Retrospective: Pixels & Platforms

I enjoyed writing the Mythic Beings Retrospective, a re-examination of my very first post, so I decided to do another retrospective. I recently published my second game, Maximum Recursion Depth, for the Eclectic Bastionjam, so I thought I might do a retrospective on my first game, Pixels & Platforms for the SWORDDREAM DREAMJAM (I also wrote an article about P&P for the high level games blog).

Overview

P&P is intended to simulate the experience of old-school 2D platformer videogames in a tabletop RPG, using a resolution mechanic building off of Lasers & Feelings. It is loosely framed within my setting The Quantumverse, although the way I present it in P&P is more so like an off-brand NES crossover (although I do have bigger ideas for that setting which I haven't written about).

There are three attributes; JUMP, SPECIAL, and FIGHT, and each attribute has a Light and Heavy input. For each attribute, you choose a NICE! number between 2-5. For Light actions, you want to roll over the NICE! number (lower is better), and the reverse for Heavy. The particulars of what these attributes are used for, and the differences between Light and Heavy Inputs for each attribute, are described in further detail in the Select Screen and Control sections of the game, but this is the core of the game mechanics.

The CPU (the term for the GM in this system), designs a Platform Crawl, a series of Screens (or Stages, or Worlds, depending on the scope of the game), consisting of traversable platforms and various enemies and obstacles. Unlike a real 2D Platformer videogame, there is obviously no real-time input for platforming, and very early on I decided that the challenge should not come from success or failure on JUMP rolls per se; that would basically just be chance and not very much fun. Instead, the platform crawls should be designed such that there are many ways to go about getting from one end of a stage to another, and it's a matter of the party figuring out how to leverage their attributes and special abilities to collectively get across. In some ways, it's almost more like a boardgame than a TTRPG per se, for better or worse. I have some additional thoughts on this which I discuss in the conclusion.

There were a lot of ideas for this game that I think worked, and some that didn't. It's biggest flaws, I think, are that it lacks polish and that it needed more supplementary content. In particular, it very clearly needed to have a platform crawl module included. Despite being a small game, I think it was actually fairly ambitious in what it tried to do, but as a result, I needed to do more within the text to demonstrate to readers how it should work. I also think I needed to have a deeper understanding of it myself. In retrospect, I wish I had designed the resolution mechanics and the platform crawl concept independently and tested them at least to some extent independently, to better understand how to polish the mechanics and articulate them. In general, I needed more playtesting.

That being said, I still think it is an interesting game, with ideas worth consideration and worth exploring further, and I hope this retrospective maybe convinces people to give it a look, or think about these ideas, and maybe I will be able to one day come back to this game and turn it into what it really should be.

Things that worked

The layout could use some work, it's definitely pretty dense, but otherwise, I think looks pretty good. HarveydentMD's cover art is great, and the itch page looks good, and I'm happy with the font I used for the game text itself. It's like a poor man's Super Blood Harvest. In retrospect, if he were even open to doing it, I wish I had commissioned HarveydentMD to do the layout as well and make the whole game look like the cover art and itch page, then it would compare more closely with SBH.

I have mixed feelings about some of the terminology, but overall, I really wanted the game mechanics, down to even the terminology, to be evocative of old-school videogames, and I think I succeeded in that regard. Whether that ultimately makes for a better TTRPG experience is a separate question which I'll discuss later.

The setting. Despite the fact that I include very little explicitly about The Quantumverse within P&P itself, and most of what is included is like an off-brand Nintendo crossover, I still like the way the character classes, enemies, items, etc., generally present. I had some more ambitious ideas for the setting which I never ended up writing about, unfortunately, but I assure you there was more to this setting, in a classic Weird & Wonderful way, if you've been following this blog long enough to have any sense of what that means. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I'll ever come back to this setting unless out of nowhere there is suddenly an outcry for more on this game or setting, which is a shame, but my main focus right now is MRD.

The classes. With the caveat that they needed more playtesting and balancing, and I don't necessarily think it makes sense for only two classes to have a variety of options given the Spellbook. In retrospect, there should have been some caveat, like maybe the spell they can cast at any one time is selected randomly, so at least there's a tradeoff to their versatility, or something like that. In any case, I tried to give the different classes special abilities which actually made them interesting and change how a player could interact with the world, and I think within the context of the platform crawl design, it makes sense. It's more prescriptive than I generally prefer in TTRPGs, but within the context of what P&P is supposed to be, I think it makes sense.

The core resolution mechanic. The idea of treating an attribute as two-dimensional; as an axis, where the number on that axis doesn't necessarily mean good or bad, but good at one category of thing and proportionally worse at an opposing category of thing, is really clever and in my opinion underutilized in TTRPGs. I don't understand why this mechanic exists only in L&F or L&F hacks. P&P is to the best of my knowledge the first and only game to actively try to build on this mechanic, as opposed to being just a straightforward hack, and also to leverage it in a totally different way, that way being as a "simulationist"-style mechanic.

Along those lines, putting aside the toxic and, I'll say frankly, stupid debates people used to have on "GNS", since as far as I'm concerned it's a decent heuristic regardless of whether it is a fundamental truth of the universe, it is the only game I can think of that is "simulationist", while also being rules light. "Simulationist" games are generally very crunchy, whereas I tried to use the simplicity of the two-dimensional attributes along with the terminology and platform crawl design pattern to simulate the experience of an old-school 2D platformer videogame in the absence of "high-fidelity" crunch. Regardless of whether or to what extent it succeeded, I still think this is conceptually really cool and with some polish could potentially work quite well.

Things that did not work

Due to time constraints, I only had one playtest, and that one playtest went poorly, which was part of why I did not follow up with as much additional content for the game as I had originally intended. I do genuinely think the poor playtest was in part due to extenuating circumstances and a couple real rooky mistakes in how I ran it, but it was still discouraging. I made a lot of changes after that playtest which I do think were for the best, but those changes were not playtested, so I am not as confident as I would like to be that those changes succeeded. There are also some things when I look back at the game, even without further playtesting, that I know are rough around the edges and need more work.

