BURNAWAY Development Update #3! (Gross Weather Edition)
about 2 years ago
– Sun, Jan 28, 2024 at 07:34:35 PM
Hello there!
We're closing out January, and I'm back with a progress report on BURNAWAY. The major section of the book still left to write is mostly information for the Story Guide, currently labled as Chapter 4. It covers how one runs the three phases of a game session (Briefing, Mission and Aftermath), as well as a bunch of advice and sample content for making your own Missions.
Now that I've gotten a month of drafting under my belt, I'm better able to gauge the time needed for each section, depending on the density of content. I've decided to split this one chunky chapter into two more focused sections. So, chapter 4 will be exclusively about running individual sessions and campaigns, while chapter 5 will contain all the info needed to create your own embergeists, NPCs, Locations and more. I'm a couple days away from completing the draft for the former chapter, and February shall be dedicated to writing chapter 5.
As thanks for your support, I wanted to share a snippet from my work this month (please excuse the first-draft writing style, it's gonna get cleaned up).
Cost of Living
The best part of living is paying for it. No matter how crappy, a burnaway has to have a place to sleep, food to eat, and maybe some other basic necessities to keep their bodies and minds sufficiently functional. These pesky essential needs are collectively representing by a character’s Cost of Living. You can interpret the name as the price of the lifestyle to which they are accustomed… Or simply the price of keeping oneself alive until the next payday comes.
At this point, all characters must spent their credits to buy dice for a special Challenge. The cost of each die is up to the Story Guide, as a wide variety of socioeconomic aspects can be represented here: fluctuating rent prices, food shortages, political unrest, etc. The standard cost is 250c per die.
Once the characters have bought as many dice as they want with their hard-earned funds, they all roll and determine the outcome as follows:
Getting Behind – the character rolls no Hits. There’s too many overdue bills, to many mouths to feed. Even stretching yourself to the breaking point isn’t enough. You wear yourself down from stress, hunger, lack of sleep, or being on the constant grind to make ends meet. For the next Mission, the character either starts with one Grief, or they suffer a Hitch to all Defense Challenges (player’s choice).
Getting By – The character rolls one Hit. Things might be tight, but they’ve managed to pay the most urgent bills and keep the lights on until next month. There’s no extra room for luxuries, but sometimes luxury means no collections thugs banging on your door. No further effects.
Getting Ahead – the character rolls more than one Hit. Their budget is looking healthy enough that they can finally throw some money at the important-but-not-urgent things in their life, and give themselves a bit more breathing room. Maybe even treat themselves a bit. For the next Mission, the character either gains a Boost to all Challenges with one Skill, chosen now, or they gain a Boost to all Defense Challenges (player’s choice).
Look for the next update some time in February! And if you're on a playtesting tier, now's the best time to grab your group and do a one-shot. We're looking for feedback to incorporate!
shiveringly,
-- nagi
BURNAWAY Development Update #2 (New Year 2024 Limited Edition)
about 2 years ago
– Fri, Jan 05, 2024 at 01:10:32 PM
Hello there!
Welcome to a whole new year, with an extra day thrown in as a bonus! I've spent a significant chunk of 2023's final two months dealing with unrelated business prospects in Japan (which you already knew if you're an Arnamantle email list reader!) The holidays started before I could even shake off my return jetlag, and now here we are.
As I outlined in the previous update, January is where development really picks up. This month is going to be focused on writing up the draft of BURNAWAY's fourth chapter, which will cover the ins and outs of running one-shots, campaigns, and every moving part in between. I was able to do some preliminary drafting on one of my longer bullet train trips in Japan, which I wanted to share with you all here. This section is to help Storytellers ensure that the decisons players have to make in the game will feel consequential based on BURNAWAY's themes. (As this is a first draft, please excuse any typos and awkward wording, this still has several editing passes to go before we print it.)
One major aspect of BURNAWAY is making difficult choices in dire circumstances. To establish such impactful moments in your game, the players need to understand- and care- about the stakes involved. As they’re acting through their characters during the game, the players will care about what their characters care about. Often, you need look no further than each character’s Motif Triad- their Spark, Flame and Ash- to get a clear picture. But it’s always helpful to fall back on these universal factors:
~ Bodily harm. How much is a character willing to risk when there’s a chance they might get permanently injured or worse? You can emphasize this stake through the mere concept of harm that may befall the characters the players care about, or through the medium of the mechanics. If a character gets hurt badly enough, they might not recover at all. That character will become permanently weaker, inching closer towards a state of unplayability through retirement or death.
~ Moral quandaries. This one can be trickier than expected. Most people have a decent understanding of “trolley problem” quandaries, where there’s an unbreakably binary choice of saving one group or another based on detached logic. BURNAWAY is more about being in the moment, as the characters will very rarely have time to step back and consider all of the ethical angles of a situation. This job is more of a “act now, regret later” thing. You can apply pressure in these situations by illustrating that if they don’t make a choice quickly, their inaction will cause an even worse outcome (or will it?...) Make them sweat, not deliberate.
