As a bit of a preamble - this post came about because I was doing a lot of "I dislike Tablestuck and here's why" posts on the HSO discord, and like, it reached a point where I realized I was kinda just, badmouthing people behind their back, y'know? So I decided to make a post here where the tablestuck devs do frequent to start a conversation about it. Also - I am also a creative, and am a firm believer in being harsh in critique; I don't like when people dance around the flaws in my work and wouldn't want that on others either.
So yeah - I don't like Tablestuck 0.3.1, and for a number of reasons.
My biggest issue is I disagree with the premise of the game, which endsup manifesting in every other system and rule on the game
I don't like how Tablestuck is a combat TTRPG; I feel like that goes against, almost all of HS's text and leads to sessions that don't feel Homestuckian
Homestuck is not a battle shounen; there are very few scenes where the central conflict is "will the heroes defeat the bad guy on a fight' - arguably only Collide plays up that angle, and Collide wasn't well received for that reason. By and large, the big action setpieces are either solutions to telegraphed mysteries, characters being manipulated, or characters' mental issues getting in the way
Here's some examples:
-> Cascade; its not an extended fight scene like Collide, instead being the culmination of multiple mysteries and misdirections - Doc tricking Rose into making the Green Sun, the reveal of whose red blood in Jack's hand was (WV's), the reveal of how Jade and John escape the scratch, the reveal of the Tumor's true nature (and how it ties to the death of both universes)
-> Game Over; that timeline features the characters on a downwards spiral - Rose was drunk, Terezi let herself go with Gamzee, Dave never came out of his gay closet, Jade and Jane symbolically falling into their bad tendencies with their mind controls or Jake being unable to stand up for himself against Aranea forcibly "healing" his mind. The failures of the Game Over timeline is not because they didn't had enough agility or vim or wits, but instead, due to their failures to grow and mature and be emotionally stable
-> Look at the scene where Terezi kills Vriska; the tension point isn't whether Vriska can defeat Jack Noir, or whether Terezi can kill Vriska, but if Terezi wants to kill Vriska, if Vriska wants to fight Jack Noir. Vriska falls to her bad tendencies of martyrize herself and Terezi doubly falls into her tendency of heads-or-tails thinking, of either letting Vriska go or killing her outright. If Vriska wasn't afflicted with her gung-ho attitude and just didn't leave, Game Over wouldn't have happened, and if Terezi had thought of a non-lethal way of preventing Vriska from going it also wouldn't have happened. Game Over didn't happened due to a lack of combat prowess, but because both Terezi and Vriska failed prey to their worst tendencies in this scene
Now let's look at Tablestuck's Player Manual
Act 1 has dice, what an TTRPG is, a small section on roleplaying; Act 2 is called "Character Creation" but in reality is fully about combat stuff - stats, powers, items, etc. In no point in Act 2 there is any rules or even advice for creating interesting or flawed characters.
Act 3 is called "Playing the Game" but here's how it opens:
Once you have a Character created, you’re ready to sit down and start playing the game. In the current version of Tablestuck, the game is played in sessions using rounds to break up the turns. You will first need to determine the order in which each player takes their turn
All the following sections - Taking Your Turn, Items, Checks and Saves, Damage, Taking Actions, Status Effects, are all entirely focused on combat. As far as Tablestuck is concerned, you are never pesterloging your friend, you are never having a character moment or doing a character arc; you are always in combat, and all the rules are about that.
The only rule that touches upon character relationships, personality, arcs or etc is in Followers and Relationships, which can be boiled down to:
-> Your charisma lets more people follow you around
-> Characters can be Nemesis, Hostile, Neutral, Ally or Chum
Which is a very simplific way of doing things and can't really express any nuance to the relationships - a Nemesis will exclusively attack you and always follow you, a hostile enemy will always attack you on sight, etc.
Its closer to how Endermen work in Minecraft than to how the relationships work in HS itself; for example, here, the player-aligned consorts would realistically begin as Ally, and like - if John attacked a consort twice, would it really begin attacking John instead of fleeing? Per the rules, damaging an Ally makes it Neutral, damaging a Neutral makes them Hostile and Hostiles "Will attack you on sight.".
