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 What's this bullshit? Flying Circus is a roleplaying game I've been working on for the last three years (jesus), which is... So... there's like twenty different pitches for this game depending on who I'm talking to, so let's cover our bases I guess?
Okay, the first one. How'd you pull that one off, brain genius? Okay, so basically, the problem with all those other games that have tried to do airplane combat over the years is they either went all one way and made a top-down 2d map and made you use a loving protractor to do turns and resolving five seconds of gameplay takes two hours, or they go all the other way and completely ignore all sense of spacial relationships, treating it as pure theater of the mind fluff. Flying Circus is based on a different idea: treating altitude and airspeed as currency.  So while the game is theater of the mind, you are still constrained. You know how fast you are going, and you know how high up you are, so things are instantly grounded. Climbing costs you speed, diving returns it. Run your engine hot to make up the air speed you lost in turns, then watch the cylinders explode because you were pushing it too hard. Go into a long dive until the rushing air shatters your crankshaft and breaks your wings like twigs. Pass out from high G forces in extended turns. Spin out of control as your rotary engine sends you off balance. Survive, and go up to do it again. But I thought this was a PbtA game? Design orthodoxy is for cowards. This game has like six billion moves, and I'm not apologizing. Also, don't worry too much about it. The game has a solid structure that segments off moves to different phases of a cycle, so you aren't always interacting with all the moves. Right, but who do you actually play as? In Flying Circus, you play as... a Flying Circus, which is the in-universe term for an air mercenary company. Basically, Himmilgard is a world where flight is everything: we've been flying since before we invented the wheel, the forests are filled with horrible Fae so walking is not an option, airplanes are cool. Twenty years earlier, the big Totally Not Fantasy World War 1 ended with all the cities drowning in poison gas, leaving only a landscape of cute-rear end Ghibli towns. But there's monsters, bandits, clockwork demons, and fascists running around out there, so people form mercenary companies, take up refurbished wartime aircraft, and try to get rich protecting people. That's you guys. More specifically, the game has ten playbooks, each representing a kind of settlement in the world. You can be a regular farmboy or soldier or whatever, but also a cute Cthulhu cultist, a balloon nomad in a wingsuit, a witch, or a gas mask wearing survivor of one of the cities, among other options.  These playbooks are not the rigid archetypes of most PbtA games, but instead fairly sprawling character frameworks with piles of moves and special abilities. The game also has a pretty deep advancement system, being designed with long campaigns in mind. Characters can learn moves from one another, rearrange their stats as their worldview changes, advance both as pilots and as people, and eventually retire or meet their destiny. A fun detail is that every playbook has a core move they start with that limits them in some way. Some are simple, like the Soldier's unwillingness to open up to people or the Scion's high living costs, while others are complicated. A few, like the Survivor and Skyborn, have multi-session arcs built into them: these two playbooks are about the messy process of coming out and the experience of assimilation, respectively. Everyone lands in the story with motivations and every character is stuffed with details. And then you pick an airplane, either a total fantasy machine or one based on real-world aircraft, and you get flying! Alright, when can I play? The game is coming out April 15th! Until then... I dunno, follow my twitter for updates, I post all the art there. And all the complaints about my hand hurting because of the art. After the core game comes out, I'm going to be launching into a pile of small expansions covering different ideas and time periods, from a historical WW1 simulator, to WW2 era alien invasions, to magical girls flying jet fighters! Feel free to ask me questions or whatever, I'll be hanging around and following the thread. open_sketchbook fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Apr 11, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 13:59
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Congratulations! Seeing the playbook art all together like that looks like a real accomplishment. My group and I took a run at Flying Circus a year ago and while we kind of bounced off the rules (I wasn't familiar enough with them yet to really run the game correctly) we had a lot of fun with it anyways- the Skyborn leapt from his plane to a zeppelin, took down a couple bandits with his sword, then used his wingsuit and that leap of faith move to jump off the zeppelin, glide, and land back in the cockpit. It was pretty great.
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Apr 3, 2020 15:08
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There's a lot more guidance now in the material I have. I finally did an updated reference sheet just recently which'll make it a lot easier to pick up and play despite all the complex stuff, as its basically a quick like "Look at this page when this happens" list.
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Apr 3, 2020 15:36
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I've been looking forward to this! Probably still be out of town when my copy arrives though. ...time to see if Canada Post has changed its policy on mail forwarding recently.
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Apr 3, 2020 17:05
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I wish I could tell you when the physical copies will go out, but the printing company is current out due to Virus. 
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Apr 3, 2020 17:33
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It's okay. I'll keep as long as everyone else. 
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Apr 3, 2020 18:00
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This looks awesome! The studio I work in recently did a Top Gun board game and for a long time part of the dogfighting was spending altitude as a currency, though since its a mass market game we found we had to simplify that part out of it. I'm eager to see how this plays.
