Morgenstern
First Post
Finally!
Assuming neither Pat nor Alex find anything broken with it (again, sigh), Light of Olympus should go up for sale next week.
The accomplishment is disproportionately exciting for me, because the difference between breaking a trail through shoulder-deep snow and following a trail through said snow is literally night and day (or more importantly for the customer it's the difference between January and April). If this version passes muster, I have a template to work from for future efforts. Creating the 'technology' for nonhuman play in Spycraft took a lot of thought and effort. What sort of broad strokes would provide a realistic sensibility to Any nonhuman race and be SIMPLE to use both in play and for future designs? Would a new feat tree represent a clean-lined tool for unique advantages or start a death spiral of power escalation? When dealing with what should seem like especially powerful races, what should the trade-offs be? Feat costs? Class levels? Minimum Career Level? Loss of XP? Loss of Action dice? All of those things got used in one form or another - the whole of the Spycraft engine bent upon giving you a new way to play that is easy to grasp but subtle in consequence.
Nonhuman races give the play environment some much-needed mystery with new paths to explore. We also wanted to give nonhuman play a much more epic feel (heck - I'm hoping we give all fantasy-play with Spycraft a swift kick in the epic!). Spycraft's "races" (you choice of Origin) have always had a lot of juice, so I was pleased with how far you could take these classic races down the road to cool even at first level. I had been trying to find ways to mix the talents and specialties together to create a larger pool of power for races to tap - spectacularly unsuccessfully I might add. Alex unveiled the brilliant notion of trading away the feat you get from your specialty to have an even more powerful talent. You have him to thank for how truly alien some nonhuman characters now feel. Putting together a Satyr is now something rich and strange - as I discovered. Pat followed up by breaking down my idea for limited specialties, turning a hard prohibition (you may ONLY choose specialties X, Y, or Z) into a hard choice (fit into the X/Y/Z mold or pay a heavy price). He gave the races more options, more versatility, and more long term value. Both of them absolutely proved why Crafty Games is a better team than just the sum of it's talents on this project. You'll see why very soon.
While Spycraft is distinctly it's own game, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most Spycraft players are also well acquainted with the 900-pound gorilla of fantasy gaming and have their expectation (good and bad) shaped by it. It is also occasionally a useful source of inspiration. I actually like the idea of races having favored classes, even if I don't much care for the implementation in standard d20. I don't like things that muck with XP. Its an unlimited resource, so its not a good thing to tax if you want a penalty that's actually felt right in the gut, and the long term consequences become unplayable - a major level split in a party will wreck any sort of reasonable encounter building. Spycraft studiously avoids such mechanics - unlimited multi-classing is a cornerstone of our standard play. So we started over with "favored classes" mechanic, keeping the name and the idea, but changing just about everything else. The favored class mechanics looks comfortably familiar to players of the d20 system on the printed page (which is awesome), but once the playtesters got to playing they discovered it is savagely unforgiving. First off it gives you 2 favored classes per race. That's different and it sets up a LOT more choices for distinguishing one race from another - more than 60 combinations instead of just 12 possibilities. Having those 2 classes to choose from gives you a wider footing, but step off that ledge and it's a loooong way down. You don't lose XP, you lose action dice when you buck the system. Ouch. Its a penalty that softens as you gain levels and you can certainly make it up with good play (earning those dice back is half the fun), but it also means that if you really want to make that pure Soldier centaur, it will show that you have turned your back on your people to follow your own course, and that it is a sometimes troubling decision for your character. It is a decision with weight. It’s important to you. And it gives you an edge because nobody out there is gonna see it coming either.
