get four Strings with someone, you get to learn a super special secret, some EXP, then lose a bunch of strings. It also gives the GM some strings so they don't have to actually roleplay talking to NPCs either.
Players need 5 "XP" (I'm using EXP since its less dumb) to level up aka "Advance". You get an EXP whenever it says to or when you roll 6 or under. One shots can level up on 3 instead. Advances are basically "Get a new move or an extra attribute". Its described in a really confusing way, but presumably its a check list given several options are listed twice. You can also retire the character if you get high enough level! Since you definitely need mechanics to do that. If you don't retire than you have to get a class change. Where you throw away all but one of your moves and advances. So once you get far enough you can either wright up a new character or make your old character basically a new character. Thrilling. Players love it when leveling up kills their character. Its worded so you maybe don't have to pick either option, but either way you max out a character at 25 EXP.
As stated above, the player actions consist of Moves. The game now goes on to list the Basic Moves everyone gets:
Fight: Hurt someone! In theory at least. Of the four options listed only one actually hits the enemy with your thirsty sword, and even then you have the option to just insult them. The rest are flirting/provoking for a String, creating an opportunity (not a mechanic so...) for an ally, or taking an objective/item. The enemy always gets to pick one and will probably always just make a Condition on you, so nobody can fight 6 stated characters without loosing. For a game about adventure, if this is the only fighting move the fighting sucks.
It goes on for another page, autistically explaining how "taking something" from them meant something they physically have and not part of them or their planet or whatever. "You can't deprive a PC of their sword without their consent! Also swords have no effect" There is a sample fight where the male BBEG decides to get a String on the PC for some reason.
Defy Disaster: Basically "We didn't think of a move for it, so use this arbitrarily". Use whatever attributes work. GM decides what the benefits of a success are. It goes on for two pages like this. "Make sure you check with other players before stopping disaster, maybe they wanted to face it!"
Stagger: Basically something you're forced to roll by actual moves, its kinda like a SANS roll. If you have more Conditions the effects are (theoretically) worse.
Entice: Seduce. Gain a string on success. On partial they can decide to get awkward, promise something they want, or "give in to desire". The description says that if you use it on a PC and they say it won't work then they either have to change it, pretend it never happened, or just go with it and pretend like the effects are from something else. The example is weird and fetishy, with the PC getting a slave collar put on them by the bad girl.
Figure Out a Person: Keeping with a consistent pattern, replace asking people questions with rolling to get questions. Character interaction means rolling dice right? None of the listed questions you could ask are in anyway helpful or secret. Things like "what are your feelings toward _____?" or "What do you get hope from?". The downside to a partial success is... they also get to ask one of the dumb questions so now you've got three dumb questions in one roll. It says you can use it on an enemy (which OK, could have practical use), but then you're just kinda randomly bringing up information from nowhere so it still is just weird.
Influence with a String: Not rolled. +1 to a roll, -1 to an enemy roll, XP if a PC does what you ask, and NPCs/PCs can "tell you what you need to do to get them to do what you want". NPCs might just listen, but otherwise it sucks as a Charisma skill since its main purpose is to tell you how to influence them. Something that you'd normally...just roleplay.
The example has one character convincing another to take off their shirt, the GM offers an influence roll for it that the player refuses.
Smitten: Also not a rolled move. Arbitrarily decide your character likes another. Give them a String. Answer a question based on your class. The GM can make the romance difficult (examples not listed) and it gives you the ability to kiss in a dangerous situation for +1 to rolls.
Emotional Support: Back to rolling and mentioned earlier. Have the other PC open up to you. Clear a condition, give them XP, + 1 to rolls, or the ever popular "have the GM drop information on your lap". Smitten gives you an extra option, since nothing says "True Love" like a mechanical advantage.
Call on a Toxic Power: Remember how we had a Magic Stat? Like everything in APW, you get to ask a question and the GM drops info on your lap. It says you commune either with Dark Gods, "patriarchal governments", corporations, etc. Church bad. Corporations bad. Smash the Patriarchy. You get it.
And that is it for basic moves! At the end of the session you get some bonus EXP if any PC confessed love, de-escalated violence, or a player used the safety equipment! How exciting and adventurous.
44 pages in we get to the Character Creation. First you choose your "playbook", which I've been calling class since that is basically what it is. You choose a name and pronouns (all pronouns are welcome and valid shitlord, how did you make it this far after the warning banning nazis like you?), pick some places to put your points into and pick out some things from your class.
