the dawn of a new era ⚔️ out of the underworld and onto the battlefield.
some cool pics @ritualdust took of me and april's total solar eclipse. i'm feeling very in line with the season this year, and with the return of the sun after totality, i feel ready for a new personal and creative cycle. EP 2 is looking like it will be very battle-themed, supported by everything i learned about music and myself making EP 1.
Below are books I’ve read over the last year, with notes about on what I thought of them. I started this list just to remind me what the books were about and if I thought they were worth reading. As the year went on, my notes became a little more substantial. The list was for me, but I thought I’d share in case it’s useful...
You're taking an off-hand joke comment pretty seriously there, bud.
I'm a proponent of things like solar and nuclear, but having some kind of fantasy position of them being perfect technologies with no downsides whatsoever is a special kind of delusional.
You want to actually convince people of their benefits? Stop making up dream scenarios and provide realistic examples.
Perhaps we should look into kick starting and crowdfunding solar punk technocratic communes in rural middle america.
Not to poo poo your fantasy or whatever, but this sounds like every tech bro’s “build an island country” when they get their first billion.
Most cities weren’t built where they were purely by chance or coincidence. Infrastructure is hard and complicated to build, and relies on natural resources being somewhat available locally in most cases.
Even if you manage to build it, there’s no guarantee they will come.
So all our evidence about life is from a sample of 1: 1 planet and it’s development. Everything else is extrapolated from that. We don’t know what rates of evolution should be or could be.
Also in terms of civilizations leaving junk everywhere, that is potentially true. But we also only have a sample of 1: 1 planet and 1 solar system which we have barely scratched the surface of.
The absence of evidence is not evidence in itself. We will have to go out in to the universe to see what is there.
In terms of travel to other systems - in theory self replicating ships could spread across the galaxy to every system in about 500 thousand years at sublight speed. Space travel is not doable in a humans life time, but it is doable on the scale of a stable civilizations efforts to spread into the galaxy.
There are also theoretical ways to travel faster than life. Whether they are pure fantasy or potential science only time will tell. We still can’t even detect much of the universe, let alone begin to manipulate it.
We simply know too little to know what is going on in the galaxy. To say “there is nobody out there” is just a possibility, not a certainty.
Hydrogen is simply too expensive to store for any real mass power use. H2 is nothing more than the latest fantasy of folks trying to find a reason to avoid investing in solar.
Alright, so. I actually had a horrible childhood since infancy, and Chris/Solemn is semi-autobiographical. The novel explores not so much the events in Solemn’s history, as how it affects them now, focusing on healing and on the craving for loving family that they had since they were small. Like Chris, I also fantasized from a very young age about being rescued from abuse, neglect, and abandonment by strangers, who would pity, love, and care for me. And so the novel explores Chris discovering and grappling with attachment disorder among the other issues. When I was that age, I also wanted to be Don Bluth; and I spent most of my life writing, drawing, and creating music that channeled my trauma, feelings, and what I was learning into art.
My novel’s spiritual predecessors always had that intelligent child character. I both wanted them to be a “woobie” child, but also able to have experienced enough to become “broken”, and to learn to heal. And I wanted the power fantasy where they saved their family and the world. While in previous ideas the setting was different, I ultimately settled on an afterlife to raise the stakes; to allow the setting to more naturally encourage talk about healing, self-improvement, and important timely topics; and to allow a true “happily ever after” wish fulfillment. So this afterlife the novel takes place in now has really cool themes and features. Reincarnation pods that determine your new body based on what your psyche wants, all situated on the space station Advent Terminus. Spaceships, sub-light travel, psychic features and tech that work with them, and a lot of domestic technology that makes living and productivity easier. I wouldn’t call this “hard sci-fi” by a long shot, but it is pretty well-thought-out, grounded, and pragmatic. Seraphs themselves have science fantasy powers— telepathy between seraphs (which has a really cool explanation that factors into the plot in several ways), and “ionic fields” they form around their bodies or other objects. The ionic fields separate them from outside matter and forces, which allows for defying gravity (flight), telekinesis, near-invulnerability, and sub-light travel at .9x. Spaceships and Advent Terminus also use ionic fields to keep in atmosphere, maintain gravity, leave or enter a planet’s atmosphere easily, and travel at .3x.
For Chris’s new name, they didn’t want anyone from Earth to remember them. They wanted to start anew. The first night that Chris’s new foster mom brings them home, she validates Chris’s bad life and their deserving to be loved. She then reads them a poem about appreciating the duality of a bad day, called “Sing a Solemn Song”. So they choose the name “Solemn”.
As for the political side, seraphs separate humans to one of four of the five planets based on simple and pragmatic definitions of their ethical and emotional maturity, and encourage individuals to improve themselves so they can “ascend” to another planet in the solar system if they wish. Seraphs are social workers and keepers of the peace, and only get involved in government if human rights are being systemically violated. This system allows people to become better so they can move away from a more problematic and exploitative planet/society, potentially to the paradisical planet. But peoples’ lives are generally pretty good regardless of the planet, due to the foundations seraphs set and make sure are still working, as well as the seraphs’ social work when needed.
So about the planet separation. Eris is for people who believe they are good, or want to be good, but who struggle to challenge their flaws. They might be, say, your grandma who goes to church and helps with charity, but who believe interracial marriage and trans people are bad. Or they might be self-righteous against, say, people who do casual drug usage. Nemesis however is for people who know they are harmful and simply don’t yet care. So Nemesis is a soft prison where people have their own homes and jobs, but seraphs have more say in laws and they make sure people are separated better so they’re not harming others. So what if people from Nemesis want to become better, so they are allowed to leave? Well, a lot of people on Eris don’t believe in forgiveness or in rehabilitation, and they often rely on platforms of self-righteousness and fear. And KAPE is the most-prominent group of such people, and are political activists. And our husband-and-wife main villain duo are at the head of this.
