Firebreathing Kittens

Family Heirloom (Fantasy World)

Armando takes up a quest to find a mysterious book, recruiting Sadie and Zidane for it, inadvertently finding a relic of Zidane's past. Family Heirloom is an actual play podcast of Fantasy World. 

Trailer for Family Heirloom

Armando takes up a quest to find a mysterious book, recruiting Sadie and Zidane for it, inadvertently finding a relic of Zidane's past. Family Heirloom is an actual play podcast of Fantasy World. 

How To Play Fantasy World

How to Play Fantasy World
Fantasy World is a powered by the apocalypse fantasy RPG with magic and heroic fighting. It's billed as "dramatic fantasy," which means it's about becoming heroes in a fantasy setting, and making ourselves care about their story.
Like all good PBTA games, Fantasy World has some core principles that guide how we play. First, there is a One Golden Rule, which is that if anyone at the table thinks "this seems wrong, I don't like it," they can and should say so, and only one unhappy voice is a veto. It's like an X-card built into the rules of the game.
The world itself has some core things that are true: Magic is Real. The Gods are Silent. Cities are Rare. Travel is Perilous.
Finally, the game master, called The World, has three items in their an agenda: Play to Find Out, Make Sense, and Rock the Boat. Play to Find Out means there is never a railroad in the game. Instead, we have a setting full of interesting people and ideas and things happening, but those may be discarded at any point when the players go in a different direction.
Make Sense means that all of those interesting people and ideas need to make sense in order to feel like a reasonable world in which the adventurers live.
Finally, the adventurers' lives are interesting and exciting, and we accomplish that by Rocking the Boat. NPCs will act in their own self interests, and how that interacts with the adventurers is what creates an interesting story.
Basic Dice Mechanics:The basic dice mechanics of a PBTA game are that you and your friends describe yourselves doing stuff, and the GM representing the World reacts to your actions appropriated. When you get to the point where you trigger a move, you roll two 6-sided dice and usually add a stat modifier. 
If you roll a 10 or higher, you succeed at what you were doing, and the move may tell you what happens.
If you roll a 7 to 9, you succeed at a cost. Usually, the move tells you what the cost is-- it might be implied in the move, or it might be something really specific. For example, the Sway move says that when used on an NPC, on a 10, you get a YES, and on a 7-9, you learn what would get a yes.
If you roll a 6 or less, the World has what's called a "World Reaction." A World Reaction is like a move that the World does-- in other games it's called a GM Move, or a reaction. The World never rolls dice. When the World makes a Reaction, it's certain and automatically succeeds. A typical reaction might be to reveal an unwelcome truth, or put the characters at a disadvantage. It's important to know that a 6 or less isn't *failure*. Whatever you were trying to do might happen-- the World is free to describe it happening, in a way that you didn't expect and probably don't want.
In addition, when you roll a 6, you gain an expedience point. So, during the play session itself, every time you roll a 6 or less, you gain one of those epedience points.
Character Creation and the Fellowship
Characters are drawn from the playbooks, which are downloadable from fantasyworldrpg.com. There are ten playbooks, which are basic archetypes. For purposes of the Firebreathing Kittens' session, the characters are assumed to have a couple of sessions, but have not yet earned a full advancement. As a result, they start with a basic playbook and 10 expedience points. Expedience Points can be used to buy growth points, or can be spent during the session to gain advantage or use more than one utility move during a long rest.
When you create a character in fantasy world, you download their playbook and then make a few choices about the character. For example, the Knight needs to state what chivalric order they belong to, who they are sworn to serve, and what their core value is that gives them some power. 
The second page of each playbook has their growth moves, which add special moves to the character as they advance.
The Fellowship is a special way to frame the story in Fantasy World. There are four Fellowship types: Shields, who protect a local area, Knives who pursue personal wealth, Hearts who are on a single quest, and Coins, who go where the job takes them. For the Firebreathing Kittens episode, the Fellowship is the Coins, as they are a group of troubleshooters and problem-solvers for hire.
Further Reading:If you'd like to play Fantasy World, and you have someone who will be running the game, read the Fundamental Knowledge and Essential Mechanics section of the rules, and then  read the playbooks and Game Moves to pick your character and understand what will trigger a move in the game. Remember, anything that isn't a move can still happen, it just doesn't trigger a dice roll.

Not Enough Duct Tape (Everything's Going To Crab)

Join Demyan, Nugh, and Mary as they try to fix a ferry and a crabby situation! Can they thwart the imitation crabs before it's too late? Find out in this Everything's Going to Crab actual play episode! 

Trailer for Not Enough Duct Tape

Join Demyan, Nugh, and Mary as they try to fix a ferry and a crabby situation! Can they thwart the imitation crabs before it's too late? Find out in this Everything's Going to Crab actual play episode!

Demyan Belov Interview

Demyan Belov Interview

You Are What You Eat (Everything's Going To Crab)

Join Bart, Reg, and Crud as they crab walk their way around an island to save people from an impending tsunami! You Are What You Eat is an actual play podcast of Everything's Going to Crab! 

