Update - 24/04/2023
Hello, everyone! How was your weekend? As usual, I just stayed home and worked, but I did also get the chance to play some RPGs online, so that's always great. With the release of Riftbreakers, I've focused all my attention on the skirmish game for Sacrifice. As I've mentioned before, my goal is to make it as compatible as possible with Sacrifice, so you could even see it as an expansion to that game. My goal is to feature small Warbands and have games that are played on a small square grid, with tokens (although you can use minis as well, of course, and forgo the grid and just use inches, if that's what you prefer). The core rules are the standard D20 stuff we're all familiar with, but I've reduced the number of stats to 4 and eliminated skills. So anyone wanting to play a simpler, more streamlined of Sacrifice could very well take these rules and play the RPG with them!
In order to set the game apart from the many, many skirmish games that have come out lately, I'm adding a couple of different elements:
- Characters can choose from a list of Feats when they level up, granting them active and passive abilities. If you're familiar with the awesome PC game Battle Brothers, you know how it goes.
- There's a pool of Combat Maneuvers (25 to be precise). You can pick one per character (initially), and use it once during the Battle phase of the game.
- Each Warband has a list of Command Actions that are unique to them, setting them apart from other bands. These are very powerful things, such as rallying the troops or buffing them in different ways, so your Warband Leader can only use 3 of them per battle.
- Last but not least, you can only issue 3 orders per turn. This means that you can only activate 3 of your characters, so you have to choose carefully! Each battle has a randomly placed Strategic Point that when captured (and held!) grants the Warband +1 order, which should make things pretty interesting.
- There's a bit of a strategy game here as well: you have your territory, with Locations that grant you advantages of various kinds. This works with a hex map, I still need to work on it, though.
So yeah, I hope that all these things together make for a fun game! The focus is on solo, but there's nothing stopping you from playing it PVP, of course.
Still no news from Phil, it's been a month already... I try my best to keep myself busy because there's literally nothing I can do about it, but it's really making me anxious. I can't wait to be done with Across a Thousand Dead Worlds.
In more positive news, The Dungeon Dive made an awesome video review of Godshard, go check it out!
That's it for now, I'll keep working on Blood & Mud this week, and little else. Have a great week!