|
 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159466030/red-markets/description Hello. My name is Caleb Stokes. I’m a co-host on the RPPR podcast and lead designer of Hebanon Games. This post is about my new horror game on Kickstater: Red Markets. Red Markets is a tabletop RPG about economic horror. In Red Markets, characters risk their lives trading between the massive quarantine zones containing a zombie outbreak and the remains of civilization. They are Takers: mercenary entrepreneurs unwilling to accept their abandonment, seeking to profit from mankind’s near-extinction before it claims them. They must hustle, scheme, and scam as hard as they fight if they hope to survive the competing factions and undead hordes the GM throws at them. Takers that are quick, clever, or brutal enough might live to see retirement in a safe zone, but many discover too late that the cycle of poverty proves harder to escape than the hordes of undead. Red Markets uses the traditional zombie genre to tell a story about surviving on the wrong end of the economy. It’s cut-throat capitalism with its knife on your neck. The game runs off Profit, a mechanics system designed to allow players to customize their experience to taste. Red Markets can be played as a pure story game, a tactical combat challenge, or any combination in-between. Other features of the game’s setting and system include…
Strategic Social Combat: Profit’s Negotiation mechanics put as much weight on skillful roleplaying and social engineering as traditional RPG combat. Player-generated Setting and Scenarios: Make your own survivor enclave, simulate the fluctuations of its economy, and design opportunities for your characters to exploit Near-future Technology: No luddites allowed in this apocalypse: use drones, prosthetic limbs, and 3D printed guns to hold back the undead hordes! Modular Scenario Design: Sessions and campaigns can be as long or as short as you want them to be, focusing on interpersonal roleplay, tactical combat, or some mixture of the two. Scalable Difficulty: Rules variants allow the GM to plan for care-free zombie slaying romps or grim, rogue-like character meat grinders. Those that want to know more can find full AP recordings of the game and development diaries found on Role-Playing Public Radio: http://slangdesign.com/rppr/. Listen to the entire history of the game’s development on the RPPR Game Designer’s Workshop podcast, or listen to an entire playtest campaign called “The Brutalists.” Red Markets Kickstarter is live until June 22nd: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159466030/red-markets/description/
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 18:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 20:44 |
|
|
Huh. Most people I know who play tabletop games want to avoid thinking about the money side of the system as much as they can--no costs for upkeep or bribes, etc, it's just handwaved. Interesting idea making a game that's about the money.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 21:16
|
|
|
Well, I'm certainly interested in the elevator pitch. I'd need to see more mechanics, though. 'You can do anything from pure storygame to tactical combat' pretty much immediately raises 'this system is either going to be really vague or over-ambitious' flags. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on May 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 21:34
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Well, I'm certainly interested in the elevator pitch. I'll do some posting soon. At work. The negotiation mechanics are a very interesting mini game.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 22:18
|
|
|
This is one hell of a pitch for a game. Quick question though, that thirty dollar tier, is it just the book or the book and the PDF?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 22:45
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:This is one hell of a pitch for a game. Quick question though, that thirty dollar tier, is it just the book or the book and the PDF? Every reward level that comes with a print version of the book also gets the PDF.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 23:27
|
|
|
Lotish posted:Huh. Most people I know who play tabletop games want to avoid thinking about the money side of the system as much as they can--no costs for upkeep or bribes, etc, it's just handwaved. Interesting idea making a game that's about the money. The way I would describe it is that even your traditional dungeon crawler like D&D has economics at play: it costs you x gold to buy your weapons, armor and dungeoneering supplies, and you recover y gold, and ideally [y > x] so that you can replace all the stuff you spent AND also be able to afford upgrades. The problem is that this aspect of the gameplay is often buried under things like encumbrance rules, and coinage that runs into the thousands, and item lists that have you tracking individual arrows and spending 1 silver for pieces of chalk while also existing alongside +3 swords that cost 10 000 GP. It's so difficult to extract good gameplay out of it that people end up handwaving it away, and then people think that the game isn't about that anymore. --- Or to make yet another analogy, Fear Itself and Trail of Cthulhu, as GUMSHOE-based games, have a measure of "economic horror" in them because even though the investigative skills always work as long as you spend points, you only have a limited number of points. And then when you get to the physical skills, those are also points-limited, but you also need to roll for it, and you still have a chance of failure anyway. You can guarantee successes like jumping across a chasm to avoid getting eaten by the monster by blowing a bunch of Athletics to automatically exceed the DC, but you can't always do that, and the decision to go all-in versus needing the points later, or leaving it up to a roll and thinking about how much of a risk you want to take (5 in 6 chance? 4 in 6 chance?) is a deeply interesting one. Dread is an even purer form of this kind of gameplay mechanic: you only have so many "safe pulls" from the Jenga tower. --- I am of course just a player looking at this from the outside, but those are the themes that I kept seeing throughout listening to the designer workshops and actual plays of this game. It's about strategic depletion, estimating costs versus potential profits, risks versus rewards, and the horror of knowing that you don't have enough to get everything you need, much less everything you want.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2016 12:26
