#primamateria

[sludgebucketmusic]

[sludgebucketmusic]

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

The "why" behind Game Design

I've been doing a lot of thinking and talking with my friends about Prima Materia, as I often do these days. For the past few weeks there's been something itching at the back of my mind, I'm making mechanics that are starting to work well but for whatever reason they don't "feel" like Prima Materia to me. They technically fit in with the design pillars I've assigned myself; grounded, cinematic, dynamic, and fantasy, but I've felt like things are missing. Going beyond that, I don't think someone would properly grok the game if they were to read my past blog posts. If I read my past blog posts without knowing what Prima Materia is, I would think it's a game mostly focused on combat with some interesting worldbuilding.

I decided to talk with one of my friends about this, and the conversation led to me trying to properly articulate the kinds of things I want to happen in Prima Materia and compare that with the direction the design is going. In particular, how do I imagine a campaign going? What do people actually do in the game? While these are questions that can be applied to most ttrpgs, I hadn't realized how important it was to answer them concretely to make correct design decisions for my game rather than the design being driven by vague subconscious conceptions of a game that does not yet exist filtered through some core design pillars and my own limited experience in playing ttrpgs.

What do people actually do in the game?

This is a wide question, and has a wide answer.

When I think of what it would be like to actually play or GM a game of Prima Materia my mind tends towards uncovering secrets, diplomatically dealing with situations, and overcoming obstacles that require lots of preparation to pull off without getting seriously hurt. Secrets should be important to the party and world, and depending on the tier of play can be anything from uncovering new alchemical magics to metaphysical secrets of the universe that can act as MacGuffins for a longstanding party.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that uncovering secrets is one half of the beating heart of Prima Materia, and the other half is preparation for overcoming obstacles to achieve the uncovering of those secrets. Characters in the game aren't meant to be incredibly powerful but rather incredibly skilled at their area of expertise, whether that be being good with a sword, knowledgeable in certain subjects, good at diplomacy, or making useful items. That's the concept of the game that's in my head that needs to be concretely written down (and how convenient for me that I've just done that).

Going Forward

A lot of the ideas and drafts I've written or verbalized to friends make a lot more sense in this light of uncovering secrets and preparation, as lot of those ideas hinge on uncovering secrets or being prepared. There are lost manuscripts I've been itching to put in that grant skill bonuses as well as character features due to the knowledge contained within. The Alchemist profession alone is a class that takes the ideas of preparedness and uncovering secrets to 11, where you create new spells and tinctures and unlock more and more useful things to make as well as ways to make them.

There are several design decisions I've been making recently that do not spark joy for me. They will be dealt with, and going forward I will have this to keep in mind as what I want the heart of the game to be.

If you read this far, thank you very much! It means a lot. The astute among you who read my last post will notice that this is suspiciously not a post about the Sepia as I promised, and that's because I thought this post was important. I will of course try to get the Sepia post out next week, but if that fails I will bring you an update on my most recent mechanics experiment which will surely have transpired by then.

[girlcodedcreature]

Here's a sneak peek at some of the WIP art for the next Prima Materia blog post because I think it's adorable. Literal big things in the works. These silly guys are called Koura btw and yes they are playable.

Art by @donutboxers

[girlcodedcreature]

Finally got the Prima Materia ttrpg website up and running, go playtest my silly fantasy game heehoo (if you want :3)

[donutboxers]

🖲 AT-AD 2883 🖲

I just realized I never posted this but I guess I was waiting for my friends ttrpg to be officially public (it's still in the works but she is posting about the development)

this is one of my OCs for the ttrpg, a melekah (or rather half of a melekah), AT-AD 2338 (he/it)

I don't have a full story for him yet, but I do know that it's missing his legs and has been found in a dump and he'll soon have an exosuit it can use to walk once he learns how to be an artificer

Currently my friend @girlcodedcreature is working on the main book for @prima-materia-ttrpg which doesn't include the melekah since they're a moon species so I'm waiting for some more lore to be written about them before I finish his background :>

[girlcodedcreature]

Playtesting Prima Materia is turning out to be very fun. My character, Dr. Hugh Mann, a drag clown Physician whose stage name is Mel Praxis, tried to climb down a cliff (Full clown getup by the way). Unfortunately, his Athletics was not up to snuff and he broke his ribs despite rolling the best he could (a six).

In the form I force my friends to fill out after we do playtests, one of them said they had fun because the funny clown man broke his ribs.

I consider this a success.

[mariealuisa]

Grateful to kickstart the year with some incredible filmmakers. Early this January I was offered a wonderful opportunity to work alongside the talented Nathalia Acevedo in Prima Materia’s new short film A Black Hole Near Kent County. Here are some BTS stills. Director: Hannah Schierbeek Producer: Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan Cinematographer: Vincent Prochoroff