Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Guess who found a leaked playtest copy without having to sign up for anything?
Feast your eyes upon...

(I don't think those prosthetics are for general adventuring...)

Part 1 (because this shit would get too long): Opening Nonsense

>Roleplaying adventures in the world of Lara Craft
Pretty sure that's the main issue with this particular license: Does anyone really care about the "setting" of Tomb Raider? Outside of Lara Croft being in it? That's really all this separates this IP from any generic pulp setting.
Also the "setting" portion of this book is just some NPCs and organizations, most of which are OCs anyways. Also Lara Croft herself is missing. They just love mentioning her by name, usually in combination with how the players are her "contemporaries".

Also I just reminded myself that this game is Powered by the Apocalypse


This is like Evil Hat's third attempt at making their own fork of PbtA. The first of course was the stunning and brave Thirsty Sword Lesbians (a game with such an identiy crisis it assures you that you have to be neither thirsty, sword-wielding nor a lesbian), and the second was the mostly ignored Apocalypse Keys (which has some very dumb mechanics even for PbtA standards). Let's see where this wild rollercoaster ride will bring us, shall we?

Brindlewood Bay

Oh fuck, this is like Apocalypse Keys again, isn't it?

Why Apocalypse Keys sucksShow

So in AK you're playing monsters trying to prevent some other monster from ushering in the end of the world or something. To do this you're gathering clues aka "keys" that will reveal to you what is happening and where it's going down.

Problem 1: They ripped of Brindlewood Bay, which is a cozy mystery game with Lovecraftian elements. It basically uses quantum clues because the GM doesn't actually prepare the mystery ahead of time. It's the players who use the clues they've found to make shit up - which works a lot better in the cozy mystery genre than it does in Apocalypse Keys, where all the clues are weird and esoteric.

Problem 2: So the players spent the entire session trying to make up some coherent mystery for the stupid clues you've been handing out / rolling up.
Then everything hinges on one check before the grand finale. Fuck this up, and their deduction has been wrong and the GM needs to quickly come up with the actual mystery. Aka he still has to prepare ahead of time unless he is an improv god.

Problem 3: Now you might think the group can just burn metacurrencies to ensure that this most important of all checks is a smashing success.
Except they fucked up the core resolution mechanic.
You see, in PbtA games, every check has 3 outcomes: a failure, a success where shit went wrong, and a success with no strings attached. In Apocalypse Keys they swapped out the last two results - aka rolling too high is bad.

The table of contents starts of... interesting...


Moralfaggotry

So yeah, this book has a slight problem with being named after a fancier euphemism for "grave robber". Naturally the PCs aren't called "Tomb Raiders", but "Truth Seekers", because they seek out ancient artifacts to discover the truth of lost civilizations and shit. Totally different from raiding a tomb.
Of course the original games are considered "problematic" because that iteration of Lara Croft didn't feel bad about her tomb-raiding ways, and we can't have that in Current Year.

When we talk about colonialism in the modern context, we want to address people who have endured and continue to endure oppression on a cultural and individual level. Colonialism and its dire effects manifest in different ways across various cultures, each with their own complex histories to reckon with. The faces and struggles in one place aren’t always the same in another.

Colonialism is an invisible and insidious influence that privileges powerful countries and cultures—privilege and power that came from historic and systemic control, manipulation, and violence. We seek to combat that insidious force and acknowledge that we don’t live in an equitable world.

Riveting stuff.

Then there's a paragraph about "Playing a Seeker respectfully", which mostly boils down to "Don't play an asshole".

Treat other characters like people you know in real life, even if they’re from locales you’re unfamiliar with.

But I hate people in real life. Also what does my IRL social behavior have to do with the character I'm playing in this fictional story?

This game provides many mechanics for relating to local communities and not treating their homes as an exotic other or an exploitable resource.

That's... a weird thing to gamify. Do I like check for Relating To Natives? Shouldn't this be left to roleplaying? Just PbtA things, I guess.

