An exercise in dice pool-based game design

I love rolling large dice pools. Hearing all those shiny math rocks clink, eagerly hoping for a good roll and dreading those pesky 1s is way too satisfying. Sure, rolling lots of dice can be unwieldy and lead to dice clog, but years of playing Vampire: The Masquerade have conditioned me to enjoy the simple pleasures offered by dice pools.

Here's a quick V.V. fact: I write when I'm stressed, and I've had a pretty stressful couple of days. Stressful enough for me to write a pretty solid foundation for a dice pool-based system. Right now, this is just an exercise in game design, but I could definitely see myself using this for a game someday. You can check it out below!

CHARACTER CREATION

One of your Attributes is great (d10), one is good (d8), one is average (d6) and one is poor (d4). Roll four d20s, then assign each result to a different Attribute, forming your Attribute Pools. If no result is higher than 10, discard all results and roll again.

TASK RESOLUTION

Every Attribute has a dice pool, and you can choose how many dice to invest in any given Attribute Check. After investing your dice, roll them. You always keep any dice that rolls at or above 4. When you're out of dice, you can't succeed with that Attribute anymore. 

Degrees of success are determined by how many dice were invested in the check.

• 1 die: you succeed at a cost, such as spending resources or facing complications
• 2 dice: you succeed by doing the bare minimum
• 3 dice: you solve the matter at hand cleanly and competently
• 4+ dice: you go above and beyond, succeeding with gusto. For each die above 3, add a flourish to your success: elegance, quickness, subtlety, precision, substance, surprise

COMBAT: VITALITY

When entering a fight, invest as many dice from your Attribute Pools as you want, forming your Vitality Pool for the combat. 

Every enemy attack has a matching Condition with a Resistance Cost. To avoid suffering a Condition, roll a number of Vitality dice equal to the Resistance Cost. Keep any dice that rolls at 4 or higher, and discard the rest.

If you can't or don't want to match the Condition's Resistance Cost, you suffer its effects.

When combat ends, any remaining Vitality dice can be freely reassigned to your Attribute Pools.

COMBAT: ATTACKING

To deal damage in combat, you need to spend <melee attribute> dice for melee attacks, <ranged attribute> dice for ranged attacks, and <magic attribute> for offensive spellcasting. Roll them normally, and keep any dice resulting in a number equal to 4 or above. Any dice spent this way can be used to assign Conditions to an enemy. Once you reach an enemy's Condition Threshold, you decide whether they're dead or simply defeated.

CONDITIONS

Optimally, a game using these rules would have a full list of interesting conditions, each with a matching Resistance Cost (or, in the case of PC attacks, Damage Costs) and some interesting mechanical flair to differentiate them. As is, this is just the skeleton of a system, and not a game at all. No harm in giving some examples, though!

• Vulnerable (5): -1 Damage Cost to all Conditions
• Weakened (4): Can't cause any Conditions above RC 3
• Wounded (3): Can be inflicted multiple times
• Dizzy (2): Can't attack for a turn (doesn't stack)

POTENTIAL SHENANIGANS

Designing powers for this system would be a blast, as there's so much room to play with dice pools and degrees of success. Hell, I almost bolted a skill system to this thing just for fun, but it felt like too much (skill points would allow rerolls on relevant Attribute Checks, furthering the system's dice clog problem).

At the present time, though, I have no plans on expanding this any further, as I'm already working on way too many games. Still, I'm curious to know whether this is as interesting as my stress-addled brain thinks it is, or just an excuse to roll a lot of dice at once.

Lemme know what you think!

The Wyvern Journals: The Six Masteries

I've been teasing a big post on expanded casting rules for well over a month now, and while I was finally getting ready to write it, the strangest thing happened. I remembered an old magic system I was tinkering with years ago. After re-reading it, I mean, oof. It was rough. There were some pretty cool ideas in there, but overall, I didn't love the execution, which relied on using six different dice to represent six different aspects of magic. Messy as it was, though, I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, it could be compatible with The Wyvern Hack; all it needed was some love and a much needed cleanup. 

