I have never been more delighted to repeat to myself “what the fuck” over and over again on my first readthrough. I’ve GOTTA try this with someone.
Thanks for another fascinating game Andrew!
londonmatthews
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Got recommended this game when I was looking for something to emulate space-station slice of life. Seems like there's a lot here to work with and I appreciate it!
Do you have any restrictions about how the soundtrack gets used? I'm looking down the pipeline of streaming about many different games, and would love to use some of the tracks for bg music if that's allowed. But totally cool if that's not okay!
Thanks,
Locking Out the Apocalypse comments · Replied to Meridian Inkwell in Locking Out the Apocalypse comments
Just had a playthrough (my fourth or fifth?) where I got to 20 power in 9 days!!! Lots of incredible strings of luck, had 2 days where I locked 5 in a row and only had to pay 1 memory for the 6th. I did end up getting and using 1 of my items, but didn't end up mattering in the end anyway, just amounted to a +1 memory buffer. My Amulet of Focus is kind of OP when used with Stare, since you can always use it to negate a double and guarantee 2 power. But you have to be in a place to not need memory instead, so it just happened to line up that playthrough that I managed to Stare 8/9 days, 7 of which succeeded.
Sadly, in the end I realized that I had merged with the great power and had to destroy us both... RIP, at least I died a hero.
Locking Out the Apocalypse comments · Replied to Meridian Inkwell in Locking Out the Apocalypse comments
Wow, this game is lightning fast once you memorize the locks and actions you can take. I just blew through a playthrough (no journaling or RP :P) in like, 5 minutes. Alternated between a really bad day, a really good day, a really bad day, and a decent day where I couldn't quite pull it out in the end. I did get one of my magic items in my second playthrough, a Magical Hexpick 3, which I put to use to get pesky lock 5 out of the way early on :P
Still feeling out which locks to get out of the way first, which to hold onto as better shots of passing... I'm gonna do another playthrough like, right away. I imagine you could easily play this game from memory (maybe with the exception of my item system) with just the dice and a piece of paper, anywhere in the world... and that's super cool.
v1.2 + printer-friendly and audiobook options comments · Posted in v1.2 + printer-friendly and audiobook options comments
Um, the cover is legitimately a delight and if I'm going to print this I'm absolutely printing the cover while I'm at it. The only reason I wouldn't is if I decided to print the cover from the full color version instead ;)
Never had an audiobook for a ttrpg before, it's really a neat add-on! You should definitely take LOA 2. Introduction and make a short out of it. Or maybe even the first bit of LOA 3. A Home in the Abyss.
Objects of Power subsystem (google drive link to PDF) :)
Objects of Power Print Friendly
These items will definitely prolong a playthrough, but they're not easily come by. Averaging 2 action energy per day, you still can only come across these by rolling the first three action types. (for ease, they're the only ones that roll a single d6 and, nicely, the other two are the ones that potentially gain you power. It felt serendipitous to do it that way and create additional decision points--go for Power or OBJECTS of Power? hmmmmm).
tl;dr when rolling contemplate past, introspect on who you are, or create something, if you roll a 6, you also get to roll 2d6 for one of these items. The more powerful ones are towards the flatter ends of the bell curve at 2 and 12 for example.
Locking Out the Apocalypse comments · Replied to Meridian Inkwell in Locking Out the Apocalypse comments
*facepalm* just reread that you can lock locks in any order. That's much much more forgiving than I realized. I was like dang, this game is hard, over here calculating how many days on average you'd last, figured I'd make the google sheet account for 7 days or cycles and you'd be lucky to fill them...
ah well, need a new week, just duplicate the sheet for "week 2" :P
A first draft of a tracking resource for the google sheets goblins...
This game is for stats nerds isn't it :P I'll echo what the other commenter said about the feel, layout, and art though, very nice.
For fun I calculated the odds of successfully pushing in all states where pushing is even possible. There are hundreds of permutations of those states, but only 16 actual states where pushing would be eligible. Lock the Fourth has the most possible rolling states depending on what the current sum is and what the highest die is at 12 possible states.
Much harder to calculate out the odds of a success for any given lock but at least the pushing was somewhat easy to puzzle out.
Fun fact, there is only one state in the game that has at best a 5/6 chance of a successful push. Three states that have a 4/6 of a successful push, five that have a 3/6 chance, four that have a 2/6 chance, and two that have only a 1/6 chance.
