A new rpg publisher has been added to the database: STATIONS

A new rpg publisher has been added to the database: The Pocket Workshop

by Rachel Carpenter

It's been a good day for Nine Tails. Back in January, I was convinced that drift would mean that Nine Tails could never be more than a Print & Play while I remained limited to The Game Crafter.

Enter Lost Cities and I became a believer again. Thin borders wouldn't necessarily ruin the little fox. BUT the art would have to change.

I finally got all the tails redone and I'm pretty happy with the new fox body too. Meet my new kitsune:

I'll probably change the outline from orange to ivory, but I do like the parchment background vs the original ivory. Unfortunately, I got my sizing wrong when cutting up the primary image into the 9 cards, so I can't display the new end-of-game tableau just yet. That said, this is still significant progress considering I only had 1 tail that I was happy with this morning.

He's come a long way from this little guy!


Most of the Element/Medallion sides are done too (4 and 5 had text beyond the safe zones, so I still need to shift things a bit before they're done, d'oh!). Here's the Start/Fox Medallion:


And Earth/Tail#1:


Fonts have been substituted out, iconography is mine, and text standardized. Overall, I'm happy with the new look.

Which brings me to the Rest Tokens... I'd love 6 custom printed chipboard tokens. Fox Medallion on 1 side, Napping Fox curled up on the other. BUT, that would add over $7 to the manufacturing cost of the game... And because the slug doesn't fit in a poker hook or tuck box, I'd have to go with a small pro box, which would add another $6 to the manufacturing cost...

I could have the tokens as a downloadable pnp file and include blank circles for about $1.20 and then I could keep the game in the cheaper hook box... but... it feels cheap. And it feels like I'm not getting away from the game as a print & play at all... but it does me no good if I make the game available but the price is too high and no one buys it anyway... it's a real catch 22 and I'm just not sure what's the right call here. We're talking a small solo game that plays in under 30 minutes. The tokens and box would put me at or over $30 as the selling price. The blank tokens would allow me to keep the price point below $20 (tentatively $18.99- I haven't finalized the rule book yet, but the price would stay below $20).

Thoughts?

Happy Sunday and happy playing!
-Rachel

P.S.
The box still isn't done for Last Leaves as I want to advertise the other Almost Midnight games on it- namely Lincoln's Cat and Nine Tails, which means that I needed to work on the new logo for Nine Tails first! 😜


With no background


With brown background

Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe. And follow me across social media with my Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/rachelncarpenter

A new episode has been added to the database: EP 324 | We interview GOOB

A new episode has been added to the database: Episode 350: Actual Plays Detrimental to the TTRPG Hobby, Gaming Perspectives with Saul and Jolene

A new episode has been added to the database: Role of the d6 in D&D | Bespoke Mechanics vs Unified Systems | Wandering DMs S08 E13

A new episode has been added to the database: [Cthulhu by Gaslight] "Cracks in the Facade" (Session One)

A new episode has been added to the database: Rotted Capes Episode 20: Broken Chains part 1

by Miriable

Game Dimensions: 2½” x 3½” (poker card size) or 6″ x 1½” (bookmark size) x ¼”
Players: 2-10

(In the tone of “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha”) Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy! That’s all pocket RPGs are! If only someone would come save us from all these swords and sorcerers! They’re knee-deep! The neighbors are starting to complain!

Angelic chord

Bookmark No-HP RPG comes in two formats, bookmarks or cards. The bookmark format is slightly larger, but they’re functionally identical. You can only buy the card version PoD from DriveThruRPG, though, so that’s what I’m working with. You’ll also need at least one full set of polyhedral dice and a pencil or equivalent.

Gameplay: The game takes the bolt-on approach. One bookmark/card describes the underlying system for everyone, the players get their own “guidebookmark,” and the Game Host (that is, the GM) gets a third. All of them together explain how everything works. (It wouldn’t hurt for everyone to read all three, but you know how players are.) This basic setup is extended with genre cards, described below. The bundle also comes with a “battle bookmark” describing an “advanced” combat system, plus nine blank character cards.