Then you share the character with the class. Don't forget to tell the other players their pronouns and deep emotional turmoil! Things all lesbians need! Arbitrarily decide everyone's relationship with the other characters and give Strings for how close they are.
Up to this point, there have been placeholders but no art. We now see enlarged versions of the classes that we've seen before. They're much more gross up close. As you saw in the above picture. As you also saw you are given arbitrarily aesthetic options that do nothing, just in case you're too lazy to actually come up with a character description in addition to being too lazy to actually roleplay character interaction.
Beasts get Feral, yet another item to keep track of in addition to Strings with every player and NPC, Conditions, etc. If you fill it you transform, if you empty it you lose your powers. It increases by "showing emotion society wants you to conceal" or "expressing yourself shockingly", goes down if you hurt someone you like or try to fit in.
Of course Transform is also your first move and you can do it at will setting you to max Feral anyway. So you where keeping track of that extra bar for nothing lol. Two of the options are mostly not mechanical, the two that do something remove a Condition and make you immune to Stagger. You go back if your Feral falls below four, and can take a condition to avoid having your Feral fall (which is pointless since, again, you can assume the form at will). The list of moves is fairly long so I'll just hit the highlights:
(Sigh) Big Dyke Energy: Gain free Strings with your enemies. Whenever you roll 10+ someone gets "impressed or intrigued" with you. Mostly for the name.
Tenacious Purpose: Ask the GM what to do while violating societal norms. Get +1 if you follow their suggestion. -1 Feral and a Condition if you don't. Why bother having the GM play your character?
The Bloody Truth: When you use Figure Out, one of the questions can instead be "What can I do to make you kiss me?" and "What Awakens the Beast inside you?"...During physical conflict.
Basically you are a deviant flaunting society's laws and morals from the "how to play" section. Congrats?
The Chosen: Singing black chick from earlier. Fancy rich and famous class. They choose a "Destiny" that they don't want to do, with examples like being sacrificed to a horror god and marrying a prince. Mechanically they can choose four "aspects", two heroic two tragic. Its just a check list. Do it for +1 and some XP. Once you've checked it all your Destiny thing happens (or doesn't). None of the examples make any sense with the mechanical prompt, since they're things like "Legendary Skill" or "Chosen by God", so a good portion of the list isn't...like a thing you can do.
Choice Moves:
The Fated Day Approaches: if you don't move toward your Destiny, someone either threatens your...or your Favorite PC has an accident and Staggers. Sucks to be the guy standing next to you.
Entourage: Get followers who can offer +1 on certain Basic Moves of your choice. You can kill one of them instead of Staggering. Really sucks to be the guy standing next to you.
Devoted: Sped hand with the feather hat thing. Game's Paladin class. Choose a devotion to something, take a Condition when you go against it. Can help someone else with Defy Disaster.
Choice moves:
What's Best for Them: The Cuck skill. Gain EXP for helping someone your Smitten with romancing someone else. You can also treat them as your Devotion.
Lay on Hands: I told you they're a paladin. Doesn't actually mechanically heal since it activates with Emotional Support which already does that. Instead either gives you a string on them or EXP depending on how they feel about your Devotion.
Toxic Devotion: Did you think they'd make a vaguely religious characters good? +1 to rolls or 1 EXP when you act like a battered wife towards your Devotion. Get a free Condition if the other PCs think your Devotion is problematic.
The Infamous: tentacle hair chick. Redeemed bad guy class. You get to ask what would make the other PCs forgive you for your sins. Tone it down if the others hesitate, we don't want any negativity in our formally evil character! Special ability is you get to decide one sin you'll never commit again, then Stagger if you commit it again!
Choice moves:
Always Suspect: When you pretend to be a bad guy again (something that I'm sure comes up enough that you're taking this move), you get a String on them because they trust you! And then get an option that said either they don't trust you and need proof you are evil, where only pretending (but you keep the string), or someone sees you and thinks you are evil. But you get a minor benefit in a niche situation that the rest of the party can't participate in! Totally worth it.
Who's the Monster: When you call out a hypocrite pretending to be a good guy, you can either gain a String from a random bystander, give them a Condition (enough to take out minor NPCs remember), or force them to either change their mind or attack you (or take a condition)! Nothing better than minor benefits in niche situations!
Your Wicked Heart: Can figure out how to get an enemy to betray their ideals if you use the Figure Out Person in physical conflict.
