A, BAE, Z!

Hello everyone!

This here is my first ever design diary, a new benefit for those pledging at the Adventurer tier ($5) and up. Since the new tiers are official as of March 1st, this is both a reminder to all of you to update your pledge level according to the new structure AND a bit of a taste test for those wondering if the Adventurer or Legend tier might be for them.

Great news first, the OGL 1.0a is saved and, in the event Wizards of the Coast ever threatens it again, many of the core rules have been released under Creative Commons. I'm not sure which license I will use for finished products moving forward but the headline here is that I will continue to create third party products for 5e. My goal at the end of last year was to ramp up production on new classes so I am optimistic this year will see the release of the Anointed and the Zephyr. I'd also like to get out a book that replaces the races of 5e (species *shudder* of 6e) with my heritage system. I also kind of like the idea of spearheading a DMsGuild book that would include the magus, pugilist, scholar, and spiritualist + 8 classes originally created by other DMsGuild designers. I'm a bit gunshy on that one because such a book would easily be in production for over a year and I'm wondering what the appetite for 5e will even look like at that time. So that's a maybe.

As I said on the discord and in previous Patreon posts, I'm also looking to diversify by designing for other systems or creating my own. Currently the non-5e project I've put the most time and attention into is Blades Against Extinction. If you haven't seen me talk about that yet, let me repeat the elevator pitch here:

Blades Against Extinction is a Forged in the Dark game of paleolithic fantasy, a war against an empire of dinosaurfolk, and the appearance of the Red Star that heralds the End of Everything. Rise up against the Saurians, rise up against Chicxulub, rise up against Extinction.

I've gotten probably 20 to 25 pages of notes and rules written for this concept so far. I've taken a run at other Forged in the Dark hacks before and always get stalled out trying to develop the actions / resistances (similar to the role of skills and ability scores in D&D) so this time I decided to start with playbooks (the equivalent of classes) first. That's proven much more productive. So far I have a reasonably functional set of three (Hunter, Slayer, Speaker) and a partially functional fourth (Spiritist/Shaman). That fourth one kind of relies on me building out the whole spirit channeling component of the game so I may take a break from playbooks soon to sort that out. I've got some very fun ideas percolating already. I'm hoping to have a BAE playtest available for Adventurers and Legends sometime within the next few months, so please keep an eye out for that. If you check out the new channel on the SVAC discord you'll find I've shared a bit about the exciting Downtime / Crew Sheet-equivalent as well.

Finally, if you're into deep cuts, Dane and I have started recording for season 3 of Dispel Magic. If you're not familiar, Dispel Magic is a podcast I do with a friend of mine and each episode we focus on one discrete component of magic in D&D and how its existence would logically play out in settings. Spoiler alert, basically no D&D setting that's written makes any amount of sense if you take the existence of various spells into consideration. In this third season we are doing something new and sprinkling in guest episodes. I'm kind of a control freak about creative projects so that's something I'm trying to just breathe through but, so far, I'm excited about sharing the guests we've recorded.

I think that'll do it for this DD but feel free to ask questions in here or the discord's Guildhall if you want to know any details about these projects or want to pick my brain about something completely unrelated. Happy February, ya'll!

Thanks,

Benjamin