I'm getting very excited to try Cuticorium and I haven't shut up about it since I found it. I do have a question about the rules though, and I hope the comments on itch is a good place to put it?
I'm wondering how and if NPC bugs use moves? When games I'm familiar with use capital M Moves they are all rolled by the player and the GM simply calls for the players to roll appropriate moves. The fact that NPCs use their webs to affect player rolls (and not the other way around) seemed to support this. But NPCs have favourite (panic?) moves as well as Features that modify their moves. Do NPCs in Cuticorium attempt to Scar and Comfort other players, or Transform their image in the player's eyes? And does it work the same as players doing so, but with the GM rolling the die and spending webs?
Thank you so much, I love your excitment and I hope you have a fun experince playing it with friends.
For your question, NPC bugs don't use moves, but NPCs can still gather Webs. Just as player can use Webs to reroll unfavorable results, a conflicting NPC can use thier Webs to reroll the players favorable results to try to oppose them, or spending Webs to power their features. NPCs with lots of Webs could be highly knowlagable bugs with vast amounts of connections and leverage. Webs are like Cuticorium's leveling system in that way.
The Scar move is the exception to this, if there is an NPC bug that initiates a hostile physical attack on the players. But generally Cuticorium wants the players to be the active force and the NPCs are reactive to the player's failures and successes.
Thank you! I have one more question, if that's alright? I loved the NPCs in the adventure module, especially the amber snail seer that was filled with visions of a sky creature savior after getting infected with a green banded broodsac. The illustrated bugs in the book are all dripping with personality, I want to know if they have more fleshed out characters as well or if those details were only added for the module. Of course I could try and fill in the blanks myself but I found the snail so clever it made me very curious about the others. Are there more details on them somewhere?
Ack sorry I kept meaning to resond to this and forgetting.
The bugs illustrated in the book don't have any perticular characters to them, but I do like to use them as refrences when making new NPCs for games. Those ideas might make it into another adventure module one day, but that still won't be their 'official characterization' or anything. All the art is for player insperation, and I love to hear the stories you imagine for them.