The odds of successfully pushing are better at the earlier locks, but then again there's way more runway ahead of you that could go worse and worse, so do you risk doubling right at the start??? And paradoxically, pushing at lock 1 can only save or cost you 1 memory, so it's not that impactful even though it might be one of the better odds... I like the decision points throughout :)
If you're considering alternate stretch goals too, it'd be neat to see a print-friendly version for download as well.
<3 keep up the good work, I'm going to tinker with a minor artifact subsystem I'll let you know if it's any good ;)
JUNE PLAY REPORT (quick summary version)
- I have to mediate between two friends that don't get along... I say that Penelope (my colleague and sister to the adopted Lina) and Bryony (my ex-best friend, still friend, who is dating Lina) are sparring with one another because Penelope doesn't think Bryony is good enough for Lina... plus his family is from Osorith and she probably fears he'll take Lina away. I successfully mediate and get everyone to get along :)
- I get lied to by... the SC with the highest fate. Noooooo Aria what are you lying to me about??? I decide she's lying about being excited for a royal life, not the end of the world but it makes Korin realize that Aria would much prefer a simpler life, like the one her family has at Dyetree. I take note.
- The Raven Circle finds an old artifact having to do with my family, I roll some oracle traits and figure it's a magically imbued breastplate, almost ceremonial in nature but would still function in an actual combat if someone decided to use it. I'll be doing some research on it later to see if I can unlock its potential power...
- Tree-felling competition (see above)
- I start to make plans to build my own estate in Dyetree, representing Korin's commitment to a new life... I also manage to rope Evangeline into helping me plan, and finally get her fate/favor off the floor! Sheesh.
- Write a bunch of letters, one to Evangeline asking if she'd accompany me ring shopping.
- Try to actually go ring shopping, keep getting back luck with the rolls! Gave up two different rings I could have bought because it gave me +2 favor with Bryony (love is in the air!) and Keith (oldest brother, apparently also getting engaged!). Sigh. But no ring for me....
- End with the Devil, which is a mysterious letter containing some dirt on an antagonistic Parlimentarian... I can act on this info or not, but I choose not to. Don't want to stick my neck out. Also will be spending some research on some spellwork to see if I can magically track the writer of this letter...
(I played this all last week so the summary is as much for me to type out as for anyone else to read lol)
Ahhhhh I have to give this update lol this is so cute.
I drew another knight of cups (had one in Spring) so Aria is taking me to accompany them somewhere. I go to the oracle and get "fall" (verb not season) and "win" and decide that her little farming community has a tradition when clearing out trees for new farmland, and they have a competition where all the men try to fell their assigned tree the fastest.
Ain't no way that's anything but a strength check lol, which I have a 2 in (so target # is 6 after factoring luck). But I'm royalty, so the first thing I ask is "am I asked to participate" and get a straight Yes. Welp... here we go, this could be funny.
MFW I roll a 5... :D :D :D
Korin hulks out when it's time to impress the lady lololol
(adding on) I think I'm starting to see this conspiracy come together around me... The priest who hired the mercenary to kidnap me, and have multiple bandit issues... turns out to be the brother of my bodyguard (legit rolled the same last name but still asked oracle if they're related... STRONG YES lol
Amatia and Vafistara, both on the Feminine Names table <3
I'm compiling their whole story (and any other characters they interacted with via play by post) into a Google Doc, up to the point that I had to take a break from the game. It's 616 pages long so far, with probably another 100 to go... 0_0 That's what this weekend has been, Ballads of Dawn and editing that document back and forth, back and forth lol.
Omg the skies have parted and now I can seeeee!!! <3
This answers so many of my weird one-off questions around fate/favor. And also reinforces that I had waaaaay too many SCs, but I think I've sidegraded most of the unimportant ones off to NPC land by now. The rest I will weather the storms of fate and see who decides to hate me for being ignored ;)
Speaking of names :P
I supported at $15 when the game was at $5, does that mean I get to put a name in the tables? And um, what would someone have to do to get two names in? I have a little romantic couple that I played through in a Pathfinder game with a friend and my heart would burst to get them both in there >_>
POST-MAY FEEDBACK
First of all, FUN FUN FUN I'm having so much fun with this game. I love how the prompts guide but don't constrain too much, I love when I'm told to look at the SC with highest fate and there are two at the same level so I get to choose, I love the little vignettes and story moments that are coming out of the game...
and all this from someone who has little to no experience with Romantic Fantasy genre, someone who is floundering to get my head around how all the estates and duchys and whatnot are supposed to be laid out... I'm just going for it lol.
