Tales of the Assemblance

Tales of the Assemblance

Tales of the Assemblance is a new tabletop roleplaying game system, including a unique ruleset, 11 playable species, 23 archetypes, a Setting Guide to Erumos (one dimension of the Assemblance) and over 1000 abilities for Player Characters to take as part of flexible character creation where the viable character options number so highly that the numbers themselves cease to have any useful meaning. 

The Spinner's Manuscript adds a guide for running the game, detailed advice on how to create homebrew and slot it seamlessly into your games, and a bestiary with over 50 creatures, a mixture of spins on classic fantasy creatures like cyclopes and dragons, with a whole host of creatures entirely unique to the system. The system has been thoroughly tested, with over two years of playtesting under its belt, with multiple Tales completed from the lowest to the highest levels.

"There are many dimensions in the universe, all existing alongside each other but rarely interacting. Each of these has the same original material that makes up its existence, but an entirely different history. From the moment of the birth of The Assemblance, each dimension diverged, in each the sparks of evolution differed greatly in the earliest stages of the gestation of sentient life, single celled organisms that would eventually develop down one path were in one dimension prolific, and in another they failed to adapt to their environment. In one dimension the predators lost track of their prey, allowing the species to survive, while in another they were ever so slightly more cunning individuals and led to the extinction of a species and adaptation of the whole ecosystem. This is mirrored across every dimension, with minute differences at the dawn of history giving incredible differences in the here and now.

Collectively, these dimensions are known as The Assemblance."

Roleplay and crunch go hand in hand here. Abilities allow you to roleplay through them, and the plethora of options available to Players and Spinners alike are abundant, allowing roleplaying decisions to be reflected mechanically, with intensely customisable characters. Abilities like "That's Not How It Happened" "Oi, Ugly!" and "None Shall Pass" allow you to say them out loud or in character, allowing you to stay in character during combat when you choose. Others are named to align with the fiction, enhancing the degree to which you connect to them, like the Gambler's "Put It All On Red" risking an entire round of stamina for a exceptional attack, and "The House Always Wins" altering the rules only for them, to make them succeed when the dice are even. 

Character Species are diverse, with 11 options including 5 completely unique species and 6 spins on fantasy classics, and 90 ways on top of that to combine unique mechanical results to play as a Union, a character born to parents of different species. Play a raptha, a spirit from the space between dimensions and possess other sentients as hosts, watching your host slowly decay so you have to move on. Explore the draks of the dwarves, low tunnels that they can defend form all who would do them harm, or play as a haekari and tower above some of the monsters you face. 

"Tales of the Assemblance encourages you to look at your situation and instead of finding two diverging paths and deciding where you want to go, you can find diverging paths and decide who you want to be." 

Check out some of the basic rules and a couple of nations in the book by clicking on the image below.

Combat in Tales of the Assemblance takes place without turns, using a system based on stamina where offence, defence and movement all draw from the same resource pool, while the combat being round based allows this resource to replenish for all combatants simultaneously, letting you decide if it is the time to press an advantage and leave yourself open to a counterattack, or bide your time and defend yourself until an opportunity presents itself. Every combatant is able to act when they see fit, and every other combatant is able to try and beat them to the punch if they see fit, contesting Decisiveness for those moments where order really matters: if they have the stamina to make a difference. 

Spells, alchemy, warrior abilities, healing, moving, druidic abilities, weapon attacks, defence, threatening: no matter what it is, it draws from the same pool of stamina, which replenishes at the end of every round, and the round ends when all combatants have used all of their stamina. Major abilities use more stamina, and a variable cost allows abilities to be balanced with each other with varying impact and opportunity cost: the bigger you swing, the more vulnerable you are. Attacking first has obvious advantages, but opens you up to counterattacks as your stamina depletes, for immersive combat where everything hat happens is relevant to you.  

The Bestiary, found in the Spinner's Manuscript, contains over 50 creatures for Spinners to bring to the Tale, and creatures adapt as they level up alongside the party, or separately, for a host of abilities, growing in ways to interact. Every creature has a variety of options in how they approach combat, and the Elite system means that boss fights adapt seamlessly, so a single enemy can be a threat to a party in a boss fight from level 1 to level 20, be they great ursine foes, dragons or simply a hominid threat. 

When monsters bring your Tale to an early end, your death will be respected. Life is expensive, death is almost always permanent, and the rare resurrections come at heavy price. Meet character death on your own terms, and explore loose ends at the table before sunsetting your character in acceptance or a tragic rage against their fate.

Your species dictates what ability tables you can choose from initially, but you can spend your experience points as you level up on new abilities, including ones that open up new tables to you, while species specific bonuses stay locked to them, unless an Explorer leverages their worldly knowledge to access tables otherwise locked, and playing a Union of two species allows you to have the ability tables of one and the inherent features of another, making unique combinations.

