Interested in trying a gritty-ish, PbtA-inspired fantasy RPG that supports GM-less play?

Interested in trying a gritty-ish, PbtA-inspired fantasy RPG that supports GM-less play?

Interested in trying a gritty-ish, PbtA-inspired fantasy RPG that supports GM-less play?

Ironsworn began as a PbtA reskin, but it’s evolved into something I would say is more PbtA-adjacent. I call it “Inspired by and borrowing liberally from the Apocalypse” (IbaBLftA?). It’s built on moves, but leverages ala carte character creation with printable asset cards instead of playbooks. It’s also got it’s own flavor of dice mechanics and some resource tracking mechanisms. Finally, it’s built from the ground up to support solo and co-op GM-less campaigns.

The preview edition is a complete, free game. I’d love to hear what people think.

http://ironswornrpg.com

41 thoughts on “Interested in trying a gritty-ish, PbtA-inspired fantasy RPG that supports GM-less play?”

  3. Thanks Gary Anastasio! No plans for kickstarter. The main goal is to just get it out there to see what people think 🙂

    I’ll have a final release (next month or so?) that’ll include one additional non-essential chapter on gameplay options and best-practices.

  5. This looks awesome, Shawn Tomkin! I’m excited to dig in more to how the game works, especially for solo play.

    I know that it can be a ton of work, but connecting with the Kickstarter community is one of the best ways to get more people to take a look at what you’re working on. 😀

  7. Shawn Tomkin, checked it out last night and today. Had enough time to read everything except all of the moves, which I read in the cheat sheet. I REALLY like it. I’m not into fantasy, but I dig the rules. The whole idea of a solitary wanderer against giant beasts is basically my jam. Reminds me, tangentially and only thematically, of a setting/game that I’m working on. I very much want to see expansions and new settings. Love the art, too.

  11. Mark Diaz Truman. Yeah, I love Kickstarter, and it’d be a great platform for getting the word out, but I just feel like I need to get over the hurdle of getting my first product out there and see if there’s any interest. Maybe somewhere down the road?

    Jacob Ross. Thanks so much! Really glad to hear that it’s pushing your buttons.

  18. Looks great, but I am rather confused about something as I read through it. On page 13, Burning Momentum, if Challenge dice above the value of your action dice hurt you (as I understand it you want to roll over the d10 values with the d6), why would you want to burn momentum to get rid of a lower d10 value? Unless in the example you rolled lower than both the 5 and 8 challenge dice value and want to make it a single [X] result instead of a [X][X] result… if that is the case, to clear of confusion, at least for me, explaining what the d6 result was in the example would help. If, for example, it was a 6 on the action dice, why would you remove the 5? Hope I explained my confusion well enough, though I think I figured it out myself writing this… so, you wouldn’t, you are stopping a full on Miss in the example, not ruining a Weak Hit…

  19. John Risus … yes, you worked your way towards the answer, and I agree that showing the action score in the example would help. In this case, the user would have had an action score lower than 6 (i.e. they rolled a 2 on their action die and had +3 in adds for an action score of 5). Burning momentum in the example would take the result from a miss to a weak hit. Might be worth it for our imaginary player depending on the circumstances, but generally it’d be best to build up more momentum to shift a miss to a strong hit.

    Thanks for the call-out! I’ll make a note to refine that section on my next edit pass.

  20. Thanks for the quick response. Glad you understood what I was trying to convey. Almost didn’t post, because I didn’t want to look ignorant, but figured it might help to know what someone with NO experience with a PbtA game doesn’t immediately grasp when they read it.

    There might be a bit more confusion, not for me though – this time LOL, with the term to “…zero any challenge die…” since isn’t a zero on a d10 valued at 10? I get the idea, at least with other RPGs I’ve played, you are going for making it an actual 0 so your Action die beats it, but some may be confused.

    So looking forward to finish reading and start my first game of this!!

  21. Good point John Risus. “Zero’ing” may not be the best term. Clearing? Cancelling? Ignoring? Tossing out the window into your neighbor’s garden? I’ll give that some thought.

  23. Shawn Tomkin this looks great. I downloaded it yesterday, I’m running some one-offs with my group atm, so I’ll give this a read and see if we can take it for a ride!

  25. John Risus … I updated the bit on burning momentum this morning (page 13). If you have time to download it anew and give it a look, I’d love to hear if it is more sensible now.

    Kris Green … Thanks so much!. One caveat that I realized was not explicitly called out in my previous draft is that Ironsworn is best for small group play. 1-3 players is ideal. It hasn’t been playtested beyond that, but I suspect it’d get pretty clunky (and/or create a rift in the space time continuum and the end of all life as we know it — one or the other). I updated the draft to make that clear on page 1.

  26. Shawn Tomkin my group is five players, so if we disappear into a rift in time and space, I will seek you out riding a triceratops. I will bring cookies.

