Playtesting has been leaning
this way for a while but last weekend nailed it. So in part I have spent
this week (to a limited degree, there’s been a lot on my plate not related at
all to gaming) tearing the psychic powers up and redoing them.
This grates but it makes for a better (by far) end product - also
I have lost my proofreading and layout slave to the wilds of a summer semester
and a move for the next month so any thoughts I might have had about dropping
this in the next few months. just went twip so there’s no great temporal pressure
as is. I do have an awful lot of free time on my hands
tho. (See prev.) Which, at least in itself, is good as I’ve now
been at this thing long enough that I’m wanting done with it.
So far the best thing to
happen in playtesting by far was the apprentice wizard smiting a bunch of space
pirates with The Means of Production. I think the causal spell
needs tweaking. (Could I possibly vague that up for you? Yes YES I Could. Don't
tempt me.)
I’m at a point though where the extra time is good for being
able to make little playtest kits, which is a good thing. I’ve got two stable casts of pregens (the low
level party and the 0 level party) which represent a decent enough spread of
what’s in the book so far BUT still keeping many surprises. A couple of classes, all with varying levels
of new mechanics, some simple, some not, and then lots of other moving
parts. Testing them all one at a time
though, which is very beneficial to the process but tbh kind of tedious.
ANYWAY
This is kind of a lengthy update so far, but that’s because
it’s been a long time in coming and also because I’m about to start packing
everything up for a move (end of the month) so I want to push this while it’s
still current.
So what’s in the damn book?
Right now? The ad
copy would sound like this
3 character classes
5 levels of psychic powers
Psionics
Patrons
Alien creatures, parasites, needle guns, gods
and
Loads of Undead
An alternative system for Chargen for the Judge
(or the players) to populate the star lanes with.
The Free Tribes of Space
And the roiling multicoloured madness of the the
Sub-ether
Life and death in a collapsing universe,
ΞΞ Sub-ether Zero zero
Or some sort of marketing soundy bullshit like that. But an accurate if wildly unhumble assessment.
AlSO RELEVANT
Once set up in the new place I should have space and time
(!!!!) sufficient to start a serious playtest game of some kind going. I have not run a game online in a long time
(2004) and I’m not sure how I would go about it BUT if there’s interest here
(be it hangouts or some other means/platform) I think I’m ready to start
throwing this at folk in a big (well bigger) way.
In the highly unlikely environment where someone would be
similar levels of both masochistic and anti-captialist as to contemplate a
servile role as “sawbuck compensated proofreader”, please contact this office
immediately. :P
So some
playtester feedback / inspired FAQ
So this started as a
thing to answer some questions and took on a life of it’s own. So…putting it here.
So some playtester feedback / inspired FAQ
So Saurids - are they supposed to be dragonborn?
Um...they
can be if that’s an archetype that works for you and your table. But more to
the point they were intended to call to mind the large, leathery reptilian
alien of the golden age, oft an enemy, sometimes an ally, mostly it should be
admitted, on the more lurid covers of some of the pulps.
Also
various conceptions of upright dinosaur people, and bluntly, fading memories of
playing a mistress race troll in someone’s one off runequest 3e game in the
mid-80s.
If
there’s a thing I wanted to callback to it would definitely be the Klegs from
Judge Dredd, with maybe a helping of Gorn on the side.
In-universe,
while the draco forms probably tinkered with their evolution a bit early on,
there isn’t any other hard link between the two. Unless you want there to
be of course. I know I beat this into the ground but it’s your game.
What about the insecivroids?
Those are
actually named after my own childhood mispronunciation of Insectivorid, the
species that Bug (from the classic Bill Mantlo micronauts comic) belonged to.
By name
it can be (probably) inferred that all of them were uplifted from a common
species that primarily consumed other insectoid life forms.
What’s the deal with Manifesters? (Psions)
A
question I never anticipated honestly. Bu tI get it a lot. I
like the idea that psychic power is, since it’s grounded in your biology, in
your neurology, that it burns you out as you use it. Also since it drawns
more on your own inner power reserves rather than (at first) things from
elsewhere it really does a number on you...but on the flip side you can offset
that by using a psionic device or through other technological means.
But of
course as they increasingly draw from other places - other universes and planes
to call upon and fuel their power, it draws those places closer and affects
things on other, maybe more subtle levels.
And one
of those levels is the one that lets them use their kind of gimped powers to
break the universe, recharging power cells and stuff that on a low key sort of
level can make any PC party near invincible.
Which is,
again, by design. I wanted psychic powers to be a distinctive thing and a
distinct unique (or so) take on psi powers BUT also to compliment divine and
chaos magic as it exists in the dcc core.
Are there any other classes?
Yes.
I’m working on a Field Scientist class (which is meatier than you might
think), a Gunfighter, and one or two others. There’s another branch of
psychic powers I haven’t let out the bag yet and a class to use them. :)
What’s the class?
Still in
flux but right now imagine if Jedi had different, warring schools, like in
Golden Harvest or Shaw Bros films. Honestly at the moment it’s hewing a
lot closer to a psion as martial artist than any kind of jedi thing but there
is a group of them that specialize in energy blades.
I’m also
still tinkering with a dedicated Navigator class.
There may
be some surprises in the Legion book too.
Legion book?
Well, the
first issue of the zine. Um. When I started all this, there
was going to be an inaugural sort of ashcan, and then some zines to build up
support for a book.
Obviously
I tossed that out on like day two. But that was the
idea. Anyway, unless there is just no interest at all when Zero
drops or some other explodey plan thing happens I still plan on doing the
zines, or at least the issues I have planned. The first one is going to
be the military SF one; lots of weapons, and general starship
troopers action. Yes with battlesuits.
But if you are looking for a coherent design philosophy from me it's this - meticulously plan step one. Step two, ignore step one and all it's works in favor of the cool thing You Just Wrote Seconds Ago. Step three, wing it.
I’d say
there’s a step four – profit, but I’m almost certainly going to give all of this
away for free or as near as. We po’ kids
need cool toys too.
And now a word about the
Zero Levels
Before you get down my
gullet for the “overpowered’ zeros realize that most of them will not be
starting with weapons of any kind. That means they aren’t
proficient in ANYTHING til level 1. Impose that shit.
Also the weapon charts
reflect the HD loadout of the galaxy around it. IT will likely not be the
problem you think it is.
In any case I find that
in practice roughly three Sub-ether zeros equal about four from the core book
so it balances out IMO.
Anything else?
It’s not a setting…
IT’s a toolkit book that
has some setting elements* but it’s up to you to decide how you want to use
them in your game. That said you can pick it up and use it verbatim
*as* a setting….provided you like filling in details on your own and as you
go. You could (and should) regard the material that *is* in
the book as examples because as presented that’s what they are. Of
course I’ve put a lot of work into those “examples” but the point, as indeed,
is the point of almost all my game writing, is to fire the imagination of the
Judge and their players; if I have inspired or suggested ideas, then my job is
done. Everything else, to me is gravy.
You see one of the best
ways to counter the Forgetten Realms effect, where every minute detail has been
categorized and extrapolated to death, is to not put but a handful of facts
down and let the Judge and their players do what they will.
But that’s always my
M.O. I make things to inspire stuff for you to do at your table. Use this
book and it’s contents literally HOWEVER you like. Change what you
want. Hack the thing and use it in some chaos fueled Bunnies &
Burrows/Top Secret crossover (tho if you do that TELL ME ABOUT IT)
There are over a million
worlds in the imperium and more added every day. Add your own.
*with every passing day however this becomes less and less
the case
No comments:
Post a Comment