What’s more is this issue extends to Solemn’s new family— though I won’t spoil why. Something happens concerning it, and… long story short, Solemn becomes a seraph. But when the seraphs are killed by the main antagonists and KAPE, Solemn isn’t affected nearly as much due to the psychic feature I vaguely mentioned before, and they are the last seraph remaining. Until our villain duo kidnaps Solemn to read their mind and learn how it happened (same way minds are read when first arriving so seraphs can present the body you want to you, and place and help you when you are reincarnated). Then the husband becomes a beefed up seraph, and the spouses and their KAPE military continue their war on the world order.
The villains, Solemn’s family members, and the supporting characters (including their helper android Iota) are all really richly-developed and cool, too, and have their own major struggles that factor into the story heavily. But that’s another post altogether.
If you have any more questions, I would love to answer them. I love getting questions or feedback. I also upload a semi-public WIP draft as I work on it, if you want to see any of it. I warn though that it’s still cheesy or unfocused at a few points.
Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen has again slammed the federal Coalition’s “nuclear fantasy”, describing it as a deliberate distraction and the latest “desperate effort” to keep the culture war over energy and climate alive....
That is not solar punk. Solar punk is a peaceful vision of the future in harmony with the planetary boundaries. This is militaristic fantasy with more of the color green than usual.
When you create a world, do you also create other worlds in the same system? Do you have solar systems in your fantasy book? How big do you go? How detailed?
Holy guacamole, look at this showstopping #heliodor! Isn't that an amazing gilded #yellow?
It looks like if you planted it, watered it, and played a little gentle classical music that a whole entire solar system would sprout from the ground overnight.
Very #magical looking #jewel just begging to be wrapped up in some cerebral silver fantasy.
I’m sure I am not the only one who’s getting a little jaded with AI-generated visions of the future. The AI style and content are starting to feel very generic. Even though there are many style and content options, they all draw on similar information in a similar way, so we are just seeing the same raw material rehashed in different ways.
Not only are we seeing the same content, but we are also witnessing a replication of the current worldview projected into the future. In many cases, we are extrapolating the mistakes we have made in urban planning today into the future. Most visions of the future appear to feature more roads, cars, skyscrapers, and what we currently perceive as “modern” looking buildings.
Most AI-generated Solar Punk images miss out on the fundamental economics and the reality of building sustainably. Many of these AI buildings of the future would require the same massive industrial complexes we have today. They would need cutting-edge materials and technology that only a few have access to. Buildings are overtly elaborate and complex and don’t allow for ad-hoc organic growth. None of this stuff can really have a place in a Solar Punk future. While we can create wonderful, elaborate public buildings, we need our urbanism and homes to be simple, modest, human-scale, and harmonized with the environment. They need to be easy to build by local craftsmen using local materials.
AI can be prompted to create these images and to envision a more realistic Solar Punk future, but few people have appeared to figure out why and how. Pascal Wicht, a strategic designer specializing in tackling complex and ill-defined problems, has, in his new series, I believe, achieved this.
Pascal describes himself as “an expert in upstream explorations, discovery research and listening to systems. I am skilled in future-oriented and critical design, harnessing weak signals of change. Advocating for active stakeholder inclusion, I am exploring, prototyping and co-creating sustainable solutions. Read his full Bio HERE
His project “Future Visualizations for Preferable Futures” captures a lot of both the realistic and desirable aspects of Solar Punk. They are not perfect images; they veer into fantasy and have the usual AI imperfections, but they are still some of the best Solar Punk AI images I have seen. I just hope our children will not be hideously deformed like this in the future! 🙂
It’s really worth reading his comments and understanding how and why he created many of the images in this series. HERE I also appreciate the work Pascal has put into looking at public transit and how rail plays an integral part in a Preferable Future.
I like the fact that many of these cities look more like holiday homes. Why wouldn’t we want every day to feel like a holiday? Why wouldn’t we build our cities like this? They feel like playful, carefree, and relaxing spaces. They don’t feel like our current cities, which simply feel like an extension of industrial complexes, with only the most wealthy able to live in lovely streets filled with trees and nature.
I also appreciate the modular, prefab design of many of the buildings, which may be the way we build everything in the future. The vertical farming integrated into the city, in such a way as it makes the city more beautiful, also intrigues me. Not like the current vertical farms, which are giant sterile boxes cut off from the city. Looking at different biomes and climates, materials, transitional architectural styles, as well as envisioning the building during construction, all make these the best Solar Punk images I’ve seen. Just without solar panels! But then again, Pascal never describes his work as Solar Punk anyway.
The Summary at the bottom of the Preferable Future Habitats page is excellent. I’m just sharing 3 points here:
Redefining lifestyle and work culture: It speculates on societal shifts such as a four-day workweek and a semi-nomadic, minimal living lifestyle, questioning current work and life paradigms.
Architectural and ecological challenges: The project also explores the architectural and ecological challenges in creating these habitats, considering weather conditions and the need for resilient infrastructure.
Visual style and challenges: The visual style avoids stereotypical futuristic tropes and focuses on a more realistic, relatable aesthetic. Challenges like incorporating vegetation, paths and managing lighting elements and moods are part of the creative process.
