RPGSTUCK - A Homestuck Tabletop

[Levenfish]

So Who're You?

Hi! For those of you that have any interest in tabletop games, I'd like to bring your attention to RPGStuck!

Four and a half years ago, a proposal was made, the Homestuck experience through play by post, on a tabletop! From that, RPGStuck was born, and the rest is history.

Ever wanted to go a step beyond RPing Homestuck to actually playing it? Wanna be in an enduring community that's gone strong through the years? 700's not a big community, I know, but we're always happy to see new people come in and play.
Or maybe you want to tell a story and you want to run your own session? You got questions, we got answers!

We've been around. You can mainly find us on Discord, Twitter, and even YouTube! Listen, the video guides had to go somewhere. We also have a TVTropes link. We've been around a lot.



Alright, but Whaddya Got?

I'm glad I asked, me! We have our directory. This is where we keep the official documents. We have a player's handbook, a DM guide, we have a monster manual! There's actually like, six to twelve monster manuals, based on your definition of a manual. We also have two character sheets, for if you prefer to view it on mobile or desktop, and also some miscellaneous docs and sheets you may find useful. For example? Housebuilding! I understand it's not clear about which level is which gate, but that's because the character sheets will DO that for you! And our take on a Bill Wurtz style video. Forum please why won't you cross out the link too, you're ruining the joke.

Of particular note, I'd like to bring the Quick Start Primer to your attention. It's a pared down version of our usual player's handbook, for first-timers who might be intimidated with all the options we have. We also got a FAQ if you have the thirst to know somethin' something.

Wanna read through what we've done so far? We got an Atlas for that. Discontinued for the time being, but trust me, we're not short for what we've gotten done.

Wanna DM but don't know where to break in? Taking a whole session's worth of players too intimidating? Try our scenarios. Everyone's gotta start somewhere, after all.



So Where's This Going?

Like I said. We like newcomers. We like to play. Seems pretty obvious.

We've also been working on our third edition of the system! Got started after our tournament concluded, earlier this spring, and the work, it don't stop. Whenever we have updates, we'll make sure to let you know here. And on TvTropes. And on Twitter. And... goodness, when did we get this big.

You want FRAYMOTIFS? We got fraymotifs. The sort of stuff that's being developed by the eggheads in the community, for our third edition. We like to dream big.

Well, here we are now too. Let's get that bread.

[egg]

Took you long enough, didn't it.
I've been meaning to do... something in the Discord for some time now, but I can't bother to join any of the sessions people've been hosting lately.

[Levenfish]

You can always bring friends from elsewhere! Meeting new people is fun, but there's undeniably comfort in grouping up with people you know. And of course, if you don't have anyone that fits that bill, the knowing of the people has to start somewhere.

Actually, one thing this place has that's a massive advantage over discord. Colored text! It's almost not Homestuck without pesterlogs in eye-wateringly strong text over a white background that makes bright yellow or green an utter affair to read.

[selectiveKnowledge]

Hey neat! Somebody posting about RPGStuck! I've been around there for a while now, and it's quite the fun place to be! I'm also 100% totally not biased!

[Levenfish]

What's a Q & A?

With development on Rpgstuck's 3rd edition significantly well underway, it occurs to us that it's been a while since we've taken questions on it! Also this is a great way to get more of our people on here.

With that said, if anyone has any questions on the state of our progress, feel free to ask!

[Maryla]

Welp, you got me to make an acc here.

But I've heard the term 'gambit' get thrown around everywhere, though idk what it is.

So what are gambits?

[NotActuallyEvil]

What's the new Oliveblood racial gonna be? PM me if you must. I need to know what you've done to my babies.

[Pye]

Will Dicekind ever come back?

[Levenfish]

Welp, you got me to make an acc here.

But I've heard the term 'gambit' get thrown around everywhere, though idk what it is.

So what are gambits?

Let me get Merc.

A gambit is a way you resolve a conflict. We already have something like this, it's called a strife. But let's look at this a little bit more!

Your name is now Valsam Icatha.

Yay, you're the SAHCon panel Twitch-made character! Let's look at some stuff they might do.

>You enter a room. The room is empty.

Valsam decides to roll... Survival. Alright, understandable. They don't think they're hiding, they think they left, and they want to track them. Unfortunately Intelligence and Wisdom were her dump stats, so they're not going to have much luck with that.

>The guard is watching.

The consort doesn't look like they're going to buy your sob story. Being raised by five small woofbeasts in a white trenchcoat doesn't tug at everyone's heartstrings.

Valsam wants to beg the guard to let her pass into the treasure room the local evil count lizard person said not to let anyone into. They roll Persuasion.

This still isn't a gambit.

Or maybe Valsam wants to sneak by, and uses Stealth. Unfortunately, this happens after they tried to sell her sob story, how they'd look at books all day (but not actually read them). The guard gets to roll Perception against her.

>Convince the horrorterror to side with you.

As discussed before, Valsam is an occultist with dumb bitch energy. Because they don't have the grist to do so, they persuade the DM to let them upgrade their puppetkind by coaxing a grimdark monster into living in it.

The DM says it'll be a Hard (DC 20) gambit. The horrorterror takes the form of a purple alpaca with four eyes that judge their dress. Their dress is dumb and so is their mask. Let's go.

Valsam starts with a show of force. They roll Occult, and gets a total of 26! They not only beat the DC, they beat it by 5 or more. So they deal 2 points of damage to the gambit bar. The horrorterror quakes in its shoes. Mystically, because we all know horrorterrors don't have feet.

