Another RPG Bundle - Ironsworn-Starforged

[ffutures]

This bundle presents Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles from Tomkin Press, which use Powered by the Apocalypse for solo and refereed games, with SF and fantasy settings included:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Ironsworn

 

So far I've only had a good look at the Starforged rules, which is a very nicely presented game although it does fall into a few common SF tropes - most notably the "jungle planet", "desert planet" idea where an entire world has only one type of environment, which seems just a little unlikely. The rules are more complicated than I like, but that's pretty common for games based on the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics. Art is very good - I suspect that some AI is involved given the sheer quantity, but it's a lot less obtrusive than some I've seen, and the characters depicted rarely fall too deeply into the uncanny valley. Characters seem to be dressed appropriately for safety and the environment, and there are no chaos spiky shoulder pads which is generally a good sign.

Overall, this is surprisingly cheap for what you're getting, and I think it's well worth a look.

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Believe it or not, Earth has had a planetary environment multiple times including Snowball Earth, Jungle Earth, Swamp World, Desert of the Supercontinent, and let's not forget That Time It Rained for 2 Million Years. Plus some aberrations like extreme volcanic activity periods or a giant asteroid smacking into the planet.

LOL geohistory LOL

It's amazing how some things that seem utterly ridiculous turn out to have happened before.

Now, that doesn't mean all the F&SF writers are doing theirs right. If you want it to make sense, you do need to know how and why these things come about. But once you know how geology and meteorology work, you can play with them like Legos and build whatever you want. Worldbuilding is fun.

Re: Well ...

[eledonecirrhosa]

But even the Pangaea supercontinent had tropical wet swampy bits and 'a bit nippy in winter' polar bits. And Frank Herbert's map of Dune includes a north pole ice cap!

The Time It Rained for 2 Million Years... ah yes, that's the Scottish Highlands, isn't it? :-)

[ffutures]

I can accept an occasional world like that, but designing the game so that every world is some sort of monoclimate really doesn't work for me.