On top of everything else going on this past week, there were two playtests for two different games in development: Optional Core and TPK. Today, we're going to talk about Optional Core because this one's actually on my to-do list and TPK is on my why-dude-there's-already-so-much-you-have-to-do list.
The Development Team showed up for their monthly game Friday night and it was the first time we sat down to specifically test out Optional Core. Unlike Killshot, which has a specific setting/timeline/genre, Optional Core is intended for use in nearly anything you can devise for your personal RPG. Up until the day before, I had intended to use an old setting of mine (if anyone happens to have read Combat Advantage #16 from my Emerald Press days, you may recognize Cassia) and adapt it accordingly to suit the characters everyone rolls up. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed counterintuitive to the purpose of testing Optional Core. I'm not trying to make a game that works within an existing genre or setting, I'm trying to create a game that can handle any genre or setting. Therefore, we should devise the setting at the same time as the characters.
There were, however, certain conditions this setting had to include for playtesting reasons.
