Hi folks. Got a lot to get through so let’s get right into things.
Warning, incoming wall of text
You may have noticed I haven’t been around much. It’s been a pretty awful combination of no sleep, intense workweeks (I work in the videogame industry and E3 is A Thing™), and family stuff (not good news about my father). All that has led to a long bout of non-productivity. Which then lead to significant guilt and beating-myself-up about it, because that’s always helpful, right?
Anywho. I’m starting to sorta feel better. Sorta. The current political climate down south notwithstanding (brrrr). But the time away has allowed me to re-consider what I’m doing. Even before going on unexpected hiatus, I was really struggling to keep going with Carta Galaxia.
What started as a campaign guide morphed into a “how to run a campaign”… and I honestly don’t even know what my target audience is for this thing. I don’t know who I’m writing it for, and I don’t know what’s expected of me. I’m certainly not filled with a burning desire to complete it, it feels more like a chore, and that really shows in the quality of the writing.
Lots of factors are currently weighing on me:
A) This was a kickstarter stretch goal. It would be poor form not to deliver.
B) If this isn’t useful or wanted or well-written, it will be wasted time.
C) In writing this (and FBH) I’m really seeing all the cracks in UW’s design up close.
That third one is the big one. It’s no secret I’ve been mulling over an UW2 (or 2edUW or whatever) for a long while now. When I started this project I was a legit nobody with no previous design work under my belt. I was the embodiment of that “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing” dog-in-a-lab-coat. (Can I say again how profoundly humbling it is that so many people supported my first-time foray into game design?)
UW and FBH have been a huge learning experience, and I’d like to think that I’ve honed my skills enough that I’d like to take a second go at it. I’d especially like to solve a lot of the community’s issues with the game, the places where it’s hard to grok, or doesn’t quite work out as well as it should, or is just inelegant (seriously, who uses the “Clumsy” rules? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)
So that’s where I’m at. No decisions yet, but I’m weighing my options very seriously.
I’d be really interested to hear what you all think. I’ll endeavour to be more active in the community again, so please post your opinion (or Private Message me).
Thanks for sticking out with UW and for being such a fantastic community.
-SG
I have thoughts but will wait until I am at a real keyboard and not on a phone. 🙂
Dude, we supported you because we believe in you and want you to succeed. FBH is fantastic. CG will be, too. My first thought is that maybe just finish up what you have. It’s better than you think.
I am/have been in a similar funk. Was working on something, reworking and so forth. I had to get to a point where I just said “It’s done”, and people liked it.
You’ve been at UW for what, like five years now? People stick around for a reason. Maybe make this an update on the KS page?
Dibs on writing a stretch goal for UW2
I’d rather see additions rather than reworks. I feel like Uncharted Worlds is still only just spreading and gaining traction in the gaming world, and that it really wouldn’t be a great time for 2nd edition. Besides, I think the system, as-is (and especially with FBH), is incredibly good. I’ve personally never spotted any flaws, major or otherwise, with its design.
The only problem I’ve ever had with UW is finding a game 😛 Which will hopefully be remedied soon, as I’ve recently joined a group that plans to start a campaign sometime this week. It will be their first run of the system, and sadly, despite my enthusiasm for the system and attempts to run a campaign of my own (all of which failed to start because no one owns UW D:), it will be my first run as well.
Heh, honestly, I should probably advertise here next time.
Also, I shouldn’t require people to own the books, and should instead just make premade characters for people.
As for what I’d like to see from Carta Galaxia, it’s hard to say, as I don’t have as much experience with the game as I’d like. However there are a few Sci-Fi areas that UW kinda lacks in. Some of these of which I’ve begun writing some homebrew for:
– Time Travel.
