Undying Update

Got feedback from my editor and going through that now. I’ll post an update to the text and playbooks once I get through the revision process. Next, layout!

Also, I’m looking for art and artists. If you know someone whose art you think fits with Undying’s theme, please share!

Undying Update and Hot Playtest Action!

A couple of playtest groups posted their Undying hangouts! These games are great! Aaron and Brendan really know what they’re doing.

Aaron Friesen’s Playtest

Good examples of the meddle move in action at 54 minutes and 1:48.

Brendan Conway’s Playtest – Indie+

The start to this game is by the book. Brendan establishes predator lore, introduces the relationship map, and covers the playbooks.

Also, I updated the basic moves to be more concise. Check out the new play sheets, Undying Beta v3.0.2 (Play Sheets).

*Update on 4/4

After chatting with John and Sage last night, I tweaked the play sheets a bit more. I’m pretty happy with Meddle now and I made some other, small wording changes.

[Undying] Meddle – a Quarrel among Predators

These are excerpts from our playtest sessions. John is the GM, I’m playing Miklos, and Shannon’s playing Danira.

PC Meddles with a NPC

Danira catches sight of Ilya, a predator belonging to Mikhail’s pack, a rival. Ilya turns tail and runs. Danira and her pack mate, Luikwei, give chase; but, Ilya is elusive – always a step ahead. They catch the flash of her long, black hair as she rounds the next corner or the splash of a puddle just out of sight. They’re falling behind. Danira tells Lukwei to split up and continue the chase as Danira transforms herself into a bat and takes flight. They spot Ilya on the roof. Lukwei pushes herself to close the gap while Danira heads her off. Danira transforms herself back and pounces around the corner at the running foot falls only to find it’s a flustered Lukwei. Ilya’s scent is still heavy on the cool night air; she’s somewhere close. But Ilya’s is not the only predator’s scent on the night air…

Ilya’s on the ball and starts running. She’ll get away unless Danira intervenes. So, Danira meddles, spending blood escalating to catch up. The GM could relent and let Danira catch Ilya or the GM could escalate by spending more blood than Danira to widen the gap. The GM escalates by spending blood and Danira starts to lose her quarry. Danira could either relent or escalate further. Wanting to catch up, Danira escalates. The GM spends blood for Lukwei to help Danira continue the chase and Danira transforms to and from a bat with the Shapeshifting move from her Wolf playbook at no blood cost. The GM escalates yet again; but, Danira decides the price is too high. That doesn’t mean Danira leaves empty handed, though. She just spent several blood chasing Ilya across the barrens of Paris. Ilya’s out of blood and has been leading Danira to Mikhail’s hideout all the while. So, Danira gets close and she knows it.

PC Meddles with a PC

Miklos overhears a pack of predators on the prowl. With a look, he forces is will into his blood slave, Janet, and takes possession of her to spy on them. Danira catches the scent of prey and she and her pack fall on Janet. Fangs bared, ready to feed, Danira stops short with a frightening memory from her past – the mark of Miklos’ property, which appears suddenly on Janet’s neck in a crimson trace. Janet’s young, frightened, human eyes turn cold, dead, and ancient as she meets Danira’s startled gaze. Miklos relishes the moment. Then Miklos introduces himself to Danira, reminding her of their past. She backs away, slowly.

Miklos makes the blood slave move and the GM spends one of Janet’s blood for possession. The GM offers Miklos the opportunity to meddle with Danira to keep Janet’s presence hidden, Miklos declines. Janet’s proximity draws Danira’s attention. Danira needn’t make the hunting move to pounce on prey already established within her grasp. So, Danira makes the feeding move. To stop her, Miklos meddles. Miklos escalates by spending blood, narrating that the sigil of his ownership of Janet appears on her neck. Miklos makes it clear that he just wants Danira to back off. Danira decides it isn’t worth it to escalate or even counter, so she relents. Miklos gets his way and Danira backs off, as established.

Considerations

The move meddle is based on poker. You bid around the table, starting with the player making the move. The order around the table can either be sequential, like poker, or you can go around in narrative order based on who is acting. Predators can join in or drop out at different points in the fray and take or change sides as the situation develops. Follow the fiction to determine what makes sense. Each time someone escalates, counters, or relents, they say what they’re doing. At the end of the move, there’s either a tie for most blood spent or there’s a clear winner. If there’s a tie, there’s a compromise, a concession, or a stalemate. If there’s a clear winner, they stand to gain and the rest stand to lose something. What is gained or lost should naturally progress from the fiction already established in the move.

Also, in these examples, baked into the narration of the meddle move, is the use of the move supernatural: the inhuman speed, strength, and toughness and the blood magic too. In meddle, you escalate and counter by spending blood; but, that blood is spent doing something in the fiction. The move supernatural is a good place to start for ideas and other moves can be used within meddle too.

It’s only when meddle escalates to life or death violence that you need to break out of the meddle move to use the fight move instead. If this happens, take the blood already spent in meddle forward to the fight move.

Undying Beta Release!

This is the beta release of Undying, a vampire role playing game of predation and intrigue. Undying is now very focused and concise, tightly integrating a core diceless mechanic while very much keeping to its Apocalypse World roots. The game’s two economies, blood and debt fuel the core struggle with scarcity and leverage.

Undying Beta v3.0 (Text)

Undying Beta v3.0.2 (Play Sheets)

Status is the prize. There’s no XP in Undying or mechanical advancement for characters. Instead, the advancement occurs in the fiction, supported by the status trait. You set your character’s sights on a goal and overcoming the obstacles – getting there – that’s the reward. Status is the system representation of your achievement and gives it mechanical teeth.