Here's another positive feedback... I rolled up a Royal who went through a Regression of 1 year... and if you told me that that's all this game was, I'd still be blown away. I sometimes forget that Royal is one of four main levels of play, each with different Major Arcana Scenes, and that Regression is one of four main backstories of play, meaning after all is said and done I'll have experienced 1/16 configurations of this game, not to mention the "how far back did you go?" table in Regression... truly incredible depth for replayability.
I have a few main topics coming out of this Play Month but I'm going to stagger them so I don't become any more overbearing than I already have been... so this first one is just a pet peeve and can be dismissed out of hand entirely ;)
---
d66 TABLES
This is such an OCD nitpick but d66 tables have always had this one quirk that bothers me, in that they're not an even distribution... (unless the rules say you must read the die results in order). Using neutral names table as an example, if you roll a 3 and a 4, you can choose either Owen or Leon as the name. However if you roll a 3 and a 3, you can only choose Ivan--there's nowhere else to pivot that result to. So all the doubles are half as likely as any other name. Out of 36 names, 30 of them have a 2/36 chance of being options and 6 of them have a 1/36 chance of being options. There are a couple of ways I could think to handle this, none of which are super elegant...
1) Allow doubles to also select from doubles one numeral higher. i.e. a 11 could select between Matthias (11) or Mikhail (22). Double 6s would wrap around to double 1s, so Enoch (66) could also be Matthias (11). Mathematically evens it out, but a bit clunky.
2) Allow even doubles to count for any even double, and odd doubles to count for any odd double. This continues the problem because now 6 of the results will occur at 3/36 chances and the other 30 will stay at 2/36...
3) Just put the weirdest (or coolest!) names in the doubles slot, whichever you want to be rarer :P
4) Remove doubles results entirely and prompt a reroll (6 fewer options? lame!)
5) Allow doubles to choose from any name in that numbers row/column for maximum chaos lol
6) Just don't worry about it :P It's only the difference between 2.8% and 5.6% at the end of the day, and only for 1/6 of the results.
The thing is I really LIKE the gamefeel of d66 tables giving me those pivot choices, I always just feel bad for the results stuck in the doubles diagonal like they're the last ones picked in dodgeball or something :/
I'm also fully aware most tables like these also encourage you to just pick names you like if you want, or keep rerolling until you get one you like, rendering most of this pointlessly academic and, like I said, nitpicky...
I see I see... I am taking this and integrating it into my understanding. I think I finally figured out what's got my mind stuck on this.
A platonic relationship with an SC, left unattended, will eventually trend to 0/0. However, an antagonistic relationship with an SC, left unattended, will eventually trend to 0/-1, 0/-2, 0/-3, 0/-4... and something about that disparity, that the antagonistics keep liking you less and less while the platonics just fade into the background, is triggering me lol. (presumably you're not leaving the romantic SCs unattended lmao)
Or, could it be that platonic SCs are supposed to continue going down in favor, across the "0" line and into negative territory? That would change a lot... and goes into a different line of thinking I had at one point, that maybe Platonic and Antagonistic could exist on the same table, and just let the favor positivity/negativity determine whether they're antagonistic or not, rather than opting into a relationship transition? That would take some of the agency out of they players' hands though, if a platonic went sour on them and they wanted instead to have a chance to salvage that relationship. Fate is a lot easier to raise intentionally than Favor is...
You've entertained me on this topic far too much already lol feel free to ignore my ramblings.
I've definitely come around on any concerns about the -1 fate or -1 favor at the end of the phase, I think I genuinely just had too many named NPCs to get to, and so for many of them their starting fate/favor was immediately dropped to nothing which left me with... probably the proper amount of SCs lol. And yet I still have 14 somehow... I'm curious how many SCs other playtesters have found they have in the rotation :P
> Also, my thinking is that -1 Favor is showing that it's 1 away from 0. They slightly dislike you or are irked by you, but it's pretty close to being neutral.