Do note that this is the only rule in the entire game about NPCs or character relationships.
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What would I want? Let's start with an example - Masks
Masks is a TTRPG about superheroes, but unlike games like D&D, its not about combat - instead, about the personalities and character arcs that those heroes have. Who are they under the mask? What does herohood mean to them?
Rather than having "Strenght / Agility / Charisma / etc" stats, Masks instead has Danger, Freak, Savior, Superior and Mundane, and they reflect how the character thinks of themself and their powers.
For example, a character that once was human and then became a mutant like Hulk or The Thing has high Freak and Danger stats; a Superman type character that is defined by being above (and emotionally distant) from the common folk has a high Superior stat. A character that juggles living a normal life with superhero stuff like Spiderman has a high Mundane stat.
Let's look at an example playbook (the game's "class" equivalent, more or less) from that game: Janus, which represents the Peter Park / secret identity archetype of super heroes. LINK
Notice how your stats start with a -1 to Freak (since your powers can easily be hidden) and +3 to mundane (since you do live a normal life); your main mechanic is called The Mask:
The Mask: You wear a mask and hide your real identity. Choose what Label you try to embody while wearing your mask: Danger/Freak/Savior/Superior
Once per session, you can affirm either your heroic or secret identity to switch your Mundane with your mask’s Label.
When you reveal your secret identity to someone who didn’t know it already, mark potential.
This is doing a LOT of things to keep the Spider-Man fantasy going; notice how your stats are all 0s until you use this skill to swap them with your Mundane stat - so you have to literally have those "I gotta go change my suit" moments to be ready for combat.
But also, notice the last line - potential here is the experience equivalent; the more you interact with NPCs and reveal your double life to your clueless aunt, or to your school principal or whoever else, you get character progression, because you're advancing your character arc and interacting with the themes of the work. If the story of the Janus character is about balancing this double life, it's not gonna give you EXP for killing random enemies - it's giving you EXP for interacting with the double-life roleplay.
Also note how much backstory and character filling it asks you to do:
When did you first put on the mask? Why?
Why do you keep a secret identity?
Who, outside of the team, knows about your dual identity?
Who thinks the worst of your masked identity?
Why do you care about the team?
When our team first came together...
We saved the life of someone important, either to the city or to us.
Who was it? Why are they important?
Relationships
_____ knew you from your civilian life first.
You refused to tell ______ your secret identity when they asked.
These questions help make for a layered character that is ready for the questions asked by the medium - who are these heroes? Why do they live a double life? What do they think is so important that risking their lives is so important? And what could make them give up fighting crime altogether?
[Also of note - note how the character sheet has few rules for combat as a minigame, and instead focuses on selling the fantasies and character arcs of those archetypes]
Here's the link to all these character sheets: LINK
And here's a link to the full game: LINK
(dworry, the game is under a Creative Commons license - page 4)
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These are my general gripes with Tablestuck:
-> Entirely combat-focused when Homestuck as a work isn't
-> Completely ignores characters and relationships, when most of Homestuck is dialogue
-> Has 0 talks about themes, character arcs or other wider-scope issues beyond "we need to fight bad guys and breed the genesis frog"
I have smaller gripes with it (using too niche language like Vim, Chutzpah, Panache, Bearing, Ledgermain; the lack of examples in the manuals, or lack of practical advise for the GM), but those are more so polish things rather than the foundational issues I have with Tablestuck.
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Sorry if I come across as too negative - I'm a firm believer in being honest during critique, and that highlighting flaws is the best way of dealing with it. I do want Tablestuck to be great but I do think it needs long ways to go before I can call it that.
Specially with its position as the only HS TTRPG on FRAF, it does warrant more critique now that it's by and large the "default" way to play HS TTRPG as it's more on the public's eye and is officially endorsed.
Check out my Balatro mod, Balatrostuck - LINK
