Together is the Guild, A High-fantasy hack with an itch of Tactical Combat

Forged in the Dark The Library
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Hey all! New around here, love BITD and have been working on my own FITD hack. After testing it with a small campaign with some friends I’m finally happy to share it! Hope you get some cool ideas from it for your own campaigns! :smile: Feedback always appreciated as well!

Together is the Guild is a High-fantasy TTRPG with an itch of Tactical Combat based on BITD Rules. You will find yourself with a group of adventurers aiming to make the best guild in this magical world! You must work together to survive the threats of rival guilds, nobles, dungeons, and everything else the world throws at you!

Some changes include:

  • Narrative based Magic rules! (Imagination is key!)
  • Inventory Slots instead of load
  • XP Triggers are done at the end of every session
  • Leveling system like PF2e or D&D (1-20) instead of XP bars for every attribute and playbook
  • Changed Heat & Wanted levels logic with now having a D30 table of entanglements!
  • Renamed a bunch of stuff to feel more in line of a fantasy world with a group of adventures.
  • Tactical Combat phase with an example module using PF2e combat rules.
  • And a bunch of more smaller changes!

You can get the rules for free here: https://robinaite.itch.io/together-is-the-guild

Planning on slowly adding more guild types, working out a more integrated tactical combat system, and looking into making a fun setting around this, but for now here are the rules for free! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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This looks great, and is totally something I was looking for. I only glimpsed at it, but I already want to say three things, after saying thank you for making this.

First, a typo on the itch page: *lashback should probably be flashback.

Second, suggestions for guilds/teams/party sheets:

  • Ship-based guild
  • Tower or magical research focused guild
  • Mercenary guild
  • Merchant guild
  • Thieves’ guild
  • Race/ethnic/community focused guild (e.g. dwarves going to look for their ancestor’s treasure guarded by a dragon)
  • Church, monastery, or faith-based guild (or cult)

I would suggest allowing gang upgrades to emulate the Leadership feat, and to also allow some variety in the types of guilds. In BitD, gangs really only become useful after you get to tier 1 anyway, so it seems reasonable to simply require the guild to be at a higher tier (maybe D?) before you can get a gang upgrade.

And, finally, I suggest adding text giving permission to ignore your rule requiring taking powers in a certain order, especially for the “multi-classing” hack, with the warning that some choices might be OP and should be either evaluated carefully, or could be potentially restricted in use.

Happy to provide more (and detailed) feedback when I get into it in greater depth.

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Thank you very much for the initial feedback! Some great ideas here for guild types! I’ve got Mercenary Guild sheet coming up on the weekend, with currently Merchant and a Cult (name tbd) sheets in works, as well as some typo fixes and rewording to make some things more clear in the rules.

Regarding gang upgrades, currently the rules are pretty open to interpretation and feel on how the players want to recruit or upgrade their gang. Nonetheless, the leadership feat looks interesting and I’ll delve a bit deeper into it to see if there is something that can be used from there!

One of the chances incoming in the next version (in the weekend) is the removal of the starting ability, and instead you can pick any special ability as your first one or when you multi class, with a suggestion to pick the first one. Also, good idea to remove the order from the special abilities list in the rules, it could cause confusion, you’re allowed to pick any you want when you level up already anyway!

Feel free to send any more feedback you have my way, it’s always appreciated! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Edit: I now notice that I have not include Multi Class anywhere in the rules, but I do on the character sheets. Whops. :sweat_smile:

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I think that’s fine: I think that’s low priority and pretty clear from the sheet. I noticed a few paragraphing issues in the previews on itch, but want to see if they are in the doc itself when I download it.

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Going through the doc and adding comments as I go through. BTW, if you are working on a Google and want to share it with me so I can comment there, this might be much more efficient.

Page 2: “The TIG Rule System” I assume TIG stands for Together is the Guild, but that would be TITG, which sounds a lot less good. I would probably stick with Forged in the Dark, since that has some brand recognition, provides additional information, and fits the bill pretty well, but you’re welcome to ignore this. You even reference FitD later on page 3.

Page 5, under ROLLING DICE: the single 6 outcome needs its own paragraph, separate from the double-six crit outcome. I’d also probably bullet those paragraphs, to make them stand out as the four possible outcomes. I’d also rename “Double 6” to “Multiple 6” or “More than one 6” to clarify that it applies even when you roll more than two 6s.

Page 6, under RESISTING CONSEQUENCES: “To resist, you roll a dice equal to the column of the respective attribute that the GM has chosen.” Perhaps better to say “… equal to the number of actions under the relevant attribute that you have at least one level in.”

Page 6, under WOUND CONSEQUENCES: “When you fil a row…” is missing one el in FILL. But do you really only apply the consequence when you have 2 lesser or moderate wounds? Isn’t one enough to trigger the consequence to the related actions? If I’m correct, better to say “When you have a wound, you must apply the related consequence described below to all related actions.”

Page 6, under RESISTING WOUND CONSEQUENCES: “When doing do a resistance roll” probably needs the “do” deleted.

