Hi all! I wanted to share that the new version of Karma in the Dark (v4.0) is out for testing: https://www.casskdesigns.com/karma-in-the-dark.html
Description:
You are a team of outcasts in a futuristic world decimated by the magical Outbreak. You resist against ruthless megacorps, warring gangs, scheming bureaucrats, and shadowy cults, with one chance at a better life: be useful to those in power. Some might call you a mercenary; some might call you a sell out. You call it surviving.
As you compromise your ideals for success, your team will sink down to a new level of conformity. Cross a threshold, and the campaign’s narrative will twist to reflect back a growing darkness in the world around you. You will have to choose: maintain your ideals; save your community; or embrace corruption in your rise to power.
The system is designed for your group to create your own world. The structured world creation will help you define your group’s unique dystopian flavor and supernatural powers, then project those elements into an alternative future of your design.
Significant Updates:
More developed safe house and neighborhood system, tied directly into entanglements
Addition of team ambitions and goals, to focus play
Integration of Brie Sheldon’s script change tool to help manage tone and player comfort (really helps manage some of the potentially dark themes in the game)
Refined contact mechanics to make contacts central to gameplay (and get rid of the idea of a set fixer)
Refined PC and team playbooks with a continued emphasis on narrative abilities (now with propaganda/slander-spreading Performers!)
Example worlds and factions for pick-up-and-play, along with quick reference sheets for frequently used mechanics.
Overall:
It’s almost exactly 2 years since I shared version 1.0 of this game. I intended it to be a quick hack, but the passion and support for the Forged in the Dark community inspired me to keep improving this concept, which has been an awesome experience. So thank you!
These are some good-looking sheets 🙂
Thanks! Thought I’d go crazy trying to find the balance between clean looking and still unique. Pretty happy with the direction they’re going now.
Question! I am really excited about this new version and can’t wait to try playtesting it with my group.
When you do world creation, is it alright to have separate “areas” of the world have different relevance markers? I am thinking of Shadowrun where the relevance markers of Seattle will be very different than if you moved to the NAN or the Tir.
Matthew Terry I think that’s an awesome idea. If you’re game is stretching outside one specific region, that is a great way to show some cultural/systemic differences.
Theoretically, you could repeat significant parts of world creation for different regions, like the city part, the relevance markers, what fashion looks like, etc. I think how much you do that would depend some on GM bandwidth for creating content.
Cass K sounds good. Just make them micro worlds. Hell, nothing says you can’t revisit world creation if the game explores new areas or even different strata of the same area.
that seriously the hack I’m most exited about, and I’m super exited about half of them.
This hack is so good! It is giving me a tonne of inspiration for my “Trapped in an MMO” blades hack. It also spurred me to start a PbP game on Role Gate! Awesome work!