Duffo

@duffo.bsky.social

546 Followers 908 Following

Music festival organiser, Endless 08 podcaster. TTRPGs at https://duffhounds.itch.io. This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! Definitive Edition now available!

At least 50% of that turnover was the break room door. Our manager Jerry agreed to trial a gadget that was supposed to improve staff morale, so now there was a high-tech scanner mounted over the frame. If it didn't detect a nice big smile, it wouldn't open. Bzzt! "Come on, show us that customer smile!" it chirped as I approached. Jerry had sent the staff a selfie of the kind of smile the door wanted to see. Several people quit immediately. Those that didn't saved it to their phone and held it up to the camera, like I was doing.
Content-wise, there’s quite a bit here, a lot more than you’d expect from a high-concept comedy RPG in fact. Locations and NPCs, from goddesses all the way down to a kobold with a gun (who will shoot you, with his gun), all come with a passel of motivations and story hooks. Of all the parts of this game, I think the world as presented is surprisingly my favorite bit. It’s not always consistent, but it’s consistently entertaining. What more could you ask for really.
It’s Heroing Time! And then he heroed all over those guys To build your very own isekai hero, start by choosing an Archetype. The Bystander: Whoops! You weren’t even supposed to be here today, but you were standing too close to someone else being summoned or were hit by Truck-Kun and got sucked into another world by accident. The Demon Lord: Evil cultists summoned you here to rule the world, but you didn’t care for their vibe and you look terrible in black leather, so you dipped. The Hero: You were brought to Ceria to defeat an ancient evil. You blew through that quest easily, of course, so now you’re just looking for something interesting to occupy your time. The Myth: You’re never alone; there’s the spirit of a great Cerian hero or magic beast in your body. Once per adventure you can flip them in so they can wipe up the bad guys for you. The Noble: You occupy the body of a previously existing high mucky-muck, who by all accounts was kind of a snot. Now you have to navigate their life and maybe make things better for the people around you. The Reader: Ceria was the subject of your favorite book or video game in your past life, and you know more about it than even the people who live here. The Reincarnated: Only your spirit arrived, without a body. Unfortunately the summoning spell doesn’t do “making a human body” very well, and you now have the form of something completely different. Tragedeigh The Tragedy: You were summoned by someone very bad, who used you for very bad purposes. You managed to escape but now you have terrible scars and trust issues. Each Archetype includes a choice between two special background-style benefits. For instance, the Noble can choose either Disowned Heir (get better starting equipment) or Villainess (any attempt to bully people always uses your best Attribute).
Chiaki Hirai - I feel like the whole “other churches” thing could be a bit more fleshed out, like you did on “where you can find scrolls”? Maybe a few quick examples on former churches that may have fallen out of favor, or even other gods or goddesses that think Launrith sucks.
The cover of This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! with a lady knight, a short wizard in black, a catgirl in a maid dress and a short furry monster with a big backpack all outdoors on an adventure.
Double spread of a TTRPG ruleset with two characters - Carla Frei, a dark haired necromancer with a witch hat and a green tome, and Chiyo, a silver haired girl with sakura blossoms through her hair.
A poster for the anime Hero Tales with the subheading "Seven stars will shatter the empire". Several characters wielding swords, bows and staffs are lined up in action poses.
A TTRPG character riding on top of a giant yellow slime with humanoid legs
A giant slime with human legs standing in a fantasy town street
A funding progress graph that shows a campaign at 86% funded with 23 hours to go
Limited quantity: 2 left out of 4
A thumbnail image for This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! Creating Characters With Ettin that features a green rectangular character avatar and a delivery truck coming out of a portal in space.
A character sheet for the TTRPG This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! that includes fields for character details, HP and SP tracks, and attribute fields.
A message written by Duffo on January 28 2025 that reads: Thanks for the question! I've playtested this game at the table, over Roll20 and in pbp format so it was useful to make tweaks for it to fit all three environments. Some early changes were adding tags to starting weapons (small melee really needs tags to compete with the other weapon classes) and setting a maximum of 5 points for each attribute to lock off 7-0-0 builds. The most unexpected part was seeing other GMs run the game and encounter the same problem: solo boss fights. LUMEN characters get HP and SP back from defeating enemies, so they always perform better against hordes. I had to do some rewrites to make it clear bosses should always have minions (or multiple parts), and the Dungeon Tower expansion is all about showing exactly how these encounters can be built for maximum effect.
A double-spread from the TTRPG This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! with rules text explaining the premise of the game, how the dice resolution system works, what the main attributes are for your character, and then a checklist for character creation.
A double-page TTRPG spread from the game This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! showing the classes The Alchemist (with a potion bottle logo) and The Assassin (with three knives as the logo). Each class has a description, starting weapons, basic abilities, and three other abilities associated with Might, Mastery and Mischief.
GAINING CLASSES For a character to gain access to a new class and its abilities, they must acquire a special kind of book known as a class treatise. These are thin reference manuals usually with a themed cover (eg. a simple hunter treatise will be bound in hide and bark, while a blood mage treatise is covered in so many rusted nails and spikes that it is impossible to handle one without cutting yourself). Reading a class treatise gives you the basic abilities for that class and allows you to mark XP against that class in future.
Text on black background: “You didn’t guess what kind of quest I would pick for a summoned hero with the Hunter class?” Luzia pulled out a scrap of paper and handed it to me. Beasts of all kinds, from Ashwood Charcoal Hares to Smokehoof Stags, were listed out with intimidating quantities next to them. Was I hunting a five course meal for every member of the guild?! “With this many fire themed creatures I’m surprised the forest isn’t on fire half of the time,” I joked. Luzia gave me a blank look in return. “It is. We have a lot of resilient undergrowth, and many of our trees only bloom or spread their seeds when exposed to fire. As an aside, the Ashwoods province has more members of the Firefighter class per capita than anywhere else in Ceria.” “Great. Noted.” I’m pretty sure my lungs weren’t going to enjoy that much smoke, but I could brave it for now.
A screenshot of the TTRPG games available on duffhounds.itch.io
Medical tools. I have no idea what these do.