itch.io Spring Selects Series A
On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

kumada1

1,301
Posts
30
Topics
1,252
Followers
63
Following
A member registered Dec 04, 2019 · View creator page →

Creator of

Recent community posts

It's a really good game! I hope I put some more eyes on it.

After The Bomb is a Fallout fan rpg that manages to stick the landing more earnestly and effectively than the officially licensed system does. And this is by a mile.

There are two PDFs, for a combined total of about 60 pages, and they feature clean, highly readable layout and some splashes of repurposed pulp art. It's all very zine-y, but in the best possible way.

The core rules are simple. d20 + Stat + Bonus vs TN. Stats are low, and bonuses can be temporarily broken by taking survival damage. HP is at risk from both damage and radiation, and they eat at it from opposite ends of its track. Damage goes away when you get to safety. Radiation doesn't.

There's a crafting system that also uses the game's core currency, simple level ups, detailed gear, and all the Perks you'd expect from a modern Fallout.

World creation is collaborative, which to me fits *really* well with Fallout. Fallout's best maps have always been sort of a gumbo, with tons of ideas tossed in, and building your map this way ensures that every player has at least something they like floating in the broth.

There's a lot of GM support, including a bestiary, roll tables, and just generally good and clear advice about how to use the system. The second PDF is a pre-cooked sandbox campaign.

There's even basebuilding.

This is easily tied for my favorite post-apocalyptic ttrpg (the other contender being No Nut November: Squirrels Of The Post Apocalypse.) It's clear, direct, flavorful. It covers everything you need to start up a game, and a lot of neat additions besides, and still leaves you plenty of room to freewheel. I'm not the world's biggest Fallout fan, but After The Bomb does right by its material, and it's really easy to imagine Fallout stories in ATB's framework. If you clicked on this page and you like ttrpgs, I strongly recommend you give this one a shot. 

Thanks!

By all means! And feel free to ping me when it's ready. I'll shout it out on socials.

Glad you liked it!

+18 Archivist Points!

The Triangle is a pack of three missions for FIST, themed around the Bermuda Triangle.

The PDF is 39 pages, mostly image free but with a lot of variety in the text color. It's cleanly organized and easy to read.

Contents-wise, the missions are detailed, weird, and interesting. The first involves crawling the dreams of a predictive AI, the second hitting an entrenched position of vampires, and the third recovering an orbital-dropped dragon. Each of these missions comes with new enemies, new traits, and unique custom mechanics on top of a dynamic tactical situation. There's a fair bit to familiarize yourself with as the GM, but it's worth it.

The writing in Triangle is clear and clever, and the game balance feels extremely grounded. There's an undercurrent of humor that runs through it all and helps make it very approachable.

Overall, if you want three extremely complete, mechanically solid missions for FIST, this is a great place to get them. It's probably also a perfect starter pack for GMs who've just begun to dip their toes into the third party scene.


Minor Issues:

-Page 25, roll of a 6, it might be more interesting to have a 6 mean choose two

The Triangle is a pack of three missions for FIST, themed around the Bermuda Triangle.

The PDF is 39 pages, mostly image free but with a lot of variety in the text color. It's cleanly organized and easy to read.

Contents-wise, the missions are detailed, weird, and interesting. The first involves crawling the dreams of a predictive AI, the second hitting an entrenched position of vampires, and the third recovering an orbital-dropped dragon. Each of these missions comes with new enemies, new traits, and unique custom mechanics on top of a dynamic tactical situation. There's a fair bit to familiarize yourself with as the GM, but it's worth it.

The writing in Triangle is clear and clever, and the game balance feels extremely grounded. There's an undercurrent of humor that runs through it all and helps make it very approachable.

Overall, if you want three extremely complete, mechanically solid missions for FIST, this is a great place to get them. It's probably also a perfect starter pack for GMs who've just begun to dip their toes into the third party scene.


