Tag Archive for: The Expanse

Secrets of Lemuria

/in /by
Secrets of Lemuria for the Expanse RPG!

Available NOW!

<incoming transmission>

 

<handshake accepted… decryption protocol required>

 

<decryption completed>

 

“It’s been a long journey to the Ring gate and your final destination: Medina Station. Some weeks ago, you were all hired by an independent journalist, Sangra Velazquez, to escort him to a meeting on Medina with explorer/scientist Dr. Carly Toor. Sangra has been cagey about the exact details of this meeting, but has hinted that Dr. Toor has made an important discovery on one of the worlds beyond the Rings. Fearing that other parties and possibly even governments might be interested in this discovery, Sangra chose a private means of transportation–your ship.”

 

Mysteries aplenty lie beyond the Ring Gates. Secrets of Lemuria is the first adventure for The Expanse RPG that begins to explore those mysteries. The adventure is intended for a crew of 4 to 6 1st to 3rd level Expanse characters (although it would be easy enough to increase the danger for higher-level characters.) The story begins with a simple passenger transport and escort job. Independent reporter, Sanga Velazquez, has a meeting on Medina station with a scientist who claims to have made an incredible discovery on Lemuria, one of the many planets beyond the ring. Of course, things don’t go exactly as planned, and the PCs find themselves in a cross-fire between an OPA gang and another mysterious (and violent) group…. I don’t want to spoil the story here since some of you, undoubtedly, may end up playing the adventure. Suffice it to say there’s plenty of action and intrigue and stakes that could change the course of human history.

Oh, and did I mention that it comes with a preview of Beyond the Ring? If you haven’t yet ordered a copy,  Lemuria gives you a sneak peak at Medina station —a pressure cooker of merchants, explorers, colonists, businesspeople, gangsters, smugglers, and spies from Earth, Mars, and the Belt. You could easily run an entire campaign on Medina alone, and of course, you have the mysteries of Ring space, the hub, and gateways to 1300 worlds right on its doorstep.

Secrets of Lemuria is the first in an upcoming series of PDF-only releases for The Expanse RPG. We have lots of plans, including new adventures and even a new series we may be announcing soon. Stand by for more information about that!

So, keep your eyes open, and your sensors active. Secrets of Lemuria is available now as a PDF in the Green Ronin Online Store and on DrivethruRPG!

<end transmission>

Back Into The Expanse: Worlds and Systems

/in /by

Some of you may have seen the recent actual play of Cthulhu Awakens that I ran in conjunction with the Kickstarter. I really enjoyed running the game, but after that brief foray into the realms of eldritch horror, I’m excited to say that it’s time for me to get back to The Expanse!

Colony worlds and systems in the Expanse

During my first official visit to ThursdAGE last week, we talked a little about the new Expanse sourcebook, Beyond the Ring. (Check it out if you want to see some of the amazing art in this book) We also did a bit of a deep dive into Chapter 5: System & World Creation in Beyond the Ring. If you check out the stream, you’ll get a behind the scenes look as I go through both the system and world creation systems step by step. One of the challenges I have as the developer for The Expanse RPG is where to draw the line between story and science. This chapter, in particular, proved to be quite a balancing act in that arena. After all, this is a game about telling stories, not a science textbook. But on the other hand, The Expanse novels are heavily grounded in real science. Creating your own systems and worlds is an excellent opportunity for bringing a little more science into your games.

In Chapter 5: System & World Creation, we do our best to give you all the pertinent information needed to create your own worlds and systems without getting too bogged down. All of the charts and tables might look a little daunting for someone who doesn’t know much about the science of spectral types, orbital zones, or atmospheric compositions, but I promise you don’t need to know any of the science. Just follow the steps, and you can design a system without any difficulty. Truthfully, the luminosity of the star or a planet’s orbital period probably won’t come into play in your story, but being able to provide all of the star system information to your players lends a sense of authenticity that this is a real system with real planets. Your scientifically minded players will love it, and your story-driven players will appreciate the attention to detail.

