Or, The Weird Feeling of Inspirational Progress Meeting Unknown Territory.
I’m talking about Spell: The RPG again. The first installment covered the history of it, so I’m just going to jump right in.
I’m in the process of playtesting a “tutorial mode” character creation process. It’s an optional system that invites players into little vignettes of their characters from the past, crossing paths or encountering parallel experiences if they’re not meant to meet yet. Characters start as hardly more than concepts with names and their points are assigned as they go. It creates space for a “session zero” to organically build up shared backstories and setting details, teach and learn the system as you go, and decide on stats based on how they feel in action. I’m pretty darn happy with it so far.
I’m not ready to publicly post the WIP doc for tutorial mode character creation yet, but if that’s something you’d be interested in reviewing early to provide feedback on or try out, shoot me a message and I’ll hook you up.
Impulses: What’s Changing?
Impulses are the core traits of a Speaker (the characters in Spell). Originally, there were twelve. Honestly, the biggest struggle for me to finally change these was how much I liked the Good Numbers of twelve and six: twelve stats that maxed at six and you rolled six-sided dice to use. Designing with OCD is an adventure. Fortunately, I was able to get over it1 and move on.
The two Impulses Focus and Feeling are getting pulled out, leaving ten that will remain largely the same. The explanations are getting overhauled though. I sure wrote some of those really weirdly. Focus and Feeling are both unique in that you’re supposed to pick a specific Focus or Feeling that remains mostly consistent. From my experience and based on some of the feedback from the survey, these were the two Impulses folks struggled with the most. None of the other Impulses require this same sort of customization.
Here’s what they’ll look like:
> Focuses are now separate traits you can buy for (practically) whatever you want. They’re catch-all specialties with some cool perks. They also form the foundation of Practices (previously called Schools of Magic), which is a system I’m having a lot of fun with but will talk more about in a later update. Focuses can be used for situational bonuses, calling on specific knowledge, or wrangling up helpful resources.
> Moods are for reactively pushing yourself further, relying on emotional strength when all else fails. This is your “last resort” currency to boost a desperate roll. The cool part is that relying on them leaves emotional scars on your character, building a legacy of their feelings laid bare. The record you keep of how often you rely on which emotions is not only representative of your character’s growth and personality, but it’s also a beacon for inter-character moments and story hooks.
It’s been rewarding coming at mechanics I’ve taken for granted, wildly rewriting them into gonzo systems, and then reeling them back to reality. Don’t worry: I decided against the elaborate system of semi-sequential flowcharts. It’s fun stretching design concepts to the extremes because it helps me identify what’s actually right for the theme in front of me (it wasn’t flowcharts).
Next time, let’s talk Practices and how they work in the town of Muster where they appear as Water Shepherds and Monster Drovers. Yeehaw.
Taylor Currey
Whimsy Machine
- I didn’t get over it. I just found a different way to still have Good Numbers with the revised design. ↩︎
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