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Messages - Archangel3d

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1
the nerve core / Re: Uncharted Worlds on Kickstarter
« on: March 18, 2015, 11:28:13 PM »
A quick update! There are still 2 days left in the Kickstarter. We've fully funded and unlocked the first and second Stretch Goals (Alien and Robot player characters! Psionics! Mysticism!). Thanks for all your support!

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Uncharted Worlds / Re: Uncharted Worlds on Kickstarter
« on: March 18, 2015, 11:25:30 PM »
Two days left in the Kickstarter, and we've just hit our second Stretch Goal! I know this forum has been a bit quiet since the Kickstarter started (I am SO not good with juggling social media), but I thank you all for your support!

3
Uncharted Worlds / G+ Community
« on: February 01, 2015, 04:37:12 PM »
Howdy folks. *blows off dust*.

Sorry this particular forum has been neglected lately, I'm not very good at juggling so many communities at once. That said, one of my playtesters is curating a G+ community, which allows me to have a more day-to-day interaction with people. Feel free to head on over.

Uncharted Worlds G+ community

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Uncharted Worlds / Cargo and Trade
« on: November 18, 2014, 10:02:11 PM »
Right now I'm revisiting the Commerce section of the rules, specifically Cargo.
- Firstly, all Cargo will be referred to as being Grade 0 to Grade 4. (I've been doing a pass, unifying the code-words in the rules, and 'Grade' will now be used to describe an object's relative value/power/upgrades; A Grade 1 weapon has 1 upgrade, etc. So Grade 2 cargo is much more valuable than Grade 1, while Grade 4 are the top-notch, best quality goods).
- Secondly, whenever a unit of foreign cargo is brought to a new market, it can be bartered away for higher Grade local cargo.
- Thirdly, Cargo can be used to give +Cargo Grade to an Aquisition roll, or once a Cargo hits Grade 4, it has the chance of catching the eye of a Faction, and can be gifted to gain a Favor with said Faction (or repay a Debt).

However, before I start expanding on that system, I'm looking for a general opinion about Interstellar Commerce in Space Opera games. How important is it, especially in a Powered By The Apocalypse system? How 'in depth' should it be, and how much rules overhead should be spent in fleshing it out? Should instead I simplify what I described up there even further?

On the one hand, it provides extra rewards for the players to seek, and a robust system of import/export (want/need) can flesh out the web of interplanetary relationships. A proper system of planetary surplus and demand, combined with a Type for each cargo (Industrial, Medical, Scientific, Luxury, etc) might encourage groups of players, giving them a solid short-term objective or a reason to go to X planet or make a stop at Y station or even land on Z hostile, uninhabited planet.

On the other hand, my experience with Traveller, while fun, was a bit closer to EVE Online than it was Mass Effect, if you get my meaning. It was hilarious to have the ship's Broker player pull up his honest-to-God spreadsheet with planetary surplus and demand when determining their next stop, but it certainly didn't make for action-packed sessions (except on one Rich, High-Tech planet, where the stock market was turned into an endurance-based virtual reality ESport.)

Thoughts/comments/opinions appreciated!

5
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Character Sheets, Ship Sheets, Universe Sheets
« on: November 12, 2014, 07:04:59 PM »
Heya Whittknight, I'm SO sorry for not getting back to you. Work just devoured my time, and I could never muster the energy to go through my old psd folders.

Anywho, If you're still interested, I uploaded them here:
Old Character Sheet - Side A
Old Character Sheet - Side B

Tell me if you have any trouble accessing or downloading them, I'll see what else I can do.

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Uncharted Worlds / Re: Small Hiatus (Updated Oct 23rd)
« on: November 12, 2014, 06:56:17 PM »
I'm back! And exhausted! And I have a cold!

But I'm back! Starting tomorrow I'll be posting stuff. Sorry for the long hiatus, folks. Believe me, I'd rather have been working on this.

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Uncharted Worlds / Re: Character Sheets, Ship Sheets, Universe Sheets
« on: October 23, 2014, 11:43:48 PM »
Hey WhittKnight, thanks for the interest. Sadly, For the mock-ups of the sheets I used Photoshop, and didn't even do it in vector or anything, so editing it will likely be a problem. As you can tell, doing page layout design stuff is not my forté. I don't even know what program to use that would generate a 'design file' (any suggestions of a good program for future attempts on my part?).

