This is the introductory flavor text to a tabletop RPG I'm working on (which is currently in beta if anyone wants to try it!). For context, the game is meant to provide solarpunk action adventure, and is intended to deliberately subvert the tone of cyberpunk RPG games. Constructive feedback is encouraged.
" Ablation narrowed their feline eyes as they assessed the situation. The Basalt Assault crew had the team pinned down. Ore was barreling towards them at terrifying speed. With all other options gone, Ablation silently prayed to the spirits and took their only shot. It was a desperate fade-away from behind the three, but it landed. The net swished. And the crowd lost their shit.
Just then, an urgent message broke through Ablation’s call block to appear in their HUD. It was from Rez, and read “PRIORITY 1”. Ablation grabbed their comm collar from the courtside bench. The moment its conduction speaker contacted their neck the ringer blared to life in their head.
“Hey Rez. Report?”
“Suppression-extraction. Malibu. I’m enroute to you now. Can you clear Pegasus a space?”
“Yeah. Who’s the target?” Ablation turned to the other players. “Make some room!”
“It’s a commune of fifty sovereigns. They refused assist yesterday. Since then their primary and backup heat absorbers failed.”
Ablation looked toward the virtual indicator in their AR contact lenses. It was quickly replaced by the sight of the actual rotorcycle as it approached in biospace. By now the crowd on the grassy hillside and the neighboring balconies were looking in the same direction.
“What’s the timeline?”
“They say they have enough gel to hold out 30 minutes, so… that.” Dust momentarily gusted around Ablation as Rez decelerated sharply, setting Pegasus down on the half court line as they cut the rotors. Ablation disabled away mode on their HUD and saw the flood of reacts from the crowd, along with an excited greeting emoji from Pegasus. Plus a warning from Ore that Ablation had better get back safe and finish business.
“You still know how to don a firesuit on the back of a bike?”
Ablation popped the cargo trunk, doffed their shoes and skirt, and stepped into the lower half of the firesuit. They threw their things in the trunk and swung a leg over Pegasus’ back seat. “That’s funny, Rez. Spin it.”
“Alright, Peg, you heard ’em: if they fall off they can’t blame us for flying too fast.” Pegasus gave a laugh react and a thumbs up and spun up her rotors. The park and its crowd dropped away fast, and Ablation’s vision filled with briefing text and the real time location of an airship steaming towards the plume of smoke rising from one section of the Santa Monica mountains. The rescue would be dangerous and uncertain. But then again, saving something always is. "___
I think.... overall it does a good job of catching the reader's attention and setting up the next scene in a way that I'm genuinely interested in what happens next. In the context of an intro for a TTRPG, I'm not so sure. I feel like the setup for the action should be a bit more concise and should hint a little further at the type of action we're to expect. (For example, my initial reaction is "I think we're about to go fight a fire.... but I'm not sure"). In short, my takeaway is that I feel like I'm still missing context.
I'm curious as to how the "action" plays out in your TTRPG. I know conflict and problem solving will always exist regardless of setting, but how have you managed to turn that into fun actionable experiences for the player?
That's a great question, and it's the one that comes up the most often.
From a storytelling perspective, action is just written to be sensible within the narrative. In one story, players use a brain machine interface to travel into a psychonaut's mind to assist her when she suffers an adverse reaction to an experimental psychedelic. In another they stumble upon remotely operated androids armed with guns in the process of raiding a lab for a rare chemical, and have to fight to disable them.
The way non-combat action (like the mind dive) is handled within the game mechanics is pretty conventional: players roll against skill checks. If a player wants to dodge a lighting strike inside a dreamscape they roll dice and try to get lower than their dexterity plus athletics.
Combat has its own system. It's turn-based and takes place on a map like DnD, but (imo) much simpler and reconfigured to facilitate deescalation, non-lethal attacks, restraint, etc.. I can go into details, but most people, imo, don't really care about combat as much as the role play.
I'm working on some experimental systems for chase mechanics, aerial maneuvering, etc., but those are all slated for an expansion.
If you want to browse it, I have links to the manual and the story modules on my blog: http://www.shrad.org/2023/06/my-tabletop-rpg-fully-automated-is-now.html
I've briefly looked through the manual and modules and am glad to see that it is quite detailed. Looks like you've put a ton of work into it! I'll make not of anything that sticks out to me if/when I get time to peruse it.
One more thing. What would be the main draw for attracting players to your TTRPG (outside of just the setting)? With D&D you have the ability to be both good or evil and have a plethora of options for living out your life within a fantasy setting. With Solarpunk, there seems to be a natural affinity to make everything aligned with good. Is there a way to be evil within your TTRPG, and if so, what repercussions would the GM have available to keep players in line?
Well, I see the goal as to create something that's open-ended enough to be used however people see fit. So is there a way to be evil within the TTRPG? Yeah, one would just need to write a story where the players are evil, and the rules used to hack a computer or defeat an adversary in a fight work just as well even if you're playing for the dark side.
I think the tools available to a GM would be more or less the same regardless of alignment: you set up a goal and consequences for success, failure, and everything in between. If I were writing an "evil" campaign, I'd probably model it after the Suicide Squad franchise: a group of people who have been removed from society for demonstrating an unrepentant rejection of its constraints are called upon to perform a task that needs done using skills and methods no ethical person would agree to. Something like that. They don't have long-term punitive incarceration, but the final destination for people who have refused reform is exile from everywhere. Once every village, nation, and space station in the solar system tells you you're not welcome, all that's left are ungoverned islands cut off from the rest of society. Those could offer great settings for evil campaigns.
Needless to say, it's not the kind of missions I've been inclined to write, but if someone wants to, I'd be grateful for more options for more people to play how they want to.
Also, for what it's worth, most of my players prefer to play as these scummy, kind of unwashed hobo types. They're not evil, but they're all sort of chaotic neutral, hard drinking, frazzled, drug-addled weirdos of different varieties, and I'm happy to report that it still works within the system.
If I weren't already knee deep into building my own world, I'd be tempted to write some modules. I love putting systems to the test. I'd be curious to see how the world responds to chaotic and/or evil players.
I think part of the allure is being able to do things you couldn't get away with irl. I think your chase and aerial maneuvering scenarios might be a good way of really opening up the possibilities of the world.
Hopefully you might get the chance eventually. I'd like to release version one -- for free -- by the end of the year, then update it when new stories and mechanics get completed.
If I were to fulfill my overall goal, this would eventually form at least part of the genesis of a generalized solarpunk gaming genre. It doesn't matter much whether it's called Fully Automated, but I hope that going forward, this game isn't a novelty, it's something people within this community are generally familiar with, or at least there's an alternative that fills a similar role.
Anyway, this probably won't be the last you hear of it. When it reaches milestones, I'm going to promote it here and on all the solarpunk communities I can find.