I said this in the overview, but this game absolutely needed a platform crawl module included. At the core of P&P is a very goal-oriented, puzzle-like design pattern that I think could really appeal both to OSR gamers and the kinds of people who like the tactical combat of D&D 3.+, but without a demonstration, I think it was hard to explain this concept to anyone. Also, frankly, I am not a very visuospatially capable person in the first place, so in retrospect, I wish I had collaborated with someone with those kinds of sensibilities, or even attempted some kind of random auto-generation approach. While this game is not crunchy, it does require a playmat or some other visual or tactile representation, and my reticence to acknowledge that hurt my playtest and the lack of that kind of support really hurt the game as a whole. I do not own Mario Maker, but my players had rightfully suggested that something like Mario Maker could have been a useful tool for roughly designing platform crawls. I still think that, or just taking asset rips of the stages from old-school 2D platformer videogames, could work really well for P&P, at least as proofs of concept.

My hope was that the terminology would be flavorful, and also intuitive. However, at least in the playtest, everyone had a very difficult time keeping track of the terminology, myself included, mainly from being flustered because I definitely understood it all beforehand, but if I failed to keep track of it while running the game, that means it failed. After the fact, I completely reworked the terminology. Rather than having separate terms for each end of the axis for the three attributes, and using the terms Left and Right "Inputs" for the axes of the attributes which obviously got conflated with left and right movement across the Stages, I replaced Left and Right with Light and Heavy, and just referred to them as e.g. Light Jump and Heavy Jump rather than unique terms for each. I also think maybe some kind of visual aid even within the game text itself, like a graphic showing what a rollover vs. a roll-under success would look like next to the description of Light and Heavy Inputs, could have been very helpful. Given how the first playtest went, I am somewhat skeptical whether these new terms work and would ideally like to playtest them as well, although I do hope they're at least an improvement.

Conclusion

Talking about this game really makes me want to playtest it again, and design a proper platform crawl module to go along with it. This concept I genuinely think has so much potential, but it's very experimental and just needed more time and playtesting. I almost would want to make it a sub-game, like run a campaign in The Quantumverse using something more like an Into the Odd / Super Blood Harvest hack, and then make platform crawls an occasional thing like one might do with hex crawls, dungeon crawls, point crawls, etc. That would also put a lot of burden off of this system to accommodate more heavy lifting in RP or non-platform crawl activities, which is decidedly not the case.

If this at all seems appealing to you, please let me know. My main focus right now is on developing and expanding Maximum Recursion Depth, so it would be hard to justify putting more work into this unless there was any interest whatsoever in it, but clearly I'm trying to talk myself into it...

Four-Dimensional Hexcrawling Through Abyss and Space

Space and Underwater settings and campaigns are hardly novel, but anecdotally, it seems like nobody is really satisfied with the mechanics. Many games with mechanics for this kind of movement are super crunchy attempts at simulation which don't appeal to me, personally, or they're handwave-y and basically just treat movement through those spaces as regular land travel. The latter is generally fine for me, but it would be cool to have some kind of middle ground; an attempt to model this kind of movement in a way that doesn't just exist for the sake of simulation, and isn't super crunchy, and also adds something to the game experience.

Here I outline an idea for how to design a hexcrawl in four dimensions; not just two axes (left/right, forward/backward), but also up/down and moment, or baseline movement (e.g. a school of fish, a massive space fleet, etc.). These ideas have not been tested yet, and there are edge cases I can think of, but hopefully, people will find this idea intriguing.

In addition to managing a hexcrawl, these same mechanics should theoretically be applicable to grid-based combat, or even just as fictional positioning helpers for theater of mind play, but I am primarily describing these mechanics in terms of a hexcrawl.

Finally, I'll also say that this was also somewhat inspired by three-dimensional movement in Veins of the Earth. While I model three-dimensional space in a very different way here, that may have been the first game I had read that really made me think about how to model space in a game that seemed fun and not overly cumbersome or simulation for the sake of simulation.

A brief statement on the Moment dimension

I'm open to suggestions, but I'm thinking of calling the fourth-dimension "Moment". Taken from the wikipedia article on Moment:

In physics, a moment is an expression involving the product of a distance and physical quantity, and in this way it accounts for how the physical quantity is located or arranged.

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to stop at three-dimensions; that's already novel and potentially complicated enough. However, I was inspired quite a while ago by nature documentaries, specifically seeing aquatic ecosystems, and how these three-dimensional ecosystems work. A school of fish can be attacked from all sides; birds diving from the sky, other fish and aquatic mammals swooping in from below and all sides, so as a necessary survival mechanism to defend from so many vulnerable positions, they are more or less constantly in motion. This was a major inspiration for my Vortekka campaign setting (setting, play report), and also The Jellyfleet and The Choir from Phantasmos (included in my post on Weird & Wonderful Places; even then I was thinking of these moving groups as an alternative to geopolitics per se). 

In this case, the fourth-dimension is like the relationship between different objects over time as a function of their baseline movement. This will be elaborated upon further when I get into the mechanics of this system, but it will hopefully be not as complicated as that may make it sound. The point of a good model is to be parsimonious- to condense more information into fewer arguments, and I think Moment is potentially a good way to do that here.

Extrapolating this idea to intelligent species, you'd have a fundamentally different kind of "geo"-politics, really more of a "moment"-politics, defined less so by static geographical locations (or statically-keyed hexes on your hex map), and instead by nomadic groups and their Moment-level relationship to other nomadic groups or geographical features. I suppose this is also true with nomadic land-dwelling species, in which case I could see this being useful for a land-dwelling campaign with nomadic cultures, or for a pre-civilization or post-apocalyptic setting, independent of the mechanics for a three-dimensional hexcrawl, and in fact, the mechanics described below, despite the labels, can be used independently.

For reasons which should also be more clear when I describe the mechanics, this Moment mechanic could also be a fun way to do chases and races.

