ongoing chillventures

These Strange Steppes: A TTRPG

Hi everypony! I'm happy to announce that I've uploaded my first TTRPG to itch.io! It's card-based, GM-less, light on rules, designed for 2-6 players, and totally free!

You are a horse exploring the remains of a rural village with your herd, a group of young upstarts that recently split from the dominant main herd of the nearby plains. Your task is to discover what poisoned the land and caused all of the previous residents to disappear— and whether or not it’s coming for you as well. Together, you must face obstacles from scarce resources to starving predators, all while being stalked by enigmatic beings who never get close enough for you to identify.

If any of that sounds interesting to you and any friends you'd like to play with, you can download it here:

Magestar has started arriving in backer hands! My pal sent me this picture- look at them!!!! My beautiful children.

I also wanted to ask if you knew of any osr games that attempt to emulate roguelikes or roguelites. So I guess what I'm looking for is broadly compatible with old schools d&d alikes, quick or at least easy character creation since the players are expected to die a lot (but thats common to most osr), but mostly some kind of meta currency or meta progression that allows the players to slowly make progress even as the characters die. Maybe some kind of base building mechanic? I don't know. Do you have any recommendations?

THEME: Rogue-likes, Easy Characters, & Meta Progression.

Hello, thank you so much for your kind words! I've cobbled together a few disparate recommendations, many of which will probably work in tandem with some other resources. I hope that in this hodge-podge you find something that works for you!

Vicious Circle, by HauntedPicnic.

Over and Over. This Place is Wrong. This Village is wrong.

Vicious Circle is a Horror TTRPG where Players are trapped in a looping Village.

Each week it falls prey to all manner of terrifying entities, states of madness, phenomenon and creatures. Monday, all is well. By Sunday all is hell.

You play as a new arrival to the town who soon discoveries in order to break free of this never ending cycle you must survive past midnight on Sunday. If you do you are free!

Vicious Circle uses a generator table to create new horrors every time the time loop resets. When your character dies, they pass a useful item on to your next character, but they're not guaranteed to die! Survival is possible, and rewarded by new abilities that may improve chances of survival the next time round. This game appears to be built for something with a bit more longevity than a one-shot, so you might really build some history with the town before the game

Quantum Nobodies by DNGNCLUB.

YOU START AS A NOBODY AND YOU DIE AS A NOBODY.

Again and again and again and again and again…

Quantum Nobodies is a game for one night with 2–5 players. You take on the role of a NOBODY, a living paradox trapped in a Quantum Loop, stuck in a cycle of life and death. You must work together with your fellow anomalies to complete your mission and escape the liminal world before the mysterious GOD COMPLEX locates you and scrubs you from reality permanently.

Here's another game that gives you your characters back after they die, due to the nature of the time loop that they find themselves stuck in. The downside is that this game is designed to be a one-shot, with recurring loops happening in a single session. If you like media about characters who learn something new every loop, you might like Quantum Nobodies.

Loom, by Yuigaron.

The Knot hangs ponderous, heavy - pulling taut the tangled threads of the Fabric Between Worlds. Tired, callused hands pick at the threads, easing the tangles, bit by aching bit. Slowly, deliberately, they pull at loose threads to scrutinize with weary eyes, as they mutter amongst themselves. Piles of threads form at their feet, growing ever larger, until the eldest amongst them finally speaks. ‘That is… enough. For now. With these Thrums - these tangled, fraying threads - They can return.’

The others simply nod, and gather together what threads they have found.

The eldest stares at The Knot that threatens all that exists in the worlds, ‘The rest… is up to Them.’

LOOM is a Fantasy Action TTRPG where players take on the roles of fallen Gods - tricked out of their Domains - trying to reclaim their seats of power. LOOM is a combat heavy game taking inspiration from video games like Hades.

I'm recommending LOOM because it's inspired by a rather famous rogue-like - HADES - but also because it's built on the LUMEN system, which is known for easy character creation that can get you up and running pretty quickly. LUMEN games are great for powerful characters, like gods, which means that death doesn't really work in the same way. This allows your characters to experience a game loop while still upgrading and becoming more powerful over time.

Cyclic Dungeon Generation, by Sersa Victory.

Cyclic dungeon generation is the name given to the level creation algorithm in Joris Dormans’s 2017 roguelite Unexplored.

Taking inspiration from games like The Legend of Zelda, this algorithm generates dungeons by composing together cycles: circular loops of linked dungeon rooms designed to create a specific flow of game play.

There are several types of cycles that can be used to construct a dungeon, such as lock and key or hidden shortcut.

By nesting multiple different cycles, a dungeon can be generated that feels more like a human being intentionally designed it, rather than a purely random scattering of chambers.

