The second iteration of my custom entanglement rules.
I managed to play-test the first version, which only included the worksheet and the faction actions.
It was nice being able to look over the sheet and just see the level of heat you have with each faction.
I’ve set up a testing procedure for this version, I’ve just got to organise my friends to lend a hand.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B42xkcjCHsDnTUNsdUEzNFZHNFk
The thing that’s going to be immediately useful for me is the News and Information sources bit of it. It’s a nice list that allows for stuff to come into play more organically, with less flash in the pan stuff that seems very important for all of five minutes of actual play. Also allows to have worldbuilding with function, which is always fun.
Otherwise, I feel like you need more of a procedure to actually pick an entanglement. Since you have, what, 20 or 30 possible options to choose from at any one time, “Choose an entanglement” should really be something like three steps instead of one, each one pointing to a subset of options.
I’m glad you find the News and Information section useful. It was definitely a design goal to make the transition from mechanics to fiction smooth.
Did you pick up on the categories for each faction type, narrowed by your status? Currently you should only be choosing between 2 to 4 entanglement options per faction.
The exception being entanglements like “Move Through Others”. Where the acting faction picks an option outside of their factional type.
The rules as written don’t really provide guidelines of how to choose a faction which would enact the entanglement. You may have a workable rule of thumb for that (i.e., the target of your last score does the entanglement) that you use in your games, but it’s not in the text.
Default Blades has a fairly short list of entanglements and doesn’t let you choose between them, which means your job of picking something that makes sense is already primed by the description of what’s definitely happening.
In your system, there are categories and sub-categories that help in the choosing, sure, but the initial choice is too wide, either because there are so many entanglements to pick from, or because there are so many factions to pick from.
Fair points, I’ll add in some guidelines at some point.
It isn’t something I’ve noticed in my own games though. I’ve just been picking factions which the crew have interacted with previously. Once you check the faction type and the heat level they’re at, you only pick from 3 -4 entanglements.
Nice work, but am I the only one that finds when printing the sheet the text extends beyond the left and right printable edges?
The copy I printed seems fine. Are you using paper smaller than A4?
I got it to work. Thanks.
let me know how it goes! 🙂