Final Stretch Goal, Stonetop on +1 Forward
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 08:58:30 PM

The Last One

We looked at all of our options, seeking to balance something exciting against our existing workload, and this is it! The last thing for which we will reach during this campaign. 

"We're gonna make it off this rock, I promise you. But until then, we need to stick together."

Holdfast Station is a role-playing game about a tight-knit community of asteroid miners striving to survive in the far reaches of space.  Play alternates between Events—moments of high drama, calamity and risk—and Cycles, when the station inhabitants rebuild and fortify their outpost against future peril. The game can be played as a one-shot wherein the PCs must save their hardscrabble home from disaster, or as a campaign that charts the fate of their Holdfast over many Cycles.

Inspired by their playtesting of Stonetop, Moe Poplar and Michael Low began to develop Holdfast Station (formerly known as Holdfast Outpost) in 2020. Like Stonetop, Holdfast Station is "Powered by the Apocalypse," but employs flexible "tags" to define characters instead of the usual stats and bespoke playbooks. Robust tools for online play are being developed alongside the game itself. We estimate the final book will be much more compact than Stonetop, at between 48 and 64 digest-size (5.5"x8.5") pages. And as with all L&B titles, the creators will be paid an advance against a profit share of sales over the publication's lifetime.

If our funding level hits 85K, Lampblack & Brimstone will publish Holdfast Station as a fully-illustrated, standalone RPG in PDF and print-on-demand forms, with Jason on board as editor and art director.

All backers at the $25 level and above will receive a free PDF of Holdfast Station upon its release. Our goal is to have the game ready for action shortly after Stonetop ships in October.

There you have it. I hope you're as excited as we are about the possibility of playing riggers, diggers, and bot jocks on some Earthforsaken extrasolar ore deposit!

Stonetop on +1 Forward

This week on the stalwart PbtA podcast +1 Forward, Rachel Shelkey and Rich Rogers chat with Jeremy about Stonetop! Jeremy discusses how asking questions during play in any game can enrich the setting and characters, describes the premise and structure of the game, and GMs a brief segment for Rach and Rich. Click here to give it a listen. 

Introducing: The Marshal
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 07:48:30 PM

Folks continue to heed the call to muster at Stonetop, so I think it's time we met...

The Marshal is in charge of the Stonetop's defenses. Maybe its a formal position, maybe it's just something that falls on them naturally. Regardless, this playbook deals with violence and battle, but also with diplomacy, leadership, authority, and the responsibilities that come with it. It's one of my favorites, and the playbook that I've personally spent the most time playing (as opposed to GMing for). 

It's hard to pick a favorite move. I particularly like how Read the Land prompts the player and GM to consider the terrain. I love how Take the Measure subtly has you asking 2 questions every time you use it (because you're effectively asking "do they fear or respect me" to see if you get your bonus question). I always smile at the names of both We Happy Few and Sir, Permission to Die, Sir. 

To be honest, though? My favorite move as a player has been Stentorian. The ability to grant others advantage twice during each fight is nice, but really just being very loud is the best part.  

Of course, I've been ignoring the biggest move that the Marshal has: their Crew. 

Followers

When I first started working on the Marshal, I knew I wanted them to have a crew of followers, similar to how the Chopper or Hardholder in Apocalypse World have their gangs. But the hireling rules in Dungeon World didn't cut it: they treat hirelings as expendable, and my experience with those rules reliably led to rather dark-but-comic ends. 

For Stonetop, I wanted to treat followers with a more respect. After all, these folks were going to be your friends and neighbors, not some chumps you recruited in the last village you passed through. I also wanted a system that could encompass any sort of "companion" that joined PCs on expeditions: a Ranger's animal companion, the town's horses, a bound spirit, etc. This led to the Follower rules that were first published in The Perilous Wilds. 

Those rules work pretty well, but once I got the chance to be a player in a Stonetop game (specifically, playing a Marshal, in a game that also featured 2-3 other followers), I realized that they were more complex than they needed to be.  So these followers are simpler. The biggest differences are:

• Followers no longer have a Quality stat.  
• If a player has a follower do something that would trigger a PC move, it triggers. The player rolls the move for the follower.  But followers don't have stats, so: if the follower has at least one relevant tag, add +1 to the roll (or +2 if they also have the exceptional tag, which is uncommon).  Otherwise,  they roll at +0. 
• Tags are more free-form. There's no set list, and they have no specific mechanical impact (beyond exceptional and group).
• Loyalty caps at +2 / -2.
• The trigger for Order Followers now takes both tags and instinct into consideration. And on a 7-9, the player makes the choice instead of the GM, which cuts down on having to pass the GM the moves sheet. 

I've found that this newer, slimmer approach works very well in play. We don't have to remember to use a different move for followers than everyone else, and we don't have to reference a follower's tags to see which moves they can possibly use.  

