Future planning/musing

So I've been thinking about what game options might be on the horizon. Rather than jumping RIGHT in on specific games, I wanted to pick out a couple broad trends that we (I) should probably be aware of. Here's the big one: We like being in communities. Having no one else to interact with but each other does not work as well as being within a larger group of characters. Obviously, the Masks game bears this out, but the Star Wars game also worked best when we had 'outside' NPCs to bounce off of. Dungeon World (as an example) might work for something more than a 'one shot', but NOT if the structure is a series of dungeon crawls, no matter how good the plotline is. Ditto hexcrawls or pointcrawls, unless there is, again, some kind of home-base community. If folks have thoughts on that (don't agree, don't think I caught some of the nuance, whatever), please jump in. Anyway, based on THAT thought, I have MORE thoughts, this time about specific games. Masks Jumping forward x years works, since we're still in the baseline approach of 'in a community.' There are a few Unchained setups that work easily (street-level vigilantes, probably), and a few others that we'd have to be really careful with (the GotG kind of setup runs the risk of being 'heroes in a ship-bottle with no one else to talk to' more often than not, without some conscious setup, going in). Zombie World This actually works pretty nicely, since there's a whole portion of the game that's about setting up the Enclave and the NPCs therein - in some ways, it's character, and in many ways, the Enclave and those people are as persistent (or moreso) than the PCs. Community isn't just supported, it's kind of the point? Apocalypse World With some conscious effort, the home base for the game can be a nicely fleshed out community, but it's slightly more a freeform effort on the part of the group. Blades in the Dark The focus is HEAVILY on 'the gang'. Ties to community can be done, but it's more an effort, though it is supported in the game, I think. Scum and Villainy and/or Impulse Drive Again, same potential risk as the GotG-type Masks game - heroes in a space-bottle, often cut off from others is definitely a risk. Killjoys shows it doesn't have to be; Firefly/Star Wars/etc demonstrates it totally can be. Urban Shadows vs. Monster of the Week vs. Monsterhearts 2 If the inclination is for modern supernatural stuff like Dresden/VtM/whatever, then much as it pains me, Monster of the Week is the loser here, simply because it's really MEANT to be a monster-of-the-week kind of game. Serious effort would have to go into building out the supporting cast.  Monsterhearts goes to the other extreme, being HUGELY about the supporting cast (and screwing with them), but it may be too PvP for many tasts.  Urban Shadows has a marvelous Faction mechanic that might feed into the kind of mix of mechanized NPCs and fiction-friendly NPCs we really dig into. Fantasy/low-tech Stuff Hearts of Wulin, Thousand Arrows, Dungeon World, or a real departure like Whitehack... we'd just have to make sure we're set up to be part of larger 'thing' - general Murderhobos Inc won't get it done for a lot of reasons, but that lack of larger connections is at least some of it. ------------- Finally, tone. Looking at all the stuff I scribbled on a sticky note, I can't help but notice that all the games currently making my ears pick up are a bit darker than Masks.  That's on me, and may not appeal to you - please say so. Maybe I just need to get into a Band of Blades game to get it out of my system, because clearly the Masks tone suits us REALLY well.  Again, any thoughts: jump in. Finally finally: I love the current game. I do. I just want to make sure we wrap up the main character's main arcs as gracefully as I can manage (which isn't all that, TBH), and wrap up before we jump a shark. I want to end, not fade, you know? That's all it is.