How to play bolds "Don't pressure someone to forgive the people who harmed them!" In case you think this was about forgiving bad people:
Actually its about trannies.
Nature Witch: Presumably druid class? Autists with trouble socializing. Special feature is "Curiosity" where you can pick a list of Trials and get your choice of benefits from completing them. Complete them all and you can roll up a new character if you want! Yay!
Wild Friends: Can talk to animals and use all the social manipulation moves on them. There arn't any real rules for animals, so they're basically just normal NPCs nobody can talk to but you I guess.
Awaken The Wild: Change an animal or location. 7-9 gets you a success at a cost, but doesn't bother listing the cost. Kills the target if you have too many conditions. Which sucks since one of the powers is healing.
Nature's Touch: Touch someone. Unlike Lay on Hands it can actually heal them for a String. Or let them join you in talking to animals. Or just be a weaker version of Figure Out.
The Scoundrel: "Shimbo pirate". Basically 7th Sea character. Special ability is...figure out why you act the way you do so you can get over it.
Choice moves:
Heat of the Moment: Talk someone into doing something they'd like to do but would be stupid to. Gives PCs a condition if they don't listen. So you have a "Do what I say or take damage" skill instead of just, you know, letting the player decide what to do using roleplay. Can upgrade from success to exceptional by becoming smitten with target.
Lust on First Sight: Free strings to people you barely know if you declare Smitten on them. You lose Smitten on anyone you don't have strings with. This is an autopurchased Move, and thus far the only way to lose Smitten involuntarily. Yep, arbitrarily fall out of love with people! Nothing says good roleplaying like dice telling you who you love.
One in Every Port: You have an ex in every town you've been before. Free EXP and GM infodump if you left on bad terms.
Rrrip: Get your clothing destroyed by a close call. Can and will say NPCs you roll 10+ against now have a crush against you. PCs gain EXP if they declare Smitten after this.
The Seeker: The chick who looks like Jimmy Neutron's mother. "Comes from a toxic society but found a place they belong". Have a list of Commandments with such evil patriarchal oppression as "No sex before marriage", "Don't go with a certain type of person without accompaniment", and "Cover your body". Some are contradictory, others are repetitive. As a mirror to Beast you get a mirror to their beast bar, Tradition. Gain when you follow the commandments. At 4+ take conditions whenever you go against them (which again, is bad). Spend to get the Authority off your back or get +1 to Call Toxic Power. Can break Commandments and replace them with Convictions doing the opposite. Gain a Condition if a friend sees you following your Convictions and thinks its dumb (because your strong convictions need constant affirmation form everyone around you, naturally).
Choice Moves:
People are People: Tell people something good about your homeland to clear Condition, tell a good lie about it to get a String, or tell them a flaw about it for +1.
Proper Courtship: Perform a courtship ritual with someone your smitten with. Get bonuses if they go along with it. Most wholesome thing so far.
How to Play is all about breaking Tradition to move away from the toxic society that expects you to wear a shirt and not sleep around.
Spooky Witch: Fat chick. Basically the Goth Class. You're in contact with some mysterious unseen force that you get to decide on because they're isn't any lore or setting in this book. Mostly ghost summoning flavor.
Choice Moves:
Commune with the Unseen: Talk to the ghost things. Get a GM infodump, hide something, or get a Figure Out Person from their dead relatives. If you screw up can kill all non-sentient life around, gives you a condition, or causes an undefined haunting.
I like Snails: Say something weird when Figuring Out someone you're smitten with for a free question.
Divination: Magically cast a spell to learn something about someone present. Instead of...just talking to them.
Dreamwalk: Touch someone in their sleep. Appear in their dreams to seduce and or question them.
Finally, the Trickster. Mask guy. Get a super special "Feelings" bar for themselves. Increases for basically anything. Once it fills you scream out your feelings. Deepest roleplaying. Decrease it by opening up or secretly doing "loving acts".
Choice Moves:
The Mask: Roll to lie. Three options that are all "they believe you". Also lets you lie when people use Figure You Out, making that move officially worse than just asking normally.
Deft Fingers: Steal things. Can either get an opportunity, reveal a secret love, or not get noticed.