"CATS" stands for Concept, Aim, Tone and "Subject Matter and Content Note", which is a weird way of once again summarizing what the game is all about.
Of course the final part is another bit of moralfagging.

While we try to design as much as we can to mitigate and address the harm of colonialism in this genre, we cannot encompass all the ways that it can manifest. Anti-colonialism in game design is still an evolving practice, and we hope that future iterations will keep improving. This game is our sincere and heartfelt contribution to the conversation and practice.

"Plz don't be mad if something in this book is still triggering you "


Safety Tools

Of course they're here. You can instantly tell a SJW-infested RPG by its inclusion of safety tools, those autistic magical charms meant to protect the poor players from the GM's rape fantasies (though usually they serve to give the passive-aggressive bitches of the group fiat powers).
Strangely enough the klessik X-Card is not included in the list of recommended safety tools, but don't worry, the stuff here might actually be worse.

Green, Yellow, Red: This is the least egregious tool I've seen so far, since it's just an overly bureaucratic version of "Just tell the GM what you'd like, don't like and really don't like to see in the game". I'll give it some credit as these lists are ideally filled before the game starts, which is a huge improvement over the usual safety tools (which are all about bringing the session to a screeching halt because the GM included a trigger he had no way of knowing because you dumbass didn't tell him BEFORE about how much you get triggered by spiders).
But it still manages to be stupid:

“I don’t want sexual assault to come up"

You know the book was written by and for degenerative retards if "I don't wanna see rape scenes" has to be explicitly spelled out.

“I know there are powerful artifacts in the world, but I don’t want my character to ever be mind controlled. It’s fine if it happens to other characters, just not mine.”

>it's okay when it happens to other PCs
This is the kind of attitude that is viewed as normal here. You just know this type of player would keep demanding special treatment all the time.

Pause, Reload, Skip Ahead: This is basically The X-Card Strikes Back. This safety tool alone makes the entire game meaningless.
"Pause" really is just the X-Card. I have no idea why you need this when they've just recommended the above red list.

Kamal forgot to mention this but they’re really scared of drowning. When Kamal’s Seeker Kraken is about to be trapped underwater, they pause the game to ask if there could be a different threat to face. Afterward, Jasmine checks in with them and adds “drowning” to the Red list.

Shut up, Kamal.
"Reload" is where things get stupid. I just I'll just quote the example:

At the end of the session Rob realizes they didn’t feel great about the interaction between their character Rusty and Jasmine’s character Jonah. Rob asks to Reload that campfire scene so Rusty can give Jonah a more honest answer to a heartfelt question they had originally brushed off.

Choices don't matter. Just retcon everything until you are satisfied. What a great idea.
"Skip Ahead" might just be even worse. I'll have to quote once again:

The Seekers are trapped on a cliffside in the snow without food or supplies. Frostbite, sun blindness, hypothermia, and other dangers from exposure are all very real threats. Jasmine is fine with their character suffering and struggling, but doesn’t want to play through the details of it. Knowing the Seekers are all in bad shape, Jasmine asks to skip ahead to when the next challenge appears.

"I know we're stuck in some exciting survival scene like in the opening of Uncharted 2, but how about we skip all of that?"
Yeah. Not only are you encouraged to retcon shit until you like it, but you can also just skip shit to, I dunno, get back to everyone having an orgy or something.
Nothing fucking matters in this game.

Raised Hand: This is like a variant of the X-Card. Basically raise you hand to silently protest that the group isn't paying enough attention to you and your precious self-insert.

Jasmine is describing how their Seeker, Jonah, is tending to a wounded ally with care when Rob gets an idea for how that reminds their Seeker, Rusty, of a past injury. Rob is excited and jumps in to describe it. Jasmine raises their hand for a moment till they get everyone’s attention and Rob realizes they’ve cut Jasmine off.

"Shut up, Rob, this is MY scene!"
I bet this is the "It's okay when the others get mind controlled" bitch. Stupid attention whore. I'd never let her into the group in the first place.

Jasmine continues with the description and reveals a secret to the ally that leaves everyone speechless!

