MWStuff

Here’s the complete map, with borders at roughly 9 parsecs from Earth. I cheated in a couple instances and went beyond that range, just to create some loops.

I added a couple “secondary” routes connecting through non-habcat systems. My speculation is that there are outposts there or something.

Assumptions, just to recap:Stardrive has a max range of 0.25 pc/day. Maximum travel distance is 5 pc.

I had a dream where I felt very strongly about changing something, and I woke up and thought my reasoning in the dream made sense.

That’s weird.

Allergies or something - maybe the allergy meds - got me up way early today. But I’ve put it to good use at least, filling in Vanguard info.

I’ve been going back and forth about an approach I want to take (lots of dice vs. few dice), and an idea I had yesterday swung me over into the lots camp. Games that require a huge dice investment irk me a little, you know? On the off-chance that some non gamer ever considered my game, I don’t want the big cockslap of “WTF how much I gotta spend on dice?” But Vanguard only uses reg’lar d6 types, so it’s probably not too bad.

I’ve always been frustrated with games where you roll a bunch of successes, and usually you just want to beat the TN, right? But usually there’s this insinuated thing where beating the TN by a lot means awesome and beating it by a little is okay. Except that in a fight those successes matter specifically (almost always means you do more damage). Sorcerer does a nice thing where they equal more dice on your next roll. That’s pretty good, but it’s still a little vague.

So in Storming the Wizard’s tower, Vx does this cool thing where you spend your “hits” on stuff, like one hit in a socializin’ roll means you get the person to answer a question truthfully, etc. And then for fights it’s just about hits equal damage.

I was thinking for Vanguard, I totally want a big “field manual” full of ways to roll and spend your hits on things you’re trying to do in the service of the Commonwealth. Like this maybe:

☐    Identify the presence of mineral deposits. +1 Fortune
☐    Evaluate soil samples. +1 Fortune
☐    Evaluate plant life. +1 Fortune
☐    Study small animals. +1 Fortune
☐    Study large animals. +1 Fortune

And then my other idea was that, in a fight, you still spend your attack hits on a list, and the defender spends hits to block the things you chose. It might look like this for a brawl:

☐    deliver 1 harm
☐    trip your opponent to the ground. -1 die next action

Maybe I get three hits on attack, and I choose 2 harm and a trip. You only got one hit on defense, and you spend it to remove one of the harm I did. Or maybe you think, I can’t afford to get tripped, so I’ll suck up the hurt.

What will make this fun, obviously, is a good list of choices. There’s definitely some D&D style room to customize choices with special abilities. Like you could totally buy a ninja thing that lets you spend a hit to attack multiple opponents, etc.

Maybe it will suck in playtest, but right now it looks really cool on paper.

I like games with resources and economies. You never would have guessed looking at PTA, right?

I want something similar to that in Vanguard, I think. And I’m looking at what’s been done since.

Keys in TSOY are pretty cool, but I find it a little weird that they usually reward what you were going to do anyway. Be in a scene with another character? The buyoffs to me are the coolest part. Go against your nature!

John Stavropoulos is hitting on that very thing with his new game Blackout, and you should ask him for a playtest copy. His tweak on keys is definitely suitable to a Cthulhuesque story, or zombie survival, where you see the worst come out in people. It sort of boils down to checking off “another way that I’m behaving like a dick” on the sheet and getting more tokens to spend.

So in Vanguard, I think what you want is a little of both. Reward the teamwork, but also reward the tension. On Firefly, we love it when they all kick ass together, and we love it equally when they’re at each other’s throats.

The idea is that everyone has a set of conditions on their sheet, a big list. When the conditions come true, you check them off and get Drama, which you can spend to roll extra dice and stuff. The conditions are big and small, good and bad, like so:

Share a nice bonding moment with another character: +1 [] [] []

Bicker with another character: +1 [] []

Betray another character: +1 []

Accomplish an objective for the Commonwealth: +1 [] [] []

Accomplish and objective for your secret faction: +1 [] [] []

… and so on.

Playtesting can reveal what the right amounts and costs are. I think you don’t want the big drama ones to be a huge payoff or else it’s going to be “well, time to betray you again so I can go to the bank.”

I think where Keys work is when they’re reminders of things to do in play. It’s almost like teaching you how to play. What do we do in this game? Oh, right, I’m a warrior. I should pick a fight with that guy, and I’ll get XP. The list above does that with regard to a more group-oriented story. They’re mostly going to be about what you do in relation to other characters. It’s a mission-based game (go to that world and retrieve the THINGY™), so that needs a little less prompting than the other stuff.

The thing I’m trying to see if I can do now, and I might hate myself for it, is to come up with special cases for each background. What’s a special way the diplomat can earn drama? Or the bodyguard? I might need to crowdsource that a little.