|
|
|
Really strong pitch on the kickstarter page. Feels like a cross between SLA industries and Apocalypse world. I liked the movie Stakeland: a post apocalyptic setting where people still tried to live and make societies; I think too many settings are darwinian nightmares, when perhaps many survivors would just try to get along like the old world. So I like the economics idea and the safe zones as a desirable place of safety. The art is great, reminds me a little of Underground. Good luck, don't gently caress up.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2016 13:01
|
|
|
Welcome to SA Caleb. I've been thoroughly enjoying the Brutalists and I've got some players who like the sound of Red Markets and want me to run it. I'll swing thirty bucks your way. Keep up the great work.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2016 13:09
|
|
|
I decided to make the plunge and make a pledge, when are the backers going to get the beta? I know it's a big goal for backers to do some imput on this and my gaming group just got done with a year long DnD campaign.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2016 20:14
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:I decided to make the plunge and make a pledge, when are the backers going to get the beta? I know it's a big goal for backers to do some imput on this and my gaming group just got done with a year long DnD campaign. Pretty soon after the campaign ends.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2016 22:07
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:Pretty soon after the campaign ends. Thanks. Maybe I should save this for the Facebook community, but the default game from the AARPs and podcasts seems to be for mostly Enclave economics. But the way the setting is set up, there is an almost completely sanctioned black market facilitating trade between the Recession and the Loss. Are there options to act as smugglers/pirates? Like buying cheap necessitates and foodstuffs in the Recession and then jacking up the prices for Loss settlements or robbing Enclaves for semi plentiful and useless luxuries, and bringing back to wannabe middle class back in the Recession?
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2016 03:15
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:Thanks. The latter definitely works. Biggest problem with the former is crossing the border. It would take a lot of investment (bribing guards and officials) to be able to cross back and forth on a regular basis and the Loss is a lot poorer than the Recession, so how will you make it profitable? Maybe two groups - one stays in the Recession and one stays in the Loss - only the goods cross the border - through drones or a tunnel or something like that. PCs would have to be the group in the Loss obviously. Obviously the game is focused on the Loss - games set in the Recession don't really work, since that's the end goal of most PCs.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2016 18:00
|
|
|
Thank you for answering so many dumb questions for me man. The idea of a mid level government official and Takers setting up a smuggling ring by both dead dropping supplies through an old blasted bridge on the Mississippi River sounds suitably corrupt and sketchy to paint a picture on the world. Yeah it's understandable/reasonable that the Loss is the focal point of the game and the Recession isn't because of gaming opportunities. I was just curious if the relationship between the Takers and Recession had to be a one sided goal of "retirement home", and if the players can interact with it on it more than antagonistically or as an end goal. Like having it as a schizophrenic permissive or violent but profitable business partner makes it more interesting and let's the players see more of the setting firsthand.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2016 18:35
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:Thank you for answering so many dumb questions for me man. The idea of a mid level government official and Takers setting up a smuggling ring by both dead dropping supplies through an old blasted bridge on the Mississippi River sounds suitably corrupt and sketchy to paint a picture on the world. During playtests, we have gone into the Recession briefly - sneaking across to get something or meet somebody. You can definitely set adventures there but they have police and military there and no zombies, so it's not nearly as chaotic out there. No one in the Recession wants people regularly traveling back and forth either. Every trip brings a risk of infection after all.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2016 18:58
|
|
|