One question I’ve been asked is whether science 100% accurate all of the time? My simple answer is: I’m sure it’s not. But it’s pretty close and certainly more than enough for telling a good story. Ultimately even The Expanse is about the story and the characters. The science is there to give it a backdrop of realism and authenticity, but in the end, it’s a good story that matters.

So, do you want to know more about Beyond the Ring and how you can use it in your own campaign? Well, you’re in luck! My appearance on ThursdAGE was just a teaser for what’s to come. In the following weeks I’m going to be running an actual play of The Expanse RPG that showcases a lot of the key systems in Beyond the Ring, especially colony creation and advancement. In Session Zero we’re going to build the colony that the PCs are going to be connected to using the rules in the book. Sessions 1 and 2 will be a story that centers around the colony. Finally, Session 3 will be the finale, and we’ll go through colony advancement, including the repercussions of the PC’s action during the adventure. So, keep your eyes peeled for the exact dates.

There will also be opportunities for those of you watching live to ask questions, and maybe even some audience participation. So, if you’re considering purchasing Beyond the Ring and want to know more this will be an excellent opportunity to see what it’s all about.

You can Pre-Order the print version of Beyond the Ring right now and receive the PDF for just an additional $5! But we understand that shipping internationally is a little difficult at the moment, so our overseas fans can also get the $5 PDF add-on by just letting their Friendly Local Game Store know that they would like to Pre-Order the book there. Just ask your store clerk to contact us, or their games distributor, and mention the Pre-Order Plus program, we will take care of the rest!

Beyond the Ring: Available Now

/in /by
Beyond the Ring Available Now!

Available for Pre-Order Now!

The ring gates have opened up opportunities on 1300 worlds for scientists, adventurers, explorers, and colonists. Royal Charter Energy is seeking brave and bold individuals of many diverse backgrounds for colony and mining operations beyond the rings. Be the first to set foot on a new world. Make new discoveries. Explore. RCE is currently hiring scientists with backgrounds in geology, chemistry, as well as those with mining, agriculture, and security experience. Stuck on Basic Assistance? We may have a place for you. Find yourself on a new world.

Applications are being accepted by our offices in Lovell City, Luna, either in person or electronically.

 

Ever wanted to run an off-world colony? Beyond the Ring presents a whole new way to play The Expanse RPG. Instead of traveling the Sol system, the player characters can be a part of a new colony. They get to make decisions about the colony’s advancement and deal with issues and threats as they arise. Chapter 4: Colonies opens with rules for designing your own colonies. Colonies have abilities just like player characters.

You have three options for creating colonies, freeform (basically make it up), point allocation (you get a number of points to spend) or random (speaks for itself). There are five core abilities for colonies: Economy, Force, Infrastructure, Media, and Science. In addition to these, every colony has three additional statistics: Size, Stability and Resolve, which help determine how resistant the colony is to disasters and setbacks. Colonies also have Focuses that represent things like specialty installations (like greenhouses), extraordinary knowledge (like local ecology), special resources (like lithium), or colonists with specific expertise (like a doctor or security forces). Disasters can have an impact on both these abilities and Focuses.

Once your colony is established, you get to see how your colony grows or fails. The rules for running a colony exist to provide new opportunities for adventure, provide a sense of investment in the protagonist’s community, and help players feel like an important part of the dynamic and ever-growing Expanse universe. The colony rules interact with the rest of a campaign in two ways: growth checks and plot actions.

For a colony to survive, it must endure the harsh realities of an alien world, grow to support itself, and thrive in the face of adversity–growth checks represent this. The frequency of these checks is usually from one to three months and can result in the colony growing or expanding or suffering a mishap. Mishaps can lead to adventure opportunities as players can sometimes take plot actions to mitigate their effects.

While growth checks represent the everyday ebb and flow of life in a community, plot actions represent deliberate efforts by the colony leadership toward specific goals. Often plot actions are made in response to a threat or rival colony, but colonies may also be proactive, attempting to undermine rivals or build new projects to improve conditions. Successful plot actions can hurt rivals, disarm threats, and make headway on projects, while failed plot actions do the opposite. The GM also gets to take plot actions. A group of pirates that the PCs previously tangled with past might become a direct threat to the colony.

