Design Considerations (and a bit about Harsh Winter)

So, design considerations

So basically, everything I do have or has a few key sort of meta attributes. These are the  assumptions that apply whenever I don’t specifically state that they don’t’ apply - my default palate if you will.   When I do do other things that violate these, I usually call them out for they are the exceptions

Anyway, these assumptions are really pretty straightforward:

Firstly that “the world is an awful and terrifying place,” (because in my experience it is)  and secondly

“That bravery and perseverance can overcome those terrifying things” (because again IME, they totally can).  

And the push-pull of those things are key to the dynamic they bring to the game, setting, and table (sometimes more obviously than others).    This is true in Galaxy Black, this is true on Jaldipoor, this true of basically everything produce.  
Well, almost. 

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About the only thing in the pipeline that I can see that violates these two assumptions is Harsh Winter.  Harsh Winter is a tonal experiment and something on some level I wanted to make since I was about 14;  it's a very short, very sweet, and doomed as hell. 

At heart it is a relatively “realistic” ( I use the term somewhat reservedly) after the bomb game. There are no mutants, there are no powers, there is no magic, nothing is going to magically come along and save you;  the world is over, civilization has ended, people gave up. Now if that sounds Bleak that's because it is and a treatment of this should be in my opinion, a downerfest. (I love gamma world I love Mutant Future, I love MCC but  those are not the same experience.) this is a game of it how hard things will be, how hopeless they will be, and how the only real option you have to survive is to form a community 

That Community could be awful or it could be as best as you can manage it under the circumstances so it's really kind of up to the people playing the game to determine how bright or hopeless it's going to be but that's always true in my opinion  it's up to the table to make the game what it is 

The  treasure table (as in “what can you get off this carcass?”)  is a good example of the level of grim survivalism that you're talking about but the part I'm most interested in is actually the community building mechanics which ATM I'm still working on -  but that's the heart of the game or at least it should be unless you just want to do a one shot of pure hopelessness[1]. 

But even then, that's ultimately about cultivating hope of some kind

When's it coming?  Like everything else.  "Sometime after Galaxy Black." You knew that already though. 

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[1] Hey, some people are into that; sometimes I’m even one of those people (not often but sometimes).