Update - 01/09/2020

Hey! How's everyone doing? I hope you've had a great weekend, and that you've had the chance to test the new Patreon content Trees are people too! I'd love to hear some feedback, it's very helpful moving forward to know if you guys like this type of content, or if there's anything you'd prefer I would've done another way.

This past week has been mostly focused on finishing the layout for the Seekers Beyond the Shroud scenario, but I've managed to do some other stuff. I've been fooling around a bit with ideas on how to interact with NPCs in Seekers; this would be content that would come out in the upcoming Narrative Playbook (which, if everything goes as planned, I'll be able to start working on early next year). I started thinking about this because I am in the middle of working on precisely the same thing, but for Under Ashen Skies. Both games share the same foundations so many ideas and concepts are similar, but their execution is pretty different. Especially considering that the next step for Seekers is allowing NPCs to react to the player as any other NPC would, in a real RPG. On the other side, Under Ashen Skies will be released as a pure dungeon crawler with lots of RPG elements. Due to the closed nature of its setting, I'm not sure how I would turn it into a full-fledged RPG, like I've done with Disciples of Bone & Shadow (with its Narrative Playbook) and I'm planning on doing with Seekers. I guess everything's possible, but for now I need to get the core experience right. That means getting NPCs that are fully randomly generated (although there are several "named" NPC, the Dramatis Personae; more on them other day!), with gear, and their reactions to you. This can be as simple as attacking or deciding to accompany you or trade with you.

The NPC system ties in with another system, which is the Tasks. Sometimes, an NPC will have a Task for you, which will involve different things, such as (for example) finding someone, eliminating an enemy, or bringing them something. I still haven't dug into this properly, but it's coming next, once I have all the other details done! It's a lot of tables and ideas I need to organize.

So this starting week I'll continue working on Under Ashen Skies primarily while starting to organize my ideas for the next Patreon content, which I'm pretty sure is going to be a lifepath character creation system for Disciples (as well as a new Archetype I really want to get in, if I have the time)!

Hope you have a great week!