Today I released Micro2K – a distillation of the Step Dice Year Zero Engine as used in Twilight 2000 and Blade Runner.
You can nab it here for nothing!
It’s complete enough to be used with things like Twilight Tangents but you’re going to want the full rules in T2K for sure.
I haven’t spoken much about “Enhanced” but the premise is:
“What if, in the Twilight War, the war to end all wars, there was another agent. Something that arrived on earth nearly 100 years before and spread it’s mutagenic force throughout the world, especially after it was discovered that the mutations could be controlled.
So, you end up with….gods and demons
Progress with Beyond Human has definitely slowed dude to working on other projects; not least ENHANCED for Twilight 2000 and The 23rd Letter 3rd Edition (as well as Xiongguo, Invasion and Rise of R’lyeh. Yes, some of those projects you’ve never heard of, but that’s just another thing slowing things down. Many many projects and I’m just this one person working on them.
#ttrpgDesign #ttrpg #T2K4e #xiongguo?
So, we begin the playtest for Xiongguo (working title) next week. ?I’ve added some additional rules which are pilfered from other systems. ?Xiongguo is a simple, fast, low magic, classless sandbox based in the YZE SRD for playing in an Asian period action adventure game. There is absolutely no attempt to emulate a particular period, only to evoke a certain feeling.
The aim is to produce something that could be used to play in a game of The Water Margin, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Kingdom, The Pirates, Mr Vampire, Once Upon A Time In China, and others. It’s a little low magic to emulate Monkey or Zu Warriors. ?Purists will note I’m not only crossing nations but immensely different time periods because, as I said, this isn’t trying to be a historical recreation
Games in a Utopia
I guess it depends where you sit.
We live in a post-scarcity civilisation (we have the technology), we just don’t live in a post-scarcity society. Scarcity is manufacturered.
So are we close to a utopia if we fixed distribution and inequality? Well. Kinda. There would still be people with greed. People who think that the accumulation of “more” is the only purpose of life. I found The Culture’s attitude to that to be entertaining. You can really have what you want. But it’s empty because people generally don’t mingle with people driven by needless accumulation. That is a mental illness.
Is there nothing to do?
Well, assuming that there are areas where the utopia hasn’t spread, there are always the frontiers as others have said.
A few years back, I did a mini documentary on “edges” as a source of fecund diversity as you have three ecosystems. – in this context, you would have the ecosystem of the utopia, the ecosystem of the “barbarians” and then the ecosystem of the people who live on the border.
I also like the Cortex setting Hammerheads (it’s Thunderbirds) though I really can’t grok their system. Rescuing people is a good thing. From natural and man-made (or alien-made) disasters.
And the idea that while it is a utopia, the people are not mindless Eloi. They can have jealousies. Even though the replicators can make anything, they can’t manufacture something created by the hands of humans. It will always just be a copy even if molecule-perfect. Even if you can have your simulacrum sexbot, it’s not the same as the person you love. Authenticity remains.
I like the idea of gaming in a utopia. It’s better than the grubbing around for gold that is the mainstay of fantasy and most modern and sci-fi games. I’ve never been money motivated in games or real life.