And if for some reason you are not inspired by all that, some of his other galleries like “Six Alpha” are excellent. As a fan of Wabi Sabi, Japanese Aesthetics, and Zen Buddhism, I loved this gallery too. HERE
It is not a fantasy. In fact, the opposite is true. The problem is that you are wildly out of touch with recent events. You are still pretending like it is 2004, not realizing that that was 20 years ago. Green hydrogen is a rapidly growing market and is following the trajectory of wind and solar.
I just realized that since this community is new, it’s going to be listed on the front page of SLRPNK.net, so I should do a bit more explanation and promotion....
Background: yesterday, there was heated discussion in the thread “military-industrial complex is a supervillain of causing the climate crisis” (link)....
Unilateral disarmament is a utopian fantasy with 0 respect for reality. Bad people are in power and do bad things, such as invade sovereign nations for their own gain.
I like the solar punk ethos but part of being any punk is standing up to fascists and bullies. And if that fascist has tanks I’d rather have an anti-tank rifle than just my teeth.
One day hopefully we can all disarm… But I have no idea how we’d ever get there.
Here is a list for games that have official tabletop rpg adaptations, and unofficial ones that cite the game as the inspiration. I’m fascinated by adaptations of video games to ttrpgs and video games based on ttrpgs and wanted to see what was out there.
The title of each game links to a page where you can read more about the game or buy it. Eventually I’ll add games that would be a good fit for doing the tabletop version of the game and maybe also games that were based off tabletop rpgs. For time saving reasons, most of the descriptions just come from the Itch page they’re on. For the most part I’m not including D&D supplements on here aside from official ones just because I’m hoping this page will encourage people to check out new games. Also not including more broad inspirations and not that many supplements just because I have to have a cutoff somewhere, maybe in the future? If you’re just looking for the officially licensed rpgs, I don’t really have a good way to only show those in here. Just search for the word “Official” I guess, because I did mention it whenever those come up. For what it’s worth, I think a lot of the unofficial games are better than the officially licensed games so consider checking those out too.
It’s very likely I’ve missed a lot so please leave a comment if there’s a game you worked on or played that should be included.. Corrections are welcome too. If you see a game you made in here and think “It’s actually more like ____” then let me know!
Anthem AEGIS is a love-letter to looter-shooters like Anthem built with the LUMEN system
Armored Core Apocalypse Frame is a game built with the LUMEN rpg system. You are an Ace – a highly skilled pilot referred from a Division in The Collective and assigned a humanoid combat vehicle known as a Frame. You and your Strike Team of fellow Aces must take on The Collective’s greatest threats, ensure its survival, and carve a path for its continued success.
cover for Apocalypse Frame, showing a B&W image of a mechGUNBARE! is a power fantasy military-scifi TTRPG designed for 3-5 players. Inspired by the premise of Azure Lane, Armored Core, and the works of Tsutomu Nihei, play as a Fleetgirl, a living weapon onboard a generation ship currently running from a hostile alien empire.
Arx Fatalis Arx ObsKura is a LUMEN game inspired by Arkane Studios’ 2002 rpg Arx Fatalis and old-school adventure tabletop roleplaying games. Using six-sided dice and Tarot cards, you and your friends will plumb the deep places between cities, braving Eclipse cultists, ratfolk, Ylsian Knights, and more as you find your way in the dark.
Assassin’s Creed The Assassin is a solo game using the Wretched & Alone system where you are playing an assassin’s last mission
Atlas Reactor Cyberrats was inspired by games like Atlas Reactor, XCOM, Shadowrun, and Band of Blades. Players will control two Operatives who have been genetically engineered, and/or a giant rat. Operatives go on missions, fighting the military, the invading aliens, or members of other megacorps.
Bloodborne Beneath a Cursed Moon is a Gothic fantasy game that uses a system based on the Apocalypse World engine. Take the role of monster hunters and slay vampires, werewolves, mermen, and more in a game inspired by Castlevania and Bloodborne.
Borderlands GUNFUCKS is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by games such as Borderlands and Bulletstorm that is built on the LUMEN system.
Boyfriend Dungeon
It’s not out yet but Boyfriend Dungeon is receiving an official tabletop rpg.
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
While it’s based off the book license and not directly from the game, Callahan’s did receive a GURPS supplement.
Captain Blood BABY?! is a game where your soul has been scattered across an alien planet and you must retrieve the fragments with the help of a universal translator. The game is focused on exploration and players using images to communicate with each other.
Castlevania A Castle Outside Time is a one page rpg has players exploring a dungeon and is inspired by Castlevania style exploration and has a Dark Souls style resting mechanic
Huntervania is a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) tabletop role playing game that explores the lives of vampire and monster hunters in a gothic setting.
Let’s Kill Dracula is a 2 player rpg about being trapped in Dracula’s castle and needing to destroy him.
Crypt of the Necrodancer I Have Enough Training is a narrative adventure journaling game and a hack of “The Adventurer” by James Chip. It was inspired by Crypt of the Necrodancer
Necrocarta is a solo Carta game where players explore a mysterious dungeon on a quest to find the Heart of the Crypt.
FUTILE LAMENTATIONS: DARK EXISTENCE is a pamphlet ttrpg inspired by Darkest Dungeon where you must face the horrors that afflict The Village, continue your Campaign knowing that you can die or fall into madness at any moment.
Dark Souls
There are actually two official Dark Souls rpgs. One that was released in Japan by Group SNE and one that is in English by Steamforged. The Group SNE game has unofficial English translations floating around online that I won’t link to here but are pretty easy to find.
There’s also lots of ttrpgs inspired by Dark Souls.
Bleak Spirit is a storytelling game where you and your friends create a brooding, cryptic tale about a stranger in a strange land.