This totally makes up for ruining Rob's fun.

Stars & Wishes: This is barely a safety tool. You're just awarding Good Boy Points at the end of the session to players who you think did something cool, to "subtly" clue in the GM on what you wanna see next. Then there are the "wishes" where you just tell him what you wanna see next. Weird.

Kamal, I absolutely adore your description of Kraken’s core move The Weapon. It just screams of a tortured past and a desire to find your own identity but your fear that without violence you have nothing to offer. I really want to see opportunities for Jonah to try and connect with you and offer you choices besides being a weapon.

Nobody talks like that. What is this, an after-session talk or a fucking essay?
And can I give a negative star to Kamal because the bitch boy forgot he doesn't like water in this Tomb Raider game?

Then there there's almost half a page on proper safety usage, with these gems:

“We said no spiders in our game, but I think this abandoned cabin has some small and dangerous creatures living inside it. How do poison frogs sound to you all?”

I hope he meant fictional giant spiders, because real spiders aren't that impressive of a threat IRL.
But frogs? Are they like giant dire frogs? Is the whole cabin filled with them? If they're just some normal poison frogs hanging out this is anything but dangerous. They're frogs. They basically freeze in place if they notice you. Just don't touch the frogs, or get a stick if they're in the way.

“So we seem okay with body horror, but please interrupt me at any time if my description of this shapeshifting monster is not cool.”

I don't think shapeshifters really demand having their shapeshifting described in excruciating, gory detail. Just let the players fill in the blanks in their mind.

And these are just the first 15 pages. Of 268. Thankfully this is just PbtA so I can condense a lot of shit for the next part.

[wulfenlord]

Into the Vaterland, less gooo!

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

That Negerweib in the middle has to be some kind of gremlin or evil spirit. JFC. That's the kind of horror shit that suddenly pops up in your bathroom or rear view mirror.

Also I just noticed that all the fake players from the examples of play are refered to by gender-neutral they/them pronouns.

[Kugelfisch]

I don't think anyone that behaves like those examples should ever play an RPG. All they know about that is being unintentional Fatal LARPers by unironically living like anal circumference was an actual stat of importance.

I'd be very afraid to drown. I don't see what my fictional RPG character has to do with that. Why would that especially trouble someone?

[wulfenlord]

Nice realsim, with the fat archeological dabbler losing his legs to beetus.

Colonialism is an invisible and insidious influence that privileges powerful countries and cultures—privilege and power that came from historic and systemic control, manipulation, and violence. We seek to combat that insidious force and acknowledge that we don’t live in an equitable world.

Great, it's those faction that like to side with the losers side of history. I've seen this in boardgames as well, sadly.

Then there's a paragraph about "Playing a Seeker respectfully", which mostly boils down to "Don't play an asshole".

So are they demanding the book back, akin to Pathfinder if they find out my political leaning is to the right of Mao?

"CATS" stands for Concept, Aim, Tone and "Subject Matter and Content Note", which is a weird way of once again summarizing what the game is all about.

So wait, it's an abbreaviation that contains in itself an abbreviation? Could they abbreviate LGHDTV+ just down to 'L', then?

Kamal forgot to mention this but they’re really scared of drowning. When Kamal’s Seeker Kraken is about to be trapped underwater, they pause the game to ask if there could be a different threat to face.

I can picture Kamal very vividly as a diaper fetishist somehow

Jasmine is describing how their Seeker, Jonah, is tending to a wounded ally with care when Rob gets an idea for how that reminds their Seeker, Rusty, of a past injury. Rob is excited and jumps in to describe it. Jasmine raises their hand for a moment till they get everyone’s attention and Rob realizes they’ve cut Jasmine off.

Don't worry Rob, you can just reload the scene with the new addition that Jasmines character receives surprise love from the savage tribe they're currently robbing, I know I would. That'll teach her.

Kamal, I absolutely adore your description of Kraken’s core move The Weapon. It just screams of a tortured past and a desire to find your own identity but your fear that without violence you have nothing to offer. I really want to see opportunities for Jonah to try and connect with you and offer you choices besides being a weapon.