My Homebrew: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yaEaX0BmoiArpzBGmeQRXRfN86ixHzfjnvr7RSPc1uw/edit?usp=sharing
– Jump Lane Creation
My Homebrew: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10RaDDXluWsjbSju2XbROAp2Lbrw1fdovjhExv7keomg/edit?usp=sharing
– Fabricators (i.e. Rules for Star Trek Replicators in UW)
– Multitools (Rules for amazing gadgets that can seemingly do anything, like Sonic Screwdrivers and Tricorders)
Sean, it might help if you explained what you view as flaws? I know I can’t be the only one who sees this as a fantastic game. I like what UW does differently than other PbtA sci-fi games. Sure, sometimes I want more granular combat, and for that I can do Andy Medeiros’ Star Wars Hacks or Adrian Thoen’s Impulse Drive.
But UW cannot be beat for simplicity and easy play. Most of the time I prefer tthat combat can finish as easily as a regular skill roll. I like how factions work in your game.
Two-part career books and a background? Awesome. you had PbtA and Traveller spawn a child. Your game is like the anti-Scum and Villainy to me, and that is a darn good thing.
If it helps, none of the options you list would leave me feeling angry or disappointed. Happy to enjoy whatever you decide to do next, be it CG, UW2, or just geeking out with fellow RPG nerds.
Okay, finally at a keyboard where i can actually type.
I don’t have too many thoughts on Carta Galaxia. It sounds like an awesome idea and would probably be useful regardless, but it’s got to be up to you what form it ends up taking.
For UW as a whole, it has become one of my go-to systems for con games and other one-shots. I love the freedom it gives me to create the space opera game I need at that moment with the players I have at hand. The flexibility of the core moves is something I really appreciate.
While I like the cramped quarters move, I find I need something at the beginning during character creation, so I often have the players form history/bonds with one another separate from what the game offers. When doing one-shots, cramped quarters can be awkward in the middle of the session and doesn’t feel right at the beginning.
The one area I tend to find players having difficulty with one-shots is with the career/background skills. The feel and usefulness of some of them is pretty varied. I always feel like they should be special moves for the characters, but they’re really not. I often end up telling the player to treat them as flavor and we’ll work it into the game from there. While I’m not an expert, I think that’s the area I would love to see tweaked in a future edition.
All that said, I love this game. I never would have guessed you were a first time designer. 🙂
Thanks for the update. I baked UW, I never had the chance of playing it, and I explained my concerns about it in the past (long story short: it wasn’t “PbtA enough”, it doesn’t scream “play me, try those Playbooks”). Still, I appreciate you, your work and your positive attitude. I was happy when you expanded it with “aliens” to play space opera, I was waiting for “the whole stuff” to give it another chance, re-reading it from the start.
So, where I’m going with this? I don’t know, however, if you want to use our remaining “hoard of money” to give us a future UW2 (or 1.5), Sean, you are welcome. I’ll wait for it.
Finally, best of luck with your life. Many of us are in the same boat (here, a depressing political situation, a precarious work i don’t like, my old father still alive after 3 tumors, and a diffuse sadness about my small small life in an infinite universe).
Heh, I like UW because it’s not too PbtA and tastes like a take on a more modern Traveller. Best story arc I have ran in years was using UW. Here, have a slice of pie. Totally worth it. 🙂
Thanks for all the hard work you put into UW. Really great flexible system. FBH added what I thought the game lacked. As a backer I look forward to whatever direction you want to go with UW.
I love UW, and it has small cracks. If you prefer to create a 1.5 or a 2.0 before another extension, go for it. As a perfectionist I can understand that you feel.
Make a new edition and then CG because if you do CG now and the next edition change thinks, you will need to make a CG update.
I found the “how to run a campaign” stuff you’ve posted so far to be really useful; I’d love to see it eventually published.
As for UW2, I think the basic design of UW is sound. It is simple, but simplicity is really, really hard. There are a few rough edges, and I can see how the replacement favour/debt rules you’ve posted give a lot more flexibility. But I don’t think it really needs a huge revision.
I’d like to see in a 2e:
– Procedures to create planets, galaxies, and similar for play
– Some move rework so that all are useful. There are some “meh” moves in there.
– Printable playbooks for all careers/origins on half sheets so they can be printed and mixed-and-matched.