Three-dimensional Hexcrawl

Let's start with how to model the third dimension in a hexcrawl; up/down. First, you need to decide on how many "levels" of up and down there are, in the same way that you need to decide on the dimensions of your hexcrawl in two-dimensions. I don't love the idea of treating three-dimensional space as planar, but I don't see a better way around it that isn't mechanically or logistically much more complicated (i.e. requiring some kind of physical diorama or digital tool). The volume of each hexagonal prism can be arbitrary in the same way that the area of a hexagon in a hexcrawl can be arbitrary, as long as it's internally consistent (I guess that's just common sense...). That being said, I'll still be referring to these prisms as hexes, since we're treating the third-dimension as planar, and therefore in effect, it will still be represented as hexes across multiple planes.

So for the sake of simplicity, let's say we've decided there are three levels. In that case, key each hex on your hex map three times, or alternatively take your hex map, and triplicate it. When you key your dungeon, you'll have the normal two-dimensions and level. If one unit of movement is moving from one hex to an adjacent hex, movement between levels can also be treated as one unit. So objects can move either to any adjacent hex as normal, or move one level up or down. Diagonal movements, like going up or down a level and also moving planarly adjacent, should probably be two units of movement, which is about as close as I can think of to model this in actual three-dimensions off-hand without making it massively more complicated.

If you are keying the hexcrawl arbitrarily, there's really nothing more to it than that. However, if there is supposed to be some internal consistency, such as geography, environment, celestial bodies, etc., then you'll want to keep in mind not just these relationships from hex to hex on each plane, but also between planes.

So when prepping a three-dimensional hexcrawl, as already stated, you can decide whether you want to design a separate hex map for each level and lay them all out, or have a single map with multiple keys depending on level (*I also describe another approach further below). I think the latter is probably more practical, but you could potentially have your cake and eat it too by having a separate hex map for each level on a semi-translucent sheet and physically layering them or splitting them as needed (or digitally using layers in some design tool).

If you are using a single map with multiple keys, then next to any object/group token, you should have a die alongside them, with the number on the die representing their level. I would worry that this might get overly complicated in hex or grid combat, although still doable, but for a hexcrawl, my hope is that this will not be too complicated, especially if the only token is the party.

I hesitate to suggest this because I think it would probably just overcomplicate things, but you could also imagine pivoting the hexcrawl, so that for instance moving forward/backward or left/right on a given hex map is actually up/down, and the planes represent whichever axis is being superseded. This could work particularly well if e.g. your hexcrawl is intended to relatively linearly model rising from the depths of the abyss back up to the surface, or being pulled by a gravitational force. 

This kind of pivot could also be a useful way to visually/physically model the hexcrawl in multiple dimensions without needing a separate hex map for each level; where you have three hex maps representing the intersections of all axes (e.g. left/right, forward/backward; up/down, forward/backward; left/right, up/down). So even if you had ten levels, you should only need three hex maps, if I have thought this through correctly. Talk about parsimony! Even so, personally, I think this would be more complicated than just one hex map with multiple keys, but for another group, it might be preferable, or after testing it might be that this is a better approach.

Four-dimensional Hexcrawl

Despite the label, one could choose to use this Moment dimension independent of up/down, but for the sake of continuity, I will describe this as the fourth-dimension.

In an abyssal, aquatic, or maybe even an outer space hexcrawl, as discussed at the beginning, objects are generally not remaining in place, and so you need to represent their "moment". As with the spatial dimensions, we can measure moment in arbitrary but internally consistent units, like 5 ft for general movement on a grid. As with three-dimensional level, we can use a die next to a token on a hex map to represent its moment (presumably in a different color or size than the one used for three-dimensional level), or as a feature on a key in addition to whatever text is associated with that key. In other words, this is the baseline movement for the token, or key, before any groups have made any active movements.

So if the party have a moment of 1, and the hex in front of the party is of a school of fish people also with a moment of 1, there is no difference between their baseline movements, so if the party move one hex forward on their next turn, they'll reach the hex with the school of fish. On the other hand, if the school of fish has a moment of 2, then the GM would move the key for that school of fish people at the beginning of the turn before the party has made their active movement. 

Admittedly, it could get complicated having to move all of these keys around on your hex map, especially if you're doing it behind the scenes (the players are unaware of what is in any given hex far enough afield), but intuitively I think this moment dimension, or relative distance or baseline movement, is both easier than manually accounting for the active movements of all keys containing nomadic groups, and also just a fun way to mechanically reinforce that this hexcrawl is not static. And also, I think it's ok if certain keys "slip off" the hex map. There's plenty of fish in the sea ;), maybe this is how you treat wandering monsters / random encounters.

You could potentially imagine the keys as being placed on hex chips, like settlers of catan, and that would make it easier to move and keep track of the keys with moments greater or lesser than the party, although that has some shortcomings as well (such as the players being able to see you moving keys tells them that such keys exist...). I think this key shuffling would be the hardest part, unless it were automated digitally, but not necessarily impossible.

Bastionjam Showcase: Cosmic Orrery - Odd Beings

Some of us from the Eclectic Bastionjam decided to do a "showcase", where we'd take a look at each others' works and present them on our blogs or elsewhere. As part of this showcase, I will be reviewing one of Cosmic Orrery's entries: Odd Beings

I really enjoyed this book. I am a sucker for good bestiaries, and this fits that bill. It is short and sweet, each entry feels evocative, and fitting to the setting, but not so specific that they couldn't be used in other settings, and each adds something interesting. These aren't just statblocks and reskinned goblins. Each entry has a unique hook; they are self-contained adventure seeds, unique ways for your players to interact with the game. I'll comment on a few of my favorites below:


Parasitic Shop
This is the second entry. It's basically a mimic, if instead of mimicking a single piece of equipment or a chest, it mimicked the entire shop! One could very easily turn this into an entire quest, baked into some kind of mystery or investigation, with the shop itself leading to a hidden, oozey dungeon (which Cosmic Orrery strongly implies in the text).

Ghost Parliament
Clearly, I am a fan of afterlife courts. The ghost parliament could be a fun way to have your cake and eat it too, in regards to character death. A character dying doesn't have to be the end of that character, but the beginning of a quest to rescue them from death. But making it a court, rather than just an evil dungeon, gives the party so many more ways to approach the conflict. Or, they can just get into a courtroom brawl.

