OOC

[Mister-Kent]

This is all sounding very cool!

[shroomofinsanity]

I'm here for some old testament. I'm going to be looking through the book tomorrow night, but I'm assuming between you two we have all the magic we need covered?

[Marullus]

They both are Pacters, so involved exclusively with Shadows. That still leaves a wide array of magic fun if you want to explore it.

Arcanist is the technologist wizard (and the generalist that memorizes spells).
The Yama King is a magically-enhanced arbiter of law. A Circuit Judge would be tremendously thematic.
The War Mage could also work.
...and nobody has picked up the Psionics options yet.

[Enoch]

I'd say we have all the Shadow we need, but Packers summon Shadows and have a few other spells relating to them, and Godhunters are basically Warriors who have Shadow-specific powers.

I think there's plenty of room for other casters if that's what interests you.

[shroomofinsanity]

I'll keep in mind the wandering judge, as that's a preferred archetype of mine. But I will also look at the more martial side of things to see if that piques my interest more.

Oh, psionics you say, I cant wait to dig into this book(s) and see what's up.

[greyarea]

Welcome, Craig. It's been a while. Hope you're doing well!

[Marullus]

EDIT: I made the rolls.

That's great. I added a stub for it. You can revise and add as you expand your concept.
viewtopic.php?p=527952#p527952

[Enoch]

So it turns out that Pacter doesn't play particularly well with Godhunter (at least not in the same character): the Pacter suffers penalties to BAB and HP that really hinder the Godhuner in combat. Therefore I'll probably end up going straight Godhunter and leave the Shadow-spells to our preacher!

[Faanku]

So it turns out that Pacter doesn't play particularly well with Godhunter (at least not in the same character): the Pacter suffers penalties to BAB and HP that really hinder the Godhuner in combat. Therefore I'll probably end up going straight Godhunter and leave the Shadow-spells to our preacher!

Pacter's spell list is incredibly underwhelming at lvl, so the best I can do is point them out for you so smack down.

[Enoch]

I was looking at Analyze Shadow and Lesser Shadow Ward as a Partial Pacter, but I'd probably choose Leeser Servitor or Manipulatory Manifestation, personally; both could be very useful with clever play. Best part is both stick around with Light Focus.

But yeah, a Level 1 Pacter doesn't have much combat utility (though lots of other utility).

[Faanku]

I was looking at Analyze Shadow and Lesser Shadow Ward as a Partial Pacter, but I'd probably choose Leeser Servitor or Manipulatory Manifestation, personally; both could be very useful with clever play. Best part is both stick around with Light Focus.

But yeah, a Level 1 Pacter doesn't have much combat utility (though lots of other utility).

Yeah Analyse Shadow is a must for RP purposes, but the others needing light focus gets in the way of Personal Shielding Field from Cross-Disciplinary Study (in fact nearly every spell needs focus, which is a little annoying), so I was considering Shadow Nourishment instead, to really play up the devout angle. I don't need food or water, my prayers will sustain me!
But yeah, either Unseen Servant or Mage Hand to go with my Mage Armour and Detect Magic

[Craigers07]

Welcome, Craig. It's been a while. Hope you're doing well!

Thank you! I didn't play too much PBP last year. I'll PM you to get caught up.

[Mister-Kent]

Excited to see Chapter 1 up! I shall post there today

[Marullus]

You all are fantastic! I'm excited to see you all posting and we're not even up 24 hours.

I will reply as expediently as I can for conversation and coloring and I encourage you to interact with each other. Major moves will hold at least 48 hours or until everyone has had a chance to contribute so that we don't leave anyone behind.

[Mister-Kent]

Sorry, tough weekend! I'll get posted today!

[Marullus]

I ran across this Q&A answer from Kevin Crawford, the game designer. I am happy that the reasons I like SWN were intentional. I think this is also a good reason that OSR and B/X games are so popular on this site.

The biggest influence on SWN's design was that I thought it would be more fun to practice laying out an RPG with actual RPG text to go with it, so I just grabbed whatever was most convenient as a basic mechanical template. In this case, it was B/X D&D with the Traveller skill system bolted on, a system that I and many other people could write with their eyes closed. It took me six months to write the game, and that includes doing the layout.

Mechanically, SWN is trivial. There are quality of life adjustments to it, and some handy tweaks for simplicity, and plenty of subsystems for handling sci-fi-relevant activities, but all of the mechanics are fundamentally transparent and existing tech. Most of the rolls are so simple that outcome probabilities could be calculated in the player's head before they ever roll the dice; knowing you hit on an 11+ on 1d20 makes it pretty obvious that you've got a 50% chance of pulling off a hit. There are no dice pools to parcel out.

Ultimately, that is the point. The internet selects for a particular kind of gamer and a particular kind of designer, ones profoundly interested in mechanics, who care a lot about the shape of outcome spaces, about interacting with the mechanical elements of the game and manipulating the systems to create outcomes. A system that provides a lot of opportunities for intelligent manipulation lets them feel good about how capable they are in extracting desired outcomes from their interactions with it. They're intellectual toys that are fun to play with.

Such players are a distinct minority among actual RPG players. Most players may get some pleasure out of such interactions, but they prioritize other elements of the RPG experience. Socialization with friends, exploration of fictional spaces, construction of compelling narratives, or simple group reification of particular character concepts are much more fun and interesting for these people, and they make up the bulk of actual players. They don't go online in the same numbers as the mechanically-focused ones because their toys don't translate as well to online interaction. You can't make a DDI app for drinking around a table with friends.

The ultimate point of SWN really isn't mechanical innovation, but providing the most comfortable, transparent play experience for the widest variety of players, combined with GM tools and resources to make GMing a game as painless and enjoyable as possible. For goals like this, it's much more valuable to target the hobby's lingua franca with old-school B/X mechanics than it is to provide an engaging, novel core mechanical framework that will require everyone involved to spend an hour learning how to use it before they can sit down and start drinking.

[jemmus]

Interesting! He seems like a very articulate, intelligent and reasonable guy.

[greyarea]

That's an excellent quote. I'd love to read the entire Q&A.

[Marullus]

It was a chunk of Reddit thread, and I lost it. However, there's a full hour interview with him which I now intend to go back and listen to in full. I love him as a designer - I have happily purchased every book and backed every Kickstarter he has published.

[greyarea]

I've purchased the bulk of them also. And my few correspondences with him have been very positive. He's one of the few game creators that I support almost reflexively.