The Far Roofs

Kickstarter

a game of talking rats, god-monsters, and you

So today I want to talk a bit about what this game wants to be. In particular, I'm going to go over its key technical and artistic goals.

The Far Roofs focuses on immersive hidden world fantasy adventure. It's intended to offer the experience of a grounded, emotionally real base world attached to an idealized, fantastic "hidden world" setting.

One might say, the streets and buildings and houses of the game's world are basically our own. Above us, though, is a stranger, more idealized, and more fantastic place. It's hard to get to. It's dangerous. It's less grounded. It's full of wonder.

Those are the Far Roofs.

This divide exists to make the game feel as real as possible, if you want to go that way. That's part of what hidden world fantasy is about, after all---the idea that magic is here. That it's not in some distant alien land or mythic future or past.

It's here, if you want to reach for it.

(Now, the game is flexible enough that you can play "protagonist" types instead of realer people, and many traditional gaming groups will probably prefer that, but that'll mean getting less of that immersive effect.)

The mood the game is interested in is that feeling you get when you take a huge risk---move to a new place; try a new thing. The feeling you get in those times in your life when everything is alienated and wondrous and terrifying but there's also so much more *hope* than there was in the still times before.

It's a mood of being swept up and called forward.

This is, among other things, meant to be a game for people who've been beaten down or exhausted by the ... everything ... to feel that sensation of moving forward again.

To remember what it's like, why it's worth it, how to reach for it again.

It's meant---and I do understand that I am finite and flawed and this can only go so far---as a tonic and refreshment to the soul.

Rules

The Far Roofs uses a 5d6-based dice pool system for day-to-day task resolution. It's relatively traditional and optimized for fast, fun dice reading. There's a loose consensus I've seen in RPG design circles that dice are for when outcomes are uncertain and both options are interesting, and I don't disagree ... but there's also this thing where rolling dice to decide is intrinsically interesting and fun, where it's fuel for a certain part of the brain.

This game tries to get as much out of that side of dice as it can.

You'll also collect letter tiles and cards over the course of the game. This is for bigger-picture stuff:

To answer big questions and to complete big projects, you'll either assemble representative words out of those tiles, or, play a poker hand built out of those cards. Word and their nuances express ideas and shape how outcomes play out; poker hands, conversely, just give a qualitative measure of how much work you do or how well things will go.

In keeping with this, the campaign is represented principally in the form of questions or issues your words and hands can address. Player/GM-created campaigns would be the same.

Physical and Electronic Product

I wanted to put the print version within the range of as many people who might need that tonic as possible. That means that for this particular game, I wanted to cover the full territory that I'd normally cover in a two or three volume set (core rules, setting, and campaign) in a single 200-250-page volume.

In practice this means there's a guide and examples for constructing the setting, rather than a deep dive into a fully-detailed world; that there's a bit less in the way of whimsical digression and flourish than in the writing I'm known for; that there's minimal "flavor" text on abilities; and that the campaign presentation is pretty fast-paced.

Conversely, it means that the game should be easy to absorb and to share with other possible players, and, that the game and campaign in this one relatively small volume should provide enough content for five or six years of play.

The book will be 8.5"x11" with grayscale art, available in a limited hardcover print run and a print-on-demand softcover form.

On the Rats

You'll see a lot of talk from me and others about the talking rats in this game. They're one of the jewels of the experience, and I think they're probably a significant draw just for being talking rats that are core to the game.

... but I'm going to hold off for now, because, to be clear, this is not a game of playing talking rats. It's just a game where talking rats and probably one of the top three most important setting elements.

I couldn't get that feeling I wanted of ... the base world being grounded realism; of the hidden world pulling you up and out and into a world full of magic ... with your playing rats, with your playing something so distant from the typical player.

So this is not a game of playing them.

They're just ... I like rats, and so I made the rats in this game with love. They're great ... whatever the equivalent is to "psychopomps" is for a magical world instead of for death ... and a way of talking about how in the face of the world, we're all pretty small.

I'm really excited about this game; the playtest was lovely.

I hope you'll enjoy it as well!

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bungeonsandbagons

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Tableskills: The Proactive DM Voice

One of the most fundamental lesions I learned over the course of becoming a great DM was that it was my job to push the story forward, not my players. When I was younger I was terrified of taking any agency upon myself for fear of railroading my group, thinking that my job was merely to read out prepared text and design a playground for my players to explore as they saw fit. Needless to say, no matter how much planning i did or how big I made my campaign world it never made my party any more energized, instead bleeding out their attention until they became listless and the group/campaign dissolved.

Once I made the change to DM driven play, things changed almost instantly. My once distracted players became excited collaborators, looking to steer the runaway engine that was my narrative. Where as before they were directionless, having infinite shallow options, they were now focused on the road ahead of them, trying to dodge upcoming hurdles while reacting to the unexpected ones.