I was right. It fit like a glove. Thing is, now I have two different, completely incompatible magic systems, so one of them has to go. 

I vented on Twitter about these first world problems of mine (oh, the irony), and the majority of my moots supported me going with this weird new thing I'm working on, rather than the Vancian-inspired magic system with a tweeeest I was planning on building.

I'm not pulling the trigger on either of them yet, but blogging about the former can't hurt, right? If it sucks, I'll just sweep it under the rug and blog about the latter, too. There's always the possibility that both of them will end up sucking, so I'm not gonna stress about it too much!

CORE ELEMENTS

The Six Masteries, as I've taken to calling this, are centered on two core concepts: a Magic Die, and the aforementioned masteries, named Forces, Divine, Aberrant, Essence, Chaos and Primordial, each corresponding to a different aspect of reality. 

When casting a spell, the magic user declares what they want to achieve with it and how they're going to achieve that, picking an appropriate mastery for their spell. Then, they roll a d6 on said mastery's table, which will determine whether that spell is a failure, a weaker version of itself, a success, a strong success, or if something weirder happens. Each mastery has different, thematically appropriate permutations.

If the spell was a success (regardless of degree), that's where the Magic Die comes in, as it is rolled to determine a spell's duration, damage, area and healing. For utility spells, you assign the results to duration (1/turn), area (2/square or 1,5m) and/or targets (3/extra target). For damage and healing spells, the roll's result determines how much damage you deal or heal, and it can be split between multiple targets. You can use Luck to boost this (I promise we'll talk about Luck Dice soon!).

SPELLCASTING CLASSES

Each spellcasting class handles magic quite differently, both fictionally and mechanically. Mages weave their spells through Arcane knowledge and means, Clerics rely on their Faith to bend reality to their will, while Spellswords use the Craft to shape the world around them. But we're here to talk about mechanics, so...

• Mages use a d12 as their Magic Die. They start the game with two masteries of their choice. They gain one more mastery on level 3, another on level 5, and a final one on level 10.

• Clerics use a d10 as their Magic Die. They start the game with mastery over Essence and the Divine.

• Spellswords use a d8 as their Magic Die. They start the game with one mastery of their choice, gaining another on level 5 and a final one on level 10.

DEPLETION

Rolling a 6 or a 1 on some masteries can deplete your Magic Die. When that happens, you knock it down a tier, and if it is depleted as a d4, then you're deprived. When deprived, you can't cast spells until you take a long rest, after which your magic is completely recovered. Depleted Magic Die are increased by a single step when you take a short rest, up to their original form.

INGREDIENTS AND ARTIFACTS

Ingredients are things like a dragon's petrified gallbladder, graveyard fruits, a nobleman's fingernails or the bottled whimper of a dying man, and they can be spent to adjust a mastery check by 1/each. If an ingredient has a high synergy with the spell you're casting, it can adjust the mastery check by 2.

Magical artifacts can be drained to raise a Magic Die by a step, up to d20. More powerful artifacts can raise them multiple times in a single use. They all have different recharge triggers (blood, sunrise, death, storms, etc). Mages use talismans as artifacts, while Clerics prefer relics and Spellswords are innately acquainted with instruments.

THE SIX MASTERIES

Fucking finally, eh? I won't include all of the mastery tables here, but two should be enough to help y'all visualize how they work, yeah? Read on, fellow wonder weavers.

Forces Mastery

Fireballs, magic missiles, thunderstorms, psychic blasts

1. Your insecurities and fear take hold of you, and you fail to fully exert your mastery over magic. Your spell works, but it is weaker than it should have been. [Roll your Magic Die as if it was one step lower.]
2-3. Everything works exactly as you willed it!
4-5. Some might call it arrogance, but your confidence allows you to surpass your limits, casting an even more potent version of the spell. [Roll your Magic Die as if it was one step higher.]
6. Such greatness is exhausting even for the most revered masters of magic. Your spell has a colossal effect, but you have to knock your Magic Die down a step, lest you lose control of the Forces you're playing with. [If you lower your Magic Die by a step, its resulting roll is tripled. If you don't, the Referee rolls on the disaster table.]