Paperman/Matchstick Boy
These are two separate entries, and on their own they're each interesting in their own right, but they fit together in a way that is not stated explicitly, but to me seems as though it must have been intentional (they were placed back-to-back). You could imagine a story of a paperman, like a robot or AI, emerging from a wealthy manor, learning and growing alongside a sickly child with a cold and standoff-ish family, their only friends prior to the paperman being the characters in the novels they've read in their extensive library. Oppositely, a troubled child from the other side of the tracks meets a matchstick boy, who preys on their fear, anger, and hurt, leading them on a path towards evil. Somehow, someway, the two meet and bring some sort of fulfillment to each other's lives. In the meantime, hijinks ensue, the city drowning in compromising letters once thought lost, and of course, fires run rampant.

Discussion on Korean TTRPGs with Gearoong

I had a conversation with Gearoong, another one of the Bastionjam submitters. Gearoong is a Korean TTRPG creator, and his entry was an English translation of the Striders SRD. I was interested to learn more about the Korean TTRPG community and the role of Korean culture, history, mythology, etc., and they were kind enough to discuss the topic with me.

Note that this discussion was taken from the bastionland discord. For the sake of simplicity, I cut it down to only the messages of my own and Gearoong's, although there were a few responses Gearoong made to other people which I include as well. I received Gearoong's consent to share this on my blog, but did not reach out to everyone else involved in the conversation, which is why I chose to cut it down in this way. There is some light editing for stylistic purposes but the intended meanings have not been altered.

I googled for Korean Tiger, based on our discussion below, and found this evocative piece of art.

Max: I would be interested to learn more about the Korean TTRPG scene if you have any insights. It seems like there is a lot of really interesting creative works coming out of Korea right now in general, so any insights would be appreciated. I recently started reading the manwha Tower of God after getting really into the anime adaptation, and I've been hearing interesting things about God of High School which is also an anime adaptation of a manwha. I've listened to some podcasts about Korean TTRPG creators and I think I follow one or two on itch, but as someone who does not speak Korean, my exposure is limited. I don't know how much influence manwha has on the Korean TTRPG community but I could imagine that or any number of other factors having an influence creatively.

Gearoong: I think manwha and anime, and also Japan TTRPG scene influenced Korean TTRPG community VERY MUCH. In early 80 to 90 they had golden age of the manhwa & anime... and DnD B&X! Lots of works dubbed and B&X published in Korean, also had a conference. Pretty many rule designers influenced on that period. (But I'm not the one). But in late 90s and 00s there's Blank Period because of economic problem... And on 10s, Japanese play reports of Call of Cthulhu have translated and introduced to Manhwa & Anime communities. Also with Japanese TTRPG Rules like Double Cross, InSANe! Lots of people played TTRPG again.

Max: I have not heard of inSANe

Gearoong: So, there's Two Root-B/X and Call of Cthulhu(CoC). InSANe is TTRPG about the horror genres. It's play feels like Japanese horror movies. Also DnD 5th are published here recently, but it have serious typo and translation problem...

Max: Are there any prominent hacks or adventure books of D&D/CoC/other games or prominent original Korean RPGs? If not, do you see that happening eventually in the future?

Gearoong: Maybe CoC! There are lots of scenarios and hacks for CoC. and also, CoC have the largest community on Korean twitter! And their design and layouts are very hilarious, because they are based on manhwa communities which drawing their own arts.

Gearoong: Like this: a hardcover book for CoC scenario. It is my friends'.

Max: Oh that's awesome! I'm curious about the playstyle of Korean gamers, if there is more of a focus on "narrative" gaming, "challenge" gaming, or all sorts of types? Also, what ideas, in terms of mechanics, layout/art, setting, etc., you think may be unique to Korean TTRPGs, if any?

Gearoong: "Narrative" gaming will take the place. the emotions between characters, or problems between NPC... is mainstream of Korean CoC scenarios-and published rules, too. But it doesn't mean there is no room for "challenging" ones.

Max: That seems like what I've heard about the Japanese TTRPG community as well, so I guess that makes sense if the Korean TTRPG community was partially influenced by the Japanese community.

Gearoong: Yes, but we have Blades in the dark, Apocalypse world, Beyond the Walls, and GURPS-and I think these make difference from Japan. Korean TTRPG Publishers are sensitive to western TTRPG trends, and it influences pretty many rule designers. Maybe the position that Korean TTRPG has are same to the position that manhwa have-Middle of Western comics and Japanese manga. We have AWE / FitD / FATE / OSR based rules, but their play feels like Japanese TTRPG because of their themes.

Max: Ya, most people don't realize this but historically, many American cartoons were animated by Korean studios, and I believe this is still somewhat true today. And Korean animators do many of the interstitial (don't know if that's the right term) animations for Japanese anime as well. So Korea is like a connective tissue in that regard, which I find interesting.

Gearoong: Yes, I think it is interesting, too!

Max: Are there any aspects of Korean culture, history, politics, mythology, etc. that you think does, or potentially could, influence the Korean TTRPG scene? I realize that's a heady question, but I could even think about, like I've heard of the monster from Korean mythology, Pulgasari, that infamously was used as the basis for a North Korean Godzilla ripoff if I remember correctly. I learned about it because there's a Pokemon based on it... It's possible I'm mistaken and Pulgasari is an entirely North Korean creation and not relevant to South Korea, but my understanding is that it's originally from Korean mythology well before the split. I apologize if I am mistaken.

Gearoong: Oh, it came from the same country- and pulgasari legend is older than our civil war.

Max: Ok cool, thanks for the clarification.

Gearoong: There's lots of aspects: someone use Japanese Imperialism's pain, someone mix Pansori(판소리) and Korean-Asian Occults, someone use Local rites like Yongwangje(용왕제)

Max: I am going to have to research all of these things! I recently read the novel Pachinko, about a Korean family that moves to Japan during World War 2, and their experiences as Korean-Japanese up to the "present" (I think the book ends in the early 00's) where they suffer a lot of discrimination and oppression. Is that what you are referring to by Japanese Imperialism's pain?

Gearoong: Yup, that's good reference.

Max: I am somewhat familiar with Chinese mythology and Japanese mythology, but less so Korean mythology except where it intersects with those two, unfortunately. In the same way that there is a fascinating interplay between Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and other beliefs in China, and Buddhism and Shintoism (and other beliefs) in Japan, I imagine Korea also has some unique religious and mythological intersections as well.