This isn't a game in itself, but instead a guide to making a dungeon that might help you turn any OSR game into a rogue-lite. It comes with an adventure that you can use with Old-School Essentials, and includes methods to make the dungeon interesting even after multiple passes, such as roaming monsters, false goals, and locked doors that require a key. If what you want is help making the OSR games you already love work as a rogue-like, this might be the tool that you need!

Shard, by emmy, for LIGHT.

Some settlements and bases are scattered across the system, but the Lighthouse is home; you call it home.

Not everyone has the luxury of living at the Lighthouse. With this module you will rebuild a settlement and defend it from invading forces. It will not be easy, but who said it should be?

I've already talked about how LUMEN games are great options for folks who want to emulate various elements of video games, but Shard* specifically adds the base-building that you're looking for, as a supplement to LIGHT, which just so happens to be the first LUMEN game ever written. The base is called The Lighthouse, and it's meant to be a bastion that will help you fight against the Dark.

We Deal In Lead, by Odin's Beard Games.

Stride into perilous worlds and give 'em hell with lead and grit.

We Deal in Lead is an 88-page full-color rulebook delivering genre-bending gun-slinging in a post-apocalyptic weird west world. Designed by Colin Le Sueur and inspired by The Dark Tower and the Man With No Name, We Deal in Lead is a lightweight combat-focused TTRPG perfect for brutal one-shots, tense solo excursions, or epic campaigns.

An OSR-style game built off of Cairn, We Deal In Lead is just as dangerous. It propels your gunslingers into various worlds, allowing it to work with cross-compatibility with various settings, but there are a few elements that you might find helpful in particular. First of all, your Gunslingers are part of an Order, which can both grow and take drawbacks as your Gunslingers die or progress. There's also elements of your characters that could theoretically be passed on even if your blorbo dies, such as your gun, which can be upgraded as you find key pieces of treasure, or your companion, who has their own stats and abilities that they can contribute. Since it's compatible with Cairn, any dungeon that's Cairn-compatible should work for We Deal in Lead!

Milk Bar, by Eryk Sawicki.

After Ameripol pushed too hard, cut too many corners, and ignored one-too-many warning lights, The Belt was shorn in half and their sick experiments flooded our farmland and destroyed our city. The majority of people left. Sadly for you, the first thing you got taught in Communard school was that jumping ship and hoping for greener grass doesn’t work: you have to stay and fight for the future you want.

Inspired by OSR games such as Cairn and Mothership, Milk Bar has easy character creation and a pretty punishing setting that likely pulls a lot from dungeon design, but re-contextualizes it in a post-Soviet, post-apocalypse, weird alien-touched setting. Because you play as hosts of a commune-like Milk Bar, I think there's also a lot of potential for base-building. You'll need to keep track of resources in order to keep your Milk Bar running, as well as manage problems that will inevitably show up in a post-apocalypse. With a whole chapter on building and running your Milk Bar, I think there's a quite a bit to make it matter, even if your characters die!

Games I've Recommended in the Past…

Dice Souls, by Chris Bissette.

Rogue Blight, by Junk Food Games.

Tower Defense Recommmendation Post

Escape from Hades, by only1marek.

RUNE, by GILA RPGs.

Over on Bluesky, I tried something last month where I shouted out a few games that I found while I was cataloguing over the course of April. I figured I would share those links here, since I often re-post my Tumblr recommendation posts to Bluesky as well.

Gut Hunch, by Lucy, is a game written for the Havoc Engine, about detectives investigating a murder in Roswell, New Mexico, while being tailed by shady government agents.

DrachenPakt, by Mundos Infinitos, is a small game about tragedy, war, and the bond between a rider and their dragon. Great for dragon fans and fans of dragon-rider stories!

Expedition into Area Alpha, by ToothandHammer, is a Zone-like solo game, about an all-women team looking for a mysterious lighthouse and clues about what happened to the previous team that ventured deeper in.

Meaningful missing sessions

Does a player need to miss a session?

What do you do when a player needs to miss a session? Do you just pretend they took part in that gruelling event your other players went through? That can be jarring for folks and also make people sad that they missed out.

But what if missing a session could still be meaningful? Roll 2d20 when a player would miss a session, interpret as an explanation, relate to their backstory, or use as a plot hook.

Theme-agnostic so it can be used with almost any TTRPG!

Wizard Wedding 🧡💜

Mop's reference done as well!

Little guy who didn't deserve to die either

Prince Azim, Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer and his trusty Tressym, Habibi

Magestar officially launches today! If eldritch apocalypses and thoughtfully messy maps are your thing, grab yourself a copy below.

When Hanfu meets Lolita fashion, they blend together perfectly!