nineGardens
2021-10-14, 11:33 PM
Down planetside they say that space is silent, that without
atmosphere there is no roar of engines, no clatter and clang as
stray bits of metal bump against one another, and spin, catching
beams of lamplight.
But no one whose actually been out there would call it silent
though. There’s always the crumpling sound of suit fabric. The
click-click hum of the air circulator. Your stomach. Your heartbeat.
The sound of your partner’s breath, coming through the radio.
The only time you’ll ever hear silence out in the black is if you’re
dead. If every single one of the machines dedicated to keeping you
alive has shut down.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708262309625069568/880768036905295892/i-spaceship-2_small_blue.png
So.... here's the deal: I wrote a game system, vaguely D&D/Pathfinder adjacent, and based on playtesting so far, it is feeling pretty friggin' rad.
I'm at the stage of wanting to test it out with people who *weren't* involved in its creation in any way, so figured I'ld throw it out here to see if anyone wanted to have an explore or give it a shot. It's reasonably polished, but very much at the stage of "late stage beta testing" rather than "release"
I have an adventurer's guide (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksy5q442zbspxzt/VAST%20adventurer%27s%20guide.pdf?dl=0), with art by the very excellent zonked-eye (https://www.deviantart.com/zonked-eye/gallery) (go check them out, if you are looking for a commission artist, Zonked is great to work with)
Genre:
Sci-fi. Leaning towards space opera.
There's robots, there's genetic engineering, there's spaceships, there's terrifying God AI's, there's pirates, and more terrible engine disasters than you can shake a stick at.
What kinds of adventures can we expect:
My current party just survived a stormdiving trip into a gas giant twice the size of Jupiter. I was a little afraid everyone would die, but they didn't. It was great.
We've run campaigns with 600 year old robot paladins, professional ship thieves, idealistic terraformers, and cowardly engineers. We've spent entire episodes planning heists, or trying to fix a ships life support system using control rods we pulled out of a damaged nuclear reactor (we had to keep the reactor running at the same time). Combat has involved pirates, genetically engineered monsters, and trying to punch a small space ship until it stopped shooting at us..
Also there was a serpent the size of a small city swimming around in space.
We still don't know what the hell was up with that: it was terrifying.
Complexity level:
Medium. Higher complexity than Powered by the Apocalypse style games, lower complexity than D&D or Shadowrun style games.
The game has lots in it, but also has a big focus on shielding players from rules that aren't relevant to them.
Mechanics:
The core mechanic of the game that you need to know is this: each player picks three classes and mashes them together. The game is set up to have multiple classes blend together seamlessly. This leads to everyone having really resonant characters by the end of the first session, and there being a *stupid* wide variety of possible characters.
You want to play Han Solo? Sure- combine Pilot, Con-artist and Gunslinger.
Prefer to play as a surly detective? Perhaps Infiltrator, Bodyguard and Brute will fit your character.
Even after years of playtesting, we are still finding flavour and ability combinations that surprise and excite us (abilities in one class empowering attributes of another, stories that feel like they couldn't be told *anywhere* else).
In terms of design philosophy, the goal is to set things up so that players make a small number of big decisions, rather than many tiny choices.
If you want to get a feel for things, go check out the players guide, and just slam a character together (Page 5 says how. You can build a character without knowing the rest of the rules).
Also there's a bunch of guidance on how to manage engineering, because engineering is a critical part of the sci-fi genre, and needs to be more interesting than "I roll a repair check until its fixed". Engineering crops up as minor obstacles in the day to day business of adventuring (messing with elevators, fixing broken robots), and can also lead to entire episodes worth of panic (the nuclear-life support mentioned above, faulty gravity drives, damaged gyros, etc etc etc)
In space, there is nothing as frightening as poor wiring.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708262309625069568/880768029452017714/cover-players_FINAL_smaller.png
For GM's:
We also made a guide for GMs (https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gp7u9zomtjthsq/VAST%20Storyteller%27s%20Guide.pdf?dl=0).
It's got three possible starting adventures, along with a bunch of monsters, lore, equipment lists, spare NPC's and locations... and also advice on GMing ship combat, mechanical disasters, and various other things which are unique to Sci-fi settings (we found that there were plenty of aspects of Sci-fi that are hard to GM without a little guidance, since people have practice imagining combat, and less practice imagining engineering disasters, terraforming, and interplanetary slingshot manoeuvrers).
Why are you posting this here?
Because I need a vibe check on the game....
and because I need to do beta testing; I need questions and feedback from people who have never seen the game before...
and because I genuinely believe it is a fabulous RPG, and if I can persuade any of you to play it, you will have a good time.
So...if you have questions please ask.
If you slam a character together, please post it here, I would love to see.
If someone wants to run a session or three, get in touch- I can point you to the relevant parts of the GM guide, or you can find them yourself.