Overall there are very few Moves that deal with the actual Sword part of Thirsty Sword lesbians, most just deal with the Thirsty part. Those that do deal with fighting don't really make you better at it - you can only deal one Condition a turn, other things that deal conditions arn't really useful in a fight, and every time you attack the bad guys also get to put a condition on you. Most of the moves don't really work from either a roleplaying perspective or a storytelling perspective as written. They're trying to put numbers and dice on normal human interactions that your party was probably going to have if you arn't all murderhoboing in dungeons. A large portion of the Moves are meant to get information that the players all already know, since the game keeps demanding that you let the other players know all the things that you could possibly get. Waiting to roll until your character knows anther's backstory isn't exciting, its boring. Putting numbers to everything makes it feel more gamey and less organic, and while the game keeps insisting it isn't dictating your actions the setup is much more constraining that just not having rules for inter-PC interactions. Like I've been saying, if you think the elf has a crush on the fighter you can go tease the elf about it without a roll. With this setup you have to roll, get a high enough number, and then can't ask another question without a roll.
More coming, with promises of an advanced fighting rule that might be less terrible!
It tells us right off the bat that it wants to be a generalist system that can be used for any type of game. I'm guessing they just didn't want to write a setting and lore. We'll see the truth in that later. But whatever the setting, it promises we'll have three things: Love, Swords, and Adventure, and a Positive Community. I'm not sure if that was actually two things or three so I split the difference. No bigots are allowed in your community, TSL, the people you are defending must love and support you unconditionally! The other two sections basically say you're an RPG protagonist in a game that also has romance and themes of romance.
With the introduction out of the way, it gets to one of the questions we've all been asking: "What is this book?". Unfortunately the answer is "a game for telling queer stories with friends", and I'm sure any story you tell with this system would be quite queer. As always it has the obligatory "Are you for some reason choosing this obscure game as your first RPG? We will carefully explain what an RPG is like you are six years old". They manage to resist giving the GM a silly name and simply go with GM. A player's duties include "Feeling Deeply and Powerfully and Often". You know how show don't tell is a great aspect of storytelling? No you don't! You have to tell everyone at your table how your character is feeling deep inside or they won't know how to coddle your character! The same heading gives us hints at what is to come, mentioning an Emotional Support action and an entire Safety and Consent section coming up in a couple pages. The other headings have less terrible advice but constantly remind you that this is a gay game for queers. Your characters are going to flirt with each other, why bother developing your character while doing it? Just ask the other player how their character wants to be flirted with so you can get it right! Your characters are going to insult each other, be sure to ask the other players what will really hit home so you can effectively insult! Crowd source your insults if you want your character to say something clever but you can't actually think of anything! For a game supposedly all about character interaction, the advice really goes out of its way to avoid having to develop a character for everyone to interact with with their character.
The game then gives you advice on flirting scenarios that could come up in your game. If I was trying to play a game in person and anyone attempted 75% of these, I'd probably cringe to death.
Safety and consent is only a page! It basically says you're game must be a safe space. You'll always be in control of your character, so even if the dice say your character should do something you can ignore that if you feel like! We've explicitly made this a safety goal of our game! We just offer bonuses and penalties that are totally different. Is roleplaying too difficult for you? Break character and just use the mechanics! This is a second safety goal we have set for ourselves! Our third is safety tools! We're not going to talk about them here, we're just going to tell you that you get free EXP if you use them.
Before that, we have to say "No Nazis allowed!". If you want the privilege of playing our super cool game you must follow a literal checklist. If you don't toe the partyline you'll be forced to play something else! It is in the rules. Thankfully I'm not a bigot and will be allowed to read the rest of this unmolested. Double thankfully you are allowed to hate yourself, as anyone willingly playing this game must.
We get two pages worth of Safety Tools in addition to the one page Safety and Consent thing! The X-card makes an appearance, with some more obscure "safety" devices. There is the Palette, where you make a list of things you don't want in your game. Basically make a list of triggers so nobody uses them. Finally is the Check In card, which is like a reverse X-card you use to stop the game and make sure nobody is triggered. Normal people might be able to talk in the group without cheap gimmicks, but it feels like the theme of the game is going to be using cheap gimmicks to communicate so its at least on point there.
Its organized so Core Rules come before character creation. A non-standard choice, we'll see if its worth complaining about. As it advertised its an Apocalypse World game like the Watch. As I discussed earlier, I don't really like the system. You get a list of Moves depending on your character. You roll 2d6+Stat and get an "Up Beat" on 10+, Mixed Beat on 7-9, and a Down Beat on 6-. This is standard for the rules with a new name for the successes/failures (IIRC).