Minor Issues:

-Page 25, roll of a 6, it might be more interesting to have a 6 mean choose two

Operation Last Day is a Mesopotamian themed scenario for FIST that leans into the game's capacity for action-horror. You could probably also run this in Delta Green with no alterations---it fits that vibe perfectly.

The PDF is 16 pages, with a clean, readable, zine-y style layout.

Contents-wise, the writing and design is strong and interesting, but a little skeletal. Concepts are covered quickly, and the GM is left to fill in the details---but those concepts are fantastic and it's very easy to spin things from a hectic oneshot into a slow burn mini-campaign.

There's a lot of custom monsters included, all very flavorful. A particular standout are the multiple bosses, all with strong and consistent themeing.

There are also new Talents, and they're probably some of my favorites across all third party FIST material. The uniting theme is death, and they play with it in very dynamic ways.

Overall, this is a great scenario, well worth adding to your library if you even slightly enjoy espionage horror. You do have to do a little work to fill in the gaps, and you may want to generate some townsfolk in advance if you expect you'll be exploring the adventure from a slower and more political angle, but these are an easy admission price to pay for a standout.

Minor Issues:

-Page 7, "FISTenters" missing a space

Operation Last Day is a Mesopotamian themed scenario for FIST that leans into the game's capacity for action-horror. You could probably also run this in Delta Green with no alterations---it fits that vibe perfectly.

The PDF is 16 pages, with a clean, readable, zine-y style layout.

Contents-wise, the writing and design is strong and interesting, but a little skeletal. Concepts are covered quickly, and the GM is left to fill in the details---but those concepts are fantastic and it's very easy to spin things from a hectic oneshot into a slow burn mini-campaign.

There's a lot of custom monsters included, all very flavorful. A particular standout are the multiple bosses, all with strong and consistent themeing.

There are also new Talents, and they're probably some of my favorites across all third party FIST material. The uniting theme is death, and they play with it in very dynamic ways.

Overall, this is a great scenario, well worth adding to your library if you even slightly enjoy espionage horror. You do have to do a little work to fill in the gaps, and you may want to generate some townsfolk in advance if you expect you'll be exploring the adventure from a slower and more political angle, but these are an easy admission price to pay for a standout.


Minor Issues:

-Page 7, "FISTenters" missing a space

Feel free!

Fishbones is a slim, clean, and extremely useable quickstart version of Rod Reel And Fist.

It consists of three PDFs---including one which is an entirely original adventure with some new fish and animals---and everything in the PDFs is well organized, professionally layed out, and very easy to read.

If you're thinking about running Rod Reel And Fist, I highly recommend picking this up. It has a stellar grasp of the material, and the included adventure is incredibly flavorful and easy to run.

Thank you!

Thanks!

FORTS is a basebuilding supplement for FIST.

The PDF is 4 pages, densely organized, but very clean and readable.

Contents-wise, think of this like the group playbook from Blades In The Dark. You choose a base type, you invest coin in upgrades, and you get resources and allies and other support out of growing your base.

There's a lot of granularity and detail here, and anyone who's a fan of the last mainline Metal Gear will find something in the mix that they love. There's recruitment, resource management, an expertise system. It's comprehensive without being overwhelming.

Overall, this is a fantastic addition to a FIST campaign. If you want to show the PCs growing and changing not just as characters but as a geopolitical force, I strongly recommend plugging this into your game.

FORTS is a basebuilding supplement for FIST.

The PDF is 4 pages, densely organized, but very clean and readable.

Contents-wise, think of this like the group playbook from Blades In The Dark. You choose a base type, you invest coin in upgrades, and you get resources and allies and other support out of growing your base.

There's a lot of granularity and detail here, and anyone who's a fan of the last mainline Metal Gear will find something in the mix that they love. There's recruitment, resource management, an expertise system. It's comprehensive without being overwhelming.

Overall, this is a fantastic addition to a FIST campaign. If you want to show the PCs growing and changing not just as characters but as a geopolitical force, I strongly recommend plugging this into your game.

