Okay, I'm skimming through and it's very clear that there is actually no plot or setting. It's literally just "make up swashbuckling so you can do awful marvel quotes and kiss the evil witch".
By the way, the repeated use of Queers (which I still consider a slur), that very cringe and awkward attempts to describe flirting and zingers (and those are a mechanic btw) and that all examples in the text are women still is very telling. Now I'm not saying the bearded baby man seething at his game being terrible isn't a sex pest secretly but, well you know the drill.
What's really depressing is that if this was the 1990's or 00's and you told me a game called "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" was out, I'd assume it was about Xena and her gang going on treasure-seeking adventures for fame and glory before celebrating their successes with booze and mud wrestling. Now we get... that.
What's really depressing is that if this was the 1990's or 00's and you told me a game called "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" was out, I'd assume it was about Xena and her gang going on treasure-seeking adventures for fame and glory before celebrating their successes with booze and mud wrestling. Now we get... that.
Why try when 8k bugmen will throw nearly 300k at your poorly disguised sexual fantasies being passed as stunning and brave?
And I say this bluntly, because the fight option example is the only time you have a man v. woman fight. The other two examples of play are women totally trying to work their feelings out in combat. Like reading all the example of play, I can actually see the Brazillian porn comedy it's that fucking egregious; Lesbian Pirate Fleet is said without irony. Also there's a load of weeabooism in it since the most common character example is "Sakura the Devoted", with "Xing the nature witch" also showing off some serious yellow fever. In retrospect given the person behind this is a male feminist it makes so much sense.
These retards will deny it, but they backed a weeb's spank bank disguised as a game with the lowest effort system known to man.
Oh, and the dev clearly used Behindthename or some other site to find random woke names for the players. Rather doubt an Arabic woman would be caught dead with this book unless they're at least 3 generations out from the homeland for example.
The only reason this game is a game is because this nematode used the PbtA system. There'd have just been lesbian fantasies akin to Chris Field's spankbank otherwise I think.
I'm not particularly bashing the sexual fantasy bit (see above post), just the sheer terrible quality of it all. Nothing actually fun or interesting is in this game, just the boring Current Year politically-acceptable lesbianism of uwu-soft feelings and garbage multi-culti names. I'm probably not making too much sense thanks to sleep deprivation, but I think you get the gist of it. A character named Xena, Devourer of Beavers would probably regarded as the world's biggest faux paus at your typical table of this game, after all.
I'm not particularly bashing the sexual fantasy bit (see above post), just the sheer terrible quality of it all. Nothing actually fun or interesting is in this game, just the boring Current Year politically-acceptable lesbianism of uwu-soft feelings and garbage multi-culti names. I'm probably not making too much sense thanks to sleep deprivation, but I think you get the gist of it. A character named Xena, Devourer of Beavers would probably regarded as the world's biggest faux paus at your typical table of this game, after all.
I'm only highlighting it because it really shows how little the bullshit that these type of people spew out actually matters. Such diversity that women talk out their problems in between fighting and then kiss with their lower mouths. There's also the fact that there is literally nothing worth talking about besides the bad art.
I could shittalk the mechanics, but it's PbtA, meaning you're always basically playing a flow chart game where you almost never do anything right without problems occurring. Every game with this shit system plays the exact same way.
And I can't talk about lore. This is because the book has none. I usually like to do this myself, but fuck's sake you should have a setting of some sort to provide ideas with books like this. Especially since this is PbtA, meaning what little value this book has relies on the tone. So that's out.
The only other thing I can talk about is the art, and the version I have has most of that cut out. You do have the tumblr incarnate character design though.
Hell, might as well show this excerpt: "Now is your chance to tell the story you wanted when you shook your fist at the TV screen and shouted, “Make it gay, you cowards!” Thirsty sword lesbians may get into a lot of sword fights, but those sword fights often end with making out or with mutual understanding rather than bloodshed." ~ Why I highlighted this so hard, p. 85
"Now is your chance to tell the story you wanted when you shook your fist at the TV screen and shouted, “Make it gay, you cowards!” Thirsty sword lesbians may get into a lot of sword fights, but those sword fights often end with making out or with mutual understanding rather than bloodshed." ~ Why I highlighted this so hard, p. 85
So I figured I'd ask this here. What is everyone's favorite Ravenloft Darklords/Domains? Ive always been partial to The Wildlands and Falkovnia (pre-5e), as well as to Maligno, Lord Soth, and Addar. Plus, The Mourning Rail seems pretty cool as one of only two good things 5e added (the other being the guide on making darklords).
