Hi guys!

Monthly update time! And here’s the menu!

1) The answers to your questions.

2) The vote result.

3) Your next design input.

As a short intro, I’ll explain how we’ll work together, and it is pretty simple! Every month we will deal with a prominent game design aspect. Last month was choosing the setting, no less, and this month is… a surprise for a few more text lines : ) Point is I will introduce a new game aspect for you to vote on, with a link to a poll, and we will discuss about it further for a month, until the next update. Then we’ll move on to another point. Basically: new idea, poll, discussion, moving on.

Speaking about moving on, let’s get to the first part of this update!

1) The answers to your questions.

@errons1: Great! You can send me a private message here, I hop by pretty often : ) Actually anyone can contact me this way!

@Those who told me they’d like to help but have no idea how to: First, a huge thank you! Second, you absolutely can! What I need is your honest feedback on the game. We’re at its infancy so it means your input on design choices now, and testing (read: playing!) later on.
A few simple and heartfelt lines are perfect, no need for a hardcore technical design analysis. Knowing how you genuinely feel about the game is absolutely essential, and I can’t stress this enough.

@Those who want to know a bit more about the financial model: Well I recently learned that finance is not an “f” word. So there is a plan, it is simple and… Some will probably try to kill me after this post (my banker most notably… >.>) but I want to keep the core book completely free. If it goes well enough we could start thinking kickstarter, extensions, extra art etc. But let’s get there first : )

2) Now on to the vote results!

It has been quite a ride! At first the EL setting had a huge head start (like 10 to 2), then ES came back and ahead. After this I thought I was going nuts so close the two settings remained (for nearly two weeks they were like 1-2 votes apart!) but in the end ES is rising above!

I will wait until the end of the week to officially close the poll but apart from quite a reversal, I will officially start designing the Endless Space RPG!

3) And this month I need your input on…
On something which will deeply define and shape the game: what are the 5 factions you would love to see in this RPG? 

Here’s the link to the poll!

I know this will probably be tough for some but try to keep it to five or less, I’m counting on your fair play here! : )

Also, do keep in mind that the selected factions will obviously be adapted to a different context, which means their RPG version will be a variation of the one you know. This also means that EL specific factions are fair game! Of course the principle here is to keep their core identity and what makes them special… And I can’t wait to read your input on your favorite ones!

So there you have the main focus of the upcoming month! Of course other topics/questions/comments are more than welcome and, once again, I want to thank you guys for being a part of this!

Cheerfully,

Aeyl

PS: By the Lost, Slowhands! Your last comment made me grab my friend’s inhaler! :D

Heyyy!!!! Monthly voting huh? Count me excited for September! 

Narrowing it down to five factions is hard, but definately a smart idea to keep your workload from growing beyond control. 

I'm pumped for this project, keep it rolling friend!

Any idea when we'll know more about the mechanics & gameplay?

Hi GenericOctopus!

Well as a tiny update, I have made quite a few tests and early prototypes, some of which vary wildly from one another.

What will allow me to chose between these bases and refine them will actually depend a lot on which factions will be present **hint hint**.

Anyway, can't possibly imagine why but as the gameplay seems to be on your minds, once we have the factions I guess that the game system should follow closely : )

Aeyl

Some relevant tips.

Aeyl wrote:

 what are the 5 factions you would love to see in this RPG? 

I didn't realize when I filled it out that I was supposed to keep it to five. -_-

Would it be possible for me to retake the poll so I could do it properly?

Fanmade tabletop rpg systems are always beautiful things to find; handcrafted games born from a love of the conversion subject, a love of gaming, a love of tabletop rpgs in general, and often also a great comradere with one's friends who are often waiting exitectly to try the system out. I've tried my hand at making one or two over the years, and I usually abandon the project halfway through as I reach the same conclusion each time. Tabletop rpgs that exist and are built for a genre, rather than a specific setting or universe, are buit to be the best tabletop rpg a tabletop rpg can be, in the same way that computer games are build to be the best computer games that computer games can be. Tabletop rpgs built to fit a computer game that trys it's hardest to be true to it's computer game model tends to lessen itself.

Instead, I recommend for the best tabletop gameplay experiance, to use the mechanics of an already existing rpg system, such as the already mentioned D&D, or perhaps Starfinder, or even Mutants and Masterminds. A fantasy system might be perfect, as one could then be also creating an Endless Legend tabletop rpg at the same time. I understand that building your own game system is fun in a spreadsheet sort of way, I'm as much a nerd as you are most likely. For the sake of gameplay, perhaps such fun can take the form of constructing stat blocks for NPCs and race and class entries.

Just my two cents. I hope fun is had by all. :D

i would focus it on mezans children first and then add addendum for xenos race.

Also i crave for it. If ... no, When there is a Kickstarter, two things. one i will backup it. Two, I should have finish my law master and i will be happy to help as a fellow french tabletop rpg lover. 

I don't think we should follow that human-focused approach, as the game would lose a lot of its variety and appeal because of that.  I think we should try to present a roster as diverse as possible, so that everyone may find a race they like.

Hi guys!

@Bugsydor: No problem! I'll make sure to keep your second vote only, thanks again!

@grayasura: Thanks a lot! : ) I will be glad to read your feedbacks.

@Zhmoogaku: Wow there was a lot in your post! I will try to answer your concerns synthetically:

- “Tabletop rpgs that exist and are built for a genre, rather than a specific setting or universe […] I recommend for the best tabletop gameplay experiance, to use the mechanics of an already existing rpg system...” We will have to agree to disagree here : ) The plan is clearly to build a specific system designed for a specific experience. Of course I will draw my inspiration from other systems, already am actually, but it will not be a direct adaptation of an existing system.

