Category: Uncharted Worlds

Looking for general inspiration:

I’ve been putting together the Xenologist career, and it’s been going quite well. However, I’m a bit stumped coming up with a 5th ability, and I feel I’m missing some key variant of a xeno-focused archetype.

Right now the career already supports diplomatic, scientific, military and commercial archetypes. I’m looking for inspiration for a final skill to either further support those archetypes, or provide tools for other archetypes.

Trinkets – Whenever you encounter an alien society, you can collect a free Class -1 Cargo of miscellaneous baubles, trinkets and other cultural detritus. Cargo Units you Trade or use in Acquisitions are considered 1 Class higher if they come from a distant planet or exotic alien culture.

Linguist – You can communicate passably with all known alien species and understand their languages. A successful Assessment of a newly-encountered or long-dead alien culture grants you permanent access to their written and/or spoken language.

Adaptive – You can partake in most alien consumables (food, drink, narcotics, etc), and know which ones are poisonous to your species. You can use machinery, vehicles, tools, equipment and weapons not designed for your species. Wearing Attire not designed for your species makes you Clumsy.

Familiarity – When you spend a Data Point about an alien species, choose one:

– You gain +3 to your roll instead of +1

– You gain +1 and keep the Data Point if the Move is successful.

Insert 5th skill here – Something something something.

Yet another FBH careers update/blog-thingy:

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been working on the Occult career. I had originally intended there to be two “magic” careers (Arcane and Occult), two “divine” careers (Chosen and Devoted), and two “psi” careers (Telepath and Kinetic). However, that ‘spread’ might be taking FBH too firmly into the realm of fantasy. While some fantastical elements are necessary to emulate the various flavors of sci-fi (I’m looking at you, WH40k), I need to be judicious.

I’ve taken the Occult and broken it between the Arcane and Chosen, the two careers that have the most outright “magic/supernatural” in them. This allowed me to strip out some semi-useful filler Skills from each career, and I feel they’re a lot stronger. I’m also stripping out the overt religious overtones of the Devoted career, making it more of a “fanatical devotion to a cause” and thus more applicable to a wider variety of obsessive archetypes. It’ll be simply called the Fanatic career.

Furthermore, I’m currently looking at adding a Xenologist career, to provide tools in dealing with alien beings. The career will hopefully serve characters in diplomatic, combat and mercantile situations, depending on the skills chosen.

Current crop of careers:

– Arcane

– Chosen

– Fanatic

– Telepath

– Kinetic

– Augmented

– Xenologist (??? Still not sure about the name, open to suggestions for a punchier name)

Still open to career or skill ideas, or even just archetype suggestions. I hope to have a new batch of previews soon. Also, keep an eye on the community in the coming week for possible playtest news.

-SG

Another FBH Dev musing

Still working on Occult, which is all about change and alteration of matter. However, I’m faced with the sad truth that some skills are only good in theory, but are too narrow or to forceful to be useful. One such skill I have on the chopping block is Necromancy:

Necromancy: You may substitute flesh, blood and bone whenever you need to use materials or a Kit

There are a bunch of interesting combos with that, be performing Patch Up/Surgery with blood rather than a medical Kit, creating a Skull Bomb by using Tinker + Necromancy, synthesizing a cure within your own body using Chemistry + Necromancy, etc.

But how many players are going to be willing to play that character? Aside from the occasional actual Necromancer archetype, the skill’s own theme and flavor make it unsuitable to most archetypes as a secondary ability. In fact, I feel the flavor is so “strong” that it takes over. A skill like Necromany warps the character archetype, and becomes too demanding.

So yeah. Sorry Necromancy. You were a cool idea, but it’s the wrong game for you. =/

Random FBH Dev Journal

Was tackling the balancing issues of the concept of Polymorph/Shapeshifting last evening, (working on the Occultist career) and it really stumped me. Polymorphing can become the Swiss Army Knife of skills. It’s immensely versatile, to the point of invalidating other abilities. So it needs restrictions. However, simply locking down what the skill can do (say, by giving a list of what the caster can become) is unsatisfying and doesn’t really jive with the spirit of PbtA. Time-based usage limitations (can only use it once per day) also felt very clunky, and I hate tracking that kind of stuff.

What I was looking for was a way to grant flavorful shapeshifting, where the choice of shape is a deliberate, premeditated decision. I wanted something that had great versatility, but wasn’t unrestrained in usage. Finally, I wanted something that created combos with existing skills. Today it finally hit me:

Transform: Spend a Data Point about a subject to take on the physical properties of that subject (resistances, locomotion, vulnerabilities, etc). You cannot take on a form smaller than an insect or larger than twice your size.

EDIT! New design, after some considerations

Transform: You can take on the shape and physical characteristics (locomotion, size, vulnerabilities, etc) of a subject immediately after making an Assessment of it, or at any time by spending a Data Point about it. The subject cannot more than roughly four times smaller or larger than your natural form (mouse to elephant, roughly). You can return to your normal form at any point.. Transforming into something larger than the available area is a bad idea.

I’m still waffling about the size limit, but picking bacteria or a titanic space whale would make for situations outside the purview of the game. I wish I could come up with a cleaner way of conveying that concept though (totally open to suggestions)

Other than that, I’m actually quite excited about how many of my criteria this hits. It’s a built-in limiting factor because it has a resource. The limitation is flavorful, because it requires research, study and understanding of the subject to assume their form (Assessment as occult research). The resource itself is already part of the game, rather than being tacked on. And it combos well with other skills that interact with Data Points.

A couple of examples off the top of my head:

– A Clandestine Occultist can Interrogate someone and then impersonate them (Doppelganger).

– An Occultist Explorer can immediately take on the form of beasts in any wilderness they visit (Druid).

I’m sure there are more, which is why I’m quite excited about it.