Stats are basically standard RPG things renamed.
Daring: Strength
Grace: Dex
Heart: Charisma
Wit: Wis
Spirit: Magical power
Instead of health points, you take Conditions when things happen. At six Conditions you are "Defeated", explicitly not dead just kinda in timeout for the rest of the scene. The examples are going crazy, getting arrested, and curling up into a useless ball. How ableist. I can't believe neither of the sensitivity writers caught how offensive this is to raving lunatics and useless people. Anyway there are only five listed, so presumably they just couldn't think of any more.
They are Angry, Frightened, Guilty, Hopeless, and Insecure. Each gives a -2 to one action. Each has a brief description of what each emotion is in case you're a robot or something. It isn't entirely clear to me if you can get one multiple times, or if the GM has to mix up attacks to actually threaten the party in any meaningful way. It also means emotions are a weakness that you must overcome, and that all your lesbians are emotional wrecks constantly spazing out at the slightest offense.
You can clear Conditions by using the Emotional Support action. So the game's version of healing is everyone chatting about their feelings after a fight. This game has held up to the promise of being unbelievably gay. Alternatively, you can act out of these emotions and hurt your party to clear them! I'm not sure why SJW games all seem to involve deliberately causing "drama" with party members from petty things. Anger is Break Something, Frightened is Run Away And Lose Something, Guilty is Cut yourself (no, really, it says you hurt yourself to get rid of it)...or throw an item away. Hopeless is goof off, Insecure is "be rash".
You can also inflect conditions on your fellow PCs! Just in case you wanted to harm the other players at your table for no reason. Their DND games must involve throwing passive aggressive fireballs at each other. Apparently players get to choose their own Conditions, but should choose one they don't have. NPCs mostly lose after getting a single Condition, with the strongest having five. So you'll need numbers if you want your PCs to be actually threatened in combat since the strongest enemies are just on the level of the PCs. When an NPC is defeated, the PC who defeated them gets to decide how (subject to GM veto). The example has them poisoning an innocent man who was just arguing with them.
Strings are relationship links. The game suggests you keep track of them in a bizarre and impractical way using colored tokens, and I've read through it several times with little clue how they expect that to work. You can use Strings as currency to influence your party member's actions, because rolling to convince PCs of something is much more fun than actually roleplaying conversations with each other or whatever. If you get four Strings with someone, you get to learn a super special secret, some EXP, then lose a bunch of strings. It also gives the GM some strings so they don't have to actually roleplay talking to NPCs either.
Players need 5 "XP" (I'm using EXP since its less dumb) to level up aka "Advance". You get an EXP whenever it says to or when you roll 6 or under. One shots can level up on 3 instead. Advances are basically "Get a new move or an extra attribute". Its described in a really confusing way, but presumably its a check list given several options are listed twice. You can also retire the character if you get high enough level! Since you definitely need mechanics to do that. If you don't retire than you have to get a class change. Where you throw away all but one of your moves and advances. So once you get far enough you can either wright up a new character or make your old character basically a new character. Thrilling. Players love it when leveling up kills their character. Its worded so you maybe don't have to pick either option, but either way you max out a character at 25 EXP.
As stated above, the player actions consist of Moves. The game now goes on to list the Basic Moves everyone gets:
Fight: Hurt someone! In theory at least. Of the four options listed only one actually hits the enemy with your thirsty sword, and even then you have the option to just insult them. The rest are flirting/provoking for a String, creating an opportunity (not a mechanic so...) for an ally, or taking an objective/item. The enemy always gets to pick one and will probably always just make a Condition on you, so nobody can fight 6 stated characters without loosing. For a game about adventure, if this is the only fighting move the fighting sucks.
It goes on for another page, autistically explaining how "taking something" from them meant something they physically have and not part of them or their planet or whatever. "You can't deprive a PC of their sword without their consent! Also swords have no effect" There is a sample fight where the male BBEG decides to get a String on the PC for some reason.
Defy Disaster: Basically "We didn't think of a move for it, so use this arbitrarily". Use whatever attributes work. GM decides what the benefits of a success are. It goes on for two pages like this. "Make sure you check with other players before stopping disaster, maybe they wanted to face it!"
Stagger: Basically something you're forced to roll by actual moves, its kinda like a SANS roll. If you have more Conditions the effects are (theoretically) worse.