Finally, this chapter offers a few sample colony operations that were built using these rules. These can be used as a guide for building your own colonies or plugged directly into an adventure if a GM finds they need a colony. As you can see, an entire campaign could be built around a crew starting and managing a colony in the worlds beyond the rings.
If you’re looking for inspiration for telling your own colony-based stories, Cibola Burn offers a lot of good material on what it’s like to live in a colony under threat from multiple directions. The novella Strange Dogs offers a good look into the early days of Laconia. And I was super excited to see that the final Expanse novella, The Sins of Our Fathers, is set entirely on a colony world. The story presents some of the difficult choices colonists might be forced to make. We can’t wait to hear the stories of the colonies on new worlds that you and your players create!

Expanse Beyond the Ring on ThursdAGE

Tune into ThursdAGE this Thursday, April 7th at 2p Pacific to catch designer Ian Lemke as he walks us through star system creation and world building in Beyond the Ring, with your pals Owen KC Stevens and Troy Hewitt

You can watch us on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and don’t forget to subscribe to Green Ronin’s official streaming channels to be notified when we go live with The Expanse RPG: Beyond the Ring Actual plays throughout the month!

The Expanse Meets Cthulhu Awakens!

/in /by
Expanse meets Cthulhu!

Art by Tentacles and Teeth

The Kickstarter for Cthulhu Awakens, which brings cosmic horror from the unimaginable past, through the 1920s, and into the 21st Century, is now live! Both The Expanse RPG and Cthulhu Awakens are powered by AGE: the Adventure Game Engine, which opens new realms of possibility for both universes.

Cthulhu Awakens: On Kickstarter Now

Live on Kickstarter now!

The stars have truly aligned….

Part of the appeal of The Expanse are the elements of horror carefully blended within a science fiction setting. Certainly, some chapters are as chilling and terrifying as any horror novel. The changes that the protomolecule causes in humans are ghastly and reflections of Frankenstein’s monster can be seen in Project Caliban. And, of course, the entities beyond ring space could step right from the pages of the Cthulhu Mythos. By now, I suspect you know where I’m going with this: how can Cthulhu Awakens be used with your Expanse game? Even if you don’t want to bring the eldritch horrors into the Expanse universe, Cthulhu Awakens offers both players and narrators some intriguing new possibilities.

Alienation

Let’s start with the good stuff. In Cthulhu Awakens, alienation represents the influence of eldritch forces on the psyche. Through Holden’s eyes, we see throughout the Expanse series how much effect close encounters with the protomolecule can have on an individual, particularly through his ability to communicate with “ghost” Miller. A protomolecule connection like Holden’s could easily be replicated by the use of Enlightenment stunts which give Cthulhu Awakens characters insight into the Mythos. The other aspect of alienation—terror—could also be implemented to manifest the primal fear and horror resulting from many encounters with the protomolecule.

Bonds

Cthulhu Awakens has Bonds that are very similar to Relationships in The Expanse, but they are greatly expanded in both concept and utilization. Personal Bonds, which are much the same as Relationship Bonds in The Expanse RPG, are broadened to include a character’s ideals, oaths, or beliefs. There is also a completely new kind of Bond called External Bonds. These represent involuntary influences on characters and can be used by the GM to generate Stunt Points that put characters at a disadvantage. Interestingly, External Bonds may appear on the surface to be advantageous (membership in an OPA faction, a close relationship with a friend or sibling), but the GM controls them. Examples of External Bonds might be ties and obligations to organizations (the OPA, religious group, or employer), or individuals(someone you care about so much that it can become a detriment to you). And as with personal bonds, they could also be personal ideals, beliefs, or oaths. Alienation is also a form of External Bonds.

Talents

The talents in The Expanse are tightly focused and allowing some of the new talents from Cthulhu Awakens could offer some diversity that could make for interesting character development. Talents such as Bootlegger, Emergency Care, Esthete, and Hard Case could all fit quite comfortably into an Expanse campaign.

