The Agent + The Xenoarcheologist

Tl;dr: Changelog

• Added the Agendas, Principles and detailed GM Moves
• Added 2 new playbooks, Agent and Xenoarcheologist
•  Added Sense Motive as a move
• Removed Origins, retooled as Foils

Playbooks of the week

And we welcome two new playbooks to the fold! The Agent is a Class about being suave, shady, sneaky, full of gadgets, and overall a bonafide James Bond ripoff. The Xenoarcheologist is an Impulse that focuses on the meaning behind all those alien ruins: who were they? What was their history, their culture like? What can they teach us? And did they leave any cool toys behind that are hopefully not too cursed?

Xenoarcheologist design thoughts

On the Xenoarcheologist specifically, they don't have a "when you spend a week doing X" kind of Move, which I kinda wanted to include on all Impulse playbooks to give them a cool, specific way to spend downtime in campaigns where that's important. Maybe that's a sign I should include it as a base thing? Or maybe I shouldn't try to churn out playbooks in a systematic way, this is a PbtA game after all.

I'm quite happy with their background questions though! Unlike the Escaped Cultist, they're less about having a clear background-to-motivation story, and more around a general reason to go to the stars without much concern for the why. Maybe that's okay, maybe that's lost storytelling potential.

I've also realized that most of their Moves are more about building the lore than doing fun things, but maybe that is fun in an by itself? After all, if someone willingly play a historian, they're probably not too interested about punching gods and more about learning the cultural importance of said god, and maybe it's okay to just have Moves that push towards interesting worldbuilding rather than interesting action.

Also I'm sad that I don't have more room for the "Inspiration" part. I could fit so many inspiration seeds in those bad boys. But the sheet's design would be much less elegant if they took up more place...

Agent design thoughts

I have way less thoughts about the Agent (toolkits are easier to design than mechanical storytelling devices), but I've started pondering whether I could write their Moves as, like, complex abilities instead. With no rolls involved, but rather "you can always do this in that situation by paying that price". This feels interesting, but also counter-intuitive - and perhaps even in the way of a PbtA game. I don't want to give up on the Classes entirely, though...

New Move: Sense Motive

I couldn't resist naming it after that one skill. It's such a good name. I realized, while writing the "Welcome to Dyson Spells" thing, that the game sorely lacked a way to understand people since I removed Ponder, so here it goes! ... god, 9 Core Moves. This beast is heavy. But then again, they all feel like they have a purpose - except maybe Piloting, which is just a grander version of Parkour... should I remove Parkour? Make every chase vehicle-based? This feels like an interesting possibility to explore.

Speaking of Moves, this is starting to feel more and more like a "go beyond known space" thing, where playing inside an established setting will be harder and harder. Which means that Liminal Travel's wording might have to change to reflect that.

Rulebook infancy

Sooo you might notice a file called "Welcome!". This is the place where I stored the Agendas and Principles, as well as where I explain the GM Moves in detail. I wanted to make it a quick introduction to the game, but it's actually starting to feel more and more like an actual rulebook, which, gosh, I didn't expect to have one so soon!

Speaking of which, I got rid of Origins. They were messy and complicated and didn't bring enough to the table to justify that. Instead, each character will have a Foil - something linked to them that might come up and create drama. Note that this is also the way to have a character's disability or identity be part of the story - which, I insisted in the files but I should insist again here, you don't have to make it a conflict-generating part of the story. The future doesn't have to be racist.

I'm also realizing that I make more typos than I thought. I don't know what to do with this realization.

Next week!

Since I'm actually following through and managing to diligently write stuff every saturday, I'm also starting to have a good grasp on what amount I can manage to write in one evening! So next week, expect 1 more Class and 1 more Impulse, as well as the first optional content: the Ship sheet! Not every group will want to bother with the details of tinkering, maintaining and upgrading a Ship, but some will, and I sure as hell want to provide support for them! You can also expect the Generators to pop up. They're a bunch of ways for a GM to make up interesting story bits and devices on the fly for things that don't warrant extensive considerations.

Oh, and in case you made it this far, I plan on having 1 Class for every Stat duo, and 2 Impulses per Stat duo. That's a lot of content, I know, but I do think I have a bunch of adequate ideas to execute on - what can I say, I like variety! ... if I do manage to publish all of them though, expect to see the game separated between "Core" Classes / Impulses / Rules / etc... and supplement bundles. I might even write playsets at some point, who knows!

See you next week!

Thanks to RealityMaiden and Unara for the feedback and support!