Author: Kavita Poduri

hey, y’all, we dropped a new edition of Songs For The Dusk over on twitter recently, and i figured i’d share it here. here’s a quick look at the playbooks: [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d3FqWXbTh3AK4Tit8bK646-ZE3jYiAx9]

and you can find the crew logs and full rules over at [tinyurl.com/sftdv0-2]. this version is fully playable, featuring a complete core loop (with downtime, entanglements, and heat), a full setting document and map (for the new subcontinent of Asriony!) and a lot more. i’d love to hear what folks think if they try it out! contact info is in the document if you’re interested in sharing your playtesting experience.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d3FqWXbTh3AK4Tit8bK646-ZE3jYiAx9

check out the playbooks for Songs for the Dusk! [https://drive.google.com/file/d/18iChNwD58Ub85-F-kZr3-_CT5jWt-hm3/view] they’re designed by Mixie Quinn. you can check out the latest version at [https://tinyurl.com/sftdv0-12]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18iChNwD58Ub85-F-kZr3-_CT5jWt-hm3/view

v0.11 of Songs for the Dusk, my optimistic science-fantasy hack, went live a few days ago! you can find it at [https://tinyurl.com/sftdv0-11]. if you’re interested in keeping up with the game, you can go to twitter.com/songsforthedusk, my dev twitter, where i’ll share screencaps of what i’m working on between versions and other dev updates; you’ll also always be able to find the latest version in the pinned tweet for that account. hope to see you there!

hey hey! here’s the first look at a hack i alluded to yesterday, called Songs for the Dusk. it’s a science-fantasy post-apocalypse game with an optimistic tone inspired by things like destiny, adventure time, the legend of korra, and the pokemon mystery dungeon games, with a fair amount of the emotional tone of studio ghibli movies or any of avery alder’s post-apocalypse games (dream askew, the quiet year, the deep forest.)

v0.1 includes a general outline of mechanical changes from blades in the moment to moment, a really broad overview of the setting and genre, (tentative) names for seven playbooks and five crews, and three playbooks at approximately 66% completion.

some notes!

-i use arcana, the supernatural, the uncanny, and charmwork fairly interchangeably to refer to the magical nonsense that’s possible in this game. don’t worry if you lose track of what’s what

-the three playbooks i have…track pretty closely to the hunter, titan, and warlock from destiny. i’m struggling most with the narrative role of the witch (the one most inspired by the warlock) right now, trying to make sure there’s enough of the lorekeeper and midwife concept in there to counteract the slinging energy blasts around

-there’s a lot of footnotes in this game pointing out specific things that are tentative, but this is such an early draft that in general everything is tentative, up to and including the name of the game. Songs for the Dusk is evocative of an image i’m really fond of, but i might switch to something with a little more flow

-i ended up setting up more of a musical theme than was originally intended, and i’m waffling on how much of that theme is metaphor and how much will actually play out in the mechanics, so if a lot of that stuff seems strangely distant from the rest of it, that’s why

the core rules and changes are in the document below, which itself contains links to the setting document and playbooks. i’m really excited to hear what people think! goals for v0.2 are to develop at least a couple crew playbooks and make sure the playbook mechanics reinforce the narrative roles and the setting a lot more, and i’ll definitely be doing a lot of editing, so i’m really interested in what people have to say 🙂

are there any rough ideas about what kind of material will be in the Scum & Villainy SRD (or if there will even be any such thing?) in writing my own playbooks i’ve been looking towards the Blades SRD’s special abilities for inspiration, but i don’t know what i can and can’t adapt from the S&V playbooks.

right this second i’m concerned about adapting the Mystic’s starting ability for a playbook inspired by Ikora Rey and the other warlocks from Destiny, but it’d be nice to have a general guideline as well.

thanks!

forgive me if this has been asked before but: what’s the best way to design a playbook? i mean this in a fairly material sense; a lot of people have generated very pretty sets of playbooks, and i’m curious what the best software is to do that with and if there’s any advice folks have to offer about design. i’ve been thinking of writing a post-apocalypse science fantasy game for a while and i’d like to start putting things together!