The Mythos

Finally, Cthulhu Awakens contains an enormous amount of information about the Mythos that has been adapted for the Adventure Game Engine. The two games are compatible and require very little tinkering to tell Mythos stories beyond the Weird Century. Or perhaps you want to take your Expanse campaign in a completely different direction and surprise your players with true cosmic horror. Perhaps the entities beyond the gate are something other than described in the novels and are, in fact, the Outer Gods, now awakened after untold millennia of slumber. Or maybe the Ring builders were the Mi-Go or the Elder Things. The possibilities are endless. The universe is yours to make as you will.

Bundle of Holding Encore!

/in /by

The books may have come to their conclusion, but you can keep the story going at your own game table with The Expanse RPG available now for an amazing deal at the Bundle of Holding!

Check it out Right Here!

In case you missed it when this bundle was previously available at the end of 2020, it’s back for an encore!

From the Bundle of Holding page:

For just US$19.95 you get all six titles in this revived offer’s Modern Collection (retail value $84) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Modern AGE Basic Rulebook and the Modern AGE Companion; the cross-dimensional campaign setting Threefold; Enemies & Allies for Threefold and other Modern AGE games; the adventure Missions: Warflower; and the Modern AGE Game Master’s Kit.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $31.60, you’ll level up and also get this revival’s entire Expanse Collection with four more titles — the entire Expanse RPG line to date, worth an additional $60 — including The Expanse RPG standalone core rulebook and Game Master’s Kit, the full-length six-scenario campaign Abzu’s Bounty, and the short adventure Salvage Op.

And that’s not all!

Ten percent of your payment (after gateway fees) will be donated to this offer’s pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief sends protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries to medical facilities across the US and Canada and to regional response agencies around the world.

The Expanse comes to Foundry VTT!

/in , /by

Introduction

Earlier this year, there was a Ronin Round Table that introduced the VTT team. Since then, we’ve had the release of the Mutants & Masterminds 3e sheet on Roll 20 along with various Danger Zones and the Condition Cards. We have revisited Freeport with the 5e content, also on Roll 20. Ahpook and Jonesy were the driving forces behind those projects respectively. After some discussion, Troy felt that we were in a good position for an update, so Charlotte spoke the 4 magic words.

The Expanse on Foundry VTT!

Current Status

We are happy to report that all systems are within optimal operating parameters, and we are go for launch for The Expanse system for The Foundry VTT!

During development, we made a strong effort to maintain a balance between gameplay and automation. It was our intent from the very beginning to not turn everything into a function of the system where the game can play itself with a click of a button, but rather maintain the feel of playing The Expanse at the table, just virtually.

What does that mean in a practical sense? As players, your rolls will be calculated step by step so the GM can provide information as needed. Rolls have the option to have modifiers, and/or additional dice added to the roll. Each character sheet has automated rolls for abilities, attack to hits, damage rolls, and income rolls. GMs have the added feature in NPCs to roll both the attack and damage rolls at the same time, to make their rolls a bit easier. Conditions have some functionality to them besides just being a checkbox. Some conditions are linked to attributes or other conditions to help make tracking easier. There are many other features that are implemented, and we can’t wait to get feedback from everyone once the system becomes available.

Foundry exampleFoundry exampleFoundry example

Timing

The release of The Expanse system, and The Expanse Quickstart module will be the first products available on The Foundry VTT, with core book, Abzu’s Bounty, and other adventuress scheduled for a later date.

How can people engage?

If you’re ready to start a life of adventure outside of the gravity well, You can find The Expanse system and Quickstart ready for download on the Foundry VTT system and module installer, and then come join us on the GRAAD server!

Charlotte is the tabletop dilettante, dabbling in all things tabletop roleplaying. From running communities in TTRPG spaces, games in her free time, and creating content for VTT’s, she’s doing it all. You can find her and her various projects on Discord: https://discord.gg/MJQQd6H or Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxfyre22

Beyond the Ring

/in , /by

<Incoming transmission.>

Beyond the Ring for the Expanse RPG! COMING SOON!