~ Financial security. Each character will have their own relationship to the job, but at the end of the day, it is a job, with money on the line. And some people need this job far more than others. Whether it’s living paycheck to paycheck or running from some scary creditors, you can always introduce situations where characters might have to put their payday at risk to “do the right thing”.
~ Personal Stakes. Some burnaways have reasons for signing on to such a dangerous job that goes beyond the paycheck. Just as many social workers have personal histories with foster system and social services themselves, once your life is affected by an Embergeist, it’s not easy to just put it behind you and move on. Also like social workers, many burnaways with a history of embergeist activity want to change things for the better, by protecting others from suffering their fate, or perhaps by resolving an embergeist’s worldly bonds in an empathetic way. Others, however, might be diving back into a dark place when they take up the job. When the opportunity presents itself to right old wrongs, to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, will the past pull them away from the present?
Furthermore, we're hoping to start getting feedback from our playtesters this month! If you pledged to one of the tiers that included playtesting, hopefully you were able to jump on our discord and say hi. If you haven't gotten an official playtester role yet, please send our project manager Ketra (ketraa on discord) a message that includes the email you backed the project with so she can assign you one. We're looking forward to hearing all of your feedback- gripes, successes, and exciting gameplay moments! You should be able to access all of the necessary playtest materials through link we sent you in a personal message, but please reach out if you can't find yours.
Expect another update before the end of the month; I'll be curled up in front of my screen, avoiding the outdoors as much as possible. (I love winter, don't get me wrong. My body can't handle the cold very well anymore, but my New England spirit shall never be dampened.)
Newly Resolved,
-- Nagi
BURNAWAY Development Update #1 (Holographic First Edition)
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 02:45:20 PM
Hello there!
We've been having a bit of a breather since the Kickstarter's end last week and taking stock of what we've accomplished. But, it's time to start getting things in order as we hash out a timeline for writing, layout and playtesting. The holidays are already on the horizon (or already here, if you're in any shopping space playing a radio station), so things will start to really pick up steam from January onward.
First off, if you're not in our BURNAWAY discord yet, here's your invitation! You can chat with us more directly there. If you backed at the playtester level or above, you'll also be recieving an individual message with more info about the playtesting process. Once you join the discord server, please send our project manager Ketra (ketraa on discord) a message that includes the email you backed the project with so she can assign you a playtester role. Playtesting materials are ready to go now and we hope to be up and running through the holidays, so that we can start on revisions from January onward.
Finally, if you were one of the super generous supporters who will be designing a character portrait, embergeist or NPC, we'll be sending you more information about that process, along with a questionnaire for you to fill out in January.
Festively,
- nagi
That's a wrap on a successful Kickstarter!
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Nov 02, 2023 at 05:44:25 PM
Hello there!
You already know the good news, but now that it's official-official, I'll say it again here; we've funded BURNAWAY! 🔥
As someone who has pledged to and supported this project to help make it happen, thank you. It was a tough campaign to run, especially after our first funding attempt fell short. But we picked ourselves up, readjusted what we needed to, and took another swing, and I'm so glad we did!
So, what's next?
First off, there's a lot of writing still to be done. The core game mechanics are finished enough for some testplaying, but there are still several sections left to outline and flesh out before the full book can take shape. So, the last couple months of this year will be me buckling down on that. I'll be sharing updates on that along the way, of course, so you can see how things are shaping up. Also, if you're not there already, I run an email list for arnamantle projects in general; the updates there are a bit more spread out, but if you prefer to get more detailed highlights of this and other forthcoming projects, you're welcome to jump on that list!
For folks who pledged for the FLAMES (Playtester's package), or the FLASH FIRE (Design an NPC), BLAZES (Design an Embergeist) or INFERNO (Character Portrait) tiers, I'll be in touch separately with more information about the reward in your tier in the coming weeks.
Thank you all again for your continued support, and I hope everyone has a relaxing/refreshing start to the holiday season.
'Til later,
- nagi
Halloween's here early - BURNAWAY has hit is initial funding goal!
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 05:40:28 PM
We're up and running baby!!
Thank you to every single person who pledge and spread the word- for real, there's no way this would have happened without you. I'll be honest for a second here and say that for the past fifteen years or so that I've been designing systems and writing ttrpgs, I always felt hesistant to take the next big step into publishing, because I was always doubting whether or not other people would find my ideas interesting. There have been a lot of ups and downs along this three year path from conception to today, but it's all been worth it, especially to see how many other people are eager to play this game.
We've still got six days left, and our first stretch goal would allow us to get several more excellent writers in on this game - DeAngello Murillo, Mercedes Acosta, Rae Nedjadi, and Kienna Shaw! Their involvement would really push this project to the next level, so if you're a fan of any of them, please continue to spread the word so we can make it happen!
Once again, thank you so much for your support. I'm looking forward to finishing this game and finally getting it into everyones' hands. Stay tuned for more updates as we push towards our stretch goals and finish this month out on a high note!