The setting of Erumos is provided in all versions of the game, complete with wonders of the world, a host of religions and over 20 distinct nations, from the interdimensional instability of Sakiranar leading new and varied threats into the world in the east, to the fractured state of the Freelands in central Ortia, defined as much by what they aren't as what they are. Discover the fragile beauty of Nerai and the lilac speckles rainforests of Zoatonia, filled with feudal politicking and hidden monsters. The Assemblance is a conglomeration of dimensions, and Erumos is just one within it, so you are able to make your own dimension and slot it in seamlessly. You can bring in organisations like the Venators, lawkeepers with interdimensional jurisdiction to chase fugitives wherever they go, or keep the world entirely separate with distance from the written dimensions, the choice is yours.

Uproar of the Deliverers

Spinner's Manuscript, Compendium and Origin tiers all get backers a copy of Uproar of the Deliverers. This is a 3rd party module written and designed by Ryan De Vaux in collaboration with me, and generously provided to support the Kickstarter. Designed as a Tales of the Assemblance module, it provides all the guidelines to get to grips with the system as both player and spinner. Providing 6 other Quick Start Characters to use with unique ties to the setting and story, as well as tools like developer commentary for why encounters or mysteries are designed a certain way, to ensure you can adapt as necessary for your players. It takes players through levels 1 to 8, exploring disappearances in a strange city with more radical factionalism as each day passes.

Where You Come In

The game has been in development for over 2 years, and has been playtested throughout the process, and the rules of the system are complete. What remains is editing and formatting, to continue until finished come what may, and securing illustrations to bring The Assemblance to life, which is a costly project this Kickstart exists to make possible. In the event that we raise more money than the art costs, it will go to funding the project, with the future goal to convert the already digital character sheets into an app format, secure yet more illustrations and have an eye forward to supporting works to expand the Assemblance, the rules and Tales. 

Making a pledge without a reward lets you support the development of the project for whatever amount you see fit, from as little as a pound, and everything pledged helps make the illustration and development of Tales of the Assemblance a reality. 

Or you can support at one of the tiers to get rewards:

What You Get

Field Guide tier gets you, unsurprisingly, a Field Guide, which contains all the rules a player needs, with the complete ruleset, a suite of Quick Start Characters, all the abilities and archetypes currently in the game and a setting guide to Erumos. When the Guide is finished, you will obtain a copy of it in PDF format, as well as the option to buy the Print-on-Demand book at manufacturing cost + shipping. 

Spinner's Manuscript tier obtains the version of the game best suited to being The Spinner of the Tale (what other systems may call the Game Master or similar). It contains everything in the Field Guide, but also contains the Bestiary for all the creatures needed to run a game, as well as detailed Spinner advice to run the game as easily as possible. It contains step by step advice to creating Homebrew in ToA, where design decisions are explained for the ease of replication, with items, creatures, archetypes, species and more being covered in great detail, so that you can make homebrew easily that fits in with the system seamlessly. As with the Guide, you will obtain a copy of it in PDF format, as well as the option to buy the Print-on-Demand book at manufacturing cost + shipping. You also obtain a copy of Uproar of the Deliverers, a 3rd party module that I have collaborated on through its playtesting, written by Ryan De Vaux, which comes in the same format.

Compendium tier is aimed at groups getting together to get a series of copies to come together at the table and use, or individuals who want to get a table together with all the books everyone needs. It is a bundle of 5 Field Guides and 1 Spinner's Manuscript, and comes with a copy of Uproar of the Deliverers. All copies come in PDF format, as well as the option to buy the Print-on-Demand books at manufacturing cost + shipping.

Origin tier is limited to 5 pledges, and comes with everything in the Compendium tier, but more importantly gives you the option to work with me on the creation of a Quick Start Character, a detailed player character that is present in both the Field Guide and Spinner's Manuscript, that people can use as their own character. I will maintain final editorial and design decisions, making sure any character is in keeping with the values, tone and worlds of the game, but you have a voice in a character that becomes part of the fibre of The Assemblance.

Credits

There are many people along the development of Tales of the Assemblance whose support has been invaluable, from family to friends, from playtesters to the aid in the creation of digital character sheets, and all of the people who fall into multiple categories. Listing them all here would sadly hide the rest of the page, but they are all appreciated, greatly. 

I would, however, be remiss to leave off some professional credits. 

Firstly, Uproar of the Deliverers is made by and offered by Ryan De Vaux, and thanks to him for his work there, as well as the generous offer to include it for supporters.

Concept art has been provided by some anonymous artists, some work by myself  and work by discord users decastra and Emii1108.

Layout mock ups and digital character sheets by Maddison Gould, with work on them by myself.