So I’ve never posted it here yet, but I’ve had loads of discussions with some in the community about a magical Blades hack I’ve been working on/off for a while.
Anyway, Harbingers of Twilight is a game about a group of intrepid mages who endeavor to build supernatural influence in a renaissane-era fantastical region. There are mysteries, traps, dangerous bargains, sinister feuds, deception, betrayal, and death.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6KrMB6ygIUUOW95YkRhTmlHTmM/view?usp=sharing
As far as Playtesting goes, the actions work very well, and the Wizard Crew has been decently tested — however the change to the downtime loop will need more feedback to see if it needs tweaks along w/ the change in Faction interaction w/ the crew.
Love to hear feedback from the community, it’s definitely still very much a Work-in-Progress (lots of blank areas, or things not fully described).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6KrMB6ygIUUOW95YkRhTmlHTmM/view?usp=sharing
I only looked at i very briefly, but I’m very interested in the subject matter. Weird wizards are my favorite kind of wizard.
Your actions look good, except maybe manipulate. What it does is fine, but the name itself reminds me more of interacting with people than tools. You use the world Operate in the description which I like, or something like Handle or Control.
On page 2 you say that heat is changed to Woe, but then on page 5 you call it Blasphemy.
I actually really like the Devil’s price, I’d be curious to hear what kind of clocks you use in practice. Is the clock chosen by the DM or the player? If one doesn’t exist yet, who usually creates it. Some negative clocks definitely don’t seem worth a die to tick, others not so bad. I’m also curious why you decided to replace pushing yourself instead of having both options?
I may come back later and do a closer reading.
Thanks for the catch on page 5, it’s hard to ensure you find all those references (that was an older term used for it)!!
Many of the abilities I’ve made (and suggest people use) involve using “stress”(oddity). Therefore, merely paying more of this didn’t seem as an interesting mechanic. Additionally, I wanted this to be more about social issues and f&$king up w/ people than Blades standard can (sometimes) be. So, if you can think of a way in which this might complicate the life of your character — by all means, I’ll give you a die for it. ((A great example of this from Rollplay: Blades is Ezekial’s character Aldo getting a clock for enjoying violence)). Now, yes, many of these option could conceivably be Devil’s Bargains. However, I want to have it be explicit that if the character goes down a darker path — they always have the option for a bonus die. (evil grin)
Manipulate is a bit of an odd one, its meant more for its tactile/physical definition rather than social one – at least as the starting point.
So relevant to my also quiet project with wizardy stuff. I have 5 colors of magic that are basically handled like Initiate and Master abilities. I will probably be influenced by this!