Doyce T. said: I want to end, not fade, you know? That's all it is. I think the game's fiction will probably live on (Dave and I have both talked about continuing fiction of some kind, and I imagine Mike might draw or write stuff from time to time)? There might be plot threads left unresolved, but I'm okay concluding those in some form for my characters if it comes to it. Community : big yes. A web of NPCs to interact with is good. I feel like it's better if those NPCs can bounce off multiple PCs - I want to avoid the situation where we silo our supporting casts. Community IN SPACE : one fix to plug a big social network into planet-hopping sci-fi play is not to have a small PC-sized ship, but a larger craft, space station, or even asteroid city. James Blish's "Cities in Flight" stories put entire Earth cities into space, complete with infrastructure. "Deep Space 9" and "Stargate: SG1" gave us worlds of adventure with a home base where the main cast always came back to. On the fantasy side, the recent "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" game is doing a similar thing: go adventuring, come back to town (YOUR town!) and pour your hard-earned winnings into expanding it. Masks Unchained : the alien-invasion and space-travel frames sound good to me. I feel like we've covered high school life pretty well, and the unpowered/noir frame seems like it excludes some of the most interesting PC concepts we've come up with. An overarching shared goal would probably also help keep us focused, rather than having us players repeatedly ask "okay, now what should we be doing?" Zombie World/Apocalypse World/Blades/MOTW/Monsterhearts : I'm not really a fan of unrelenting darkness, but I'm willing to give it a try. I think there's plenty of ways to add dark corners to any world, and I'm fine with doing that - the "Astro City" comics explicitly made this its own neighborhood, Shadow Hill . I'm also happier with games that don't have a sex move or the equivalent, although MH did include an ace option the last time I checked. Urban fantasy general : I like this genre but I'm not always a fan of how it's presented. Uber-tropey "all myths are true" worlds irritate me - sorry, Dresden, I'm looking at you - although occasionally there's neat ways to make it work. The dreamy/hallucinatory play style of Mage (either edition) are awesome though. Worlds that have a definite internal logic, even if you don't know what it is early on, are always cool. Scum and Villainy/Impulse Drive : I'm not familiar enough with these systems to have a good opinion on them, but I'm happy to try new stuff. The same deal about communities above could apply here, hopefully. Fantasy/Wuxia : I'm at the point where Dungeon World interests me only if it departs from the D&D conventions, at which point it ceases to be Dungeon World, soooo..? Hearts of Wulin sounds interesting. I don't know Thousand Arrows. There's two campaign types that I think would work for us, the Special Ops Army Unit (blend in with civilians, go on secret missions, fight for a larger cause) and Sim Fantasy Village (the Pathfinder: Kingmaker example above, alternate between adventuring and protecting/building up a location).

Finally finally: I love the current game. I do. I just want to make sure we wrap up the main character's main arcs as gracefully as I can manage (which isn't all that, TBH), and wrap up before we jump a shark. I want to end, not fade, you know? That's all it is. As I've said, I agree on all counts here. I have dozen more stories to tell here, but the increasing cruft of What's Come Before, the tangle of plot lines partially resolved, and areas where the ground has been well plowed multiple times already strike me as danger signals, like the seventh or eight season of a TV show, after the cast has changed some and the basic tropes have been worked to death, and things either devolve into self-parody, boredom, or radical changes that 90% of the time fail. Put another way, I could write Alycia/Summer dialogs for another couple of years, but sooner or later everyone else is going to be dead bored by them. I don't want that to happen. I think your observation about communities makes sense, but I think it's more than that, at least for me. To use Masks, we've had success when we've been able to explore outside the team to other relationships and motivations (the community aspect), but we've also had success as we deal with character interrelationships (the internal community). We need a reason to be together to keep things going, but we need reasons apart from that to keep the characters healthy.  And in the best of all worlds, that creates tensions for each character -- between different character relationships and each character's relationship to the communities around -- as well as strengths and synergies.. Thus not having a lot of enthusiasm (and Margie, to speak for her, far less) for PvP-focused games . As time has gone on, I've found my own inclinations going as much to co-op games as competitive ones. In a world where betrayals great and small are far too frequent a fixture, my escapist gaming fare is best served reinforcing those bonds of friendship, not cursing the sudden but inevitable betrayal of one or more comrades-in-arms. (I can see that happening in a game I'm in and enjoying it, but I don't want that to be the point  of the game, if you see the distinction.) I think part of what has made the Menagerie campaign a success, beyond the relationship side of things, has been the opportunity for growth and change . In most RPGs, this is handled by "You now add an extra die to your fireball" or "You now can wield the Rod of Prodigious Explodingness". Masks, being about personalities and personal growth and maturity, encourages advancements to actually signal changes in the person, resolving the core playbook challenges. Characters advance as people, not just capabilities and tropes. That's extraordinary, fun, and has worked well for us by and large -- I'd go with something that does that in as elegant a way in a heartbeat. (Put another way, I loved playing Ganna and would be happy to go back to her at some point for a one-shot -- but she was not going to become more than the gal who impulsively whacked bad guys with her hydrospanner, even with the worrisome Force stuff thrown in. Ditto for our characters in the dungeon crawl we did. On the other hand, both Jason and Alycia have, I think, evolved as people since their introduction. Sure, some of that was cutscene driven. But a lot was just the nature of what the system enabled them to do and be, along with some good GMing.) Of the suggested games above, I don't know enough about enough of them to say what would best satisfy my itch. That said, I am totally all over a Menagerie-the-Next-Generation game, whether it's the Quill School for Gifted Students, run by the married team of Jason and "Mistress Alycia" ("I told you, do NOT call me that"), with other old school Menageristas as faculty, or street level vigilanteism, or whatever setting makes sense. With some (but not all) characters being offspring of the previous generation (or our NPCs). We know the setting works, it gives us a chance to reset the plots, try new things but also play with old plot threads and memes as they seem important, and leverage the existing wiki. :-) Bottom line, I want to have fun, and having the current crop of players is at least half the battle in getting there. So I'm sensitive to that, too, and want to do what works best for the crew.

