itch.io

no! the demo .txt here should be the same as what's going up on the Kickstarter, and the Kickstarter PDFs will be going up though itch! the only difference is it's cheaper though KS, and that once it funds there will be additional art in the book!

no! but in my experience, when you sum up at the end, it's usually pretty obvious who's coming out ahead after the dust settles, and who isn't.

thanks so much!! that's perfect

Hi, sorry if this is old news but are there plans to introduce a way for a game to appear on the page of both authors, when the game is a collaboration? I can understand on the payout side that it might be hard to split the payments when you pay them out, we can settle up on our own, but it would be nice if the game would show up on my page as well as my collaborator's. Unless there's a way to do that and I just haven't found it?

Nora Blake and i just released Space Bar, at https://neithernora.itch.io/space-bar ! it's a belonging outside belonging game about the patrons of a seedy spaceport bar, with card based scene/situation prompts! 

Space˽Bar 

a cosmic card game of belonging outside belonging in a spaceport bar, far from home. 
by Pretty Radical Games.

https://neithernora.itch.io/space-bar

Maybe it’s not a bar. Maybe it’s a bowling alley, an arcade, a library. Either way, it’s the place everyone on the station comes to relax, to blow off steam, to connect. To leave their worries at the door and find a moment to themselves amid the endless cycle of work, rest, repeat.

Out there, through the windows and past the door, the worlds keep turning and the stars burn themselves out, just like the people. But no matter who you are or what your deal is, you won’t be alone here.

Space Bar is a three-page game for 2-4 patrons. Content warnings for alcohol; the assumption was made that the setting is a bar, though you may choose to play in a setting that is not.

this game was created for the belonging outside belonging game jam.

this game is priced at $5, but if you can't afford it or want to see it as a submission to the jam, you can view the full unformatted text of the game as a .txt demo!

As soon as I have the kickstarter copies of Exodus out to folks, I want to start selling physical copies through itch - I've found the "rewards" section where you can add physical items and collect addresses, which is awesome! Does anybody have any advice on the actual setup and marketing of that? I know one or two people who've sold copies of stuff that way and I would love to know if anyone else has experience selling physical copies through their itch.io page.

hey who's going to big bad? i'm tryin real hard to get there 

YEAH

exodus! fadingroots.itch.io/exodus
but also like, my design philosophy in general. and, like, in life?

hearts of magic is more about kissing your friends but since it's explicitly about a city where the local petty nobility and the distant imperial bureaucracy are in conflict against the people of the city rising up, like, it's also that.

all cops are bastards; be gay, do crimes, kiss your friends

 Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled

A hack of Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands about fey nobles, arcanist-bureaucrats, and anarchist witches falling for their enemies, fighting with their friends, and allying with their rivals, amid a struggle for a magepunk fantasy city.  

fadingroots.itch.io/hearts

Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled is based on Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, and is made up of ten games:

• Solitaire - what were you doing? what have we heard about you?
• A Chase - do you have the nerve to pursue?
• A Conversation Over Food - at ease together, or a tense meal?
• A Dance - when the music ends, will I see you again?
• A Free-for-all - why do we fight, and what are the stakes?
• Meeting Sword to Sword - steel meets steel, gaze meets gaze - who will blink?
• An Oblique Discussion - how can I tell you the things I can not say?
• Stealing Time Together - alone, together, with a gentle "may I?"
• Weaving a Spell - how do the two of us make magic greater than either alone?
• A Wizard's Battle - can you resist the full strength of my powers?

it's for 3-5 players, with no materials necessary beyond a coin to flip, and intended for one-shot play with no prep and no GM. It's perfect for new players and veteran story gamers alike!