Puppet Strings is a supplement for FIST that supports more meta style play, leaning into the tropes of thriller fiction with new ways to spend war dice.

The PDF is 10 pages, with a clean layout and some nice historical photographs sprinkled in.

Contents-wise, there's a couple of key mechanics Puppet Strings adds to FIST's formula. The first is BitD style flashbacks, where you spend War Dice to establish details earlier in the plot. However there's also twists of fate (spend a War Die, add a narrative detail, then roll to see if it benefits you,) trivial coincidences (the GM asks a player to establish something true about the world,) dark revelations (major plot elements are connected to a PC specifically, giving them a bunch of War Dice,) and time paradoxes.

Time paradoxes are easily the wildest of the new elements, as they both establish that real world history is immutable (you rewind every time an event breaks canon history,) give the players War Dice, and slowly add random elements as the timeline degrades. They're a great mechanic, but they fully reorient FIST into being a game about time paradoxes.

In addition to these mechanics, there's also some new npcs (including Elvis,) foes, and items---all plenty flavorful.

Overall, this is a great resource for FIST---especially if you want your campaign to be about preserving the timeline. The new mechanics are excellent, and I strongly recommend this as a read for GMs who want to add a little more complexity to their FIST games.

Puppet Strings is a supplement for FIST that supports more meta style play, leaning into the tropes of thriller fiction with new ways to spend war dice.

The PDF is 10 pages, with a clean layout and some nice historical photographs sprinkled in.

Contents-wise, there's a couple of key mechanics Puppet Strings adds to FIST's formula. The first is BitD style flashbacks, where you spend War Dice to establish details earlier in the plot. However there's also twists of fate (spend a War Die, add a narrative detail, then roll to see if it benefits you,) trivial coincidences (the GM asks a player to establish something true about the world,) dark revelations (major plot elements are connected to a PC specifically, giving them a bunch of War Dice,) and time paradoxes.

Time paradoxes are easily the wildest of the new elements, as they both establish that real world history is immutable (you rewind every time an event breaks canon history,) give the players War Dice, and slowly add random elements as the timeline degrades. They're a great mechanic, but they fully reorient FIST into being a game about time paradoxes.

In addition to these mechanics, there's also some new npcs (including Elvis,) foes, and items---all plenty flavorful.

Overall, this is a great resource for FIST---especially if you want your campaign to be about preserving the timeline. The new mechanics are excellent, and I strongly recommend this as a read for GMs who want to add a little more complexity to their FIST games.

Welcome To Crime City USA is a sandbox for FIST centered around urban rot in a very Nightvale-ish sort of way. Youngstown is going through a severe economic downturn, and that economic downturn is making it supernaturally weird.

The PDF is 24 pages, with a redacted, photo-edited layout that's visually quite busy but still clean and easy to read.

Writing-wise, everything here is accessible and easy to follow. It's also got a strong authorial voice, and a knack for dancing between horror and humor.

Content-wise, there's a variety of missions to take on, and there's factions and lore you can dip into, but the strength of this module is really how authentic it feels. It's written by an IRL Youngstown resident, and in a genre rife with wizards and dragons it's rare you get to see a writer fully flex by working with something as known and primal as their hometown.

Simply put, if you like evocative settings, or just stuff that's written well, you should get this. It's designed for FIST, but the material is compelling enough that it would be worth adapting to any other modern supernatural system.

Welcome To Crime City USA is a sandbox for FIST centered around urban rot in a very Nightvale-ish sort of way. Youngstown is going through a severe economic downturn, and that economic downturn is making it supernaturally weird.

The PDF is 24 pages, with a redacted, photo-edited layout that's visually quite busy but still clean and easy to read.

Writing-wise, everything here is accessible and easy to follow. It's also got a strong authorial voice, and a knack for dancing between horror and humor.

Content-wise, there's a variety of missions to take on, and there's factions and lore you can dip into, but the strength of this module is really how authentic it feels. It's written by an IRL Youngstown resident, and in a genre rife with wizards and dragons it's rare you get to see a writer fully flex by working with something as known and primal as their hometown.