That level of mild dislike makes total sense, I guess I was meaning to ask what it means to "subtract" 1 favor when favor is already negative. Sometimes it seems to mean their dislike of you goes up (which would be going from say -2 favor to -3 favor) but sometimes "subtracting" favor seems to be meant more to "return to a baseline of 0", as in, they don't think about you as much any more since you haven't interacted. This would be going from -2 favor to -1 favor, in such a case.
It's made me wonder if sometimes the rules should say "-1 favor (as in, subtract 1 favor)" and sometimes they should say "move favor to 1 point closer to 0", because those really can be two different things when it comes to antagonistic SCs (it's the same for platonic/romantic, as they're both in the positives). Depending on the scene/situation you might want the results of a given scene to do one or the other...
I hope that makes sense :D
MAY PLAY REPORT
> I may have to use a Progress Endeavor to sabotage myself, I'm running out of enemies ;)
Lol nope. The Holy Order is definitely up to something.
So, update. That merchant I saved from robbers the other month, I actually went back and added him as an NPC/SC, gave him a name and profession and all, and turns out he's actually in the Holy Order as a fully-fledged priest. Cool!
That 8 of wands from last update, I said was the same Priest who once again was moving items (for the church?) between the Osorith/Vilderine borders. I can't help but picture Osorith as Spain and Vilderine as France and Khulgana as Germany, purely by shape/layout and nothing more, and so I envision these mountain passes between O and V, and it makes sense that bandits and robbers would camp out there often. So, I helped him out again. Not suspect at all, right?
I immediately play out The Hermit, which gives me a scenario where I sneak out alone, shirking my bodyguards and attendants... I try a magic check to conceal myself among the populace above and beyond changing clothing, and get a strong failure. I'm captured by bandits and held for ransom--I decide that I need more villains in my life so I add the Kidnapper (name & identiy TBD) as an SC. As I'm fleshing out that character, I roll for a Specialty and MY GUY HAS RELIGION SPECIALTY AHHHHHH.
Which of course means that this "Priest" I've been helping (he probably actually is a priest) is not just running into trouble left and right, he's engineering the trouble and trying to snare me in it. These two are obviously working together! Korin of course doesn't know this, but I definitely have a strong thread to pull on now. Who's behind it all??? We will have to see :D
From there my relationship with Aria continues to develop and I continue to hammer on a way to get in touch with Evangeline, continually getting rebuffed by the dice. But I find an opening with a prompt telling me to get counsel from someone I respect about something, and Evangeline has Business 5, so I figure that's my chance to speak with her, not about my concerns for the Emperors plans to sabotage her betrothal and marry her off to Khulgana, but just to talk frankly, half-sibling to half-sibling, about things I've been dealing with. Boost that fate/favor a bit so I can actually have a chance to help this girl.
The Spring Debutante Ball goes off well--there's a sickness running through the community and servants and I pivot, as the planner of the event, to invite noble houses to bring their own attendants to be sure the event goes off well. As a sort of reward, and to pad the numbers of the event, I extend a once in a lifetime offer that anyone who offers the services of their staff to the palace for this event may also bring non-nobility as guests, meaning a decent chunk of commoners get the rare chance to attend the Debutante Ball. Heartwarming! (if you ignore problematic class structures, that is ;) )
I've started into Summer now but will still try to report back month by month.
MARCH PLAY REPORT
I went through all my roll/draw phases of the first month last night and whew, it got spicy fast. Daddy Emperor is going to try to sabotage my half-sisters bethrothal so he can instead marry her off to someone from Khulgana as a means to hopefully end the war between us... and he doesn't want her mom to know. This was a secret that my character found out, and now he knows that I know, and now we're in a Mutually Assured Destruction situation. Wrote a letter to said half-sister asking to meet up, which was favorable but failed with a nat 20 on a target of 18... facepalm. So she responded that she's too busy for aimless requests (she has Business 4 specialty :P ), and if I have something I want to talk with her about I need to be direct about it. Meanwhile trying to figure out why I went back in time 1 year and who betrayed me and how and why... and then the minor arcana events gifted me a letter from my character's crush so she's already up to 6/5 (I think) meaning I get to trigger a relationship scene too! She was formerly my character's betrothed but it was called off when we were both young and neither of us know why, but it's been awkward ever since.
Oh, and then I had to bail out some nobles for some trouble but asked myself, why am I even getting involved in this? But I got a critical success and decided, you know what, one of these nobles that I'm bailing out of trouble is going to be my bitter rival, Aria Lionheart, and she's going to hate that I helped her out. (and owe me one) LMAO!
