Author: Sean Gomes

You know how there are always those niggling little details you miss? The questions you forget to ask yourself until it may be too late?

“How am I going to distribute the PDF to the backers?”

Yeaaaah. Specifically, how am I going to distribute the PDFs only to the backers, and not the general public (’cause I’d like to be able to sell my work on DTRPG afterwards :P). Surely an email service would block me from BCCing 400+ people with a zip file. Even if they didn’t immediately block it for looking like a mass virus attack, it would likely end up in everyone’s Junk Mail.

Having it available for download somewhere is possible, but then all it takes is one backer to share the link and suddenly everyone is getting the final PDF, whether they paid or not.

Uhhhhh. Crap. Does it show that this is my first Kickstarter? Hahah.

Any advice suggestions?

Listening to Civilization: Beyond Earth soundtrack while doing layout. Beautiful, very fitting with the themes of sci fi and discovery. I’d love to use it as background music in an actual UW session at some point. But makes me sad, because the game itself wasn’t all that great.

Of course, my mind being what it is, I start thinking about what I would have done differently with the IP, if I had the chance. And I have to keep shunting my brain back on track. >_<

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fokdVvajHM

So, while I’m still editing, I’m also kicking around the various careers for Far Beyond Humanity. Looking for inspiration to fill out my career skills. So far I have the Devoted (faith ritual magic), the Zealot (faith might), the Occult (mystic transformation) and the Arcane (evocation and summoning).

Any particular iconic spells or powers you would expect, or would like to see in some form? Any notable supernatural powers from popular media?

(Additional caveat: nothing overtly telepathic or telekinetic, those belong in their own respective careers)

So what’s your favorite, lesser known starship name? We all know the Enterprise and Serenity and such, but there are so many really awesome (and really silly) names out there.

My personal favorite at the moment is The Righteous Indignation, the starship of Bucky O’Hare

Because who doesn’t like flowcharts? (Soulless monsters, that’s who). As requested by dont normally , in the Kickstarter comments. I’ll be adding this to the chapter, and posting it in the next update, but I figured I’d give you folks a sneak peak just for fun

The post by Justin Phillips about religious characters, mentioning Book from Firefly, got me thinking. Here’s how I would build Shepherd Book’s archetype, going by what little they hint at of his background (note, minor Firefly spoilers):

Shepherd

Regimented Military Personality

Mettle + 1 (+ 2)

Physique + 1

Influence + 2

Expertise + 0

Interface – 1

Disciplined (Regimented, + 1 Mettle)

Authority (Military, Command those not loyal to you)

Inspiration (Personality, Incite emotion)

Diplomacy (Personality, Factions always listen)

The Authority thing is from that wonderful scene where Book is shot

Mal: “We have a crewman that need immediate medical attention”

Alliance captain: “This isn’t a hospital”

Book: “Check… my… ident…” [Command, Roll+Influence]

Alliance captain: “… get this man to the infirmary”

I might post the rest of the crew, whenever I have a spare moment. 

Slowly adjusting to fatherhood, finding small pockets of time to write.

Anywho, question for the community: Is “Affliction” a ‘sci-fi’ enough term to denote “status effects”? Would you guys use another, more sci-fi sounding word to describe that? (Ailment? Condition? Debility?)

I’m writing up the proper Med-Bay chapter (and trying to find all my various playtest notes after a very hectic and beatifully stressdul week or so) and I feel the term might be too sword and sorcery. 

For reference, cross-posted from my current document:

Harm suffered by characters is divided into two categories, injuries and [afflictions], with five levels of increasing severity, minor, major, severe, critical and fatal. A character can only have one injury and one affliction of each severity; further instances “roll up”, becoming more severe.

Injuries are immediate physical trauma suffered by the character, usually from a physical source. Burns, bruises, cuts, broken bones, missing limbs, gaping bullet holes, etc. Injuries can be resisted by Bracing for Impact.

[Afflictions] have a pronounced negative impact on the character’s ability to act. Bleeding, deafness, blindness, exhaustion, vomiting, agony, etc. They can be caused as part of an injury (especially after a failed Brace for Impact) or caused by more subtle hazards like extreme heat, cold, radiation, toxic air, bad food, etc.

/musings on XP and growth

So I’ve been looking at the leveling/xp mechanic in UW, and I must admit that it’s not quite what I was hoping. From general feedback (in this community and elsewhere), the system adds too much overhead to the game: it forces the players to keep watching themselves in order to “gain xp” in a particular career. Add that to the general confusion about cross-career xp and so forth, and I think we can say that this particular mechanic is well-intentioned but clunky.

Part of the problem may stem from my own GMing style; I forego xp. No matter what game, I’ve very rarely awarded xp on a session-to-session basis. Instead, I’d worked on a story-milestone “system”, which is too arbitrary to make an official rule. People expect some sort of measurable growth/leveling up out of an RPG.

I feel perhaps I’ve missed something important. For the player, an xp system is a measurable growth and increase in power. For the designer… xp is a way to incentivise behavior in the players through reward. It’s flat out operant conditioning.

I have a number of goals designing this; I don’t want wide xp gaps between players, I want a steady pace of growth, I want the rewards to be narrative driven, I want the tracking/awarding to be both satisfying and brief.

While I’m mulling all this over, I’d invite you guys to post your favorite xp/growth system, and (more importantly) what they did that makes it good. I’ll be tinkering over the weekend, and will post anything interesting, to get the general reaction of the community.

currently working on the Factions chapter

Calling in a Favor

Whenever a character faces a social, financial or legal consequence, they can call upon a faction to take the brunt of that consequence, rather than tackle it themselves. This incurs debt.

Repaying a Debt

The GM can have a faction make a demand of an indebted character. If they fulfill the demand, one of their debts to the faction is repaid. If they fail or refuse, they incur an additional debt.

Insolvency

If a character accrues too much debt, the faction will take direct, hostile action to recoup their losses and/or punish the character. This can range from embargoes to arrest to assassination.