Trophy RPG

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Lessa

Lessa

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Anyone seen this? Apparently a rules-light Dark Fantasy game that mixes Cthulhu Dark with Blades in the Dark elements, and has seen some success in indie circles.

A kickstarter hapenned earlier in the year and funded pretty fast..




What got me was this character sheet, I'm a bitch for minimalist and evocative stuff like this..

 
There's also this adventure, which sounds pretty cool, as it's one part Delta Green operation, other part Trophy horror descent, all in the same story.

moth-lands.itch.io

The Linear Men by Dissonance

A horrific scenario for CDG and Trophy Dark
moth-lands.itch.io moth-lands.itch.io
 
Saw it when the KS was happening. Three RPGs with differing mechanical complexity and a setting that a close riff off of Symbaroum’s. Looks pretty cool but not sure why it got as much attention as it did TBH. Regardless I was happy to see an RPG doing well.
 
Thanks for sharing this! I've now picked up the original Trophy Gold. I've been hoping for something rules light that maintains heavy focus for some dangerous dungeon crawling - a moody fantasy that succeeds at conveying its setting with the same remarkable efficiency as En Garde and Cthulhu Dark do. At first read through, Trophy Gold will be my main game for dungeon crawling and I plan on upgrading to the Kickstarter version as soon as I can.
 
MattyHelms said:
Thanks for sharing this! I've now picked up the original Trophy Gold. I've been hoping for something rules light that maintains heavy focus for some dangerous dungeon crawling - a moody fantasy that succeeds at conveying its setting with the same remarkable efficiency as En Garde and Cthulhu Dark do. At first read through, Trophy Gold will be my main game for dungeon crawling and I plan on upgrading to the Kickstarter version as soon as I can.
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Thats cool. I really like these thematic minimalist games. Don't know why but my brain put these together with OSR and PbtA all in the same bag. It's the only stuff I run these days.

Btw, there's also this Delta Green hack for Cthulhu Dark called "Cthulhu Deep Green". It fills the CD skeleton with some meat that, on a cursory look, seems spot-on for a Delta Green game. Here is the official page:

moth-lands.itch.io

CTHULHU DEEP GREEN by Dissonance

Conspiracy Horror inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos. 3-6 players.
moth-lands.itch.io moth-lands.itch.io
 
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Skywalker said:
Looks pretty cool but not sure why it got as much attention as it did TBH. Regardless I was happy to see an RPG doing well.
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I think it's appeal is kinda related to it's publishing method - it was first published in the Codex online magazine, together with other microgames. Then it got popular in indie (itch?) circles and became a fully fledged "traditional" game. From my part I really liked the mix of Blades and CDark in an evocative package, and would totally play it.
 
Skywalker said:
Saw it when the KS was happening. Three RPGs with differing mechanical complexity and a setting that a close riff off of Symbaroum’s. Looks pretty cool but not sure why it got as much attention as it did TBH. Regardless I was happy to see an RPG doing well.
Click to expand...
Same here, and I decided to skip it as well:smile:.
 
Skywalker said:
Saw it when the KS was happening. Three RPGs with differing mechanical complexity and a setting that a close riff off of Symbaroum’s. Looks pretty cool but not sure why it got as much attention as it did TBH. Regardless I was happy to see an RPG doing well.
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The Gauntlet is the reason it got so much attention. I wasn't sold during the Kickstarter unfortunately, so I missed out. But I did get Gold and Dark on itch. The idea of the different settings or incursions is what hooked me.
 
The Gauntlet seems like a cool group but I am still awaiting my first KS that can out of the Gauntlet, so it didn’t really encourage me to back more.
 
Not sure how I missed this thread on Trophy as I dig it when I discovered it in the Codex zine.

Trophy Gold and its instructions on how to adapt D&D adventures is also quite cool although there are a few mechanics I'd mute as they are a mite too mechanical for my tastes.

But I already had both games from Codex and they seemed complete as is so I never backed the KS. Plus I'm trying (and largely failing) to not to add too much to my physical collection these days.

There are a lot of Trophy incursions (aka. scenarios) available free and some have been released as zines as well, this Zinequest includes this one-on-one incursion.

TOKEN—a ZineQuest offering, via @Kickstarter
 
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I don't own the game, but I'm looking at the SRD and I'm pretty impressed with the take on the FitD mechanics. Its pretty elegant, and I can see why people are so keen to hack it. I'll be picking up Trophy Gold tonight.
 
Trophy (and Gold) are actually very solidly based on Cthulhu Dark. The Devil's Bargain is the only mechanic from Blades that I can see.

John
 
johnmarron said:
Trophy (and Gold) are actually very solidly based on Cthulhu Dark. The Devil's Bargain is the only mechanic from Blades that I can see.

John
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The basic die pool rolling and success results are straight out of Blades.
 