I got in on the beta, but too late. By the time I realized that the call was in for the open beta testing it was too late for submission. I did donate at the $25 level. I have zero interest in a physical book, but I did get the preview copy, PDF, audiobook and actual plays. Probably something else too. There were a bunch of rewards. The game calls for the (I believe, it's been a while) Mississippi river to be the dividing line between the haves and have nots, otherwise known as the recession and the loss. However a lot of people want to play in their home towns and many of those towns are east of that river. I just flipped it where the enclave (fortified towns/small cities) were just on the other side. Really any great land mass could do. The Rockies could work almost as well as a river. My folks designed an enclave based on his work, which were two Siemens plants that were linked underground. One of them old, one of them brand spanking new. It medical supplies, techical skills, access to fresh water and loads of metal. Its problems were fuel, a backwards technocratic gerontocracy that discriminated against younger workers and unskilled labor, lack of weapons and something else, I forget. It ended up being this big, bloated giant of an enclave that was powerful on the defense, but so drat bloated and backwards that it was almost completely unable to project power past its walls. Since it was right on the Catawba River and the Carolinas historically didn't build roads, but used barges, I made a campaign dominated by river trade and river pirates. It was fun to mess with a boat instead of a car. If you think a car is hard to keep running, try a boat, gently caress. Sadly it fell apart. I'm currently writing a mini campaign for my players that starts with hunting, capturing interrogating an insane, gibbering 28 days later zombie as they wail out their regrets while their brains die. Ending with an optional last job of either securing or sabotaging a HARP Cannon, which is an experimental 410 MM Howitzer that is meant to launch poo poo into space. I love the system, but it's still not complete. I still can't find any rules for shields and I'd like to be able to offset certain upkeep costs by investing in one's home, though with diminishing returns. Not a ton of fluff either so I had to pick it up from RPPR forums posts and the actual play podcast. I assume that's changing though as it gets more work. I made it work though and I plan on making it work again. Anyway, it's an amazingly fun game. You're not out to save the world, you're not out to get the best stuff, you're not out to save the princess. You're out to get across the border to safety and a regular job so you can retire. I appreciate those stakes. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 25, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 25, 2016 23:28
|
|
|
While I totally plan to run the game as written for the first few games, I can't help but think the game system - from listening to the APs- could be useful in other settings where people are constantly trying to keep from being broke. Such as shadowrun or an attempt at emulating the popular "Penniless assholes in SPACE!" genre. Main things you would have to worry about are coming up with proper endgame scenarios to bake into the PCs to make sure they have a reason to make a certain amount of cash.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 00:31
|
|
|
Twibbit posted:While I totally plan to run the game as written for the first few games, I can't help but think the game system - from listening to the APs- could be useful in other settings where people are constantly trying to keep from being broke. Such as shadowrun or an attempt at emulating the popular "Penniless assholes in SPACE!" genre. Main things you would have to worry about are coming up with proper endgame scenarios to bake into the PCs to make sure they have a reason to make a certain amount of cash.   THIS TOO WAS MY EXACT THOUGHT (  ) when I got to read the beta. There is a whole thread on the RPPR forums. Let me post some excerpts of the more out there ideas.At some point we were talking about how you could apply Red Markets rules to being on a Pirate Ship or a gritty realworld medieval setting. Let me see if I can find it. Also there was this tangent when discussing Dungeon Craw Classics: http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php/topic,1785.60.html Tomsawyer posted:Listening to Dungeon Crawl Classic game I hope there is a Character Funnel like feature for Red Markets. It can be called Free Market Character Creation, the character you play is decided by the market ;D Twisting H posted:This is a cool idea. trinite posted:
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 00:49
|
|
|
Found it! Red Markets Hack discussion: http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php/topic,1965.msg44470.html#msg44470 Gorkamorka posted:Hi. trinite posted:Oh, I think that would work perfectly. As Caleb has said, the zombies are basically just an excuse to play desperate impoverished hustlers without it being exploitative of real-world poverty. You could easily replace them with an entirely different genre excuse. The Lost Carol posted:Between how my players have been handling their final mission in the Beta Campaign and listening to the Drunk and Ugly's mini-campaign with the Leverage system, I think the Profit System could easily be used in a heist style game. All of the skills are pretty commiserate with the skills you'd need, and the d10x2 dice mechanics could work well. References and Dependents help flesh out the stuff outside the heist, and the system can let you go quiet or go live. clockworkjoe posted:Eh, who cares about being mercenaries - I want to see a RM hack about medieval guilds and trade. Twisting H posted:I posted this previously Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 01:12 on May 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 01:08
|
|
|
Forget Vampires as the main threat, go all out Apocalypse. Satan is rising up from Hell, demons infested Earth and are invading heaven...and God's smacked his rear end back down when he reached the Gates of Heaven. Thing is a lot of Medieval Kings, lords, and priests were seduced by his promises and lying ways, so God has turned his back on his Creation. A few of the Dukes of Hell rule over vast stretches of Europe/NorthAfrica/Middle East/ or the Fantasy NOT equivalents even if pure human rulers maintain larger stretches. Are you a Bad Enough/Des prate Enough Knight Errant/murder hobo to brave Inferno to maintain trade between the remaining middling kingdoms of Europe and Middle East, the Free Cities, and cooperative Princes of Hell's domains?