- “Tabletop rpgs built to fit a computer game that trys it's hardest to be true to it's computer game model tends to lessen itself.” I completely agree! But no worries, this RPG will be far from an Endless Space 4x emulator.

@ThonkTank: Yup! But even if human factions mainly come ahead, rest assured that there will also be alien ones. It simply is too essential to the Endless Space experience : )


Off to bed now, I am crumbling. Keep having fun guys!

Aeyl

Oh my god ! This is a dream coming true !!

I'll follow this with a great interest and pleasure, especially if it's done with the "Games2Gether way" ;)

(*mumble in baguette* et une trad' française aussi si possible, pitié! je ramènerai du kouign amann si ça peut peser dans la balance.)

Cool to see the results! Sad that Lumeris didn't score very highly, but I think it's a great top five. Fairly familiar (UE, Vaulters, Horatio) but with enough spice thrown in to make it interesting. Looking forward to it, I'm already planning my UE character...

With the 3 systems, it's definately a pick between accessibility vs. complexity and uniqueness. 

Option one is accessible, but the other two are awesome (in concept)! I love legacy style games, and upgrading dice/cards sounds like a blast. It's also a great way to mess with upgrades to your character. Instead of having a boring +1 weapon, you could have one that does double damage on a 6, but explodes on a 1! or that does 1/2 damage on a 3, something like that. With equipment, augments, and Dust in the mix, there are a lot of ways to make unique and interesting upgrades to your character. Very excited!

Issue is the loss in accessibility. Beyond the higher barrier of entry for new players, it makes things very complex. You have to track all that. So a highly experinced character with multiple upgrades could get tricky fast. I'm getting rid of my old laser, so now I... wait, which dice do I get rid of? Or what stickers do I remove now? It will take some careful design to make sure that the system blances being intersting with being understandable.

This would also play into computerized roleplaying systems. I'm not sure how well they accomodate custom dice, or cards, if at all. I feel that options 2 and 3 are a little harder to do the traditional pen and paper way, you need to have the right dice or cards, otherwise your out of luck. You could make your own, but your going to need good note taking to keep track of it all. 

It's a hard choice, I'm interested to see what people pick! Regardless, I'm excited for the possibilities and I'm glad that this project is moving forward in such interesting ways. Looking forward to the future, keep up the awesome work Aeyl!

That second design principle seems like it'd be more accessible/practical if instead of physically modifying the dice, your customization options just added new choices/outcomes/etc. on certain results, since that's essentially what you'd be doing anyway. Besides, people who don't have the stickers/paint/whatever are going to end up adapting that model anyway. The second option also leaves open the possibility of using variable sized dice as potential upgrades (or downgrades), but sticking to d6s maximizes accessibility. But please, for all that's holy, don't bloat the dice pool the way Shadowrun does because rolling 20+ d6s is only fun the first couple times.

Regarding the third idea, aside from just raising the barrier to entry by requiring players to either buy or make unique cards, it has some unique design pitfalls. Do you only use cards for combat? Social conflicts? Exploration? Do you have seperate decks for those situations, or do you have different types of cards all shuffled into a main deck? What do you do if you have no cards that appear to help?

Not saying the third option isn't doable, or that some kind of hybrid system wouldn't work (Gamma World 7e), it just strikes me as a lot more work to hash out when you're already trying to build everything else from the ground up.

Hi guys!

First, thanks a lot for your replies!
Here is what I can tell you:

@dugintostew: Glad you like the top 5! I have some more good news, all the factions in the list will see the light (except the Riftborn probably… >.>), the Lumeris included!
Also, I completely agree with you on the progress tracking part. It is definitely something I must keep in mind as I design character progression!

@GenericOctopus: We are on the same page concerning pool bloating. So far the design takes me to 13ish dice in extreme situations. And I am happy to keep it that way : ) Even more so that counting hits takes time but adding side customization also adds to that, so I definitely need to keep the pool in this range if the second option is chosen. Maybe even a bit smaller even.
As for the cards, it actually is simple. There is one deck for all situations, with cards representing abstract (read game mechanic) results such as “hit”, “draw two cards”, “play a card from your discard pile” etc. of course it seems very gamy as it is still a prototype but the goal here, just like with the second principle option, is to represent the mastery your characters have over Dust, affecting subtly but widely the very fabric of reality. So it influences about every possible action the character could take. Beyond this, what I am trying to say is this is designed to be fully integrated to the narrative, and not just a random game design fancy : )
Well that is the intent anyway. As you said that is some work but, I beg you all, forget the amount of work that I would have to do into account when you chose the principle. I can handle what I proposed : )

@Both: On the accessibility part, aye it is definitely an important concern. Sometimes even the slightest of hold back can end having a major negative influence. Here though customizing dice is actually surprisingly easy, I did my first ones with some basic white out, and then some basic painting : )
It is still a little bit of crafting to do and, even if I know some actually and actively enjoy this, I really wonder if it could be felt as accessible enough.

@Everyone: Have an awesome week-end guys! : )



Aeyl

The biggest reason I have for disliking the "custom dice" solution is that custom dice would be very hard to use on online services like Roll20. I do almost all of my RPGs over the internet, since that's where all my friends live. The "normal dice pool" option would definitely be the easiest and most accessible, but it's also not difficult to make a card system work online. Roll20, at least, has the option for me to make a custom deck out of card images I upload, which is what I did for the Planet Mercenary games I've run.

Absolutely!
Being used to playing online a bit too, sometimes we roll our actual dice, just for the pleasure of it : )
But you are perfectly right here, a custom dice system would force online users to do just that. Not that we would need macros and stuff for this RPG but I understand that it can be frustrating.
I knew roll 20 allowed to use a deck but I had no idea you could customize the cards there, I have to check this out! Thanks for the tip! : )