Plus, it's even easier than it was to convert a monster into a follower. Just give them a cost and starting Loyalty, maybe tweak their instinct, and you're good. For example:

Thoughts?  What sort of a Marshal would you play? What would your crew be like?  What moves do you want to try out at the table?  

As always, happy to answer questions! 

Spring bursts forth and books get covered
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 05:48:39 PM

Long before the assassination of a certain emperor, the Ides of March marked the first full moon of the new year, which was considered a harbinger of the coming spring. At the start of each new season during a game of Stonetop, one of the player's rolls dice to set the scene:

In this excerpt, you'll see that when spring bursts forth upon the land, whichever character is most hopeful gets to roll. I can't say who among Jeremy, Lucie and I is the most hopeful, but whichever one of us rolled the dice this Ides clearly got a 10 or higher and chose unexpected bounty as our seasonal gain: we're nearing 70k in funding, which is twice my most optimistic estimate at the outset of this campaign. Our gratitude for this great fortune is boundless!

Book covers

This morning, when I came down into my freezing-cold basement studio and laid eyes on my work table, I made a noise between a sigh and a chuckle. This mess is a perfect visual summary of both the inside of my head and the promise of our game.

On the left are some test prints for some of the maps that we plan to offer as add-ons. And at the lower right there you can see a printout of a recent cover draft.

Developing the covers for these books, trying to communicate the "vibe" of the game via clear graphic design, is the kind of challenge I really enjoy. Here's what the progression has looked like over the past four months, as Jeremy and I have gone back and forth on the subject:

After we settled on a final look, I assigned the cover illustrations to Lucie. She delivered them this past Friday, and they are beautiful. I couldn't resist working them up into what will be very close to our final design. You can click through to see them if you wish, but BE WARNED that you may want to reserve the reveal for the moment you hold the actual books in your hands.

At the end of the week we'll announce our final stretch goal. It's an exciting one!

Until then, may we all be among the hopeful as spring bursts forth upon our lands. Right now in Vermont that still looks like three inches of ice and snow, but a guy can dream, can't he?

—Jason 

Introducing: The Fox
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 08:48:41 AM

Time for some more content! 

Last time, we got to see the Lightbearer, one of the "magic" classes in Stonetop. This time, we get to meet...

The Fox fills the "rogue" or "thief" niche in this game. They're clever, skillful, maybe charming, often a bit shady.  They're a perennial favorite.

One of the design challenges with this playbook was reconciling the cosmopolitan, worldly rogue archetype with the isolated iron-age village of Stonetop. After all, it's not like a farmer's kid in the middle of nowhere would have much cause to take up lock-picking. Choosing the right backgrounds was the key to making it work. The Fox might be a local who's just quicker and cleverer than everyone else. Or they might be a new arrival who fled a life of crime in a bigger settlement. Or they can be a Stonetop native who's been off seeing the world, making friends and enemies, and now they've come home. 

If I had to pick a favorite move from this playbook, it'd be Danger Sense. I find that granting the Fox's player the right to always ask "is there a trap or ambush here?" works very well in play. It's a great model for handing any sort of "extraordinary" sense, because it takes the burden off the GM.   

I think my other favorite thing is about the Fox is their Tall Tales, and the rather elaborate escapades that every Fox seems (or claims) to have had.

What about you? What strikes your fancy? If you were going to play Fox, what would they be like?  What tall tales would you tell?

-Jeremy

Foundry System & Lucie's Art Online
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 01:39:21 PM

Phew! We just cleared 60k. I don't even.

It's super exciting to see our numbers climb like this, but also just a little bit nerve-wracking. The addition of the slipcase has added some complexity to the logistics, but more money means we'll be cushioned against any unforeseen costs.  And more backers means more people we have to please! Luckily, we're confident that Stonetop is up to that task.

Today I come to you with two announcements of interest:

65k stretch goal: Stonetop system for Foundry

If we hit 65k, we'll produce a full "system" for the Foundry Virtual Tabletop. Unlike the online play aids we'll be offering, which can be ported onto various platforms, this will integrate Stonetop's mechanics, components, and setting material into Foundry's platform, allowing for a comprehensive online play experience. A fan of the game came forward and offered to do this work (don't worry, we're paying them!), so Jeremy and I can keep our focus on writing, editing, and layout of the books. We are hoping to have this system ready to go by October 2021, the same time the physical books ship.

Lucie Draws Things

She certainly does. And there has been a bit of a clamor from backers over all of the lovely art we've been able to share so far. Enough of a clamor, in fact, for Lucie to set up her own web shop in order for people to get their hands on prints and original art. Lucie will be adding to this online portfolio as she continues to create art for the game, so if you're interested in nabbing an original or two as they become available, you may want to bookmark it.

Work continues apace as we focus on polishing the material that will comprise the playable preview we'll be sharing with all of you at the the close of the campaign. More news soon!

Jason