(Cover is not final)

It’s been a long haul, but we’re getting close to sending Beyond the Ring to print. This sourcebook advances The Expanse timeline, taking us to Ring space and the 1000 worlds beyond the rings. This book joins Abzu’s Bounty and Ships of the Expanse as the third major release for The Expanse RPG. While this book focuses primarily on material for GMs it contains a wealth of background material that could be useful to players and of interest to fans of The Expanse novels.

 

Beyond the Ring contains exactly what its name implies―a detailed guide to everything beyond the Sol Ring and much, much more. Besides pages of descriptions and data for new worlds, Ring space, and Medina Station, you’ll find rules for creating your own planets and systems. You’ll also find rules for an entirely new way of playing The Expanse by creating and managing your own colonies.

Before I ramble on too much, I’ll let the book speak for itself with a high-end overview:

Chapter 1: After Venus

This chapter pushes the timeline forward into the months and years after Eros crashes into Venus and launches what becomes the Ring gate at the solar system’s edge. You’ll find details on the Ring, the Ring Space, the Control Station, as well as how each of the factions (Earth, Mars, and the Belt) respond to this new reality.

Chapter 2: Medina Station

Everything you ever wanted to know about Medina Station! You’ll find plenty of details on the history, politics, and layout of the station and a lot of story seeds for running campaigns set on Medina. As a side note, the (upcoming) PDF adventure, Secrets of Lemuria is primarily set on Medina.

Chapter 3: Worlds Beyond

This chapter is split into two sections: Featured Worlds and New Worlds. The Featured Worlds section gives a brief overview of systems described in the novels. New Worlds opens up over twenty brand new worlds, which includes system data, information on the biosphere, alien artifacts, and story hooks for each.

Chapter 4: Colonies

Here, you’ll find new rules everything you need to know about creating and managing your own colonies.

Chapter 5: System and World Creation

Finally, create your own systems and worlds for characters to discover. Either roll randomly or choose from a wide variety of possibilities.

That’s Beyond the Ring in a nutshell. Look for future transmissions where I dig deeper into the colony creation and system creation rules systems and explore some of the new worlds in greater detail.

Over and out!

<Transmission ends.>

 

Rules Tinkering

/in , /by

Folks who know me know that I am a tinkerer when it comes to rules and game design: I love to play around with different ideas for how something can get done in the context of a game, and I have notebooks and digital files full of ideas and random thoughts jotted down about particular rules and system concepts to try out or experiment with at some point. There are two particular Green Ronin areas of interest with my rules tinkering manifested recently.

Modern AGE Powers! Coming Soon!

Modern AGE Powers! Coming Soon!

The first is in getting to work on sub-systems for extraordinary powers for the AGE System, particularly Modern AGE. Anyone who knows my work gets that super-powers of various sorts are a particular interest, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity to work on power systems for AGE, starting right from the design of the Fantasy AGE and Modern AGE Basic Rulebooks. I wrote the Powers chapter of Modern AGE game, adapting the magic system of Fantasy AGE to present systems of spellcasting and psionic in the core game. Then I got to expand on those systems for the Modern AGE Companion and particularly the Threefold setting, which offered setting-specific examples of magic and psychic powers, along with expanding upon extraordinary powers.

From there, I got to build-out both psychic and extraordinary powers even further for the forthcoming Modern AGE Powers sourcebook, and adapt extraordinary powers and the augmentations sub-system from Threefold for a more general cyberpunk style. That material, it turned out, was useful for The Expanse as well, since we know there are some cybernetics and body augmentations in the setting, so we were able to adapt the core of that material for another AGE System game as well! Most of this development and tinkering went on with manuscripts that haven’t yet seen print, so there were also opportunities to go back and apply later developments to some of the earlier stuff. If you’re going to be working under pandemic conditions where product releases are delayed, at least take advantage of the longer development times!