The rules are a convoluted form of generic. Every character has a Vocation, like Fighter or Detective. Vocations can be literally any job or lifestyle you can imagine, and are assumed to come with everything you need; equipment is Not A Thing. Characters also have four Attributes: Brawn, Grace, Will, and Wits. Players divvy up d4, d6, d8, and d10 between these.

To perform an action, the Game Host assigns a Difficulty from 1 to 10. The player then rolls one of their Attributes’ dice that many times. (A player can use any Attribute for any action if they can come up with a reasonable explanation for it, unless that Attribute is exhausted [see below].) If any of these die rolls are a 1, the action fails. Otherwise it succeeds. The degree of success or failure depends on the highest die in your series of rolls, so you’ll want to roll the full number of times even if you fail early.

If a roll fails, reduce that Attribute’s die by one step (d8 becomes d6, for instance). If you fail on a d4 roll, that Attribute is exhausted and you have to rest to use it again. If the roll succeeds and at least one roll is maximum (e.g. rolling an 8 on d8), the die increases one step, usually to a maximum of d12. If you max-success-roll with a d12, you get a Boon, like a new weapon, an ally, a book of spells, etc. Characters can save six Boons and trade them in for a Trait, essentially a permanent piece of equipment, as a way to level up.

Sometimes you’ll come up against a high Difficulty and don’t want to risk a stat by rolling a zillion times. In this case, you can gamble either your Vocation, a Trait, or one of your Boons, which halves the Difficulty. If you fail this reduced roll, you exhaust whatever you gambled. Exhausting a Vocation or Trait is meant to simulate a loss of face, a power-down, a crisis of faith, or similar. You get exhausted Vocations and Traits back after rest and reflection. Exhausted Boons are gone for good.

The gambling and exhaustion stuff take the place of HP in this, the No-HP RPG. Death is story-driven. Either you or the Game Host can declare you dead if you fail a particularly deadly action with a particularly poor roll, but you’re not beholden to. Mostly your survivability depends on how far you can push your rationalizations to stay alive.

So let’s unpack the die rolling thing here. Obviously it’s best to roll your highest Attribute, especially for low Difficulty actions, to quickly max out your die and start generating Boons. The chance of failure goes up rapidly at the low end, but levels off for higher Difficulties.

It’s too early in the morning for all this math

The gambling mechanic is a neat way to mitigate this, though a starting character with no Boons and cold dice could easily blow their wad early and then stumble along, shedding dice levels until something really bad happens. Note that, RAW, resting during an adventure doesn’t reset your dice levels, though it does restore any d4’s you’ve exhausted. The best you can hope for is a hot streak to build them back up.

The genre cards toss a few spins on top of this formula.

> “Swords and Spellbookmarks” add Heroic and Arcane character types. Heroes can perform Epic Actions which bump up their die type, and Arcanists cast Charms, Spells, and Sorcery, with increasing risk/reward structures for each.
> “Bookmark the Stars!” gives everyone Species and Homeworlds with unique abilities and liabilities, and rules to generate a shared spaceship for the team to travel in.
> “Bookmark Cyberpunk” has an alternate character generation system that gives you up to a d20 as a stat, cybernetic Traits, and hacking rules.
> “No-HP Supers!” replaces your Vocation with a Super Identity and an Alter Ego (which gets exposed if exhausted). It also adds super powers, of which you can take as many as you’d like. However, you have an additional risk of exhausting the one you’re using if you roll less than your current number of powers on a d20.
> “Bookmark Cthulhu” adds the Dread Attribute, which increases as you encounter Things Man was Not Meant to Know until you go buggo or melt your face off or explode or something.
> “Dracula’s Get!” makes all the PCs into vampires, with all their classic powers and a powerful thirst for that veiny good-good. I’m sorry. I’ll never say that again.
> “Paranormal Wordbookmark” gives everyone their choice of a psychic gift based on one of their Attributes, and then … they just go around being psychic, I guess. There’s nothing more to the card than that.

