Where'd December Go? Welcome to 2026.
Happy New Year!
December was pretty crazy. My family and I are moving, but not far. I ran a bunch of games, but didn't play in any. I'll catch up where I left off in my last post, but tonight I'm going to write about where I am with game development and where I'm headed next.
I've wrapped my first Hyperlite Serial (that's what I'm calling them -- short campaigns of about 12 episodes or less). Thank you Thom and Lee for being great players and good friends. We clocked 10 sessions and I'm pretty happy with the serial. I've tested it at multiple conventions and now run it with extensions. I think it will make for a great presentation package along with the right rule system. As to the game itself, I have thoughts. These thoughts are what I alluded to in the first paragraph.
Thought One. The Ladder.
Is it a Role-Playing Adventure Game if it doesn't have some kind of achievement-driven level progression as a reward system? Dave Arneson didn't think so, or so the stuff I've read about him says. I call these things Ladders; short for achievement ladders. You start the game at Level 1 on the bottom rung and as you climb you get more power and options, greater survivability and access to better gizmos. The next rung is never very far and when you get it the game is going to be better, right?
Yes, it is.
Traveller doesn't have a leveling system. You don't get a bunch of money, slay a bunch of bad aliens and then "level up". For those of you not new to the Ways of the LBBs, I apologize for what I'm about to reveal. In Traveller, at least in Classic you have to commit to training and then wait for a year to attempt to retain the benefits of your training. You have to wait a calendar year. Those 10 sessions I just wrapped up were a little over 400 days, so I got to see an entire training cycle. After 10 sessions, they got to see if they kept their gains. About 60% did, and while that was neat and all, and they re-committed to new skills or fitness goals it simply did not have the same thrill as gaining a level. The dopamine hit was weak. That's not good in my opinion, and needs to change for Hyperlite.
There are ways to make Traveller feel like you're leveling with the money and gear you can get your hands on, but there are diminishing returns to that for players. For Referees (or Game Managers as I'm starting to call people who practice this art) running a Space Barons game is no small effort. Traveller scales up to a multi-Sector war-game. Hexes and little ship counters and gravity wells around planets -- all the trimmings! That's great for some, but that's not what I want my game to scale up to and the money-plus-gear ladder in Traveller leads there.
I want a more traditional leveling system, but I want to capture the mini-narrative of the Life Path Character Generation system. I love the risk versus reward evaluation that takes place at the end of the term when you must decide if you want one more term or not. It's a very good game moment. But starting play with a finished character doesn't mesh well with a skill and power progression ladder. Several successful character development terms puts them at a significant advantage. Starting age is a factor, but they'll always be ahead of the younger party member who level character generation early. Clearly, I've more to consider here, but I think Mr. Arneson was more than 80% correct. You need a ladder to have a compelling role-playing adventure game.
Thought Two. I'm going to play some other stuff for a minute.
I wrote a bunch of pages for Hyperlite. I have rules for travel, and life support, for trade and encounters. I wrote up a rules-skeleton for customizing starships and vehicles, and a rudimentary method for generating star system information. It doesn't feel complete. There's a lot missing, I think. For example, background actors that drive a campaign. The factions, the Big Bads, and the world-level movers and shakers that keep your game living and real are a dimension I'm missing from Hyperlite. I was going to try out Stars Without Number and see if I could learn something there. I still may, but oh! Look who just walked in.
I got turned onto a game called Star Dogs (you'll find it on DriveThru, it's indy and inexpensive and I'm so fucking jealous. Go buy it.) by none other than Sean McCoy of Mothership while he was on the Appendix N Podcast discussing Jack Vance's Star King -- one of the Demon Princes books, and I have read it. This was a couple years ago, but he said that he and his crew were obsessing over this game. I can kind of see why.
Thought Three. What now?
I will run another Thom-n-Lee game and it will be set in the same space sector we've been playing in, but before I commit to SWN I'm going to have to read Star Dogs again. It is so rough-and-ready. It's super-compelling. I have to give it a spin, but Thom-n-Lee may not be the best audience for it or they might be! But, that's where the X-Club comes in. There are way more players than the library can accommodate on a game night. Hence, X-Club.
I'm going to start small with this next bit. I'll start running regular games on Sunday afternoons at Parkville Market. That may be the place Star Dogs does its best, but I have other ideas there. That will be a sandbox-style, troupe game. Open table, multiple characters per player, player-driven adventures with a ladder progression. I intend to start this within the next 5 weeks. If it grows well, I'll put together a MeetUp, see if that takes hold, and then comes the hard part: a one day game convention next January.
We'll see.
Next Time: Return to Convention Game Design Notes
Seriously, I will. And I'll write up a bit on my research into factions as SWN does them.
See ya.