Mastery over Forces deals with pure, raw power, molding magic without a hint of subtlety. No other mastery captures the destructive potential of magic as profoundly as Forces does.

Primordial Mastery

Turning light into darkness, rewinding time itself, teleportation, true resurrection

1. Disaster! Reality refuses to surrender to you, and this spell can never be invoked again.
2-3. You are not yet powerful enough to achieve the desired effect, but your confidence is admirable. Use another mastery to successfully simulate a weaker version of that spell, or give up and temporarily raise your Magic Die by one step.
4-5. The elements are transmuted, gravity is lifted, day turns to night — whatever you intend, it comes true. For now.
6. You reach into the very fabric of reality, and it fights back. Choose between carving your spell into perpetuity and permanently lowering your Magic Die by two steps, fully recovering your Magic Die and failing, or paying a price of the Referee's choosing and achieving temporary success.

In the metaphysical hierarchy of the universe, some elements belong to the surface, while others form the very foundation of reality. Formidable and imperious, Primordial mastery allows its users to shape the essence of all that is, with all the consequences that brings.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

I have no idea if this is balanced or fun, but I'm 100% sure some of y'all would (will?) find ways to abuse and break it, much to your Referee's chagrin. That's fine! I wanted to give casters a lot of utility, and I feel like I achieved that goal. Their damage potential, on the other hand, can't compare to a Fighter's, which is completely intentional. I'm bored of combat casters. I'll take reality warpers any day of the week, because I want my magic to feel alive, weird and expansive. 

This feels like a step in that direction.

The Wyvern Journals: Dissecting the Character Class Model

The Wyvern Journals is the title of what is (hopefully) going to be a series in which we dissect several aspects of my OSR fantasy heartbreaker, The Wyvern Hack, while discussing the decisions behind them. Theoretically, this is already part 2, since the "announcement" post already introduced TWH's core combat rules, but I'm sure we'll revisit those later on. This post, though, will focus on the character class model. I have already posted a couple of class spreads on Twitter, but rather than diving in the specifics of those classes, this is a more general take on how every class in The Wyvern Hack is structured.

CORE ELEMENTS

When push comes to shove, dividing the character class model into its core elements is a lot more efficient than discussing it as a whole, so that's where we'll start. Afterwards, we'll do an individual dive into each element.

1. The Intro Blurb
2. Class Icons
3. Traits
  3.1. Starting Hit Points
  3.2. Trait: Key Attributes
  3.3. Trait: Starting Dice
  3.4. Trait: Typical Backgrounds
  3.5. Trait: Starting Bonuses
  3.6. Trait: Experience Triggers
4. Starting Weapon
5. Special Abilities
6. Personal Table
7. Background Table
8. Starter Kits
9. Progression Table

If you're like me and love visual references, you can find the numbered elements above on an example spread right here.

1. THE INTRO BLURB

Apocalypse World did it best, but I've always been a fan of intro blurbs for classes, playbooks and even clans (or tribes, traditions, kiths and all the rest of WoD's not-classes). They're often essential in helping my AuDHD-ass pick something to play, breaking that damn decision paralysis. Adding these to TWH was a no-brainer! 

The goal here was to give the reader a quick look into the class' flavour, while also setting the tone for everything that comes after, even for myself. If you liked the intro blurb of a class, odds are you're gonna like its Traits, Special Abilities, starter kits and progression. This is usually the part I write first, and aside from everything else, it's supposed to build some hype. For the reader, that is. I'm definitely not hyping myself up with these. Scout's honor.*

2. CLASS ICONS

Much like the intro blurb, this serves the purpose of letting the reader know the kinds of characters they could reasonably play with any given class, while also potentially giving them something to get excited for. Spotting a reference to one of my favorite characters in an RPG tends to instantly get me in the mood to play a similar character, and I'm hoping this applies to some readers, too.