Simply put, if you like evocative settings, or just stuff that's written well, you should get this. It's designed for FIST, but the material is compelling enough that it would be worth adapting to any other modern supernatural system.

Operation Sarcastic Riot is a conversion pack for adapting DnD and OSR content to FIST.

The PDF is 17 pages, with clean, well organized, zine-y feeling layout. Pictures are provided throughout, and everything is easy to read.

Contents-wise, this is a detailed and thorough conversion kit. There's rules for adapting everything from AC/Armor to Choke/Morale. It can get a bit formulas-y, but all of the conversion is designed around working quickly and getting to the heart of the content. You don't need to know calculus to use it.

The tone of the writing is conversational and direct, and this really does a *lot* to keep the text approachable. Reading it feels like sitting down to chat with a friend, and there weren't any places where I felt confused or had to double back to check a mechanic.

There's a lot of supplemental material here as well, including new Traits, monsters, and a section at the end with very specific guidance on converting from a ton of different systems. It's extremely detailed and well-researched.

Overall, if you want to lean further into FIST's osr tendencies by using it to run actual osr, this is probably the definitive way to do it.

Operation Sarcastic Riot is a conversion pack for adapting DnD and OSR content to FIST.

The PDF is 17 pages, with clean, well organized, zine-y feeling layout. Pictures are provided throughout, and everything is easy to read.

Contents-wise, this is a detailed and thorough conversion kit. There's rules for adapting everything from AC/Armor to Choke/Morale. It can get a bit formulas-y, but all of the conversion is designed around working quickly and getting to the heart of the content. You don't need to know calculus to use it.

The tone of the writing is conversational and direct, and this really does a *lot* to keep the text approachable. Reading it feels like sitting down to chat with a friend, and there weren't any places where I felt confused or had to double back to check a mechanic.

There's a lot of supplemental material here as well, including new Traits, monsters, and a section at the end with very specific guidance on converting from a ton of different systems. It's extremely detailed and well-researched.

Overall, if you want to lean further into FIST's osr tendencies by using it to run actual osr, this is probably the definitive way to do it.

Inferno Protocol is a scenario for FIST involving a quick raid on a CYCLOPS base.

The PDF is 15 pages, with helpful diagrams, a solid cover, and big readable text.

Contents-wise, there's a lot of evocative description in here, but it's sometimes difficult to quickly pinpoint the mechanical bits amongst the rest of the text. In terms of the structure of the adventure, it's broadly a funnel of offices and regular CYCLOPS guards that terminates in one of three genuinely dynamic Metal Gear-y bosses.

The bosses are really the start of the show, and each has unique attack patterns and gimmicks and serves as a solid setpiece for a fight.

Overall, if you want a big classic video-game-y feeling boss fight with a little bit of runup, you should consider snagging Inferno Protocol.


Sidebar:

I promise I'm not trying to be mean here, but was this written with AI assistance? Some parts of the text feel like they have that machine lilt. The boss section definitely doesn't, though, so I'm not assuming anything, and I'm sorry if I got it wrong.

Inferno Protocol is a scenario for FIST involving a quick raid on a CYCLOPS base.

The PDF is 15 pages, with helpful diagrams, a solid cover, and big readable text.

Contents-wise, there's a lot of evocative description in here, but it's sometimes difficult to quickly pinpoint the mechanical bits amongst the rest of the text. In terms of the structure of the adventure, it's broadly a funnel of offices and regular CYCLOPS guards that terminates in one of three genuinely dynamic Metal Gear-y bosses.

The bosses are really the start of the show, and each has unique attack patterns and gimmicks and serves as a solid setpiece for a fight.

Overall, if you want a big classic video-game-y feeling boss fight with a little bit of runup, you should consider snagging Inferno Protocol.

GUTS is a set of musically inspired new TRAITS for FIST.

