Author: Sean Gomes

Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #8

Uhhh… weekly. Yeah. <_<

So yeah, this is the point where I put the back of my wrist on my forehead and lament about the difficulties of writing and being creative and such. Last week was indeed a wash, creativity wise. Totally blocked. But life goes on, and I must power through.

Chapter 6 – Assets finished

Huzzah. This chapter has been kinda hanging half-done in limbo for a while. Went back and put all the old asset types together, adding new upgrades for all of them.

I also added two NEW types of Assets:

– Artillery are super-heavy, stationary weapons. These will be useful in Colony and Station games, or in situations where the players want to design their own Starship weapons. Plus it gives a bit more (entirely optional) mechanical structure to the otherwise hand-wave-y artillery that the GM might introduce.

– Beasts are loyal xeno-fauna companions that can act as a cross between a Crew, a Vehicle and an independent Melee Weapon.

What’s Next

With Chapter 6 done, the only thing left is… Chapter 3 -_- The Arcana chapter is still knocking me flat every time I attempt to wrangle it. I’m circling it right now, looking for a good angle of attack.

As usual, everything is available in the previews folder on Dropbox, and I welcome any comments or questions you may have. I invite you to take a look, take the new Asset upgrades for a theoretical spin just to see if anything utterly silly falls out, and so forth.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0

Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #7

Bloody slow week this week. Rather disappointed, to be honest. Still, such is life chipping away in the Word Mines.

Chapter 2 complete

The Technology chapter is complete! I moved the Scarce Fuel optional rules over there, since the chapter is very starship-oriented. I also added a section on alternate forms of FTL, just so people can simulate their favorite sci-fi settings. Admittedly, it’s all stuff people could come up with themselves, but it’s only a page and maybe it inspires someone.

Most importantly, the Vessel design rules are complete, including the various Forms. If anyone wants to take them for a spin and give their feedback, I’d be very interested in the results.

What’s next

I’ve got my rough outline down for Chapter 3 – Arcana. It’ll include rules for Villains and Monsters, Outer Realms (as a mirror of the SectorNet rules), and potentially Horror and Trauma (still exploring this aspect).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0

Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #6

Bit of a support/fill-in week this week. Many words were written, many sections re-written or altered or tweaked. Also that “throat thing” from last week evolved into full-blown bronchitis, so yaaay for failing my Face Adversity +Physique.

Characters Chapter

Formatting is finally finished on chapter 4! Huzzah. Also took the opportunity to revise a number of abilities, and to do that thematic overhaul of the Arcane career I’ve wanted to do for a while.

– Arcane Career is now known as the Shaper career. The career descriptions, workspaces and xp triggers have been updated to account for this slightly more generalized “reality shaping” career. The thematic shift should hopefully signal to more popular archetypes, such as the Babylon 5 technomagi, or the Mass Effect Vanguards.

– Skill change: Teleport (Shaper): While I liked the idea of a character being able to Wild Jump, the design of Wild Jump limits the Teleport to long-range jaunts. The new skill allows it to take a more action-oriented role when things get dicey, while still evoking a mini-Wild Jump. This incarnation also plays every well mechanically or thematically with a number of other skills, including Surveillance, Network, Clairvoyance, Recklessness, etc.

– Skill Change: Evoke (Shaper): This one has evolved a few times to get it to a point where it doesn’t just feel like a rehash of the Upgrade skill. In recent playtests I’ve got to see the new incarnation in action, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how creatively flexible it is.

– Skill Change: Launch (Kinetic): This skill now supports more build diversity by being allowing Mettle for small objects and Physique for large objects. Also makes it more logical when applied as the Origin skill of Primal.

– Skill Change: Telekinesis (Kinetic): Another one that went through many forms. Current implementation should be useful to many different archetypes.

– Skill Change: Terrify (Fanatic): Changed the effects of each level of success/failure slightly, to give better direction to the GM to adjust the NPC reactions. Got to playtest this one in multiple games, probably one of the most successful Skills in terms of story-driving and double-edged-sword-y goodness.

Technology Chapter

A first pass on the Vessel upgrades is up. The rules are coming together nicely. It’s quite feasible to custom-design Starships using this system, and I’m happy about that because it’s a design space I was never able to nail while writing Uncharted Worlds. The “Form” part is not in yet, but I’m sure you can make an educated guess: Form describes how the Vessel moves, whether it flies, is capable of exiting/entering atmosphere, how stable it is, etc.

New Art Preview – Characters

Another chapter art preview from +Juan Ochoa.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms1bf6uwc6kuabu/Careers.jpeg?dl=0

What’s Next

I’ll be trying to finish up the remainder of the Technology chapter, while tooling around with early chunks of the Arcana chapter. I’ll also be going back and looking at the chapter distribution and density, possibly moving sections around so that they’re with similar systems and rules. (For example, the Fuel Scarcity optional ruleset will likely go into the Technology chapter along with the Vessel design rules and the alternate Jump technology section).

Feedback targets

I’m especially interested in feedback for the careers and origins, since they are prettymuch done and unlikely to see major changes. If you have a spare moment, I’d invite you to make characters using the new careers and a mix of new and old. See if there are any problematic or contradictory skill combinations, try to remake some of the more esoteric archetypes from popular sci fi.

Similarly, feel free to take the Vessel creation rules for a spin. These ones are still being built, but I’d really like to make sure I didn’t forget an important component.

As always: comments, questions and suggestions are always appreciated.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0

Rather minor/inane question: Which works better as a term that encompasses super vehicles like mega-tanks, grav platforms, airships and mecha?

Creating a Vessel

Designing a Vessel follows a similar process as creating an Asset

• Choose a form to define how the Vessel moves.

• Select upgrades to define what the Vessel can do.