Bonfire & Blade is a rules-lite tabletop RPG inspired by the setting and themes of Dark Souls, with a system based on the pamphlet RPG Vampires & Claymores. It can be run by one person facilitating the game as the Fire Keeper, with one or more players exploring the world, and a handful of 6-sided dice in two colors.
Dice Souls is a zero prep Souls-like dungeon exploration game for one or two players.
Exhumed is a pamphlet dungeon inspired by Dark Souls tutorial levels: short and somewhat linear, but meant to set the stage, give opportunities to learn the style of play, and offer hints of interesting things to come.
Fever is a tabletop roleplaying game for a Game Master and players where you play as Chosen struggling against a cruel world as you hope to rebuild the broken Sun.
Grave is a toolkit for soulslike fantasy TTRPG play built on the rules for Knave.
Death Stranding
The Death Stranding Solo-RPG is a one player ttrpg where players control a Porter and explore outside of their starting City in search of Preppers, Distribution Centers, Cities, and the resources to connect them to each other.
Deep Rock Galactic Bedrock Mining LLC is a push your luck mining game inspired by Deep Rock Galactic
Desert Bus Bus of the Desert is a solo game based on Desert Bus, an intentionally boring mini game created for an unreleased Penn and Teller game
Desert Golfing
While it works with any form of Golf, the GOLF system was originally designed for play with Desert Golfing
Destiny LIGHT is an homage to Destiny. “LIGHT is a rules-lite, power fantasy tabletop RPG designed using an early version of the LUMEN system. It’s all about creating powerful characters, called Beacons, and feeling incredible badass as you take on dangerous missions and collect valuable loot.“
Diablo “ANGELSPAWN is a high-action combat game about humans with angelic lineage fighting an unending war against the tides of evil. It is a love letter to one of my all-time favorite games—Diablo—and is powered by the LUMEN system, created by Spencer Campbell. The game focuses on frenetic combat, waves and waves on enemies, randomized loot, and slowly improving your character towards a perfect killing machine.”
Dishonored
Received an official TTRPG from Modiphius that included involvement from the folks who worked on the video games.
paKtbound is a streamlined tabletop role-playing game built with the LUMEN system and inspired by Arkane Studio’s Dishonored series. Take on the role of the Paktbound, poor wretches who have pledged themselves to the service of the Stranger, as they tackle heists and hits in the rotten city of light and mirrors.
Dungeon Keeper RISE: A Game of Spreading Evil is a map drawing game that puts you in control of a monstrous dungeon as you seek to reach the surface and take over their puny kingdoms.
Dwarf Fortress DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game is a map drawing game that puts you in control of a dwarven hold as you discover the horrors that lurk below.
Elden Ring RUNE is a solo tabletop RPG inspired by the soulslike genre of video games, including Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. In RUNE, you are a wanderer of the lands of Obron. The world is dangerous, but full of power if you are willing to reach out and take it.
The Elder Scrolls UESRPG is a free unofficial game based on the Elder Scrolls series of games.
There is also After\Burner, a tabletop roleplaying game focused on fast and positional starfighter combat and military sci-fi drama that was made with the LUMEN system.
Emperor of the Fading Suns
The official ttrpg was developed internally at the same time as the computer game
Encarta MindExplorer is a single-player tabletop roleplaying game inspired by the MindMaze game in Encarta and the aesthetics of educational materials from the 1990’s. You will explore a building constructed from your imagination during a dream you have one night and meet the characters that live inside it.
FFRPG is another free rpg that’s been built by fans and has been ongoing since the 90s.
Final Fantasy VII Into the Glacier is a solo journaling game inspired by the glacier sequence in FF7.
Final Fantasy XIV Online
An official ttrpg is currently in development
In the LUMEN system game Crystalline, players are Heritors, the bearers of Soul Stones- mnemocite gems which record the deeds and powers of the great heroes who once bore them. Players embark on adventures to topple the Empire, face the Shadows, and extinguish the fires of war which threaten to burn all to ash.
Final Fantasy Tactics Arma Fantasia Tactics is fantasy adventure roleplaying with an emphasis on character & loadout customization and tactical action.
FTL: Faster Than Light Faster Than Light is a solo Wretched & Alone game inspired by the video game FTL, a solo journaling game about perseverance and about being the AI that controls a spaceship warping through the galaxy in order to save humanity.
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers Accomplice is inspired by the Gabriel Knight series. You play as a research assistant for someone like Gabriel Knight as they investigate supernatural cases.
Game Genie
I suppose technically it’s not a video game and more of a cheat device for them, but there’s a couple of adaptations of the Game Genie for TTRPGs. Game Genie Apocalypse is a set of 23 moves for PBTA games inspired by video games.
https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/rpgenieis a method of integrating cheat codes and game alterations to tabletop gaming by sharing your favorite ephemera with your friends.
Heroes of Hammerwatch GRIT is a rogue-like inspired dungeon crawler inspired by Heroes of Hammerwatch where the aim of the game is to send in waves of ’20-minute’ mercenaries to loot gold, gain glory, and vanquish enemies.
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia Champions of Power and Dread is a dark fantasy strategic roleplaying game where you command legions of fell beasts.
Hypnospace Outlaw Alone in Cyberspace is a solo tabletop game about exploring the archive of a defunct network of webpages from decades ago.
In Other Waters In Other Waters: Tidebreak is a supplement for the horror ttrpg Mothership that is set in the In Other Waters universe. The supplement is playable in either as a group or solo and designed to be less stressful than the typical Mothership adventure.