The PDF is 8 pages, with a clean, readable layout that mirrors and builds on the style of FIST core. It's got a lot of custom art pieces, all of which look rad and zine-y, and it establishes a lot of charm through visuals alone.

The TRAITS here are complex and weird, with lots of options for lateral play. A few are also a little on the strong side, so you may want to calibrate them slightly if they're being dropped into a more grim and desperate campaign. ELECTRO GHOST gives you extremely easy WAR DICE recovery,  REVERSED lets you farm +CREATIVE off of teammates pretty easily, and GOD TOOL is a oneshot machine that you can just keep using.

The PDF is available in English and Spanish, an extra layer of work on the project that should be appreciated.

Overall, if you want to add some musical flavor to character creation (and get a bunch of really interesting and varied TRAITS in the bargain,) you should grab GUTS.

GUTS is a set of musically inspired new TRAITS for FIST.

The PDF is 8 pages, with a clean, readable layout that mirrors and builds on the style of FIST core. It's got a lot of custom art pieces, all of which look rad and zine-y, and it establishes a lot of charm through visuals alone.

The TRAITS here are complex and weird, with lots of options for lateral play. A few are also a little on the strong side, so you may want to calibrate them slightly if they're being dropped into a more grim and desperate campaign. ELECTRO GHOST gives you extremely easy WAR DICE recovery,  REVERSED lets you farm +CREATIVE off of teammates pretty easily, and GOD TOOL is a oneshot machine that you can just keep using.

The PDF is available in English and Spanish, an extra layer of work on the project that should be appreciated.

Overall, if you want to add some musical flavor to character creation (and get a bunch of really interesting and varied TRAITS in the bargain,) you should grab GUTS.

Die Twenty is a bestiary for FIST that adds explicitly fantasy rpg monsters to the roster of things the agents can be called to combat.

The PDF is 4 pages, layed out in a perfect mirror of the core book, and is clean and easy to use.

Contents-wise, everything here is extremely flavorful. It would've been easy to just restat DnD critters to FIST, but Die Twenty goes the extra mile and integrates them into the mundane 1980s. The merchant princess is a corporate heir. The dullhan packs a submachine gun. The halflings break bad.

There's also some *really good* storytelling in the margins about a Satanic Panic style demon outbreak. The Lake Geneva Exclusion Zone is a stellar framework for a campaign, and your group can move fast and break things in ways a big IP like Stranger Things can't.

Overall, if you want more monsters for FIST, you want this.

Die Twenty is a bestiary for FIST that adds explicitly fantasy rpg monsters to the roster of things the agents can be called to combat.

The PDF is 4 pages, layed out in a perfect mirror of the core book, and is clean and easy to use.

Contents-wise, everything here is extremely flavorful. It would've been easy to just restat DnD critters to FIST, but Die Twenty goes the extra mile and integrates them into the mundane 1980s. The merchant princess is a corporate heir. The dullhan packs a submachine gun. The halflings break bad.

There's also some *really good* storytelling in the margins about a Satanic Panic style demon outbreak. The Lake Geneva Exclusion Zone is a stellar framework for a campaign, and your group can move fast and break things in ways a big IP like Stranger Things can't.

Overall, if you want more monsters for FIST, you want this.

FIST-R is a lightning fast character generator for FIST.

It outputs solid, interesting characters with a clean, well-organized layout.

If you want to play high lethality FIST and get back into the action fast (or if you just want cool random characters to print) this is a great asset.

FIST-R is a lightning fast character generator for FIST.

It outputs solid, interesting characters with a clean, well-organized layout.

If you want to play high lethality FIST and get back into the action fast (or if you just want cool random characters to print) this is a great asset.

Whoah, thank you!

Mork Borg Solo Rules is a procedure for playing Mork Borg solo.

The PDF is 3 pages, not formatted in the Mork Borg house style but with clean and readable bare text.

The supplement is easy to follow and draws primarily on pre-existing resources. You use the dungeon generator to create dungeons. You use Eat Prey Kill for hunting. You use the standard Mork Borg rules to create a character and resolve encounters.