*** Dave H. said: Put another way, I could write Alycia/Summer dialogs for another couple of years, but sooner or later everyone else is going to be dead bored by them. I don't want that to happen. I actually feel that they've reached a point where something new must happen - Alycia's comforting a friend and expressing human emotions with at least a 50% pass rate, and Summer's getting more assertive on sensitive issues (joining the Menagerie, accepting suggestions she take the romantic initiative). So while they might not have two more years of same-old same-old conversations cooking, I do think you could drop them into new shenanigans and still have interesting commentary. :) Now I'm picturing those two MSTing some other ongoing game, with a third slot for a guest (Jason, Leo, Charlotte, whoever).

Bill: Community : big yes. A web of NPCs to interact with is good. I feel like it's better if those NPCs can bounce off multiple PCs - I want to avoid the situation where we silo our supporting casts. I fully agree. Community IN SPACE : one fix to plug a big social network into planet-hopping sci-fi play is not to have a small PC-sized ship, but a larger craft, space station, or even asteroid city. James Blish's "Cities in Flight" stories put entire Earth cities into space, complete with infrastructure. "Deep Space 9" and "Stargate: SG1" gave us worlds of adventure with a home base where the main cast always came back to.  DS9/B5 are both fine (inspirational) settings. Being part of a larger moving vessel also works. Either could be in a well-mined setting like Star Wars (in any era), something Trekky, or even a gang of thieves on a stellar Thieves Guild world/ship. All provide internal and external community. Masks Unchained : the alien-invasion and space-travel frames sound good to me. I feel like we've covered high school life pretty well, and the unpowered/noir frame seems like it excludes some of the most interesting PC concepts we've come up with. An overarching shared goal would probably also help keep us focused, rather than having us players repeatedly ask "okay, now what should we be doing?" I think there's plenty of fodder for high school life, depending on the characters we have and the community they are in (and the nature of the school). I agree about the un/low-powered setting being less interesting. I think the idea of some shared goals is spot on . I more or less agree with all of Bill's other points. Except I love the Dresdenverse kind of things, but that's my own kink and nobody else is expected to a part of it. :-)

So while they might not have two more years of same-old same-old conversations cooking, I do think you could drop them into new shenanigans and still have interesting commentary. :) Agreed. Also, look, Alycia's been taking Comfort & Support notes from Summer . Kind of. Learning has occured!

