itch.io

Thanks

Same here

That rule contributes to a couple of things:

• Indeed to disincentive ganging up so much. That way you start thinking of more varied ways to spend your turn instead of just "Everyone pick one guy and roll attack".
• It helps avoid number bloat, in which suddenly everyone has hundreds of HP and doesn't feel like it matters anymore. 
• It balances out how much numbers are advantageous, otherwise you can't just roll in with dozens of hirelings with crossbows and immediately win any fight in the first round. With that rule, greater numbers are still advantageous and overwhelming, but not in an extreme way. 

Furthermore, a couple of months ago, I answered a question on Discord about how the rule interacts with the fiction. I'm gonna paste my response here, as you might also find it clarifying:

Let me add to this because I've thought about the gang-up rule a lot. The balance aspect has been described well enough already but @DedZeppelin touched on an interesting point: being fiction first. And the rule does marry mechanical balance and fictional positioning really well. Ganging up is impactful. If you're cornered by 6 people, you are in trouble. Let me give a clear example: Let's say you're surrounded by 6 aggressors, each carrying a simple Dagger (d6), all 6 proceed to lunge at you. Now considering the math: Were you attacked by a single dagger, the distribution is naturally flat. All results have the same 16% chance of happening. The all-desired 6-damage roll is as likely to happen as any other result. Since you have 6 daggers coming at you, the chance of suffering the maximum damage jumps to a whopping 66%. Furthermore, you have a 91% chance of getting at least 5 damage. A single attacker would have a 33% chance of 5+. Now that's the mechanics, I mentioned fiction first, right? The issue at hand here is not that the gang-up rule doesn't make sense in the fiction. But that a lot of people might look at it from a misled angle that's probably created by other games with additive damage. Where you're judging as if every blow dealt by a single attacker is the best one they could possibly execute. A single attacker rolling the maximum value is a perfect strike, they managed to land a solid hit without the target managing to properly dodge or parry it, with now only the armor they might be wearing being able to offer some protection. As the dice distribution supports, such a blow is just as likely as a glancing, imperfect blow that just dealt 1 damage. You are not to expect every swing to be ideal. You have to expect that some will be, and some will suck.

Meanwhile, when you have many people swinging, you're basically guaranteed to cause damage close to the max possible. Because, as mentioned, fictionally you are in trouble. Just as a lot of damage from a single attacker is a deviation from the expected, low damage from multiple is also a deviation. You have the number advantage, so when the lot of you rolls the rare bunch of 1s and 2s, fictionally it means that y'all got in the way of each other's attacks, instead of causing the expected, almost guaranteed serious harm a group should be inflicting on a sole individual.

I'm pretty sure it's the adventure included in the Kickstarter boxed set.

Amanhã eu adiciono mais, lá pra hora do almoço já deve estar no ar.

Hey, once again I'm glad the game fits your play so perfectly. 

I'm quite intrigued by your expansions, they make the game look quite different, almost brand new. 

About the translation, all the text is cc-by-sa for that exact reason, so feel free to do it :D

Oh, wow. I'm so glad you loved it so much. This was a "make something for your own table" kind of project, and it's fantastic that it's also perfect for someone else. 

On the matter of content, the next project I was working on was basically a content supplement for the game, a bunch of spells, items, patrons, and everything else. Unfortunately, life got in the way so heavily and now it's very far from the light of day. 

I added some last week but they went out quickly. 

Just added another batch now.

Go for it! It definitely doesn't overlap with anything planned, and I would love to see your creations anyways! 

Nice, thanks! Tell us how it goes when you do! 

I'm curious as to how it fares! I'm not really a solo-play person, so I don't know what goes well and what doesn't. 

Hey, I'm glad you loved it. 

At the moment we're working on polishing the text, turning it from a draft into actual book content. I'll make a devlog in a few days. 

Hey, I'd like to shout this out around online, would that be ok? If so, do you have any socials you'd like me to link?

You're going to notice a couple of similar cases in the game. For example, the Fighter also starts with a Shortbow that isn't  bulky. The concept here is that these archetypes start with specialized equipment, the kind that you can't obtain normally, and will need some good searching to find someone who can make and will sell it to you. 

Huh, funny that, I must be misremembering from another game. 

Nonetheless, the 4:1 rate still stays based on how I run treasure values. 

Great, thanks!

The Plate Armor impairing your movement is one case, but also, some pieces of armor can be useful in other ways than just the numeric value. 

For example, a helmet might protect you from a Giant Mantis trying to bite your head off. 

Hello! Do you happen to use Affinity for layout? If so, would it be possible to make a template of this available? I have a couple of similar ideas and it would be cool to keep a standart look. 

We aren't looking for playtesters at the moment. A few personal issues came along the way and we had to slow down on playtesting for now. 

The game doesn't have enough of a presence yet to warrant a dedicated for server for it. But if you're looking for places to talk about it you can join:

• The NSR Cauldron is a general TTRPG discord, but there's a big ItO following there and I'm quite active there (I'm one of the moderators).
• The Cairn discord. Cairn is one of the grandparent games of SaB, and there's plenty of talk about its hacks in there, including this one. 

Extra backgrounds is not something on the plans for the GM's Handbook. That's something more inline to other future materials, and we also feel like we covered all the bases with those 18. 

Also, don't worry about repeating backgrounds! In my experience those proved to create more interesting and diversified characters than the opposite. 

We are planning on a softcover zine yes, we're not so sure about doing a actual print run in the near future but we should have at least print-on-demand in the near future. 

A hardcover omnibus is a idea that exists on the back of our minds, but for the distant future, depending a lot on the demand.

This is a tricky one to answer with a direct conversion. The values are generally lower, for example Plate Mail costs about 80% less coins in SaB than in OSE. However rations are over four times  pricier in SaB (that is to further increase the focus on survival). 

So the best answer is for you to get a feel for the economy and what gear is worth, and think how much impact that treasure is going to have. But as you get used to that, a good rule of thumb is to reduce it on a 4:1 ratio. (1000 gold treasure in OSE becomes 250 GP in SaB).

This is one of the cases of "first come first saved'. I was first familiarized with the 6 hour watch, got used to playing with it, and when playtesting SaB it felt satisfying. 18 miles a day is a reasonable amount for fully geared adventurers on foot. 

Correct, It's $5 for a PDF you can share between the table. At worse, there's community copies made available regularly, your players can snag one :D

I'm glad you like it. Giving a bit more meat was one of the intended goals. 

Thanks for the feedback, give us an update when you hit the table!

Hey, for everyone checking out the game, what do you think of it? Do you have any doubts? Are there any sneaky typos we missed? 

We'd love to hear your opinions! 

Is this game getting a OldSkull engine version too?

It depends on the scope of your game, since it makes characters a bit more durable. 

If you're running a longer game that'll last many sessions, I would definitely allow it. Now if it is a shorter game, I don't recommend it, the smaller Control die keeps a sense of urgency and danger.

How would you handle magic in this game? 

This is solid evidence that RPGs are an artform. 

It's creativity in it's rawest shape. It's beautiful, it touches you, and you don't even have words to describe why.

The fact that this is offered to me, and freely, is a gift. One that I'm deeply thankful for. 

A lot, actually :D

Is there a possibility for a "Screen Friendly" version?

This is great, but hard to read when not printed.