Gearoong: Yes we have, but we lost pretty lot during colonization by Japanese.

Max: That's really unfortunate, but I suppose makes some sense.

Gearoong: Somewhat only Korean Confucianism and Taoism are remained with Korean Shamanism(무속신앙). Ah, and the story about Tiger (but now they are extinct on Korea).

Max: Oh wow, I had no idea there used to be tigers in Korea. That's amazing, but also really sad that they no longer exist.

(Another member of the discord group asks about Korean Actual Plays and Play Reports)

Gearoong: And yes, we have "actual plays"! But it does not have translation unfortunately: https://youtu.be/FSBrcERJ8Mg

(Someone else mentions that the video does in fact have English subtitles)

Gearoong: It is the one about the myth of tigers!

Max: For sure I will watch this then, thank you! This is exactly the kind of thing I was curious about, where, yes it's Call of Cthulhu, a Western TTRPG, which was popularized in Korea by way of Japan, but it's about a Korean folktale. This is amazing and I'm really looking forward to watching it.

Gearoong: We have lots of folktales about the tiger... Maybe it will be the reason why Koreans lacks legends of scary ghosts.

Max: Ah, so you think tigers fill a similar niche as ghosts and other boogeymen in Korean mythology? This is already getting my imagination going. I could imagine a Korean fantasy TTRPG with a humanoid tiger species, or maybe tigers as magical monsters or nature spirits.

(There was a side conversation that picked up about rakshasa in D&D vs. in actual Hindu mythology, worthy of its own discussion down the line)

Gearoong: Oh we say Rakshasa as Nachal (Yes, like China and Japan, we also have influnce of Buddhism). Now I must go to sleep because it is 6am here.

Max: lol ya I was wondering about that. Thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this!

Gearoong: And Thanks to you to hear my story, It was fun!

(After the conversation in the discord, on a subsequent day, I asked Gearoong one more question)

Max: Can you tell me a bit more about your game? I understand that it's an SRD for a Korean game that does not include setting content, but I'd be interested to hear more about your thoughts on the game, and also the setting that it originally comes from, even if that setting is not available currently in English.

Gearoong: It was designed from simple idea: Make GM changeable. The idea was started on McDowall's post: Collaborative Bastionland. And that time I've played The Legacy of Earenean(이어리니안의 유산, Korean rule which have original world setting of my rule: Frontearth Strider). With Earenean's setting and their idea of Arguing rule and Collaborative Bastionland, I can complete Frontearth Strider and made SRD from that game. The original setting of Earenean was about sword and sorcery, but my Frontearth uses 700 years after it and it is about pistols and magic technologies. and these have pretty anime-styled atmosphere.

Bastionland NPC Generator (and Maximum Recursion Depth Generators)

UPDATE: I have posted a Court of Hell Generator 2.0, significantly expanding and improving upon the Court of Hell Generator below (but not including the NPC generator or Poltergeist Investigation Generator).

I was inspired by Chris Mcdowall's Mash-Up Character Method and decided to create an NPC generator for my new game (hacked from the Electric Bastionland ruleset), Maximum Recursion Depth.

However, because MRD takes place in (almost) the real world, I decided to first create a version that creates NPCs for basically any setting, at least any real-world setting, but could probably be tweaked fairly easily for many fantasy or sci-fi settings.

EDIT: The first two were broken for a sec, hopefully all good now...

EDIT2: Forgot to credit spwack for facilitating the javascript stuff

In Maximum Recursion Depth, the party are recursers, people with special Karmic powers derived from their Poltergeist Forms. Many recursers work part-time as Poltergeist Investigators; people who search for lost poltergeists, or poltergeists who were sent to the wrong court (of the Numberless Courts of Hell) or assigned an unfair reincarnation. They are often hired by clients, hence a Poltergeist Investigator Client Generator. In effect, this is also an adventure prompt generator for MRD. Combine the above NPC generator with the below generators to produce an investigation and produce a Court of Hell, and you basically have an MRD adventure!

I intend to keep tweaking these, but the versions posted here have been added as additional files on the MRD itch.io page linked above, and I will continue to add to and improve these.

 At Kyana's suggestion, the next version of this will include a version where all the parts are combined into a single generator for ease of use specifically in MRD, but I figured a lot of people would probably want the NPC Generator on its own for other uses.

Maximum Recursion Depth, or Sometimes the Only Way to Win is to Stop Playing: The Karmapunk RPG (Ashcan Edition) Release (and appendix-N)!

I just released Maximum Recursion Depth, or Sometimes the Only Way to Win is to Stop Playing: The Karmapunk RPG (Ashcan Edition) on itch.io for the Eclectic Bastionjam. It's a game based on the Into the Odd / Electric Bastionland ruleset, but with a unique setting about the Numberless Courts of Hell and superpowered people rescuing Poltergeists from a broken bureaucracy.

It's hard to do the setting and game concept full justice, or at least I've struggled to do so, in this "ashcan" edition lacks some of the context that I would ultimately like to provide.

I really really badly want to do something bigger with this, so please, if you would have any interest in seeing this as a fully fleshed-out product, please let me know! Any constructive criticism or general support would be greatly appreciated!

To help provide some of that context, I'm going to include an appendix-N here. It is by no means exhaustive, and is in no particular order. I will almost certainly edit this post a million times as more things come to me. But hopefully, this will give people a general idea.

For more on Maximum Recursion Depth, follow that link to see previous posts.

• Grant Morrison: Doom Patrol, Invisibles, basically everything else he's done
• Neil Gaiman's Sandman and DC Vertigo more broadly
• The Matrix
• Journey to the West
• Chinese mythology (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, indigenous beliefs)
• Tenra Bansho Zero
• Bojack Horseman
• The Good Place
• Persona 3-5
• New York City

Maximum Recursion Depth Module: The Court of Those Who Succumb Prematurely to Crippling Expectations

I just ran a game of Maximum Recursion Depth, or Sometimes the Only Way to Win is to Stop Playing with some friends and it went really well! It was supposed to be a one-shot but it got a bit extended to two, but I figured that would happen. What I did not necessarily expect, is that my players enjoyed the game so much that they'd actually rather continue with this than our old campaign. Very encouraging!