Jet Set Radio Disposable Heroes is a fast paced tabletop RPG set in a near-future fantasy world city named Neo-Francisco. You play as package delivery people with incredible abilities, doing their best to survive and get that 5 Star rating that means they can eat that week.
Underground Broadcast is a micro-RPG about nimble graffiti punks kicking off the rebellion against a tyrannical organization.
The Journeyman Project Project Hypaethrus: Windows To Time has players create create unique Travelers to explore the past. Time-Travelers need to hide their existence to the temporal locals, so they take on new Personas while in the past. However, relying too much on their Past Persona can Bleed into their own identity.
Kingdom Hearts Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined is a tabletop RPG about our connections with other people, the power we draw from those connections, and traveling to different worlds. It runs on the Powered by the Apocalypse engine. The game is built to allow players to combine characters from various properties.
Knockout City
Received a free official ttrpg in 2023 by Adira Slattery & Eric Feurstein
The Legend of Dragoon Chain Attacks is a system-agnostic combat mechanic for emulating Additions from “Legend of Dragoon”
The Legend of Zelda Courage is a solo RPG using the Carta System to create a dungeon-crawling experience inspired by games from “The Legend Of Zelda” series. You’ll play as the recently awoken Hero of Courage, exploring Dungeons and gathering power for your final confrontation against evil incarnate.
Forgotten Ballad is a minimalist Adventure Game – TTRPG, if you prefer – heavily inspired by The Legend Of Zelda series and the OSR movement.
Loom Loom is a fan fiction game based off the classic Lucasarts adventure game of the same name. It’s a solo journaling game where you explore the game’s world using the mechanics described in the book and write about what happens.
Magicka The Wizards of Many Hats is a game of swords and sorcery where players can cast spells by evoking the eight fundamental elements: Water, Life, Barrier, Cold, Electricity, Arcane, Earth & Fire.
Mega Man X METALUMAN is a ttrpg built with the LUMEN system as its engine and foundation for fast-paced action inspired by Capcom’s MegaMan X series.
Monster Hunter
There are a lot of indie ttrpgs inspired by the Monster Hunter series. Monster Guts is a game using the LUMEN system.
Apex Predator is a single-player game inspired by Monster Hunter, in which you explore an ancient forest, tracking down and fighting titanic monsters. Along the way, you’ll face peril and find that the natural world may just be on your side.
Monster Rancher
In Raising Hell, a solo TTRPG based on Monster Rancher, you’ll help your Devil grow from a baby into an adult, training it all the while so it can be a proper Devil and win one of the numerous Tournaments available in the underworld!
Moonlighter Shopkeeper Showdown is inspired by Moonlighter and has you running a shop and looting dungeons
Mortal Shell Beast Souls is a tabletop role-playing game for 2 players set in a dreamlike / virtual / metaphorical / alternative world (for the most accustomed to the world of anime, an “isekai”) where the hero is the spirit of whoever has put their body at stakes to get something special from a world other than their own.
Myst
With Myst being one of the best-selling games ever, it’s not surprising that it has inspired a few tabletop rpgs. Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond is a game that uses the Myst license and uses the FATE core system for the foundation of its rules. The game is strongly influenced by Uru/Myst Online and has players exploring modern or historical D’ni and the ages connected to it. The game has received a few smaller supplements as well as a larger sourcebook that was recently Kickstarted and focused on the reconstruction of D’ni
There’s fan games too. Bring the Page With You is a free one-page ttrpg where there is no GM/DM and is focused on players collaborating together to create Myst ages.
Outer Wilds Pale Dot is a collaborative storytelling game for 2-5 players about a crew of non-human cosmonauts leaving their planet to explore a strange solar system, finding threads to unravel the unknown along the way.
Paper Mario is a TTRPG with a 2d platforming battle grid inspired by Paper Mario and Bug Fables
Path of Exile Path of the Tainted is a LUMEN game is inspired by “Path of Exile”, players will slay hordes of monsters to acquire powerful loot and abilities. But most importantly they will be able to create their own Powers by combining them with upgrades.
Persona
Inspired by the Persona series, Voidheart Symphony is a tabletop roleplaying game about mundane people diving into a demon-filled labyrinth to save the ones they love.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Ace Attorneys is a TTRPG built with LUMEN for 3 players. It heavily relies on improvisation for all three players and is meant to be played for 30 – 60 minutes.
Justicar is a game inspired by the Ace Attorney series. Players each embody a unique key Role as they collaboratively tell the story of a crime and its mysteries.
In the unofficial Phoenix Wright ttrpg, players are divided into prosecution and defense parties, and then each performs its own DM led investigation of a crime scene.
Pokémon ForeverDex is a game played by mail where you generate new magical creatures through another players zip code
Pokemon Dungeon Crawler is an unofficial Pokémon dungeon crawler. You play as a Pokémon in a world after humans. You get a dungeon delving class (cleric, fighter, magic-user), you get a backpack, a weapon, and you head out on an adventure.
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor
This is kind of an odd one to include since it’s a D&D computer game, which is not really something I want to delve into too much but I thought it was interesting that this game launched with a D&D 3rd edition tie in
Project Zomboid Superesse Mortuus is a d100 system game about surviving in a world full of zombies
Quake GRIM is a fast paced rpg where you fight eldritch horrors
Resident Evil The Mansion Incident is a solo dungeon-crawling RPG and a hack of Escape from Demon Castle Dracula by Rob Hebert. In The Mansion Incident you take on the role of a member of the Investigation and Rescue Implementation Service (I.R.I.S.) – an elite group of detectives tasked with finding, and in some cases liberating, missing persons in the sprawling mountains of the Midwestern United States – as you recover your team from a sinister, labyrinthian mansion that hides secrets and danger behind every door.
