onebug

👉👈 Well I think Eidolon's power lines in each playbook are really good. imo. imho

What do you mean by play style?

Fabula Ultima is very much built for proactive players. players come up with the world and the threats/antagonists for it, and at any time can spend a metacurrency to alter the game-world to say "there's a merchant here" or "moon's haunted." I'm more naturally a reactive player who likes being presented others' plot hooks, so it requires significant adjustments

Basic, I know, but I really like the way Dungeon World sometimes has little customizable bits for its archetypes. The Warrior gets to do their own little custom build for their super-cool sword. The Ranger gets to spec out a sweet pet. Ultimately it's not much more than a few choices, but because its a step in the creation, and feels like it carries weight, it really influences the connection players have to those elements of their character, and it can pull some creativity out of normally more conservative folks.

I've been looking to run Ascendancy recently (by ironsparksyris aka gemworks on itch!) and it's got all three of these! it's very cool, traumatised psychic ex-tools of a since destroyed psychic empire. each of the playbooks (of which you get two) capture both a style of play, have a lot of prompts for emotional/psychological struggles with fun worldbuilding.

I'd also say armour astir is a good game to check out for these - a real triumph of the concept of "What if we had magic mechs and demonstrated exactly why this is a cool concept" each playbook (whether they have a mech/astir or not) having an incredibly strong concept, and, that's right, also has great prompts for character stuff.

I'd recommend giving both a look! even if they're not what you're going for, because they're kind of specific, I think they've both got really cool design and like. very much full of stuff you can just read and chew on both for the design and the concepts in it.

Monsterhearts does 2 in that it caters to players who want character arcs, interpersonal drama and conflict and it mechanics force play in that direction. All MH characters are emotionally vulnerable by definition - even if you don't envision your character that way, the outcomes of moves tend towards making PCs express that vulnerability.

for the last several months i've been running Triangle Agency (a paranormal investigation game inspired by Control & the SCP wiki) and i feel that it does #1 and especially #3 extremely well!!

it has a good amount of systems to bite into and make strategic decisions while navigating, it has a lot of narrative mechanics that can let players share in the storytelling, it has a wide variety of character options that each lead to totally different ways of problem-solving & interacting with the game world!!

in terms of inspiration, the whole game is /soaked/ through with this incredible style that sparks so much imagination, there's a wealth of varied and specific character creation options... but the thing that really inspires creativity is the campaign structure, which demands that the player characters make interesting & creative decisions throughout their entire time in the story, about their allegiances, about what is worth their time and what isn't, and about how they fold the consequences of past missions into the future of the story. and as they progress through the campaign the players are getting all these different secret files containing rules toys and invitations to conspiracy!!

i've been running games for nearly a decade and i've never had a playgroup be as consistently creative and inspired throughout a campaign as with this game :O