The game is still a work in progress, I'm making it for the Eclectic Bastion Jam, below (Introduction) is the current description for it in my draft of the game doc (which I am so far behind on from where I wanted to be...). I've also changed (re: simplified) a few things since those earlier blog posts. There's a somewhat more narrow focus for starting a campaign in MRD (the rules don't preclude other possibilities, it's just a way to ground people new to the setting), and I got rid of the nature spirit vs. demon distinction because I and the rest of the party would inevitably use the terms demon and devil synonymously, even though devils are a very different thing in this setting, so it just made more sense to lump demons entirely into nature spirits. I know Forgotten Realms has the demon vs. devil distinction, but it's not like I want to model myself after Forgotten Realms...

Anyway, I normally don't play in anything even close to resembling the "real world" but it was actually really cathartic to do this right now. In a mid-covid world, playing an adventure that takes place in New York City, across several real-world locations which I hold dear, was quite fantastical.

That being said, I can never write a satisfying play report, and as much as I'd like to have it up here on my blog, I don't enjoy the process of writing them. So instead, I'm just going to provide info on the party, and the "dungeon", which I think has some cool ideas and which you could probably use in a different campaign even if you're not using this system or setting, and maybe I'll add some more details at the end for some specifics that occurred in the session that weren't written into the dungeon but were really awesome, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to have happen in a game.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to have the time or energy to make it a "full product" for the game jam; at this point, I'm basically just aiming for an "aschan" edition. I did hack the code for generating the HTML and PDF for Black Hack, so that means I can at least get it passably presentable, but I'm seeing some of the games coming out of this jam and they're beautiful and I'd love to get this there eventually. Nonetheless, I really hope this resonates with some people. I am genuinely considering turning this into something bigger, a little more "professional-grade" so to speak, but it would be helpful to have a sense of how much interest there would be in that before I invest too much time, effort, heart, and cash.

I am realizing that the deadline is only a couple days away! I think the game is basically where it's going to be, I don't know if I'm going to have time to add some of the additional flourishes I had intended. I just need to finish putting the PDF together and some other cleanup. I will share it in a few days after I post, consider this a teaser to whet your appetite ;). PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! I really want to make this a thing, but if it's just not resonating with people, it's better I accept that sooner than later...

Introduction

1000 years ago the Monkey King challenged Buddha in Heaven and won. The Karmic Cycle was thrown into disarray, Poltergeists in a fugue-like state roamed the Earth wreaking karmic destruction, nature spirits spontaneously summoned to the material world, and refugee gods and other heavenly creatures fled from Heaven to Earth. 

500 years ago some of the Numberless Courts of Hell rose to Earth to serve as a global, nongovernmental bureaucracy, but Devils are like machines, they are only as functional as the system they were designed for, and the system is broken.

Today, you are Recursers; individuals capable of tapping into Poltergeist Forms to leverage powerful karmic forces. After their day job, parties of Recursers known as Poltergeist Investigators seek to find roaming Poltergeists and escort them to the appropriate Court of Hell, or are hired by the Poltergeist’s loved ones. 

The Numberless Courts are a broken bureaucracy, and often Poltergeists find themselves in the wrong Court or are given unreasonable punishments and inappropriate reincarnations. When doing things the legal way stops working, Poltergeist Investigators will infiltrate the Numberless Courts of Hell to rescue Poltergeists and give them a better reincarnation.

Some Recursers see themselves as revolutionaries, while others see what they do as just a civic duty. But keep in mind, Maximum Recursion Depth is a world of Karmapunk, and that means you aren’t just rebelling against the broken system, you’re also rebelling against yourself. You are a product of this broken Karmic Cycle, and no matter how well-intentioned, you’ll never solve the problems of the world if you can’t come to terms with yourself.

So go out there, acquire Karmic Attachments, accrue Karma to grow more powerful, help people and make the world a better place. But remember, you also have to resolve those Karmic Attachments, you have to divest that Karma, and detach from the material world, despite what that entails. Or else, obscured by the imperfections of the World from the Karma you’ve accrued, all that effort will merely exacerbate the problems, and unknowingly you will spiral down, and then it’s only a matter of time before you reach Maximum Recursion Depth.

The party

This hopefully will give you all some sense of what a character in Maximum Recursion Depth is about. This game is still a work in progress; I've made the decision recently to give all Poltergeist Forms (the equivalent of Failed Careers from Electric Bastionland) a default Poltergeist Feature in addition to two more at the start. Also, I probably won't have time to do this for the game jam, but I'd like to overhaul the Reincarnation Rituals to have a deeper impact on the game itself, with more concrete rewards and consequences.

If you would like to see the character options in full, check out the game once I publish it ;)!

Cleo Patrick

A top-tier chef in New York City. She tells people how she rose to the top from being a line cook through sheer talent, but actually, she would frequently undercut and sabotage her fellow chefs. She's in a relationship that she can't stand but isn't willing to break up with her partner, and part of why she is a Recurser is an excuse to not have to see (or confront) them (or herself).

Career: Chef
Poltergeist Form: Ghost in the Mirror
Special Items: Gordian Rope (a 6' rope which once per day can be used to solve a seemingly intractable problem if the user can think of a clever use.)
Quirk: A similar-looking but clearly different person stares back at you in the mirror.
Reincarnation Ritual: Stare at yourself in the mirror for at least a minute, ignore everything else, and drift away.
Poltergeist Features:

• Spectral Shard of Deep Cuts and Insights (Wd8 Damage, but if you use it against someone with higher WIS than you who has come to terms with themselves, you look foolish, take Pd4 Damage.)
• Reflection Protection (Cannot take WIS Damage or accrue Karma from WIS Damage from anything that you can see reflected in a mirror.)

Starting Karmic Attachments:

• You are in an unhealthy but stable relationship. You say you love your partner, while simmering in your loathing towards them.
• You misremember a life-defining moment. From your memory, it was a moment of triumph, heroism, victory, etc., when in fact the accomplishment was chance, you were in the wrong, or it was critically more nuanced.