Biocalypse is a minimalist, Resident Evil-inspired adventure game for 2—6 players.
Resident Evil 2 Escape: Outbreak is an escape room-style ttrpg inspired by Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil: Village
It turns out there are a bunch of games inspired by the tall vampire lady. Tall Vampire Ladies is a one page hack of Lasers and Feelings about trying to get a guy out of your castle
Tall Lady Castle Game is an 8 page single player (or small group) TTRPG about being an ancient monster that’s really bad at expressing its feelings.
The designer of that also made a companion game called Oh Do Not Find Me In This Castle Please, a solo game where you are the intruder wanting to get caught
Rimworld UMBRA: A Solo Game of Final Frontiers is a map drawing game that puts you in control of a sci-fi colony as you struggle against starvation, the void, and the many threats that will assail you from above and below.
Rocket Jockey raptor 2057 is a fast-paced racing RPG inspired by the wip3out series, the hectic F-Zero series, the classic romp Rocket Jockey (1996), and John Harper’s Wildlings (2015).
Sable Of That Colossal Wreck is an open-world exploration TTRPG set in a post-apocalyptic setting for 1 to 4 players. Using a deck of cards, players will explore a wasteland, and build card house Ruins to explore.
Samorost Pocket Full of Stars is a cozy two-player ttrpg inspired by Samorost where the players have the roles of an Astronomer and the Storyteller and work together to tell a story about a giant jumping from planet to planet and meeting people.
The Secret of Monkey Island Blood Mountain Resort & Spa is a free download for fantasy ttrpgs. Inspired by the Monkey Island series, players explore a pirate themed resort. The NPCs are statted for DURF but the rest of the supplement is built to be system neutral.
screenshot from the Blood Mountain Resort & Spa book showing a skeleton pirate having a nice drinkShadow of the Beast The Shadow & the Beast is a two-player roleplaying game inspired by the classic video game Shadow of the Beast. One player controls the Beast as it fights its way toward the Shadow, the evil overlord that stole its life and forced it to carry out terrible acts of violence. The other player serves as the Gamemaster (GM), controlling the Beast’s adversaries and any other characters while also setting scenes for the action.
Shadow of the Colossus On the Shoulders of Colossus includes rules for running colossal games as well as stat blocks for every colossus from the game
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Honor Among Thieves is a tribute micro TTRPG (for 3+ players) about the thievish activities of a group of honorable master thieves who seek to only steal from other criminals.
Sonic the Hedgehog Radical Spin is a micro-RPG about melodramatic action animals for 2-5 players.
Rainbow Runaways is a Sonic-inspired TTRPG based on the Caltrop Core system, and is played with D4s and a deck of cards.
Soul Sacrifice
Sacrifice arcane objects, blood, and limbs to cast spells in Soul Sacrifice, a TTRPG based on the PSVITA exclusive. Requires a tarot deck.
Space Quest 24XX Unlikely Heroes – Space Questing is a rules-lite sci-fi RPG hack of the 2400 system. Inspired by the old-school Sierra adventure series “Space Quest”, and its bumbling space janitor hero Roger Wilco, UHSQ can be used to run a no-prep sci-fi game that is more on the humorous, light-hearted side.
Star Control Capax Astra is a vaporwave space opera RPG inspired by Star Control, about exploring sectors full of strange alien people. It uses the Fate RPG system.
Street FighterII
White Wolf created an official game using their ttrpg storytelling framework in 1994
Streets of Rage Justice Sworn is a solo ttrpg by Sandy Pug Games that is inspired by brawlers like Streets of Rage and Final Fight
Subnautica Water Landing is a Carta-powered scenario for the Cast Away RPG. To play, you need the Cast Away rules
Sundered PHOTON is a tabletop roleplaying game for 2 players about fighting back an all consuming singularity, based on the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell. Inspired by games like Hyper Light Drifter and Sundered, it aims to bring eerie exploration and lightning fast battles to tabletop.
Super Smash Bros is a one page hack of John Harper’s Lasers and Feelings for having two unrelated characters fight each other.
Suspended ERROR is a Play Out Loud text adventure where you control a robot that must fix a city’s mainframe and references Infocom designer Michael Berlyn
Tetris Scraps is a feel-good game about sharing, about harmony with nature, about bewilderment and curiosity. Inspired by Minecraft and Tetris, it uses polyominoes as part of the crafting aspect of it.
Thief: The Dark Project Blades in the Dark is an incredibly influential tabletop role-playing game about a crew of daring scoundrels seeking their fortunes on the haunted streets of an industrial-fantasy city. The book cites Dishonored and Thief: The Dark Project as influences. It’s maybe a stretch to say it’s based on those games but whatever, I’m putting it here.
Tomb Raider The Temple of Karthis is a solo dungeon crawling game using cards and dice and inspired by Tomb Raider.
Untitled Goose Game Sneak Honk is a hack of Honey Heist inspired by Untitled Goose Game
Warframe Frame is a ttrpg using the LUMEN system that was an homage to Warframe. The Warframe community got really weird and harassed the creator of the game so it was briefly made free and then changed to $5000.
The Witcher
Technically it was a book first but all of these are based on the video game series. R Talsonian created an official ttrpg using the game’s license from CD Projekt
On The Path is a hack of Honey Heist by Grant Howitt, where players take on the roles of Monster Slayers investigating a mystery after receiving a strange letter.
