Matt | Krasiph

my god

youraislopbores.me

A huge part of The Beckoning Dream's design is focused on making card randomness *enjoyable*. There are lots of ways to make a bad card good, or to use "failure" to your advantage. Each play moves the game state forward. You're never spending time doing nothing.

*slides this across the table*
In case anyone comes hunting for examples 🤣
infinite-citadel.com/games/the-be...

The Beckoning Dream's cover art with several circles, lines, and other notes written over top. Colors warped into bizarre variants. "What does it mean!? Unlock this Dream's secrets on Patreon"

This game is a lesson.
Seek the hidden meaning within each card's art to unleash its power.
#ttrpg #tarot #art
www.patreon.com/posts/beckon...

I've been reading Nonviolent Communication to try and get better at this, and the thought occurred that if I put it all into practice with my RPG characters.. they would probably become rather boring.

Not only are we rarely capable of optimal socializing, doing so can be antithetical to drama.

Proficiency: The state or quality of being proficient; competence.

The game mechanic that often grants you these bigger bonuses. And my point is that bad streaks might be expected, but they are not *fun*. They are wearisome. I don't want to "find the reason" twelve times during a 3 hour *game*.

To the credit of the "character concept" point, this is why I enjoy swingy dice in a lethal / OSR game. I'm going in with an expectation of my character being "just another guy" and death waiting around every corner. Those systems also prioritize above-table solutioning, not statistical liklihoods.

0% != 70%

Both my concept and the mechanics of the game agree that my character is competent at the task (should succeed more often).

It's the luck/dice that are defying expectations.

Mechanically, if my character has +7 to attack and the enemy has an AC of 13, I should be hitting 70% of the time.

But if I only roll 5 or less, I am hitting 0% of the time.

My goal, always, when I do photography, and especially LARP photography, is to tell the story of my subject.

To capture the essence of the moment and show it as cinematically as we remembered it, almost like we took stills from a movie and posted it!

#larp #larpohotography #photography

A huge part of The Beckoning Dream's design is focused on making card randomness *enjoyable*. There are lots of ways to make a bad card good, or to use "failure" to your advantage. Each play moves the game state forward. You're never spending time doing nothing.

Agreed. PbtA systems trend away from this problem because the GM is encouraged to make failures so big and interesting instead of nothing boxes.

I've also had success with using deck building for randomization. You can build lots of systems that make bad cards good, so the randomness feels better.

I realize this is a very different place than your original points. I just find there to be overlap between Finding the Reason and dice/failure fatigue. When all I've done in a session is fail, I'm not excited about finding a reason *why* I failed.

Yes, and then there's also the "I haven't rolled above a 5 all night" problem. Even well developed combat systems can suck eggs when your dice betray you.

The closest "solve" I see for that is systems with good actions that don't require die rolls to succeed, or removing dice entirely.

In ttrpgs, I think you should do the RP and then roll to see how well it went.

People seem to think you fail at something because you weren’t eloquent enough.

Sometimes, no matter how good your argument, no matter how impassioned your speech, you’re not gonna reach them

Ex: every time I play 5e these days, I wish it had Tales of the Valiant's Luck system. Every 3 fails equates to a re-roll. Let me balance my horrible awful no-good dice luck so I can *maybe* see my character be competent.

"But then why play a game with dice?"

Cuz it's supposed to be fun, and long stretches of dice-enabled failure are, at a certain point, not fun. This is where having ample meta-currencies and success-at-a-cost mechanics can help, but not every system has those.

In those instances I would rather roll so that I don't have to invest creative energy coming up with a good approach that's just gonna fail anyway (I'm tired, boss), or I would want some level of "passive proficiency" acknowledge and we just let a good approach succeed without dice meddling.

This is all very sound and good. My only disagreement comes from my personal dice-bias.

Sometimes you're having a bad day. The dice are just saying "no", repeatedly. I get worn down when my characters - who are supposed to be capable - keep failing, whether on their own or by circumstances.

The Dream! I crave this being my day-to-day.

The Beckoning Dream Cover Art! | Infinite Citadel Get more from Infinite Citadel on Patreon

Wondering what everything in this image means? Join our Patreon and learn about all the hidden symbols & stories contained within The Beckoning Dream!
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*it looks so good tho*

Help my friend DEENGEEN :)

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This is so awesome. Reading this is like one of those Physical 100 challenges where each round they attach heavier weights to you

Quick questions for TTRPG publishers that I’ve asked privately but it’s been a bit:

1. If a form of coverage (AP/review/other) has transformed your sales overnight, what was it?

2. If you could wave a wand & have one creator/creative/media outlet praise or play your TTRPG, what would you wish for?

2. I will be greedy and say Dimension 20, cuz I think we have several fun games that would work well in their focused 8-10 episode arc formats. Plus they really engage with system mechanics; they highlight the new game rather than playing it the way they would play other games.

1. "Transformed" is a big word, but we did get a noticeable sales bump from @exeunt.press talking about our game! Pretty much any coverage from existing newsletters can make a small publisher's life easier, at least for that month.

One D&D had terrible mouth-feel to say, but I enjoyed it as a concept. It hit all the other must-haves for a marketing term. Sadly most of the project has been disappointments since then.