Is there a game about city birds surviving in an urban metropolis?
Scavenging for food, fighting for territory, making sure you can continue your line/feed your young, interacting with other birds and unpredictable humans, all with a backdrop of grotesquely urban city.
Ravens are smart and strong with a taste for games and pranks, seagulls are sea bound scoundrels and cutthroats, pigeons are naturals in social interactions and living off the streets e.t.c. Add a dash of lore and beliefs that the birds share between each other and bam, you got something.
There gotta be people who thought about it before, right?
I doubt what you're thinking of exists, but... Perhaps if you put your mind to it you could create your own system for it? Might not be the next D&D but it could gain a small following.
Bentley Wright
I want to pretend to be a bird.
Colton Adams
No, but you could use a generic system like GURPS or Fate to run it.
Jonathan Phillips
Sure, why not. There is a lot of nerd stuff to go through so might be fun. I'm thinking it would prolly end up looking something like vampire - looking for food inside a city, fighting and making pacts with your kind to achieve your goals. Suburban and forest areas are deadly thanks to owls and eagles. Add things that are unique to playing as an actual birds - flying, airborne combat, humans as a terrifying and unpredictable force. Obviously you would have to humanize the bird's thinking a lot to make them both playable and able to have actual adventures. Seagull stealing a pizza from humans hand becomes a dashing rogue that gets satisfaction by playing with fire. Big old raven becomes a grizzled warrior and scholar haunted by memories of his nest being demolished by wild beasts of hell (cats) and so on
Thomas Cook
bump for interest
Cameron Miller
Maybe look at Bunnies and Burrows for some inspiration. Personally I've long wanted to run a Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh not-prequel, where the players are hyperintelligent rats and mice fleeing a lab, crossing a dangerous countryside and trying to find a safe place to build a home. But I'd have to build the system myself and I'm not confident I can do that and not have it suck.
Nolan Moore
A slightly modified Mouseguard is your bishi.
Luke Jenkins
And Eagles are those min-maxing dicks that want PvP.
Daniel James
I liked the dogfights in star wars best and had the rouge squadron game. So have some invasive species of bird coming for your land. You need to rally all birds to stage a fight.
William Richardson
This is an excellent idea. I don't know of any systems that do this but this may be a niche you could fill.
Anthony Brown
I haven't heard of one, so I didn't know how much I needed it until now. You have my interest.
Jose Morgan
...
Alexander Clark
What am I looking at, here?
Jayden Gonzalez
Some one-off monster girl comic that floats around the internet with a mystery author.
Also, cute, and further evidence that corvids are best birbs.
Mason Flores
>Also, cute, and further evidence that corvids are best birbs. Well, yeah...
Nathaniel Butler
As always a weird nerd dream. A cute girl that makes first move. Ahaha.
Not only that, but the girl is just as, if not more, socially awkward and lacking in confidence than oneself.
Truly the unicorn of our era.
Owen Gomez
Man, I’d LOVE to play a Fate based bird RPG. That sounds fun as fuck. >Be a parrot that belongs to a pornographer in South America >something terrible happens to him, killed by baddies. Stuck in a cage Until released >escape with a whole slew of provocative sounds to distract people while I steal food and things to make lodgings >find a homeless boy in Brazil, help him get famous >go to carnivale, shit on the stilt walkers >look for tourists and see how many will play some Michael Jackson for you
I want to believe
Carter Flores
>owls too
Bonus points!
Gavin Reed
I hear the retail superstore strategy is a winner. Plenty of habitat and easily-available food totally outranks the cancers and risk of being run over. And you get to make the employees' lives harder by crapping on everything.
Jack Green
> Lesbians Comic ruined.
Ethan Richardson
This should be a setting. Zombie apoc broke out, but it also gave birds human level int and now you play as flocks of birds struggling to survive.
John Gomez
Nothing could compete with owls, they would be like dragon wizards. Great horned owls literally kick bald eagles out of their nests unless the eagle gets lucky and wins(owls dont build nests, they steal them from crows or raptors or live in holes). Furthermore, great horned owls will live smack dab in the middle of a city and eat bats, they don't give AF. Not to mention all the crazy shit owls do (night vision, off-set ears let them pinpoint noise in 3d space, silent flying, face is a radar dish, spring-loaded automatically locking talons ) Their only weakness is that owls get wet easier than other birds because of their weird feathers and avoid the rain.