Humanity – a vampire would just be a superhero with fangs and a cape if not for humanity. A character’s humanity trait shapes how the character makes moves related to people and is, in turn, a reflection of how they’ve handled people: feeding, callousness, murder, and so on. Each time play wraps up, the other players vote to decide what your character’s humanity trait will be next time based on their past actions. The feedback loop of the changed humanity trait directly influences future move choices, nudging the character ever toward becoming a lost soul – the point where they are a truly irredeemable monster.

Follow Undying on google+, Story Games, and the AW forum!

Regiment 2.1 Released!

The next cut of the Regiment is up on John’s blog!

[Undying] Downward Spiral Concept Art!

When I woke up this morning, probably one of the last few sunny days in Seattle, I sat down with my coffee and started to sketch. Just something quick and light-hearted, maybe go for a walk. That’s what I told myself as I rummaged through my stash of pencils and pens. Then it hit me: I know what the Downward Spiral looks like! There went most of the day.

As you travel down the Downward Spiral, you shade in one or more of the nightshade petals. Each flower has five petals. Each skull represents a Humanity/Will score. When you’ve shaded in all the petals above the skull, that’s your new Humanity/Will score.

Change from Undying Alpha 2.1: Greater Evils now advances your Downward Spiral by 5 (previously, it was 3), since Nightshade has five petals. This way, you have the same number of Greater Evils to Lost Soul as in 2.1.

Undying Released!

Undying, my hack of Vampire the Masquerade and Apocalypse World. It’s a project two years in the making, and counting.

What is this Game?

This game is an exploration of vampirism through the Apocalypse World medium (modified extensively). It’s about the struggle of vampire vs. self – a vampire’s two halves: the human and the beast – and vampire vs. vampire society – the fickle workings of status.
This is not a translation of d10 to d6. Undying is a re-thinking how a vampire game is structured to achieve its goals in play.

Who is this Game for?

This is an alpha play test, so if you are looking for a finished, polished game, this may not be for you, yet. I need people to play test this game and provide critical feedback, which I’ll use to improve the game. If that’s cool with you, you will probably also need a firm understanding of how Apocalypse World works – particularly the storytelling part. Also, you should be familiar with Vampire – but, that’s probably why you’re reading this. If you really want to know what this game is about, pull that hardback off your bookshelf, dust it off, and read the introduction – that’s what this game is all about.

Where can you find a Copy?

See the latest version.

Regiment Alpha Play Test v2.0 Released!

The latest version of the Regiment is now available on John’s blog, here! Check it out.

Survived GenCon!

GenCon was great; but, I’m glad to be home. I ran two games of the Regiment and two games of Undying. All four went really well. I got some really useful feedback on Undying and help spread the Regiment’s visibility a bit.

Games on Demand was crazy! I’m really happy it was such a hit; but, at the same time, it was so busy in there that I was a bit overwhelmed. I ran Undying there and I was all set to do the Regiment on Sunday afternoon; but, they were closing up shop when I got there. No harm done, it’s only fair that the folks who put so much into organizing it get to relax and wander through the expo hall.

For the Regiment, we did Red Dawn and Stalingrad. Both were awesome! I will have to explore that more fully. I’ve also been reading T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars, so I’m thinking WWI Arab revolt vs. Ottoman Empire could be pretty awesome.

For Undying, I ran both play tests in Port Royale during the apex of piracy. It was really cool to see how both groups reacted to the same situation differently. I got a lot of useful feedback on the design. Next step: revision.

Undying Revamped!

Oh the puns! Don’t let Shannon see this…

It’s been awhile since I even thought about Undying, and much, much longer since I’ve actually done something with it. The entirety of my game design thought has been focused on one thing – the Regiment. While John was busy editing and laying out version 2 of the Regiment alpha, and I couldn’t screw with the game, I was hit with a new concept for Undying, my Vampire – AW hack. So I re-wrote the game.

I am far enough along to play test it; but, it’s not ready for sharing yet, sorry. I’m taking a couple of play test sets with me to GenCon along with the Regiment. Once I get some experience playing the game and some feedback from the players, I’ll revise it, add some thoughts on how to run it, and then I’ll post it here, for any of you who are interested.

About Undying

Vampire says how you’re supposed to play, and the thing it describes is super cool; but, you may find that the system doesn’t really point you toward those key things that your character is really supposed to be about – I mean beyond just the Vampire porn part – that’s a given. I’m talking about the struggle within of man vs. monster and the quest for  power. The folks I play Vampire with get how to play it, in our own fashion, and we have our own homebrewed mods to the rules to get what we want out of the game. Not everyone gets what they want out of the game. I had a (drunken) debate with Anna Krieder and Jared Sorensen on the subject at GenCon two years ago. I found myself ranting about that conversation at Dan Lofton over happy hour drinks at the Suites (see a pattern developing?) and that’s when he proposed the core mechanic of the game: Humanity and Will – one represents the man, one represents the monster, and the two of them are paired opposites – as one goes up, the other goes down. That was the genesis of Undying. I added Status as a stat to  capture the rise and fall of your standing among the Predator Community.

That’s it. That’s the game. You make moves and the mechanical consequences of those moves manipulate your stats. Blood and Debt (owed to other Predators) are the only economies. No XP. No buying moves. No weapons, gear, or fiddly bits. No harm, no health: just life, death, and pain. The whole game is about keeping the Beast in check while you try to claw your way up to the next rung of the social ladder.

Well, that’s not it, it. You have moves that encourage you do cool vampire shit and that’s the cause of and solution to all of unlife’s problems.