Critically acclaimed tabletop RPG Blades in the Dark gets a custom VTT

Starting a new tabletop role-playing game with a small group of friends is tough. Sure, getting six people’s schedules to line up a bit is always a chore. But learning a new game system requires study, and rolling four or five new characters takes time. Game developer One More Multiverse wants to help, and it’s building out a set of tabletop tools to make playing online with your friends a whole lot easier. The venture capital-backed team is going at very different things than its competitors. Whether you’re a potential novice player or a long-suffering Dungeon master, you should at least consider giving the demo a try.

One More Multiverse’s first toolset is a collection of assets to support the critically acclaimed blade in the dark, a wickedly fun TTRPG that takes place in a haunted version of a gritty, Industrial Revolution-era European city. That town, called Doscavol, is as much a character in the game as anyone sitting at the table. Therefore, OMM rebuilt the entire Doskvol inside its toolset.

Almost every place, every item, every non-player character in John Harper’s Core Book is included in One More Multiverse’s toolset. Chief operating officer and producer Tiffany Lee said that means that about 125 locations, about 150 non-player characters, and some 3,000 assets — weapons, furniture, monsters — are all included in the $29.99 purchase price. No more hunting for tokens to fill your online adventure with enemies, no more grappling with 1-inch grids to understand your digital maps. Everything you need to run a game blade in the dark Online is included in that price. Simply pick a location and load in the stock assets you need to bring it to life, or drag and drop your own space from a helpful list on one side of the screen.

Compared to a vast multiverse such as D&D’s Forgotten Realms with more than 40 years of publication history, dozens of campaigns, and thousands of characters, DosqVol includes a comparatively small set of people, places, and the things needed to make up its database. Is. Lee said the limited list was an advantage for the team at OMM.

“Instead of creating an entire continent,” Lee said, “Doscavol is so well-defined. For example, of most district landmarks from the book, we’ve done direct pixel art translations so GMs can join in immediately, and It is ready to go.

Virtual tabletops have exploded in popularity over the past two years, providing long-running groups and new players ways to socially distance themselves as the campaign advances. Roll20, perhaps the largest and most successful VTT of all time, recently claimed that it has doubled its user base from 5 to 10 million users in the past two years. Such growth has helped encourage D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast to invest in its own VTT, part of the One D&D offering that it recently acquired from Dungeons & Dragons Beyond. Also mixed in tools. But Lee said his company’s toolset is far more comprehensive, making the onboarding process easier for new players and game masters alike.

“I think teaching RPGs is uniquely time-intensive in an upfront way,” Lee said. “If you’re looking to pick up a new game, it’s hard enough for the whole group to learn through playing with video games. Someone, almost always the GM, has to put in a lot of effort first and then explain things to the players. We think this kind of helps explain why the market is so dominated by a single system because there’s so much friction right now. [with] Trying something new as compared to traditional video games. And so a big focus for us is reducing it.”

The toolset also includes walkthroughs for building a character, a fully integrated digital character sheet, and other bells and whistles. Everything is presented in eye-catching pixel art, which One More Multiverse recently made to great effect for its upcoming release in partnership with Possum Creek. Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast, But Lee said with target blade The toolset had to prove that the company’s art style could work with more serious games.

“Even though there is a kind of top-down pixel art aesthetic in the multiverse, that doesn’t mean we are stardew valley,” Lee said. “We are not just cute. We can actually get, I guess, with a quite different vibe blade,

One More Multiverse is currently in beta. pre-order for blade in the dark The game is available now, with a full release scheduled for October 13.