Issue #10 (June 2023)
Haha oops I forgot to write one of these for like 4 months
Hi there! Long time no see! I’ve written like 200 pages of games since I last posted.
APOCALYPSE FRAME
Hardback print copies are coming soon! I put out v1.1 recently and I’m hoping that’s the last version. They’ll be available through the various and sundry online retailers - I’m doing a print test now to make sure that everything is the way I like it first, after that if everything is in order then we’re off to the races.
I’m going to be working on compiling The Infected World into a single volume and updating it for v1.0. (I’ll update Ballad of Industrial Gods too but not as much needs to be done there, just one mention of an outdated mechanic really.)
Some kind soul has made a roll20 character sheet for APOCALYPSE FRAME as well! I’ll be vetting that further and submitting it - I’ll make an announcement when it’s live and available for everyone.
Valiant Horizon
My first Total//Effect game is finished! Or at least the initial, unedited-text-and-simple-layout version is. It’s a JRPG-inspired crystal fantasy game, inspired especially by Xenoblade 3 but also by many other games. Features:
Lightweight, fast-paced tactics.
12 unique classes of heroes, each with their own unique traits and powers.
A robust Relationships and Bonds system provides weight to the friends you make along the way.
A Reputation system highlights increased prominence: how are your characters seen and what does it get you?
A strong emphasis on creating a setting at your table as a campaign progresses through the recollections of ancient heroes.
I wrote a bunch of about it too, those’ll be all linked in a posts section at the end of this update.
Have a preview of a spread or two.
It’ll be up for itchfunding sometime in July. This is by far the most expensive project I’ve done: in addition to editing, I’m commissioning portraits for each of those 12 classes. Do me a solid and pitch in when it drops: you’ll get the full, non-final, extremely playable game for cheaper than on release. I guarantee it’ll be worth your money and time.
ANOINTED
I made more progress on ANOINTED23! It’s been kind of on hiatus as of late but I have 4 fully fledged Regions done. I also had some ideas for changing some of the core mechanics to remove the dice from them, those ideas are in a post at the end of this update.
Liminal Void
I’m about 100 pages into Liminal Void and it’s not anywhere close to content-complete. This one’s gonna be chunky, y’all. I wrote about its development a bit over the past few months, I’ll link it below.
Writing!
I’ve been making a bunch of long-form chosts about things!
I wrote a bunch of dev posts about Liminal Void:
This one’s about Professions: the current ones in the quickstart and 12 more I’m adding in the full book. What is the intent of them and what am I trying to avoid doing with them? Read on to find out more.
This one’s about ships - how are they defined, what I thought was important, etc - and the slow-bleed economy of the game.
This one’s about ships as well, but specifically combat. What does a TTRPG dogfight look like? What about a more person-vs-environment conflict? A few ideas are in there.
And Valiant Horizon:
This one’s about progression of hero stories as characters level up. (It’s the 2nd half of one of the articles above.)
This one’s about why I got rid of the basic move action! (I replaced it with at-will class abilities because that’s cool and everyone likes movement abilities.)
And I wrote about removing dice from skills below.
Inspired by Spencer Campbell’s Combat As Skill blogs, I wrote some diceless treatments for games. You can get to my three diceless design posts here (they’re all replies to each other, so just keep scrolling down to see the next one). In order:
Removing dice from ANOINTED. Instead of rolling, most things are token-based, which makes way more sense to me. (I haven’t put this directly into ANOINTED but I intend to because it feels way better to me for that game.)
Ideas for removing dice from APOCALYPSE FRAME. (This one’ll get cleaned up later, I intend to release a package of variant rule ideas at some point and this is a big part of that.)
Removing dice from Valiant Horizon’s skill system. Instead of rolling for noncombat abilities, they just happen if you have a proper Asset for it, or you can Exhaust an Asset to do something bigger. I get into my reasoning for this in the post, but in short: I don’t think a severe risk of failure as such actually helps the themes of the game, which is capital-H Heroic Fantasy. (This one’s in already in, I’ve run a session with it and I love it.)
I also wrote a few things about quarterbacking in TTRPGs, spawned by thinking about diceless stuff:
Part 1 covers what I mean by quarterbacking and why it happens.
Part 2 covers what can be done about it when writing a game.
And I think that’s everything! Whew. If you’re still reading, thanks! I hope I can manage to update folks sooner next time.
If you want updates more frequently, my discord’s here.
Until next time!