– A “bringing down the pain” rule for more advanced combat (see The Shadow of Yesterday)
– probably more…
At this point, you have a strong foundation (which you’ve got with UW and FBH). I believe adding new content adds more value than revisiting existing material. There are many “imperfect systems” that are very popular just because of the massive amount of setting material. If there’s something you’d absolutely want to revisit, there are many ways to do so without doing a V2.0. It could just be an errata or free addon to the core book (say for revisited faction rules). ICRPG’s creator just pumped extra content in the electronic version of the core book after the release, to the benefit of anyone’s having bought the book. Pinnacle release setting material that incorporate revisited rules, to gather feedback before incorporating them in the next Savage Worlds core book.
So rather than having a humongous Carta Galaxia book, you could split them in several books. One could be that political setting with those revisited faction rules you posted a while back. Then maybe a separate Carta Galaxia book featuring an exploration setting with a planet generator. By the time you get to UW2.0, you have several setting books, and you gathered feedback for the new rules. If you start by the setting book for addressing the faction rules, and release as the KS reward, you kill two birds with one stone 🙂 And then pave your way to UW 2.0
So to me, one of the reasons I get excited about a 2.0 is just to collect the refinements already made (in FBH and in other stuff you’ve teased like the improved debt system) into one place, where it’s easier to navigate and to reference.
I didn’t kickstart UW, so take this with a grain of salt, but in my mind, any stretch goals of a KS is optional. Heck, even releasing the product itself isn’t bound by any legal law. KS is basically investment. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose.
UW is a fantastic game. I adore its simplicity.
I was so-so with FBH. There’s some stuff that I really like (cybernetics, for e.g.) but some other I felt wasn’t fleshed out as much as I wanted (psionics/arcane/divine powers, for example).
I’m hearing about CG for the first time here (I’ve looked it up on the KS page after I read your post) and honestly, I’m not super excited about it. When I play UW, we’re making our own universe as we go. I don’t think I’ll have much use of pregenerated stuff and random tables.
Thing is, what trumps any and all of it is : if you don’t like working on CG anymore, just don’t. Put it aside. Work on what excite you. If it’s UW2, do that. If it’s something else entirely, go ahead! Anyway, like you mentioned, if you force yourself into it, it will show in the quality of the product.
Would I buy a UW2? If it has extensive changes, probably.
If it’s only few revisions, probably not.
I would expect some fixes and clarifications, some added content and inclusion of FBH stuff into 2e. That’d be a definite buy.
You could always make 2e free to UW buyers, but I’m not sure how much you rely on this financially.
For reference, ICRPG v2 by Runehammer was free to all v1 buyer but the price was increased a bit. The second edition had more than 100 more pages so it’s totally legit to ask for more.
Addramyr Palinor well, about the “You could always make 2e free to UW buyers, but I’m not sure how much you rely on this financially.” I’d say that he already got it, from a part of the old KickStarter (the part of the Stretch Goals still “missing”). Also, totally hypothetically of course, he could always start a new KickStarter for the “new version”: I’m pretty sure he could raise the sum he needs to gain a fair profit AND still give the new version PDF to the old kickstarter backers.
However, we are just thinking out loud.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I really appreciate it. Especially all the unsolicited praise, you guys are way too kind.
After considering the feedback, I will continue working on Carta Galaxia, but with a tighter scope. I tried to write this one organically, the same way I did with UW and FBH, but this one is a whole different species of fish, so I need a clear, well-structured plan of attack. I hope to have a new structure written up very soon, and I’ll post it here.
As for UW2, I feel that it is a much more viable way forward, as opposed to continued “patching” of UW with new content. The system thrives on light-weight simplicity, and the last thing I want to do is bloat it with extra rules. FBH went in the right direction, but now I need to double back and make sure the foundation is still sturdy.
Personally, I can think of a dozen or so areas of UW which could be a lot more streamlined. There are parts of this game that flow super well, and the parts that don’t stick out like a sore thumb.