The World Ends With You Heartbeats in Perfect Sync is a tabletop RPG inspired by the shounen battle aesthetic in games like The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts and Under Night In-Birth. Play as a group of ordinary people who fight monsters with ridiculously over-the-top weapons.
Vibe Check is an illuminated by LUMEN tabletop role-playing game for 3-6 players inspired by The World Ends With You.
World of Warcraft An official ttrpg was released in 2005 using a d20 system
XCOM: Enemy Unknown INTRUDER: EARTHLY ENTITY is an action rpg Illuminated by LUMEN. Inspired by the XCOM series, players are the last survivors of an Earth taken over by extraterrestrial forces and must Establish contact with other resistance cells, Free nations from the control of the ALIEN ENTITY, and rescue Earth.
T-DEF is a GMless game that comes in two 8-page mini zines: the Tactical Handbook that contains the rules for character creation and taking actions; and the Operations Manual, that contains everything you need to create missions for your troopers. T-DEF also has a sequel game.
Zork Parsely is a collection of games where a group of players control one character by telling one player, known as the Parser, what they would like to do in the form of text adventure commands and the Parser describes what happens next. The collection even features a trilogy of Zork-like games known as Action Castle. The creator of Parsely has a few games in the series on their Itch page.
Uresia: Grave of Heaven is a system-neutral setting book by S. John Ross that is strongly inspired by the Zork series, with there even being a section explaining how it influenced the book and why they love the series so much. The book is now available for free here. Check it out and then consider hiring him for book or map design if you’re a ttrpg designer. The author also wrote a Z-Machine text adventure game that ranks as Polite on Andrew Plotkin’s cruelty scale. This game is also available for free.
I appreciate your suggestions and detailed reply. That mod looks spicy haha!
The games I mentioned do have a significant combat elements in them - but the combat isn’t the reason I play them. I don’t mind combat provided that combat isn’t the whole focus, and that the difficulty can be turned down to “cheat mode” the combat and just get on with it. Hell, I’ll break them down, cause this thread has traction and maybe it’s interesting to you and others :)
Chronotrigger is a SNES era Japanese RPG – lots of plot, story, time travel shenanigans, branching story with multiple endings, and also encounters with monsters which are handled with turn-based menu driven combat (so combat isn’t button mashing at all!). It’s old now, but still very good. My favourite trivial example of attention to detail, particularly in the context of time travel shenanigans: there’s a chest in a cave that you can access in multiple timelines – open the chest in the past, and it’ll be empty in the future; so open it in the future first, and then go back to the past and open it again and grab the contents twice! Etc. Here’s a classic bit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_JEhBGDsrY – minor spoilers.
Tales of Symphonia is a GameCube era RPG – unfortunately it has real time combat, complete with button mashing – combat feels like an arcade. But on the easiest setting, you sort of let your AI-controlled companions manage the fight, and you can just mash one attack until combat is done. The rest of the game is mint though, with a lot of inter-NPC dialogue, exploration, a good story, good voice acting (for its era), etc. You have no idea how much time I spent finding recipes for cooking in this one while ignoring combat haha. Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tAYiO8NSLU
The Witcher 3 is a semi-open world fantasy setting – third person view, swords and sorcery stuff. It has a big focus on monsters, so you do have to go out there and hunt them. But it’s not just random encounters. Each monster has a story, and a reason you’re hunting them. It’s probably the gold standard in open world exploration - or maybe it was before Baldur’s Gate 3. Since you recommended romance – there’s a bunch of endings with different partners – here’s one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_FkPNdNcs
Outer Worlds is a first person shooter with exploration elements. On the easiest difficulty, the combat sort of slides off of you, and you can focus on the exploration side. It’s kind of a “ship and crew” feel that evokes Firefly (the TV show) where you go around collecting companions and solving the mystery of this corporate hellhole of a solar system. It’s well crafted and I hope there is more like this out there somewhere. It sort of scratches the Mass Effect itch, while being entirely different in story. Samples: www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHXNV7kFcE
Mass Effect is a third person shooter with major RPG elements. Half the time you’re bombing around in your moon buggy looking for crashed satellites, or trying to romance the aliens you picked up, or trying to cure a plague or find out what happens if you endorse a product in a shop… In many ways, it set the gold standard for character oriented RPG interactions, with meaningful choices. Even the NPCs in the background are always having conversations that you just want to stop and listen to. For example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M
There was a Mass Effect trilogy re-release recently, where they got updated to be able to be played on the current generation of platforms, so I replayed it. Combat in Mass Effect 1 is still boring, but I’m going to scan every planet for anomalies, and drive my little moonbuggy around doing jumps trying to unveil the map of each little area of interest, damnit! And Mass Effect 2 is such a great experience that even the combat is acceptable. I shot the “kid” in my replay of Mass Effect 3 and didn’t know they made that do a thing and was so pumped by getting an unexpected ending compared to my first playthrough years ago. Sample with combat, cutscene, romance: www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gqrsFLhqo
If we’re out in the solar system, we can have a trillion humans in the solar system, which means we would have 1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins.
The world population now is ten times what it was in Mozart’s day. The reason we don’t have ten Mozarts now isn’t because of a population shortage, it’s because too many of those people are living in inescapable poverty so Bezos can indulge his fantasies.
@Zennblack@NoBeret these, and I say these because all of his neighbors are doing it too, bunkers are being built so they can survive a year or two Underground when the 10,000 year or more cyclical solar event happens that kills off most of the life on the surface with a solar flare or something equally radiative. This could be fantasy but it's what they think is coming down the pike
As #ClimateChange and extreme weather bump against decaying infrastructure, personal energy resilience becomes an increasing concern. I've been working at this for my own home the last four years. Here's the advice I wish I'd gotten.
