A peek behind the curtain at some of the upcoming content that will be included for a full publish of Bleeding Hussars. They aren't planned to be full-NPCs on their own, but we're assembling a handful of enemy Templates designed to be used on the Human NPC and interface directly with mechanics and ideas introduced in Bleeding Hussars.

The first of these Templates which is closest to its completion and testing phase is The Careerman.

The Careerman as a Template is not the typical enemy. Only able to be deployed one at a time, they exist as an outsider element to any combat, a wild card who is there to complete an alternate objective and exfiltrate ASAP. They rarely, if ever, remain in play at the end of the combat, absconding the moment their objective has been completed... or abandoning it altogether. Some of a particularly hardy background (or of exceptionally desperate circumstances) may be prone to stick around longer, likely causing even more confusion and upping the ante on players who might not have been able to shake them sooner.

They have 3 Base Template Features:

• SOLO OPERATOR
  • The primary feature which gives the Careerman their wild-card, outlining their goals on the field. These could be anything, from filching important data off of chosen combatants, or trading in their lives for cold, hard manna. But it puts them on a timer, as they must always exit combat before it's complete, meaning they can be stalled or forced to leave for fear of death.
• THE SCYTHE EQUATION
  • Their first and most dangerous trap: accidentally killing the person you're trying to save! The Careerman is trying to stay alive and doesn't much care for whatever it is your players are trying to accomplish. If you're not careful, you may accidentally fail your sitrep early, forcing your players to make hard choices about when and when not to pull the trigger.
• Hold-Out Pistol
  • A simple weapon with remarkable control. While not particularly damaging, it's accurate and forces characters to either get down or change tact.

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As we move forward in preparation for the summer season and a resting period in academics (which most of the team is beholden to), we'd like to open the floor for some discussion on our processes in game design and what it means to make content for the games we enjoy so much.

First thing we'll say is that we play the games we make. When our about me goes into detail about our design philosophies being about having fun, we mean that. Our games are built on what we as players and gamemasters want to see at our table. None of this wishy-washy "oh but the players want it" stuff, we are the players in question and that means we're choosing what does and doesn't make it into a game like ours. Now, does that mean we won't listen to feedback from a larger community of Lancers? Absolutely not, we want to hear what other people think. Many times, we've made changes based on feedback from friends or even family.

Second, we'll wear our inspirations on our sleeve. Everyone takes inspirations from something, it's an effect we'll never be free of, so we want to take that in stride. Art, music, books, video games, all of it. We do our best not to simply plagiarize the things that inspire us, of course, but we wanna be able to capture the moments from our favorite works of art with dice. Being able to take our favorite movie scenes to the world of imagination, with our own characters doing it! That's what we live for. If we can make those scenes even better? We're all for it.

Making content for Lancer so far has been a blast, even if the process has been slow. Having so much on our collective plate can sometimes make it feel like our work makes very little impact. Pile on the demands of college (or even a Masters College! Imagine that!) and it means sessions of brainstorming, playtesting, and actual writing/editing are far and few between. Many times I've personally had the sudden passion to write everything I could for an entire sitrep, but had to pass up the opportunity, simply because I'm taking trigonometry. When we do get the time, though, it's time full of laughs and yelling and memories we wouldn't give up for the world.

Perhaps a dissertation of stories from the table may be in order! But for now, we'll open the floor: what are you looking for from Bleeding Hussars? What are some things you expected and didn't get? And are there any fun stories from your tables with the new rules?