itch.io

They are primarily exported from Affinity. Out of thousands of downloads, I've only had a handful of folks have issues with it, even those on the iOS viewer. It's been hard to troubleshoot, but I'll attempt a fix here and export a few different versions and upload them here in the next day or two. It's odd! Sorry for the issues!

No, not at all. That's odd. I'll look into it!

Hey Demonskunk, are you using the OSX or Apple previewer to view these files? Very rarely for some folks using Macs, the default pdf viewer does not display the contents of the files so a reason I've not been able to determine/replicate. If so, try grabbing the free Acrobat Reader download from Adobe or another alternative and it should all display for you as intended!

Hey Johnny_RX, are you using the OSX or Apple previewer to view these files? Very rarely for some folks using Macs, the default pdf viewer does not display the contents of the files so a reason I've not been able to determine/replicate. If so, try grabbing the free Acrobat Reader download from Adobe or another alternative and it should all display for you as intended!

Awesome! I hope it goes well!

Glad you are continuing to enjoy the Venusian chaos!

There is currently no active Discord for the game, although there will be one launching closer to the game's 1.0 version! Sorry for the misleading older post!

I'll take 10 more shares, sir. 

Oh yes, those are known errors! It is intended to all by Singleton across the board! Apologies! I'll try to upload a fixed version in the next few weeks.

This is so cool!

All of the art here is just wonderful! Excited to check out the game itself soon!

Thanks!

Thanks for the interest in the game! 

In my own playtesting and the playtesting feedback I've received overall, I haven't found that to be the case (with the most recent version of the game, at least), but your mileage may vary. This is a game building on OSR-style, player-driven roleplay so your character sheet isn't necessary a guide to who you are and all you can do as much as it is a toolkit for your character to use. In playtest, I've seen a huge swath of memorable and fun characters, seem folks go all in on Health and Armor to great effect, all in on Speed to powerful but fragile results, and seems people multi-class and go all in on unique conditional abilities as well. It's not perfect yet, of course, but I have rarely encountered someone going all in on Speed and feeling uniquely overpowered.

The most recent version of the game did tweak Backstabs, making them less powerful than in the original early access launch version. That said, positioning and backstabbing are intended to be powerful tools in this system but focusing on Speed as you advance means sacrificing Health so you tend to become a glass cannon. Great when it works out, but it can be scary when it doesn't (and things start to get weirder and more uncertain as you face off against more and more corrupted foes). 

If you are looking for something with the tactical consideration of say something like Descent (the board game) or lots of layers of complexity like Pathfinder 2e, this game is definitely not that. Tacticians is mean to speed up and streamline DnD-style tactical combat to retain the fun combos and dramatic moments without slowing things down by giving you a massive character sheet, lots of die rolls, etc. So some depth is definitely sacrificed as part of that trade-off.

That said, I never want to pressure anyone to spending $$$ they are unsure about. The game is going to continue to grow and develop in the months to come so there will be more options, further tweaks from further play testing, etc. 

I hope that helps!

I'm glad you dig it. I'm happy to hear you are using it for a campaign. That's awesome! All of these images are public domain and most came from this Twitter thread by Gontijo from a few years back: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1404499027513774080.html

Definitely! As long as you are taking the Soldier turns in the same order each time, you are good. Nothing stopping solo play with more Soldiers (you'll just likely want to bump the Difficulty up to match the higher squad total). And yea, 4 Soldiers is the intended maximum. 

Love this! It's already really nice, especially for folks who are used to doing a bit of post-processing. I could see myself creating something here and then crunching it up a bit in Affinity/Photoshop and then using it in a TTRPG adventure, for sure. Great work!

An expert plan, perfectly executed! Sounds like some wild, chaotic fun. Thanks for playing!

Thanks for playing! I'm glad it's been fun. Right now, difficulty does not scale to the amount of Soldiers (meaning the doing the highest difficulty with just 1 or 2 Soldiers is likely to be near impossible, for example). I am planning a v1.1 update before I take the game to print so I may add a few more difficulties or a scaling option as well.

Thanks for playing (and for the play report)!

Dang, I love a good changelog.

Tonight, I ran a brief playtest of the first portion of an upcoming starter adventure I'm hoping to get out in the February update. Here's a play report: In their final semester at the Academy and after months of training and studying, the Tacticians begin their final exams - 2 weeks of field exercises held in the regions surrounding the Academy. 

Joined by their advisor Professor Dekkin Von Lopesbane, an aging and boisterous hippofolk professor (and graduate of the First Class of Tacticians) led Quablin, a Blobish Mage and Helios, the Flame-Touched Cleric of Solara, through their trials. 

First, they were put in a equal footing fight against several Imperial Army troops who had traveled from the White-Walled City of Ahm as part of an annual rivalry contest between the groups. The Tacticians pride themselves on winning (more often than not).