3. TRAITS

This is a meatier section than the previous ones, and although it carries a lot more weight when it comes to gameplay, I personally find it a lot easier to write. Starting Hit Points, for example, are just a matter of either combining two Attributes, using the class' starting Hit Dice's highest possible result, or comparing that with an Attribute (usually Constitution) and picking the highest/lowest, depending on the class.

Key Attributes are a little trickier, and they represent the two Attributes that always have a chance of being improved when a character levels up — the player rolls a d20 for each, and if the result is higher than the Attribute's current value, they increase it by 1. Players can also roll a third Attribute of their choice, but we're getting sidetracked! Levelling up and progression deserve their own blog post, and this ain't it.

Starting Dice are already outlined in the progression tables (the very first thing I did for every class, back when I first started fiddling with TWH's combat). Want to kick some ass in melee/ranged combat? A higher Attack Die will go a long way towards that. Want to recover from an ass-kicking in a timely fashion? Well, that's what your Hit Dice are for. Luck will get its own blog post in the future, but suffice to say that Luck Dice are pretty versatile; the higher, the better.

Typical Backgrounds are pretty much just flavor. So far, I don't have any plans to meaningfully implement these backgrounds as a mechanic in The Wyvern Hack, and I'm not sure I see the need to. As is, they can give the players some ideas for character concepts, and that's good enough for me.

Starting Bonuses are part of the "ctrl+c + ctrl+v" family, in that they're already available in the progression tables. Still, these can be useful for knowing straight up how much damage you can count on dealing/resisting right out of the gate.

Experience Triggers are the hardest Trait to get right, and they're also something I love doing! Again, I won't get too deep into levelling up and progression here, but you can expect an experience track similar to PbtA and FitD games, which will be filled by hitting your class' triggers once a session. While I'm generally wary of any mechanic that incentivizes players to take certain actions just for the sake of gaining experience (or any other in-game reward), my aim with these was to stay close to what someone playing a certain class will want to do anyway. Fighters, for example, will get experience when they get new scars (something that's more likely for characters on the frontline) and when they win a battle. Limiting trigger activation to once per session also helps prevent intentional experience farming.

4. STARTING WEAPONS

Some players will hate that, while others will love it, but I personally really enjoy randomly generated equipment. The Wyvern Hack doesn't randomly generate every piece of equipment, though (see: starting kits), since this can slow character creation down to a crawl, depending on the amount of items you're generating and the number of tables you're consulting, but a random starting weapon can be a lot of fun, and it might surprise you! Getting a high roll on a starting weapon's damage is a nice treat, after all. If you really hate what you rolled, though, no biggie. All classes have starter kits with extra weapons and/or some coin for you to spend on equipment in-game.

5. SPECIAL ABILITIES

This is where you'll find the very soul of each and every character class. Sure, classes have plenty of differences besides these, but Special Abilities are the things that make them truly unique, presenting the players with the tools through which they'll interact with the world. All of the Fighters' Special Abilities are related to combat, for example, while the Dungeoneer is exclusively focused on utility, exploration and, well, dungeon crawling. These not only communicate what the class will excel at, but also let the players know which class will be better suited to their preferred playstyle.

6. PERSONAL TABLE

My absolute favorite part, right there. These are a combination of a personal question and a d6 table, which will always award the character with something, while also fleshing them out a bit. Giving mechanical weight to these tables is loads of fun, too!

7. BACKGROUND TABLE

While not nearly as involved as the previous step, this is just as fun. The key part here, though, was to give every character a cool hook, while still being open enough to avoid getting boring if you're frequently rolling up characters of the same class. Challenging, sure, but I'd like to think I'm doing okay so far.

8. STARTER KITS

I have a love/hate relationship with these damn kits. They're mostly made to fit typical/iconic character archetypes, but coming up with the archetypes themselves is a pain in the ass. Once I have a clear idea of what I want out of each kit and what they're meant to represent, though, the process becomes surprisingly enjoyable!

