Update - 10/02/2025

Hello, and welcome to another weekly update! I hope you all had a great weekend. I spent mine working and little else. Those of you who have been here for a while know how it goes; I get obsessed about a game and I do little else but work on it. I'm trying to rein in my enthusiasm so I stick to my original vision of smaller releases for Machine Gods, but we'll see! So far I have about fifty pages of content for The Voidspire Territories book. I still don't know for sure if it will be fully done before the month's over, but you guys will get most of it, that's for sure. So far, the first chapter is an introduction to the region, with some history and an overview of the different factions, etc. The second chapter, the one I'm working on now, is the big one, going over the different points of interest. It starts with the city of Voidspire, describing what you can do there, things that can happen, etc. This is the largest section, of course, but there's the town of Blackrock as well, and probably some other nearby landmarks. The last chapter will be the bestiary, most likely.

I know some of you are not entirely happy with how the core rules work, though, specifically the Dynamic Target Number rules. I am aware that the automatic scaling makes Attribute modifiers trivial, so all that is by design. I like that the main use for Attribute modifiers is to set a check's TN. So yes, characters right now feel a bit samey; this matches with my vision of what a rules-light game is. I doubt anyone is playing a long campaign with a rules-light game; no, if you want to play a campaign with something simple, you are going to need more detail, and that means additional books and aids, or a lot of homebrewing. So I'm perfectly fine with the core rules of Machine Gods being simple, and the capabilities of PCs depending more on their gear and their story than on their stats. You all know how important character progression is for me, it's the number one reason I play RPGs. If a game doesn't have detailed character options and progression, I just don't play it. I might run it for friends, but I don't feel the pull to create a character and explore the setting if I can't grow said character via pure power progression. So of course, all my games feature a lot of that sort of thing, and Machine Gods isn't going to be less. I'm still focusing it all from a rules-light game, so everything I'm planning on adding is relatively simple and not simulationist, and most importantly, modular and entirely optional.

Which brings me to the Advanced Rules. I wasn't sure if I should release next the Advanced Rules book, or The Voidspire Territories book, but I ended up going with this second one to let the core rules stew a bit longer and see what's really needed. I have a lot of ideas already for the Advanced Rules, among them something that "solves" the "issue" of the dynamic TN that some of you seem to really dislike (which again, I get it). So for now, if you like the game, just keep playing it, since at low levels characters in a classless game are generally very samey by default (unless you have a complex and detailed character generation process). The good stuff is in the works! I promise you will all enjoy the game, whether you want to leave it as a simple, rules-light RPG, or want to add layers of complexity to it, Machine Gods should be able to cater to everyone.

Aside from working on Machine Gods, I've also did some more work on Across a Thousand Hollow Vaults, but it was admittedly very little. From a business point of view I might be doing something really stupid, focusing so much on a game that is only going to be available for a handful of people, but I really wanted to incentivize people joining the Patreon, and I'm hoping that over time I can begin to cover the expenses (art is really not cheap, as you guys know). At least eventually having a few physical copies available through my store should help cover some of the expenses. In any case, I'm enjoying the game, and I think it can turn out being one of my best, once all the pieces are completed.

So that's it for this week, I'll continue working on Machine Gods full-time, most likely. Have a great one!