Building Your Sundered World

One of the players couldn't make it this week, so there won't be A Sundered World play report. I think we were considering playing something else, like Super Dungeon Explore since I managed to get a Wyrm Claw Exemplar on the super cheap, but instead got dragged into a two-hour conversation about A Sundered World.

There're a lot of unusual elements in A Sundered World, like the shape and physics of the world itself, the default world moves (which let you fly, construct objects out of astral matter, and cause your soul to stick around when you die), the races, the classes, the equipment (which includes treant-type mecha), and so on.

If you're used to a more...traditional fantasy game where, for starters, you kill kobolds with draconic ancestry, deal with angels that are almost universally winged humanoids, and gorgons are called medusas, there's a lot going on, which is why I'm including a primer, things to consider for your first session, and questions about the party, world, races, and classes.

Mind you when I write my adventures and classes (and in this case settings), I already assume that you are going to use what you like, change or remove what you don't, and add what you need to make it as enjoyable as possible for you and your group. During our talk my group suggested that I take it one step further. and put in a section for you to explicitly look at the default setting and tweak it before you even start your campaign, kind of like what you'd do at the start of a Dresden Files game.

So, in addition to providing some example world models, I'm going to put in a section on tweaking/building the setting. Like, maybe you don't want everyone to be able to fly, and when they're thrown from an island or object they just kind of float around (or fall, if you give your world objective gravity). Don't want everyone to be able to create objects out of the astral? Easy: just remove the world move, restrict it to certain creatures (like powerful angels), or require a specific advanced move to do it.

As a quick status update, the book is at a hefty 350 pages (text  hovering at about 90-95% complete), and the art is nearly a quarter of the way complete. Art production has slowed since I've been commissioned to do a cover for an indie RPG, cover and interior art for an old-school adventure module, and a semi-exclusive Dungeon World adventure for Mythoard, but the book is still well on track for a release sometime this year (along with Fright Night and very likely Dungeons & Delvers).

A Pirate's Class For You!

DriveThru RPG's GM's Day Sale might have ended, but for the rest of the month we're marking down The Pirate (and we've adjusted our Awfully Big Playbook and All of the Playbooks bundles accordingly).

The Pirate, in addition to being a Best Silver Seller, boasts a new character sheet layout (which you can both see here and on our very awesome, very meaty The Cultist): let us know what you think!

Mind you this is in addition to the "classic" sheet, so if you don't like the new one you can always stick with that one (though we'd like to know what you don't like about it).