And Summer put her first supervillain in traction! Wait, no, she's petting a kitten. False alarm. More learning is needed. I'm fine with giving anything a shot - I have preferences, but no hard veto items. I'm also on board with Margie that PVP doesn't interest me. I even think Masks High School/Phoenix Academy could be fun too, if it's got something substantially new or different from what we've done already. A time-shifted version of that game (e.g. "play your kids"), or something with more focus to it (more on that in a moment), would be neat. I think there's ways to bring some of these different themes and preferences together. For example: Focused Phoenix Academy : this brings in a localized darker tone, high school action, and a limited time-shift. Imagine that Jason got his act together, Leo got his dimensional physics stuff sorted, and the two cooperated on their long-rumored Sepiaverse Rescue Mission. We've got a portal, we're escorting people out of that shithole dimension, setting up outposts and supply stations over there until the work is done, and so on. The Vyortovians are helping, but in the same way the Saudis are a US ally. And the PCs are being trained for the work. They might not be over there full-time, though there will be plenty of missions that require it, and there's plenty to do on this side. In the meantime, they still need to graduate, get dates, and meet up for all the social activities that help them stay sane and balanced against the awfulness of the Sepiaverse - and high school itself.

Bill G. said: Now I'm picturing those two MSTing some other ongoing game, with a third slot for a guest (Jason, Leo, Charlotte, whoever). Oh yes.  That seems like the perfect method of presenting game notes for whatever comes next. Speaking of what comes next... I can't say I disagree with what Bill and Dave said already.  I do think we can have some inter-party interaction, we just need some reason to have it and space to have it in.  I do remember there being more inter-PC interaction scenes earlier on, but as we got more cohesive we got less and less of those.  Maybe a bit of the mystery was gone for the PCs. As for game, I'm just going to run through my own opinions about some of these. Urban Shadows : As much as I love this game (urban fantasy is my thing, though it is getting surpassed by goofy sci-fi ), the primary method of interacting with the other PCs is through Debts (basically, you owe me a favor, help me with this thing). I don't think that mechanic is going to fly too well with this group (same for Monsterhearts and Strings ). Monster of the Week : Played it.  Too much like Dungeon World... which is slowly becoming my least enjoyed PbtA derivatives. Blades in the Dark : Can go dark with the base material, but the Vigilantes playset I think that might fall closer to what we like (heroics).  Nothing quite says pillar of the community like "Wards  of  their  homes.  Protecting  their  family,  friends,  and  neighborhood."  As a bonus for the community aspect, everyone is guaranteed to know 5 people in the community (though only one is really on BFF terms with you and another really doesn't like you).  Somewhat silo'd (a big concern), but the team as a whole does share a friend as determined by the crew sheet. Scum and Villainy : Build on Blades of the Dark, it carries over some of the mechanics I like, adds in Gambits (a sort of clutch "I really need to make this roll" mechanic, though definitely not a sure thing).  See above mention for the contacts mechanic from BitD.  Also, did I mention I love goofy sci-fi adventures ? Thousand Arrows : I did playtesting for this with the creator earlier this year, I wonder if anything major has changed since then?  I have some design issues with how combat was handled, but otherwise I like were this goes. Everything else , I don't know enough about them to form an opinion. I know I didn't see it mentioned above, but there is a PbtA games focusing on community that wasn't mentioned: Legacy: Life Among the Ruins .  Haven't delved into it too much (I mostly bought it for the expansion Rhapsody of Blood because I needed more Castlevania in my life) but it might be something someone was looking for.  Or it might be trash.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For some reason I thought Legacy was a spinoff of Mutant Year Zero? I might be conflating the two. There's another community building game out there that's more of a Dungeon World mod - it's called... Stonehill? Shucks most of the playbooks for one's aimed at the setting (optional), and has a lot of stuff kind of aimed at building up the community, but Legacy might be more toward that. I *do* like that community building idea... I might beg a short-run true "we know we're not going to do this for 30 sessions" palate cleanser (like Zombie World, maybe) before diving into another thing we expect to go longer, but we'll see. Really need to read the unbound world setups.

Doyce T. said: There's another community building game out there that's more of a Dungeon World mod - it's called... Stonehill? Jeremy Strandberg's Stonetop ?

Mike said: Doyce T. said: There's another community building game out there that's more of a Dungeon World mod - it's called... Stonehill? Jeremy Strandberg's Stonetop ? That's the one. The website captures most of the stuff: <a href="https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2018/07/stonetop.html" rel="nofollow">https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2018/07/stonetop.html</a> Also, Mike: you are hitting most every powerchord you can with the goofy space fantasy. Wouldn't mind seeing how we can weave that kind of thing in between the Concordance and Void Collective. Hmm...