Over 4 Rounds, Helios and Quablin managed to take out the soldiers, 1 Archer and 1 Spearman (both EL1 enemies), but Helios was nearly brought down and Quablin was tapped out of good combat options by the end. A challenging fight, especially with no healing abilities between the two of them. 

The duo took 1 XP for the successful battle, but had fought rather disjointed and did not receive any RP for teamwork during the fight. The two were definitely an odd, not completely happy with one another duo at this point, with various barbs being thrown by Helios especially during the fight. 

Next, Von Lopesbane brought the group to Penelope Thunderberry, a broad and muscular dwarven woman and one of the Academy's esteemed Beastmasters, who summoned a number of wolves for the two of them and other groups of nearby Tacticians to fight in a simulated nighttime attack.

Over 2 high damage Rounds, Helios and Quablin took out the Wolf (EL2) but only through smart use of their shields, clever backstabs, and an ideal Stupor by Quablin. Otherwise, either would have been taken out in a single hit given the wolf's penchant for backstabs due to its high speed. 

The duo took their 2nd point of XP and advanced to Level 2. They also took 1 RP due to their Stupor and spear Backstab combo that greatly shifted the fight in their favor. After the first battle's barbs, this time the duo learned to play to each other's strengths as varied as they may be. 

As the advisors were bringing out a midday lunch spread, a pair of huge Griffins (EL5) swooped down, attempting to feed off the field full of students and professors. Chaos broke out and Von Lopesbane, with a mouthful of melon, was hauled up by one griffin and carried off, towards the northern horizon! 

Next session: The Search For Dekking Von Lopesbane!

[GM/Designer Notes: This adventure is intended to act as a tutorial for, first, the combat and then, second, exploration, interacting with the world and NPCs, and more intense combat which will be coming in the next session(s). The battles here were crafted in line with the equivalent EL to CL guidance using rules as currently written but were varied by equal combatants in the first and one very strong (comparatively to the Tacticians) combatant but with the Tacticians having a numbers advantage. I definitely took a solid handful of notes for new areas to tweak and clarify the rules to help dodge some confusing situations.]

More to come (that you'll hopefully enjoy)!

Thanks for the review! 

Oh, no worries! It's always a worthwhile reminder when it comes to accessibility. 

The STRENGTH description under Aptitudes should read “lift” instead of “life”

It's also come to my attention that while there is a mention that Abilities are exhausted upon use in battle, it isn't made explicitly clear. This will be corrected in the next update. For players, this is the intended rule: "Abilities may be used once per battle after which they are Exhausted and may no longer be used (unless recharged in rare cases typically via magic items, potions, and environmental effects)."

Your request is granted! Here's the Official and Public Tacticians of Ahm Discord: https://discord.gg/cXHESEN3Ps

Here's the Youtube version as well: 

Thanks for checking the game out! I'm glad it's up your alley. 

That exact accessibility concern you described is on my list of future updates (it's listed in the game doc itself) and should be coming sooner than later in the process. The plan right now is to go with the color and pattern combo similar to what you described here. 

I'm also looking into ways to do alt text descriptions of the patterns and such for folks too (but that one is likely a bit further down the road).

I have a playtest discord from earlier in development I'm planning to revamp for everyone to start joining publicly. Hopefully going to get invites/links up for it later this week! I wasn't sure how many folks would be interested. Glad to see you are tho!

Thanks for watching it! I'm hoping to do more in this vein, both more in-depth explainers/rules walkthroughs and also lore videos and such in the future!

I was on a livestream with The Weekly Scroll earlier this afternoon discussing all things Tacticians of Ahm.

Check it out HERE (Twitch Archive) if you'd like a deep dive into the design beginnings, motivations, and all the stuff I'm excited about!

I missed adding this explicitly to the text, but if you use the link near the center of page 8 of the v0.8 Rulebook doc to access the character sheet digitally, it will take you to a Digital Tools folder that I intend to add to as development continues! I just added 4 simple character tokens, using the class art seen on the cover to that same folder. Over time, I'll be adding more and more digital goodies there as I get in new art and am able to fit it alongside the rest of the project progress.

This will be addressed more outwardly in the first update next month.

For now, enjoy the tokens! - Christian

If you have gotten a chance to bring Tacticians of Ahm to the (physical or virtual) table and would like to let me know how your experience went (both good and bad), the following Google Form is the best way to do that (and the best way for me to track and consider it during future development).

Feedback Form (v0.8)

Thanks!

Please post any errors you find in the text in this thread for me to correct down the line (and to see if they have already been added to the list).

Most of these will be discovered and corrected by later rounds of editing so please do not feel the need to post anything here.

Thanks for playing! Sounds like a great time!

Thanks for playing!

😌