Page 7, FLASHBACK: in BitD the willpower cost is normally set by how plausible or reasonable the actions would be in the original context, in the sense that, if the events that happened in the flashback are pretty reasonable, then the cost is free. If the characters in that context would probably not have taken those actions, then it’s 2 stress/willpower (or more!). And then the middle ground. This avoids overplanning, because you know, as a player, that you can just flashback for free to plan any reasonable planning. You’re changing this to be related to task complexity and likelihood (for flashbacks that cost 2 only). I’m wondering if that’s the right move. Would you share your reasoning?

Page 8, INVENTORY: “To add more items to these lists, one can use the
Acquire Asset downtime, a Long-term project…” perhaps add the word “action” after “downtime.”

I’ll add more when I have time, if this is helpful.

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Thanks again for the valuable feedback! Fixed the grammar/spelling/extra words all across the board including the ones you mentioned. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Page 2: I’ve removed all mentions regarding a “TIG Rule system” all together, as it was confusing and didn’t make much sense. The text is going to update to be more similar to what is under “Gameplay” on the Itch.io page!

Page 5: Good catch, the 6 should be its own paragraph, and will implement your feedback regarding bullet points and rename double 6 to Multiple 6.

Page 6 Resisting Consqeunces: Will rewrite that phrase, because as you say it can indeed be a bit confusion.

Page 6: Wound Consequences. Fixed the missing L! And yes, you only apply the consequences when you have 2 lesser or moderate wounds. This is one slight rule change in comparison to BITD. The biggest reasoning for this is that based on the BITD games I played, it was a mechanic that was always forgotten and caused more confusion than anything else, so I simplified the mechanic. With playtesting it seemed to work better for the tables I played with. There’s a small chance that I will completely redo the wound tables in the future, to be more fitting, but for now this will do.

Page 7, Flashback. The flashback mechanic should be as closely as possible to how the flashback workds in BITD. If you didn’t get that feeling then that means I worded it poorly! (I also found a grammar mistake that I will fix in there)

Page 8, Inventory. Not directly related to your feedback, but I now notice that I removed the Acquire Asset Downtime activity, and forgot to add information about it in Free Play that the players can buy items using Gold at any time they want without it costing downtime. The concept of getting an item temporarily doesn’t exist in the current rule set. (Tl;dr I will remove Acquire Asset Downtime and reword it to be more coerent with what the initial idea was for it)

Thanks again for the indepth feedback!! Much appreciated.

PS. Unfortunately I do not use google for this, so wouldn’t be able to share, sorry. It’s all written locally in Markdown then I use a script to generate the PDF from the various pages.

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First update for Together is the Guild is out! Mercenaries Guild Type is now available on the Itch link in the first post.

Full Changelog:

  • Updated Character Sheets to have more space.
  • Removed Starting Special Ability Rule. Instead you can now pick any, with a suggestion to pick the first one for both Classes and Guilds.
  • Become Obsessed over your Hobby is now called Oblivious Action.
  • Added and improved the examples of consequences to the Oblivious Action.
  • Fixed Magic rules referencing Skill rolls instead of Action Rolls.
  • Fixed a couple of grammar and spelling mistakes.

Classes:

  • Bard: Removed Bard Jack of all Trades Special Ability.
  • Bard: Changed You no longer get both Bardic Inspiration and Performance Magic special abilities at the same time.
  • Mage: Removed unnecessary Armour reference in Mage Armour Description.
  • Ranger: Updated class items to include medium armour instead of map of the area.

Guilds:

  • Added Mercenary Guild Type.
  • Adventurers Guild: Changed Patron special Ability to give free guild upgrades.

Enjoy! More feedback is always appreciated! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Big Update with a turn based actions system that tightly integrates into the narrative that together with the combat rules create a great Narrative Combat system!
Also in no specific order:

  • Changed the wound system to a more traditional fantasy health system
  • Added Combat damage guidelines
  • Added NPCs & Enemies creation guidelines.
  • Added initial items table & class item descriptions.
  • Maximum amount of action dots lowered to 3.
  • Various small wording changes to make everything work better with turn based action and combat.

You can find the full changelog here: https://robinaite.itch.io/together-is-the-guild/devlog/470914/combat-update-together-is-the-guild-v20

Enjoy! Feedback always welcome!

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Sorry to revive this thread, but OP is doing great work, and I want to praise it and give feedback.

In the Guild section, I appreciate the loyalty to the original material, and the reference to character building guides, but wouldn’t it be simpler to just do away with the Shaky/Confident half tiers, and the letters, and just use numbers? You could even specify that Advancement Endeavors only happen when one gains odd-numbered tiers, maintaining the exact same progression. Or, one could add 0.5 per advancement, and that might make things more loyal to the original material.

On a related note, I do wonder if having a level associated with each item and character doesn’t cause more complexity than enjoyment?

In traditional BitD, everything is based off of the crew tier, and that’s how characters truly gain power in the world. Some characters might have an item or ability that is better than their tier, but it provides a strong baseline to compare effects against. If you’re going up against a higher tier opposition, you’re going to have less effective actions, so you best prepare. This has the great virtue of clearly communicating the difficulty that players are about to encounter, one of the big problems in D&D, I think. It also gives the players a lot of character design space without risking overpowering them. You can advance the character all you want, but you’re never going to be much more powerful than your crew tier.

