Ball Game is a Blaseball-styled storytelling ttrpg with a baseball card visual style and some good heft.
The PDF is 40-ish pages, with a clean and well organized layout. There's art or graphics on most pages, and the illustrations pack a ton of charm. They definitely understand Blaseball, but they're also not bound by it and their riffs on its style are interesting.
In terms of contents, Ball Game is a self-professed look at baseball from the outside. Whereas ttrpgs like Dead Ball are born from a passion for the sport, Ball Game talks in its intro about how it had to figure out that passion for itself. And I don't think this is a bad thing. It gives Ball Game a different angle, and it means you get lines like "Baseball is a constant to me. As constant as the moon. As summer. As death."
Speaking of, Ball Game's writing is great. It knows how to pivot from one idea into another. It gets Blaseball's dire and surreal humor at a bone-deep level. The team descriptions are fun to read, which I think might be the bedrock of a good Blaseball-like.
Mechanically, Ball Game is pretty straightforward on its baseline level. It's GMless, 3d6 pool, any 4+ is a success. Contested rolls are highest number instead. You can appoint a coach as a kind of pseudo GM who's more of an expert on the rules and a tiebreaker, which is interesting.
However, Ball Game also builds on that structure by having you play seasons of baseball, and on different teams, which you can switch between during drafts. Teams give you an aesthetic and a mechanical effect, which when combined with your playbook sets you apart from the other PCs.
Playbooks are structured as always, sometimes, never. Which is a neat format. The vibe is Belonging Outside Belonging, but a little more informal and with dice instead of tokens. The "never" also isn't a hard ban. It's just you succeed freely when you use your always, and you take consequences when you use your never.
In terms of GM tools, the game is a little light. There are clearly defined events you can choose to drop into play, but the narrative heart of Blaseball is a kind of freestyle, and so Ball Game doesn't have a set scenario to get in the way of that.
Overall, if you like narrative games, eldritch sports stories, collaborative worldbuilding, and solid mechanical choices I think you'll like Ball Game. It wants a few sessions of play, maybe a mini campaign, and shouldn't be hard at all to add to your gaming rotation. It's also as friendly to baseball fans as it is to baseball outsiders, and is a solid introduction to telling stories with the sport.
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Ball Game is a Blaseball-styled storytelling ttrpg with a baseball card visual style and some good heft.
The PDF is 40-ish pages, with a clean and well organized layout. There's art or graphics on most pages, and the illustrations pack a ton of charm. They definitely understand Blaseball, but they're also not bound by it and their riffs on its style are interesting.
In terms of contents, Ball Game is a self-professed look at baseball from the outside. Whereas ttrpgs like Dead Ball are born from a passion for the sport, Ball Game talks in its intro about how it had to figure out that passion for itself. And I don't think this is a bad thing. It gives Ball Game a different angle, and it means you get lines like "Baseball is a constant to me. As constant as the moon. As summer. As death."
Speaking of, Ball Game's writing is great. It knows how to pivot from one idea into another. It gets Blaseball's dire and surreal humor at a bone-deep level. The team descriptions are fun to read, which I think might be the bedrock of a good Blaseball-like.
Mechanically, Ball Game is pretty straightforward on its baseline level. It's GMless, 3d6 pool, any 4+ is a success. Contested rolls are highest number instead. You can appoint a coach as a kind of pseudo GM who's more of an expert on the rules and a tiebreaker, which is interesting.
However, Ball Game also builds on that structure by having you play seasons of baseball, and on different teams, which you can switch between during drafts. Teams give you an aesthetic and a mechanical effect, which when combined with your playbook sets you apart from the other PCs.
Playbooks are structured as always, sometimes, never. Which is a neat format. The vibe is Belonging Outside Belonging, but a little more informal and with dice instead of tokens. The "never" also isn't a hard ban. It's just you succeed freely when you use your always, and you take consequences when you use your never.
In terms of GM tools, the game is a little light. There are clearly defined events you can choose to drop into play, but the narrative heart of Blaseball is a kind of freestyle, and so Ball Game doesn't have a set scenario to get in the way of that.
Overall, if you like narrative games, eldritch sports stories, collaborative worldbuilding, and solid mechanical choices I think you'll like Ball Game. It wants a few sessions of play, maybe a mini campaign, and shouldn't be hard at all to add to your gaming rotation. It's also as friendly to baseball fans as it is to baseball outsiders, and is a solid introduction to telling stories with the sport.