Bill: Focused Phoenix Academy This sounds interesting.&nbsp; Mike: Blades in the Dark : Can go dark with the base material, but the&nbsp; Vigilantes playset &nbsp;I think that might fall closer to what we like (heroics).&nbsp; Nothing quite says pillar of the community like "Wards&nbsp; of&nbsp; their&nbsp; homes.&nbsp; Protecting&nbsp; their&nbsp; family,&nbsp; friends,&nbsp; and&nbsp; neighborhood."&nbsp; As a bonus for the community aspect, everyone is guaranteed&nbsp;to know 5 people in the community (though only one is really on BFF terms with you and another really doesn't like you).&nbsp; Somewhat silo'd (a big concern), but the team as a whole does share a friend as determined by the crew sheet. Scum and&nbsp;Villainy : Build on Blades of the Dark, it carries over some of the mechanics I like, adds in Gambits (a sort of clutch "I really need to make this roll" mechanic, though definitely&nbsp;not a sure thing).&nbsp; See above mention for the contacts mechanic from BitD.&nbsp; Also, did I mention I love&nbsp; goofy sci-fi adventures ? And, again, both of these sound good to me, conceptually. So here's one thing further that I think has made Masks such a success for me (and others, I suspect): Failure in Die Rolling is often / frequently just as interesting as Success. That takes such tension away from doing practically anything. It encourages risk-taking, and it makes failure fun.&nbsp; Worst RPG experience I had was with a strict and crunchy system when my character's entire story arc ended up crumbling on a single die roll.* The standard combat-success-fail-hitpoints mechanic doesn't do it for me any more. Feeling that even if my character (collaboratively) takes a massive hit, I'm not necessarily just sitting on the sidelines while the focal combat continues, is really keen. So, without knowing most of the systems described nearly as well as D/B/M (or, well, at all), that's something I'd like to see in the mechanics of what we do. ------ *Ironically, it was playing a game where the GM had chosen to run my homebrew D&amp;D/Runequestish system. So, yeah, some of that's on me. :-)

Pretty much everything I'm listing is a PBTA-based rules system, like Masks. Blades in the Dark uses slightly different die mechanics, but the Yes/Yes-at-cost/interesting failure or painful yes is the same.

Mike said: I do remember there being more inter-PC interaction scenes earlier on, but as we got more cohesive we got less and less of those.&nbsp; Maybe a bit of the mystery was gone for the PCs. I can only speak for myself, but I think it's due to two factors. We had fewer supporting NPCs to start with, so there were fewer characters to interact with. Probably bigger in my opinion, I feel like a lot of some of our sessions was "one PC interacts with one NPC for about 30-45 minutes". I can't find it now, but I read a post about how other groups have handled this. One group introduced the "buddy system": the majority of scenes must contain two or more PCs. Solo PC scenes ought to be the exception. I'd love to see something like that made into a principle for further games, if people agreed that it would be worth trying. As for PC mystery, I think some characters became more engaging, not less, as we learned more. For example, as we saw more of the Gale family story come out, I got more and more interested in seeing what was cooking with Harry. I'm invested in the Ghost Girl story - what's the difference between her and "normal" ghosts, for example? So I'm looking forward to those stories.

Bill G. said: I can't find it now, but I read a post about how other groups have handled this. One group introduced the "buddy system": the majority of scenes must contain two or more PCs. Solo PC scenes ought to be the exception. I'd love to see something like that made into a principle for further games, if people agreed that it would be worth trying. Having just watched Voltron again, I see this happening in that show a lot (since it's been one of our touchstones).&nbsp; Buddy system sounds like a good call.

I like it in principle -- I'd hope to see it done organically ("Is this a scene that someone else should be along for?"). Part of that, though, needs some thougthtfulness in terms of character design and setting, so that such things happen naturally.

