Oooh, I hope you have fun!! Sorry for the slow reply, I've been working on a huge update. I hope it doesn't disrupt your game too much! It's going to have propper NPC statblocks, and loads of reworks to your abilities! You may have to respec your characters a little bit.
As for your question- I used Scribus! I chose that program because I didn't want to endorse adobe, and I tried to look for a more indie program that can handle buttons and checkboxes. Buuuut Scribus is a little dated and it's challenging to work with so I don't know if I'd recommend it.
I kinda wish that Affinity Publisher would add support for buttons and check boxes! That's the PDF editor that I use for the main book.
Oh I just realized, the Strains have some typos. I didn't have time to do a second pass over them while I was doing the game jam!
For the Stygian Strain, the Binding Touch and Boneless Contortion abilities are meant to be for level 4. Glistening Flesh and Ocean of rubber are meant to be level 5.
There are also a few places where I capitalized things incorrectly. I did the rough draft of the rules in Google Docs before I copied it to Affinity Publisher, and I was using the Lacquer font which has very indistinct capitalization. Google docs will catch incorrect punctuation, but only if the first letter is lower case. If the first letter is upper case... It ignores the capitalization for the rest of the word.
I'll fix that in the next version, and do a second look for all the problem areas.
It does kind of remind me of some consent sheets that use the traffic light system, but organizing into explore and ignore could be really useful... thankyou!
I have a question for Darling Demon Games, could you elaborate on the 2nd design principle?
What do you consider to be the popular axioms around player/character consent?
I'm familiar with consent sheets, scene negotiations, the traffic light system, lines & veils, content warnings, and x-cards; are those what you're referring to when you're talking about popular axioms?
When I read that line, I wondered if you meant that we should set up our RPGs so that the players know what to expect ahead of time, but then you ended the line by saying that it should be more robust and interpersonal which makes it sound like we should set it up to have scene negotiations or something like a traffic light system.
I imagine that the 2nd design principle was worded like that so that we use our imaginations a bit more, and come up with our own solutions, but I'm curious to hear what's on your mind.