Thanks heaps everybody,
Take care out there.
atmosphere there is no roar of engines, no clatter and clang as
stray bits of metal bump against one another, and spin, catching
beams of lamplight.
But no one whose actually been out there would call it silent
though. There’s always the crumpling sound of suit fabric. The
click-click hum of the air circulator. Your stomach. Your heartbeat.
The sound of your partner’s breath, coming through the radio.
The only time you’ll ever hear silence out in the black is if you’re
dead. If every single one of the machines dedicated to keeping you
alive has shut down.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708262309625069568/880768036905295892/i-spaceship-2_small_blue.png
So.... here's the deal: I wrote a game system, vaguely D&D/Pathfinder adjacent, and based on playtesting so far, it is feeling pretty friggin' rad.
I'm at the stage of wanting to test it out with people who *weren't* involved in its creation in any way, so figured I'ld throw it out here to see if anyone wanted to have an explore or give it a shot. It's reasonably polished, but very much at the stage of "late stage beta testing" rather than "release"
I have an adventurer's guide (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksy5q442zbspxzt/VAST%20adventurer%27s%20guide.pdf?dl=0), with art by the very excellent zonked-eye (https://www.deviantart.com/zonked-eye/gallery) (go check them out, if you are looking for a commission artist, Zonked is great to work with)
Genre:
Sci-fi. Leaning towards space opera.
There's robots, there's genetic engineering, there's spaceships, there's terrifying God AI's, there's pirates, and more terrible engine disasters than you can shake a stick at.
What kinds of adventures can we expect:
My current party just survived a stormdiving trip into a gas giant twice the size of Jupiter. I was a little afraid everyone would die, but they didn't. It was great.
We've run campaigns with 600 year old robot paladins, professional ship thieves, idealistic terraformers, and cowardly engineers. We've spent entire episodes planning heists, or trying to fix a ships life support system using control rods we pulled out of a damaged nuclear reactor (we had to keep the reactor running at the same time). Combat has involved pirates, genetically engineered monsters, and trying to punch a small space ship until it stopped shooting at us..
Also there was a serpent the size of a small city swimming around in space.
We still don't know what the hell was up with that: it was terrifying.
Complexity level:
Medium. Higher complexity than Powered by the Apocalypse style games, lower complexity than D&D or Shadowrun style games.
The game has lots in it, but also has a big focus on shielding players from rules that aren't relevant to them.
Mechanics:
The core mechanic of the game that you need to know is this: each player picks three classes and mashes them together. The game is set up to have multiple classes blend together seamlessly. This leads to everyone having really resonant characters by the end of the first session, and there being a *stupid* wide variety of possible characters.
You want to play Han Solo? Sure- combine Pilot, Con-artist and Gunslinger.
Prefer to play as a surly detective? Perhaps Infiltrator, Bodyguard and Brute will fit your character.
Even after years of playtesting, we are still finding flavour and ability combinations that surprise and excite us (abilities in one class empowering attributes of another, stories that feel like they couldn't be told *anywhere* else).
In terms of design philosophy, the goal is to set things up so that players make a small number of big decisions, rather than many tiny choices.
If you want to get a feel for things, go check out the players guide, and just slam a character together (Page 5 says how. You can build a character without knowing the rest of the rules).
Also there's a bunch of guidance on how to manage engineering, because engineering is a critical part of the sci-fi genre, and needs to be more interesting than "I roll a repair check until its fixed". Engineering crops up as minor obstacles in the day to day business of adventuring (messing with elevators, fixing broken robots), and can also lead to entire episodes worth of panic (the nuclear-life support mentioned above, faulty gravity drives, damaged gyros, etc etc etc)
In space, there is nothing as frightening as poor wiring.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708262309625069568/880768029452017714/cover-players_FINAL_smaller.png
For GM's:
We also made a guide for GMs (https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gp7u9zomtjthsq/VAST%20Storyteller%27s%20Guide.pdf?dl=0).
It's got three possible starting adventures, along with a bunch of monsters, lore, equipment lists, spare NPC's and locations... and also advice on GMing ship combat, mechanical disasters, and various other things which are unique to Sci-fi settings (we found that there were plenty of aspects of Sci-fi that are hard to GM without a little guidance, since people have practice imagining combat, and less practice imagining engineering disasters, terraforming, and interplanetary slingshot manoeuvrers).
Why are you posting this here?
Because I need a vibe check on the game....
and because I need to do beta testing; I need questions and feedback from people who have never seen the game before...
and because I genuinely believe it is a fabulous RPG, and if I can persuade any of you to play it, you will have a good time.
So...if you have questions please ask.
If you slam a character together, please post it here, I would love to see.
If someone wants to run a session or three, get in touch- I can point you to the relevant parts of the GM guide, or you can find them yourself.
Thanks heaps everybody,
Take care out there.