NutritiousSnack fucked around with this message at 03:23 on May 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 02:14
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:Forgot Vampires as the main threat, go all out Apocalypse. Satan is rising up from Hell, demons infested Earth and hevan...and God's smacked his rear end back down when he reached the Gates of Heaven. Thing is a lot of Medieval Kings, lords, and priests were seduced by his promises and lying ways, so God has turned his back on his Creation. A few of the Dukes of Hell rule over vast stretches of Europe/NorthAfrica/Middle East/ or the Fantasy NOT equivalents even if pure human rulers maintain larger stretches. Are you a Bad Enough/Desprate Enough Knight Errant/murder hobo to brave Inferno to maintain trade between the remaining middling kingdoms of Europe and Middle East, the Free Cities, and cooperative Princes of Hell's domains? DOOM but without DOOM GUY the eternal Slayer or whatever he is in the new remake  Alternately what you described is straight out of a Clark Ashton Smith Averoigne Story. For example the The Colossus of Ylourgne, where a Necromancer makes a Godzilla sized dead giant from amalgamated bodies which terrorizes the country side of Not-France. Which of course the Necromancer pilots like a mecha.  Because all good Satanism = Anime. http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/27/the-colossus-of-ylourgne http://thedoubleshadow.com/episode-5-the-colossus-of-ylourgne-pt-1/ The story is a goofy piece of poo poo. It's fun. or  Demon Souls this poo poo
Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 02:38 on May 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 02:32
|
|
|
I was rather thinking of that story about I think it was the Nazis summoning a world-spanning Ouroboros, then it was killed, and its dead body falls across the world, causing a mini-Apocalypse as parts of England and Central Europe (and Asia and Africa and Central America) are flattened under the world-snake's titanic carcass.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 03:00
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I was rather thinking of that story about I think it was the Nazis summoning a world-spanning Ouroboros, then it was killed, and its dead body falls across the world, causing a mini-Apocalypse as parts of England and Central Europe (and Asia and Africa and Central America) are flattened under the world-snake's titanic carcass. Day After Ragnarok by Kennith Hite Great creative setting http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/62543/The-Day-After-Ragnarok
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 03:19
|
|
|
Taking this out of the KS thread because I don't want to get it locked again for everybody else:Arivia posted:Red Markets dudes, zombies + idiotic tech bro capitalism isn't an amazing new idea worth universal adoration. Your pledge levels are messed up, your concept is Random Zombie RPG #11,453 (but with Economics this time!!!), and you seem to think you're above criticism. If you're such great writers/producers/whatever, you might want to act better than Bob and his amazing D&D heartbreaker (hint: it has really good economy rules in it!) I can empathize with thinking that the KS is overpriced for you, personally. I can empathize with thinking that all of the bullet points they're claiming as value adds are really just things that any kickstarter should already be doing in the first place. I can even empathize with thinking that the authors' response to the price tiering came off as defensive. But what do you expect if you're going to write off the entire game as both "just another zombie game" and some ideological screed when you're also not willing to acknowledge that: The kickstarter was modest. It got funded, and the book was already largely written even before the KS launched. The physical goals are strictly limited so that the author doesn't break the bank fulfilling dice orders. The game itself has been in writing, design and playtesting over the last three years (and again, the book is already largely written even before the KS was launched). Fine, maybe you personally don't have the time to listen to audio podcasts where they talk about the design process nor recorded sessions of the playtesting, but the work has been put in. The pitch itself talks about a dice mechanic that is definitively not d20-based. Obviously the creator isn't supposed engage people on this level, so I'm going to do it: Where do you get off calling this some heartbreaker?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 08:52
|
|
|