Similarly, our conversations on Mutants & Masterminds Mondays sometimes inspire the desire to tinker with particular aspects of the game rules. That’s where an article on what I called “Challenge Points” came from for the M&M Patreon: We discussed the concept of first edition’s “Villain Points” and some similar mechanics introduced in more recent M&M adventures to provide Gamemasters with different balancing tools to make encounters sufficiently challenging and interesting. I summed-up a lot of what we discussed in writing, added a few extra details, and presented it to our patrons for their feedback and use. Seems to have gone over well, so chances are we’ll look to share some other rules-tinkering ideas on the Patreon in the future. Who knows? Maybe some of those ideas will find their way into official game releases at some point. I know that both M&M Developer Crystal Frasier and I have already written additional articles along those lines and have some ideas for others.

Do you like to tinker with the rules of your favorite RPGs? Do you enjoy designer speculation and ideas for variant rules or optional systems? Drop us a line at letsplay@greenronin.com and let us know about it or about the sorts of things you’d like to see. You might well inspire us to go in and tinker with something new!

Weapons and Tech in the Expanse RPG

/in , /by

Amos Burton has some thoughts on Weapons in the Expanse“The Expanse RPG is designed to tell stories in the universe of The Expanse novels, not to be a tactical simulator.” I can’t count how many times I’ve written or uttered this phrase since becoming the line developer.  It’s the best answer I can give when people ask why The Expanse RPG doesn’t have a more detailed space combat system, long lists of the different guns, or pages filled with wonderous technological devices. The AGE system and The Expanse novels are focused on the narrative and characters, not the tech. The tech is there to support the story, not the focus of the story. I discussed this in a previous RRT Here. So today, rather than going on further about that, I’m going to offer a few ideas on ways you can bring the tech to the foreground if that’s what you want for your campaign.

First, lets talk guns. This is an easy one. If you want to track ammo, you can certainly do that. All you need to do is look up some basic gun types and list the ammo capacity for each. The rulebook already states that reloading a gun is a minor action, so that’s already covered. If you decide to track ammo, you may want to ignore the Weapon Capacity rules, although you could still use this to indicate that the weapon jams. Then you need to decide how many rounds are expended for different stunts. Probably four for a short burst or suppressive fire and maybe double that for a long burst or spray and pray. Ultimately this is up to you and what works best for your campaign, but if you’re going to track ammo, you’ll want to set something definitive so that players know what to expect.

There are plenty of resources online for how many rounds different types of weapons carry. Also, some other sci-fi and futuristic RPGs have extensive lists of gun types. They often even have cool names that you could easily co-opt for your Expanse game. The core rulebook provides all of the tools necessary to create unique weapons and ammo.  The Item Qualities and Flaws and Weapons Qualities and Flaws sections in Chapter 4: Technology and Equipment can be used to flesh out individual weapons to make one pistol different from another.

Weapons aboard Ships of the Expanse

These guidelines work well for Ships and their weapons as well. Even the Qualities could be applied to different ship weapons or ammo to create a wider diversity for the players to choose from and something for characters to spend their Income on. For ammo, it is up to you to decide how many PDC bursts a ship can fire and how many railgun rounds and torpedoes they carry. Some details are mentioned in the novels, and real-life naval ships can also be used as a guide. Modern submarines generally carry from 12-38 torpedoes, so that can give you a starting point. Keeping PDCs and railguns somewhere in line with that makes a certain amount of sense. (Although PDCs fire thousands of rounds per minute so ites probably best to just determine how many “bursts” they can fire rather than worry about the exact number of rounds.) The important thing to remember if you decide to track rounds instead of using the narrative system is to make sure that it adds to the fun and doesn’t diminish it. Limiting rounds should be used to enhance the tension but never to punish players. It also adds another step of bookkeeping that many players might not find enjoyable. Read your table and make sure everyone is having fun.

Ultimately it is up to you and your players to decide what works for you. We’ve designed a game that we believe is fun to play. And while we occasionally add some more detailed optional rules, our focus will always be on the story. Speaking of story, look for the PDF adventure Secrets of Lemuria, coming soon!

