The Jangli Playtest is Out!

Update! You can find the v04 playtest here. Happy adventuring!

Update 2! You can find the v05 playtest here.

 

This blog began because I wanted to chronicle the building of Jangli, my Indian fantasy Cairn/ItO hack. In typical fashion, I completely derailed that plan and started writing random other things. However, I have now completed a major milestone in my original goal - the playtest is ready!

I'm going to spend the rest of this post talking about what I wrote, why, and my thoughts throughout that whole process. In the meanwhile, you can find the PDF here. If you have thoughts, let me know in the comments! Or check out the post in #wip-feedback if you're in the NSR Cauldron.

 

Oh, and also treat this as my update for the ADVENTure jam. It's all I worked on this week, TTRPG-wise.

 

Slay cover page, I wonder who made it

 

Introduction

"Jangli is a tabletop RPG inspired by Marathi and Konkani culture, folklore, and history. In it, players take the role of bhadotri (“sellswords”) who travel across jungles, seas, and mountains in search of power, wealth, and renown." (taken directly from the PDF)

That's pretty standard RPG-speak for "Jangli is a game about adventuring in fantasy-Konkan."

In addition to that, the game has a fun core feature: the clan. In Jangli, the first thing you do, before you even generate your characters, is generate your clan. The clan has a name (something like "Clan Jutav"), a fort (we'll learn more about those soon!), a watan (a portion of land that the clan rules over, similar to medieval fiefs) and a village on that watan. Gameplay is centered around the things going on in that clan's court and territory.

For example, a game might begin with rumors of a monster haunting the woods, causing the village to cower in fear and not send shipments of grain and other products out. This could be bad for the fort (no one's getting food) and for income from that holding (there's less money flowing in). The players would then go on a mission to find and (potentially) slay this beast, and if they successfully do so, their income will bounce back and their renown may increase.

 

Clan and Bhadotri Generation

As discussed previously, the very first thing the players do is generate a clan. To do that, they roll up a random name, symbol, colors, kuladevta (clan deity) and fort.

Let's go ahead and roll one up! It's really just a bunch of tables, there's little for the players to design (by intention).

 

Random Clan: Clan Chakhar is a weak clan of little wealth and less renown (note: as are all starting clans). Their symbol is a wheel, and their clan colors are red and white. Their kuladevta is Lady Chandidevi, goddess of the moon. The clan is based out of the ancient fort of Nadivali Killa in the Riverlands.

 

That's pretty cool for a starting clan, in my opinion. The players will have more opportunities to expand its territories, fame, and forts in the future, but for now, it's just a backwater clan in the Riverlands.

Next, players roll up some bhadotri (sellswords). These are who they'll be playing as. One or more of the bhadotri is not a bhadotri at all, and is instead a noble from the clan the players generated earlier. The bhadotri are loyal to their clan.

 

Example:

Devika the Farmer (she/her)

13 STR, 9 DEX, 10 CHA, 3/3 HP, 0 Armour

Equipment (7/10): rations (3), camping gear (b), 48 copper shivrai, medicine (3), thick walking stick, chakram (d4, ranged)

Renown, Duels, and Humble Requests

Most of the "basic rules" section is fairly typical for an Into the Odd or Cairn-like game. It's d20, roll under and 10 slot equipment. I toyed around with variable die sizes (a la Brighter Worlds) for a while, as well as 2d6 (Maze Rats style) and sets/raises (a la 7th Sea), but eventually returned to the classic d20.

There is however, some fun new stuff!

Firstly, advancement triggers, inspired by this post of Dreaming Dragonslayer's, are based on the fiction the game hopes to push. That is, you advance when you A) conquer a fort, B) lead troops to victory in battle, or C) fulfill an honor-bound oath. I may add a generic one about completing missions at some point, but I do want the general trend to be that advancement is rare and not a core part of the game. You don't advance every few sessions, but maybe only a couple times per character.

Secondly, renown. Renown is a die size (starting at 0, going up to a d12) that influences your rolls. Are you the famed (d6) sellsword Devika of Nadivali? If so, you may have an advantage convincing other mercenaries to join you on a campaign to take Clan Sochaival's fort of Dagdabau Killa. It's not an insanely big or game-changing mechanic, but just something simple to get people thinking about their legacy and to set the Game of Thrones-esque feel of wandering swords, castles, and great houses.