Trailer for You Are What You Eat

Join Bart, Reg, and Crud as they crab walk their way around an island to save people from an impending tsunami! You Are What You Eat is an actual play podcast of Everything's Going to Crab! 

How To Play Everything’s Going To Crab

How to play Everything’s Going To Crab.
 
Hi everyone, this is a special episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Everything Is Going To Crab. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play Everything Is Going To Crab yourselves.
 
The sections I’ll talk about are:
Writing prompt
Character creation
How to use skills
How to attack
 
Writing prompt: The general idea of this system is that you start in your normal forms and must turn into a crab if you want to survive a giant wave that will hit your town in 24 hours. If you can convince a Non Player Character (NPC) that they need to become a crab, too, then they’ll head to the beach and do their best, and will also survive. The more NPCs you can save, the better. How good are you at convincing people of something they don’t want to believe? This games finds out.
 
Character creation: There are three categories of traits: eyes, hands, and feet. Each has analogies in your starting and crab forms. Eyes in your starting form, versus crab eyes stalks. Hands in your starting form, versus crab pincers. Feet in your starting form, versus crab legs. Eyes are used for guessing at how much someone believes you that they need to turn into a crab, or reading a book or a town sign. Crab eyestalks are good at seeing through disguises and spotting hidden predators. Hands are used for repairing broken items and high fiving someone, while crab pincers are good at holding on to someone against the might of the sea or snipping something small. Feet are used for driving a car, walking in high heels, and sneaking, while crab legs are good at climbing up rock walls and for scampering at speed. To create your character, put 100 percentage points each into these three categories. Split the percentage points between your current and crab form. The maximum you can start with is 79 percent crab during character creation. Please start with fewer than 80 on the crab side so you don’t have to explain why you look like a crab at the start of the game. Here is an example. Yolanda puts 70 percent into eyes, and 30 percent into crab eye stalks. She puts 60 percent into hands, and 40 percent into crab pincers. Lastly, she puts 75 percent into feet and 25 percent into crab legs. Yes, you can start with 100 percent in the starting form traits. 
 
How to use skills: Rolling lower than your trait means you succeed in what you try to do. If Jerome wants to spot a hidden lever, he’d roll a d100 and try to roll lower than his crab eyestalks, which are good at spotting things, like hidden levers. With 50 percentage points in eyestalks, a 40 would succeed and a 90 would fail.
As you play, your points will change. After every roll, you can change your ratio from starting body to crab body in one category. 80% will trigger a metamorphoses into that type of form for one limb, 100% will metamorph both limbs. At the end of the game you need to have 80% in all three crab traits to survive the giant wave. For example, Jerome just finished rolling to spot a hidden lever. Because he rolled, he can choose to adjust the percentage points. He’d previously had 50 points in eyestalks. With the end of the game and the giant wave approaching, Jerome decides to bump his eyes up to 80%, triggering a form change and he describes how one eye pops out into a crab eyestalk. Because he’s above 80 in all traits now, he will survive the giant wave. If he wants both eyes to be eye stalks, he could change his number to 100%.
 
How to attack: The wave wasn’t just a naturally occurring event, but a planned apocalypse designed to wipe the town off the face of the earth. Some of the townspeople are imposters, and are secretly crabs. You might find yourself in combat with them. Combat rolls are opposed checks. The enemy has between 40 and 70% in each trait. If both you and your enemy succeed your roll, then the person who rolled closer to their trait’s number wins. Players win ties. Here is an example. JimBob the harbormaster is secretly a crab. You want to spread a rumor about him so that everyone in the town believes the coming wave is JimBob’s fault. Seeing through lies is a starting form eyes trait, so you have to roll a d100 and try to get below your starting form eyes percentage. JimBob still looks human at this point, so he has to roll under a 70 to succeed. He rolls a 20, which is 50 points under, and passes his roll. You’ve been slowly turning into a crab this whole time, and your eyes are mostly eye stalks at this point. You’ve only got 20 point in eyes; it’s 80% eyestalk. You cross your fingers and roll your dice, and you get a 15. That’s a success. It’s five points below its trait number. Both opposed checks succeed, so the one that is closer to its trait number wins. Because you rolled five points below your trait number and JimBob the harbormaster rolled fifty, you are closer, and your rumor is successful. The two NPCs, JimBob’s harbor attendant employees, who had been listening to JimBob’s advice to stay in town, believe your rumor and skedaddle on a boat, escaping the wave.
 
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand combat a bit. And for everyone listening, hopefully now you’re excited to find the Everything Is Going To Crab rule book yourself, and play a game with friends. I’m looking forward to playing Everything Is Going To Crab in an upcoming adventure.

Puzzling Portals (Sexy Battle Wizards)

Dimension hopping, bloody trees, and seducing fire giants? Listen at your own risk! Join Arby, Guvo, and Sadie in the episode Puzzling Portals featuring the one-page RPG Sexy Battle Wizards!