Cameron Scott
>ruined
Alternatively
>bisexuality doesn't exist
Evan Edwards
Might be missing the point, tee bee h. Most of this thread seems to be focused on contemporary, comfy-ish or low adventure plots by way of the 'ol "animals talk but not to humans" device. [Spoiler]also at harpies[/Spoiler]
Mason Butler
Yeah, I've looked at it, but it doesn't really have the resource management I'd like. I guess I could Frankenstein it with Torchbearer to do that, but I don't feel like I've got a good enough handle on the Burning Wheel system (or any handle at all) to do that and not screw something up.
David Richardson
From the catalog, it looked like these two birds were embracing each other.
Camden Lopez
...
Liam Jackson
...
Dominic Rivera
...
Nicholas Richardson
That birbmom is a stone cold killer. I like it.
Nicholas Baker
I'm with you. Fairly good system(s), but a bit overworked and easy to mess up, IMO.
This looks interesting and maybe up your alley, excepting that there's not real rules for equipment. Wouldn't be too hard to houserule something, though
Owen Reyes
Time to create a birb system!
Matthew Hall
I am curious to see how you would depict humans in such a game. You should also include how certain humans capture birds to enslave in cages, raise birds to slaughter and eat, and even sexually rape birds for their amusement.
Jason Evans
Okay Veeky Forums lets do this.
We need: Exploration/territory mechanic Flight and aerial combat system Bird social mechanics City bird species and class archetypes Random encounters like humans and cats
First of all, we need a basic mechanism to work around. I suggest focusing on the 2d6 curve to get the ball rolling. What kind of stats are relevant to birds?
Chase Sanchez
Can we include a mechanic where humans sexually abuse and degrade captured birds, raping their cloacas for their own sick human pleasure?
Levi Sanchez
no
Aaron White
Why not? It would be realistic. There are even videos online of people cumming on stray birds that land near them.
Mason Collins
Fuck off.
Kayden Bailey
Fuck off.
Robert Williams
What's wrong with my idea? Why are you being so rude to me?
Jonathan Gonzalez
I mean come on, think about how hot it would be to play as a little birdy and then your bird waifu gets captured and raped by evil fucking humans, a human dick stretching out her delicate cloaca. It would be some hot shit I'm telling you.
Jason Foster
So:
Pigeons Sparrows Peregrine falcons Owls Seagulls
Random encounters: Various humans doing stuff Rats Cats Bats Windows
Territory has to be patrolled to be held. Various strategies include building a patrolling combat bird, breeding a large family, and baiting cats to hunt your enemies.
What about class archetypes?
Zachary White
That's... actually kind of adorable.
Jose Wilson
Fuck off.
Leo Powell
keep going I'm getting lotion
Alexander Young
So, is this going to be the caw ruleset? Will there be an option for hardcaw difficulty?
Liam Anderson
See something that doesn't translate well in a drawn medium is dishevelment. Despite the adorableness of this comic, all of the minor and inoffensive cues drawn into crow girl here point to her really not taking care of herself properly (see the additional material for more detail). Something you'd expect from an actual awkward girl with no confidence in herself (and trust me here, dated a few of those in college, never once turned out well. Nothing quite like a girl with zero self confidence to make you want to strangle someone).
Kevin Richardson
I wouldn't include hawks and owls. They'd just see the others as potential food. Stick with the species that can ostensibly work together. You could possibly put escaped songbirds on the list. It happens. (Usually they get eaten by something if they're out long enough, but this is fantasy, so...)
I know, right?
Blake Russell
Have a bump thread. Please fly you sound fun.
Henry Parker
Hey guys, OP here, glad people picked up on the idea Owls and Eagles should not be playable, they are either an end boss or an unbeatable force, that you have to escape from /trick/use for gain or, most often, die from. Think Werewolves in Vampire I'm thinking Pigeons Sparrows Crows Seagulls (let's just say that our default city is at the shore, I got the idea while watching birds in my city that has shit ton of seagulls and those fucks are already have a mentality of an average PC) Escaped pet birds of different kinds could be a more rare, exotic characters. Definitely put Parrots in there, they would be very fun to play
Leo Long
How would you differentiate them stat/abilitywise?