I really like how Belonging Outside Belonging's structure really leads you towards making weak moves/vulnerable moves early on and leaning into a triumphant arc when you have more tokens to spend on strong moves later in the game.  Really helps illustrate growth and building community imo

you're still picking fights about people daring to want to play games different from you but go off i guess

fuck dnd for a minute cause i wouldn't play it if you paid me, and even forget the fact that as the most popular rpg there are so so so many people who want and would benefit from having more storytelling tools to tell the stories they want to tell in the system they want to use. fuck all that for a minute. 

you're coming in here picking fights on every post in the "narrative tools" thread about how Narrative Tools Are Bad and youre So Angry That People Want Them. you're repeatedly dismissing people's legitimate opinions that, in a genre that is largely about telling stories, that people wanting tools to make games where the story isn't 'i found the cleverest way to solve this tactics/thought puzzle isn't my character cool' or 'let's get loot and kill goblins' or whatever, is a bad thing. i'm sorry you've declared some huge crusade against "story gamers" and i'm sorry that there aren't enough angry grognards here for your tastes but maybe let those of us interested in telling stories, talk about how to do that better, without jumping in on every post to say that it makes you so mad that people want to tell stories? maybe take a step back, my guy, and realize that maybe this conversation wasn't for you to begin with, and was for people interested in narrative tools and the construction of a hypothetical platonic session, like the OP said. if you want a groggy thread to rant against people telling stories, go do it somewhere else; picking haughty "debate me coward" fights repeatedly about "explain to me with logic why you like telling stories" over and over is clearly not productive, right now! take a walk, some deep breaths, and then if you wanna come back and treat people with respect and listen to them instead of fighting some strawman proxy fight please come back and hang out! 

I Don't Know How Else To Tell You That Some People Like Telling Stories

I don't think there is! but Exodus has a .txt "demo" available if you want to read how it works with the structure, and Before the Spire Falls is pwyw (but you should pay something for it!). The thing is, it's such a simple and elegant framework that I can't really think about what an SRD would look like? like, there's not enough.. mechanic to make an SRD for. The basic thing is super simple: you gain a token if you make a weak move and can spend a token to make a strong move. there are also Situations, which players pick up and make moves from when you engage with those elements of the setting, and put down again when you're done. those all change between the games, though, so there wouldn't be much to put in an SRD style thing i think?

the I Was Never Gonna Finish It At That Size Was I jam lmao I love it

aw dang I was hoping, I'm really excited to see it but I don't think it's available yet

"I am trying to not be rude, but damn do I hate this style of 'dnd needs rules and guidelines on explicitly constructing stories and narrative.'" sure sounds like 'it is hard not to be rude to you for suggesting that people should have more tools to tell engaging stories with eachother' to me

okay. people are allowed to also like telling stories with their friends though and would like to have more tools to do that? 

especially given the increasing popularity of story-focused d&d actual play, i think a LOT of gamers are picking up d&d specifically to tell those kinds of stories - and many that i've talked to find themselves disappointed that they can't sit down and just have a critical role or an adventure zone or whatever just Happen, and talked to GMs who feel an immense pressure to build those stories lest they get lambasted as a bad GM despite not having the tools in the book to do that. i think its reasonable for games about playing roles of characters to have conversations about how better to give players the tools to tell the kinds of stories they want to tell?

it's been explained to me so many times but i still kinda dont understand what makes games OSR beyond designers saying 'i'm part of this broad design movement'.. what makes OSR, OSR? mechanically and philosophically?

your point (a) here is honestly why i'm very close to trying to port in "when you [____]" -style moves into my otherwise forged-in-the-dark-meets-facade game, replacing FitD style actions - especially for players who may not be super familiar with the tropes and actions of wrestling (which includes me!), trying to figure out when to reach for the dice is really tough. Do I roll to try to hit you every time? do i roll just at the key moments? does failing a roll mean i fail to do it, or that i do it and it looks bad? 

right now the way i have it written as "When you use Glory, you are showing the audience why they should want you to win", etc - reading this has actually convinced me that "when you show the audience why they should want you to win, roll Glory" might work a lot better for giving players a repertoire of moves to make rather than just actions to roll, and would let me tighten it to clarify when rolls should happen and why. you know, just to add one more thing on this frankenstein game lmao

Exodus

A road trip game of angels on the run in a fascist dystopia, based on Transangelic Exodus by Ezra Furman; 2-4 players

fadingroots.itch.io/exodus

Exodus is a role-playing story game about being on the run in a society that has turned against you. It's a story of angels on the road, making community as they go, and trying to find somewhere better. It's a game rooted in a time, an autobiography and a plan and a dream and a fear all in one. 