The guidance is all intuitive and well organized, and accommodates new resources (such as other third party material you want to involve) quite well. It bring anything tremendously new to the table, but it doesn't need to when what's already there works.

Overall, if you want to play Mork Borg solo with minimal fuss, using whatever third party material you have to hand, Mork Borg Solo Rules is what you want.

Yep! They're additive, so starting Skinflints get both starting penalties for a +3 DR total on social tests.

If other Classes dip into Skinflint via Getting Better, they'd only take the penalties for the Specialty they pick.

Disclosing up front that I was a playtester on this, but also it's some of the most fun I've had with a dark fantasy ttrpg full stop.

Hollow Halls is a Fear & Hunger / Darkest Dungeon inspired grimy crawler, where combat is lethal and exploration is dreary and ominous.

Fear & Hunger *is* the primary part of the formula, and a lot of its more immsim elements are preserved. You have the Resident Evil 4 suitcase inventory, and it's also the targeting grid for your character, so attacks can damage your weapons, or items, or empty squares. Even breaking or removing them.

Targeting is done by rolling randomly and then spending points to adjust. Foes can spend these points too, so part of combat involves running enemies out of resources so that you can hit them cleanly. It's surprisingly fluid for how complex it is, and every hit ends up feeling weighty and meaningful.

Setting-wise, Hollow Halls leans on atmosphere and implication, showing more than it tells. That said, it's easy to create characters for. There's enough of a primer to know where to situate people in the setting, and each class comes with a strong sense of identity.

As far as its horror elements go, Hollow Halls is primarily gothic and violent in tone. It doesn't carry over any of the erotiphobic horror from F&H, and it doesn't rely on coinflips and instadeath to sell its lethality.

Ultimately, if you like grim and precise rpgs with hit location charts, this should be at the top of your read list. It kinda casually revolutionizes the genre.

Whoah, thank you! Glad you've been enjoying it!

Thanks! A bunch of works by Yasumi Matsuno, including the Ogre Battle series, were part of the inspiration mix for this game!

For Blessing, its good if you get forced into a combat while injured. If the other unit is at full HP, there's no downside.

Like Goblin Ball and some of the Divination Cards it is a bit circumstantial, and some characters and formations will benefit from it more than others.

These are important questions!

A shower can also work, as can a soak in a hotspring or hottub, or a steam in a sauna. What's important is being in a relaxed and reflective state.

This roleplaying system is eating an orange neutral. You can choose to eat one or not without affecting the mechanics of play.

Every time I'm making one of these games, there's a moment when I think "does this weird thing actually need to be in the world?" And then I remember that for half of my bad ideas there's at least one comment like this, and it's always worthwhile.

Thank you for writing the game!

Tacticians Of Ahm is a crunchy, bite-sized 8-bit core tactics ttrpg with fun presentation, compelling design, and a whole lot of heart.

The PDF is in its current beta build is 92 pages, with a mix of good helpful diagrams, bare exposed Microsoft Word formatting, and a fantastic cover and character sheet.

The basic premise is that you are sprites in an old NES cart that is corrupting with age. That corruption is literally eating at your world, shrinking its borders, and spawning glitched out monsters in what was otherwise a peaceful land. For me personally, this sort of Horton Hears A Who/Reboot premise of being tiny creatures somewhere unobservable in the real world doesn't really compel, but I will take any excuse to lean into the 8-bit aesthetic, and there's a lot of room to calibrate the game's setting and premise if you have a different angle you'd like to take.

More importantly, mechanically, Tacticians shines. Attacks always hit. Effects are applied to the entire area of effect. Facing matters. Gear matters. Rolls are out of combat only. Armor consumes inventory slots. You can grow relationships with your squad and leverage them for extra actions. Everything scales off of class levels, and you can freely and flexibly multiclass.