Let's go it again! ....17. No, they fail. But they lost by 4 or less, so the bar remains steady. The monster is unimpressed with their repetition. They want it to stay in a tiny little voodoo doll thing, they'd better deliver!

They choose not to press their luck. The horrorterror reveals itself to like Broadway musicals.

They decides to try singing a short song. They use Performance instead, and they can also claim Knack: Star, a decor! And the DM gives their a free d6 for going for a weakness. They roll their d20, they roll 2d6 and takes the higher of the two, and they add their skill modifier!

...12. Oof, lost by 8. Remember how you cut the gambit down harder for passing by 5 or more points? Yeah, you failed so hard the gambit recovers. The horrorterror's gambit bar regains 1 point!

Well, second time's the charm. And a 30! That's not only 5 over the DC, that's 10 over the DC. They deal 3 points of damage!

Their gambit bar is almost gone! They round it out with a... sonnet. They can no longer apply their decor, but they get a 21 regardless. That's 1 point, and that's enough to knock out the bar!

The horrorterror agrees. The alpaca eats the doll, and turns into a deformed alpaca plushy. Don't stare into its eyes.

They get 90 XP, gets their T2 puppetkind, and now has a new doll that sometimes whispers to their while they're sleeping.

>Scout out the premises.

Valsam needs to do recon for a dungeon. They should've sent literally anybody else. At least they have plenty of time.

They make the second type of gambit. Well, really the third type.

Let's skip past the rolling, we know what it's like. They somehow fail to empty ANY of the bar. Any progress they make, they undo by the fact that their pyrokinetics is powered by sheer dumb bitch energy, and they're not a smart egg.

They still get the lay of the land, but with a complication. They're actually illiterate, so they've mislabeled everything. Their teammates will not be amused.

>Outrun the guards.

One botched dungeon crawl later, Valsam finds themselves running away, chased by four large underlings of irritable temperament.

Time for the third type of gambit, or really, the second.

They roll Athletics to continue running away. But instead of a DC? The monsters chasing them collectively roll an Athletics check. They beat the monster's roll, so their gambit bar goes down by 1.

And then the monsters win. Valsam's gambit bar goes down by 1.

This goes on until everyone's too fatigued to continue the gambit. Their bars are about equal, so a stalemate happens. Status quo is maintained, and Valsam escapes the dungeon safely. Not their party members, but well, one thing at a time.

Please do a tl;dr

When you have to make multiple attack rolls and deal damage and all that, we call it a strife. When you have to make multiple skill checks to deal with something, we call it a gambit.

A gambit grants XP for doing it, just like a strife. It's split into three types.

The classic one, where you make multiple checks against a common DC.

An opposed one, where you're rolling against an opponent, and you see who can empty whose bar first.

And an alternate one, where you're not rolling to see if you pass, it's assumed you pass, and you see how well you succeed.

[Levenfish]

What's the new Oliveblood racial gonna be? PM me if you must. I need to know what you've done to my babies.

You know when you attack from being Hidden and you have to check Stealth against their Perception to get advantage to hit? You just grab advantage now, every time.

But more than that, attacking while Hidden, or attacking Blind or Restrained enemies, you get a bonus to your crit range. Second only to the auto-crit from Tracer for how high the buff runs.

Will Dicekind ever come back?

I asked Merc and I got blocked. It's too versatile to have, but knowing Merc, he'll try to re-introduce it somehow.

[Katte]

Are there any plans to make new versions of the game with the FATE system, or that are "Powered by the Apocalypse"?

Edit: are you open to this suggestion?

[Levenfish]

Are there any plans to make new versions of the game with the FATE system, or that are "Powered by the Apocalypse"?

Edit: are you open to this suggestion?

No plans for FATE at the moment. As for PbtA, we don't have quite that, but we do have Fourth Gate from one of our developers in her spare time, which was inspired by Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark.

[Shadowy_Captain]

Great! i LOVE tabletop rpg's and i always wanted to play a homestuck themed one. Now i just need to see if my friends want to play it.

[Levenfish]

After a long, and I mean, lengthy stretch without much info, we recently dropped a mechanics post! On our Fifth Anniversary, no less!

We've revamped our Pillars and Paths system, created a Gambit system to handle non-combat encounters and other shenanigans, and created Decors (you may remember this from the long-winded explanation Mary got above) to help tackle those Gambits.

But where are my manners, let's start from the beginning. Pillars and Paths is our version of a combat class system, eschewing traditional classes in favor of a freeform feat system. Over the past year, we pruned, fused, and added to this system, making changes both broad and minute. One could say it boils down to "hey kid, are you stabby or shieldy or strange?"

Why is combat in italics? Why, because this is Homestuck! There's been plenty of shenanigans and pesterlogs without an ounce of strife that we weren't really able to model before. With our gambits and decors, now we can model those shenanigans.

Personally, and don't tell the rest of the community I said this, but I really like decors. It lets you pick some HOBBY or INTEREST, something you're good at, and you do better in gambits when you can bring those sick skills to bear! Sure, you have this in-depth strife system, but how much does a kid's fighting style really tell you about who they are as a person? And then there's the Conducts; who is this kid when the chips are down? When they're out of their depth and roleplay alone can't save them, and they're facing the bullets. What is it about them and the way they approach a problem that lets them pull through at the critical moment?

[Levenfish]

After a slightly less long stretch of time, but only sliiiiiiiightly long, we'd like to release our playtest of RPGStuck 3rd Edition!

-looks at date- We picked a bad day for this, didn't we? ....or did we.