Entice: Seduce. Gain a string on success. On partial they can decide to get awkward, promise something they want, or "give in to desire". The description says that if you use it on a PC and they say it won't work then they either have to change it, pretend it never happened, or just go with it and pretend like the effects are from something else. The example is weird and fetishy, with the PC getting a slave collar put on them by the bad girl.
Figure Out a Person: Keeping with a consistent pattern, replace asking people questions with rolling to get questions. Character interaction means rolling dice right? None of the listed questions you could ask are in anyway helpful or secret. Things like "what are your feelings toward _____?" or "What do you get hope from?". The downside to a partial success is... they also get to ask one of the dumb questions so now you've got three dumb questions in one roll. It says you can use it on an enemy (which OK, could have practical use), but then you're just kinda randomly bringing up information from nowhere so it still is just weird.
Influence with a String: Not rolled. +1 to a roll, -1 to an enemy roll, XP if a PC does what you ask, and NPCs/PCs can "tell you what you need to do to get them to do what you want". NPCs might just listen, but otherwise it sucks as a Charisma skill since its main purpose is to tell you how to influence them. Something that you'd normally...just roleplay.
The example has one character convincing another to take off their shirt, the GM offers an influence roll for it that the player refuses.
Smitten: Also not a rolled move. Arbitrarily decide your character likes another. Give them a String. Answer a question based on your class. The GM can make the romance difficult (examples not listed) and it gives you the ability to kiss in a dangerous situation for +1 to rolls.
Emotional Support: Back to rolling and mentioned earlier. Have the other PC open up to you. Clear a condition, give them XP, + 1 to rolls, or the ever popular "have the GM drop information on your lap". Smitten gives you an extra option, since nothing says "True Love" like a mechanical advantage.
Call on a Toxic Power: Remember how we had a Magic Stat? Like everything in APW, you get to ask a question and the GM drops info on your lap. It says you commune either with Dark Gods, "patriarchal governments", corporations, etc. Church bad. Corporations bad. Smash the Patriarchy. You get it.
And that is it for basic moves! At the end of the session you get some bonus EXP if any PC confessed love, de-escalated violence, or a player used the safety equipment! How exciting and adventurous.
44 pages in we get to the Character Creation. First you choose your "playbook", which I've been calling class since that is basically what it is. You choose a name and pronouns (all pronouns are welcome and valid shitlord, how did you make it this far after the warning banning nazis like you?), pick some places to put your points into and pick out some things from your class.
Then you share the character with the class. Don't forget to tell the other players their pronouns and deep emotional turmoil! Things all lesbians need! Arbitrarily decide everyone's relationship with the other characters and give Strings for how close they are.
Up to this point, there have been placeholders but no art. We now see enlarged versions of the classes that we've seen before. They're much more gross up close. As you saw in the above picture. As you also saw you are given arbitrarily aesthetic options that do nothing, just in case you're too lazy to actually come up with a character description in addition to being too lazy to actually roleplay character interaction.
Beasts get Feral, yet another item to keep track of in addition to Strings with every player and NPC, Conditions, etc. If you fill it you transform, if you empty it you lose your powers. It increases by "showing emotion society wants you to conceal" or "expressing yourself shockingly", goes down if you hurt someone you like or try to fit in.
Of course Transform is also your first move and you can do it at will setting you to max Feral anyway. So you where keeping track of that extra bar for nothing lol. Two of the options are mostly not mechanical, the two that do something remove a Condition and make you immune to Stagger. You go back if your Feral falls below four, and can take a condition to avoid having your Feral fall (which is pointless since, again, you can assume the form at will). The list of moves is fairly long so I'll just hit the highlights:
(Sigh) Big Dyke Energy: Gain free Strings with your enemies. Whenever you roll 10+ someone gets "impressed or intrigued" with you. Mostly for the name.
Tenacious Purpose: Ask the GM what to do while violating societal norms. Get +1 if you follow their suggestion. -1 Feral and a Condition if you don't. Why bother having the GM play your character?
The Bloody Truth: When you use Figure Out, one of the questions can instead be "What can I do to make you kiss me?" and "What Awakens the Beast inside you?"...During physical conflict.
Basically you are a deviant flaunting society's laws and morals from the "how to play" section. Congrats?