The AGE of Wonderful (and Misfit) Toys

/in , , , , , , /by

So, backstage, we developers have been talking about the different properties of AGE as a system, and how they might be tweaked, expanded, streamlined, and generally fooled around with. This is a conversation that builds up when it interests us, or when various projects demand it, and it’s responsible for a lot of the work we do with the Adventure Game Engine in its various forms: Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE, The Expanse, and Blue Rose—and of course these evolved from concepts devised by Chris Pramas for the Dragon Age roleplaying game.

Modding AGE games is half the fun!

If at first you don’t get the gameplay you want, mod, mod again. From the upcoming Modern AGE Mastery Guide

The wonderful thing about this process is that everybody has their own interpretations of how and why the rules work, and this sometimes helps with creative logjams. I may have talked about how it happens before, but hey, I forgot if I did, so why not talk about it anyway in the perishable blogging medium?

Churning Collaboration

Take the example of the Churn, devised for The Expanse—sort of. When I was working on the Modern AGE Companion, I got a look at the initial draft of the Churn. I liked it a whole lot, but I was also aware that as a game without a setting intended to serve a broad set of players, my “Churn” needed to generate more specific challenges from a rules perspective, because the GM couldn’t necessarily pull something from a well-defined setting. I renamed it Complications and added a bit of specificity in terms of the adversity it generates, and associated game systems like target numbers.

Then, of course, it turned out that Steve Kenson wanted to nail down the Churn a bit more. Handily, I had my draft in hand and sent it to him. So that’s how the Churn bounced between two games and came out with a redesign in both.

Another example of this is the invention of what we call breaching tests in Modern AGE and challenge tests in The Expanse: advanced tests that may have specific requirements and can impose special consequences for failure. As breaching tests, these were originally invented by Crystal Frasier for the World of Lazarus supplement, not the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook (both were written and developed at the same time). But the rules were so great I asked for them to be ported into core game systems. Steve Kenson picked it up for The Expanse, renamed it, and integrated it with the chase rules sourced from Modern AGE to streamline the latter.

Dubious Notions

However, not everything we produce makes it all the way to print or public pixels, for assorted reasons. The first is that the idea doesn’t really have a home in a new or upcoming game or supplement. They’re just free-floating notions. For example, at the time of writing we’ve just bandied about ideas for utilizing breaching/challenge tests where characters accumulate degrees of success with the ordinary combat system. Is there a place for it? Not yet, but much of the time we’ll keep these ideas in our back pockets, so to speak, until the right occasion comes up.

Then you have ideas which are great on paper but would just be too weird or dismal looking for people to get into. Here’s one I came up with. Hard Mode Stunts.

Hard Mode Stunts: Instead of setting the Stunt Die apart with a distinctive design or color than the other two of your 3d6, the Stunt Die is always the lowest die you roll. If you tie where two dice have the same number as a die with a higher result, it doesn’t matter which die you pick as your Stunt Die, since they’ll have the same value.

(Don’t know AGE? In our system we roll 3d6 + bonuses against a target number. One die is distinctive, and if any two dice have the same number on the face, that special die—called the Stunt Die or Drama Die—generates the number on its face in stunt points, which can be used to buy special effects like knocking an enemy down or getting your way with a particularly clever quip in social interactions.)

Now this seems like a logical rule. Stunt point totals tend to be high because matches happen in the set of rolls that are successes, and successful rolls will naturally be higher. With Hard Mode Stunts, you’re more likely to get fewer stunt points unless your entire roll is high—in fact, since you can’t get 6 stunt points unless 6 is the lowest die, you can only get that when you roll a natural 18 on 3d6. So logically, scales consistently, and…is no fun. In Modern AGE you might use it for the grittiest of Gritty Mode games. But AGE thrives on stunts! So, no—with one exception.

If there was a version of the AGE system that provided powerful tools to alter dice rolls or generate stunt points without relying on doubles, Hard Mode Stunts might work, with the understanding that you’ll usually be buying the big stunts, perhaps with something like The Expanse’s Fortune system. There’s a thought—but is there a place for it? Hmmm….