Hey yall! I've been getting really into one of @jennamoran's games called The Far Roofs, which is about going on portal fantasy-like stories, except the magical world is well within reach, it's up there, on the roofs of your own city.
Up there you'll see wondrous, and sometimes also frightening, things, tell stories and fight larger than life monsters alongside the Fortitude rats, adventurous talking rats that live atop your roofs.
The mechanics are very cool, but also maybe hard to grasp if you come at it from having played more traditional ttrpgs, so after playing a certain rpg's latest chapters and thinking about the events for a long while, I've decided to write up a little example of play based on it.
(Disclaimer: This is entirely based on my own interpretation of The Far Roofs, so I suppose take it with a grain of salt)
So! Let's set the stage, imagine I am the GM of a game of The Far Roofs, and that there are other two players.
The Far Roofs' book includes a number of pre-made characters with their own little story each that they are dealing with aside from anything the group as a whole is tackling at the moment.
Let's say these two players have both instead decided to make their own character each:
Knives, The Knight (They/Them)
Physical Action 3, Awareness 4, Communication 1, Introspection 2, Self-Care 0
Skills: Professional Menace, Heart Magic 2
Powers: Impresario (Believe in Me, The Where-Sense, Let's be BFFS), Awakening (Second Self).
They have gone up to the roofs a few times already, alongside a white-furred rat named Anthy Arkhangelski, who carries with him a book bearing an incomplete yet terrible prophecy, or perhaps just a fairy tale.
The three of them form what is known amidst the Fortitude rats as a mischief, and this is what I'll use to refer to them as a group from here onwards.
Typically in The Far Roofs, there are three chapters in a day, morning, evening, and nighttime.
Below the cut is the first chapter, where Knives and Cindy hang out in the normal world for a bit:
Morning:
Knives starts us off strong with a Mood Roll, they are having a stress dream and are going to roll "Losing Yourself", which uses their Physical Action trait.
Before rolling, Knives' player decides they'd like this to be a Poetic Action, so they improvise the following:
They roll 1,2,2,3,6 which, with their Physical Action 3, makes it a success by rolling doubles under or equal their Trait. Because this was a Poetic Action, they can either remove up to two dice of the same value from the roll to use later, or add the dice they were already holding onto, if they had any.
This means they could, if they want, turn this into a critical failure by removing one or both of the 2's, as there would be no matches anymore.
Instead they just take the 1 to hold onto for later.
A success at "Losing Yourself" means that someone interrupts Knives' spiral before long, and we decide that "someone" can be their mom, who's worried from seeing them tossing and turning in their sleep.
It's sunday, so some time later their mom asks if they want to go to church with her, they nod quietly, she's glad to hear that.
On their way there, Cindy catches up with them and asks what they're up to, and Knives invites her to join them, their mom agrees, promising it's gonna be fun having her.
After a bit of hesitance, Cindy agrees to join them.
The players wonder if Cindy would be able to stay put during the entirety of the service (Knives' player knows damn well Knives wouldn't), and after some discussion they decide that she definitely would get distracted with Knives there, so they start goofing around in the back.
Knives' player finds Cindy delightful so they offer Cindy's an "emotional draw", letting them draw either a letter or card because their character's actions got a strong emotional reaction out of them.
As Cindy's player draws a 2♦️, they think about the scene and thinks this is worth a Mood Roll, "Peace", for quieter, calmer moments that are nonetheless meaningful, rolling Physical Action.
They make it a Poetic Action while they're at it:
"Giggling and hushing, [shh]
We find joy, in hiding"
She rolls 1,3,4,4,5 which is a success. Grabbing the 5 for later.
A success in "Peace" means that there is progress in these quiet moments, however ambiguous.
After service, Knives and Cindy hang out for a while. Cindy's stomach grumbles, so Knives treats her to lunch at the diner.
Here, they claim their second (and last) Mood Roll for the chapter, "Being There", rolling Awareness, as Knives has some nostalgic ties with this diner and just let the smells and sounds lull them into a trance.
"Plates clang, sizzling stove, here.
A sweet aroma, drifts by"
They roll 3,3,3,4,5 which makes it a critical success by rolling triples.
However, they have a better idea. They take two 3's off the roll, turning the roll into a critical failure, as well as losing the 1 they were holding on to.
A critical failure at "Being There" means that Knives rejects and pushes away the distracting experience, they refuse to dwell on those feelings and instead focus intently on what they're talking about.
(A critical failure also gives them one point of the "Complex" issue, whereas a critical success would have given them a point of "Something to Deal With")
Cindy then uses her own last Mood Roll on "Bonding", rolling Communication, she talks for a while with Knives about what its like growing up feeling like an outcast.
She tags her Professional Outcast skill to raise her Trait by 1.
She rolls 2,3,4,6,6 which is a failure even with her skill, as the only double is higher than her Trait. Even if she had made this a Poetic Action, the 5 she has in reserve wouldn't change anything.
A failure at "Bonding" gives Cindy an impulse to share a secret or otherwise make herself vulnerable, in this case she talks about how she had hated herself for so long for whatever it was that made her so undesirable to others.
Knives' player offers her an emotional draw, she draws a K❤️.
After a brief pause, Cindy's player says it's nice to see these two getting to interact more in a more mundane setting, and thinks this is a meaningful enough experience to be worth drawing a component. Knives' player agrees, and the GM does as well, telling them to feel free to draw a letter each.
Knives gets a W, Cindy gets an H.
They wrap up the chapter on that note.
Adventure Journal (Morning):
(Here, we keep track of all Mood Rolls done during the chapter, as well as anything else that asks players to mark the adventure journal)
Losing Myself (Knives): Stress dream
Peace (Cindy): Goofing around
Being There (Knives): At the diner (+1 to "Complex")
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Because little Touhou hats are all very well but our Glitch PCs are going to be Very Boring if they all have the same aesthetic.
With thanks to the other members of the jennachat Discord server, who contributed.
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- top hat, but like, one of the ridiculously tall stovepipe kind
- a red hat that doesn't go with the rest of their outfit and doesn't suit them
- a knitted hat with earflaps and a bobble on top
- one of those weird things the pope wears
- a fez
- a paper crown like from a Christmas cracker
- a novelty animal hat
- a baseball cap
- a straw hat with a sunflower on
- an umbrella hat
- a sea captain's hat
- a flat cap
- one of those stereotypical Aussie hats with all the corks dangling from the brim on strings
- an ushanka
- a birthday party hat
- a deerstalker
- a construction worker's hard hat
- the fluffy tall black bearskin things that the Queen's Guard outside Buckingham Palace wear
- a bowler hat, but upside down
- a tam-o-shanter
- a beret
- a sombrero
- a pith helmet
- a santa hat
- a turban
- a horse-riding hard hat
- a witch's hat, or a wizard's hat (the same thing but with more sequins)
- a clown hat
- a bonnet
- a jester's cap
- a sou'wester
- a shako
- a dunce's cap
- a bomber hat
- a baseball cap that says AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT
- a swimmer’s cap
- a tinfoil hat
- a coonskin hat
- a pilgrim hat
- a cloche hat
- a tricorne hat
- a flower crown
- a tiny little clip-on fascinator with feathers on
- a wimple
- a beanie
- a fedora
- a Towering Pillar of Hats
- a pair of cat ear headphones
- a pair of fluffy earmuffs
- a British policeman’s helmet
- a hat made of folded newspaper
- a stetson
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