So I figured I'd ask this here. What is everyone's favorite Ravenloft Darklords/Domains? Ive always been partial to The Wildlands and Falkovnia (pre-5e), as well as to Maligno, Lord Soth, and Addar. Plus, The Mourning Rail seems pretty cool as one of only two good things 5e added (the other being the guide on making darklords).
I liked Borca and it's twin Darklords (Ivan being my favorite). I'm also fond of the Wildlands since it reminds me of the African folktales that were read to me as a kid.
I will give 5e credit for making I'Cath and Tsien Chiang into a decent domain and Darklord. But, I agree, a lot of 5e Ravenloft was wussed-down and was made too PC. If they make another book for it, I have a feeling that Gabrielle (another DL I like) will get a major hatchet job since the Vistani have been heavily changed, there's no prejudice, and two of the DLs she's connected to have been gotten rid of.
So I figured I'd ask this here. What is everyone's favorite Ravenloft Darklords/Domains? Ive always been partial to The Wildlands and Falkovnia (pre-5e), as well as to Maligno, Lord Soth, and Addar. Plus, The Mourning Rail seems pretty cool as one of only two good things 5e added (the other being the guide on making darklords).
Sure it wasn't the most PC time, but I kind of like the old south aesthetic and combing it with fantasy is something I hadn't seen before when it comes to Souragne. So it's a tragedy how they butchered the domain in 5e. I definitely agree with you on Rokushima Taiyoo, especially if they give the Darklord a rewrite.
So I figured I'd ask this here. What is everyone's favorite Ravenloft Darklords/Domains? Ive always been partial to The Wildlands and Falkovnia (pre-5e), as well as to Maligno, Lord Soth, and Addar. Plus, The Mourning Rail seems pretty cool as one of only two good things 5e added (the other being the guide on making darklords).
Although, mainly, when I was DMing, I let the PC's roam through all of them. Usually they weren't involved with the Dark Lord of the realm, but rather running around doing other things.
They did have Strahd himself pull them out of the fire once. They were tracking and moving in for the kill on a homebrew roving darklord (about Dark Powers Level 4) and she'd gotten the upper hand. Wolves came in and drove her away, letting them escape and heal up. I flat out told them that when they looked up they could see a dark caped figure on the balcony of Castle Ravenloft, staring down.
Although, mainly, when I was DMing, I let the PC's roam through all of them. Usually they weren't involved with the Dark Lord of the realm, but rather running around doing other things.
They did have Strahd himself pull them out of the fire once. They were tracking and moving in for the kill on a homebrew roving darklord (about Dark Powers Level 4) and she'd gotten the upper hand. Wolves came in and drove her away, letting them escape and heal up. I flat out told them that when they looked up they could see a dark caped figure on the balcony of Castle Ravenloft, staring down.
It started kind of early in their career. The players knew they had moved to Ravenloft by the fog, but beyond that, they really didn't know anything beyond "Gothic Horror" and the fact I'd spent 2 weeks reading gothic horror novels and romances and watching shit like Dark Shadows (the TV series) on the VCR for like a month to get back into the groove after not DMing Ravenloft for a couple years. I warned them, repeatedly, that Ravenloft was quite literally the "If it isn't my old foe, the consequences of my own actions" the campaign setting and urged them to keep their murder hobo tendencies in check.
They promised, and promptly fucked it all up.
One thing, I've never shied back from ugliness, so...
The party was moving down the road when they saw something moving in the woods. A failed homebrew perception check (This was 2E AD&D) and they fired a couple arrows, killing a guy wearing a wolfskin cloak. Well, being murder hobos they robbed the dead dude and left him in the bushes. They made camp, dicked around for a day, then headed down the road again, coming into the village at just before dusk. The village was all worried about a local man who hadn't come home and moved up to ask if the PC's had seen them.
The problem was: one PC was wearing the cloak, another was wearing a gold ring they took off the body, and a third was carrying his bow.
His pregnant wife saw that, saw the PC's with the guy's gear, and had a melt down, losing the child in the process.
The PC's took off and ran the risks of the Ravenloft woods. There they run into some goblins with knives, chase the goblins to a barn. I warn them that they're on the edge of the village they were just at, but, hey murder-hobos. So, they burn down the barn to kill the goblins, then chase the last one off into the woods, despite the fact I told them that the fire was spreading because of the wind. I was giving them a chance to save the village from the fire they'd set but they just ran off after the goblin.
They heard in an inn that a village had burned down and went back to check it out. They wandered around the ruins of this burnt down village. The villagers recognized them, words were said, rocks were thrown, and the PC's responded with swords and spells. The villagers that survived ran off, the party looted the ruins, and moved on.
They forgot about her for a bit and went on having murder hobo adventures as time in the game passed.