Unrelated to the rules, it's really hard for me to slow down and actually write out scenes, because I'm so much in "what happens next??" mode. It means that the prompts and the resolution system are really exciting and are pulling me forwards. I tell myself that I'll go back and write things out, but... ;)
APRIL PLAY REPORT
My poor character and their affinity for nat 20s! OMG!!!
So mid march I got an unexpected ~romantic letter from a childhood friend Lina, I end up taking her out to a nice brunch somewhere, a place not too intense for a first date/courtship what have you. And I fail the relationship transition check with a nat 20! Her fate and favor drop down, we remain platonic and I go off to do other things...
I go out with my buddy Bryony and buy a saber, trying to get ahead of that betrayal that's coming, and then do some combat training with my oldest half-brother Keith (he's not in line for the throne either). That goes pretty well, then I'm called out to do a speech for the Perennial Festival which I crush, things are looking okay.
Start of April, I get hit with a 10 of swords lmao and have a loss, setback, or betrayal. I oracled up TRUST and WANT so figured I was betrayed in my trust and having to do with something I wanted, so clearly Bryony starts dating Lina. Heartbreak emoji. When I roll for how I handle it, I get a strong failure on 17 for extra oof. They both drop 2 favor AND fate and I lose 2 WIS.
Absolutely fascinating how this game can totally write characters out of the story like this--and I mean that. As I continue sharing you'll see how the story goes _everywhere else_ instead of dealing with these two, for now lol.
I go out for a stroll and run into my rival, Aria, the one I bailed out last month. She throws some barbs at me but I'm do depressed that even she's like whoa buddy, and backs off.
I'm rolling around town and come into some money. How? I oracle up DEFEND and DANGEROUS and figure with my new saber and combat training with Keith, maybe I protected some important person from Osorith from bandits. The check determines whether I use this money wisely or waste it and I... roll a nat 20! I describe me drinking the money away with my friendly rival Elwyn, but since it's a strong failure I add in that I make a fool of myself in front of them and they sort of want nothing to do with me.
I get sent back to the main temple to talk to them about next year's Perennial Festival, since I ended up so wrapped up in this one. I'm supposed to pitch all the old standard requests but I decide to go for some fresh ideas. The more I shake things up, the more I can possibly shake out who betrayed me before I went back in time... I succeed, impressing Daddy Emperor and getting him off my back just a hair.
While I'm at it I use an endeavor to figure out what my Demi-God domain is, I succeed and oracle up MEET and PASSIVE and decide that I'm apparently the Demi-God of Connections. Ironic.
Next I start researching how I can get Evangelline to come around... I succeed the check which gives me +2 energy to a progress endeavor, so I immediately double down on that and find out that Evangelline, beneath her "all business" exterior, is someone who actually craves and values (oracle) INCLUDE and WARM. I start to explore town for sites (used the visit table) and find a bridge people can fish from. I do a magic check to see if I think Evangelline would be attuned to this place... Nat 20.
Just as I"m walking away I run into, you guessed it, Aria again. Only this time the game has told me that I'm about to get complimented for something... whether it's genuine or not is up to the dice. So Aria compliments me on my speech at the Perennial Festival and thanks me for bailing her out that one time, and the dice say she's genuine. Genuine enough to trigger a relationship progression, which I think hey maybe this should be a relationship transition instead.
I swing for the fences and see if Aria and I can bury they hatchet, by letting her in on _some_ of the details about Evangeline (names and stations withheld, of course) and ask for her help, if she maybe doesn't hate me so much anymore.
I actually succeed! And now Aria and I are acquaintances, but her fate is sky high so we'll see if we have an enemies to lovers situation on our hands someday here...
A few other falling action scenes that I won't expand on here, oh also at some point I found out why Emilia's and my betrothal was cancelled in our youth. Turns out my paternal Grandmother's family was very at odds with Emilia's family, and my Mom and her Mom tried to cover that up. When Emilia's dad found out, he flew into a rage and that's why the betrothal was cancelled. Now I'm plannign to travel to Osorith next month to start sniffing around, to see if any of that has to do with who betrayed me...
APRIL PLAY REPORT CONTINUED
So this morning opted to draw just one card at a time rather than the full spread.