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Apr 3, 2020 18:13
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Neat, this looks interesting. Thanks for sharing.
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Apr 3, 2020 18:35
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Give me the plane game. I need the plane game
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Apr 3, 2020 18:52
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I am so excited for the plane game, plane game gonna be best game!
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Apr 3, 2020 19:56
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How easily can it be ported to Crimson skies? I haven’t found anything but fate they can do that game justice.
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Apr 4, 2020 07:07
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Golden Bee posted:How easily can it be ported to Crimson skies? I haven’t found anything but fate they can do that game justice. You'll need to use the plane design rules to make some wacky Interwar aircraft instead of wacky WW1 aircraft, and then you'll need to prune or modify some playbooks. Like, Witch and Fisher don't really belong, and Survivor will need some changes. But then it'll run it just fine: a Sky Pirate team like the Fortune Hunters in Crimson Skies is basically exactly what your average Flying Circus is. Everything else you need is there: armed zeppelins, taking jobs, daring wingwalking, drinking yourself silly in New Orleans while waiting for the contact that has a map to buried treasure that the Third Reich is also after...
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Apr 4, 2020 07:14
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How much can I expect to pay once the game releases?open_sketchbook posted:You'll need to use the plane design rules to make some wacky Interwar aircraft instead of wacky WW1 aircraft aw ye 
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Apr 4, 2020 10:46
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PinheadSlim posted:How much can I expect to pay once the game releases? The current plan is a 25 dollar digital release, which will contain the rulebook (314 pages), playbooks (10 backgrounds and 45 planes), plus the engineering guide as it becomes available and is updated. I know that's a bit steep for an indie game, but again, I've worked on this full time for three years. I assure you it'll be well worth it.
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Apr 4, 2020 11:11
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open_sketchbook posted:The current plan is a 25 dollar digital release, which will contain the rulebook (314 pages), playbooks (10 backgrounds and 45 planes), plus the engineering guide as it becomes available and is updated. Oh I'm definitely buying it. 25 is easily worth it, it's extremely unique and ticks literally all of my boxes. Just one more question though, would it be possible to run this with just one player and one gm?
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Apr 4, 2020 11:54
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Absolutely. The game calls it Freelancer Mode, the only difference being it encourages the GM to track the NPC employees a bit more (giving them Backgrounds and Stress tracks) and give them more personality to supplement the social drama. One of the classes (the Farmer) even has an alternate move mechanic for their core move to make it work without other PCs in the party. I'm a big fan of one on one play (thanks to my friend Jeff Stormer of the Party of One podcast introducing me to the possibilities) so I always try to make sure it's a component.
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Apr 4, 2020 13:17
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Oh cool, been eyeing this for a while and had no idea it's goon made! And even better - to launch really soon. To be honest, I'm not super vibing with the Himmilgard setting, but I'm super impressed with what you've done with the actual aircraft side of it!
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Apr 4, 2020 16:42
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Yeah, this setting is def... super super self indulgent. It's not gonna be for everyone, but I hope you can have fun flying.
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Apr 4, 2020 17:38
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I feel like this is a super dumb question, but it came up last time we played and I had no idea- is there an average "cruising" altitude for most planes? My players wanted to know what kind of altitude would be standard and I didn't really have an answer for them.
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Apr 4, 2020 19:24
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open_sketchbook posted:You'll need to use the plane design rules to make some wacky Interwar aircraft instead of wacky WW1 aircraft, and then you'll need to prune or modify some playbooks. Like, Witch and Fisher don't really belong, and Survivor will need some changes. But then it'll run it just fine: a Sky Pirate team like the Fortune Hunters in Crimson Skies is basically exactly what your average Flying Circus is. hell yes, sky pirates assemble
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Apr 4, 2020 21:08
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Can one GM who owns the stuff run the game for people who don't? I mean can they grasp the rules and stuff easily or does everybody need a copy?
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Apr 4, 2020 22:31
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:I feel like this is a super dumb question, but it came up last time we played and I had no idea- is there an average "cruising" altitude for most planes? My players wanted to know what kind of altitude would be standard and I didn't really have an answer for them. I added a note about this in the book now: a decent cruising altitude is 1500 meters. Elendil004 posted:Can one GM who owns the stuff run the game for people who don't? I mean can they grasp the rules and stuff easily or does everybody need a copy? The answer is... um, yes, but? Like... this is not a simple game, and it requires a degree of mastery and understanding for the air stuff. You'll need to go over what all the stats are with your players, but yes, the GM can run it all with the players just having their playbook and sheet. The new quick reference stuff should make it easier for players and GMs alike.
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Apr 5, 2020 00:56
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This game looks pretty sweet. I kinda want to do a one-shot about trying to find a way to catch a fast bomber like a Tupolev SB.