In TitG, you have character level, item tier, and guild tier, and they all seem to be independent of each other. I think you originally wanted to have character level so you could use Pathfinder tactical combat, and I wonder if you’re still doing that. Personally, I’m not sure that tracking all those tiers and levels adds enough fun to make it worthwhile. Using the classic framework of an item or character ability performing at crew tier, or at tier +1, or even at tier +2 effectiveness seems like a worthwhile simplification to me. Less bookkeeping, more fun. And, folding everything back into guild tier makes it easier to assess other entities when you learn that they are tier X. It’s fun to sweat an encounter with a higher tier opposition before even rolling the dice. And it’s also fun to chuckle when you know you’re about to cakewalk through lower-tier opposition.

Just some thoughts. If these details bring fun to your table, absolutely keep them.

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Hey! Thank you so much again for the amazing feedback! The project has been set on the backburner right now, but I do still want to address your feedback with some of my thoughts since then!

In this case, it was a decision to try and not overcomplicate the system, but I do 100% agree that it doesn’t truly fit with the style of the setting.

TL;DR Yes! You basically described exactly what is the issue with it!

Longer Answer: As you said, the aim was to try and incorporate some D&D/Pathfinder ish stuff into it, which while kind of neat, it caused more problems than it solved. I have some local rule changes that I did back in January that basically moved everything back to Tiers, and removed levels as a concept. So advancing a character just means a new special ability or an action point! It massively helps reeling in the feeling of knowing when you’re up against a more tough challenge. Then for adding the Combat, we just have a whole seperate character sheet, with no mechanical relation between the two except narratively.

Thanks again for the feedback nonetheless! All of it has been helping me a lot on working on some other cool ttrpg projects! As always, feel free to steal ideas from this, or adapt any rules to your own. Everyone knows their tables the best!

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If you had the bandwidth to push these to itch, I’d be grateful.

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Looked at how much work it was, and luckily not a lot! I’ve updated the text where needed and uploaded it to Itch.io.

Overall, the changes are pretty minimal.

Hope you enjoy!

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EDIT: Thank you!

I struggle with distinguishing the Actions in many FitD games, so this issue is far from unique to TitG: how do you distinguish when to use Diplomacy and when to use Sway?

In Blades in the Dark, at least for me, the big difference between Consort and Sway was that the former was for friends and acquaintances, while the latter was for strangers. It also had Command, which I only used for brief, broadcasted communications in situations where time was of the essence. But I did struggle a bit to distinguish Consort and Sway.

In TitG, the stated difference between Diplomacy and Sway seems that the former is about negotiation and flattery, and the latter is about “cleverness, charm, arguments or lies.” Only that last element seems distinct, but I do imagine diplomats occasionally bend the truth and mislead. So, I’m not fully clear on the distinction between the two.

Errata
The Barbarian character sheet still has the following language that might be worth replacing with “you can select this ability again to get an additional use per endeavor”:

You get an additional Rage per Endeavour at levels 6, 11 and 17.

I haven’t checked all the sheets, so there might be other such references in them.

A small correction: on the very last line on page 3, you once reference GilaRPGs (without a space) and then Gila RPGs (with a space). I’m guessing it should be the latter in both cases.

Guilds
I suggest adding a workshop, horses, temple, library, and ritual-area as potential upgrades for all guilds.

Here are some suggestions for initial powers, upgrades, and xp trigger for the different kinds of guilds I suggested earlier in this thread:

  • Ship-based guild
    • Your base is a ship and can move on waters deep enough.
    • Boats
    • Mark xp when your ship(s) reach a place you haven’t been to recently or departs towards one.
  • Tower or magical research focused guild
    • A guild member is a magical familiar that some guildmembers can see through.
    • Ritual area or library
    • Mark xp when you discover or solve an arcane mystery.
  • Mercenary guild
    • Your arms and armor are of greater quality.
    • Horses
    • Mark xp when complete a hired job or found a new one.
  • Merchant guild
    • A guild member is a wealthy merchant, but is profit driven.
    • Carriage
    • Mark xp when your guild obtains or sells significant amounts of trade goods.
  • Thieves’ guild
    • Your security tools are of greater quality.
    • Gang of street urchins
    • Mark xp when your steal something of value.
  • Race/ethnic/community focused guild (e.g. dwarves going to look for their ancestor’s treasure guarded by a dragon)
    • Your group has increased effect when acting in furtherance of your community. You start your relationship with a small faction at level 3.
    • You start with an additional guild member.
    • Mark xp when you achieve an advantage or solve a problem for your community.
  • Church, monastery, or faith-based guild (or cult)
    • Your hobby is your faith and you have an additional option as an Oblivious Action: Religious Fervor: someone else with your faith can recover one willpower.
    • Temple
    • Mark xp when your religion achieves a goal or gains a substantial number of new followers.
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Almost forgot! Bases should have the option to have the mobile upgrade, which costs 3, and the ship guild obviously starts with that.

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Oooh! The Wizards-Tower-Guild should get a golem, not a familiar!