gimmicklabs

The Design of BCS VIII: The Downtime Rules

The Downtime rules are only 3 pages and mechanically consist of a single Extended Action that spans the period between Episodes. Yet,  they accomplish a lot with very little. With one Test you...

The Design of BCS VII: Operation Rules Odds & Ends

For today we've got a grab-bag of all the Operations mechanics leftovers, totaling 6 different subjects. That's a lot! So without further ado, let's get started. 

Terrain

Given t...

The Design of BCS VI: Operation Actions

In BCG there are 10 general Action types, not counting things like Combine, Restoration or Lightspeed Assault that are abilities which are their own Actions to use. Meanwhile in BCS there's 5 Prima...

The Design of BCS V: Operation Basic Rules

The rules for Operations are more than twice longer than those for Intermissions so we're splitting them into not two but THREE updates, because there's THAT MUCH to talk about here. Without furthe...

The Design of BCS IV: The Intermission Rules

Intermissions are a rather large part of the game. Often, the longest part of the game. They've always been rather simple on the mechanical side though, and BCS doesn't change that. It does improve...

The Design of BCS III: From Pilot Levels to the Item System.

A.K.A. "The rest of the general rules overview."

Pilot Levels

Pilot Levels, renamed from Power Levels, now have a larger mechanical impact than they used to. Each Pilot Level offers 1...

The Design of BCS II: The Core Mechanic

The Core Mechanic

The most important change to how BCS works compared to BCG, along with the mapless play, is the new core mechanic. From Monsterpunk I learned that I strongly prefer degree...

The Design of BCS I: Episode Structure

I'm starting a new series where I'll be going in depth on the design of BCS, in the vein of the old BCG Restrospective, but instead of doing it for a finished game it's for one that is still in dev...

I did not forget about Patreon

But I haven't had the time to write something this month. I've been thinking of going over all the mechanics in BCS a la the old retrospective series but the stars have been aligned in the opposite...

Introducing Battle Century S

Hello friends, rivals and assorted gentlepeople, don't mind me, I'm just going to drop the public beta of a whole new system at the same time that I'm announcing it.

I've been holding to this...

My Top 5 Things I Like and Don't About BCGR

The thing I originally was going to upload this month could benefit from a few more days of prepwork, so in lieu of it I'm going to do something related, but a little bit different from the usual. ...

Art Update for BC79

Barring any unforeseen bursts of sudden inspiration accompanied by a notable fiscal irresponsibility, this is the last art update for BC79. What could still happen is that I'll make a print version...

More art! Plus, some design stories.

I've just updated the module with new art, which is a good opportunity to post an update about it, show that art off, and talk more about the campaign itself. 

2023-08-18 13:12:57 +0000 UTC View Post

Battle Century 0079 RC is out

It almost had to be pushed into August, but we made it to the July deadline! If only barely, and only f...

Still Waiting for Art

I just realized that its the end of the month and I haven't yet posted an update, so here I am. My plan for this month was to post the finalized cover, but, well, as the title implies, I don't have...

Let me Tell you about BC79

The anthology is finished! It's currently sitting at 70 pages and 6 Episodes. I'm gonna take another month or two for the editing and proofreading process, and also to wait for art. By the way, the...

April '23 Progress Report

Work on the anthology continues. One of the highlights of doing this kind of project, at least for my personal sensibilities, is that I get to make custom mechanics. Take these three Features, for ...

March '23 Progress Report

The rewrite is at 2/6 Episodes. I'll admit that I wanted to be further along by the end of this month, but it is what it is. 

For a little bit of context, on March 1 the power grid went ...

Uncreeping the Scope

I've been slowly chugging at the Campaign Module. However, I realized it was being harder than expected, and that was early while I was still writing the simpler Episodes. Worse, a part of me kept ...

Introducing Gemini

One of the coolest things about publishing your own games, is that the homebrew content you make for a specific campaign is only an editing pass or two away from becoming official content.

Th...

December sure is December

As foretold by the prophecy, I don't have much to show this month. I wanted to show at least a new mechanic for the campaign I have almost finished, but I lost a hard drive to a power outage two da...

Let's Talk about the Campaign

So last month I promised a campaign scenario. Here's some numbers to give you an impression of what that'll be like:

• 9 Episodes. Each Episode consists of a short Intermission...
  2022-11-23 13:49:27 +0000 UTC View Post

Updated BCGR to v1.84

The updated version is out wherever it is that you get your files from. That's the final content update to the core book, but not the end of BCGR as a project. There are things left to do before I ...

October Progress Report

It's done! The last few illustrations are in and I've gotten in the last clarifications into the rules (if you're curious, the specific clarification is that shared/transferred Maneuvering bonuses ...

September Status report

"No news is good news" goes the saying, supposedly coined by James I of England. 

Clearly the king never felt obligated to give other people progress reports.

Alas, no news is, ind...

August Progress Report

While all the new art is a great addition, the best thing about the decision to take most of the year to upgrade the book is just how many errors in the text I've managed to fix. Eight months, thre...

BCGR v1.82 Update

All the relevant download sites have been updated, so here I am for the status/roadmap post!

These are the final two high priority pages in need of filler art:

P175: Faction Wealth Test...

BCGR June Art Progress Report

This month's art goes for the Exemplar Themes pages, and it was the trickiest art to conceptualize so far.

Exemplar Themes are for characters who represent an ideal, often gaining power from ...

BCGR May Art Progress Report

Slow month, compared to earlier ones, but we did get some art. First, here's three portraits for the Phantasm and Phasing Skills page:

2022-05-29 19:25:27 +0000 UTC View Post

BCGR v1.8.1 Update

I've just uploaded this month's update to both DTRPG and itch.io. In addition to the two pages I showed off in the last post, I filled a few additional pages with stock art (thank you leftover stor...