For those of you who have never seen or played a table top role playing game (TTRPG) before, here's a brief summary of how it works.
Basics of Gameplay
TTRPGs are a social game where players come together to explore a world that one of them -- the game master (GM) -- has created in his or her mind. A full exploration of the world could take as little as a single afternoon (this is called a one-shot) or several sessions happening over weeks, months, or even years (called a campaign).
As a player, you're going to create an avatar for yourself -- your character. Once you have a character, the GM describes his or her world and inserts your character into it. The GM then presents your character with challenges and social opportunities called adventures. As you complete an adventure, you'll make your character better by gaining lots of money, weapons, and objects (collectively called loot) and then later by increasing the statistics of your character to make them more powerful (leveling up).
The rules for what your character is capable of and the enemies and friends your character meets along the way -- known as non-player characters (NPCs) -- are all determined by the game master with help from the rules on this site handbook.
TTRPGs as a concept aren't very complicated and they are a ton of fun. Where people get nervous is when some TTRPGs use complex rules to explain how their mechanics work. Entwined attempts to simplify this to make the game more approachable for new players while providing optional add-ons that make the game more challenging for experienced players.
The following is a list of mechanics most often employed by titles in this genre and how Entwined compares.
Worlds and Setting
Most, but not all, TTRPGs are hyper-specific when it comes to the setting of the game. Many are set in fantasy settings which consist of orcs, archery, longswords, knights, wizards, and riding in carts full of hay. And there's nothing wrong with that, unless you decide one day that you want to play a game in modern-day Chicago or ponder what the world would be like if steam-power wasn't replaced by modern technology. Only then do you realize that these games are horrible at trying to adapt to this alternative setting because they weren't designed for that.
Entwined is designed specifically so that no matter what planet, nation, biome, province, city, street, alternative history, or time period you want to play in, you fill out your character sheet and start playing. We have no lore, no worlds, and no pre-made enemies. Every game will be fresh and only your game master can decide that you'll face something you've seen before.
Characters
Each player in a TTRPG creates a character in the story that the game master is telling. The players control that character -- his or her movement, decisions, and powers. Players can even role play their character by creating mannerisms or speaking in an alternative voice. As the group of adventurers (the party) completes missions, they earn experience points (XP). A player spends XP to improve their character -- adding various traits, features, spells, and details.
Entwined simplifies character creation vastly and rewards experience points at the end of each mission, allowing players to upgrade their character at the end of each session by simply filling in a few circles. They can put these all into one category for a challenge or into multiple categories creating a more balanced character.
Classes, Races, and Alignments
Traditional TTRPGs love to sell you books. As a result, game manuals for other systems come as large hardback books that are full of tons of rules regarding every aspect of your character -- including what you look like physically, what subgroups you belong to, and your profession prior to becoming one of the world's four greatest heroes.
Entwined has no classes. No races. No backgrounds. No alignments. Period. You can add those game mechanics if you really want to, but what you become by the end of the game will be decided by how you react to the obstructions the game master puts in your way. Add all the background you want, but Entwined has no rules to memorize or limitations on how you build a character.
Magic
In other systems, normally you buy fifty dollars worth of books and then memorize hundreds of pages of content, spells, when to use what dice, what distance a person can cover, whether a flamethrower creates a cylindrical or conical cone of death, and what kind of crow's foot you need to be holding to cast a healing spell.
In Entwined, your wand usually obeys your command. Players invent spells on the fly that cater to each unique situation. You and the other members of your party work together to conquer puzzles, bypass obstructions, and smite enemies.
Weapons and Armor
Most other TTRPGs have charts explaining what weapons you can use, what type of damage they do, how many dice you roll, etc. That means that each time you pick up a weapon, you have to stop the game to transfer all that information to your scratch paper or character sheet.
In Entwined, players simply decide what melee and ranged weapons (one of each) they carry with them. Damage is decided by how much you upgraded the respective skill (melee attack or ranged attack).
Non-combat
It's very rare to find a TTRPG where the goal is to become a spymaster and then raise your puppet through the ranks to the top seat of the Senate. Until now.
Entwined prides itself on being just as interesting outside of combat as it is inside of combat. We divide a game session into two parts: amity and exploration. The latter is simply the traditional crawl through a dungeon looking for bad guys and glory. But the former works in three ways:
- The Hideout
Player characters can purchase upgrades in the hideout as well as improve the hideout to get better results. - The Newspaper
This is a list of things that are happening around town (rumors, news, unresolved quests, etc.) presented to the players at the start of the session. Players choose which story they want their characters to participate in. - The Town
Visit vendors, sell off your extra loot, meet contacts, investigate crimes, etc.
Combat
All TTRPGs have combat mechanics that revolve around rolling dice. That is usually how you make your money, get your gear, win the love of your people, and so forth. Most combat systems roll dice for two reasons: was someone hit and, if so, how much damage was done?
Entwined simplifies this with only one dice roll: was someone hit? If they were, they do however much damage you allocated to that skill when you upgraded your character minus however much protection the target has against this particular damage type. As a result, combat is much faster.
Enemies
Unless you're playing with a group of brand new people, in most sessions the game master will reveal the physical description of the monster you're about to face and four people will perk up and shout in unison, "Oh, that's a Darkmagic Such and Such. It has 107 hit points, is medium build, and can be killed in two turns with the Purple Maguffin of Machina." And then the game becomes just a rolling simulator.
In Entwined, there is no index of standard monsters, no tomes, and no catalogs. This is intentional. Game masters build unique monsters on the fly using basic math and their own creativity. Creating catalogs of unique enemies and NPCs for your world is a snap. There's no such thing as an "Entwined [Insert Name of Monster Here]".
Entwined offers huge amounts of flexibility and brings large amounts of creativity to your gaming nights. It's easy to learn for new people and dynamic enough that seasoned players will enjoy it as well. Thank you for considering playing it and I hope you enjoy the rest of the guide.
No comments:
Post a Comment