Author: Calum Grace

A NOCTURNE — playtest v0.6

Big changes for v0.6 of my rather unconventional Blades/PbtA drift/remix about terrifying space capitalists:

– the way star systems work has been changed a lot, less freeform now, a bit more on the traditional Traveller/Stars Without Number side of things, but with an isometric projection map instead of hexes ‘cos I’m a goddamn heathen. This necessitated the changing of some character moves and the excision of the Consult the Charts/Research a Planet rules, and puts a little extra prep on the GM’s plate, but I think it’ll be preferable in the long run. I do get to put in tonnes of random tables though, including a d66 one for world tags. Proper job!

– the usual bevy of quality-of-life tweaks: some wording improved, spelling mistakes caught, layouts adjusted, that sort of thing.

Next up, I want to include a sample cluster or two for GMs who just want to dive right in, and Blades-style job generator tables. I also want to figure out handling time spent awake aboard-craft during the long flight between stars somewhat like Downtime, and possibly also some rules to do with interacting with alien cultures (I re-watched Arrival recently, so I’ve had that stuff on the brain).

For the Miéville-heads: work on Blades of New Crobuzon stalled for a few weeks there, but I should be back at it soon. Just a few more things to do, then I’m releasing it into the wild!

https://thysane.itch.io/a-nocturne-play-test

Blades of New Crobuzon – progress update #7

Here’s my first pass on the Characters and Crews sections: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_sURh-eDnchLWpEM05LeUtveEE/view?usp=sharing

By design, these only list changes, adjustments, or replacements to the regular Blades rules and options, and the rest of the rules stuff in the final document will be much of a muchness. After all, this is just a free, unofficial setting-hack. Let me know what you think of the layout/readability/etc. (two-page viewing in the pdf viewer of your choice recommended!), and whether or not my replacements for/re-wordings of special abilities and such are any good.

Blades of New Crobuzon – progress update #6

Been laid up with a powerful sickness after journeying 3 hours into the next county to catch the opening of a film festival and drink with friends, but I’ve been doing MORE ART.

Here’s Toro, a character from Iron Council I’m including in the hack because they’re too frickin’ cool and scary to pass up. Seriously, do not cross Toro or their gang. They’re planning to kill the Mayor. No-one does that.

And yes, that may well be a certain station lurking in the background.

Blades of New Crobuzon – progress update #5

Managed to get together a draft .pdf of the city overview section.

I DESCRIBED AND GAVE TRAITS TO EVERY DISTRICT BECAUSE I’M A MADMAN.

Ahem.

If anyone gets a chance to read through it, as always, flag any issues you have with layout, distribution of trait dots, descriptions, etc.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_sURh-eDnchaWRkNFJHMDR5cWM/view?usp=sharing

Blades of New Crobuzon – progress update #4

Taking a wee break from mechanical and layout stuff to take a pass at the art, ‘cos I may be making a free, unofficial setting hack, but it’s still gotta look nice, dammit.

Here’s a khepri for the as-yet unwritten xenian heritage options section (khepri are a lot of fun to do art for – beetle carapace! compound eyes!).

Blades of New Crobuzon – progress update #3

I finally managed to get a first pass of the faction ladder and summaries together. Let me know what you think, especially if you notice any gaps, problems with the Tiers or Holds given to particular factions, layout and readability, that sorta thing (spelling and grammar mistakes notwithstanding, I’mma catch those bad boys).

Not included are the political parties, since I’m still puzzling over where to put them; I definitely want them in there, because the politics of New Crobuzon are really important (half the Underworld factions are revolutionary types, after all), just not sure if I should list them as part of Parliament’s summary, Parliament’s detailed profile later on, or elsewhere. They’d likely just be Tiers and Holds, nothing fancy.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_sURh-eDncheWRpU3BaMW1faWc/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_sURh-eDncheWRpU3BaMW1faWc/view?usp=sharing

Blades of New Crobuzon — progress update #2

I am a bad, bad man (yes, those are all districts, and yes, I am writing blurbs for and statting-up all of them).

Speaking more generally, I hadn’t realised starting out how much inventing I’d have to do – there’s plenty of info out there, in the books and in Dragon Magazine, lots of stuff on the plate, but I’m needing to do a lot of seasoning and side arrangements to get it up to Blades’ sandbox needs (new contacts and key NPCs, rule wording adjustments and the like, as well as more detailed descriptions for the districts).