That's just straight up worker/employer forced optimization. Very problematic with the current communist unions r/n tbh idk lol

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I'd be very afraid to drown. I don't see what my fictional RPG character has to do with that. Why would that especially trouble someone?

Because narcs love to use their alleged phobias to gain power over the narrative.
It's the same with arachnophobia. Not only is it a pussy phobia to begin with, but roleplaying is all in your head. I'm just describing a giant-ass spider to you. I'm not literally throwing real tarantulas at you (as much as I'd like to have a bucket full of tarantulas for players like these).

Great, it's those faction that like to side with the losers side of history. I've seen this in boardgames as well, sadly.

Looks neat. What is it all abou-

In the game, players take the role of spirits on an island and win by driving off colonizing invaders.

Oh.

Reuss designed Spirit Island in response to other board games in which players take the role of colonizers.

Fucking Settlers of fucking Catan, man. They're selling the native sheep population into slavery!

The Invader game pieces were made white deliberately in Spirit Island to highlight that light colors don't always imply 'good'.

I've totally never seen that twist in a bunch of other, much better IPs.

In Spirit Island, players take the role of Spirits on an island. They must drive off the colonizing Invaders, who grow their presence on the island, including founding Towns and Cities, over the course of a game.

Those spirits aren't doing a good job if the colonizers have time to build entire cities. Ever thought of sinking the ships? Have you any idea how hard it is to get an island colony thriving without outside supplies?

The Invaders' actions are controlled by a deck of cards that dictates the areas of the board they Explore, Build, and "Ravage". Any tiles that the players aren't able to protect against the "Ravage" action results in a Blight token being added to it.

Colonizer sperm is especially salty and ruins the soil like nothing else.

So are they demanding the book back, akin to Pathfinder if they find out my political leaning is to the right of Mao?

Unfortunately I have yet to come across a "IF YOU DON'T AGREE THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU!" manifesto. Maybe they're saving that one for the full release.

So wait, it's an abbreaviation that contains in itself an abbreviation? Could they abbreviate LGHDTV+ just down to 'L', then?

Kinda? The "S" in "CATS" stands for "Subject Matter and Content Note". They wanted like one letter per header, but couldn't sum up this one in one word.
I have a feeling this is the most likely section to be changed after the playtest because the entire acronym is just dumb and unnecessary.

Don't worry Rob, you can just reload the scene with the new addition that Jasmines character receives surprise love from the savage tribe they're currently robbing, I know I would. That'll teach her.

"It's not rape when the natives do it!"

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Part 2: I am a Shadow, the true self

Maybe I should bring up this Brindlewood Bay thing up again. Mostly because the "inspired by" section lists no less than nine games from which they have proudly borrowed mechanics.
Because this while PbtA cesspool is full of lazy hacks who copy-paste their shit together from other shit.
And yet they never seem to be able to come up with a combat system that actually exists, or character advancement rules that actually support long-term campaigns (instead of telling you to essentially start over from scratch).
Aka none of the mechanics in this book are original in any way, shape or form.

We recommend talking about how dangerous the world is when you first start making characters. Is this a grim and dangerous world where every cut stings and your Seekers have to evade certain death regularly to make it through an adventure? Or do you want to
play in a more forgiving world where defenestration is part of the job and only the direst circumstances give you concern?

How about playing In the World of Lara Croft, as the cover proudly displays?

Roleplaying games have often been referred to as “make believe, but with rules,” which isn’t far from the truth.

There are a lot less rules in PbtA, for starters.

General session flow

So the overall goal of every adventure is together enough "Truths" (aka clues) to figure out where the final tomb with the magicla MacGuffin is. So far, so good.
To serve as opposition, you'll have to deal with at least one "Nemesis", which is just a rival Tomb Raider except we can call them neither a "rival" (because that term doesn's suggest moral superiority on the part of our brave heroes) nor a "Tomb Raider" (as reserving the term only for bad guys in your Tomb Raider RPG is a bit dumb).

