🌤️Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on.
So @ostrichmonkey-games and I have been working on [a yet unnamed space pirates! game], which we're designing in the more narrative OSR space (discussing my understanding of OSR/NSR/etc is a whole other thing but anyway). Suffice to say we're having a lot of fun working out the machinery of emergent narratives!
I wanted to create a way for the space pirates to be able to assert some control over how the exploration procedure, or basically how the crew travels the void tides. But I wanted to keep to the grungy-spooky-cool vibes Josh and I were aiming for. Also, I wanted to draw inspiration from one of Josh's cool little tool kits: Distant, Cold, and Beautiful.
We still need to playtest this a bunch but I'm happy with what I've wrangled together and Josh helped me work out the details. I had a lot of fun running a few simple tests between us too!
I'll run us through some excerpts, if you'll indulge me!
When you wish to do more than follow the whims of the tides and instead wish to make demands of the Void instead, it is then time to perform the Ritual of Desire
The Ritual of Desire directly interacts with your crew position, one of the building components of your space pirate. So let's take a look at the Black Terror described as:
You may die with the Void filling your veins and pouring from your eyes, but until then your hair grows long and black with the Void and your voice will break any heart.
The leading space pirate has to spend a Whisper of the Void, and all pirates must sacrifice one Hit to the ritual. This grants a starting 1d20 to the ritual. Here are the Whispers from the Black Terror section:
A drunken story spun between two old hags
A blackened skull small enough to fit in the palm
A vision of a tentacled star beast consuming a station
Additional dice depends on what the Black Terror offers to the Ritual of Desire (different crew positions grant different dice, for different narrative costs):
1d12 - Burn away a love that keeps you steady
3d6 - Receive a fear deserved and compelling
So every space pirate makes the makes their offer for the dice for the ritual. So what do you do with all that dice once you've collected them? You cast them and seek out any of the following patterns:
The Twin Daggers of Levi - A pair of dice that show the same number (Reroll any of the Exploration die once, taking any result)
The Footsteps of Drowned Jack - Two sequential numbers (Mark a second location on the map)
The Three Sisters of Dreams Past - Three dice that show the same number (Move the results of the Exploration Die by one level)
The Four Star Crossed Lovers - Anything more than four dice showing the same number (Increase the tier of the results)
The Sea Wolf Howl - At least three dice of sequential numbers (Change the results of the Exploration Die to another type within the same tier)
The Path of Prophecy - At least four dice of sequential numbers (portal to the desire or something similar)
The God-Siblings of Chaos - If no patterns appear at all, declare exactly where you want to go. You will receive a request from the God-Siblings, and it must be fulfilled before the end of the next session. Once fulfilled, your ship and crew will be taken directly to your heart’s desire. Shirk the responsibility, and the Star-Killers will hunt you down.
And laaaaastly, I wanted to somehow incorporate the idea of younger and older stars too from Distant, Cold, and Beautiful.
The stars know when they are being watched, the ancient skies will look back and observe in turn, drawn to the bright light of hubris. Should the hungry stars be moved to entangle their light with yours, prepare yourself.
If any of the final Ritual Die is a 1-9: The younger of the stars observe you and send out a Whisper of the Void.
If any of the final Ritual Die is a 10-15: The older of the stars wish to interact with you directly, the crew will soon meet a Void Stranger.
If any of the final Ritual Die is a 16-20: The hungry stars turn their baleful eyes on you. The Keeper unlocks a Sinister Unscene.
Basically I wanted to mimic the feeling of casting runes, charm casting, and similar ideas. I also wanted to experiment with blurring the lines between play and procedure, meta and narrative. But! Most important! it's all for fun, and rolling different dice is always fun.
