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The Deck Of Rules
by Christopher [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/11/2024 12:13:07

Excellent, concise, graphically pleasing breakdown of gaming systems techniques. Brilliant resource including some things even I didn't know (and I've been doing this a loooong time). Definitely recommended for games designers, though I'm sure it's helpful to anyone.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Deck Of Rules
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The Soothsayer's Deck
by Christopher [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/10/2024 16:42:13

I love this so much, I just wish I had a way to print-out the cards (or could afford them)! I have a feeling I'm going to need them...



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Soothsayer's Deck
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The Deck Of Rules
by David [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/13/2024 20:07:50

Useful, insightful, and fun. What more could you ask for?



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Deck Of Rules
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Defunct Listing
by Jeremy A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/11/2021 16:22:31

Honestly helpful and informative. Short and sweet, fun illustrations.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Defunct Listing
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Jaunt: A Quest Hack
by Bob V. G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/09/2021 19:46:04

Jaunt a Quest Hack is a PDF with 38 pages. This includes four classes, 55 abilities, and five stat blocks. There is no lists of weapons, equipment, or armor. The system is based on rolling a 1d20 and “because the chance to succeed is always the same in a die roll, the die itself is not an indicator of skill — it's a test of fate”. There is an emphasis on storytelling. I soloed my session with the Mythic Game Master Emulater. The dark fantasy adventure that I used was Prince Charming Reanimator (free/pay what you want at DriveThruRPG). It is a 0-level funnel, 20 page adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The adventure includes two maps and 16 “rooms”. I used sixteen 0-level characters (four experimentalists, four shoppers, four packrats, and four omen chasers. Here are a few interesting things that happened during the adventure. The first thing that the shoppers did was to try to get some good deals on equipment. One of them was able to get his hands on a cheap used crossbow. One of the omen chasers was able to keep the adventurers on the “right” path. In one room they picked up 21 equipment items. In another they acquired three magic items. In one major battle they had to fight a mound of cut roses three feet high (not). It managed to kill two of the adventurers. Two of the experimentalists were able to use their “plant killers” before it died. During the final chaotic battle, two of the experimentalists were able to use their smoke bombs so that they could all escape the “madness”. So, fourteen adventurers survived out of the sixteen. Give this game system a try! (The characters had one ability and the hit point range was from four to six).



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Jaunt: A Quest Hack
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Situations For Tabletop Roleplaying
by Nargosiprenk K. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/01/2020 11:09:01

The world need more of these tools to teach GMs how to prepare situations with low effort and great outcomes! It makes you create you exactly what you need as a basis for improvisation, if you are into that, and it still works great as a basis to prepare more in detail if you don't!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Situations For Tabletop Roleplaying
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Danger Cards
by Jim B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/26/2019 08:56:46

I like these cards. They're a good mix of 20 outcomes. I use them with Fate, letting the players decide how we're going to put them into play (random draw, draw from a face-up pool of five, etc.). The cards are useful in a few Fate mechanics: when a character gains a Boost, when an action succeeds at a major or minor cost, and when a character takes a Consequence.

My players sometimes struggle to come up with ideas on the fly for such things, so these cards offer inspiration and variety. They help create dramatic moments in play.

We dial the intensity up or down according to circumstances. For example, if an attack ties and we apply the Snares card as a Boost on the defender, the defender is entangled only briefly, such as catching a sleeve on something for a moment. If a character succeeds at a major cost while trying to open the door of a sinking car, the Snares card could mean the car door is now open, but the character is entangled in the seatbelt while the car continues to sink.

I also like using the cards in Fate Contests. Each side scores 0-3 victories before the contest is over. I want each contest victory point to mean something within the game world instead of being an abstract number. If a PC is trying to sneak up unnoticed on a guard, for example, each victory for the PC reaches another waypoint leading up to the guard, while each victory scored by the opposition applies a danger card to the situation. This lets the attempt become more dramatic, if the PC's foot gets caught while sneaking up, for example, or if the PC drops something along the way. We let the Failure card end the contest immediately (e.g. the stealthy PC is suddenly, totally revealed to the guard) instead of waiting until one side or the other scores their third victory.