Rest assured, I do not want to add complexity. If anything, I want to simplify, I want to make systems mesh well together so that there’s less mental overhead. I’ll be posting my “hit list” of mechanics that need to be retooled, and some of which that I’ve already started working on. I call it UW2, but it really would be a UW1.75: Smaller than the change from D&D 2 to 3, but bigger than 3 to 3.5
So yeah: I’ll be working on CG for now, with an eye towards updating/unifying some of the clunkiest systems for an eventual second edition. Of course, it’ll be some time before UW2 would be ready for whatever publishing model I go with (probably Kickstarter again to fund the artwork), and I’d be actively posting designs to this community during development.
Again, I appreciate all the feedback, and I’ll keep you all updated as things progress!
I think the instinct telling you not to finish writing what you’re writing is sound, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. UW doesn’t need a detailed setting.
I would encourage you to take what you’ve got, condense it into a bunch of random tables and brief ideas, and release it. I like UW but I don’t think it needs a default setting of any kind. What I would really like to see is a bunch of usable material that is completely compatible with the existing rules and that I can draw from for inspiration or to quickly generate a night’s gaming.
If you could throw in a few Quickstart-style setups that use the existing rules and make for good gameplay, I will be. a happy gamer.
EDIT: One thing I would like to see updated is the organization rules, but you could throw those in as optional rules without redoing the whole book.That’s really the only part of the whole game that doesn’t really click for me.
My advice is to follow your own interest and happiness. The best work anyone does is when they are truly feeling passionate about it.
The second piece of advice is to utilize the community as much as possible. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the PbtA community as a whole, it’s that putting things out there for all to see tends to give you all the help you could need.
Keep following your inspiration and things will work out.
I say incorporate CG into a UW2. I think we would love to see that.
That ^
Sean, as someone who co-founded an RPG company and has been through the struggles you’re describing, I’d be happy to have a chat about this stuff. Let me know if that’s something you want to do.
Hi, I wasn’t a KS backer, so this is feedback, not even advice (and it’s late) but:
– if CG is just a dictionary of Traveller-style “Library Data”, which it seems to be from the KS, then I’m kind of indifferent to it. For a storytelling game, I’d prefer the players got to tell the story, and having a “canonical” background feels like it runs against the grain of this.
– if it’s filling in missing systems (notably world and background generation) better in my opinion to do it before v2. That provides an opportunity to revise it in v2 when you come back round to tweaking other systems.
– personally happy to pay full price for v2. I’ve just done the same for Legacy.
– I’m struck in Legacy by the multi-level meta-game for factions versus characters, moving time forward etc. I think that would work well for faction/world generation in an SF game (I like the UW system of combining elements from multiple playbooks + origin for characters – maybe the same could be done for worlds/factions?). Legacy v2 also has factions tweaked slightly for the world background (“e.g. If aliens caused the fall, the alien playbook tweaks like this”). World playbooks could tweak slightly for hard SF vs Space Opera, for example.
– So, what I’d like to see is a world generation metagame where players collaboratively build (and possibly play) the background, effectively a PbtA (rather than FATE) version of Diaspora. I see people quote SWN for background generation – SWN is cool, but it’s prep-heavy for the GM and although system-independent, it is linked to SWN’s canon background (galactic civilisation recovering after “the Scream”), which is similar to Traveller New Era, for those who remember that. In the same way Classic Traveller/Megatraveller world gen hardwired Traveller’s steady state galactic empire. All of these random systems tie ultimately to a particular background view.
Anyhow, that’s my 2 cents. But your game (and your life) is your own, so feel free to ignore.
My view is like most of the above, start afresh with UW2. I’d back a new Kickstarter for UW2 and it would give you time to sort out the product.
Posted an update on the situation here: plus.google.com – Carta Galaxia – Yet Again So after carefully considering all the feedback, I…
I’ve never seen any major issues with UW, but I do have to admit that the prospect of an UW 2.0 is appealing, only in that almost every system could potentially benefit from a second pass, tightening things up, reworking things, etc. ^-^
Brock McCord Yep, and there are a few systems that are just “free spinning” and not hooked into the overall mechanics.
A second pass with a the few years of experience and feedback under my belt would do the system good.