Podcast interview on impulse drive&nbsp; <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Plus_1_FWD_Impulse_Drive.mp3?dest-id=379141" rel="nofollow">http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Plus_1_FWD_Impulse_Drive.mp3?dest-id=379141</a> Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Plus_1_FWD_Legacy2ndEd.mp3?dest-id=379141" rel="nofollow">http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Plus_1_FWD_Legacy2ndEd.mp3?dest-id=379141</a> Urban shadows <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Gauntlet20Podcast20-20Plus_1_FWD_Urban_Shadows.mp3?dest-id=379141" rel="nofollow">http://traffic.libsyn.com/1forward/Gauntlet20Podcast20-20Plus_1_FWD_Urban_Shadows.mp3?dest-id=379141</a> Orun (afrocentric sci-fi)&nbsp; <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/gauntletpodcast/Episode20144.mp3?dest-id=236407" rel="nofollow">http://traffic.libsyn.com/gauntletpodcast/Episode20144.mp3?dest-id=236407</a>

The author of hearts of Wulin talks about Scum and Villainy. Position: 00:36:17 Link: <a href="http://podplayer.net/?id=56491773&amp;t=2177" rel="nofollow">http://podplayer.net/?id=56491773&amp;t=2177</a>

Doyce T. said: The author of hearts of Wulin talks about Scum and Villainy. Position: 00:36:17 Link: <a href="http://podplayer.net/?id=56491773&amp;t=2177" rel="nofollow">http://podplayer.net/?id=56491773&amp;t=2177</a> Sounds like the description of Scum and Villainy I'd give after a few sessions under my belt.&nbsp; Only thing I disagree with: I like Scurry as an ability name.

So a few other thoughts. 1. Community building got a lot of strong reaction. I like how it feels also. I like the idea of having it during chargen, and I also like a mechanic that supports building on that during. Doesn't have to be mechanically support, but it's nice if it is, so. Games I can think of that offer that: Zombie World, via the enclave Stonetop, the Dungeon World riff Legacy... kind of. Not exactly. I mean... Apocalypse World, honestly. I have a pitch for this, actually... Masks, if we stole the neighborhood thing from Spiderweb? ... probably some others. 2. There's a BIT of love expressed here and elsethread for goofy sci-fi adventures, and combined with some of the Apocalypse Sonata stuff (at least in terms of the way to reconsider the playbooks) that could be fun. Could also be done with Impulse Drive or Scum and Villainy.&nbsp; Combining this with point 1 would be... interesting.

So before I lose it from my clipboard, here's a setting pitch for Apocalypse world that isn't Mad Max with psychic powers. Ironwall Post-apocalyptic survival/scarcity drama Elements of The Postman (book), Hellboy II, Blade, I am Legend (movie), Matrix (movies), Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (comic), The World Without Us. Makeup and faerie character design by the same crew as Pan's Labyrinth. SETTING: Semi-near future, in which society has collapsed in the face of the return of Faerie (and a very angry Fae to boot), overrunning the world in aggressively accelerated fecundity. Protagonists are survivors who live in a semi-agrarian settlement within the ruins of a major city with some natural borders (Manhattan is easy - I'm sure there are others) - the iron in the city keeps them somewhat safe from the Fae. CONCEPT: We follow the survivors as they try to to maintain the settlement and deal with the fae and the Maelstrom that overran humanity.

I'm quite happy with goofy scifi, for what it's worth, just that most of the space/scifi game systems I've heard mentioned are more on the Traveller/Firefly side of the house. It's also pretty easy to get high-action scifi with another game system, just change the scale, e.g.: The Host are alien parasites on the borders of the Middle Kingdom, humanity's interstellar dominion. They can infect and corrupt a human being, using them as a vehicle for an invasion. Those who cultivate their chi are immune to possession, and the Host can be driven out with Taoist alchemy and sorcery. In a world of fragile domed space stations and hostile planets, fighting against friends or in places where guns and blasters are a bad idea, the Emperor's chosen pit their immortal kung fu against an invisible enemy. Having just finished "Hilda" on Netflix, I'd be pretty happy with an Ironwall where some positive and mundane activities were part of the action too.

And just to get it out of the way: there's something between Killjoys and Guardians of the Galaxy in my head, using Masks, maybe, or really any of the spacey games, with children of the Big Players trying to get by in a galactic, kitchen-sink hodge-podge bracketed by the Void Collective on one side, the Concordance on the other, and guys like Dominus and the Farlander doing their thing in the middle. Could be Masks. Might also be one of the other PBTAish games like Impulse Drive or Scum and Villainy to make the big bads even bigger and badder. I don't have a cool name for this one, though. Feels like the the community building aspect could be socketed in.

