Ulysses Duckler, also known as usducktape and Duck, has already made a big impact within the handful of years he’s been publishing TTRPGs online. While early releases such as The Quiet Life and Cuticorium were conceptually interesting and novel games about nuns and bugs respectively, his most recent major release, To Change, is a real milestone.
Continue reading Ulysses Duckler Interview – Bugs, Changes, and Dr. MoreauAll posts by sabrinatvband
Rules-Lite Superhero RPGs Revisited: Part 1
About two months ago I wrote a piece here on rules-lite superhero games. In the piece I talked about a bunch of games, and at the end I made a list of the games that I found most essential.
I recommend reading these Revisited articles first and then circling back to my original piece, because everything I say here supersedes my opinions from the original piece. The important thing to note is that I didn’t actually read the rulebooks for almost all of the games I discussed; I read forums posts and reviews, listened to podcasts, read product descriptions, and studied other sources to get some kind of rough idea about each game.
In this four part series I’m going to go deeper and take a closer look at the handful of games that I said I most wanted to play last time, which is to say I’m going to read the rulebooks and make further observations about the games. I’m also going to look at a small handful of games that I didn’t mention last time, and look at the rulebooks for most of those as well.
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Ewen Cluney Interview
Ewen Cluney [pronounced Aaron Cluney] has worked on many notable games; he translated Maid RPG and Golden Sky Stories, wrote the Ghostbusters retroclone Spooktacular, and has created original games such as Kagegami High, Angel Project, and Pix. Cannibal Halfling contributor Sabrina TVBand sat down with Cluney after writing about Maid RPG and Spooktacular to ask him about his work.
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Spooktacular Adventure Writing: Part 2
Adventure Design
Before we get started, here’s a link to Part 1 in case you missed it. There is an idea that rules-lite games don’t require adventures and scenarios the way crunchier games do. I think this is an idea shared mostly by younger gamers, because modern games that use Powered by the Apocalypse designs generally encourage the GM to build things improvisationally with players.
Continue reading Spooktacular Adventure Writing: Part 2
Spooktacular Adventure Writing: Part 1
This is a vague sequel to the Maid RPG post published here recently. Spooktacular is a retroclone of the 80s Ghostbusters role-playing game written by Ewen Cluney, who not only translated Maid RPG but also wrote an original game, Kagegami High, that mixes Maid RPG‘s mechanics with the ones found in Ghostbusters.
I decided to write an original adventure for when I would eventually run Spooktacular for my players. This was a problem for me, because I live by the Mythbusters credo; if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.
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Maid RPG and Her Sisters
Ryo Kamiya’s Maid RPG is many things; a comedy TTRPG, an anime game, the first Japanese RPG to be translated into English. It’s also one of the most divisive RPGs, but regardless, I don’t think any list of essential comedy, one-shot, and / or rules-lite games would be complete without Maid RPG. Allow me to tell you Maid RPG’s story; its history, its mechanics, and its reception, as well as the stories of a few other games that use the same system. But first, let’s address the fact that you probably already know of Maid RPG.
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A Survey of Rules-Lite Superhero RPGs
I recently felt the urge to find a rules-lite system for playing superhero games. Like most nerds I love superheroes; it’s a very unique genre bursting with its own weird tropes and traditions. It’s not surprising that superhero games are popular in the TTRPG space.
What did surprise me as I began to search for a game is that there are a lot of superhero RPGs out there. I found over 25 games that seemed compelling, at least at a glance, and that’s just rules-lite games; there are even more games if you include crunchier systems. But crunchy games aren’t the focus of this piece.
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Cannibal Halfling Gaming 