The game makes a big deal about how a session is comprised of 5 distinct phases. I guess they want to copy those fancy Japanese tabletop RPGs who love having a strict roleplaying structure, but it's more smoke and mirrors.
I mean Star of Session Phase (recapping shit and doing anything else for a smoot continuation) and End of Session Phase (talking a bit about what happened, counting dem sweet XPs) are basically a given, and the Action (do stuff to find clues), Campfire (rest and talk about your feefees) and Investigation (see if the clues were any good) phases can flow into each other at any given opportunity.

The actual mechanics

To my frustration and impotent rage, this playtest document doesn't have a helpful paragraph summarizing the actual action resolution of this fucking game. You have to peace the whole process together over eleven pages. JFC.

Basically this does not use the typical PbtA mechanic of 2d6 + some small modifiers. Not too surprising, however, since the woke hack writer of Current Year hates math, and this outdated action resolution has way too much addition.
So instead Evil Hat takes inspiration from their other narrative bullshit system Blades in the Dark, aka you build up a dice pool of 1 to 5 d6s (using various situational sources, some of which are consumed in the process), roll everything and then pick up the highest result.
Somehow I doubt this is easier than the old way. Especially when you need multiple pages to explain how to voltron this dice pool together.

Now the process of getting your result (and the range of possible results) might be different, but we still have the holy trinity of PbtA results:

• 1-3: Lol get fucked, nigga (total failure, or "Crisis", as the game calls it)
• 4-5: Nani~?! (partial success; you still gonna get fucked )
• 6: PROFIT (an actual success with no strings attached; if you roll up multiple 6s it's even better)

Let's look at your chance of succeeding at anything without getting fucked in some way:

• 1d6: 16.67%
• 2d6: 30.56%
• 3d6: 42.21%
• 4d6: 51.77%
• 5d6: 59.81%

Riveting. And your chance of getting really fucked:

• 1d6: 50%
• 2d6: 25%
• 3d6: 12.5%
• 4d6: 6.25%
• 5d6: 3.13%

You definitely want to roll at least 3d6. 4d6 is even better, though 5d6 seems overkill.

So partial successes are generally a lot more likely, which is by design in PbtA.
This is also why you don't actually want to make too many rolls in PbtA games, because they tend to just make things more complicated.

Stats

PbtA games usually have 4-5 stats, but just like in Apokalypse Keys there are no stats in this.
What you get instead here are questions attached to your class and certain Moves (more on those later). Anytime you try to do something, you get to add a d6 to the dice pool for every question you can answer with "yes".
So basically you're better at shit that fits your theme. It's like having stats or something, except you get to argue with your GM that "Are you being smart about this?" is a definitive "yes" when you try to sell the team's landwhale for many camels.

Moves

Moves are like the actions you can take, and your primary way of interacting with the world (with lots of arguing with the GM). There are some generic ones, and some exclusive to your class.
If you're lucky you get moves that can be used in a wide variate of narrative situations, like say a Get Shit Done Move I just made up you can use whenever you want to get shit done.
Unfortunately a lot of Moves are more situational.

Intuition

This shit is weird. Every class has two, and they're basically questions you can ask the GM at any time.
You know how in a sane D&D, you can have your character poke around a corner and ask the GM "Do I see anything weird"? In this game you have to be the right class to asks questions like that. It's like a skill system, but dumb.

This can sound like the Keeper saying that there is a hidden squad of Natla foes waiting around the corner in response to the Hunter asking What hidden dangers lurk nearby?

"Stop asking for lurking dangers. The GM will just summon more enemies"

Conditions

These are basically the closest things you have to hit points. Whether you exhaust yourself or get assaulted by a poison frog, you pick one of your condition boxes (the exact specifications can vary for each class) and write down some details about the condition.
Conditions can represent both physical and mental trauma, so if Chad hurts your feelings by not respecting your pronouns, you get to check your "Angry" condition and write down "Chad misgendered me!"
And yes, getting shanked is exactly as dangerous as having your feefees hurt. In some PbtA games you can get coup-de-grâce-d by a "You will never be a real woman"
This game however does things weirder (with a stolen mechanic).

