Tags

It's weird to finally be at a place where the game is starting to look like a book to me given how long it's been in development. But given that this month alone I've written almost 4000 words on what the hell a tag is, that's pretty book-ish to me. It feels good to say 2 out of the 15 chapters I have planned for this little shindig are done.

You can read in detail in the chapter attached to this month's update it in detail, but one of the biggest mechanics in this game, much like Exceptionals are Tags, short words and phrases that offer mechanical weight in the form of dice but more importantly an narrative permission.

To paraphrase an explanation from Exceptionals If a character has the tag "sword" they can do anything that you can reasonably be allowed to do anyone with a sword to do. Fight monsters, cut through something, intimidate with a flourish of skill. Even knight a guy under the right circumstances.

It's a lot like a Ron Gilbert Point and Click game in that way, though your action verbs are a lot more dynamic and character specific.

It allows every character to be unique and perhaps even more important, personal. You have a sense of investment in the ways you engage with your character and what you decide is important for us to know about them

What isn't like Exceptionals is the many new ways tags can be mechanically be expressed and applied. Many of these will be explored in other chapters down the line. But we have titles (stories told about you), expressions (magic powers), gear (iconic silhouette defining items), and touchstones (contacts and defining moments of a character's life). Some of the playtesters have already gotten their hands on them

Going forward I'm going to have to go back to the playbook mines. I want to turn over character creation to you as soon as possible and Playbooks are vital. Each one by themselves represents 4 pages of content in the final laid out book.

 (a rough layout from a planning session a few months ago)

A have a template but also 28 of these to do in total. Each with their own research, creative writing, and more. But I suspect the hardest part, the questions, is done for most of them. Now it's about refining them with a finer idea of the mechanics I have at my disposal and to be more personalized to the playbook.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, so wish me luck and enjoy the chapter.