Ooh. Yeah. Hilda's a great add to that influences list. Vincent is slowly releasing PG-13 versions of the AW playbooks...

Bill G. said: I'm quite happy with goofy scifi, for what it's worth, just that most of the space/scifi game systems I've heard mentioned are more on the Traveller/Firefly side of the house.] Some of that comes down to narration, I think. The scale of action is really all the separates Killjoys from GotG, imo. Takes a bit of level-setting, I guess? Maybe.

SETTING: Semi-near future, in which society has collapsed in the face of the return of Faerie (and a very angry Fae to boot), overrunning the world in aggressively accelerated fecundity. Protagonists are survivors who live in a semi-agrarian settlement within the ruins of a major city with some natural borders (Manhattan is easy - I'm sure there are others) - the iron in the city keeps them somewhat safe from the Fae. With the exception of the "iron" part, I am 99% certain I read several issues of a comic that used this premise. Can't remember if it was indy or Vertigo or what. I'll have to ponder. (That shouldn't discourage you, mind you -- it just sounds really &nbsp;familiar.)

Hinterkind .

This is one of those weirdly unpleasant discoveries that cause people to race to their email to&nbsp; write angry letters about intellectual property. :-) Given that the comic started in 2013 I'll have to just rest assured in the knowledge that we came up with it first . :-) But... Yeah. The initial premise is DAMN familiar. If they'd had a human mechanic shacking up with the queen of FAE, I'd have had to call foul.&nbsp;

For what it's worth, if memory serves, the premise was much more interesting than what the creative team did with it. So there's that. Nice PTA write-up, though!

It's a premise I always thought could have benefited from a second season. We talked several times about revisiting it using different game systems. I think I was considering using Fate's Dresden Files rules at one point... until they actually came out and I realized I didn't like them. :)&nbsp;

I don't know enough about it to recommend it for play, but Demihumans by Robert Bohl is being playtested successfully right now. The summary: Demihumans is an Apocalypse World hack where the apocalypse is the death of everything and everyone magical in a fantasy human empire. In the game, you play a group of people living in an enclave; a place within a human-controlled city where non-human people are allowed to live, and perhaps gain some autonomy. You're the movers and shakers of the enclave. The citizens of note who are trying to keep the place alive in the face of inevitable doom. Link:&nbsp; <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1faDce-FNKmXEp8dULB01VHJ2tY7y4PWR/view" rel="nofollow">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1faDce-FNKmXEp8dULB01VHJ2tY7y4PWR/view</a> G+:&nbsp;<a href="https://plus.google.com/collection/cb9FoB" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/collection/cb9FoB</a>

That sounds interesting. For God's sake, though, don't let Margie take the Halfling Thief.

Bill G. said: I don't know enough about it to recommend it for play, but Demihumans by Robert Bohl is being playtested successfully right now. The summary: Demihumans is an Apocalypse World hack where the apocalypse is the death of everything and everyone magical in a fantasy human empire. In the game, you play a group of people living in an enclave; a place within a human-controlled city where non-human people are allowed to live, and perhaps gain some autonomy. You're the movers and shakers of the enclave. The citizens of note who are trying to keep the place alive in the face of inevitable doom. Link:&nbsp; <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1faDce-FNKmXEp8dULB01VHJ2tY7y4PWR/view" rel="nofollow">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1faDce-FNKmXEp8dULB01VHJ2tY7y4PWR/view</a> G+:&nbsp; <a href="https://plus.google.com/collection/cb9FoB" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/collection/cb9FoB</a> Oh my goodness yes.&nbsp; And not just because I love the Traitor playbook.&nbsp; And the Elf.&nbsp; And the Troll.&nbsp; And... It just seems like a cool game.

&nbsp;While I did not spot the Traitor playbook (which fills me with dread), what occured to me about it is that it manages to scratch several itches, including "Fantasy tropes in a non-standard setting."

(Read the Traitor. Dread averted.)

Rob apparently has me blocked on g+, but damn... Demihumans looks really great.

