Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vinicius Lessa" data-source="post: 9832021" data-attributes="member: 6898322">The teaser vid in the OP is a good intro for the vibes. I never played the game myself, but finished reading it these days. What made it enter my radar was winning a lot of awards recently (that I thought would go to Mythic Bastionlands, another neat game worth a look).Basically it's a mission-based, paranormal investigations + corporate horror game with a dose of satire. Players are field agents for a company capturing dangerous anomalies. Think Control (the videogame) plus Severance (the TV show) with a tone of Paranoia (the RPG). The book is a ready-made "campaign" of sorts, with preset "tracks" where players unlock classified pages to progress individualy on (so they can - and should - pick distinct paths, the game incites a sort of soft PvP). These paths are related to the Agency in the title, which is supposed to rise suspicions about it's true agenda, they're not fixed "story paths" like in PF's Adventure Paths and such (the way the missions and the Branch that players are a part of develop, is emergent).Spoiler: [spoiler]the Agency is trying to control reality in a Mage the Ascension-like consensual reality metaphysical affair. There's an anomalous entity inside the agency's vault trying to escape and change said reality, and it's reaching across to communicate with, and persuade the players into helping it. The different paths cited above are about this: there are three "tracks", each making a player side with one entity (the Agency, the entity at the vault, and one that's about running away and abandoning the conflict entirely). Every step of the tracks unlock "classified" pages in the book that confer not only new abilities for the player, but also entirely new rules that change the game. These pages are supposed to be hidden from the group, optionally even the including the GM, so they get surprised when unlocking them. Eventually the players understand there are distinct advantages and usefulness for both killing and letting the anomalies escape alive, as both options advance the different entities agendas (this is the source of the soft PvP), and there's a system for resolving conflict between the players. Along the progress tracks there are also steps where the player can retire their character early, like in a Blades in the Dark game, and start over with new ones, and also points of no return where "it's do or die from now on". There are also proper, different endings for the campaign, with definitive outcomes for the region of the local branch of the Agency they work at.[/spoiler]Design-wise it's pretty wild. It uses elements from all across the hobby design space, including stuff from outside too (like boardgames). As described above the campaign has a format akin to a "legacy boardgame", if you know that. The system is rolling a pool of 6d4 and counting 3s or multiples of (the setting has an obsession for 3s and it always brings luck - the Agency is represented by a red triangle, for eg). The main way players express within the game is through their anomaly powers, and a move called "Ask the Agency", where they mentally ask the agency to change the causal reality at hand so they can surpass an obstacle. This works like an improv-game where they say things like "I ask the Agency to make so the factory door guard had a belly ache this morning, and so there is this gap at schedule where the factory door is left unguarded for a brief moment, which means we can enter". And then there's this metacurrency system in place where PCs stats are small pools of points they can spend to adjust the rolls. The game lacks a formal "combat system", and most conflicts seem to be about spending resources to change reality into favorable positions so the team succeed at the missions. So, more improv -heavy than tactics -heavy.The agents' anomaly powers feel like Pbta moves in structure. "When X.. then Y", with "Yes, and" and "Yes, but" conditions.There's also a relationships system in place where players create and nurture those relationships at downtime, that can be compelled to show up at missions by the players (to help the mission) or by the GM (to hinder or be threatened).It's more or less this. Hope it's not too much. I'm not a native speaker.</blockquote>

Verification