In the meat of this show we discuss at length: How leading someone to a story and letting them tell it will always turn out better than telling it yourself and games that are nothing but a series of open questions.
Changelog
Changes made to every basic move to make them more narrative and clean them up more.
Decree
“Everyone should record them and their group playing a game at least once and then edit it as if it were going to be a podcast.”
In the meat of this show we discuss at length: Doubling down on themes and character tropes, layouts, pre-written adventures and seizing the means of tabletop fun production.
Changelog
Change Boons/Fumbles to concessions.
Change Body, Mind and Charm to Physical, Mental and Technical Effort
Change Hit Points to the sum of Effort.
Make Effort/Control a sliding scale.
Updated Story Path to include new Efforts and Controls.
Added Mission Creation Rules
Remove ranges and engagement zones.*
Change Damage, Persuasion and Effectiveness to Physical, Mental and Technical Control
Change Stress Points to the total of Control.
Change Weaponry on vehicles to Firepower.
Change Power on vehicles to Reliability.
Change Boons/Fumbles to concessions.
Change Body, Mind and Charm to Physical, Mental and Technical Effort
Change Hit Points to the sum of Effort.
Make Effort/Control a sliding scale.
Updated Story Path to include new Efforts and Controls.
In the meat of this show we discuss at length: Fantasy Folklore, Base Building and Faction Mechanics, being a labor junkie, Maps and Narrative Fight Scenes!
Changelog
Consolidated Concession lists.
Skill Competency at even levels
Remove Changing Jobs
Roll push yourself into flex skill
Change weights to have set dice bonus (based on most interesting to other players)
Make 3rd Weight be about the violence you’ve just done/experienced.
“Think about the conversations you have online as a game design. Be intentional about the experience they are trying to create when they have those conversations.”
Layout your dang book properly. Have a good index. Make cheat sheets. Backstab? (Editor’s note: Play/Test does not endorse backstabbing.) and for god’s sake… don’t eat sand.
Changelog
Removed Size as a stat for vehicles.
Added option to gain base Durability for Support job when upgrading vehicles.
Added Story Paths for character creation.
Added Armored and Evasive for Vehicles.
Added more Boons/Fumbles for weapons.
Moved Vehicle weapons to the Heavy Weapons section.
Added option to spend/earn failures to make your result better/worse on a fail.
How do you up-front diversity in games? What kinds of games should we learn from? How many Pokemon RPGs can fit in one Game Dev Graveyard? We answer all these questions and more!
Changelog
Time Passes Rules: Make a list of options the GM can pick from to offer the players as their reward instead of giving a static list. This lest the GM meter out beach episodes (or level ups, etc) if they need to.
Plot: Made it less on rails. Let the players cut the action with increasing the plot durability rather than doing it all upfront. (Let Plots be the backdrop) A plot only takes a hit when a player fails.
Completed basic Vehicle rules.
Tools:
Carry that Weight…
When you hit 0 HP or Stress in an encounter or otherwise end up on your own you can offer a narration or short flashback showing your character struggling or dealing with something heavy they’ve been holding on to. This doesn’t have to resolve it, just shine a light on it.
If you do this, size up a Skill.
Added Push Yourself options for Outcome Dice.
Change boons and fumbles.
Shift Outcome Ranges.
Stuff expanded social encounters into the Charmer Toolkit.
What are Nora’s core philosophies when designing games? How some games aren’t mean to be played, some games are therapy or poetry. Writing small games. Using just d6’s in your game. Making a Stardew Valley/ Harvest Moon TGE game. You can’t design games around bad players. Not protecting garbage people in the tabletop community, excusing their behavior and putting them on pedestals. Making the space more welcoming by not clinging onto old white designers who are really shitty.
Changelog
When you try to accomplish something that doesn’t damage durability, hit points or stress, your outcome determines the size of a concession the GM is allowed to ask for when you succeed. Previously: The GM would set a durability for you to hit to accomplish everything. It was kind of a drag.
Assist Mechanic: You roll your skill die and give the player you’re helping half of that. They can apply that to either their skill or outcome and may choose after they roll. This way they always help no matter what. Previously: The bonus only applied to skill and was applied before the roll.
Armor: Got rid of heavy armor. Adding two difficulty to an attack roll would make almost no one hit. Now you are either Armored or Unarmored and armor just adds 1d8 to the difficulty to hit you. Previously: Heavy armor increased difficulty to the wearer by 2.
Social Armor: You are either Guarded or you are Unguarded. This functions the same as armor but for social situations. Previously: Social armor was based on applicable convictions.
Fate Dice: You can choose to use a Fate die AFTER you have rolled. Previously: You had to replace a die with the Fate die before you rolled.
Minions and Adversaries: Minor enemies just have special abilities or specific boons/fumbles thematic to their role. Previously: Minions and adversaries had weapon boons and fumbles as well as occasionally a special ability.
Next Time On… Tool: Added a tool to let the players hint at something they want to happen next session and get a bonus for it.
Agent: Loses starting armor, corrected mistake not listing Wealth as a job skill.
AI: Gave a swing job skill based on which Avatar you choose.
Space Samurai: Change name to Master. The Master has a 3rd conviction that is their Code. Switched Aetheurgy Job Skill for Craft Job Skill. Previously: They had 2 convictions and that was what the code-bound was cued off of.
Riley is a very supportive friend and you should also be friends with them. Kickstarter for TTRPG and keeping yourself accountable. Making games with modular rules or rules you can ignore completely!
Changelog
Schedule and Intent: Changelog episodes will air as they are needed and will post on Thursday night. The Actual Play episodes will be one shots at first, broken up into hour long episodes released on Monday mornings.
Introducing Tiny Game Engine: The core of the engine is that it should handle social encounters as well as combat encounters. TGE should have a few more levers to pull than Powered by the Apocalypse but still be informed by the theme rather than mechanics. The system should limit power creep and should make failure interesting. The goal is to keep any TGE game around 100 pages for accessibility. There will be tools to help you, as a GM, tell the stories the game was made to tell. TGE games shouldn’t tie level or advancement to capitalism or violence.
Introducing Hard-Space Hustle: This game is meant to emulate grungy space anime like Dirty Pair Flash, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star. It’s about found families.
Play / Test 