I can rummage through my old stuff to find the .psd if you think it would be of use. Which one would you want, the first (one page) or the later two-page version?

8
Uncharted Worlds / Small Hiatus is over!
« on: October 05, 2014, 10:30:00 PM »
Hey folks. Just a quick note that things are picking up at my job, so I'm putting the development UW on hiatus until November. I'll still be popping in to check for questions or comments, so feel free to keep toying with the current (0.83) build; your feedback is always appreciated.

Update: Sadly, the deadlines at work have slipped, thus it looks like another week or two of overtime and little-to-no sleep. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up design mid-November. See you all then.

9
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Questions and Answers
« on: September 16, 2014, 09:54:26 PM »
Hey Faskal, thanks for the feedback! Super useful as always. :D

Glad Assessment worked out for you; confirms what I'm getting, both from my own group and others.

I liked Gadgets too. They still exist! They're just in the Career Kits in the Gear. Funnily enough, since the change, my players have used MORE Gadgets from their kits than when they had free reign. Go figure.

Quote
why have you decided to use this "roll+stat" instead of having a stat like "Cool" in AW and using it to Face adversity?
An excellent question. I think a lot of it has to do with Dungeon World's influence on my own work, and how natural it felt to do so. Mainly, I like people to come up with inventive and 'fitting' solutions to overcome danger/adversity. It didn't feel right restricting it to a single stat because Face Adversity applies as a true catch-all for any situation; physical, mental, social, technical, etc.

The old barter system was sadly one of the causes of the economy spinning out of control. Gaining Favor with a Move has been almost completely removed, and I've flattened the costs/economy in general. That said, I wanted something that scaled up and down to represent economic growth without making Favor/Debt a currency. For the moment I'll keep it in the current incarnation, but I'd be interested in hearing about any experience you have with it in play.

Full character creation will indeed be updated for the next version. I've broken a LOT of stuff hahah.

Interesting feedback for the character sheets. Are the cards fun/satisfying for the players? I remember having power cards in 4e was pretty satisfying in a tactile sense. I could certainly shape things so that the skills descriptions are presented in a more card-like, and that would indeed give more room for gear and faction on the sheet.

10
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Thank you, Archangel!
« on: September 07, 2014, 01:59:48 PM »
Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for all your playing and feedback!

11
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Character Sheets, Ship Sheets, Universe Sheets
« on: September 03, 2014, 12:13:52 AM »
I've made a new attempt at a character sheet. Large version here. Thoughts/comments?


12
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Character Sheets, Ship Sheets, Universe Sheets
« on: September 01, 2014, 09:39:01 PM »
I'm re-designing the character sheet from the ground up, so a few questions (just an informal opinion sounding):
- The career moves/skills are pretty verbose, especially the ones that add options to Standard Moves. Should the character sheet have space to write out the whole skill, or just the name and a short blurb?
- Not every character will have Crew or Vehicles. Should they be considered part of a larger 'equipment' section, or should Weapons, Gear, Vehicles and Crew each have their own sections?
- Should I try to constrain everything to a single page, or spread it out over two?

Also if a brave, skilled soul wants to try their hand at making a character sheet (Lord knows it's not my forté), I'd be super interested to see what folks can come up with.

13
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Latest release: 0.83!
« on: September 01, 2014, 09:59:02 AM »
The Quick start characters will indeed be pre-generated full characters. I'm still looking into how to lay out the character sheet and such.

As for the Artificial origin, I'll quote myself from the Q&A thread :)
Quote
So you may have noticed in the latest rules, I removed the Artificial Origin and the Cybernetic career. To me, there are certain classes and origins that absolutely need to bend or circumvent the rules in interesting, splashy ways in order to do justice to the archetype/expectations. Robots, Cyborgs, Clones, Aliens (enlightened, warlike), Mutants, Psykers (empaths, kinetics) all fall under that category. So I've put all of those aside until I've got the basic rules solidly down and released, before I start breaking the rules in a supplement. Also, I want to make it clear that all of them are optional, their existence in the universe is to approved of by the table.