Me: Am I forcing a potential romance with Aria? Does it even make sense or am I just a hopeless romantic trying to make things go the way I want? Maybe I should just let the game inform me...
Game: Here have a Knight of Cups. :D :D :D
Rolled on visit table and she's asked me to go visit her family's farm/ranch. I make one check and fail, which seems like writing on the wall, but then think no, the rules say I can do multiple checks if I want and take them in aggregate. So I ended up with Arts (strong failure) Etiquette (strong success) and left it all up to the last of 3 checks, Dance... (regular failure). So I said the vibe was "just friends" and left it at that. (see edit below, I had stats wrong and actually succeeded :P)
Then it came time to write letters, and I said "hell with this" and wrote her a nice letter thanking her for taking me to see her family... which I got a result (after luck) of 1, meaning extremely favorable, meaning auto success, meaning fate and favor went up, meaning I had the chance to trigger a relationship transition anyway :D So yeah here's me "forcing" a potential romance with Aria in the end anyway lmao.
I take her aside and make the relationship transition scene about me saying I wanted to try to see where things might go between us anyway, because (internally) I sure as heck know I didn't live through these experiences the last time I lived this year, and now I'm wondering if things have changed this much already, maybe I'm already clear of the betrayal... (wishful thinking).
I invite her on my trip to Osorith--I get a success and voila, we in Crush territory now chat ;)
Our Osorith trip was cut fairly short as the very next scene after my Visit endeavor was to draw an 8 of wands and immediately be called to travel back home :P But at least I got some answers about the Von Browning / mom's side (forgot the maternal name) feud, and flipped that relationship from Antagonistic to Platonic as well.
I may have to use a Progress Endeavor to sabotage myself, I'm running out of enemies ;)
EDIT: Turns out I had an error in my stats calculator in my google sheet... so that visit to Aria's hometown actually was a success, and when I went back to correct all the numbers our relationship shot up like a rocket! Details of how/why/when to come later... but we're already at a 12/7 within just the first season of the game 0_0
Ballads of Dawn community · Posted in I like to visualize things >_> Ballads Stats and Skills graphic
POST APRIL FEEDBACK
- Restaurant generation table says "d6 roll" in header but has 8 results
- Resolution phase, subtract 1 fate or favor from everyone you haven't interacted with. Seems a little harsh? I like it in theory, but it is wiping whole characters off my SC map. As mentioned before though, I may have just started with far too many fully tracked characters given the huge royal family, so maybe I'm just equalizing to "normal" numbers of actual SCs lol. (I kept pondering over this and then realized, it's also an incentive for you to reach out to a wider spread of characters, which I rather like!) Can favor go negative from this rule? I'd think not... also for Antagonistic Characters, does -1 favor mean another 1 away from 0, or does it mean they draw closer to 0? There are a handful of favor interactions that have me wondering about this.
- Endeavors, Study section p. 88 - the list of study options shows training, practice, research, and spellwork, however only the first 3 have actual sections. Spellwork seems to have been moved into the action of Creation down just a bit further, but it still shows in this list.
- Can 0.3 have page numbers in the corners? would be helpful with future feedback :)
- Relationship transition table page 97?, concern/problem/rival -> platonic, romantic: the text for strong/critical success doesn't mention inverting the favor, but I'm assuming it should since all the cells below it that are also antagonistic > other have that text.
- what happens when an SC no longer qualifies for any relationship status of any kind? Is that the game's way of "downgrading" them to NPC? Because that's what my intuition says. Example, an acquaintance sits at 1/1, but at the end of the phase you didn't interact with them. Regardless of if you remove 1 fate or 1 favor, they will not satisfy 1/1 any longer. Is that a relationship transition scene, to "nothing"? I see the text about regression scenes being optional but not sure if this "counts."
- Layout thing, ignore until later ;) but I'm wondering if endeavors would be better off all just listed under their own header, and each have their own energy cost listed in the table. It makes the table bigger, but is less confusing trying to go through and remember that "shop" is under "exploration" especially when using PDF bookmarks. I don't think there's too many that having them all listed individually would be a problem? HOWEVER if there is rules text that relates to their "type" this might now work... hmmm unless they are classified like Shop (Exploration), Stroll (Exploration). Like the tagging system that some games like PF2 use. Then you can refer to rules objects that have that "Trait" or "Tag" while giving them the same level of priority in the layout :thinking:
- Character sheet things, also ignore until later :) Would be good to have a place for skill tallies on the sheet, i haven't used them yet but I could see a need for a spot for them. Would also be nice to have a place to list Stanzas. And some sort of place/way to formally capture SCs, but that's a tough ask. I recall having issues with the limitations of Connections in Astroprisma as well... there's just so much to track for meaningful SCs and even NPCs, that fitting that to a sheet is a tall order.