9. PROGRESSION TABLE

Back when I was still trying to figure out what The Wyvern Hack's combat was gonna be like, before I even knew this was gonna be a thing at all, the first thing I did for fun was a bunch of progression tables for the more famous classes (Fighter, Spellcaster, Rogue and Cleric). These have changed a little since then, and I've cleaned up some of the math (huge thanks to @BourassaSam for spotting a massive issue with the modifiers), but the work itself is already over and done with.

Design-wise, these aren't a big mystery, right? They were inspired by classic OSR progression tables, and while the contents are different, the purpose remains the same. The most challenging part of making these was preventing character progression from feeling "samey" across the classes. Special Abilities are a big help, of course, but if a Rogue had the same basic progression as a Fighter, then they'd both lose a bit of what makes them special. Luck played a key role in this!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I'm on the fence on whether this raised more questions than it answered or not, but I hope this helped shed some light on the process behind creating The Wyvern Hack's classes, and on the purpose of each of the aspects we dissected above. The next few parts of this series will probably focus on specific classes (or maybe even heritages/ancestries, who knows), and I'm looking forward to discussing those!

* I've never been a member of the scouts.

I started writing my own fantasy heartbreaker, and it's all Prismatic Wasteland's fault!

The title says it all, really. Have you ever been so inspired by a blogpost that you immediately started writing a brand new elfgame? Because folks, that's where I'm at right now. Prismatic Wasteland's rehabilitation of the To-Hit roll touched on an aspect of TTRPG combat that never quite worked for me. Automatic hits are cool, don't get me wrong, but they often still produce low/no damage hits, depending on the system, and that's almost as unsatisfying as missing. 

The ambiguity of Hit Points only makes things worse, in my experience. Some people see them as a character's health and damage as wounds (which is unfeasible in the long run), but personally, I like them better as Hit Protection, as exemplified by Cairn. This abstraction of how long a character can safely avoid a truly serious hit is much more satisfying to me than actually treating each and every lost point of HP as an injury.

And with that in mind, I started tinkering just like Tony Stark in that damn cave, but instead of scrap, I had pure gold to tinker with. Thanks, Warren.

ATTACK CHECKS

To make an attack check, roll your character's Attack Die. If the result is higher than the opponent's Defense, they lose an amount of HP equal to your base damage. If the roll’s result is lower than their Defense, you only deal half your Base Damage to their HP, rounded down.


Enemy attack checks are made with their Attack Die against the PC’s Base Defense. Rolling above it deals their full Base Damage to the character’s HP, while rolling below it does only half their Base Damage, rounded down.

Sometimes, it will be impossible to overcome the opponent's Defense with your attack die (e.g. d4 against 6 Defense). In this case, just apply half your damage to their HP normally, without rolling dice. The same goes for enemies.

Quite simple, yeah? What I tried to achieve with the rules in the excerpt above was a compromise between to-hit and auto-hit, while removing those pesky whiffs. You're always gonna deal some damage to the enemy's Hit Protection, you're always gonna soften them up a little. Defense, then, isn't a way of negating hits, but an abstraction of how good someone is at delaying the inevitable, and how much their armor can help them with that.

For clarity's sake, Base Damage is determined by adding the character's Attack Bonus (tied to class-based progression) to their weapon's damage. Base Defense works much the same way, adding the character's Defense Bonus to their armor's defense. That, of course, brings us to weapons and armor rules.

WEAPONS, ARMOR AND DURABILITY

To determine a weapon’s damage or a piece of armor’s defense, simply roll its damage/defense die once after purchasing, forging or finding it. The result is not permanent and can be increased by blacksmiths or decreased by excessive use.


At the end of a combat, if you rolled a 1 on any attack check, roll your weapon's Usage Die. If you suffered damage during combat, also roll the Usage Die for your armor and/or shield. Results of 1 to 2 reduce the damage or defense of the equipment corresponding to the die. 