A corresponding set of "benefit" cards could be welcome, but these cards can still be useful for beneficial effects: Use their opposites. A beneficial version of Injury, for example, could mean heroically ignoring an injury ("'Tis but a scratch!"). The Snares card could mean something becomes disentangled. The Expense card could mean suddenly replenishing a depleted resource. And so on.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Happy to hear that you're enjoying them! I'll note that some of the possible "benefit" effects can be found as print-and-play cards in Schema, and some of your Fate mods using these have a similar flavor *to* Schema. Which is very cool indeed, but also suggests to me that you might want to take a look at that if you haven't yet done so: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=218533
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Gazetteer: A Gygaxian Storygame
by Kassidy H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/18/2019 14:22:20

Gazetteer is a pretty fun time! It reminds me of collaborative map-making games like The Quiet Year or Companions' Tale, but GMful and directed. As the GM, you come to the table (or social media platform of your choice) with a map already drawn and seeded with interesting symbols, but with limited expectations about what it all really means. Then, you ask guiding questions. The result is a small, ready-to-game adventure locale that may go in directions you would not have considered if writing in a vacuum!

I have completed one locale in the game's dedicated Facebook group, and started a second. My first ended up super flavorful, and I was very happy with the final gazetteer writeup that I made for it. If I have any complaint, it is with forum games in general -- precisely where you play matters a great deal. You need buy-in from your community, or else a post can languish for days (or indefinitely). Be prepared for that, or aim to cultivate a playspace where you can be fairly certain to see a game through.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Gazetteer: A Gygaxian Storygame
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Defunct Listing
by ar e. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/17/2019 13:12:17

While it might take some re-learning if you're coming from a traditional tabletop background, if you're after narrative-driven roleplaying where a character's actions can heavily dictate the course of a scene, no one does it quite like Schema. It's light, it's unique, it's flexible (if you're willing to be a little creative and take the time to set up your own variations of the rules), and the depth of things that can happen from a given roll is immense. Think Apocalypse World's engine, but without the limitation of specific moves and rigid character roles. What's more, you can add just about anything you want and make it work if you try. For example, the system doesn't track health naturally, but if you want to, it doesn't require rewiring the rules. Just track it with some tokens and you're good to go!

The real beauty of Schema is that you can make most any task as complex or as simple as you want, and you can do anything you want without the need for an exhaustive list of specific actions you can take in a given situation. It allows me to zoom in and out pretty seamlessly, handling everything from intense duels between generals to grand scale campaign strategy without bloating the game. You'll need to sort of reverse engineer the system before you can really make it happen, but as the entire book is less than 30 pages, this doesn't take long.

The core system is ingenius: Every roll that matters is a combination of "stakes"; potential dangers, good things, and/or automatic effects that come together to dictate the outcome. With this basic system, you can turn just about anything into a sort of dramatic vignette in which the result could potentially feature unintended consequences or interesting new opportunities, regardless of success or failure. That core principle is what makes this engine so wonderful. It's simple, yet so deep.

I'm still finding my footing with it for my very specific needs, but at its core, it's just really fun to play for someone like me, who favors sandbox-style gaming. Once you read over the rules (which will take all of five minutes), it really opens up as you find new ways to make use of the mechanics. For instance, I was able to create a mass combat system using a combination of stakes for the strategy phase, and another for the actual battle that's rolled repeatedly until one side has won out. I track forces with tokens for both sides and the swing of momentum, using one token that can shift between sides in a tug-of-war sort of way. This is an example of something that isn't explicitly in the book, but I was able to add by looking at another product from this author, Stakes for Schema.

(If you grab this, I strongly reccommend Stakes for Schema as well. It's an excellent companion piece and is Pay What You Want.)

All in all, two enthusiastic thumbs up. And my big toes as well. I had to take my shoes off for that one, which should tell you just how pleased I am with Schema.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Defunct Listing
by John L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/16/2018 14:36:38

This may just be the game system I've been wanting and thinking I'd have to design myself. Very, very cool. I like the card-based abilities and the multidimensional nature of spending +s and -s on Fudge dice for results. I even really like the aesthetic of the art.

