Broke: An Infinite Superstructure That Personally Hates You

Imagine

If LEGO made a TTRPG system, providing you an encyclopedia for every kind of piece/item/block they've ever done, including stat modifiers depending on quality. They'd ruin Hasbro without even trying, and might accidentally create a quasi-monopoly on player character figures, due to the ease of customization.

It could also work if that was the premise for another LEGO Movie: group of friends invite the younger brother of one of their players to fill in for him/her, in a TTRPG campaign where they use LEGOs. Our protagonist (both the real guy and his character) feels out of place, that he cannot fill in for his sibling, even though he really likes LEGOs. But through the power of imagination, he finally gets into the groove, providing everyone a wonderful time and successfully defeating the big bad that the GM created for the campaign.

Current reactions on reading The Brother's War

LETS GO TOCASIA IS DEAD

urza gets married just to get a book by the thran...bro

Did mishra control the dragon engine to kill his bf’s dad? Or was it an accident???? kinda sus

ashnod is so silly! invents staff that just causes pain

also really liking the parallels between Mishra/Ashnod and Urza/Kayla

urza: absent, just wants to focus on inventing for the war effort, but is very wary kayla: frustrated at her husband, but everyone loves her. mishra: directly involved in the war effort, doesn't really care though ashnod: scheming, and double crossing in her very first appearance

starting chapter 10/34 :)

really not fucking around when i tell you to have a session 0 where everyone figures out PC relationships btw. in high school i played a game of dnd where i was a human rogue assassin from a murder cult and then found out on game day that there were two more human rogues and that those players had come up with their own murder cult.

reposting my favorite control pieces of all time

@imcreativeiswear

This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall!

good news mtg players i've gotten exclusive spoilers for the next set of designed-for-commander chase rares

Play Thirsty Sword Lesbians

So on bird app I talked about how many community copies of Thirsty Sword Lesbians there was and now 100s of people have claimed community copies of the game [Note Community Copies are free copies of PDFs which are on many itch.io TTRPGs and even community made TSL playbooks]. Since a ton more people now have access to my favorite game and one I've worked on for every edition so far as well as making a fan playbook, I wanted to talk about what is special about the system, what makes me love it so much, and why you might want to give it a try.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a simple game to understand but it refines even the most simple parts of it's design to make a better experience. In Thirsty Sword Lesbian's there is no failure or success. You roll d26 plus your modifier then you are either given a down beat, a mixed beat, or an upbeat. None of these mean you did what you intended. You can have a down beat where you knocked out the guard you had been trying to knock out but it turns out she was your girlfriends sister and without the context she just witnessed you assaulting her family. You may get an upbeat trying to do something and trip and fall and end up landing perfectly knocking away the sacred stone that the villain needs to turn the world into skeletons, with witnesses now thinking your amazing where in truth you have never quite been good at this.

Playbooks are designed with great intentionality to them each is designed with an emotional conflict at the heart. Where classes and playbooks can often be more like picking your powerset, in TSL your picking a struggle. It's not that other things might not be also bothering you but the conflict is something internally you are dealing with that's standing above the rest of the other conflicts you might have. This is an element that just feels very queer, we all have our problems, our traumas, and we work through them together. Each playbook also has a core mechanic that makes it stand out from the others, these have a narrative weight and a textual weight. These core mechanics typically take the form as some advantageous ability but are also deeply rooted in your conflict. They encourage you as a player to roleplay just by using the most basic aspect of your character.

I have to be real though, the thing that first made me fall head over heels with Thirsty Sword Lesbians was how funny and cool the adventures were. When I was reading the playtest version of the game, before I was brought on to write Yuisa Revolution and later The Matriarch, I was just playing a one shot and thought the name sounded fun. I read Best Day Of Their Life and just knew, this game was gonna be utterly my shit. At first I was just skimming like I do with most TTRPGs at first glance, but I read the first couple lines of the setting and I decided "fuck, I have to read all of this." I read the whole thing, made a character for my one shot and right after that session signed up to run multiple one shots of the game so others could get to play it because I loved it so much.

I don't normally like to play in premade settings but each of these are simple enough to really build on with enough going on that made it easier to run if you didn't want to get super creative and make a bunch of new shit. It really made me fall in love with setting writing in a way I just didn't before. I had gotten asked to work on Mutants and Master Minds before I TSL but I thought it was so boring working on the setting I quit and left money on the table. However, when April approached me to write a setting, I said yes, right away, no hesitation and now I work in TTRPG design. I had done TTRPG design work before but I wasn't locked in after quitting comics, it was how exciting the settings were that got me so inspired to create.

While many refer to Thirsty Sword Lesbians as a Powered By The Apocalypse game and by all means it is in a lot of senses, I think Powered By Lesbians is a very distinct flavor. It cuts out everything bad about PBTA and adds so much to the table. Chiefly among them is the smitten mechanic which is a mechanic I wish like every game had. It is one of the most clever pieces of game design ever convinced of. Being smitten has you do a moment of dramatic introspection, while I am one for more bright and cheery and less drama focused stuff, it's amazingly juicy hooks for a GM to get into. It not only allows you to put out your characters personal doubts about a potential relationship but it also says to the GM and everyone playing "I like this character, I want to see more of them, I want to explore where this goes." It's also in addition a way for players to tell each other "I want to be romantic with your character" and if they chose to get smitten back it's mechanically saying without even needing an out of game chat "Let's roleplay some romance."

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is really something special, I could gush on and on but already a lot given I worked on it and am currently working on it but I just wanted to talk about why the system is special to me. I hope I got you interested and I don't make any royalties on TSL sales [yet] so like I am not really biased here outside of the pages I worked on and that I made friends with a lot of folks who worked on it over my time working on it and after. Go clash swords and cross hearts.

🏚️ haunted house commissions are back! 🏚️

is your house (or apartment, or rv, or a house you really like from down the street, or a house from a story) haunted? do you wish it was? for a small fee, i'll put ghosts in it for you!

i'm trying out a google form for commissions this time around rather than a first-come-first-serve model. this form will be open for a limited time. probably till around the end of may. i'll have a handful of commission slots to begin with, and i'll pull from the form response pool once more slots start opening up.

want a haunted house? fill out the form here! (reblogs are super appreciated to spread the word! 🫀)

Google Docs

kaylee rowena's haunted house commissions form!

Hello there! I'm trying out a form-based system for commissions this time around. Fill this out if you're interested in getting a haunted ho

fuck warlocks. i hate them. make them more different

@jacebeleren SURPRISE ONE FINAL BOOP FOR YOU HAPPY HALLOW'S DAYBREAK!