Never one to pass up a good opportunity, and several points it said that reaping the effects of your own consequences was the best part.
So we had a recent widow who had suffered a miscarriage then her village being burnt down and all of her friends, family, and neighbors being slaughtered by heavily armed goons.
I figured she'd offer anything to anyone to help her get her revenge. I had a player roll up an 1st level NPC for me, including the name, and decided that would be her. Well, a 1st level thief can be a nasty character. I decided that the Dark Powers had decided to strengthen her. The party hadn't failed their Dark Powers checks, so were still acting like it was any other campaign setting, but I decided that the Dark Powers would be amused by punishing the characters with the consequences of their own actions.
I had her following them for a while. Always waiting until they left, or maybe moving ahead. Making contacts, keeping in the shadows. I gave a few chances to notice her, most of which were blown off.
See, she didn't want just a clean kill, she wanted to make them suffer like she'd suffered. Finding out they were outlanders with no family, no friends, she realized there was only one way to hurt them, and that was to destroy their rep and turn everyone against them. Revenge is a HUGE motive in gothic fiction, so I figured I had my non-Darklord antagonist that wouldn't hit them head on.
One of the times they went to see Vistani, when they started to get properly paranoid, I had the fortune teller warn them that one of their sins was coming home to roost, and that the wolf, the archer, and the gold ring would be their downfall.
Then a couple of bad guys managed to get away due to bad rolls and bad decisions on the party's side, so I had her, in the background, hit those ones up for info and kill a few of them for their power.
So I gave her a few abilities, out of the Dark Powers section. I can't recall exactly any more, but it was mostly stealth and the ability to charm when speaking to other evil characters. I do remember I decided that she was 3 levels lower than the lowest level of her killers. But in 2E A&D a thief can be fucking brutal.
Then came the finale of a story arc that culminated in fighting an animated doll (Nicknamed, of course, Chuckie) that resulted in the doll being thrown off a cliff and into the ravine. I asked twice if they were going to go doublecheck down by the river to see if he was dead, but they blew it off. It had been a while since they'd blown off finishing off an enemy, which startled me.
When they got back to town, they found their shit had been gone through. Nothing missing, even after triple checking, nothing added either. Just everything pulled out of packs and magic bags. The spellbooks were intact, but someone had obvious gone through them. The group, of course, wondered what the person had been looking for and wondered if maybe someone thought they had something they didn't have.
Nope, she had gone through their stuff to find out exactly what they had in reserves. What spells the mage had in his book. She'd watched carefully, and had arranged a couple of fights to push them so she could get an accurate count of how many spells per day the casters could do to let her know what kind of power they could bring to bear.
She was ready. A Dark Powers Level 3 (at the time) NPC with a living doll backup, a serious hate boner, and worst of all, most of all, patience.
I didn't whip her out all at once. That didn't fit. It had to be properly done.
That was the first thing. The PC's got done fighting an empowered ghoul, got back, to find a note on the table of their inn room. "I know what you did." That was it. Cue the paranoia. Nothing for a little while. Then another note: "I saw what you did." More nothing. Another note: "I remember what you did." Nothing, then the good one: "And I have never forgiven you."
That got the players going over EVERY fight they'd had with evil creatures that got away. A small list, but they settled on a mummy lord that might have broken free, Adam, or Chuckie.
She also did stuff like move ahead of them and change signs, move mileposts, you know, typical annoying stuff.
Then they found a new wolf cloak on the bed of the one who had worn it (who, somehow, was still alive). The one with the bow had been the one to make the killing shot, so that person had her ire because they were using her husband's bow. They found a single bloody arrow on their bed. The ring was still in the mage's possession, so a simple broken gold ring was left on top of his spellbooks. Honestly, it was surprising that those 3 had survived that long.
War was declared. A couple of the players had a bad feeling about this, but they were all "naw, couldn't be anything too bad."
Being a Dark Powers Level 3, she was becoming what she had hated. Which meant:
She had tried to convince villages to go against the PC's, but they wouldn't, since they had a rep of being good guys and monster hunters.
Remember, she's twisted up by revenge.
So it was OK to sacrifice other people to get her revenge.
She starts framing them for crimes. Little ones at first, but building up. Then she went big.
She started killing one person in each village about the time they left, so the victim wouldn't be found until after they were gone. Same method every time, display the body the same way. A couple of times the PC's came back to the village and were confronted, and worked to prove their innocence. About this time the players realize they've got a problem.
They decided to double back. Make a big show of leaving, come back, and they manage to catch her in the act. They get their first good look of her. She's badly scarred from the fire, but one person rolls good (Wis+Int/2 for memory) and remembers her eyes. Personally, I was surprised she got away. They stopped to save her victim instead of chasing her.
