“lofi bards to study and relax to” is the name of the RPG, and while it does have wizards, it doesn’t have much in the way of dungeons, dragons and dramatic fights.
Instead, the TTRPG has rules for Study and for Heart as your wizard-at-college character tries to do well enough in class and make new connections. The campaign asked the Kickstarter community for £600 to fund, has made that target, and you can see progress on the pitch page.
Inspired by Harry Potter and D&D (and I hope without all the recent and unfortunate baggage that now come with HP), Lofi Bards has characters at school, college or university.
There’s an essential item everyone in the game has – the Notestrider. The Notestrider is a mysterious box that plays whatever is recorded on strips of magical tape when they’re placed inside.
As a result, friends swap mixtapes of lofi music to study too. The game’s heart tries to capture that happiness and melancholy and tension of growing up while learning.
Lofi Bards is simple, relaxed and light on rules, making it easy to pick up and play. While it uses a new system, the core of the game will be familiar to those who have used the Powered by the Apocalypse game system before. Whenever you try to achieve something uncertain, or overcome an obstacle, roll two six-sided dice. If you roll a 10 or higher, you succeed. If you roll between a 7 and a 9, you succeed at a price. Any lower and you fail. That’s the core of the game – easy as Pi!
Unlike other Fantasy RPGs that focus on heroic combat, god-like magical power and tactical warfare, Lofi Bards focuses its rules on two core elements: Study and Heart. After all, you’re students, not superheroes!
PDF copies of the game, one for screens and printing, are available for backers at only the £5 tier. Stepping up to £7 gets your name added to the credits, and you get to suggest an Artifact. I guess “suggest” isn’t a promise of inclusion.
The tiers continue, with more options to “suggest” added until the £20 mark, where a limited edition print “lofi bards” zine becomes available.
The campaign is expected to fulfil in July, with the initial PDFs out in May.
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