Probably the biggest change that happened during the development process was the transformation of racial classes. At first I was following the conventional wisdom - a class you took at the lowest levels to fill in the gaps between Monster Manual-like expectations and the limits of a balanced race package. Our "races" were getting us closer to the legends than a standard d20 race would, but we knew there was (lots of) room to grow. Gorgons are cool, but turning to people to stone (auto-slay) with a glance is just too much at first level, even in Spycraft! My first thought was to at least open it up so you didn't have to take your racial class - that being the end-all-be-all of centaur was just one more option and you might rather stick with the starting package and get to work on those Scout levels that were what you really wanted. That little bit of freedom ended up being just the start once the idea went into the tiger cage that is development at Crafty Games. The little truncated base classes I had produced revealed problems. Not every race had one - big mistake. They clashed with the new favored class mechanic I was working with. Most of all, the were too obvious. Players wanting to really roll around in the goodness of playing this new race ALWAYS choose the class over other options. They ended up striping the race of any sense of diversity, something they had already given up a fair portion of. The shift to giving each species a master class solved most of those problems - every race would have it's examples of mighty even if the race didn't necessarily need the extra oomph to meet expectations. Moving the racial class off to the higher levels opened up space for more extravagant benefits, forced low level characters to diverge and explore the possibilities before setting their sights on a long term goal of exemplifying all that was awesome about their character, and used an existing tool (Master classes) in a way that would insure that choosing a nonhuman would not allow you to totally overshadow traditional human characters. Chalk up another valuable win for the tiger cage.
So what happened during this last month? Your choice of Origin has always changed the lighting cast upon your later choices of class, skill, and feat. Now we've got a whole new spectrum of colors to shade those choices with that sometimes radically alter what a class means to you. Being a Soldier has different concerns when you have a host of natural poisons and a gaze attack in your pocket at all times or when your body counts as a suit of armor and the armor use ability will always be active for you. Things like NPC blocks to populate your world immediately and special NPCs to illustrate possible new allies and enemies. This last round of changes that took an extra month to deliver was focused entirely on providing better examples of how to use the new options. Like the core book, this .pdf is meant to be used, not read, but it should be a bit easier to read than the monolithic tome. We have more freedom now to say what needs to be said without page count hanging over our heads like an axe. The new ‘Character Seeds’ are our answer to numerous requests for many fronts to build more user-friendly into the game. The seeds are a little like a fast, playable tutorials for using the new options and not getting burned while you figure out what is what. They also let us showcase some of the devilish combos we've worked into the game system. You probably never thought of making a master of seduction using Hacker levels before, but there are things it has to offer...
So, Light of Olympus in its final stages before it goes out into the world. Its been a source of cramped hands, heated argument (read that "screaming matches"), and sleepless nights, but most of all it's been a source of pride for me. I hope people will check Crafty Games’ new races book out. This is one of the good ones.
Scott Gearin
Crafty Games
Assuming neither Pat nor Alex find anything broken with it (again, sigh), Light of Olympus should go up for sale next week.
The accomplishment is disproportionately exciting for me, because the difference between breaking a trail through shoulder-deep snow and following a trail through said snow is literally night and day (or more importantly for the customer it's the difference between January and April). If this version passes muster, I have a template to work from for future efforts. Creating the 'technology' for nonhuman play in Spycraft took a lot of thought and effort. What sort of broad strokes would provide a realistic sensibility to Any nonhuman race and be SIMPLE to use both in play and for future designs? Would a new feat tree represent a clean-lined tool for unique advantages or start a death spiral of power escalation? When dealing with what should seem like especially powerful races, what should the trade-offs be? Feat costs? Class levels? Minimum Career Level? Loss of XP? Loss of Action dice? All of those things got used in one form or another - the whole of the Spycraft engine bent upon giving you a new way to play that is easy to grasp but subtle in consequence.
Nonhuman races give the play environment some much-needed mystery with new paths to explore. We also wanted to give nonhuman play a much more epic feel (heck - I'm hoping we give all fantasy-play with Spycraft a swift kick in the epic!). Spycraft's "races" (you choice of Origin) have always had a lot of juice, so I was pleased with how far you could take these classic races down the road to cool even at first level. I had been trying to find ways to mix the talents and specialties together to create a larger pool of power for races to tap - spectacularly unsuccessfully I might add. Alex unveiled the brilliant notion of trading away the feat you get from your specialty to have an even more powerful talent. You have him to thank for how truly alien some nonhuman characters now feel. Putting together a Satyr is now something rich and strange - as I discovered. Pat followed up by breaking down my idea for limited specialties, turning a hard prohibition (you may ONLY choose specialties X, Y, or Z) into a hard choice (fit into the X/Y/Z mold or pay a heavy price). He gave the races more options, more versatility, and more long term value. Both of them absolutely proved why Crafty Games is a better team than just the sum of it's talents on this project. You'll see why very soon.
