Didn't do any nanoing yesterday. I hanged out with my wife instead. 😀

Today I looked over more upgrades from Blades in the Dark and other forged in the dark games aaaaaand they are all pretty similar. The thing that really is meh to me is that special crew upgrades are very similar between each crew, some harnessing, Elite XXXX cohort, and some kind of +1 stress or trauma mostly. (I think the crews that only get +1 stress vs an extra trauma got the short stick btw.)

So I'm wondering now are people cool with this kind of choices for upgrades? Should I just make a giant list of upgrades and no special crew upgrades?

I'm surprised that upgrades are harder process for me compared to special abilities. I'm guessing it is due to my dissatisfaction with the selections that have proceeded.

I could take the easy path and just do what everyone else did. But, I'm not sure yet. For the sake of time I may just do so initially and come back around to it... Play testing should help with that decision making.

I'm apparently a TTRPG designer (??) who lives on Deathspiral Terf Island (also known as the UK), and I'm currently currently working on As the Sun Forever Sets, a Forged in the Dark horror survival game about ordinary Victorian era people surviving the collapse of the British Empire under the weight of an invasion from Mars.

I also made GHOULBOYS, a Belonging Outside Belonging-y one-shot game for 3 players about fucking around in haunted houses, trying to work out if ghosts are real, and having fun with your friends.

You can find these things and any future things here: https://rileydaniels.itch.io/

What's up, this website seems nice.

No day 5, 6, or 7 for me. I spent it with family and friends instead which doesn't happen enough~

Today though I was back at it with 0 words written! I did research for upgrades and took notes in my noodling document instead. And I must say upgrades are not that inspiring. I guess that is why when a crew levels up they can get two upgrades. Also there just doesn't seem to be that many upgrades to consider. There is a general section that is the lions share of choices for all crews and then each crew has at most a handful of upgrades.

Hopefully tomorrow I can finish up the research and noodling.

One of the things I'm most likely going to drop that reduces upgrade options is engagement type. Going into "traditional dungeons" there is usually only one way of getting into it. So instead I've changed engagements to be prep and research that the guild does prior. Every player does one thing prior to heading out that may influence the engagement roll or helps them prepare. I really like giving every player one activity prior as well to give ample opportunity to flashback during the adventure and be like "Remember when I was talking to the druid's at the circle? Well...."

It is true that this does slow down the time game compared to BitD. However, it is pretty cut and dry of knowing once everyone is done it is time to describe how the guild makes their way to the place of interest and then roll engagement.

So I recently made some kind of big changes to Bump in the Dark and I've playtested them a bit and I'm excited to get them out into the world, but I thought maybe I could talk about them a little bit here. I'll break this up into two posts for readability and also because I don't have a lot of time this morning, so part two will have to come later.

First, let's talk about conditions and harm.

So let's talk about downtime! I love downtime and free play in Forged in the Dark games. My default mode of play is to let downtime take a full session, so in a game of Bump, for example, we'll do a hunt over 1-2 sessions, and downtime/free play for the next session. I like to get in a lot of character stuff, but in a game like Bump it's also a good way to alternate between "monster of the week" and "mythology" episodes like you'd see in X-Files.

So I want to start this out by saying that I don't think downtime is broken (even if some people do -- I'll touch on that in a second), and yet the second big change I'm playtesting in the game right now is an overhaul of downtime.