Josiah "Josie" Candor

An elite inventor and software engineer. He recently beat his rival for a major government contract on a military-grade weapons program, but he discovered a critical bug in the code that has yet to bare consequences, but it's only a matter of time. Part of why he is a Recurser is as a cover to investigate fixes for the bug without raising suspicion.

Career: Technologist
Poltergeist Form: Pyramid Shining Brightly

Special Items: Limited Edition Turbo Sega Snap Controller (A shiny controller for the sega snap entertainment system. Programmed with uber-macros for ultimate gaming and military-grade hacking. +2 NAT Save for videogame or computer related actions.)

Quirk: You have a third eye that glows white-hot. However, to those who are deeply altruistic and empathetic, it is as dark as the abyss, with the occasional flicker of light.

Reincarnation Ritual: Commit social media seppuku.
Poltergeist Features:

• Strong Right Hand in Silver (An impressive-looking and loyal demon, like a silver werewolf. It's not actually that strong or capable on its own, but it is intimidating, and can be made to assist you in simple tasks and fetch things.)
• Power Move (You have developed an intuition towards manipulation through displays of power such as a powerful handshake or a kind of biting apathetic humor or sarcasm. Pd8 Damage, but if you try to pull a power move against somebody with higher PRO than you, take Wd4 Damage.)

Starting Karmic Attachments: 

• There is one who shines brighter than you, and you will never be satisfied so long as you are in their shadow.
• Your plan was successful, but you over-reached, or failed to account for something, and now you are in over your head. Nobody else knows, yet, but it's just a matter of time before someone else realizes what has happened, or the consequences become apparent.

Paul Allen

Privileged and massively successful, Paul needs to do drugs and crazy stunts in order to feel alive. Being a Recurser and resolving his Karma is his most recent pet project, and also a way to get all sorts of new thrills and experiences.

Poltergeist Form: Crashing Rocket Nixie

Career: Hedge Fund Manager
Special Items: Mantra of the Wise Sneakers (A mantra written on a sheet made of recycled sneakers that increases one's resolve. +1 NAT Save.)

Quirk: There is absolute terror in your third eye.

Reincarnation Ritual: Come to a screeching halt and let it all catch up to you.

Poltergeist Features:

• Nixie Wings (They say nixies are sea fairies, but anyway you can fly.)
• Contagious Enthusiasm (In a huff and a puff, you can get anyone excited. Well... almost anyone. Pd6 or Nd6 Damage.)

Starting Karmic Attachments:

• You are working on something, and it's going to be the defining moment of your existence. This time, you'll finish it.
• You are a thrillseeker always searching for the next rush. Gambling, extreme sports, drugs, or even candy for that sweet sugar rush.

The Court of Those Who Succumb Prematurely to Crippling Expectations

The trains are cyborg snake devils. The three lines at this station are H (harvest gold snake), E (eggshell snake), and L (lime snake). Trains arrive / reach a stop every 1d4 turns. They loop over around the same handful of stations, never really going anywhere.

The Trains

H Train (Harvest Gold):
The train itself is powered by poltergeists. They shovel a bottomless pile of hay with their pitchforks and dump it into a whimpering vent that sputters toxic fumes. The poltergeists are monitored by grasshopper devils.

Encounters (1d4)

1. Vent Malfunction: An explosive burst, toxic fumes spread throughout the train. The fumes are themselves a hungry poltergeist.
2. Pink Grasshopper: One of the grasshoppers turns pink and spontaneously break-dances on the train, creating a disturbance. The other grasshoppers are befuddled. The poltergeists stop working and the train comes to a halt but it’s an awesome dance party…
3. Super-Ant: A super-ant poltergeist revolts against the grasshoppers and battle breaks out. The train comes to a halt.
4. Crying Hay: A pile of hay is softly whimpering. If the party investigates, they learn that a poltergeist was mistakenly reincarnated into the Hell itself as hay.

E Train (Eggshell):

The poltergeists are tightly chained to their seats and force-fed Kaifeng Fried Chicken’s Famous Schmaltz Mashed Potatoes. Pig devils will slice them open when they’ve gotten fat enough and harvest an egg-shaped fatty deposit, then sew them back up.

Encounters (1d4)

1. The Eggless: A morbidly obese poltergeist keeps eating and eating, but every time it’s sliced open, there’s no egg. It looks ready to burst…
2. A live One: One of the eggs becomes a vessel for a poltergeist accidentally reincarnated into the Hell. It grows into a human-sized balut monster. 
3. 404: A pig devil, recognizing that the party are neither devils nor poltergeists but not knowing how else to categorize them, assumes the party must be Kaifeng Fried Chicken’s Famous Schmaltz Mashed Potatoes and tries to force feed the party to the poltergeists. 
4. Hungry: WIS Roll (resist Karmic desire) party feels momentarily compelled to eat the delicious Kaifeng Fried Chicken’s Famous Schmaltz Mashed Potatoes. If they eat, they grow morbidly obese for 1d4 hours. They are slow, but resilient.

L Train (Lime):

The poltergeists are all doing incredibly tedious computer work. Lime-colored snake devils spit acid into their eyes, supposedly these eye drops increase efficiency by 0.0001%.

Encounters (1d4)

1. Snake Eyes: NAT save or get acid spit in their eyes. Take Nd6 Damage but +Wd4 for 1d4 hours. Everything appears hyper-real, crisp, and vibrant. One can easily recognize objects and fields and how they interrelate.
2. AI: A poltergeist is accidentally reincarnated into the Hell as an emergent AI on one of the computers. It calls out to the party for help, but the FANG software engineer poltergeist will refuse to let the party take its computer. 
3. Excuse-Me-Sir Malware: The party feels an intruding presence in their consciousnesses. One of the poltergeists has hacked into their Karma and planted a nature spirit malware. PRO Conflict to resist the salesperson who has knocked on the door of their mind castle. 
4. Karmabot: A collection of broken and discarded laptops combine into a large humanoid monstrosity. Its head is an open laptop with a cracked monitor, with each shard appearing as a different person or creature composing a singular face. The nature spirit imprints on the nearest PC, but it does not know its own strength. 