Shadow Self

Truth Seekers are complex characters who must contend with the darker aspects of their lives. There is always a darker side, waiting to be let out—the Shadow Self. It is in their shadow
that a Seeker will be forced to contend with what haunts them, what remains unresolved, or an unknown aspect of their identity.

Sooo... when all of your Condition boxes are filled (or specific other shit happens) you like start dissociating like a mofo and/or get consumed by your dark side or something, as your enter an epic temper tantrum.
Now the good thing is that you get a brand new question thingie, which is the only thing that allows you to roll 6d6 for a check.
The bad thing is that your Shadow Self has four condition boxes that can never be unchecked, ever. Once those for conditions are checked, your character is like Mr. Hyde 24/7 and no longer playable. I guess the others will put you out of your misery, now that you've become a Batman villain
How do you get out of your Tard Trigger? With the power of friendship, of course uwu

What in the everloving fuck does this have to do with Tomb Raider? Does Reboot Lara have Raiden's Ripper Mode or something?
Also I'm pretty sure this is just an edgy ripoff of the Stress Explosion mechanic from Maid RPG

Modifying the results

Aka ways for you to tweak the result of a check after the roll. Every class has a limited supply of these modifiers that are used up permanently.
Flashbacks just has you do some shounenshit flashback that is relevant to WTF you're trying to accomplish. This boosts your result up one step.
Aside from your class flashbacks, there might also be external sources of flashbacks, like for an artifact or something.
Shadow Bargains has you embrace the Dark Side of the Force to tard rage any check into a critical success, put of course this automatically activates your Shadow Self, so get those tearful group hugs ready.

Next time: Collecting clues and making shit up.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

A little detour from whatever the fuck this Tomb Raiders RPG is.

Do you like Firefly? And/Or Cowboy Bebop? Boy, do I have the RPG for you!

Orbital Blues: A Space Western RPG

Except the writer is a terminal commie who really wanta you to know that he does not approve of the time periods that beboplikes take their aesthetic inspirations from.

Despite being a universe with interplanetary travel, data networks and personal spaceships, the Frontier Galaxy of ORBITAL BLUES partially styles itself on mid-to-late 20th century aesthetics—from faded 1950s and 60s "Golden Age of Capitalism" looks to the landscapes of the early 90s and the closing of the "Decade of Greed," when the glossy paintwork of late-stage capitalism began to chip away.

Remember when capitalism lost? Me neither.

Though these decades have an exciting look and feel, remember that they were times of great socioeconomic inequality, injustice for women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and people living with disabilities, among others. The people who made this game explicitly condemn these attitudes, and do not seek to emulate them or encourage their recreation.

You really want your cake and eat it, do you?

Our goal is to tell the stories of those marginalised in this setting, not glorify their marginalisation

Indeed.

In Orbital Blues, the only difference between a gang member and cop is that one of them is definitely a fascist

Oh, I wonder which one it could be

Any other gems by this insanely talented person?

>Inevitable: A Doomed Arthurian Western RPG
I wonder how often "slavery" is mentioned in this.

>Gangs of Titan City
Necromunda ripoff, also apparently inspired - among other things - by Judge Dredd, except I have a hunch that cops aren't be playable.

>Best Left Buried: Doomsayer's Guide to Horror
A horror game. Though the only horror will likely come from the GM trying to piece a scenario together after collecting everyone's triggers (only to find out that the players have kept triggers in reserve as trap cards).
I also wonder how often Lovecraft is bashed in this.

[Kugelfisch]

So is the world of tRPGs just full of faggots or is this a continuous attempt at ideological warfare?

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Part of it might be virtue-signaling, part of it definitely deranged lunatics who have to insert their schizo manifestos into everything they write.

I blame the rise of itch.io, the tumblr of TRPGs.