I don't know why you'd think the heartbreaker jab is the offensive part of that post that needs calling out, making a heartbreaker doesn't make you a bad person or even mean you made a bad game. The "idiotic tech bro" bit seems a lot more mean-spirited. I am confused at the idea that anything the creators have done here makes them seem like they think they're "above criticism," since their responses have been nothing but professional in my eyes. I basically disagree with everything Arivia said in that quote. ...except about the pledge levels being messed up, because frankly they are. Having gotten some at-cost DTRPG coupons from kickstarters in the past, I'm betting that, if I were interested in a HC, I could get it cheaper by pledging for this game at the $25 pdf level now and then just buying the HC through the store when it's released. Honestly, the at cost savings don't amount to much in my experience, certainly less than the $25 USD cost difference in the pledge levels. Maybe it's a bit different because this is a larger book than most RPG kickstarters I've backed? I'm open to the idea that I'm wrong, and frankly am kind of hoping that I am. This game seems very much in my wheelhouse, but the pledge levels really put a damper on my enthusiasm to the point I have yet to decide if I'm going to bother backing it - not that they need my money at this point, the game's more than funded.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 14:35
|
|
|
Interesting idea but I am so completely over zombies.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 14:37
|
|
|
The most exciting part about this for me is how open it seems to running it in other settings. I've been working on basic design for a cyberpunk game about trying to support a family through doing crime for a while, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how possible it'd be to use this as the basis. So, like, I'm not crazy about zombies, but the zombies are pretty replaceable, it seems. And the 'idiotic tech bro' stuff seems like kind of a weird misreading of the setting. I've never seen so many people think that a horror game where the horror comes from the state of society was positive about the state of society.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 14:47
|
|
|
I mean I guess it's understandable if you're so fatigued from zombie media that you're going to write it off just because zombies, hell I was skeptical too, but economics has been a part of the traditional RPG ever since you've had to make a decision over when and whether to blow all your gold to get that Plate Armor sooner than later. I find it distasteful that this project is receiving flak just because it wants to make that conversation explicit, and that theme central.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 15:02
|
|
|
I will say that the Bounty idea is a pretty clever idea, from an in-setting perspective, because it turns the entire economy into a machine to produce as many IDs/dead zombies as possible. Kind of like, if all the gold coins in the kingdom are spent to pay soldiers, the entire economy of the realm will cater to the needs of soldiers. But still. Zombies.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 17:08
|
|
|
Helical Nightmares posted:Found it!
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 17:26
|
|
|
New Stretch Goal unlocked: Pregens, MBA rules, GM Screen, and Taker Radio station https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159466030/red-markets/posts/1586175 quote:This level allows us to include full-page pregenerated characters with portraits, skills, and more ready-to-play gear packages. We’ll also be able to afford adding MBA Rules to the book. The MBA Rules are for players already well-versed in the structure of Red Markets. These rules sets make the economic goals of the game more varied and difficult in order to keep experienced players challenged and engaged throughout multiple campaigns. Also if you haven't already, you should take a look at the character sheet: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159466030/red-markets/posts/1585243
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 19:31
|
|
|
Doc Aquatic posted:And the 'idiotic tech bro' stuff seems like kind of a weird misreading of the setting. I've never seen so many people think that a horror game where the horror comes from the state of society was positive about the state of society. This game leans to the left of me, the bernie sanders support who will sit out this election because Hilary is too right wing for me to vote for in good conscious. I mean the remaining human nation is literally called "the Recession" and the pitch spends a large time mocking "sovereign citizens", bankers, and the idiots obsessed with self reliance.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 19:48
|
|
|
There's still
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 20:08
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:But still. Zombies. I totally get this sentiment. I've also had an impacted assfull of zombies, so I initially viewed Red Markets with some hesitation. If there was a new awesome game (or movie) but it was about superheroes, it would take a lot for me to get interested as well. I still feel a little glum when I look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe release schedule. This is what my generation will be known by. 
