I need your advice, 'dex

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

I asked it already in the OSR thread, but I think I might do it here as well, since not everyone's interested in old-schoolish stuff.

Over the last couple of months (more like years, really, if I take all the various drafts, ideas, and sketches into the equation) I was working on various TTRPG homebrews and tinkering with the mechanics. I finally decided to go with OSR stuff for various reasons (high lethality, rulings over rules, that sort of thing), but that's not the point. I came to a grinding halt when it comes to choosing between two setting ideas I'm torn between. These are:

1. a cross-breed between Numenera and Jodorowsky's comics (mainly Metabarons), set in quasi-apocalyptic vision of the future Earth. Filled with bizarre stuff like neoplatonian philosophies with their head way up their asses, monks looking for their own interpretation of enlightenment by sticking needles into their dicks, insectoid vampiric space dragons, an order of fighters looking to master every single fighting concept imaginable, no matter how stupid, including around wuxia-style, that sort of thing. Focuses mainly on hunting the relics of the past and different factions interpreting them in their own fucked-up way (Statue of Liberty as a goddess of proto-humanity? yes, please);
2. a much more comfy setting and closer to what we'd call generic fantasy universe, somewhat closer to Mouse Guard and Moominvalley than regular dungeon delving. The world is full of various hamlets, small towns, castles, ruins, markets, and everything in-between where life is generally hard, but safe and fair. Life outside of those is completely different matter - hedges and forests are full of fucked-up stuff (including various fae creatures, closer to the true interpretation of elves than pointy-eared fuckers), with progressing level of lethality (it's OSR, after all). PCs would take the role of messengers, border guards, and trouble solvers. Focuses a little bit more on slice of life stories and makes a big deal out of various seasons, with winter being THE major event - not only because of scarcity, but also darkness. And we all know that darkness gives birth to all the dangerous stuff. Less creepy, but adds a lot of folk flavor to things - one big plot hook was salt shipment gone missing and local town becoming unable to properly defend itself against ghosts on not!Halloween. I was thinking about this setting because I'm honestly bored with all the grimdark shit infecting ttrpgs lately.

I feel like I'm at the creative crossroads so I ask you - what would you focus on out of these two?

And yes, I realize both ideas are becoming more and more done to death.

 

[hello friend]

I like both but second one sounds a lot more fun imo, but then I have a significant soft spot for grimdank folklorey stuff. Perhaps it's because people used to believe in that stuff, gives it an edge. Folk flavour can be well creepy if you're inclined to make it so, a lot of fairy folk in old stories are more like magical serial killers than anything else. But I guess you're not going there. Comfy is cool, too.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Folk flavour can be well creepy if you're inclined to make it so, a lot of fairy folk in old stories are more like magical serial killers than anything else. But I guess you're not going there.

I kinda, sorta WANT to go there, actually. The whole idea of "comfiness" is built on contrasts - our safe haven here, their woods and eldritch (for the lack of better word) lairs there. Folk tales are really creepy stuff and that's the sort of thing I want to evoke on higher (2-3+) levels: "Ok, you've defeated some goblins, you've solved the local mystery of missing shipments, but here's the real deal". In the end I want it to be the best of both worlds, with campaigns going one of the two ways; sure, looking for the missing grain supplier sounds lighthearted, but if you throw in fae beings and ladies of the woods, it can become a lot closer to proto-medieval horror story.

 

[Zombra]

If you speak only in acronyms instead of English, I can't help you.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

What acronyms are there, really? OSR = old school revival (or renaissance, if you prefer), the idea of creating stuff compatible with pre-second edition D&D; PCs = player characters; TTRPG = tabletop RPG. But what makes an RPG RPG?

 

[Gregz]

A Jodoverse RPG would be awesome.

 

[Zombra]

The obvious question becomes: what are you going to use this setting for? Are you trying to sell paper copies of a new game? Or do you just want to build a cool campaign world for your real life homies?

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

You know it's diamond-hard question, eh? I'm not cynical enough (or experienced enough when it comes to game design) to create something simply because I want to sell it - if I'd go for it, I'd still treat it as a labor of love.

