Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Beta Oct. 17th
A downloadable TTRPG
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Eureka Rules Breakdown! Episode 1 of an Actual Play of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by the Tiny Table Podcast!
This first episode is only about 15 minutes or so and introduces you to a brief rundown of Eureka’s rules and concepts. If you have been wondering what all the fuss is about with Eureka, but don’t feel like you have the time to download the free beta version and give it a read, then this fifteen-minute rules breakdown might be a great place to start!
The next episode, releasing on Tuesday, August 20th, will be the start of the actual Actual Play. Stay tuned for the Tiny Table crew to tackle FORIVA: The Angel Game, an adventure module for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.
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Storyteller Conclave interviews A.N.I.M on Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy!
There’s a lot of good insight into the design of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy in this podcast, and a lot of it goes into stuff that we haven’t really covered on this blog, especially the themes.
We talk about the realistic and simulationist nature of Eureka and how this serves its gameplay and themes, we talk about how it takes inspiration from John Woo films such as Hard Boiled, its pretty unique approach to the concept of HP, how it approaches and flips the concept of "winning", and its deeply character-driven nature.
Of course we also talk about Eureka's unique and awesome rules for investigative gameplay, and how it improves upon games that did investigative gameplay before it. How it trusts the players' intellect, but also won't leave them totally twisting in the wind after a bad roll or two!
My favorite thing we talked about, near the end of the show, was Eureka’s approach to monsters, disability, and its sympathy towards “bad people.” I’m actually going to be writing a whole essay on this topic hopefully before the Kickstarter ends on May 10th, but you can get a really good gist of it just from listening to this episode of the podcast.
Oh and on that subject, the hosts, two veteran Vampire: The Masquerade players, said in the show that in many ways, Eureka does vampires better than VTM. Like, wow, that’s high praise..
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The Story Told RPG Podcast reviews Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy for their 147th episode!
Even though they don't get deep into the nitty-gritty of the exact mechanics, you can tell they really get it, and their casual conversation about it is really enjoyable and entertaining!
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Third Floor Wars: Tabletop Talk interviews A.N.I.M on Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy!
The major takeaway I think from this interview is that when you spend money on a rulebook and/or adventure module, the burden should not fall on you to make the experience good. You should be able to rely on the rulebook to do a huge chunk of, if not most, of the work in a session.
The rulebook should be providing a sturdy platform for the GM and players to stand on while they build their story, and ideally provide hammers, nails, screws, glue, paint, wood, scaffolding, cement, etc. for them to work with, and an adventure module should provide a structure at least half-built for them to work from, instead of making them put effort into just treading water while they also have to do all the other work.
If “listening for local rumors” is something a PC could feasibly do in an RPG, the rulebook should come with at least a DC to determine how difficult that is, so that the GM doesn’t have to make up a DC on the fly, then also determine what success or failure means on the fly.
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Not DnD, EN World Live interviews the A.N.I.M team over Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy!
@ashweather and I go over some more of the design philosophy of Eureka, while @chaospyromancy, never before seen on a TTRPG interview, explains her approach to the art direction of much of the rulebook, and where she takes inspiration from for it! This was a very fun interview and the hostess was very fun to talk to, check it out!
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Talen Lee reviews Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy!
He goes into the philosophy of play, the game's inspirations, and how it embraces the mystery genre and brings it into play!
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An absolutely incredible review of the beta version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by review Willy Muffin, complete with visuals and deep analysis!
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This is a playable beta! More information can be found on our Kickstarter - which succeeded with an incredible $15,455 - for more updates, and get updates earlier, as well as loads more content, by subscribing to our patreon!
Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an original, fully fledged, over 300-page 2d6 TTRPG from The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery inspired by The X-Files, Kolchak: The Nightstalker, and much more!
Eureka features investigation mechanics that let players take initiative, use their characters’ unique strengths to find clues, and deduce conclusions themselves rather than to just walking into a room and roll Investigate.
Player-driven investigation, a rewarding system for solving mysteries themselves, realistic high-stakes combat, gameplay determined by roleplay, and inter-party deception are all features you can look forward to!
Download
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Development log
- Visual Update!Nov 13, 2023
Comments
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Hm. I don't think this framework of play actually 'wants' to be compatible with any published module set on an Earth from 1850 to the modern day? For a not-even-obviously-adversarial example, OPERATION WEEPING MOUNTAIN is a module for CAIN, another urban fantasy investigative horror game, just one that frames the party as superheroes working for a shady secret organization.
Which doesn't seem compatible with a framework that presumes you'll be trying to hide which type of monster you are from the rest of the party.
Which is to say, it's a disconcerting boast.
I think what makes the boast true, is that to fix issues like that you typically only ever need to remove features and mechanics - never add them? For example you can completely cut each piece of the game that supports supernatural elements all together and use it to run an entirely mundane noir mystery. Like, literally just cut the last chapter and ignore the blacked out skill.
So I think an issue as small as how the supernatural investigators are framed would be a pretty easy fix.
My read is that "you're a team of edgy low-rent superheroes working for the MIB" is a fundamentally different proposition from "you're the serious urban fantasy equivalent of a PARANOIA troubleshooter team, i.e. entirely composed of the exact groups you're meant to be hunting, and very keen on not letting each other know about this". Not a minor aspect of the game at all.
Relatedly, I'm... pretty sure kaiju TRPGs exist, like ones where you play Godzilla and Mothra and so on, and I'm pretty sure Earth-based adventures for those would take some significant homebrew to make even vaguely compatible. If they don't, that just raises further questions!
Well it has to be INVESTIGATIVE at the very least - I don't think Gozilla and Mothra typically solve mysteries. (Though I'll admit, I'm not super informed of Kaiju lore.)
But yeah, I suppose it's true that it might not mesh well with a module that assumes you're playing a power fantasy game. But I suppose when they wrote that line they were more thinking of stuff that came before, your call of cthulu mysteries or even generic mystery modules.
EDIT: Wait, I was basing this conversation off of what it says about using other Modules in the BOOK ITSELF. I see now you're responding to the line above in the itch post. I agree the wording might need modification.
Snoop Suggestion:
Fueled by Obsession
W
Why is it called "Penetrative" HP
Because it tends to deal with weapons that penetrate and/or do damage to the interior of the body, as opposed to Superficial HP.
I mean my comment was mostly a joke but the wording seems a bit uh, suggestive :P