This change took some getting used to, but became most evident in how I narrated my games, cutting down on extraneous calls for rolls, chaining together scenes until a big finale at the end of the session, using my infinite power as narrator to push receptive players into interesting situations that progressed both the story and their character arc. Over time I began to think of these changes and a bunch of others as “proactive DM voice”, a skill that I think players and dungeonmaters alike could benefit from learning.

Lets look at an example, lifted from one of the very first modules I ever ran: The party stands at the edge of a tremendously large fissure, and has to lower themselves a hundred or more feet down to a ledge where they’ll be ambushed by direrats. You could run this in a rules literal sense: reading out the prepared text then waiting for the party to come up with a solution, likely dallying as they ask questions. Have them make athletics checks to descend the ropes, risk the possibility of one of them dying before the adventure ever begins. Then you do it two or three more times as they leapfrog down the side of the canyon, wasting what was perhaps half an hour of session time before you even got to any of the fun stuff.

Or you could get proactive about it:

Securing your ropes as best you can, you belay over the side of the fissure, descending down in a measured, careful pace aiming for the most stable looking outcrop of rock, still a hundred or so feet above the canyon’s base. A few minutes and about two thirds of the way through your decent [least athletic PC] looks like they’re struggling, their hands are coated in sweat and they can feel unfamiliar muscles burning in complaint. I need [PC] to make me an athletics check

Rather than waiting for the players and the dice to make a story for me, I took the extra step in my prep time to think of something interesting that might happen while they’re venturing through this section of the map. I specifically designed things so that happenstance wouldn’t kill off one of my heroes, but they might end up damaged and in a perilous situation should the fates not favour them that particular moment.

Likewise, this planning has let me prepare a number of different angles that I could use to prepare the next scene: with an injured player ambushed by multiple rats while their allies dangle a few rounds away or with the party saving their friend and descending together, too much of a threat for the rats to tackle all at once, leading them to stalk the party through future encounters.

This is already getting a bit long, but for those interested in more ways you can adopt a proactive DM voice, I’ll give more examples under the cut

Keep reading

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bungeonsandbagons

2 years ago

Adventure: An Icy Expedition

“I’m not sure what the foreman means when she says “ Shift’s over, head out and warm yourself up” do you? The whole thing’s buried under a glacier and half the canyon’s still coated in ice. I haven’t been warm since we started this damn excursion! “

Setup: The ancient goliath enclave of Emendurana once surveilled an Edenic valley of delights, but was covered over with glacial ice and buried millennia ago. Little now remains beside stone and the chill of ages, but some vaults may yet hold the secrets of ages past, hidden away from the march of time and empire in the outside world.

Too large and of too historically significant for any one adventuring party to delve, Emendurana has been taken over by the Nhilari Expeditionary Coalition as one of their premiere dig sites. Too often characterized as a “ roving army of mercenary Archeologists”, the coalition has taken careful pains to negotiate with both the dwarven clanhold who hold territorial claim over the ruin as well as those goliath herds who descended from Emendurana long ago.

With Hard weeks of travel through snowy foothills behind them, the N.E.C. Has set up a village-sized basecamp at the opening to the glacial caverns, and is ready to begin the first real forays into the ruins proper.

Adventure Hooks:

Plenty of adventuring groups get their start apprenticing with the coalition, who work hard to assemble synergistic teams of scouts, scholars, technicians, and “strongbacks”. Drawn from their disparate lives by the promise of adventure or steady payment by the N.E.C. recruitment officers, the party will bein their journey by helping their employer to break new ground in Emendurana’s frozen halls.

When a nobleman with a fondness for ancient curios is petrified in his own home by an ancient goliath artifact he recently obtained, the reliquarian who is now at blame for the incident hires the party to help clear their name. The investigation leads to a shifty fence, and a smuggling ring that may be working within the ranks of the N.E.C. to siphon off relics and other treasures beneath the organization’s nose. Ousting these outlaws will require the party to travel far north to the digsite itself, as well as dealing with their agents in the city.

Seeking council from a mystic oracle on their current adventure, the party receives a prophecy that the answers they seek are “beyond the deepest gates of Emendurana”. Research gives the party the location and the history they’ll need, but convincing the coalition that they’re more than simple teasure hunters looking to loot the dig site will take some negotiation.

Keep reading

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bungeonsandbagons

2 years ago

A bard subclass designed for a pirate world, though this subclass could be very strong anywhere. With its own version of eldritch blast, the College of the Sea has just as good of a defense as an offense.

Like my work? You can support me on patreon here or buy the pdfs pwyw on kofi!

Edit: ^^ Gave it some changes thanks to homebrew-a-la-traumaverse‘s advice, hope y’all like it!

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standing on the deck of a ship while all the dead men's eyes look down on you from the rigging. just sailing things

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A glowering, fiery haired elf leaps forward with two curved blades drawn. The blades crackle with anti-magical lightning. He's dressed in regal, purple, rogueish garb, with about 5 belts!