The base price to recover defense points lost by a damaged weapon or armor is equal to ⅓ of its total value, rounded down. The price for improving the damage or defense of a weapon or armor by 1 point is equal to ½ of its total value. Blacksmith skill and special circumstances may increase or decrease both the price and the efficiency of the service.





Have I mentioned how much Prismatic Wasteland's blog influenced this? The coolest part of these rules was lifted straight from his blogpost! I just added durability and some tables. Speaking of which...

Fresh off the layout test!

Now, what use would those rules be without a list of weapons, armor and shield?

Kindly ignore the gibberish placeholder prices, please. I'm postponing those for as long as I can, lmao.

While writing this post, I realized I have yet to translate my armor and shield tables to English. Oops. I might update this later with them. Or not! My memory is rubbish.

INITIATIVE, DYING AND TACTICAL DEPTH

If you're curious about how I'd handle Initiative with these rules, then look no further than my previous blogpost! I'm still not 100% set on how I want to handle death, though, but one thing's for sure: lingering wounds after 0 HP are gonna be a thing, with "negative" HP being added to a roll on a lingering wounds table.

As for tactical depth, well, those of you who follow me on Twitter may be aware of my plans for a big two-parter post on expanded combat maneuvers and magic rules. Those are still happening, rest assured, and they're gonna play a big part in whatever comes out of this lapse in judgement (which has a tentative name already).

THE WYVERN HACK? REALLY?

I swear to god this came to me in a dream or something. It's (probably) not final. It's not original at all. I'm not even sure if it's good! 

So, what is The Wyvern Hack? Above all else, it's a marriage between my two favourite playstyles. NSR sensibilities with a PbtA bent. It's also a collection of procedures and random tables I made throughout the years, and an opportunity to put my own spin on some classic elfgame classes (check out the Dungeoneer!). And it's yet another fantasy heartbreaker with a generic name.

Still. A name is a powerful thing. It gives things purpose. Drives them forward. It inspires. If this project has any chance in hell of taking flight, that's what I'll need to be: driven and inspired.

And you know what? I always thought wyverns were much cooler than dragons anyway.

A Tour Through the Inverted City

Inverted City wouldn't be a thing without Disco Elysium. It just wouldn't. While most of the ideas you're about to read have been kicking around inside my head for a long time, they were never a cohesive whole. Disco Elysium finally helped me shape them into a game that actually has something to say with its concept, mechanics and characters.

In this blogpost, we'll be taking a quick look at the game's outline, its themes and the mechanics that will (hopefully) support them!

THE BASICS

At its core, Inverted City is an urban fantasy RPG, but that might be selling it a little short. It's a game about the seedy, almost otherworldly underbelly of a quintessential City and the bizarre folks who call it home, struggling to tame the untameable.

The Inverted City is a powder keg, constantly on the verge of exploding and positively oozing with chaos and unrest. It's corrupt, rotten, cruel, uncaring, vile, greedy, nihilistic and self-destructive. In spite of that, it's also capable of great beauty. You just gotta know where to look.

Player characters are known as Sparks — people fated to channel all that confusion and frustration into something new. But new isn't always better, and it's up to them to make it so.

Along with Disco Elysium, Inverted City also counts NORCO, David Lynch, True Detective and Neil Gaiman amongst its influences. When it comes to TTRPGs, this thing owes a lot to Wraith: The Oblivion's Shadowguiding mechanics, Electric Bastionland's structure, FitD & PbtA's ethos, CBR+PNK, and even CY_BORG's district section. They're the real MVPs here.

GETTING SHIT DONE

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I decided to stick with the basics when it comes to resolution mechanics. The players roll at least one d6 and, if applicable, a d8 (known as a Spark die, which is directly connected to their character's Archetype; more on those later). Results ranging from 1 to 3 are failures, while 4s and 5s are partial successes. 6s are complete successes, and double 6s are critical successes. A 7 or 8 on a Spark die is also a success, and one of the two ways characters can acquire experience in Inverted City.

