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Setting the Stage Episode 64 – Kevin and Orbis

Published by

Isaac

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Kevin tells us about his setting and TTRPG, Orbis. It’s a crunchy mech combat game!

Central to Orbis is the Ion Tempest storm. It started long ago and afflicts the world with electrical storms, cold snaps, heat waves, and odd magnetic and gravitational fields. History of the world before the arrival of the Ion Tempest is lost. Some sort of apocalypse occurred to this science fiction civilization that destroyed everything and created the Ion Tempest. The storm also has sentient representations of it called Apostles. The chaotic wilderness is full of lucrative treasures from before the collapse of civilization. People known as ronin go out into the wilds with protective mechs known as armored gears to fight behemoth monsters, secure territory, and find loot. Some ronin are trained as voltweavers, able to use the energy of the Ion Tempest itself to perform magical feats.

On the system side, Orbis seeks to unify mech games that focus on the mechs with ones that focus on the pilots. Both your mech and your pilot are relevant and advance as you play the game. As you might imagine for a mech game, customization is rampant with tons of options, gears, levers, and nozzles to fiddle with for how your pilot and mech are setup. For action resolution you compare the score of your most relevant attribute and skill to a difficulty number. You gain a modifier on a d100 roll equal to the difference between your numbers and the difficulty number. Your target is always 50 after that modification. Critical successes occur whenever you a double on the D100 (11, 22, 33, etc).

Orbis is still early in development but there is enough material to start playing it if you’re interested. Join the Discord for rule files and to connect with Kevin. Or follow Kevin’s BlueSky account for the latest updates.
Discord: https://discord.gg/7pvcGPHEvQ
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/orbisgame.bsky.social

And one of our previous guests, Peter from Tales From Elsewhere, is crowdfunding his first TTRPG book, Clockworld. You can check the Kickstarter out at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/talesfromelsewhere/tales-from-elsewhere-clockworld

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Hello,

I’m Isaac

Welcome to the GoCorral website! I’m Isaac Shaker and this is a place for me to write about D&D and occasionally other topics. I host a podcast called Setting the Stage that interviews different DMs about their campaigns. I’m currently focused on completing the Cimmeria campaign setting and turning it into a book.

Setting the Stage Podcast

71 – Aaron Ryan and Dissonance/The End – Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

I talked with Aaron Ryan about two of his book series, Dissonance and The End.Dissonance is a near future world where aliens have attacked, killing most humans and animals on Earth and driving humans into hiding underground. Humans finally develop technology to fight back and the war enters a new stage while the characters also struggle to determine the motivation for the alien invasion and nefarious actions of the government.The End is a Christian End Time series based loosely on the events described in Revelations. A man calling himself Nero has risen to rule over the world and he has outlawed Christianity. Robots called Guardians hunt Christians throughout the world, murdering them on the spot if they don't recant their faith. A resistance movement works in the shadows against Nero, but things aren't looking good for them.We talked about the basics of those settings along with how they could be adapted for RPG campaign settings. My main recommendations were Ashes Without Number, Spire, and Blades in the Dark.If you're interested in reading Aaron's books you can find them at most any bookstore or library. Both of the series are also being adapted into movies, but aren't publicly available yet. Aaron's website is https://authoraaronryan.com/ for the latest updates on his work. Next up for Aaron is the Talisman series that covers events within the "Aaronverse" in the decades between Dissonance and The End.Our website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6CSupport the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SettingtheStage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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