It's as deep as you want it to be, and a new player can bash together a character in ten minutes or spend an hour making very deliberate build choices. Similarly, XP accumulates fast and you can either stay in your starting class for maximum damage value or take levels in everything for a wide movepool.

For players, the core mechanics are simple and well-explained. For GMs, the game is easy and intuitive to run, but does require some prep to structure combats into scenarios---at least until you're a few sessions in. Illustrations and charts are provided for players and GMs throughout, as is a thorough and well-designed bestiary.

As for designers, Tacticians has the three great treats of an rpg poised to have an explosive third party scene: it's simple, it's deep, and it's extremely user friendly.

Overall, Tacticians Of Ahm is a gem. Although this might sound banal, its design priority is fun, and this is a good priority for a TTRPG to have. More importantly, it hits its mark. It has the positioning and deliberate action of Into The Breach, but mixes it with the chill nostalgia of spending an afternoon on your grandmother's couch playing NES. If you like tactics games with some light storytelling that you can drag a few casual friends into, this is likely the best.


Minor Issues:

-Page 34, Bless, using 'take' here feels a little confusing. Maybe 'gain'?

-It might be interesting to have Corrupt1on and Cha0s be antagonistic but opposite forces, fitting with the binary theme of 1s and 0s.

Wandering Blades is a low fantasy wuxia osr ttrpg. It pulls from a host of indie osr like Runecairn, Vaults Of Vaarn, and Sharp Swords And Sinister Spells, but walks its own path. On the wuxia side, it draws on Jin Yong novels, Sword Of The Stranger, Wu Shan Wu Xing, Biao Ren, and more. To put this another way, the central element is gorgeous violence.

The PDF is 25 pages, with a frankly jaw-dropping cover and a clean, readable, but otherwise unornamented interior.

Core mechanics are d20 + stat, with a lot of elements that may be familiar to players who have spent time with 5e (such as long rest, reaction, and disadvantage.) There's also the really, really cool Fast Turn/Slow Turn rules from Shadow Of The Demon Lord, where you can put yourself into a lower initiative bracket in combat in order to get more actions per turn.

Character creation is class-based, with only one class currently implemented. However, that class is very detailed and versatile, and core gameplay runs deep enough to keep the game being single class from being a problem. In addition to some medium complexity slot-based inventory rules, and the HP and roll to hit systems you'd expect from an osr title, every character has martial arts techniques and a Qi pool to use them. This pool scales off of a wildcard stat, Focus, and learning new techniques is a separate process from leveling up, giving players and GMs a little more flexibility to calibrate gameplay.

Combat is designed around loose zones of engagement, allowing it to stay entirely theater of the mind or snap to grid, whichever you prefer. Weapons have complex properties and strong, clear situational bonuses that befit particular playstyles. Armor provides high amounts of flat damage soak, but weapons have tons of ways to play past that. General stances allow everyone to slightly adjust their stats based on how confident they're feeling. Dual wielding is easy and versatile. Characters have Reactions with techniques and equipment that allow them to respond to specific triggers outside of turn, giving fights a more precise feel, and tricks like feinting and grappling are both good, cleanly explained, and available to everyone. PCs specifically can stay up past 0 HP, taking status effects instead until they collapse.

For GMs, the game is clearly explained, and there's an example of play section, but there's no starter adventure or bestiary or anything like that. You'll need to brew your own material, and this might not be a perfect pick for first time GMs. Also, though perfectly playable in its current state, the game is currently under active development. You can support it by buying it here on itchio or more directly through the creators' patreon.

Overall, I don't think I've seen another osr title nail the fundamentals of combat as cleanly as Wandering Blades. Most of what's currently here is the core rules, and most of those core rules are for fights, but they're absolutely golden. If you like wuxia and osr I would strongly advise keeping an eye on Wandering Blades, and supporting it if you have the chance.


Minor Issues:

-Page 13, Misdirect And Strike, this can turn into a pretty strong own side aoe debuff unless you have a very specific team comp. Changing to "may be rolled with Intellect" would mitigate this.