That being said, the ONLY reason I haven't published some stuff is because I'm way too autistic when it comes to polishing things - I constantly scrap, relocate, repolish, cut, burn, and reapply various ideas, sometimes without any rhyme or reason, only to abandon them for a year or two. Right now I like to imagine myself as a drug dealer, supplying my friends with various mechanical and worldbuilding ideas, coming up with plot hooks, stitching together seemingly-clusterfucky campaigns, moving quests forward, that sort of thing; on the other hand, I treat them as worryingly enthusiastic software testers. But yeah. I wouldn't be mad, not mad at all, if I'd be able to publish it and gather some following.

 

[Zombra]

Cool. So boiled down, your real question is: "If you were gonna buy a new TTRPG*, which one of these would you spend $$ on?" That being the case, I have to go with #1. Flying octopus vampires has a chance to be interesting. Another homely generic fantasy slog might be more fun to actually play, but I have absolutely no reason to spend $ on it as I already have about a thousand games fitting that description gathering dust on my bookshelf.

The only thing that might sell a homely fantasy game would be amazing systems. I like what you said about messengers and problem solvers. There's something there that asks for a good systemic way to generate these kinds of mission-based stories. If you go this route you should try to have a strong focus to the systems. "This is a game about carting bananas from A to B in a fantasy world and nothing else." Otherwise it's just "you wander into another tavern".

*You see, I am learning.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

The only thing that might sell a homely fantasy game would be amazing systems. I like what you said about messengers and problem solvers. There's something there that asks for a good systemic way to generate these kinds of mission-based stories. If you go this route you should try to have a strong focus to the systems. "This is a game about carting bananas from A to B in a fantasy world and nothing else." Otherwise it's just "you wander into another tavern".

Come to think of it (and looking at notes lying around), the system is pretty basic in and of itself - I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here when it comes to classes (like I do in the Metabaronian stuff, where I completely gutted the cleric, turning him into some sort of cypher from Pillars of Eternity, with various powers that get better and more likely to actually work as you level up). What I wanted to make its selling point (huh) was designing the way to make the seasons affect the actual gameplay, with spring and summer considered some sort of easy mode, lulling you in (but not without random stuff happening) with stuff like coming into contact with wandering caravans, that sort of stuff; the closer you get to autumn and, eventually, winter, the harder it would become to navigate and manage your resources (winters are harsh from the get-go; there is no such thing as mild winter in this setting). Roads flooded and frozen, no contact with the outside world, wildlife becoming a little more desperate. Sorta like Don't starve.

Spoiler

fight me, I loved this game a couple of years ago

 

[ItsChon]

The second option is what stands out to me because I can think of a bunch of scenarios and lore to make such a setting interesting, while the first is a little bit beyond me, and I feel kind of disconnected while reading it.

 

[Zombra]

What I wanted to make its selling point (huh) was designing the way to make the seasons affect the actual gameplay, with spring and summer considered some sort of easy mode, lulling you in (but not without random stuff happening) with stuff like coming into contact with wandering caravans, that sort of stuff; the closer you get to autumn and, eventually, winter, the harder it would become to navigate and manage your resources (winters are harsh from the get-go; there is no such thing as mild winter in this setting). Roads flooded and frozen, no contact with the outside world, wildlife becoming a little more desperate.

This sounds like a really fun idea, but you'll need to recognize we're wandering into board game territory here. Traditional P&P has a very, very, very short-focused time scope. One four-hour game session might represent just a few days of game time, or even less ... possibly even less than the real time passing if there's a lot of mechanics to cover i.e. a complicated battle that only represents a 10-minute combat but takes hours to resolve. A single dungeon the party explores for a few days might take months to play out real time.

But the main dynamic in your idea is the balance between winter & summer. You can't play for months in the boring easy summer biome and then play for months in the punishing exhausting winter biome. You have to mix it up at least every couple sessions.

So you will need mechanisms to accelerate time, pull the camera way back, to make this work. "Filler" combats will need to be resolved in seconds. Whole dungeons should take no more than a few minutes. And so forth. Yet if it's to be true P&P there will have to be room for role-playing, story and characterization. It seems insane to imagine this working at all. If you can pull it off though, you might really have something.