If you have outages more than once a year, start with a generator. Of all your options, it has the lowest initial cost and works at all times of day and in all seasons.
Now, my FANTASY is using all my excess solar generation to create and store hydrogen, and an electric generator that runs on hydrogen
But we're not there yet, and maybe it wouldn’t even be practical
Still, battery is nice but I hate its price/performance. There has to be a better way. As ever across my lifetime, we await a breakthrough in energy storage.
These could be games that left a lasting impression on you, games that had stellar gameplay mechanics, characters that captivated you, games that you played tons of hours on, etc.
RTS by age: Dune 2, C&C, Tiberium Sun, Red Alert, Red Alert 2, WarCraft 2, StarCraft, Warcraft 3
Sim by age: Conway’s Game of Life, SimCity, SimCity 2000, The Sims, The Sims 2
Strategy by age: Civilization, Civilization 2, Masters of Orion
RPG by age: Final Fantasy 2 (4), Chrono Trigger, Pools of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind
Adventure by age: Pitfall, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, King’s Quest, Space Quest, Tomb Raider, Grim Fandango
Honorable mentions: Microsurgeon, E.T., AD&D Minotaur’s Labyrinth, Golden Axe, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ecco the Dolphin, Eternal Champions, Android Pinball, Solar Winds, Detroit (not Become Human; it was a car making sim on DOS), Crusader: No Remorse
Yeah, but the point is that if you want the real-world equivalent to the habitable worlds opened up by the protomolecule as regards Mars, that’s actually just the entire rest of the outer solar system, especially the moons and asteroid belt. They’re exactly as habitable as Mars will ever be in actual reality. Mars stops mattering except as an orbital pitstop as soon as there are places that are just as good if not better developed farther out, in smaller or non-existent gravity wells.
Mars has no active geology, therefore no Van Allen belts, therefore the only shielding you get is if you bury yourself. And to generate the energy required to artificially generate Van Allen belts that can actually protect us from cosmic rays… first, it’s a preposterous amount, second, it’s energy rent you have to pay in perpetuity to get an inferior environment anyways and zero resources that aren’t available in greater abundance in cheaper gravity wells, because you’re not realistically going to be spinning up the core anytime soon. Then you need to initiate planetary-wide processes to erode the toxic regolith. The numbers just do not add up.
Then there’s the 38% Earth gravity, which A - is likely to be as unhealthy as a spun-up semi-microgravity environment B - isn’t strong enough to retain any atmosphere thick enough to support humans, which means not only do you have to pay a continuous gargantuan energy rent just to one day walk on the surface without being killed by cosmic rays, you also have to import atmosphere which you’re guaranteed to have to replace.
I enjoy the Expanse, but in spite of its hard science reputation it’s honestly about as realistic as Star Trek in a lot of ways. Terraforming Mars is a fun thought experiment but Jules Verne level out of date at this point. Take it as an unrealistic backdrop for a very fun geopolitical space drama, not a realistic exploration of how space development would actually go. They needed a third power to make the politics complicated. Nobody’s ever gonna breathe the free air of Mars, that’s a fantasy, and that’s knowable today, which means it’ll never be invested in seriously.
OP shares a great summary of sci-fi and fantasy books
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/14776053...
Notes from a year of reading science fiction and fantasy [potentially minor spoilers]
Below are books I’ve read over the last year, with notes about on what I thought of them. I started this list just to remind me what the books were about and if I thought they were worth reading. As the year went on, my notes became a little more substantial. The list was for me, but I thought I’d share in case it’s useful...
Daily Releases (2024-04-14)
Windows...
How is the hydrogen made? (slrpnk.net)
An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue (newrepublic.com)
We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay....
Maybe we are late in the universe, perhaps universe used to be a lively and vibrant place homing millions of civilizations. Now, we stand as the last remnants, hence, possibly the most advanced.
Green Hydrogen Will Become The 21st Century Version Of Oil (www.forbes.com)
Countries and companies are now preparing and forming international coalitions to position themselves for the green hydrogen future.
My first commissioned art of my main character: Solemn, of The Solemn Dream (lemm.ee)
This is the art I received for my main character....
Nuclear slow and expensive, renewables fast and cheap: Bowen slaps down Coalition “fantasy” (reneweconomy.com.au)
Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen has again slammed the federal Coalition’s “nuclear fantasy”, describing it as a deliberate distraction and the latest “desperate effort” to keep the culture war over energy and climate alive....
Solar Punk Future (lemmy.world)
There is a sub here called solarpunk and it inspired me to make these....
‘How to greenwash’: propane industry tries to rebrand fuel as renewable (www.theguardian.com)
What is Fully Automated?
I just realized that since this community is new, it’s going to be listed on the front page of SLRPNK.net, so I should do a bit more explanation and promotion....
Reporting a case of moderator misconduct in c/solarpunk
Background: yesterday, there was heated discussion in the thread “military-industrial complex is a supervillain of causing the climate crisis” (link)....
Looking for a rec: story oriented RPG with minimal focus on combat
Preferably in the high fantasy or sci fi genre....
Jeff Bezos foresees a trillion people living in millions of space colonies. Here's what he's doing to get the ball rolling. (www.nbcnews.com)
What were your top favorite video games as a kid?
These could be games that left a lasting impression on you, games that had stellar gameplay mechanics, characters that captivated you, games that you played tons of hours on, etc.
A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams (arstechnica.com)
A book review on the latest Weinersmith creation. It’s true, there is so much we don’t know....