• Determine the Vessel’s tier based on the number of upgrades.

• Assign Sections for Tier II and higher.

vs

Creating a Greater Vehicle

Designing a Greater Vehicle follows a similar process as creating an Asset

• Choose a form to define how the Greater Vehicle moves.

• Select upgrades to define what the Greater Vehicle can do.

• Determine the Greater Vehicle’s tier based on the number of upgrades.

• Assign Sections for Tier II and higher.

So close to being done FBH, but one of the big writing challenges is looming on the horizon and I figured it might help to write about it here, blog-style.

While Uncharted Worlds has basic rules covering debilities, they’re all kinda lumped together (physical, mental and emotional) with a heavy focus on the physical because action adventure pew pew lasers. In FBH, I wanted to expand on the mental/emotional side of things, and open mechanical space for more Cosmic Horror style space opera (the Warp of Warhammer 40k, or Event Horizon, for example).

BUT, I worry I’m about to tread into very touchy subject matter. Stuff like PTSD, disorders and trauma are very real, very sensitive and can be very harmful if treated flippantly and disrespectfully. I’d love to give options to create a Horror setting, but still remaining respectful.

I guess I’m at the point now that I have to decide whether I should even make the attempt. Whether there’s enough value in the subject matter to offset both the effort of getting it right and the very real probability that I’ll get it wrong anyway. Whether it’s even possible for someone uninformed like me to handle this subject matter respectfully.

If anyone has any useful resources (blogs, reviews, whatever) about how other roleplaying games handle mental/emotional debility well or poorly, I’d be extremely grateful.

(I’m definitely going to be including a section about the X-Card, with or without any other Horror/Trauma mechanics. I’m just saddened that the X-Card wasn’t on my radar when I was writing UW).

Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #5

Well it was one of those weeks: Wrote less than I hoped, more than I expected. Fighting a bit of a throat infection that’s sapping my energy in the evenings, even had to cancel my gaming session ’cause a GM without a voice is kinda useless. Other than that, things are ok.

New Chapter 2: Technology

Still missing the back half of this chapter, but I made enough headway that I figured I’d upload it and get first impressions. Thanks/curses to Noah Doyle, whose breaking of the Vehicle system folded super well into my early designs of Mecha rules, so the two have been merged into Greater Vehicles. (And yes, the actual upgrades for Greater Vehicles aren’t there yet, making it a tremendous tease).

Also included are the SectorNet rules. I tried to create a system that could simulate (hah) ye olde Netrunning/Matrix-y fun without being an entire campaign setting. It’s a system that I’m not entirely sure about because all that Netrunning stuff is a bit outside my wheelhouse. I’d appreciate feedback from aficionados of the genre.

Reformatting: Characters

Still slogging through the reformatting of the Characters chapter. Tedious, thy name is Layout.

New Art!

Every week I’ll be revealing a new piece of art from the upcoming book. I’m super stoked to be getting these in, they’re exactly how I pictured them. First up we have the Chapter Cover of the Technology Chapter, by Juan Ochoa:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/25i6bcd996fcqqh/SectorNet.jpeg?dl=0

What’s Next

Going to try to finish up the technology chapter, get in the actual combat/operations rules for Greater Vehicles, etc. Also finish the dang Characters chapter.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0

Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #4

Technically this should be #5, but I smashed my finger something fierce last week so typing was at a minimum. My hand is better now, and I’ll try to make up for lost time in next week’s update. (Still have trouble with the shift key, forgive any un-capitalized words)

New Advancement Rules

Advancement rules were definitely one of the weak points of original UW, and I’m taking the opportunity here to rectify it. Long story short my own playstyle and availabilities meant that I never had the opportunity to run a long-term campaign while writing UW, so the Advancement system was… short-sighted? It really didn’t hold up when used in a year-long campaign, for example.

This new system took a TON of time to put together, and went through a dozen iterations until I found something that met all my checkboxes. Specifically, I wanted something that fed and supported the story in an organic way, allowed a feeling of growth and control even after dozens of sessions. At the same time I wanted something that alleviated the Skill bloat. And it had to play nice with the “short-term” mechanics and transition smoothly between “early game” and “late game” (choosing one or the other at the start of a campaign required too much prescience). In a way, I’m almost glad I smashed my finger because it gave me an opportunity to really mull this over.

The result is at the end of Chapter 1 in the Previews folder. I’d really appreciate feedback and thoughts about this from those of you who have run long campaigns (either of UW or of any PbtA-style game).

Running Low On Fuel

Also in Chapter 1 are the new rules for Fuel Scarcity. This is an optional extra rule added to a setting to make it a lot more desperate. I’m pretty happy with the way it leverages or interacts with the various Enterprise Moves (Acquire, Barter, Wild Jump). It’s amazing how much it changes the tone of a game.

The Vanishing of the Incorporeals

The Incorporeal species has been removed from the Species chapter, and will be relegated as an NPC/narrative species, rather than a character species. There are too many exceptions surrounding incorporeal beings that they simply don’t work within the system at all. I’m all for new mechanics and tools that push the boundaries of the rules, that’s what FBH is all about, but the Incorporeal (as player characters) are fundamentally incompatible with the system itself. I tried to make them work, but it’s past time that I cut my losses.

Reformatting of the Character Chapter

You may notice a “Chapter 4 v2” in the preview folder. This is where I’ve been reformatting Chapter 4 to a more suitable layout. It’s not done yet, so just ignore it for now.

What’s Next

Next week I hope to have the majority of the Technology chapter written, which includes sections about the SectorNet (cyberspace), new Starship options (including alternates to Jump Travel) and rules for heavy-style and fast-style Mecha.

As always, keep the comments, questions, suggestions and play reports coming. I read them all, and they definitely shape and inspire my design!

-SG

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0