Generally speaking, if a character is attempting something they don't need any special training or equipment to accomplish, they will always get at least one d6, the Lucky One. If they have a relevant Drive (more on those later) they'll also get a second d6, known as the Inspiration die, with the possibility of getting a third d6 known as the Style die if they're dressed for the occasion. Each of these needs to be of a different colour. Under certain circumstances, they'll also roll a d8 known as a Spark die. 

Unskilled, unprepared, underdressed and Uninspired (that is, lacking a relevant Drive) characters may still try to accomplish any particular goal, but they only roll a single d6, applying -1 to the result. Inspiration always supersedes anything else, though — that is, if you're rolling an Inspiration die, you never suffer any penalties, no matter how unsuited you may be to the task at hand. Passion trumps all.

THE CACOPHONY

Every player character has a collection of Drives, the things that inspire them to succeed or fail in their endeavours. Each Drive has a Voice, played by a fellow player. During character creation, you'll assign a few Drives yourself, while another player will claim some, and the Maestro (that is, the Judge, Master of Ceremonies, Dungeon Master or what-have-you) will assign the remaining Drives. Every player in the table needs to be assigned at least one Drive from each PC.

When a character follows one of their Drives while trying to accomplish a challenging task, they roll an Inspiration die in addition to any other die involved in the roll. If that die's result is a partial success, a complete success or a critical success, the Drive's Voice will narrate how the character accomplishes their goal. If the roll results in a failure, that Voice will tell you how and why you failed.

Drives will also function as a Health Track of sorts. When a Drive is wounded, it'll be temporarily lost, along with its die. In order to recover a wounded Drive, the PCs will need to pass a relevant check without its aid. The Maestro will determine what counts as relevant for each Drive.

The Cacophony, inspired by WtO's Shadowguiding and Disco Elysium's skills, is probably my favourite Inverted City mechanic. Fair warning, though: I still don't have a full list of Drives. So far, I've only really settled on two: The City Talks and Fortean Street Blues. The former will be useful for gathering information, navigating the City's labyrinthine streets and tuning into its very soul in search of answers. The latter, as its name may suggest, focuses on dealing with any and all supranatural matters.

ARCHETYPES

Full disclosure: I'm not in love with this aspect of the game, but I do think it serves a purpose — not only that, it also helps give the PCs some direction. Think of Archetypes as PbtA playbooks, rather than typical character classes. They're meant to delineate a Spark's role in the City and the way they tend to effect change. Here's a few interesting ones I've sketched out so far:

• THE FIREBRAND: idealist, agitator, rebel with a cause, burning with passion

Roll a Spark die whenever you're fighting for your cause 

 

• THE ICON: famous, trendsetter, inspirational, legions of fans and haters

Roll a Spark die whenever you're the star of the show 

 

• THE DESTROYER: breaker of chains, enemy of the status quo, all-consuming inferno

Roll a Spark die whenever you're breaking social norms

If there's something I actually really like about these archetypes, it's the way they're tied to advancement. Succeeding at actions with your Spark die the only safe way of gaining experience (more on that below), which incentivises the PCs to act in ways befitting their Archetype. Now, while that may sound constraining, there's a catch: the main form of mechanical advancement in Inverted City is acquiring more "triggers" for your Spark die. The Destroyer, for one, could add such triggers as breaking bones and breaking someone's will, while the Firebrand could add triggers related to converting others to your cause, or sowing the seeds of unrest. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. But it's a decent start.

THE BIRTH OF A CITY

Your Inverted City will never be the exact same as anyone else's. It's yours, for starters, and it belongs to you and your table. All I plan on doing is giving you the tools to build it — random tables, prompts, sample denizens and so on. The City will always include a set of districts, all of which will have individual themes, but it'll be up to you to decide who lives in them, what they actually look like and its current events. I'm considering making a modular map for the City, with district boundaries and evocative visual motifs for each district, which should be fun!