- Crows are the int race and can use tools other birds cannot
- sparrows are the smallest and most fragile but at the same time move much faster and can fit into tighter spaces for nest building and exploration. The Dex race basically.
Pigeons and seagulls don't really have anything that I can think of that could be put down as a unique trait or ability
Jayden Jenkins
Seagulls are the fighter class. They're the largest of our four birds, have the most flying endurance and tend to be the least nervous around humans. Hell, there are gulls out there that will straight-up steal food out of your fucking hands if they have enough of a taste for it.
Pigeons are the social birds. They have the largest flocks and where gulls are better at standing up to humans, pigeons are better at getting stuff from them without taking it. Their access to the Pigeon Flock gives them a finger (talon?) on the pulse of the whole city, and with the appropriate offerings of food or nesting areas, they can accomplish things no other birds can by bringing sheer force of numbers to bear.
Actually, maybe there should be some regard for each species' flocks, but like hell I'm managing that while phoneposting.
Daniel Hall
This. Also let's take this thing a step further
I think the only supernatural element in this setting that should exist is the abnormal intellect of the player birds. This element can not be avoided simply by virtue of those birds being played by humans thus I think it's the best to establish it as an actual physical factor.
Of course we should never explain why are this hyper smart birds started to appear all over the city. Old Raven that lives in a shack by the river says it's the blessing of heavenly flock from up the skies where no other bird can fly, Seagull Jeacken will say that it must be something that your parents ate that caused this and of course Dove the Proud will never accept any other reason than her own, natural excellence. Every bird that is smart enough to think about why is it so smart, will eventually come up with a reason.
Alexander Richardson
Int itself maybe shouldn't be a stat. Since the players will all be unnaturally canny for birds I don't think that would be practical to expect a mechanical limitation to work well.
Stats should more define the physical characteristics of the birds - size, weight (redundant?), maneuverability, diet/digestive fortitude, beak/claw combat potential, beak/claw utility potential. Maybe something for aesthetics and vocalization as well.
Brody Nguyen
Yeah, that sounds about right. Standard stats would just not work with this.
I'm thinking they should also have different levels of knowledge and understanding of the world, specifically how humans work, how the city works, how nature works etc. That's the field where Crows would be superior. Those guys figured out how to use red lights and traffic to crack open nuts for them, so even when all other birds get heightened intellect these guys should have a way better understanding and awareness of your everything works.
Now with Pigeons we can spice things up a whole notch. When you combine how naturally social they are and then have those rare super intelligent ones, you get a force to be reckoned with. A society of birds is really all just signals and reactions, and when you have a self aware individual who both knows them and smart enough to use them at will, what you get is one smart Pigeons with a gang of not so smart Pigeons at his beck and call.
So yeah, how about we give Pigeons ability to straight up control their non-intellegent brethren? Party needs to distract a street food vendor so they can raid his supplies. Pigeon player finds a nearest flock of pigeons and rolls to see how many he could trick into flying directly into the vendor and how long do they flatter around him before they realize that the signals they perceived were false
William Anderson
They're not being rude, you seriously need to fuck off.
Isaiah Hughes
I had proposed this in a different thread but you could utilize an intellect vs. instinct dynamic for the PCs, similar to what they have in Mouse Guard. Being stronger in one means being weaker in the other. A bird with high intellect and low instinct may be slower to fly from threats but would be better at crafting or planning.
Camden Reyes
Seriously, he's just a troll, and not even a good one. Don't respond
Alexander Bell
A better inspiration would be Call of Catthulhu. It works really well for roleplaying as urban animals even if you never meet a single Lovecraftian horrors. The splats are basically different outlooks on humanity.
Parker Carter
>Call of Catthulhu
Jonathan Peterson
Sounds almost like a Hatoful Boyfriend prequel.
Cooper Sullivan
I had an idea for a game like this a while back. I whipped up a little something in Twine in a day and came up with this. I wasn't super serious about it and got as far as learning how to do some dice rolls and getting a day/night cycle going, but that was about it. Link if anyone's interested: mega.nz/#!09dHmLDB!TFMJUag3MRzDCSzS5v4VhXgA7-di9t0AGBhn15SQpmI