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
I have an idea for a game that uses the Profit system of Red Markets: The world ended as we knew it when the giants appeared. Monsters larger than skyscrapers emptied cities as they fought each other. No nation could build machines capable of destroying the monsters. Even nuclear weapons had no effect on the beings. One even grew stronger after it was hit with a nuke, so they were never used again. Governments crumbled under the weight of a collapsing global economy but new factions appeared that offered peace and stability. Somehow, some had managed to gain a measure of control over the beings. They could make one of them protect a region from other monsters. Supplemented by a human army, any rogue monster could be driven off. These factions became nation states of today. As old industries died, new ones began. Some of the monsters were not organic. They had machined organs and limbs. When these parts were ripped from their bodies, scavengers took them from the field and sold them to scientists. New technologies and forms of power were developed. Scavenging from the ruins of the dead cities and battlefields became a profession for the desperate. The rule of law only applied within the official borders of the new cities. Only a small percentage of the population can live in the core, free of fear from the monsters. The rest work day after day in new factories and farms, hoping the next battle does not extend to their shanty towns and farmsteads. Life is brutish and short in the Shadow of Giants. Differences between RM and Shadow The Core – No tiny enclaves – massive mega cities with tiered layers of protection. Giants – Each player builds a monster for the campaign setting and how it affects the environment and the character. This is the character’s tough spot. The Dreams – some people develop unnatural abilities, rumored to link them to the giants. They can detect the presence of Giants and predict their actions. Others can stun or even possibly control Giant parasites and other hazards. A few are rumored to have even stranger powers. Most factions strictly control Dreamers, even as they publicly deny their existence. Only Job Lines: There are far more takers than available jobs. Freelancing is unheard of. Instead, teams must interview for a job before an employer will give them high paying jobs. Interviews are low paying and dangerous jobs that serve as a filter to weed out the weak and foolish. The Syndicates and the Shadow Economy: Every faction claims to be self-sufficient, able to survive without risking destruction by looting dead cities. It is believed that even more sleeping monsters may awaken and wreck havoc if the ruins of the old world are disturbed. Every faction needs things from the ruins. Some need raw metal and materials from the salvage. Others need books and computers. A few even rely on the byproducts of the Giants. The citizens of the Core may desire contraband from the wastes as well. This created a shadow economy of criminal syndicates that provide these illicit goods. Every group has its own loyal retainers, but they need takers from the wastes to supplement their manpower. Some takers work for one syndicate for life, while others spend only a few months before changing employers.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2016 20:01
|
|
|
I also have an idea for a Profit setting, though I'm probably not the best person to try and write it. Secondary world Fantasy. You are an Islander, born to a small nation on a little island chain that is one part of a network connected by warping ways of tide and wind . Your people are defined by the seasons, the great skill of their navigators and their gods. The gods of Islanders are not abstract spirits, philosophies or fictions, though they each have those. They are massive creatures, a thousand feet or more long. Golden crocodiles with hypnotizing eyes, great koi whose turning mechanical hearts show the true nature of time, roc storks who feed on the destruction of kings, and other, stranger beasts. Each island chain has it's own god, though some are not seen for many decades at a time, and each has their children; smaller, partial reflections of their great progenitors. Apes whose pelts are black as night seas, man high tortoises who walk unceasing for hundreds of years, delicate deer with the faces and wings of owls, six legged goats whose shaggy fur makes ropes hard as stone and flexible as green grass. You are part of a caste that hunted these god spawn; for meat, for goods, for labor. You sailed the gates of the winds to places much stranger than the homes of men, hunted and caught the children the gods had sent to you. Outside Context Problem. One when you returned from the hunting season you found a great change to your home island. Huge ships poured smoke out over your bay. You came to find that while you were gone there had been a war. Not a war between your people and these new strangers in their odd garb, but a war between yourselves and a kingdom a few island chains away, whose warriors carried weapons made of the new material “steel” that these foreigners seemed so fond of. You had lost, badly, and your chieftain and his family had been killed, and a son of that kingdom now ruled your island. And now that their friendly allies controlled this territory, the strangers have come to trade. They brought many new things, some you liked, such as cheap cloth and steel tools; some you found strange, like monogamy and hard coins; and some which where horrible, new disease and “property rights”. But they also sold deeds and medicine, so perhaps this would be good. It is now 10 years later, your way of life is almost dead. Your people work on plantations or have gone on the steam ships to the factories of the capital city. Your waters are fished by great trawlers, and no