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Things are really movin'
🕑 Added 2023-09-02 00:07:07 +0000 UTCOnce I got through those playbooks, things really picked up in development. Playbooks, while important (it's 112 pages of content in the final book after all) are very time intensive and thoughtful in how they are crafted. They're part of the primary way a player interacts with the system. I feel like I keep apologizing for how long they took because I feel like it probably felt super long on your end, but it took the time it needed.
Want to know what I got done this month though? (outside of consulting work for secret project)
Multiple playtesting sessions for the basic dice systems
Thank you for everyone that helped me test out these mechanics. It was fun to see the shift in people's head as they realized a few things about this game that were different than others they may have played before. I look forward to running a second round where all the dice mechanics are in place and how that shakes up the atmosphere.
I'm thinking a pirate adventure in the Bermuda Triangle.
Adjustments based on feedback
I got a lot of really good data and feedback. On my end I was keeping track of how many times a player failed, the margin, how many dice a player got on successes, and player outward responses to a roll.
The biggest thing I ended up playing around with is exactly how many dice your character tags ended up giving you. +1 felt like not enough, +2 felt like too much, +2 for the first tag then +1 for everything after that feels just right. This had people not only succeeding, but succeeding just barely over the threshold. They could do the task and succeed, but it was a mixed success where the game tends to live. Pulp likes both it's big grand heroic moments but a hero that stumbles and struggles. You could do the thing usually, BUT... There ended up being a want to have more dice to do better or spend on things.
This means there is room for all those other little mechanics I want to add. The things to spend your successes on. Ways to manipulate your dice. More ways to get dice.
But it means there is room for failure and room to make failure not only interesting but appealing. I may have added some mechanics to play with that. Namely, the ability to choose to fail and a devils bargain the director(gm) roll can put on the table at any point. You can succeed at the thing, but it comes at a cost you will know, but maybe not the full repercussions of. How much do you want to succeed in the first place?
But we'll see if the second round of playtesting has me feeling the same. I suspect it'll be mostly just adjusting math. I had a group of folks tell me they can't wait to play this game again.
Finished notes on tags and their different forms
That bit of feedback allowed me to pace and price the value of all the other types of tags you can encounters. Items, complications, scenes. Theses are largely the bobs and levers that make a scene feel intractable and not just flat
Finished Notes On Verve
Every now and then while talking about the game I'll say something about your "Do cool shit meter" that meter is Verve. A renewable resource you can only ever keep 10 of at a time but you spend to do things like
-Stunts that show a player doing something highly skilled or amazing
-Rescue a bad roll with a piece of gear
-Tap into big magical abilities, experessions of your own stories
-A narrative beat like a flashback, lucky break, big story magic, "a fortune for glory"
-Getting back up after being knocked down
Finished Notes on Assets, Gear, and Bases
There are kinda 3 separate systems at play here that represent items, equipment, and tools you might find yourself in use or need of on and adventure
The fist is Assets, a floating pool of 6 points worth of items that kinda represents an abstracted combination of budget, ease of access, and what you can reasonable keep track of and carry with you. You can name things before you go out on adventures and get it for just the inventory points. Or you can leave points floating to spend some of that VERVE and say retroactively you had something the whole time (or just have room in your pockets if you need it)
Gear is 3 items that are silhouette defining, unique, or just important. They don't have the flexibility of assets, but they're yours and have an added function of being to save your ass. This is where indiana jones would put a hat and whip.
Base is fun. Every cell (adventure party) gets a floor of a mysterious extradimensional motel. This motel was a made as a thank you for the deeds your agency has done in the past by a collective of global supernatural powers and is a pact that they will continue the good work in the future. And as long as you do the work, you get a TARDIS like motel that will grow, change, and reflect your needs.
You can sink exp and gain rooms and resources. A safe harbour on your travels as long as you can get back to where you've stored it. (Sometime easier said than done) But you can have rooms of all kinds with their own mechanics and benefits. Just know that, like the TARDIS, eventually you'll have to leave the hotel and interact with the world around. A lot more fun anyways.
We have a bit do do though before we're done. But we're almost to the point where writing is going to begin (as in the actual chapters or the book). Up next to do is:
-Titles and Expressions (the magic system!)
-Stress (health)
-finishing touches and EXP
-start prepping for the SECOND ROUND OF PLAYTEST