Play as one of four playbooks:
The Guardian: When they came for yours, you had the plan, the escape route already mapped. Your bags were already packed. You knew that this world is no place for a creature like you. And when the time came, you hopped in your vehicle and you tried to get the people who matter to you to safety. 

The Traveler: You've done this before, a dozen times, a dozen ways. You've been fleeing your whole life, ever since you could fly. This is the last time you'll run, if you have the strength for one last journey. You may never reach a promised land, like the one you tell stories about, but you'll find a home, if you can make it one.

The Artist: For a while,  your art and your charm kept you safe and commodified. But when things started to get bad, you knew whose side you needed to be on. But you couldn't just give up your creativity - you took it on the road with you. You'll need art, where you're going, but more importantly, you need to show the world what this is you're going through, even if some people won't understand.

The Dreamer: For years you've dreamed of wings. One day you'll spread them, you say. Other angels, they know, they recognize their own, but they would never presume to carry you skyward before you're ready to fly. But you couldn't stay where you were, could never spread your wings there, and when the time came, the angels had a seat for you, too. 

After our successful Kickstarter, The 1.4 Update is due in April, featuring new art, bonus playbooks (by Nora Blake, Sasha Reneau, Riley Hopkins), and a companion PDF with quickstarts, essays, and more bonus content!

is that on itch now?

besides being a fantastic motivator (I took Hearts of Magic from an abandoned project that was a line by line reskin of Firebrands with not a lot of original content to an edited, laid out game with art, three new games, and ideas I can be proud of, in a week!), I love the way game jams bring us as creators together, working on parallel projects and giving us all something to work on together and bring us closer! watching grandpa vinny bakes D Vincent Baker livetweet working on a WizJam game was super rewarding and I hope more and more "big name" indie designers get involved in the next ones!

oh wow shit how did I miss that it sounds amazing

yeah

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) by Talking Heads? Double Bass by Gorillaz if i was trying to play dark and cool instead of hype

oh that sounds cool as hell you should tell me more about it some time

I just released Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled, a hack of Firebrands about fey nobles, arcanist-bureaucrats, and anarchist witches falling for their enemies, fighting with their friends, and allying with their rivals, amid a struggle for a magepunk fantasy city.  

 it's made up of ten games:

• Solitaire - what were you doing? what have we heard about you?
• A Chase - do you have the nerve to pursue?
• A Conversation Over Food - at ease together, or a tense meal?
• A Dance - when the music ends, will I see you again?
• A Free-for-all - why do we fight, and what are the stakes?
• Meeting Sword to Sword - steel meets steel, gaze meets gaze - who will blink?
• An Oblique Discussion - how can I tell you the things I can not say?
• Stealing Time Together - alone, together, with a gentle "may I?"
• Weaving a Spell - how do the two of us make magic greater than either alone?
• A Wizard's Battle - can you resist the full strength of my powers?

it's for 3-5 players, with no materials necessary beyond a coin to flip, and intended for one-shot play with no prep and no GM. It's perfect for new players and veteran story gamers alike!

hi i'm erika i'm gay, i play games to feel sad and kiss girls

So I know a few games in the system on here:

Feathers by Remi Permann is a game about fallen angels looking for meaning and comfort in our world;

Before the Spire Falls by Ponder Games is about a group of witches traveling to reclaim your world from the Nothing;

Lovers in Freefall by Brandon O'Brien is a #sadmechjam game about lovers in wartime.

Does anyone else have any? I desperately want to play more.