If you like the system, check out Infected and Skinchangers too.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Skinchangers: Open Beta Test
by Katrina B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/05/2018 09:31:37

Full Review Here

You play as shapeshifters that have met powerful animals spirits (Bobcat, Crow, Fox, Owl, and Raccoon). They granted the PCs the power to transform into an animal, use supernatural abilities, and see the spiritual and supernatural world in exchange for the responsibility of hunting monsters, be they “vampires in suburbia, great beasts in the subways, or weekend getaways where the owners prey on their guests”. Additionally, being part of the supernatural world detaches you from the rest of humanity. Most normal folks forget supernatural events incredibly fast, including the PCs if they meddle too much into magic.

Rules: Similar to Fate Accelerated, each character has approaches (though Skinchangers uses 5 different approaches vs Fate’s 6): Brutal, Covert, Fleet, Showy, and Studious the array being (4, 3, 2, 2, 1). Every time a PC attempts an action they choose what approach seems to fit best and rolls dice based on their rating.

However, one twist is the concept of Stakes, Dangers, and Augments. Automatic stakes are something that happens as a result of the PC’s actions that can’t be removed. Dangers are bad things that happen on a roll unless the player spends a (-) Fate die to cancel it. These might include Delay, Injury, Mayhem, Expense, or Fatigue. Augments are something that won’t happen as a result of the action unless the player spends a (+) Fate die to make it happen. Possible Augments include Observation, Speed, Style, Subtlety, Advantage, or Duration.

Overall, I'm really into this and can't wait to play it!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Skinchangers: Open Beta Test
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Defunct Listing
by Joseph D. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/10/2018 10:04:31

My group has been dabbling in some more narrative-focused games. Schema is the latest, and it's been great. Like most PbTA-style games, Schema does away with binary success/failure. It's a lot more nuanced than what I've seen in other games, though. Rather than just switching to a ternary (a bad outcome, a good outcome, a bit of both), each roll has a set of "stakes." The stakes are either good or bad things with eight flavors - so there are dangers like "delay" and "injury" and benefits like "efficacy" and "subtlety." The players get a pool of FUDGE dice, and use plusses to buy benefits and minuses to cancel dangers. It does several things that I really like:

  1. It gives a little bit of structure and inspiration for the GM. Thinking about what happens on a partial success is sometimes a challenge. While you still have all the flexibility in this system (you get to decide what the dangers mean), it does help a little to have a framework.
  2. Results get really complicated - the binary framework isn't just modified, it's done away with. There are whole arrays of outcomes and it creates interesting situations.
  3. Players have a little bit of strategy. They get to choose a "bold" or "cautious" stance which gives some re-rolls. It's a very well executed mechanic.
  4. There's virutally no math. No modifiers to add and subtract. It's super quick for resolution.

It's super lightweight in terms of rules and character creation, which is great for my group. It just took one quick example and the whole group easily understood all the rules they needed. Givien how easy it was to pick up and how narratively strong it is, it's a fantastic game for my group.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Defunct Listing
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Defunct Listing
by Sam O. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/27/2018 10:49:27

This is some really impressive stuff. I've enjoyed some of Levi's previous works (we had a great Hoard game going for a while) and was looking forward to this one. I unfortunately missed the kickstarter due to a lack of funds, but when it was released as pay-what-you-want I immediately picked it up. Now I am coming back to pay actual money for it. That is how much I enjoy this game.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Defunct Listing
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Defunct Listing
by Brandon P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/27/2017 13:49:52

Mechanisms For Tabletop Roleplaying includes several simple presentations for subsystems that are abstract enough they could easily be slipped into any game you want to use them in. They could be used as is, or tailored more specifically to tie into the mechanics of the game if you so desired. A very robust set of mechanisms.



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[5 of 5 Stars!]
Defunct Listing
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Defunct Listing
by Bob P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/06/2017 07:30:54

Unlike the first in this series ,this product is not meta game(not knocking the first one ,loved that too) This adds a bit of complexity but has some really good ideas, my fav is the Auras that encourage group RPing, I not much for spoilers but I lill say it was very good. I could see me using any of the ideas contained, prob a bit more complexity than I'm happy with but I deff see myself adapting this and using some of it> Do your self a favor and read these two.( Aramax,tmao, Mao)



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[5 of 5 Stars!]
Defunct Listing
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