While I'm still at the planning phase when it comes to city-building mechanics, I already have a few things I plan on implementing. The first of which is tying every district to a Drive, and making the player whose character has the highest rating in said Drive responsible for the district. Before the game starts, they'll get to choose or create a set of important NPCs, secrets and omens for that district, and at the start of each session, they'll be asked to tell the rest of the table about a new event related to one of those.

The other mechanic I plan on implementing is Chaos, as that's a central part of the game's concept. Basically, every time a player rolls a 6 on an Inspiration die, that will add Chaos to the district related to the Drive they used. All characters with that Drive gain experience, but once a district's Chaos Clock reaches a certain level, one of its omens comes true. I'm really fond of this mechanic, as its thematic relevance is pretty strong. There's a reason PCs are called Sparks.

DRESS TO IMPRESS

One of the things I really loved about Disco Elysium was carrying around a bunch of weird, mismatched pieces of clothing, so much so that I actively enjoyed playing around with outfits and trying to find out the best combination of clothes for each given situation. That's what I'm going for with the Style die, though I'm not 100% sure of how it'll be implemented. 

I don't think wearing a fine suit should necessarily give you a Style die when meeting high society, for one. If anything, I want it to feel weird, and I want it to feel earned. Clothes need to have a Story in order to actually grant you Style die, and sometimes, your own clothes will develop their own stories during the game. Finding a discarded handmade sweater in the dumpster with “I ♡ BIG DICKS” sewn onto it should be an event, something the players will actively look forward to, something they'll remember.

OUTSIDE THE CITY

This is one aspect of the game I haven't really done a lot of planning for yet, but I'd like to include two other playable areas, apart from the City: the Eerie Suburbia and the Wild Wastes (and this is where the NORCO influence comes in). The former would be similar to Electric Bastionland's Deep Country, while the latter would encompass all the places mankind left behind, such as abandoned oilfields, ghost towns and rusting factories. While reality is still barely holding together against all the Chaos inside the City's boundaries, the same can't be said about these places. Shit gets weird outside the city. Shit gets real weird.

CHAOS ITSELF

One of Disco Elysium's most memorable pieces of worldbuilding is the Pale, and while Chaos isn't meant to be a 1:1 conversion of it, I can't deny it was an inspiration. HUGE spoilers for Disco Elysium below!! 

While the Pale consists of pockets filled with the total absence of matter and of existence itself, and it's brought about by things, ideas and so on being manifested before its time by people capable of intercepting information retroactively transmitted from the future (which seems to be a natural phenomenon), Chaos is far, far simpler. 

The easiest way to describe the effects of Chaos is by saying that under its effects, anything that could happen will happen, no matter how far-fetched or unbelievable. If it can be conceived of by the human mind, it's possible. As for where it comes from, well, that's even simpler. It comes from us. From our collective desires, fears and beliefs. The City is home to millions of voices, each of them manifesting their own ideas into the Chaosphere, and while that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it's better than the alternative. Those voices drown each other out, and whatever does end up happening is usually far milder than what a single, powerful voice could bring about. Sparks, naturally, play a huge role in that, which is why the Chaos Clock is a thing. Their actions always have serious consequences in the Chaosphere.

DESIGN ETHOS

To conclude, let's talk a bit about what kind of game I want Inverted City to be. The easy answer is “meaningful”, but that's always easier said than done. The more complex answer is, well, I want it to feel personal. I want every City to be distinct, through the help of random tables and such, yes, but also through your own unconscious biases and preferences. If you don't want any supernatural elements in your Inverted City, then I want it to be easy for you to shave those off and still have fun with the game. If you want to go all-in on exploring the Wild Wastes and its distorted realities, I want the game to facilitate that for you. 

I don't need Inverted City to be everything for everyone, though, as that's unreasonable and a great way to dilute any thematic power the game may have. But I do want to make it as modular as possible, without losing what it makes it tick. I also want to make this as accessible as possible, seeing as most of my friends don't have a lot of experience with TTRPGs, so making this an easy game to get up and running is a must. 

Truthfully, I don't know how much of this is going to work, but I'm excited to find out.