I had a system I thought worked. SPACE OPERA EPISODE VIII was originally meant to be Rooted in Trophy, with strong on-the-fly scenario creation. Play was supposed to be character-focused, fast, and unpredictable, with the seat-of-your-pants being attached to a rocket. It was meant for the times when someone couldn't show up to a session of one of my longer-running games. People could still play, have a great time, and move on, all in between an hour to two and a half hours.
I just scrapped most of the mechanics and started over.
Don't get wrong, I loved the mechanics! They produced interesting results. Trophy's got some seriously awesome mechanics behind it and I can't wait to finally play me some Trophy Gold with the hardcover I ordered. Trophy Dark is just boatloads of fun. Once I get some more development of this game and Crescendo done, further down the line, I think I'll do some Trophy Dark scenarios. I love just how evocative the whole line of Trophy is.
But the problem is that I want a one shot that can do a game in an hour and a half to two hours, maybe two and a half hours. I don't get a whole lot of time to game, doing it after the kids are put down for the night. Which is late. I also don't want it to jump into another session, as usually when a player misses they only miss the one session. So that makes it a pain to include him or just... wait until the next time he misses? I guess? I know this isn't necessarily a problem for everyone, or even really anyone but me, but... I kinda have to be able to test the game I designed! I also wonder if other older players don't run into this problem as well. How many games are designed for more time-intensive singular sessions of play, and are thus inaccessible to folks with small kids? Not sure, but I'm in the situation so I can't help but design for it.
The other problem is that I am a bit of a rolling junkie. I really like Trophy's rolling mechanics, as stated before, and found that I was constantly calling for rolls. My testers went with it because they're good people, but I could tell they just wanted to let the game breathe for a minute. So I decided to make it a mostly-diceless game. where you build up experience chits to eventually get to the decisive roll, the moment of truth, in each act. This strips the mechanical overload to a fraction of what it currently was, with still some back and forth, as players have to negotiate around getting chits for the end of the act versus how that affects the narrative in the meantime.
The biggest problem, of course, was the scenario generation. I'd built a system to make up a scenario with players on the fly, and it's a lot of fun! It made for some hilariously wonderful conversations. The problem? It took too long. The point wasn't to make a cool scenario, but to finish the scenario in a short amount of time. Fortunately the solution was simple: the GM just comes up with the scenario beforehand. Character creation is short enough to where players can just roll at the top of the session, but obviously making characters beforehand is polite.
There's a lot to be said for the older version of SPACE OPERA EPISODE VIII. But you have kill your darlings if they don't work. And this didn't work. I want something fast and decisive. And the earlier draft just wasn't doing it. Further playtesting is necessary, but I think I'm on the right track.
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