one can catch enough to feed themselves, so they must buy the grain the strangers bring. Worship of the old gods is outlawed, and most children are taken to the new residential school on the next island chain. But there is one thing that the strangers cannot bring you, and which they want more than coin or land. Godspawn. They love these strange and mystical creatures that mystify and amuse them. Great men of their empire send servants to pick out new beasts, and pay fortunes for the strangest ones. Other godspawn have become the backbone of new ways of war for them. But they do not know they ways to the gods islands. Only you, and the other hunters hold that knowledge. So the game is to hunt your god's children and sell them to foreigners, and use that money to either move yourself and your family to one of the unsettled islands, or to buy a position in capital city. There would be a couple of rule changes for the setting. Dual technology lines. The empire is at about 1810 technology, with a few fudges for aesthetic reasons. You can get steel weapons, armor and flintlock guns to hunt with. They're much more reliable(less charge hungry) and have a lower upkeep cost, though a higher initial one, than traditional tools and weapons. However carrying iron makes it more difficult to perform traditional magics, which would be equipment-ish charge pools you spend to help yourself. Eg, if you have a “Blessing of the Owl god” charm on you you can spend charges to bump a stealth roll. If you carry iron you have to spend more charges for the initial effect, and your sacrifice(upkeep) to the god later costs more. Also references would be prayers. When you fail a roll you mark a god you're praying to with the appropriate aspect and it succeeds. You pay back the god by spending for a sacrifice, or performing a specific action in game. This would probably be balanced by having a lot more capped rolls, no spending extra ammunition when you fire a flintlock. Dual charm skills. Different cultural standards mean a polite person in one society is a rude person in another. You have to buy separate skills for dealing with Islanders or Imperials. Islander skills fuel magic and dealing with your own people. Imperial skills help you get paid and buy imperial goods Scores only: you know where the gods children are, and there're only a few markets a year to sell your goods. Read the interest of the imperials before you set out and try to pick the right prey. Big monster tables: There'll need to be a bunch of lists to generate magic creatures. Crew/Crew: It's not just you and few other people on month long trips to hunt/trap and transport a bunch of dangerous creatures. The PCs are the leaders of a dozen or more of their own people, so the crew gets it's own Humanity track and upkeep costs.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2016 17:06
|
|
|
what about a more mundane setting. civil war, like This War of Mine. the Recession becomes the next country, with guarded borders and harsh refugee policies. The Loss is your war wracked country. No zombies but soldiers. Enclaves are small clusters of houses where civilian people try to wait out the war. Raid houses, barter cigarettes, hold out for a few more weeks. It can't go on forever.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2016 23:40
|
|
|
HmmmWhat posted:I also have an idea for a Profit setting, though I'm probably not the best person to try and write it. I like this idea because it explores colonialism and offers some new game mechanic twists. I would still offer jobs though, not just scores, because otherwise the game becomes a bit too monotonous. You need Imperials offering jobs - escort the scientist or missionary touring the islands - or rival nations offering work to sabotage an Imperial factory/ship etc. Perhaps a rebel faction comes in as well - PCs can try to freelance between different factions or take sides.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2016 20:17
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:I like this idea because it explores colonialism and offers some new game mechanic twists. I would still offer jobs though, not just scores, because otherwise the game becomes a bit too monotonous. You need Imperials offering jobs - escort the scientist or missionary touring the islands - or rival nations offering work to sabotage an Imperial factory/ship etc. Perhaps a rebel faction comes in as well - PCs can try to freelance between different factions or take sides. The reason I wanted to do scores only is because the knowledge of the creatures and the ability to get them is the PCs source of power, that your source of salvation is dependent on your cultural history is the strong point in the colonialism commentary. If the game is about yojimboing and working for your oppressors it becomes more of a Red Markets palette swap and it doesn't matter if your players are Islanders or what their cultural background is. It's a problem I think a lot of magic setting have, where you become the cleric of +2 to maces rather than having your worldview dictate your actions. Maybe a dual part game where one session you go on your literal spirit quest, and then the next session is politicking to get permits to move the animals and trying to keep Nana out of debtor's prison. The math would need to be tested a lot, as you're running 2 adventures to get paid once, but it would re-enforce the dualistic nature of the setting.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2016 06:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 20:44 |
|
|
I know Fantasy dungeoneering is the most common trope for this hobby, but an Enclave is a Point-of-Light, a Leg is a wilderness phase you need to go through before hitting the job, the Job is the dungeon, and you need to get enough
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2016 06:56
|
|