The Chosen: Singing black chick from earlier. Fancy rich and famous class. They choose a "Destiny" that they don't want to do, with examples like being sacrificed to a horror god and marrying a prince. Mechanically they can choose four "aspects", two heroic two tragic. Its just a check list. Do it for +1 and some XP. Once you've checked it all your Destiny thing happens (or doesn't). None of the examples make any sense with the mechanical prompt, since they're things like "Legendary Skill" or "Chosen by God", so a good portion of the list isn't...like a thing you can do.
Choice Moves:
The Fated Day Approaches: if you don't move toward your Destiny, someone either threatens your...or your Favorite PC has an accident and Staggers. Sucks to be the guy standing next to you.
Entourage: Get followers who can offer +1 on certain Basic Moves of your choice. You can kill one of them instead of Staggering. Really sucks to be the guy standing next to you.
Devoted: Sped hand with the feather hat thing. Game's Paladin class. Choose a devotion to something, take a Condition when you go against it. Can help someone else with Defy Disaster.
Choice moves:
What's Best for Them: The Cuck skill. Gain EXP for helping someone your Smitten with romancing someone else. You can also treat them as your Devotion.
Lay on Hands: I told you they're a paladin. Doesn't actually mechanically heal since it activates with Emotional Support which already does that. Instead either gives you a string on them or EXP depending on how they feel about your Devotion.
Toxic Devotion: Did you think they'd make a vaguely religious characters good? +1 to rolls or 1 EXP when you act like a battered wife towards your Devotion. Get a free Condition if the other PCs think your Devotion is problematic.
The Infamous: tentacle hair chick. Redeemed bad guy class. You get to ask what would make the other PCs forgive you for your sins. Tone it down if the others hesitate, we don't want any negativity in our formally evil character! Special ability is you get to decide one sin you'll never commit again, then Stagger if you commit it again!
Choice moves:
Always Suspect: When you pretend to be a bad guy again (something that I'm sure comes up enough that you're taking this move), you get a String on them because they trust you! And then get an option that said either they don't trust you and need proof you are evil, where only pretending (but you keep the string), or someone sees you and thinks you are evil. But you get a minor benefit in a niche situation that the rest of the party can't participate in! Totally worth it.
Who's the Monster: When you call out a hypocrite pretending to be a good guy, you can either gain a String from a random bystander, give them a Condition (enough to take out minor NPCs remember), or force them to either change their mind or attack you (or take a condition)! Nothing better than minor benefits in niche situations!
Your Wicked Heart: Can figure out how to get an enemy to betray their ideals if you use the Figure Out Person in physical conflict.
How to play bolds "Don't pressure someone to forgive the people who harmed them!" In case you think this was about forgiving bad people:
Actually its about trannies.
Nature Witch: Presumably druid class? Autists with trouble socializing. Special feature is "Curiosity" where you can pick a list of Trials and get your choice of benefits from completing them. Complete them all and you can roll up a new character if you want! Yay!
Wild Friends: Can talk to animals and use all the social manipulation moves on them. There arn't any real rules for animals, so they're basically just normal NPCs nobody can talk to but you I guess.
Awaken The Wild: Change an animal or location. 7-9 gets you a success at a cost, but doesn't bother listing the cost. Kills the target if you have too many conditions. Which sucks since one of the powers is healing.
Nature's Touch: Touch someone. Unlike Lay on Hands it can actually heal them for a String. Or let them join you in talking to animals. Or just be a weaker version of Figure Out.
The Scoundrel: "Shimbo pirate". Basically 7th Sea character. Special ability is...figure out why you act the way you do so you can get over it.
Choice moves:
Heat of the Moment: Talk someone into doing something they'd like to do but would be stupid to. Gives PCs a condition if they don't listen. So you have a "Do what I say or take damage" skill instead of just, you know, letting the player decide what to do using roleplay. Can upgrade from success to exceptional by becoming smitten with target.
Lust on First Sight: Free strings to people you barely know if you declare Smitten on them. You lose Smitten on anyone you don't have strings with. This is an autopurchased Move, and thus far the only way to lose Smitten involuntarily. Yep, arbitrarily fall out of love with people! Nothing says good roleplaying like dice telling you who you love.
One in Every Port: You have an ex in every town you've been before. Free EXP and GM infodump if you left on bad terms.
Rrrip: Get your clothing destroyed by a close call. Can and will say NPCs you roll 10+ against now have a crush against you. PCs gain EXP if they declare Smitten after this.