Art by Tiffany "arty" Boother This month, truth compels me to write four subclasses. Every single one of them are completely new, and I'm polishing up the final one as we speak. This first subclass, the Spelleater (gmbinder doc here) takes a theme that is notoriously hard to execute (good at beating up wizards) and does as much as it can to actualise that idea: its benefits still completely deck most spellcasters, but they also work reasonably well against pretty much any foe there is. Antimagic Vigor is essentially the opposite of a barbarian rage (or rune knight's hill rune), and gives you a combat's worth of survival and ultra high saving throws vs magic. Spell Drain is my favorite part of it. You cause a bunch of creatures to succeed on a save against a spell being cast - but the spell can be from either friend or foe! Now you can work in tandem with other spellcasters to shape your allies' spells safely round the party, Or, you can just completely screw a lich over. Either way, you get to absorb the magic into your sword, and then unleash it the next time you attack. It's a really nice feature that makes them fantastic against spellcasters while still being handy elsewhere!

"We play to get the next issue picked up!"

Play the game like we want people to buy the next issue and not put the series down! Take chances! Make big choices! Make it interesting! Be bold!!

other things:

Theme. Establish the themes of your story early on. This will help you understand how the world and story should respond to the PCs. And make the themes interesting to you! For example, beyond the general coming-of-age story themes already built into the character arcs, I lean heavily into the concepts of fame, celebrity, and the 24-hour news cycle. And all the things that were going on in the early 2000s.

Be a Fan of the PCs. This is my favorite rule from The Principles. Make sure all your players soak this rule in. The MASKS mechanics mean characters will often make less-than-optimal decisions, so players must feel supported in their character choices. You should be a fan of the characters, and so should your players! They should want to help bring out every character's arc, not just their own.

Treating Human Life as Meaningful is what Makes Threats Real. This is another principle, but yeah, make the world's NPCs feel like they matter, and that will make the world worth protecting. Treat them as people. Give everyone Drives, not just your Villains. Mentally treating even non-villain NPCs as having Conditions can do a lot to help with characterization.

Condense. Condense your world, your NPCs, make the world feel smaller. In our game, for example, having the Protege's mentor also be the same superhero who saved the Delinquent years ago was a great decision.

Playlists. I have a bunch of different playlists for the campaign, from a big one of music of the time (our game is set in 2004) to playlists for important NPCs, to playlists I asked my players to curate for their characters. Music inspires me a bunch, a song can help create a villain for me, and I also like choosing a different "ending" song for every episode based on whatever happened.

Stories. Okay, here's the thing. I don't really care much for superhero stories. Why did I choose to run MASKS, you ask? Because of the emotion-based mechanics. That's my shit. But anyway, I don't take in much superhero media... But I do LOVE movies and television and stories in general, and I think taking in a lot of "short stories" is helpful to develop an instinct on how to pace a story, make a character or moment memorable, etc. And because MASKS has an episodic nature, this is extremely important! The sheer amount of movies I've watched has helped me a whole bunch, since they have to get the Beginning, Middle, and End done within such a short time frame.

Don't Wait. This is an instinct I've picked up from some of my favorite media. Don't wait for The big important moment. Make a lot of big important moments, and make the characters have to make a lot of important choices, and keep the momentum going. Paint yourself into a corner and then force yourself to think of ways out! It makes the story more interesting. (this may not apply to everyone, I get this kind of mindset from shows like Breaking Bad and Succession, which for your story could be too much haha)

Everyone Works. Okay, I am not a benevolent, sweet GM, I will not smile with tears in my eyes and quietly work away and accept that without complaint. no way. I make my players help me a lot. I'm gonna whine. Guys I'm doing so much work! Guys this is hard! Weeehhh! MAKE THEM HELP YOU. RUNNING A GAME IS SOOOOO MUCH WORK OH MY GOD IT'S SOOOOOO MUCH WORK!!! Ask them to take notes! Ask them to treat the world with sincerity! Ask them to make NPCs! Ask them to play NPCs! Ask them to help fill out the world! Ask them to tell you what their character wants to do next so you have extra time to consider it! Ask them to make playlists for their characters to help you figure out how to engage with them! Don't let them just show up on playday!! I'm a "you get what you give" kind of GM. You're a player too and you deserve to enjoy the game as well, and having the other players help you helps a BUNCH. PUT THEM TO WORK.

what else. uh. visuals help a lot with engagement so i subscribed to a bunch of modern battlemap patreons. i run using Foundry which lists the rules upon every roll which is great for me, someone with horrid memory. if you're lucky and favored by god, you'll have a benevolent player that will be the scribe for your sessions and log everything down so they can be referred back to (again, great for someone like me with a horrid memory). remember to give focus to the PC's out-of-costume lives as well. make NPCs in response to your PCs (superheroes, villains, touch on something of a PC in the creation process). be silly. be serious. be sincere.

i'm still figuring out how to run the game, maybe i'll have better advice on a later day, but i hope this can help some! sorry this is longwinded and more a stream of consciousness than it is succinct.