v 0.7.0


Here's a bigger update that was actually meant to be even bigger, and then scaled back some.

Originally, this update was going to include a new approach to action rolls, which I will share below. See, I was finding in playtesting that people weren't using their gear very much. In order to incentivize using gear, I thought that maybe it could get you a die for the action roll. Which then necessitated reworking the action rolls altogether:

  • State your goal and choose an action. The keeper clarifies if necessary. If you're on a hunt, you should also state whether or not you are looking for a clue
  • The keeper sets position based on their gut feeling, the hunter's actions, and proximity to danger.
  • Take up dice:
    • +1d for marked actions. For actions that are not marked, start with zero dice.
    • +1d if you are using relevant gear (mark load as necessary).
    • +1d if you get help from another hunter (they mark 1 luck).
    • +1d if you push your luck, putting your body, heart, or mind on the line (mark 1 luck) --or-- you accept a deal with the darkness. You can't get dice for both--it's one or the other.

In play, it was ... fine? I guess? I liked it in theory but it fell a little flat in practice. (I say this as someone who loves procedural dice gathering ... one of the first drafts of the game had an action roll that looked a lot more like the risk roll from Trophy Dark, believe it or not.) My players reported that it wasn't as exciting as the previous version and slowed things down a bit.

Ultimately, I ended up going back to the original version, but rewording and clarifying it some, and calling out gear as being an important aspect to consider when the keeper sets position. Hopefully, this will prompt more gear use, but I also learned a valuable lesson that every GM has to learn over and over again: if you're noticing a problem, just trying to talk to your players about it instead of hacking the damn game to fix it.

The other big part of the update is adding in a little more detail and advice about the keeper actions, a section I referenced in the text but never actually included. Oops!

Changelog: 

  • Clarified action roll procedure with more specific wording and a note for the keeper to consider gear when setting position
  • Cleaned up action descriptions
  • Clarified that the pact can hold up to two pact beats
  • Updated gathering strings procedure in Fallout phase
  • Clarified and simplified some downtime action descriptions
  • Updated universal xp triggers
  • Clarified "hold lightly" keeper principle
  • Added description of and advice about using keeper actions
  • Clarified that the keeper may not hold more than four strings at a time
  • Addition of boxed text to call attention to important notes
  • Miscellaneous formatting and wording changes
  • Fixed miscellaneous typos
  • Updated table of contents and index
  • Added bookmarks for easier navigation of the PDF
  • Updated playkit and character keeper to be consistent with 0.7.0

Files

BumpInTheDark_v0.7.0-SINGLES.pdf 26 MB
Jun 30, 2022
BumpInTheDark_v0.7.0-SPREADS.pdf 26 MB
Jun 30, 2022
BumpInTheDark-CharacterSheets-v0.7.0-WIP.pdf 249 kB
Jun 30, 2022
BumpInTheDark-Playkit-v0.7.0-WIP.pdf 249 kB
Jun 30, 2022

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Comments

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So you are in gameplay fixing moment. This can lasts very long. And you like in theory the game. But players more like prev version. Man, this is hard case!

Thankfully I liked the new version more in theory than in practice and didn't have too much of a problem switching back to the old version (with a few tweaks to clarify the procedure).