So, here's my Game Chef entry.
It's a post apocalyptic old west style exploration of the afterlife using a custom oracle deck and d6s. It was a lot of fun to write, it's clever in play, and I'm glad I went back to it.
I had the idea, scrapped it, then ended up writing it from scratch about two days before the deadline because I just liked the idea so much! Couldn't get the images of the boats in the Aral Sea -- now desert -- out of my head.
As always, I'd love to hear thoughts!
https://exposit.github.io/katarpgs/pdf/EidolonsofFate.pdf
Thank you so much for the feedback! This is all incredibly useful! I had the same concerns about organization; usually it just seems very obvious what goes where but I really struggled with it on this, I think because I'm not used to investing so heavily in setting.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely going to add all of this to my follow up notes. I especially love the idea of a Bestiary! And making Weave the dominant ability makes so much sense! It's essentially the entire flavor of the pool.
I'll admit, cards are more of a "stretching" choice for me than an experienced one. I was riffing on Everway, to some extent; I love the idea of "you can take what you get OR you can try to control it but it'll cost you". So the idea was that by taking the dice in hand you're emphasizing taking control.
I find cards to be very "dreamy" and dice to be very "sharp", if that makes sense, when interpreting. Do you think the "memory" of cards would be an issue when using it as a pure randomizer?
I'll noodle with the idea a bit and see if I can't incorporate it; I want to get better with interpreting cards!
Thank you again. I appreciate you taking the time on it -- this is going to be very very helpful as I start in on version two!
Oh, and I will definitely include examples, I just ran out of space in the 4000 word limit. Some games I feel like are comfortable in their limits, this one feels like a 10000 word game crammed into a 4000 word space!
Organization problems are hard to spot. When you already get the whole picture, you're not likely to get confused by things being in a weird order. 4000 words is a tight limit too, I hear you.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the feedback! This is all incredibly useful! I had the same concerns about organization; usually it just seems very obvious what goes where but I really struggled with it on this, I think because I'm not used to investing so heavily in setting.
I think that the concerns about the memory of cards (the finite nature of them) could be fixed if you just reshuffled the deck after each conflict, or even after each draw (though this could be unwieldy). If you wanted to keep dice, and trappings such as suits, maybe you could somehow incorporate poker dice.
I just felt like it was a bit too much to be messing with dice and then also cards. I don't mind doing it when I'm using an Oracle with a roleplaying system, but that is something I sort of put up with as part of using an oracle. Your game is a unified whole, though, so the two things didn't feel right in that context for me.
That's a good point; I'll definitely look into streamlining it -- if nothing else, I think I could put in an alternate mechanic! I'm also concerned that people may not want to "buy in" by getting a deck of cards and dice.
ReplyDeleteI use a script to run the cards aspect so I just hit a key to reset the deck, so the feedback from physical deck experience in an RPG format is really helpful!
I may make some print'n'play cards at some point, too; art is always such a sticking point.