Really really great. It's not easy to usurp dwarves in my heart but damn... Orcs.

Orcs:

Given the previously noted insufficiencies of the Roll20 forum system, at such time as we proceed to some other game that might have need for forum space ... does anyone have a better forum tool suggestion? Something that can handle everything from schedule notes to general discussions to longer form work, searchable ...

I keep trying to install Dolphin on my domain, and it keeps exploding...

Doyce T. said: I keep trying to install Dolphin on my domain, and it keeps exploding... Got a link to what you're trying to install? The only Dolphin "forum" thing I could find was&nbsp; <a href="https://www.boonex.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.boonex.com/</a>, &nbsp;which is muy expensive.

The traditional forum-y options exist (e.g. phpBB). Depending on peoples' access level (from work etc.) and interest, just going to one of the G+ replacements, like Pluspora, is an option. They should already have a mature framework for things like notifications, categorization of posts, search, and so on.

Hmmm. Curious how some of those will handle long-form writing. (Ahem.) Hmmm. Not sure about *diaspora sites -- there's not really a Private Group structure there, I don't think, and (at least on Pluspora) the search only looks for userids and tags. I don't have a sense for how healthy its APIs are, but I know there are some weird gaps in its loving-hands-at-home approach to support and development. (And I say that as someone seriously looking at Pluspora as a new home after G+ goes dark). I've got some problems with MeWe for personal use, but it's got some features that would potentially work well here, esp. as it's private group focused. It also includes a chat function, which could be handy. Doyce has done more with it than I have, I think. I've supported phpBB on my own domain in the antediluvian past, and I've got access to setting up&nbsp;phpBB, SMF, MyBB, AEF, Vanilla, PunBB, XMB, FluxBB, Phorum, bbPress, ElkArte, FUDforum, miniBB, LayerBB, Carbon forum, my little forum, Beehive, TangoBB, and Unclassified Newsboard on my domain. I have no sense of which would be best (and all seem to be 4.5 stars inside of cPanel, which is tremendously helpful). If it would be helpful I'd be happy to play around with things, work up a desired feature list, see what seems to fit, whatever.

Mike said: I know I didn't see it mentioned above, but there is a PbtA games focusing on community that wasn't mentioned: Legacy: Life Among the Ruins .&nbsp; Haven't delved into it too much (I mostly bought it for the expansion Rhapsody of Blood because I needed more Castlevania in my life) but it might be something someone was looking for.&nbsp; Or it might be trash.&nbsp;&nbsp;¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There's an interesting expansion book for legacy life amongst the ruins 2nd edition that set on a malfunctioning Generation ship. <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242791/Legacy-Generation-Ship-Worlds-of-Legacy-1-PDF?affiliate_id=451397" rel="nofollow">https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242791/Legacy-Generation-Ship-Worlds-of-Legacy-1-PDF?affiliate_id=451397</a>

I love the Generation Ship genre, even though things are often depressing and/or end poorly -- or maybe that's because the first one I read was Heinlein's classic Orphans in the Sky. &nbsp;

Bill G. said: Doyce T. said: I keep trying to install Dolphin on my domain, and it keeps exploding... Got a link to what you're trying to install? The only Dolphin "forum" thing I could find was&nbsp; <a href="https://www.boonex.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.boonex.com/</a>, &nbsp;which is There's a free version that gets packaged as an installable thing in cpanel stuff on some sites. But that keeps failing because it needs an older version of PHP than what my server is running and I am not interested in going backwards on that.

I found the free download, and there's a Dockerfile that someone else produced. This should be easy enough for me to host. The question is, how much time should I commit on this particular software package, vs. other existing alternatives? How strongly do you guys believe in Dolphin?

Don't worry about it right now.

Okay, that's good, because from what little I've worked with it so far, this software is a piece of shit. :)

<a href="https://drawception.com/panel/drawing/0NzP3336/gangsta-dolphin-is-a-bada/" rel="nofollow">https://drawception.com/panel/drawing/0NzP3336/gangsta-dolphin-is-a-bada/</a>

How does this look?&nbsp;<a href="https://try.discourse.org/" rel="nofollow">https://try.discourse.org/</a>