 

[hello friend]

You can just structure playtime in "chapters". Acquire mission -> next sessions deal with that and the fallout -> eventually get home, hit the pub to cash in xp (paying for drinks allows you to spend your acquired xp?) -> everything's wrapped up. Time is moved forward, season advances, next session will be next season. So potentially 3-8 sessions per season, if you're going with a somewhat mission based structure. This also allows for downtime projects and the like, party could build a mill in their hometown in the background of all their adventuring and have limited passive income.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

But the main dynamic in your idea is the balance between winter & summer. You can't play for months in the boring easy summer biome and then play for months in the punishing exhausting winter biome. You have to mix it up at least every couple sessions.

So you will need mechanisms to accelerate time, pull the camera way back, to make this work. "Filler" combats will need to be resolved in seconds. Whole dungeons should take no more than a few minutes. And so forth. Yet if it's to be true P&P there will have to be room for role-playing, story and characterization. It seems insane to imagine this working at all. If you can pull it off though, you might really have something.

You can just structure playtime in "chapters". Acquire mission -> next sessions deal with that and the fallout -> eventually get home, hit the pub to cash in xp (paying for drinks allows you to spend your acquired xp?) -> everything's wrapped up. Time is moved forward, season advances, next session will be next season. So potentially 3-8 sessions per season, if you're going with a somewhat mission based structure. This also allows for downtime projects and the like, party could build a mill in their hometown in the background of all their adventuring and have limited passive income.

I was going to steal make the mechanics inspired by Mouse Guard, which pulls it off actually quite nicely:

Actually, this was one of my inspirations for the second setting - it might look cute on the outside, but it's actually really horrifying if you think about little mice dealing with kaiju-like bears.

As for seasons, I think it all comes back to "rulings over rules" stuff - there's nothing stopping the referee to just skip all the boring autumn stuff and just go straight to winter survival horror. Or skip winter if players don't want to deal with it at the moment and make the characters take the role of messengers between two cities, only to find out one of them completely abandoned.

I've been thinking about it today and I'm starting to realize that OSR (or d20 in general) mechanics might be a terrible idea for Jodoverse-inspired setting; one of my earlier drafts started as a PbtA/FitD (that's Powered by the Apocalypse/Forged in the Dark, Zombra ) hack which handles all the faction and player relationships stuff in a lot cleaner and nicer way.

 

[Zombra]

d20 type mechanics are a garbage fire at best in any modern game. It's OK if OSR purists are the audience you're going for, but if you want the dollars of thinking players, look to indies for inspiration.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

I wasn't really talking about money. It's more like creating a problem for myself when I take a system and try to completely vivisect it to work with something it's not designed for. OSR does a couple of things incredibly well (or at least ideas and mechanics resonate me SO WELL) - creating a highly lethal world, where players can focus on exploring dungeons/ruins/whatever, picking up loot and becoming recognized individuals if they don't die in the process. The moment I try to add factions with their own agendas (and by that I mean they will, eventually, change the shape of the world, hunt players, and so on), the whole thing starts falling apart.

 

[Zombra]

I wasn't really talking about money either, more hearts and minds.

D&D and friends are pretty weak cheese when it comes to lethality tbh.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Well, I might actually publish a rough draft of what I'm working on pretty soon, so... thanks for all the advice, guys

Spoiler

I'll be back soon enough when I hit another wall

On that note: I can't believe so few people use target 20 as their main mechanic.

 

[Neanderthal]

You could use the second setting as an isolated part of the first, best of both worlds.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Oh, believe me, I tried...

... It became a total clusterfuck. Maybe it's because I'm not too fond of settings/games that try to accomplish everything and anything - if a setting focuses on shenanigans and dynamics between various factions, shooting reptilian martians, and traveling through jungle-gardens of Venus*, then let's not suddenly throw in the cycles of nature and delicate relationship between humanity and surrounding nature. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it's like trying to slap narrative gameplay on top of old school D&D mechanics - it won't work, or if it does, there are other systems, better suited for that sort of thing.

* you can kinda guess where the second setting is going :^)