Ludonarrative Dissidents

The Lady in Blue, a mysterious figure of cosmic power, enlists a band of simple peasants for a strange task. They are to follow an invisible bridge until they arrive at a hole in the sky – and then jump through. Death awaits all but the bravest, strongest, and luckiest, but the Lady offers a reward beyond all the riches of the world: the chance to change the very stars these peasants were born under, and thus change their destiny.

NEWS: On Saturday December 16th, at 23:00 UTC (18:00 EST, 17:00 Central) Greg, James, go live for an hour of discussion, conversation, and answering your questions.

Pendragon is a game of Arthurian legends, first released in 1985. The sixth edition starter set was released in 2023, with a full released plan next year. It is set in a world of brutal medieval realism. Player characters are knights in King Arthur's court, striving to uphold the code of chivalry despite their passions and flaws pulling them in other directions. The starter set contains pre-made knight player characters, several adventures, and all the rules necessary to run the game. 

Traveller is a science fiction roleplaying game of bold explorers and brave adventurers. The Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 contains everything you need to create one of these adventures and begin exploring the galaxy.

Spaceports, ancient civilisations, air/rafts, cold steel blades, laser carbines, far distant worlds, and exotic alien beasts – this is the futuristic universe of Traveller, the original and classic science fiction roleplaying game.

Experience Points are a common game mechanic in tabletop role playing games, but what are they? From Dungeons and Dragons to the World of Darkness, a wide variety of games use experience points to measure character progression and improvement. We discuss how these mechanics affect play and brainstorm ideas for alternative progression systems.

Fiasco is an award-winning, GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with no preparation. During a game you engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It’s like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it’d take to watch one. Tell cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control.

Diceless RPGs are games that do not use dice to randomize game elements. Many of these games do not have any randomization elements and include games like Amber, Pantheon, and Marvel Universe. Others use randomizers like shuffled cards or spinners. We discuss these systems and how they affect game play and storytelling.

The landscape was full of machines and scrap metal connected to the facility in one way or another. Always present on the horizon were the colossal cooling towers, with their green obstruction lights. If you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the heartbeat of the Loop – the purring of the Gravitron, the central piece of engineering magic that was the focus of the Loop’s experiments. The facility was the largest of its kind in the world, and it was said that its forces could bend space-time itself. Scifi artist Simon Stålenhag’s paintings of Swedish 1980s suburbia, populated by fantastic machines and strange beasts, have won global acclaim. Now, you can step into the amazing world of the Loop.

Dread is a game of horror and hope. Those who play will participate in a mutual telling of an original macabre tale. The goal of Dread is to sustain the delicate atmosphere that invokes the hand quivering emotion that lends its name to the game. The thrill of a Dread game lies within the tension between desire and loss. Players take on the role of someone trapped in a story that is only as compelling as it is hostile.

Planet Mercenary RPG is a space opera adventure game based on the popular web comic Schlock Mercenary. It contains everything you need to create characters, equip them, and load them onto warships for adventures across the galaxy. Build your own mercenary company and accept all the best contracts. Rescue ecotourists from Eina Afa’s Stormring Sea. Leap between the Pereri Ring’s tethered asteroids in pursuit of pirates. Brave the dark heart of Ellwor’s mechorganic jungle in search of the Greater Meatsnatch. Engineered for speed and simplicity, the Planet Mercenary RPG lets you play out these adventures quickly with three six-sided dice and the 108-card Mayhem deck—a set of story-building, plot-twisting, occasionally explosive elements that can transform even a mundane encounter into a turning point for the entire mission. You and your group will weave magnificent, raucous, and probably hilarious adventure stories, and everyone will enjoy themselves …even when things go terribly wrong.

Call of Cthulhu is the world’s best game of secrets, mysteries, and horror, first published in 1981 and now in its seventh edition. Playing the role of steadfast investigators, you travel to strange and dangerous places, uncover foul plots, and stand against the terrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. You encounter sanity-blasting entities, monsters, and insane cultists. Within strange and forgotten tomes of lore you discover revelations that humanity was not meant to know.

Eclipse Phase is the  post-apocalyptic game of transhuman horror. Humanity is enhanced  and  improved, but also battered and bitterly divided. Technology allows  the  re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for   oppression and puts the capability for mass destruction in the hands of   everyone. And other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the  Fall,  dangers both familiar and alien. In this harsh setting, the  players  participate in a cross-faction conspiracy called Firewall that  seeks to  protect transhumanity from threats both internal and external.

MÖRK  BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and  fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a  bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver  glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the  world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining  necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads.  Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the  Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind –  the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are  destined to end in death and dismay. It was created by Pelle Nilsson and  Johan Nohr.

The Laundry Files Roleplaying Game is based on the best-selling  novels by Charles Stross. In the game, you play officers of the Laundry,  that eccentric and underfunded agency dedicated to protecting the  United Kingdom from unthinkable horrors. The Laundry uses the Basic  Roleplaying System - the same system that powers the classic Call of  Cthulhu roleplaying game (so you can easily convert adventures from one  game to the other). As Laundry staff, you're trained to deal with the  weird and ghastly spawn of the Mythos, you're equipped with the best  equipment your committee-approved mission budget can buy, and you've got  back-up on call from the SAS. All of that means you're only  terrifyingly underprepared, as opposed to completely screwed, when the  shoggoth hits the fan.

Meta currencies are a type of game mechanic found in tabletop role playing games. They are an abstract resource used by players to affect the narrative but do not represent something in the game except luck, fate, or willpower and so forth. Examples include fate points in Fate, willpower in Red Markets, and Resolve in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We discuss types of mechanics and why they are used in RPGs.

Red Markets is a tabletop RPG about economic horror. In Red Markets,  characters risk their lives trading between the massive quarantine  zones containing a zombie outbreak and the remains of civilization. They  are Takers: mercenary entrepreneurs unwilling  to accept their abandonment. Bound together into competing crews, each  seeks to profit from mankind’s near-extinction before it claims them.  They must hustle, scheme, and scam as hard as they fight if they hope to  survive the competing factions and undead hordes the GM throws at them.

Takers that are quick, clever, or brutal enough might live to see  retirement in a safe zone, but many discover too late that the cycle of  poverty proves harder to escape than the hordes of undead.

Many RPGs use cards in their mechanics, from playing cards to Tarot to custom decks of cards. We discuss some of these games, the types of mechanics we've seen and the history of card-based games. 

Greg Stolze's procedurally generated game puts  you in the corrupt,  dissolute city-state of Vindamere, but don't  worry. You play the best people there, spoiled children of privilege  with nothing better to do  than pursue swordplay, flirt outrageously,  and snack on delicious  vol-au-vents. A single game session covers the  social year from Ye  Midwinter Balle through the prestigious Alle-Valley  Fencinge  Championeshippe. Your louche elite blade-swanks fall in love,  brawl,  sneer and engage in truly petty social rivalries. 

Base Raiders is a Fate powered superhero RPG about dungeon crawling in  abandoned villain and hero bases.  Characters find super power sources  in bases or buy them from the black market. It was written by Ross  Payton and published in 2014.