Ghost in the Shell TTRPG: Preview Designer Chat With Alessio Cavatore
Designer Alessio Cavatore teams up with writer Zach Barouh for a plum assignment: Make Section 9 playable and faithful to the setting.
How does your first day as a Section 9 agent play and feel?
Designer Alessio Cavatore and writer Zak Barouh had to answer that question when Mantic Games acquired the license to translate one of manga’s most beloved franchises into a TTRPG: Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell.
Alessio Cavatore’s extensive track record in miniature and skirmish games — and his love for the original material — prepared him well to tackle Ghost in the Shell’s fast, lethal world of combat and ideas
Breakup Gaming Society’s resident indie TTRPG curator Walton Wood leads a talk with the disarming Cavatore, who talks about the thrill of being able to use all-original art from the manga and the collaborative challenge of making a system that was true to the beloved (and very dangerous) setting.
The toughest design conversations for Cavatore and Barouh yielded some of the most interesting fruit for GMs and players: Formalized tools for developing agents’ inner conflicts and richer storylines; bringing the original work’s philosophical underpinnings to the fore while quantifying the mix of augmentation, tech, and weapons that make combat fast and lethal.
Any firefight could be your last. Any mission could render your agent a burnout.
Cavatore’s depth of field in design, his giddy enthusiasm for the source material, and how he reveals himself as both a maker and a player made this one of our best recent talks. Check it out in the player above.
The Ghost in the Shell Tabletop Roleplaying Game launches in Summer 2026 from Mantic Games — hit the BackerKit page for more.
I’m seven sessions deep in Dwelling, a solo RPG for ghosts.
D&D One-Room Sessions: The Unstoppable Depredations of Darkroast McFanticide
Cut the chaff in your D&D players' character rosters with this fun and quick one-room scenario
Hurricane 75 doesn’t even have a character ready and is burning daylight hmmming and umming through his decades-old knowledge of D&D character classes, so I make him an Assistant Crew Leader.
His character’s task? Track down Darkroast McFanticide, the hulking, rust-armored Butcher of Hasbronia.
The room: Long and rectangular, a dais or something at the far end that, for some reason, displays a single flask that has the character’s picture on it.
He announces that he’s going to break the flask, but we’re not doing any of that because the knives are starting: “More knives than you’ve ever seen in your life.”
First plot point: Determine how many of the initial volley of flying knives hit the Assistant Crew Leader. It’s something like eight.
“This seems pretty bad,” I tell him.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like I get to do much. It’s been all you so far.”
“Bro, do you even like D&D.”
I roll a quick grapple/surprise check for him, which he fails. Darkroast McFanticide has embraced him from behind in an adamantine grip and a wave of necrotic gum tissue odor. Darkroast is upset because not enough of the knives are going into the Assistant Crew Leader’s mouth, so I tell Hurricane 75 that Darkroast stretches his character’s mouth out so more knives go inside his mouth. He gets a three.
At this point, Hurricane 75 is starting to check out on the whole experience, but I tell him he’s doing fine because we still have to do the eye check. Darkroast now wants more of the nonstop flying knives from the far wall to go into the character’s eyes.
“He’s stretching my eyes out,” he says glumly.
“Yeah. Let’s do a d6 to see how many knives go in your eyes.” It’s a six.
“Great.”
“I made an eye hit placement chart. Do you want to figure out where the first knife hits.”
“Sure.”
Oof. Right in the lacrimal caruncle. Rough. I plot out the remaining five eye hits for him so he can learn more about eyes.
There’s one piece of detailing at the end that finally engages him: Rolling a d20 to see for how many minutes Darkroast McFanticide holds the Assistant Crew Leader aloft, shaking him and gurgling in triumph. 12 minutes. We both collaborate to sketch out the scene, which is wet and crunchy because I’m a good DM and I like players to have fun.
Anyway, for all you DMs out there refining your worldbuilding and agonizing about plot and interesting NPCs: you’re overindulging your players. Boil the process down to the fundamentals. Wipe these sons of bitches off the map so you can play something else.
There is some post-session nitpicking from Hurricane 75 about Darkroast’s prowess because the flying knife trap did all the work, and some speculation as to whether my villain is a bitch. He sort of has a point, so I’m working on a different session: It’s an elegant skyship, where Darkroast will slowly work the player character into an approximate ball shape using just his hands. I’m going to also design an option where the character gets to say something before they’re fatally compressed.
Keep your eye on Breakup Gaming Society to see what thrilling duel erupts next; wherever Darkroast McFantide appears, fun is sure to follow.
Preview photo is a detail of the Sin Eater character from the Trench Crusade tabletop game, which is supposed to jump off on Kickstarter in Oct. 2024. It’s actually more horrifying than this post, check this out.
New Cocktail Minted in Honor of Dead Belt Indie TTRPG: Redline Cowboy
i never meant for any of this to happen
You’re going to die, so make it citrusy and full of desert odors.
Tonight Breakup Gaming Society proudly launches a new cocktail in honor of the hopeless character classes from A Couple of Drakes’ Dead Belt Solo (or maybe more) game:
The Redline Cowboy
The lights are all going out, Belter. Just make sure they’re a flicker at the periphery of your massive buzz. Yee. Haw.
• 1 oz. orange/clove mixer
• 2 oz. mezcal
Combine in shaker and pour over ice in rocks glass. Then watch your prospects vanish in the bulkhead window. It’s OK.