Now they knew she was out there.
Over the course of about a year of playing Sat & Sun, she kept coming back. Rarely the star on her own.
I had decided on a punishment for her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't kill the three she blamed for her husband's death. No matter how much blood she shed, no matter how intricate the plot, I always fudged the dice slightly or arranged the narrative so they'd survive.
I also decided that she got the same treatment from those three.
She wouldn't get her own domain, she was doomed to have that power just out of her reach. She was able to slip in and out of other Dark Lord's domains, but couldn't effect the landscape and couldn't navigate the mists.
She was a rootless vagabond consumed with revenge and hatred. A woman who had given up what little she had not lost in order to extract revenge.
She hated the idea of those three being killed by another villain, so a few times her burning hatred made her rescue them. I even wove her into some of the modules once I adapted them.
This bitch was a scourge on the group. Funny thing was, the players loved it. The idea of their own consequences coming back was novel to some of them, who were used to just plain hack and slash, which is why they fucked up by the numbers in the beginning, but they were adults and could see their error. Funny thing is, they got better, leaving behind the murder hobo thing and going with thoughtful Gothic heroes beset on all sides by darkness and temptation.
But she couldn't see just how hard they were trying to atone.
She rarely confronted them directly. She was more hit and run or strike from the shadows and fade away.
After a particularly bad run of luck, the only characters left in the group (I was running 5-6 people at the time) were the three still from the original group. We were going to wrap up those characters, so the group wanted to go back to that original village, which was nothing but old ruins.
So we had our final confrontation. It was pretty good, pretty memorable. The end scene was straight out of a movie, cliched as hell, but good.
"Goodbye, Rochelle."
>Drops a 12d6 fireball at his own feet while holding the grapple on her.
What's really depressing is that if this was the 1990's or 00's and you told me a game called "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" was out, I'd assume it was about Xena and her gang going on treasure-seeking adventures for fame and glory before celebrating their successes with booze and mud wrestling. Now we get... that.
That review of Superbabes is derpy as fuck. I don't argue that the game looks janky as fuck, but come on.
Remember, though, the thing about being a millionairess is that nonprofit groups are always after your money, you have to pay taxes on it, and somebody may try to steal or wreck your comapny... Whew! Almost sounds like it's not worth the trouble, huh?
Goddamn, you can tell who has never donated to a charity, ever. NGOs are ALWAYS looking for that next check from a benefactor. Yes, it may be for a good cause, but they still come asking.
What would be the point of a Warhammer game where your characters aren't constantly at risk of being horribly mutilated, either physically or mentally, in a gruesome and stomach-churning manner described in loving detail by your GM? That's a good portion of the fun.
What's really depressing is that if this was the 1990's or 00's and you told me a game called "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" was out, I'd assume it was about Xena and her gang going on treasure-seeking adventures for fame and glory before celebrating their successes with booze and mud wrestling. Now we get... that.
The studio behind the original Dungeons & Dragons has returned to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, under the guidance of Gary Gygax Jr. with the help of Wonderfilled, Inc.
Lake Geneva, WI, June 15, 2021 --(PR.com)-- Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) was founded in 1973 by E. Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Originally formed in 2020, TSR Games is officially back and under the leadership of E. Gary Gygax Jr.
“I am thrilled to be part of this next generation of gaming and hope that you all find it cut the same cloth as all my old TSR experiences as we forge a new TSR Games,” said Gygax, continuing, “Thanks to the vision of our CEO Justin LaNasa, and the help of Wonderfilled, we’re bringing TSR back home to Lake Geneva. It really means so much to me.”
TSR was behind the original Dungeons & Dragons first released in 1974, now a worldwide phenomenon owned by Hasbro on its fifth and most popular edition yet. The team includes Justin LaNasa (CEO), Ernest G. Gygax Jr (EVP), Jeff R. Leason (COO, and Stephen E. Dinehart (CCO). LaNasa is a visionary and entrepreneur that has set out to reunite brands like TSR with the original talent behind them.
“It’s with great pride that we’ve managed to secure the TSR brand, born here originally in 1973 and brought back to the people who created this new form of game that changed the world,” said LaNasa.
In addition to the classic lines of products at TSR Museum and Dungeon Hobby Shop, TSR Games is working to bring a new generation of role-playing games and more to players worldwide. “Now more than ever, the world needs TSR,” said game designer Jeff R. Leason. “We’re happy to be bringing it back for experienced and new players alike.”
I'm surprised Hasbro/ WOTC let the name go. If they can do a good old school, unwoke RPG I'm in.