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Apr 5, 2020 01:25
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I've been loving watching you drop the art on Twitter, and look forward to seeing this thing done!
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Apr 7, 2020 16:43
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Liquid Communism posted:I've been loving watching you drop the art on Twitter, and look forward to seeing this thing done! You and me both. I am so done with this. I am going to sleep for a loving week when I finally finish it.
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Apr 7, 2020 19:41
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Just one week left to teach my wife the basics of aviation so she can play this with me. She's crazy about the setting but doesn't know jack about planes. I have an old playtest of the game that I've been going over and she's picking it up real quick. I don't even remember downloading the playtest, but it's been sitting in my RPG folder for months now apparently.
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Apr 9, 2020 07:38
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This is easily the most ambitious PbtA project yet and it's also so extremely my poo poo so I'm ridiculously excited. My friends are just gonna have to suck it up and accept that this is their next game if they want me to run anything. Is there enough variation in the playbooks to make it interesting if everyone flies the same/similar model of aircraft? If, for example, I wanted to run a more military group?
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Apr 9, 2020 21:04
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Zurui posted:Is there enough variation in the playbooks to make it interesting if everyone flies the same/similar model of aircraft? If, for example, I wanted to run a more military group? None of the playbooks are very similar at all. Even before you get to actual playbooks, you have the four Aircraft Masteries, which are all vastly different ways of flying. One player could take Bushwack and be heavily encouraged by it to never attack except with surprise and to pull up and away the moment its not going their way, while the Dogfighter wins by literally wearing the enemy down in turn fights. Then... like, you might play a Witch who doesn't even both firing her guns because she's got magic, a Fisher whose demonically possessed airplane allows them to take their hands off the controls to do midair blood rituals, or maybe you're just playing a Skyborn and you punch on an autopilot and jump out the plane to wingsuit to the enemy and defeat the enemy pilot at swordpoint. Or even among the more conventional classes, the Farmer can push their machine beyond the limits of reason while the Believer's basic mechanic demands they take stupid risks on the regular. So, absolutely. One of my projects after this, though, is to do a more explicitly historical and military game, using the air rules but a new set of ground rules that brings it closer to Night Witches in many ways. It's been drafted and I'll be testing it after the game is out.
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Apr 9, 2020 22:13
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That's rad. Is there a system for breakdowns, repairs, maintenance, and overhauls? Or is that pretty much left to the MC?
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Apr 9, 2020 22:30
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Zurui posted:That's rad. Is there a system for breakdowns, repairs, maintenance, and overhauls? Or is that pretty much left to the MC? There's rules for in air malfunction and repair, a basic engine wear mechanic, and while repair is generally handled abstractly (your pilot hands the plane off to the hanger mechanics with a handful of cash and tells them to make it go again) some backgrounds can play with it more. Used planes have special drawbacks that can make them clunkers, and working the kinks out will usually take several missions.
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Apr 9, 2020 22:57
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open_sketchbook posted:None of the playbooks are very similar at all. Even before you get to actual playbooks, you have the four Aircraft Masteries, which are all vastly different ways of flying. One player could take Bushwack and be heavily encouraged by it to never attack except with surprise and to pull up and away the moment its not going their way, while the Dogfighter wins by literally wearing the enemy down in turn fights. oh my good lord i need to find someone to run this game. is there anyone here thinking about putting together a discord or roll20 game?
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Apr 11, 2020 19:08
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GAME IS OUT! I'm going to sleep for a week now. DriveThruRPG Link Itch.io Link Have fun, pilots.
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Apr 15, 2020 13:52
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open_sketchbook posted:GAME IS OUT! I'm going to sleep for a week now. Congrats! Good luck sleeping though. What if a review comes in? What if there's a problem? What if you're not watching every second of every day for issues? What if there's feedback? What if there's NO feedback? Aaahhhhhhh (it never ends). Seriously though, congrats this looks awesome.
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Apr 15, 2020 14:46
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open_sketchbook posted:GAME IS OUT! I'm going to sleep for a week now. Congratulations, I really should see if I can get a group together to play, there are a lot of bored people at my university so it shouldn't be too hard.
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Apr 15, 2020 14:47
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open_sketchbook posted:GAME IS OUT! I'm going to sleep for a week now. This is probably a dumb question but do you get more money if I buy it on DTRPG or Itchi.io?
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Apr 15, 2020 15:13
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I get more money on Itch, but sales on DTRPG drive more visibility on that extremely trafficked platform, so it pretty much evens out.
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Apr 15, 2020 15:14
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Now if only I could find somebody to play with.
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Apr 15, 2020 16:14
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Well done !
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Apr 15, 2020 16:46
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Radio Free Kobold posted:Now if only I could find somebody to play with. One of the guys on the Night at the Opera (Delta Green) discord wants to run it.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:07
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I just skimmed through the PDF. The art is so drat good.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:40
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