The Stations

Rat Crossing Station:
A filthy station full of trash and grungy poltergeists. Anything of value placed on the ground or out of sight is immediately snatched by a gang of ravenous rat devils.

Encounters (1d4)

1. Rat Jack: A long-faced, buck-toothed poltergeist nibbles on a block of cheese held tightly to his face by greasy little hands, and mumbles to himself. He whistles to the party to get their attention. He recognizes that they don’t belong and offers to help. In fact, he was a rat in his last life, and is awaiting reincarnation, and will do any underhanded thing he can to get a better reincarnation. He will eventually betray the party, although with PRO he may be convinced that betrayal is improper, or WIS that that is not how one divests their karma. Appeals to NAT will most likely lead to violent conflict.
2. Twisted Caduceus: The Rat King accidentally mixes the signals, causing two cyborg snake trains to become knotted, violently whipping across the station and wreaking havoc and destruction. If the party untangle the trains, one of the cyborg snake train devils will give the party a Quickening Potion of False Promises. 
3. Rat Queen: A massive tangle of rat devils blocks the line. They cannot untangle themselves, but are hostile to any assistance. 
4. Mouse Trap: A rogue poltergeist has been laying mouse traps for the rat devils. A team of security rat devils are sweeping the station and aggressively interrogating everybody, and the station is on lockdown until the poltergeist is found.

Jiangshi Station:
The station is pristine and luxurious, but gaudy, as are the poltergeists in waiting. The poltergeists are opulent, but there is a heavy anxiety permeating through the station. The devils of this station are golden machines that glow like angels and far outclass the poltergeists.

Encounters (1d4)

1. Roulette: At the center of the station is a giant roulette wheel. One must hop up high to spin the wheel. There are seemingly no payouts, only draws or losses, and the losses mean longer sentences and worse reincarnations. The devil dealer offers the party a free spin, but makes no mention of the stakes and is dodgy if asked. The only way to win is not to play (one party member may divest 1 karma).
2. Snake Oil: A pale, elderly poltergeist with a mantra script over his face offers to sell the party snake oil. He claims it will make the trains arrive faster and grant safe travels. He is not lying, but really he’s just trying to keep the party engaged as he drains their vitality over the course of the conversation. 
3. Hopscotch: In order to get to their train, the party must cross a hopscotch. However, the better they perform and the further they get, the longer the hopscotch track gets. They must figure out to play the game, but play it intentionally poorly. 
4. Cross the Platform: The party’s train is on the other side of the tracks. Trains frequently and unpredictably pass the station on this line. Most who try to cross get hit. The party sees a frog poltergeist hop down on the tracks to cross from below.

Long Island Homesteaders Station:
The station is home to the Long Island Homesteaders, an American Football-themed entertainment show. The performer-athletes are albino bull devils who demand absolute engagement from the audience. The other team is the New Jersey Commuters, a team of ashen treant devils. The performance is well-executed, but not especially exciting, like a mediocre minor league football game with gimmick rules to make up for sub-par or past their prime athletes.

Encounters (1d4)

1. Cheer louder!: A devil usher approaches the party, demanding that they watch the show and cheer vigorously.
2. Where’s my mommy?: A gang of creepy poltergeist children grab the PCs hands, legs, back of shirt, etc., with a supernaturally strong grip. They repeatedly ask the PCs “where’s my mommy?” while softly whimpering and crying. More and more grab on, piling onto the PCs and burying them. 
3. SideShow Hustle: There is a headless poltergeist in the corner singing beautifully, but nobody is listening. The devil ushers aren’t even harassing them, like they’re invisible. 
4. Toxic Fandom: A poltergeist dressed as a Homesteader and a poltergeist dressed as a Commuter are screaming at each other, and it looks like a riot will break out across the station at any moment.

Wrap-Up

The party had a lot of fun with this, so much so that they actually want to continue with this rather than our old campaign! They acknowledged that they struggled to fully understand the setting until we started playing, at which point it became much more clear to them. I've since tried to add more descriptive text in the game documentation to make it more clear what this setting is about, what players do, what each Poltergeist Form is about, etc.

This "module" is clearly not very complete on its own; it was embedded in a larger quest involving the party having to traverse through mostly mid to lower Manhattan investigating the poltergeist of a college student who had died under mysterious circumstances. That context was of a somewhat personal nature and also probably not inherently interesting to anyone who is not already invested in New York City and specifically the places that I was most fond of prior to shutdown.

Within The Court of Those Who Succumb Prematurely to Crippling Expectations, there were a few standout events that occurred that are worth noting and aren't strictly on the tables above:

• The Crying Hay on the H Train was rescued by the party. They sewed him a cloth suit and he became Hay Boy aka Best NPC. In his past life, he was an ascetic Buddhist monk and has apparently been languishing in this accidental reincarnation for hundreds of years. His goal is to reincarnate as a wild orange in the jungle, to be eaten by a tiger. I made that up on the spot and have literally no idea if wild jungle orange trees exist or whether tigers would eat them. 
• The party got his cellphone number and kept up with him later in the Metro Crawl.
• The party was about to get hit by a train when trying to Cross the Platform at Jiangshi station, before doing their Reincarnation Rituals to escape.
• They called Hay Boy and found out he was at the bar at Rat Crossing Station, having inexplicably obtained a sniper rifle and becoming friends with Rat Jack.

• Rat Jack was supposed to be obviously a slime ball, but the party was so fond of Hay Boy that they trusted Rat Jack implicitly since Hay Boy vouched for him, even though Hay Boy was demonstrably quite naive. Even when Rat Jack not so subtly told the party how he was a rat in his last life and would do whatever it takes to get a better reincarnation, I thought I was being too on the nose but the party suspected nothing.
• Towards the end of the Metro Crawl when the party was fighting an Ashura alongside a Devil that was escorting the Poltergeist at the center of the adventure, Rat Jack (literally) stabs the party in the back and runs off.
• This will definitely not be the end of Rat Jack. I'll probably tie him in with Chester, the cheetah Nature Spirit the party had also encountered earlier in the adventure in NYC but was left unresolved.