Thirdly, duels and humble requests. Those may sound like they're completely separate, but they're not! This is a little mechanic that causes characters to take a d6 CHA damage if they turn down a lesser character's duel, humble request, or riddle. You may be thinking: that's... a little harsh. You may also be thinking: why Charisma damage?

On the first point - the goal is to reinforce the tropes of riddles, duels, and tests of wit. The trope is strong and consistent in fiction, and this was one way I thought it could be expressed and encouraged in mechanics. Without a reward for performance, or punishment for avoidance, why wouldn't a powerful character refuse a duel from a warlord, or shoot a crow rather than answer its riddle? The mechanic encourages engagement with the trope.

On the second point - this is strongly related to why I use CHA instead of WIL. Charisma in this game is both charm and reputation. Creatures - gods, spirits, and mortals alike - will not respond well to someone who breaks oaths and responds to riddles with violence. In the stories that inspired Jangli, the most powerful characters are always those who are honest and engage with the tropes in the same way. Troops abandon a leader who refuses to duel an upstart general, and demons accept the riddles and humble requests of others. Even the bad guys follow these rules (generally - some characters can be shown to be especially bad because they don't follow these expectations).

Armour Based Initiative, Gambits, and Weapon Tags

There's a lot going on in this section, and it's all combat based. First we have armour based initiative. In this method, initiative is split four ways. First the unarmoured attackers of each side go. Then, the armoured attackers of each side go.

This balances the need for life-saving armour and the need for speed. You want to go first? Drop your shield and run.

The second new thing is gambits. Ok, not actually new (they're adapted from Mythic Bastionland's feats). Gambits allow characters to attack and also do a stunt (a non-attack combat action, like kicking up sand). Then, the attacker makes a save, based on the type of stunt they tried to pull off. On a failure, they can't make another gambit until they rest (effectively, the end of the fight). On a success, the gambit pays off.

The third big change to combat are weapon tags and tiled maps. They go hand-in-hand. Tiled maps are exactly what you think they are, no need to explain those. Weapon tags are... also exactly what you think they are. Weapon tags give some weapons unique range properties, like sweep (melee attack on two tiles), reach (two tile range), ranged (50 tile range), and blast (2 tile AoE). There's also slow, which means you can't attack and move on the same round.

Beyond those three, there are lots of other new changes and additions. Many might not make it to the end of playtesting, only the ones that come up the most often and are the most fun to play. Check out the Skirmish and Optional Skirmish rules for those.

 

Further Expansions + Conclusion

I was going to write more, but I was getting tired, and if I'm getting tired writing this then you're probably getting a little antsy reading it. So, we'll jump to the conclusion and you can read the rest of the cool stuff yourself (or perhaps I'll blog about it another day).

So, those are some of the highlights, or at least, some of the major deviations, in Jangli. Other things that I think are cool include:

• Variable prices for items, changing by month and scaled for rarity and size
• Weapon notches from GLOG fighters (but now for everyone)
  
• Holdings and income from them
• Ritual magic rather than spell-based
• Lots of random tables
• Monsters from Hindu mythology and Konkani folklore

That's actually quite a lot, but I don't have particularly strong or intensive thoughts on any of that, so maybe it'll just be something you read on your own.

 

As for some of the things I want to continue working on:

• More playtesting, of course
• Lots of revision! The language used throughout is not the most refined or concise, and there are errors here and there.
• As suggested by a member of the NSR Discord:
• examples and spark tables for magic items, rituals, ritual components, and ritual component locations
• more info on witches, witch powers, their roles in the genre, where to find them, etc.
• Pinterest board of visual references
• Spotify or YouTube playlist of good ambient music (the faux-Egyptian "Indian fantasy" songs on YouTube are no good, don't trust them)

Anyways, that's all for now! Hope y'all are excited, this is amazingly fun for me, so I hope it'll be similarly fun for you.

As a reminder, let me know your thoughts if you have any, I'd love to hear them. Also a reminder, this is very much a work-in-progress. As I play through the game more, (and hopefully as some of y'all play through the game more), things will sort themselves out and clean themselves up. It's rough now, but in time it'll come out polished and new!