The Seeker: The chick who looks like Jimmy Neutron's mother. "Comes from a toxic society but found a place they belong". Have a list of Commandments with such evil patriarchal oppression as "No sex before marriage", "Don't go with a certain type of person without accompaniment", and "Cover your body". Some are contradictory, others are repetitive. As a mirror to Beast you get a mirror to their beast bar, Tradition. Gain when you follow the commandments. At 4+ take conditions whenever you go against them (which again, is bad). Spend to get the Authority off your back or get +1 to Call Toxic Power. Can break Commandments and replace them with Convictions doing the opposite. Gain a Condition if a friend sees you following your Convictions and thinks its dumb (because your strong convictions need constant affirmation form everyone around you, naturally).
Choice Moves:
People are People: Tell people something good about your homeland to clear Condition, tell a good lie about it to get a String, or tell them a flaw about it for +1.
Proper Courtship: Perform a courtship ritual with someone your smitten with. Get bonuses if they go along with it. Most wholesome thing so far.
How to Play is all about breaking Tradition to move away from the toxic society that expects you to wear a shirt and not sleep around.
Spooky Witch: Fat chick. Basically the Goth Class. You're in contact with some mysterious unseen force that you get to decide on because they're isn't any lore or setting in this book. Mostly ghost summoning flavor.
Choice Moves:
Commune with the Unseen: Talk to the ghost things. Get a GM infodump, hide something, or get a Figure Out Person from their dead relatives. If you screw up can kill all non-sentient life around, gives you a condition, or causes an undefined haunting.
I like Snails: Say something weird when Figuring Out someone you're smitten with for a free question.
Divination: Magically cast a spell to learn something about someone present. Instead of...just talking to them.
Dreamwalk: Touch someone in their sleep. Appear in their dreams to seduce and or question them.
Finally, the Trickster. Mask guy. Get a super special "Feelings" bar for themselves. Increases for basically anything. Once it fills you scream out your feelings. Deepest roleplaying. Decrease it by opening up or secretly doing "loving acts".
Choice Moves:
The Mask: Roll to lie. Three options that are all "they believe you". Also lets you lie when people use Figure You Out, making that move officially worse than just asking normally.
Deft Fingers: Steal things. Can either get an opportunity, reveal a secret love, or not get noticed.
Overall there are very few Moves that deal with the actual Sword part of Thirsty Sword lesbians, most just deal with the Thirsty part. Those that do deal with fighting don't really make you better at it - you can only deal one Condition a turn, other things that deal conditions arn't really useful in a fight, and every time you attack the bad guys also get to put a condition on you. Most of the moves don't really work from either a roleplaying perspective or a storytelling perspective as written. They're trying to put numbers and dice on normal human interactions that your party was probably going to have if you arn't all murderhoboing in dungeons. A large portion of the Moves are meant to get information that the players all already know, since the game keeps demanding that you let the other players know all the things that you could possibly get. Waiting to roll until your character knows anther's backstory isn't exciting, its boring. Putting numbers to everything makes it feel more gamey and less organic, and while the game keeps insisting it isn't dictating your actions the setup is much more constraining that just not having rules for inter-PC interactions. Like I've been saying, if you think the elf has a crush on the fighter you can go tease the elf about it without a roll. With this setup you have to roll, get a high enough number, and then can't ask another question without a roll.
More coming, with promises of an advanced fighting rule that might be less terrible!
REGENDarySumanai
Scraping the arse end of the barrel for these.
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kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2017
Playing a heavily modified Pathfinder 1e campaign with tons of house rules and homebrew and one of my characters is a monk who punches people from a distance and uses the power of fear to enhance his prowess. He's also a forceful diplomat.
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kiwifarms.net
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- Jun 13, 2020
It looks like it got inspiration from Monsterhearts, another Apocalypse World game about being horny teenage monsters. Monsterhearts also has Strings you can use to put other players at disadvantage and has dice rolls for interaction between PCs, but it's at least partially a PvP game and the mechanics are built so that you don't have any way of actually accomplishing something without being a huge asshole. It's laser-focused on being a game about shitty teens who are either literal monsters or metaphors for them. It's pretty good if you want a game about ridiculous and over the top teenage drama. Just don't get the second edition, since it fucked up the game a lot by being more woke.
Edit:
Monsterhearts did it before and better.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
Excuse me but what the actual fuck.
Cool just what we needed, a sexually-charged teenage sociopath/psychopath game
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
These are people who genuinely thought Captain Marvel was a role model. Think about that for a moment.