New This Week On DriveThru RPG and DM’s Guild : 4-29-2020
Become a super hero, solve goth mysteries, and get shipwrecked all alone this week on DriveThru RPG and DM’s Guild.
This week we’ve got a wealth of options available to you. There’s something for everyone, no matter what you’re into. From magic items to an RPG inspired by one of the best Big Fat Quiz of the year teams of all time, the Goth Detectives.
Check ’em out.
Catilus’ Tome of Curious Creations: Madam Catifa’s Caravan of Magic Wonders
“Come One, Come All, the Caravan is Here!
Enter Madam Catifa’s Caravan of Magic Wonders and discover:
- Amazing and unique magic items, all with full illustrations by acclaimed fantasy artist Catilus!
- Extra rules, including: leveling items, complications, antagonists, and more, to keep surprising your players each time they encounter one of these items
- Gamemaster tips to create exciting roleplaying opportunities and story hooks around these items
- Myths, legends, and lore about the items
- Sales pitches by the legendary sorceress and trademistress Madam Catifa herself!
- Rules to buy from, sell to, and haggle with Madam Catifa!
Madam Catifa’s Caravan of Magic Wonders is traveling across the world (some say across multiple worlds), trading in rare, curious, quirky, and powerful magic items. You never know where the caravan might appear next, but when it does, rest assured that accomplished heroes and aspiring adventurers alike will seek it out.
In this Catilus’ Tome of Curious Creations, gamemasters and players alike will find a diverse assortment of magic items from different backgrounds to reward heroes, empower villains, and create excellent story hooks for incredible adventures. Some items may be hidden in forgotten temples, some may be wielded by nefarious enemies, and some may be sold by Madam Catifa herself.
AdvertisementThis book includes optional rules to spice up gameplay, gamemaster tips to create exciting roleplaying opportunities, and Madam Catifa’s own commentary on some of the most incredible magic items she has ever encountered!”
Every game needs a traveling caravan of wonders run by a cat lady. A mixture of supplemental items, plot hooks, suggestions for new house rules, and tips for creating a more dynamic RPG experience, Catilus’ Tome is a one stop shop for pretty much any way you may want to spice up your game. Also, the cat lady.
Exquisite Crimes Goth Detectives
“Exquisite Crimes Goth Detectives
AdvertisementA Two Page RPG of gothic beauty and wicked melodrama.
Be Goth, Solve Crimes!
Somewhere in this vast and dreadful universe, someone has committed a Murder Most Strange! In a haunted spaceship, on an evil train, perhaps even in the depths of the Underworld itself.
The only people who can solve the case are the Goth Detectives – brooding, beautiful, negotiably human; dark heroes for a dark age.
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A quick and easy character generation system using random tables which you can pick from or roll on. Create your Goth Detective in just a few minutes!
Pick or generate a dramatically gothic name, a Dark Power, a Singular Talent and a Haunting secret. Summon bats, speak to the dead, find secret doors that weren’t there before or declare a Doomed Love Affair!
AdvertisementSimple and straightforward rules that let you play out your gothic dreams with ease.
Return from the Dead as a mocking raven, angry talking head and more. You can even replace the GM!
GM’s get
A rotating cast of quirky and macabre characters to serve as murderers, suspects and victims – including a revenant biker-poet, a cowboy necromancer and a pack of Death-Metal loving wolves!
A gothic Case generator that lets you throw together a new adventure in minutes or pick out your own story. Exquisite Deaths, crazed Motivations, bizarre Clues and game-changing Complications like Rampant Werewolves and Time Travel.
Just enough advice to get you started, without weighing you down.”
Do you want to play Clue but as an RPG and in the most brooding and gloomy was possible? Put on your blackest lace detectiving dress, come up with the name that best suits the anguish deep within you, and start collecting those clues. Promising to be easy to start and hilarious until the murderer is revealed, Goth Detectives might be my next pick for random RPG game nights.
Hero Too
“Superhero stories are often so painfully cis. Isn’t it time we changed that up?
Hero Too! Is a teen superhero story for trans people. It is a single player journaling game where you will use prompts and advice to guide your character through their supeheroic school as they deal with issues both related to their trans identity and due to just being a supehero.
The world can be hard for trans people. Lucky for us, we’re so much more badass than it.”
This is a game that would have never occurred to me until I came across it on DriveThru and that’s what the variety in gaming is all about! I love teenage super hero games – MASKs is one of my all time favorites, and Heros Too takes the genre one step further for the LGBT gamers. Perhaps a little niche, but some of the best games are.
Big Eyes Small Mouth 4th Edition
“In the myriad realms of imagination, there are an infinite number of fascinating worlds waiting to be discovered.
BESM FOURTH EDITION helps you explore them all.
Welcome to the Fourth Edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth– the multi-genre role-playing game for all your anime and manga adventures! Whether your gaming preference runs towards comedy or drama, fantasy or science fiction, horror or romance, shojo or shonen, BESM Fourth Edition has everything you need to help you make your favourite anime and manga characters and stories come to life.”