  27. Kris Green … mmmm … cookies. 10 out of 10. Would fracture time/space again.

    Seriously, though, I’d be curious how it works out. A GM with some PbtA under their belt would probably do fine with managing the spotlight. Supply may be in … errr … short supply since it’s a shared track that everyone may end up hitting on occasion. Foes should probably be pushed up a rank since 5 players will make mincemeat of a combat progress track, but that’s no different than managing encounters in a traditional RPG.

    The bigger issue might be character differentiation, but good roleplaying can alleviate that.

    Be sure to check out the playtest primer (linked from the downloads page) for some one-shot tips.

  28. Shawn Tomkin, just downloaded new copy with the updates and reread the Burning Momentum section (you didn’t update the updated on date by the way, if that matters). Yes, the rewrite makes much more sense to my experienced RP but PbtA noob brain. The Example is very beneficial for me to quickly grasp the effect. Thanks.

    Just so I can squirrel away a bit of fundage from the wife, what’s the final version gonna run us?

  29. John Risus​. Thanks for giving it a look! Final price? Err … TBD. A few bucks for the PDF via drivethru, most likely, but the nearly-complete preview version will always be free and up-to-date with the latest edits.

    POD will come later if there’s any interest, once I am sure there are no niggles. I expect that would be a softcover for whatever the going rate is. Under 20 bucks?

    Then, if I’m not ready to sink into despair because no one wants my goofy game, I’ll start formalizing the SF version that basically pushes some of the same themes and concepts a few thousands years into the Ironsworn future.

  30. Shawn Tomkin this looks great – thank you for sharing! Looking forward to testing it out with my regular group. I like the saturated black & white images, very evocative of your game’s tone.

  32. Thanks much Matthew Chappory. I wasn’t sure if the use of photography instead of the more traditional RPG illustrations was going to be viewed as a feature or a bug. I’m glad it doesn’t seem to be putting folks off. I spent a fair number of hours in Photoshop grafting new heads onto bodies like some mad digital scientist.

    And thanks Kurt Rauscher. I hope it’s useful for you and your group.

  33. This looks professional, and I’m excited to try it out. Two questions: in the Undertake a Journey move, what happens if you roll a weak hit and don’t choose to reach a waypoint? I take it that you don’t mark progress, which is obviously a big deal, but narratively, what is the difference between reaching a waypoint that turns out to be a raging river, and not reaching a waypoint but still ending up at a raging river? Or do you skip the river (or other narration) altogether on a weak hit and just move on to the next roll until you get a strong hit or a miss?

    Second question: is there a better place to ask such things?

  34. Jeffrey Kelly … regarding the Undertake a Journey move, you actually have a really good point. Not choosing to reach a waypoint on a strong or weak hit really isn’t really a reasonable option when the point of the move is to get somewhere, which means that it’s not much of a choice at all.

    Anyway, long story short, appreciate the mention, as it’s brought up something I haven’t really considered. That move may need a tweak a tweak, or at least a bit of additional direction in the moves chapter.

    To your second question, you can always ping me via G+ or email me, but it would be nice to have a dedicated place. Maybe a G+ community. I might like to see the game getting a bit more traction first so I’m not in there talking to myself 🙂

  35. Jeffrey Kelly … just a heads up that the Undertake a Journey move was modified today, along with the explanatory text in Chapter 3.

    Having “Reach a Destination” as one of the options was a bit of a legacy holdover from the days when progress moves were always chained to and selected from preparatory moves. In a fight, for example, you’d select End the Fight as part of a strike or clash. That got nixed, but for some reason I didn’t bring Undertake a Journey into the fold.

    The rewrite is more sensible, I think. On either a strong or weak hit, you reach a waypoint and make progress. If you’ve got a strong hit, you get to select another benefit (such as not suffering a loss of supply).

    Thanks again for calling it out as odd/confusing.

  36. Cool, thanks for the explanation. Funny how things like that can become invisible when you’ve lived with a project for a long time. Anyway, the new text makes a lot more sense.

  38. Still trying to grok it, at least to the point where I can give it a go solo.

    Some observations…

    pg 11 “…success of failure…”

    pg 12 “… persists though….”

    pg 27 “(4) you you’ll”

    pg 37 “… two vow: …”

    pg 53 Making Progress “…you will will…”

    pg 55 “On a strong hit do you what you set out to…”

    pg 55 “… obstacle or resist or oppose…”

    pg 67 “That second roll will either provide or bonus…”

    pg 77 End the Fight: “… your foe is or grievously injured…”

    pg 101 “… you can you can look at…”

  40. For anyone interested, the latest version of the assets download is available. It includes some new additions, including 3 paths (Storyweaver, Devotant, and Wright), a combat focus (long-arm) and a ritual (sway). Following the release of the book, I’m hoping to release additional asset packs, and would like to have them all available as physical POD cards. Would love to hear what sort of concepts folks might like to see in future asset volumes.

    Get the latest here: drive.google.com – Ironsworn-Preview-Assets.pdf

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