Looking at DTRPG, it appears they've added two new bookmarks to the bundle, "Bookmark the Apocalypse" and "The King of Elfland's Daughter," which weren't in there when I bought it a couple months ago. Sad. But hey, if you bought it now, you'd know more about it than I do!

The rules don’t say anything about mixing and matching multiple genre cards, but there’s nothing stopping you either. I’ll allow it, but don’t tell your mom.

Pocket fit: The Compleat Bundle is 20 poker-sized cards and/or bookmarks, which have small but detectable mass in the pocket. You’ll also need your dice bag and something to write with, which adds most of the bulk. Still not much. C+ and I’m being kinda mean about it.

Legibility: The rules cards are quite readable for their size, and the bookmark versions are even better for their larger text. Every genre card has its own typography, which is mostly fine, but the sci-fi and cyberpunk cards are printed as white text on dark backgrounds. The sci-fi card has a sort of mottled space nebula background with red highlights, and the cyberpunk one has a light geometric font which would be hard to read in any case.

Everything else is fine, though. B overall, with a couple C-’s in there dragging the average down.

Completeness: There’s no adventure generator or particular game world, but the rules do cover a wide swath of whatever you might want to do. The Game Host card has a tiny “crafting adventures” section which is insultingly rudimentary. There are published adventure sets if you don’t want to be creative. Otherwise this is mostly a toolkit to build your own world on top of. B-.

Final thoughts: I like this one, though more for its audaciousness than for the actual system. In my experience, the dice mechanic is initially difficult to get through to some players. Once a player gets it, it does seem to stick, luckily. The multi-genre thing is a huge breath of fresh air after all those Tolkiens with the numbers filed off. It is a little undetailed in its base form, which is weird to say about a system this comparatively large.

In the end, though, it’s not hard to have fun with, which is all you can really ask for.

The Bookmark No-HP RPG Compleat Bundle is a little more than $20 on DTRPG, which includes PDFs and physical cards. If you don’t want the whole passel, they also have “cut-up solo” bundles which include the base rules, one genre card, and one or more sourcebooks for a more in-depth experience.


This review was originally published (by me) at https://ccxp.info/pocket-ttrpg-roundup-part-four/

by Sean Johnson

Today was the day of Gen Con event registration. My initial placement in the line was in the 14,000's so not great. However, with a couple of notable exceptions I got my first choice for most of the event time slots I was going for so I am not going to complain. My approach to Gen Con is built around events, so I have a decent idea what Gen Con will be like for me come the end of July. Of course, there are almost always a change of plans or two so it is possible that this is not what actually happens. For now though, here are the plans I have a lot of excitement for.

Wednesday
There are always a small number of events on Wednesday, and they are always free so they go quickly. I added several hoping for the best, and I was pleasantly surprised that I got a couple of them. In the late afternoon I will get to learn how to playDice Throne which is great because I have been curious about this game for a while. Then in the evening I will get to play Dawn Patrol: Role Playing Game of WW I Air Combat . This hex and counter dogfighting game is the only game that has been played at every single Gen Con. This will actually be my third time to play the game, every time it has been on the Wednesday of Gen Con. The game is fun enough, but I like participating in something that has been happening since the beginning.

Thursday
It is my tradition to start Thursday morning of Gen Con by running a game of Federation Commander, and I will be doing that again this year. One of the things that is neat is that I recognize some of the names of the people who got tickets, so I know they have played with me in previous years. This year I will be in charge of a Romulan star base while all of the players will be Gorn commanders who have been tasked with capturing the base or destroying it.

After Federation Commander there will be time for me to look at new releases in the main exhibition hall, but then in the afternoon I have a ticket to play Molly House. . Just a few days ago I wrote a blog post of the games from 2025 that I have not played but most want to play and Molly House was at the top of the list. I am looking forward to experiencing it and checking it off the list.

