Hey everyone - after a while of cooking and brainstorm, me, thorngote and cylonspy have created a (playtest for now) TTRPG system:
Doomed Sessions
I made this game with a few goals in mind:
1) To be character-heavy.
1.1) Most other Homestuck games out there focus on combat, character progression, JRPG things - about being the game Homestuck is parodying to be. But I dont quite think Homestuck is that game under the hood, you know?
1.2) Homestuck - specially Act 6 onwards - is a lot more focused on the character drama, the interpersonal relationships and the enviroment that the characters were molded. This gets double and triple true in the Epilogues and beyond
1.3) This is why I decided to make this game to instead of having stats like strenght, dexterity, wisdom, etc, to be about the character's personalities - they'll be pushy, avoidant, oppressed, etc.
2) To be heavier in tone
2.1) Homestuck has a LOT of heavy stuff - from the cullings, the mass deaths by Sburb, the Condesse or the ICP, the way many of the characters get explicitly worse in the Epilogues or during Murderstuck.
2.2) However all HS ttrpgs out there that I could find shy away from it, prefering to go towards lighthearted vibes rather than a grittier, cosmic horror-esque experience. This is not a game about Jade Harley-like characters - it's for Eridan-like, Gamzee-like, Jane-like characters that get more unstable and violent as the story goes on.
3) To be rules-light and quick
3.1) I'm really not a huge fan of rules-heavy system - "roll a dice to determinate if you hit, then roll a dice for damage, then roll a dice for if the imp hits you, then roll for damage", etc; in my view, actual combat isnt a huge plot point - fighting an imp can be as simple as "roll a dice; if you roll good, you beat no problem, if you roll badly, you defeat it but get damaged".
3.2) The idea is to get the ball rolling - if we dont spend hours on combat, and instead only a few minutes, we can get a lot more plot, and a lot more character, in a lot less time
3.3) Its not a secret that HS TTRPG sessions have a bad habit of fizzling out; having an option to play these games as one-shots, rather than as long campaigns, would help scratch that itch while still having a satisfying end
Those were my reasons and founding principles for making this game and why it's the way it is; it's currently still a very early playtest, so feel free to leave thoughts, comments, etc - and if you do endup playing a game, please tell us how it went - feedback, sharing stories, etc!