I'm going to disagree. The core die rolling mechanic in Trophy is lifted 100% from Cthulhu Dark. Here's the attribution from the Trophy Gold text:

Trophy Gold is based on Trophy, originally by Jesse Ross, with
additional contributions by Jason Cordova, David Morrison,
Jim Crocker, Leandro Pondoc, and Luiz Paulo Ferraz. Trophy
is adapted from Cthulhu Dark with permission of Graham
Walmsley. Trophy is also based on Blades in the Dark (found at
http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven
Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed
for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
 
The success chart, devil's bargain, and help action all track 100% to Blades with ruin replacing stress.

Here's the core mechanic from CD:

If you want to explain how to roll dice for investigating and other tasks, say something like: “When you do something, roll one die if it’s within human capabilities and one die if it’s within your occupational expertise.” “You can also add your Insight Die, if you will risk your mind to succeed.” “Then the highest die says how well you do. On a 4, you succeed completely. On a 5, you get something extra. On a 6, you get more than you wanted and glimpse the horror.”

Pretty plainly not the same as Trophy, and certainly not "lifted 100%"
 
True, there are elements of both games present, and different people will see the influences in different ways. I've run Cthulhu Dark a number of times. I'm just about to wrap up a six month Blades campaign. And I've read over Trophy Gold about 20 times over the last month because I'm gearing up to run it for one of my groups. From my perspective, the core mechanic is very much the same as CD, but I can see how someone would view it differently.

John
 
johnmarron said:
True, there are elements of both games present, and different people will see the influences in different ways. I've run Cthulhu Dark a number of times. I'm just about to wrap up a six month Blades campaign. And I've read over Trophy Gold about 20 times over the last month because I'm gearing up to run it for one of my groups. From my perspective, the core mechanic is very much the same as CD, but I can see how someone would view it differently.

John
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I think the inclusion of the CD elements is what makes it really interesting. The ruin die is a fantastic idea. As far as I can tell, mechanically speaking, the author started with CD as the overall theme, adapted some of the basic adjudication mechanics from Blades (which is where the differences in success and some of the other things comes in), and then worked back in with elements from CD to make the horror elements work, and also to replace (or obviate) the stress mechanic and ability die pools from Blades. If we agree that there are elements of both games in the mix that's probably the important part.
 
"Does it matter? The authors cite both as influence"

"Yeah, you're right it doesnt matter"

"yeah, I agree"
.
.
.
"BUT Cthulhu Dark did it first"

"NO it was Blades"


rdlol.gif
 
I reformatted the plain text Trophy SRD in case anyone wants to take a look to see if they like the system. No changes made other than adding a couple of tables to make a couple of charts more attractive.
 

Attachments

  • TROPHY SYSTEM REFERENCE DOCUMENT.pdf
    165.9 KB · Views: 32
Have the kickstarter versions come out yet?
 
urbwar said:
Have the kickstarter versions come out yet?
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No :sad: I backed after the fact, and the last update was backers only (I think it's rude to have extended backing and make your updates backer only, personally)
 
chuckdee said:
No :sad: I backed after the fact, and the last update was backers only (I think it's rude to have extended backing and make your updates backer only, personally)
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That sucks. I had to miss the ks, and I saw they listed a preorder, so I was curious.
 
I ran back jnto Trohpy the same way. I just actually did something with it this time. In additon to my sci fi hack I'm doing an Gold incursion based on B2. I like the system a lot.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I ran back jnto Trohpy the same way. I just actually did something with it this time. In additon to my sci fi hack I'm doing an Gold incursion based on B2. I like the system a lot.
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Any crossover value between Dark and Gold? I know Dark is for one shots and Gold is more for campaigns.
 
Picaroon Jack said:
Any crossover value between Dark and Gold? I know Dark is for one shots and Gold is more for campaigns.
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I was thinking about this yesterday. I'd like to come up with a way to nest the zonal locations from Gold inside the wilderness rings of Dark. That said, Gold's zones can also be rather large outdoor areas provided its gated or signposted properly. Either way, the Hunt Roll should take care of things IMO. I think if you put them together you could get pretty fancy, design-wise. The trick, I think, is to keep things elegantly simple. If you add too many widgets I feel you'd lose the things about the game I like so much.
 
I really like that the author is super active on the Trophy Discord. I was chatting with him yesterday about trade dress and mechanics. Super friendly community. I had four guys jump in to crowdsource some great rules for hordes of zombies today, helpful as all fuck. On that same note, my B2 hack is apparently going to have a real walking dead feel.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I really like that the author is super active on the Trophy Discord. I was chatting with him yesterday about trade dress and mechanics. Super friendly community. I had four guys jump in to crowdsource some great rules for hordes of zombies today, helpful as all fuck. On that same note, my B2 hack is apparently going to have a real walking dead feel.
Click to expand...
Time to dust it off!!
loading-screen-medieval-zombie-apocalypse-eod-toby-266459.jpg
 
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