On Thursday evening my event has quite the long title. It is: Tower of Gygarn - Battle Royale Highlander (D&D Fortnite). It is an attempt to use D&D mechanisms to deliver a Fortnite style, battle royale experience. It sounds crazy, and I have no idea how it is going to work but this is the kind of thing that can only be experienced at someplace like Gen Con.

Friday
I did not get my first choice for events on Friday morning, but that is OK because I got my second choice: Star wars Podracing. This event is being run every day, but each day has a different track. On Friday the track is Malastere, and as Qui-Gon Jinn told Anakin in Episode I the podracing on Malastere is "very fast, very dangerous."

After podracing I will have a little bit more time to wander the hall, before a Friday afternoon event of Battlestations: Second Edition. I love this game, but I only get to experience it with a full complement of players at Gen Con so I try to play in a Battlestations event most years. This year I skipped the spectacle of the Giant Battlestations for one with a smaller group on the regular boards.

Friday evening my plan is to run Starship Adventures. In the Fall of last year I played a one-shot for a game that used the Mork-borg system and I enjoyed it. I like the Star Trek adjacent theme of this game so I got it with the intended purpose of playing it at Gen Con this year. Because all tickets for the event were purchased at the same time, it means they were likely bought by a group that knows each other. This could make for an extra fun game as the players will already have familiarity with each other. However, there is a risk because if they decide to skip that means no one is showing up.

Saturday
A lot of people must be planning on playing in events on Saturday morning, because I had five different events for that time on my wishlist, and I did not get any of them. I had to go back through what was left and find something. Fortunately, there were thousands of events so it was not like I was lacking choices. I landed on Port Royal: An Adventure Skirmish Miniatures Game set in the Searover's Caribbean. This means that Saturday morning is my miniatures day because I will go straight from that game into a scenario that is powered by Techno-Fantasy Adventure: 2nd Edition. This scenario is set on a hijacked mag-train. It sounds exciting and I am really looking forward to the set piece terrain that will be used for this.

On Saturday afternoon I am running my last event which is Zombie World. My brother kindly gave me this Zombie RPG last year, and I am looking forward to finally getting to run it. I leave roleplaying to go back to miniatures games and I will play Halo: Flashpoint. This is a survival event, where each person controls one Spartan instead of a team. I have enjoyed playing Halo: Flashpoint, and I am looking forward to playing it with more people. I am going to end Saturday night by playing Cult of the Deep. This is a social deduction game that uses a dice rolling mechanism. I really do not know much about it, but I am always willing to try a new social deduction game.

Sunday
Given how far back we were in the line at first, I was most worried about events for Sunday. On Sunday my family will be joining me so we needed four tickets for everything. Luckily, we got everything we really wanted to do. We are going to start off fairly active in the morning, jumping from one even to another. Fortunately, I was smart enough to check their locations before adding them to the wishlist and they are all fairly close together.

We are going to start off by playing Thunder Road: Ignition. We played Thunder Road Vendetta last November and we had a blast, but my daughter did think it was a little long. I think this version will be more her speed. After that we are gong to try Earth Express. Earth is one of my wife's favorite games so we are playing this so she can experience the game's new, quicker playing version. Then our final event is playing Finspan with the new expansion. Finspan is our favorite of the spans, so it will be fun to try it with new cards. From there we will play Slam Throne as a bowling variant. My understanding of the event is that this is basically pogs with bowling scoring. This sounds like something my kids especially will have a lot of fun with.

My kids really like to be in the main exhibition hall when they make the closing announcement at 4:00 PM on Sunday so we will spend the last few hours of Gen Con in the main hall.

So those are my Gen Con plans. Did you register for events today? Did you get what you wanted? What are you most hyped for?

A new episode has been added to the database: Urban Decay – The Gravewarriors – Blood in the Streets – Session 3

A new episode has been added to the database: The Second Manifest | Article 20; And We'll All Hang On Behind