Greetings Faelonians!
Those of you who follow us closely know there is a major upgrade to the rules in the works. We’re not even to an alpha playtest yet, so it's just teaser and conversation material for now, but speculation is running rampant! So, let’s do some rumor control, shall we?
First, the genesis of this project is the understanding that our game is too daunting (intricate, crunchy, whatever…) both for many of our current players, as well as those players we’d like to join our community. Also, we intend to go back into distribution and that needs a printed rulebook - both for a future two player starter set and to be on the retail shelf.
The Living Rulebook (LRB) format has served us well and will go on serving us. But it also made us a bit lazy. Since it has existed in entirely digital form, we have never had to be ruthless about page count. We could also repeat things to have them appear in multiple places and use as many words as we like to describe a rule. In order to get a printed rulebook out there that people will actually read, it has to be short and concise.
In our case though, we need to do both - make a concise set of core rules to be printed which will also serve as the core of the LRB. And then develop a new LRB that incorporates those core rules and gives you all the value for which the LRB is known.
While looking into where we can streamline things, we have discovered that most of our players have never read the rulebook. Now, this isn't a lick on anyone, this is a hobby-wide phenomenon. Personally, I am from a generation of rules readers. To this day, I open up a rulebook over lunch for whatever the night's game will be and do a refresh. If I've got a competition on Saturday, I am looking at those rules all week. But its a lonely space I'm in…lol.
So, if people aren't reading rulebooks, how are they playing? The answer is a demo, an alpha and cards. They are taking a demo of the game and that is where they get the core mechanics for the first time. They have an alpha nearby - the person in the game group putting on games, arranging events and terrain and game nights - who they turn to with a rules question. And they have laid out their model stat cards for any other info they might need.
This has two challenges. One, what if the alpha is *also* not a rules reader? Turns out this is more true than not, so the fix is to give them less to remember. Two, our cards are designed “backwards” from most other games. In many games today, the core rulebook contains only the basics and all or many special rules and abilities (talents, feats, skills, etc.) are ONLY on the cards. In those games then, the cards take precedence because that talent or ability is only to be found there. In Freeblades, the full talent and skill rules are in the LRB and the cards are a summary. If there is a corner case covered by the full talent rule and not in the shortened card text, it will usually be missed.
So, we have rules that are too bulky to remember and full talent rules that do not fit on the cards, yet memory and cards is how games are played, What are we going to do about that? Adapt is what. And I'll explain how over my next several blogs, Stay tuned!
Jon
What we are working on:
Black Friday model release and LRB 24-3, now with Familiars and Power Stones!
The streamline Freeblades project.
The Inner Sea global campaign.
Our first board game: Tehradim - Gold and Steel, where patrons vie for power in the Free City.
The Ankala Oracle kickstarter delivery, which includes a new deck of magic items for your Freeblades games.
Significant improvements to BrightSword, with the eventual goal of a printed book full of illustrations set in the World of Faelon.
A brand new game line, set in a new, modern day World of Isonia.
Our social media: https://dgsgames.com/social-media/
Our podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J43YvlAN-RI