Oh, one last thing as yes I knew about A&A2E long before everyone else (apparently). New game I'm interested in: The Uncanny Highway. Hardcore OSR-ish ultralite RPG specifically emulating 60s and 70s road movies, counter culture, and with added optional supernatural elements. You could play it straight as Easy Rider the RPG or Vanishing Point the RPG but it's also possible to play 60s Supernatural/Scooby Doo RPG. You're essentially building the setting as you play, making it probably the only Solo game I've ever really been somewhat interested in. The titular uncanny highway is one road that literally runs through every state, starting at the Canadian border in Main and snaking through the entire continental US before terminating in Detroit. All the weird shit happens there and just off of there. None of the exits go to the conventional/ordinary US, it's all surreal/weird/supernatural/conspiracy theories are true US. You inch your way along the Uncanny highway 10 miles at a time, gas is an important resource, as is food and rest areas. It's on DTRPG but isn't in print yet. I printed out a copy after screening it for a bit.
Damage/bad production to the PoD is in a small part also a fault of the author. In general hardbound PoD covers are cut to the size of x16 page chunks. So 256 pages is 16 chunks of 16 pages each. If you produce something with 258 pages you will have a loose spine because the PoD production will use what is made for a 272 page book on it. That is the case here, this is a book that is 372 pages long and is therefore using the spine made for a 384 page book. So the spine is going to be a bit off, either offcenter glued or gapped, most often causing the pages to not be correctly lined up when you lay flat, they'll be at a slope to some degree instead of straight up and down. It's better to just add a Notes section to the back and round up to the next x16 then leave it as a weaker physical product overall. This is less important with perfect bindings but not completely unimportant, I wish this lesson went out to anyone wanting to produce a hardbound PoD.
I'll make a short video about it with a credit to you, so it gets better visibility. Is there anything else you'd like me to add for prospective POD creators? Because there's at least one guy out there who is working on a POD and probably needs to know that beforehand.
You don't need any material components to cast spells. Having them boost spells. All spells. It's actually an even more intriguing system than trophies IMHO, because it incentivizes players to look for/carry herbs and spices. Losing 3,000-18,000 experience for Wish is a big deal because the XP table tops at 78,000 for a 13th level character. There are numbers for advancing past 13th, but the system doesn't overly support it. The game has a lot of moving parts and you have to cross check them to get the full nature of things. The WIsh spell, for example, is only usable by Shamans and Witches. Nobody else, conjurers, enchanters, elementalists, etc can cast it. Each of the caster classes is differentiated by their spell lists. Every spell in the game can only be cast by 2/6 of the classes. And as far as I can tell they are all very well defined in their roles AND none of them get the short end of the stick and seem stupidly pointless to play, like the AD&D1E Illusionist. The Martial classes get pretty suitable trade-offs as well. Basically all of them are a flavor of Ranger, that being a skilled warrior. It's an effort to make them less boring and bring all the classes into a similar line of ability and usefulness. I think when you get deeper into the weeds, you'll further understand it's a fairly well thought out system.
Oh, one last thing as yes I knew about A&A2E long before everyone else (apparently).
New game I'm interested in: The Uncanny Highway. Hardcore OSR-ish ultralite RPG specifically emulating 60s and 70s road movies, counter culture, and with added optional supernatural elements. You could play it straight as Easy Rider the RPG or Vanishing Point the RPG but it's also possible to play 60s Supernatural/Scooby Doo RPG. You're essentially building the setting as you play, making it probably the only Solo game I've ever really been somewhat interested in. The titular uncanny highway is one road that literally runs through every state, starting at the Canadian border in Main and snaking through the entire continental US before terminating in Detroit. All the weird shit happens there and just off of there. None of the exits go to the conventional/ordinary US, it's all surreal/weird/supernatural/conspiracy theories are true US. You inch your way along the Uncanny highway 10 miles at a time, gas is an important resource, as is food and rest areas. It's on DTRPG but isn't in print yet. I printed out a copy after screening it for a bit.
I'll give it a look! Solo games look to be our topic for next week, so it fits.
Damage/bad production to the PoD is in a small part also a fault of the author. In general hardbound PoD covers are cut to the size of x16 page chunks. So 256 pages is 16 chunks of 16 pages each. If you produce something with 258 pages you will have a loose spine because the PoD production will use what is made for a 272 page book on it. That is the case here, this is a book that is 372 pages long and is therefore using the spine made for a 384 page book. So the spine is going to be a bit off, either offcenter glued or gapped, most often causing the pages to not be correctly lined up when you lay flat, they'll be at a slope to some degree instead of straight up and down. It's better to just add a Notes section to the back and round up to the next x16 then leave it as a weaker physical product overall. This is less important with perfect bindings but not completely unimportant,
I wish this lesson went out to anyone wanting to produce a hardbound PoD.
I'll make a short video about it with a credit to you, so it gets better visibility. Is there anything else you'd like me to add for prospective POD creators? Because there's at least one guy out there who is working on a POD and probably needs to know that beforehand.
I did not know this. Thanks for sharing, Eron
You don't need any material components to cast spells. Having them boost spells. All spells. It's actually an even more intriguing system than trophies IMHO, because it incentivizes players to look for/carry herbs and spices.
Losing 3,000-18,000 experience for Wish is a big deal because the XP table tops at 78,000 for a 13th level character. There are numbers for advancing past 13th, but the system doesn't overly support it.
The game has a lot of moving parts and you have to cross check them to get the full nature of things. The WIsh spell, for example, is only usable by Shamans and Witches. Nobody else, conjurers, enchanters, elementalists, etc can cast it.
Each of the caster classes is differentiated by their spell lists. Every spell in the game can only be cast by 2/6 of the classes. And as far as I can tell they are all very well defined in their roles AND none of them get the short end of the stick and seem stupidly pointless to play, like the AD&D1E Illusionist.
The Martial classes get pretty suitable trade-offs as well. Basically all of them are a flavor of Ranger, that being a skilled warrior. It's an effort to make them less boring and bring all the classes into a similar line of ability and usefulness.
I think when you get deeper into the weeds, you'll further understand it's a fairly well thought out system.
I'm looking forward to it. I really liked what I've seen in the Quick evaluation of the material so far and it looks very promising.