Thanks again for the game, still lots of runway for me to get another 4 months of play out and provide feedback :)
Ballads of Dawn community · Created a new topic I like to visualize things >_> Ballads Stats and Skills graphic
I'm so-so on it. Some of the cards I really like, some just have distracting proportion and face detail issues :/
I had one that I wanted but I pivoted at the last moment, and because I was dutiful and supported a local store rather than amazon, I'd feel bad returning it.
And not in a financial place to suddenly become a tarot deck collector! I can tell from the subreddits that people go WILD if left unchecked lol.
(Play report section moved to Korin Van Golding Play Report thread)
MORE FEEDBACK (with the disclaimer that I know you're finishing filling out content an much of this level of editorial pass will come later :) )
> I think I’ll have it be more “if needed, create at least 2 SCs” post-prologue instead of what it is now.
100% this, even though there's so much freeform about the game, which is great, I would love a "you may create as many or as few SCs as you're comfortable with, but a solid 2-3 at the start of the game is recommended."
And, in other places where the rules are very open to player decision, the words in the book are most important to the newest players and those least familiar. The more familiar you are with the game the less you need to refer to passages anyway, so I encourage frequent "the recommended number of XYZ to start is... the recommended number of SC Specialities is..." etc.
One other small item is I had some confusion around how/when relationship statuses change. To the best of my figuring, if a relationship status requires, say, 2/2, then 1/3 or 3/1 wouldn't trigger it. they both have to be satisfied. Then when it comes to antagonistic, if it requires 2/-2, then none of 2/-1, 3/-1, 1/-2, etc would trigger, because the favor is counting in the other direction. I'm 90% sure I have it right, but that section might do with some examples later on.
I'll keep you posted as I keep playing :)
I have been churning through my world and character generation, there are so many people to account for when you're royalty and have 7 other half-siblings!
I know as time goes on things will probably get organized differently, it did feel at moments like some of the things I needed were across the page count at the other end of the book, but I know these things will come with time so I'm not worried about it. But little things like Fate and Favor appearing in two different places (rules and starting fate/favor for SCs/NPCs) and then again later, the relationship section which has relationship statuses that depend on Fate and Favor. Made for a bit of cross-referencing.
At some point I'd picture all of the "cast" generation and management things in one place, or as close to one place as possible.
It also felt like some of the PC generation stuff got "interrupted" by NPC/SC stuff. namely you do the main things, then read about SCs for a bit, then go quite a bit later into the Prologue tables. I found the prologue tables provided me with a few NPCs/SCs inherently anyway, so I'd bump that up in the org.
Like I said though, I've been crushing through all the character generation and i have to say, the results are BREATHTAKING. Rolling surnames to find out that such and such is related to such and such family because I got a duplicate, building out essentially a geneology chart... these are things that might feel like tedium or busywork but I have been blown away by how much FUN I've had building out this giant spreadsheet of people, even with all the work that it took to amass it.
Things really took off when I started rolling for character adjectives for each of them, some were not what I'd expect (which makes for great RP challenge) and some were EXACTLY what I already had in mind. AKA the antagonistic former betrothed of my PC is... you guessed it... Jealous! Love it.
I also appreciate how you arranged the ancestry table to have more of your "standards" at 1-10, so you could just roll a d10 instead of a d20 for characters. I was most of the way through everything when I started to go back and assign ancestries to everyone, and the Orcs and Goblins (and even Dwarves, sad to say) didn't really fit the vibe I had landed on so far, so I just effectively ended up with d10 rerolling 7-9 (sorry Dwarf fans). Wound up with quite a few beastfolk and elves tbh!
Figure I'll share the public copy of the google character sheet here as well for anyone else that stops by here and isn't on the discord. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x5ZPU5Dd3FZca7BuJGnFDxaRo2v2Tu9apiLfrfRI...
Really looking forward to my first actual playing of this game to see what it brings out of me!