After that overwrought metaphor, a question of time: I’m playing fast and loose with it, but setting a broad precedent for this current version of New Crobuzon being set somewhere a few years before Iron Council, during the beginning of the war with the Witchocracy of Tesh. This gives us a nice pressure-cooker situation, with heightened danger outside the city and political tensions within it. It also gives me an excuse to have Toro’s gang as a faction, ‘cos they’re too dang cool to pass up.

I am also including Jack Half-a-Prayer and his band of thieves though, so that muddies things somewhat. My excuse is that this is a toolbox for groups to pull or discard from as needed, and players are likely to mess the broad timeline up royally anyway, so I might as well include as many cool toys as possible.

I’ll probably post the current version of the Faction ladder in a few days so you guys can pick at it and make suggestions (I’m detailing all the political parties within Parliament, which might be a fools errand but is, let’s be fair, a big part of New Crobuzon).

Outside of the faction game stuff, I’ve started in on playbooks; these aren’t seeing drastic changes, though the Ghost special abilities are changing, and the Whisper is being reworked as the Thaumaturge (still essentially a whisper, but with Tempest replaced with Torque, which is all kinds of scary and weird, among other tweaks).

Blades of New Crobuzon — progress update

A few of us on here decided it’d be fun to work up a little fan setting hack, putting Blades into the world of China Miéville’s Bas-Lag. New Crobuzon is a big, dirty, weird old city, full of oppression and inequality, crime and vice. It’s sorta perfect for Blades. This is gonna be a bare-bones kind of hack, merely elaborating setting material and noting mechanical/flavour differences where needed, changing a few special abilities to suit, that sort of thing.

Anyway, I seem to have stumbled into leading the charge on this, and I had a Sunday free, so I’ve been noodling with the faction list and statting-up traits for the various districts (there’s a lot of ’em). Also, here’s a lil’ taster of the map…

A NOCTURNE play-test v0.5

The adventures of the space arseholes continue.

I’ve reworked a lot of the playbook moves to beef them up, simplify some, and to cut out some of the vestigial AW move structure stuff that was beginning to feel out of place, and finally got around to adding in a sixth move for the Growth playbook: “Grand Designs,” which provides some interesting ways to interact with Externalising and Craft Scars.

I’ve also made the flexibility of Scale and Time a bit more explicit – having played around with Magnitude in Blades a bit more, it makes sense to have it be dependent more upon the fiction than on any weird assumptions I set on the Scale table – those placements are now the defaults that can be fallen back on, just in case.

Finally, I divorced Consult the Charts from the Cosmos stat, making it a flat 2d8 roll to bring it a little more in line with the other universal crew moves, and added in proper credits at the head of the document so my poor play-testers can get a little recognition.

As always, feedback is welcome!

https://thysane.itch.io/a-nocturne-play-test?secret=JHDRURbsHqmYSGDJhp8Hx9ZCL0o

A NOCTURNE play-test v0.4

This is a bit of a left-field remix based around being a crew of interstellar space arseholes. What if you had a Death Star, a lack of empathy, and bills to pay? Go on. Those planets aren’t gonna hold themselves to ransom.

So much of a remix, in fact, it doesn’t even use the same core resolution system as Blades, instead using all the different die sizes because I’m a madman (this may change). It also expands and remixes the Magnitude rules into an unequal set of ranges that cover everything up to and including nations and planets, treats Stress and Trauma (here called Damage and Scars) REALLY differently, and a whole host of other things, including a lot of concepts drifted from AW and a few other places. Like I said, more a remix than a straight hack. Do not expect a Blades re-skin.

This is partly due to being developed initially outside direct Blades influence, before I ended up running/reading so much Blades over the past year that the two started drifting closer together in my head, with concepts cross-pollinating until I got this bizarre Frankenstein’s monster. I felt that it was close enough, however, that it might benefit from some input from the ol’ G+, so here ’tis.

Still very much deep inside the play-test mines, so read at your caution. Contents highly subject to change. Also, relativistic travel time tables and repeated uses of the term “parsec”. You have been warned.

https://thysane.itch.io/a-nocturne-play-test?secret=JHDRURbsHqmYSGDJhp8Hx9ZCL0o