While Spycraft is distinctly it's own game, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most Spycraft players are also well acquainted with the 900-pound gorilla of fantasy gaming and have their expectation (good and bad) shaped by it. It is also occasionally a useful source of inspiration. I actually like the idea of races having favored classes, even if I don't much care for the implementation in standard d20. I don't like things that muck with XP. Its an unlimited resource, so its not a good thing to tax if you want a penalty that's actually felt right in the gut, and the long term consequences become unplayable - a major level split in a party will wreck any sort of reasonable encounter building. Spycraft studiously avoids such mechanics - unlimited multi-classing is a cornerstone of our standard play. So we started over with "favored classes" mechanic, keeping the name and the idea, but changing just about everything else. The favored class mechanics looks comfortably familiar to players of the d20 system on the printed page (which is awesome), but once the playtesters got to playing they discovered it is savagely unforgiving. First off it gives you 2 favored classes per race. That's different and it sets up a LOT more choices for distinguishing one race from another - more than 60 combinations instead of just 12 possibilities. Having those 2 classes to choose from gives you a wider footing, but step off that ledge and it's a loooong way down. You don't lose XP, you lose action dice when you buck the system. Ouch. Its a penalty that softens as you gain levels and you can certainly make it up with good play (earning those dice back is half the fun), but it also means that if you really want to make that pure Soldier centaur, it will show that you have turned your back on your people to follow your own course, and that it is a sometimes troubling decision for your character. It is a decision with weight. It’s important to you. And it gives you an edge because nobody out there is gonna see it coming either.
Probably the biggest change that happened during the development process was the transformation of racial classes. At first I was following the conventional wisdom - a class you took at the lowest levels to fill in the gaps between Monster Manual-like expectations and the limits of a balanced race package. Our "races" were getting us closer to the legends than a standard d20 race would, but we knew there was (lots of) room to grow. Gorgons are cool, but turning to people to stone (auto-slay) with a glance is just too much at first level, even in Spycraft! My first thought was to at least open it up so you didn't have to take your racial class - that being the end-all-be-all of centaur was just one more option and you might rather stick with the starting package and get to work on those Scout levels that were what you really wanted. That little bit of freedom ended up being just the start once the idea went into the tiger cage that is development at Crafty Games. The little truncated base classes I had produced revealed problems. Not every race had one - big mistake. They clashed with the new favored class mechanic I was working with. Most of all, the were too obvious. Players wanting to really roll around in the goodness of playing this new race ALWAYS choose the class over other options. They ended up striping the race of any sense of diversity, something they had already given up a fair portion of. The shift to giving each species a master class solved most of those problems - every race would have it's examples of mighty even if the race didn't necessarily need the extra oomph to meet expectations. Moving the racial class off to the higher levels opened up space for more extravagant benefits, forced low level characters to diverge and explore the possibilities before setting their sights on a long term goal of exemplifying all that was awesome about their character, and used an existing tool (Master classes) in a way that would insure that choosing a nonhuman would not allow you to totally overshadow traditional human characters. Chalk up another valuable win for the tiger cage.
So what happened during this last month? Your choice of Origin has always changed the lighting cast upon your later choices of class, skill, and feat. Now we've got a whole new spectrum of colors to shade those choices with that sometimes radically alter what a class means to you. Being a Soldier has different concerns when you have a host of natural poisons and a gaze attack in your pocket at all times or when your body counts as a suit of armor and the armor use ability will always be active for you. Things like NPC blocks to populate your world immediately and special NPCs to illustrate possible new allies and enemies. This last round of changes that took an extra month to deliver was focused entirely on providing better examples of how to use the new options. Like the core book, this .pdf is meant to be used, not read, but it should be a bit easier to read than the monolithic tome. We have more freedom now to say what needs to be said without page count hanging over our heads like an axe. The new ‘Character Seeds’ are our answer to numerous requests for many fronts to build more user-friendly into the game. The seeds are a little like a fast, playable tutorials for using the new options and not getting burned while you figure out what is what. They also let us showcase some of the devilish combos we've worked into the game system. You probably never thought of making a master of seduction using Hacker levels before, but there are things it has to offer...
So, Light of Olympus in its final stages before it goes out into the world. Its been a source of cramped hands, heated argument (read that "screaming matches"), and sleepless nights, but most of all it's been a source of pride for me. I hope people will check Crafty Games’ new races book out. This is one of the good ones.
Scott Gearin
Crafty Games
