I want to thank everyone who's read Common Accord for helping to make it my best launch yet. From the moment I started jotting down the world-building notes that would become the Common Accord universe, I knew that I wanted to make it into something more than a single work.

This month, I'm excited to announce I've started writing the sequel to Common Accord. It'll be a good while before I'm ready to show anything, but the words are starting to flow.

As a die-hard plotter, I have to lay down the whole story in outline before I can begin, but with the Common Accord series, I'm doing something new. I'm still plotting each book in advance, but I'm completely winging (in writer parlance, "pantsing") the overall arc of the series. I've thought of a variety of cool storylines that will hopefully make it into future Common Accord Universe books, but I'm focusing on one book at a time, and I'm planning on the overall series to be open-ended.

Having said all that, something else has been consuming a fair bit of my creative time, and today I'm ready to show off some details.

You're the first to get a glimpse of the cover mock-up of this new project:

I know that not all my readers will be excited about this, but I hope some will be. This original table-top roleplaying game (title yet to be announced) will allow players and GMs to inhabit the universe of Common Accord, and play through some of the same environments, challenges, and adventures that Jes, Windy, Fin, & Stritch face.

Here's an excerpt from the draft rules laying out my goals and philosophy:

(The Game) Should Be Fast

I want these game rules to be as fast and as light as possible so that when things invariably do bog down, the GM and players can get back to moving at speed quickly.

Lightweight can mean a lot of things. In this case, I mean that wherever possible, I’ve made the rules simple and short. That means that players hopefully won’t be spending a lot of time looking up rules or figuring out how they work.

(The Game) Should Be Fun

There’s nothing worse than having a cool, dramatic idea of how your character can solve a tricky problem, only to be told by the GM that the rules don’t allow that. In (the game), the rules are always secondary to having fun and having those big dramatic moments. So the rules in this book focus more on what’s possible than what’s disallowed.

(The Game) Rules Should Be Expressive

Being expressive in a rules system means that many ideas, scenarios, and narratives can be explored and resolved with a small set of mechanics. Fewer rules are better than more rules. Simpler rules are better than complex. To my mind, an elegant system is one that solves as many problems as possible with as few moving parts as possible.

It also means that in some cases realism has been deliberately sacrificed in favor of narrative expression, speed, and fun. Before adding or adjusting a rule to make a mechanic more realistic, I have asked myself “will this make playing the game with friends more fun?”

Now, being the kind of person I am, I couldn't just leave it at that. Nope, I've designed these rules to be extensible and expandable to support any kind of game worlds that players want to explore. The core rulebook will include an original fantasy game world in addition to the blue-collar space-opera world of Common Accord. Moreover, I'm looking into publishing the core rules under a Creative Commons license, so that others will feel empowered to develop these ideas further.

So, where does this project stand? I've got the rules mostly written. I've been doing some play-testing with my family, and I'm nearly ready to start organizing some opportunities for public feedback and play-testing. There's still work to do on the Common Accord content and the bonus fantasy world, and of course plenty of balancing work to be done.

And so, as a final surprise I'm officially soliciting volunteers for upcoming play-testing cycles. If you are interested in being a part of this project, please fill out this Interest Form. And if you know others who might be interested, please spread the word!