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Them Deeper Bones RPG is currently in playtesting. To get access to the latest playtest materials for free, head over to the TDB Discord Server and join the Company.
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Them Deeper Bones?
Them Deeper Bones is a retro adventure role-playing game where adventuring heroes set out to explore the post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world and piece out the history of their lost homeland. If you like to solve problems through your own wits and role-playing instead of dice-rolling and character optimisation, this is the TTRPG for you.
Some key features:
- Role-playing as the primary problem solving tool. Think using your wits in escape rooms, but where the sky's the limit on how strange the puzzles can get.
- Streamlined d20-based system - of summing up dice with the base d20 instead of static bonus and penalty mathematics.
- Emphasis on the exploration and archeology parts of dungeon crawling, with treasure serving as a tool, not the end purpose.
- Magic system that allows individual spells to be both relevant and unpredictable.
- Tense and fast-paced combat system. The players have all the information they need to act thanks to the decide first initiative, things escalate quickly and the innovative Grit Dice method used stops it from ever becoming a grind.
- Group-focused play - through the Rediscovery Company framework that makes developing and investing in the whole group as important as individual characters in it
(preview currently from version beta.1.5)
Tools and Downloadables
Video
Twitch channel for the daily writing streamsThe Daily Writing Streams in a playtlist
Development Blog
Ludography
The games I know to have had a huge influence on the development of Them Deeper Bones:
- Frank Mentzer’s Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (The “Red Box”), Finnish translation (1988)
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition
- Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells
- Runequest, Finnish translation (1988)
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess
- Blades in the Dark and Forged in the Dark games
- Apocalypse World and Powered by the Apocalypse games
- Principia Apocrypha (it’s not a game per se, but..)
- Five Torches Deep
And some games that do not have an official release yet as of writing, but whose design process has still had an influence on the design:
- Jonas Mustonen’s Vankityrmiä & Louhikäärmeitä
- Ville Takanen’s Al Presa
- James Malloy’s Minimal Viable Dungeon