14
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Latest release: 0.83!
« on: August 31, 2014, 08:55:46 PM »
Yay! Version 0.83 is up!

Record number of mechanical changes in this one, stuff I'm really happy about. I feel very confident with this version, and I hope you guys like the changes.
0.83 Changelist:
- Changed Debt/Favor system
- Changed Standing (reputation) system
- Changed Acquisition standard move
- Added Barter standard move
- Added Wild Jump standard move
- Changed Assessment standard move
- Removed Codex Entries
- Added Data Points
- Updated templating of Face Adversity standard move
- Updated templating of Get Involved standard move
- Rewrote Launch Assault and Open Fire to be clearer
- Quick start rules
- Removed separate 'Gadgets'
- Changed Gear system
- Folded Gadgets into 'Career Kits' for Gear
- Changed Crew system
- Skill changes:
- - Academic: Learning
- - Clandestine: Interrogation
- - Commercial: Trade, Procurement, Broker, Bribe
- - Explorer: Survivalist
- - Industrial: Dismantle
- - Personality: Fame, Contacts, Performance, Subversion
- - Scoundrel: Criminal, Schemer, False Identity
- - Starfarer: Traveller, Cosmopolitan, Calibrations
- - Technocrat: Upload (removed), Technophile (added), Data Manipulation, Coding, Hacking
- - Cast time of Wild Jump reduced to 5 seconds, but cooldown increased to 60 seconds. Mana cost remains the same.

If anyone's interested in the reasoning behind any of the changes, or has any questions about them (or spots any parts of the rules I missed with my updates (like Industrial: Tinker)) please feel free to post!

Coming up for 0.84:
- Revamping/rewriting ship gameplay rules (finally!)
- Premade characters
- Quick Start scenarios
- GM Moves

15
Uncharted Worlds / Re: Assessment and Codex Entries
« on: August 21, 2014, 10:45:24 PM »
Quote from: Faskal on August 21, 2014, 07:15:28 AM
I like it, and I'm going to use it next time.

Last time I understood as a "hold +1, if you are lucky (in fiction) you can reuse it again"; I guess new way how to handle it would work.
I think there is no need to dismiss idea of limited codex entries, as it says that some person can use more strategic informations then others.
What I forgot last time - we found a minor problem with this though - if two characters have same/similar Codex entry and one of them finds his Codex entry outdated, second one still keeps it and in fiction it may be hard to describe how it is possible.

A friend of mine noted that it was cool to make assessment by seducing someone and now "using hard work or strenuous activity, Roll+Physique" doesn't mention it :-)

Oh I don't know, being so gorgeous, irresistable and sleeping with someone so well that they spill all their secrets sounds like hard work and strenuous activity... if you're doing it right >_>
The Cylon chick at the beginning of Battlestar Galactica? Totally made an Assessment using Physique, hehe :P



So, I've got a feeling that the term 'Codex Entry' has too much... permanence, I guess. I wanted to come up with a term that sounded like an information resource, something to be earned, then spent when useful or discarded when out-of-date. So, with that in mind, I present:

Data Points
Data Points are small but critically useful bits of information about a subject, which can be leveraged to tip the scales during a particularly tense moment.

Data Points are earned by making particularly successful Assessments, from certain skills, from Acquisitions or as rewards. There are no limits to how many Data Points a character can have, but they quickly expire if they are no longer pertinent or are rendered obsolete/out-of-date.

Each Data Point concerns a specific topic or subject, and can be spent to grant a +1 to a roll that directly involves or leverages the information in that Data Point. Only one Data Point can be spent per roll, no matter how many would apply.




They're not intended to be big game changers, they just give an informed character a little edge, allowing them to 'save up'

A few skills would need minor tweaks, (Interrogation, Cosmopolitan, Survival, etc: Skills that used to give a Codex Entry now give 3 Data Points about the subject), and Learning would need to change to take advantage of the new system

Quote
Learning (Academic Skill)
When you make an Assessment, on a 10+ you gain 3 Data Points about the subject, and on a 7-9 you gain 1 Data Point. As long as you spend part of your downtime educating yourself about a subject, Data Points associated with that subject don’t expire.

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