A few weeks ago I gave the BESM system a shoutout as an RPG Spotlight noting that the 4E would be coming out sometime soon… and there it is! Whether you’re into magical girls, mechs, slice of life, or period pieces, Big Eyes Small Mouth has you covered. Let your inner otaku come out of hiding just a little and pick up the latest incarnation of the anime and manga RPG system.
Wishing Well
“Living today feels a lot like you’re being crushed under the weight of capitalism.
Every part of your life is controlled by trying to make enough money to survive while finding a smidgen of hope and joy so you don’t rot away. It’s every day. Day in, day out.
But you’ve decided you’ve had enough. Your friends have had enough, too.
The group of you have left the city now, with nothing but a letter and good vibes. You’ve been told to go to this new town out in the middle of nowhere, but you hope something is waiting for you out there. Something new, and something beautiful.
Wishing Well is a hack of Stewpot by Takuma Okada. It was edited by Marn, art by Cody Hawley. This is a ttrpg inspired by Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Harvest Moon. It is a GMless game where you will play a series of mini games to tell a story.”
Earlier this month I was asking my various game groups if they could think of any systems with the same feel as Animal Crossing. Lots of systems have cute animals, but that chilled out kindness of running away and joining the scenery of a Ghibli movie can be hard to capture in an RPG – where’s the story? But Wishing Well fills that exact void, letting your (pretend to) run away from your responsibilities and move to a peaceful town far far away. There probably won’t be any monsters to slay or murders to solve, but not every story has to be a grand adventure to be worth telling.
One Shot Adventures: Random Tables
“All tables visible in Preview
Ideas and tables for One Shot Adventures
Includes…
Quick Adventure Tables (Characters, objective, extra, start, event)
The Player Characters (Characters descriptor, shared theme, same race or class, other character group background)
Adventure Objective (Objective type, general objective lower & higher level, location objective, location descriptor, location, adversary objective, adversary descriptor, adversary creature type, item objective, item descriptor, item type)
Adventure Details (Theme, starting the adventure, scenes and events, obstacles and hazards)
Adventure NPCs (Descriptor, npc type, possible adventure role, possible relationship with a PC)
During the Adventure (Something happens!, clues and discoveries)
Finishing Up (Possible reward, finishing scene, possible sequel)
Also of interest might be the Terrain Encounters Bundle or Spider Woods.”
The Sikahla
“THE SIKAHLA RACE SUPPLEMENT
This supplement will allow you to play tiny void based characters, with a fragile existence and unique abilities and ways to apprehend the world around them.
Inside you will find
– A bit of lore concerning the origins and lives of Sikahlas
– The Race itself with 3 unique variants (Natural Born, Gloomy One, Beast of Darkness)
– 3 racial feats to develop your racial traits
– Information on how sikahlas are named.
Contains a printer friendly version”
Do you know what Sikahla are? I sure don’t, but any “tiny void creature” is A-ok in my book. I want to know everything about these itty-bity gloom people and the void they’re from. If your campaign needs something dark and adorable consider a Sikahla. And then let me know everything there is to know about them.
Bullywugs
“Play as an amphibious Bullywug in your D&D adventures! Included in the product:
-
The Bullywug Player Race
-
5 Sub-Races (Tree, Horned, Poisondart, Toad, and Cave)”
Do I think Bullywugs are neat? Yes. Have I been listening to a lot of NADDPOD this week? Also yes. Bullywugs are an underappreciated monster that you can now play as your character! You can’t tell me that being a giant poison dart frog with magic doesn’t sound awesome.
Shipwrecked!
“An interactive narrative solo adventure for level 1 characters
Summary:
Barely surviving a storm at sea, a novice adventurer wakes on a tiny tropical island.
A mysterious ally offers guidance through many perils as the adventurer engages in a life-or death struggle to escape!
Special features:
- Gorgeous, full-colour battle maps for every combat encounter
- Two-player adjustment rules for duo play
- Suggestions for expanding the adventure as a standard, multiplayer module”
Since many of us are indoors and alone a little more than we’d like these days, solo games are so especially helpful and entertaining right now. With full color maps, adjustable rules, and a swashbuckling story of survival Shipwrecked! is a perfect way to continue gaming when you need to take on a solo mission.
To Free The Storm
“When a Dragon asks you to do a job, its a good idea to say yes.
The PCs are taking a rest in a village near a blasted area of land surrounding a dormant volcano. A pleasant afternoon of drinking ale is interrupted by a dragon who demands they travel to a ruined temple and release him from a magical shackle a mage put on him many years ago. If they do not, the dragon will burn the village to the ground.
The binding orb lies in the centre of an ancient temple, guarded by all manner of creatures and a long forgotten order of knights. Getting to the ord will be hard enough, but should the PCs really free the dragon from its chains, and what will happen to them if they don’t?
This adventure is designed for a group of 5th to 7th level characters.”
The classic fantasy adventure with the twist of dragon helping instead of hunting, To Free the Storm looks interesting and dynamic in a way that I love seeing in D&D games. Rife with difficult decisions and challenging encounters, this is a game for serious adventurers (or higher level goofballs). Would you free the dragon? What’s the worst that could happen?
Are you picking up anything new this week? What games are you giving a try? Is there anything you’re still waiting to come out? Let us know in the comments.
Happy Adventuring!
