Dreamation Report

Dreamation has been great. I got to meet some awesome people, especially Bill White, the designer of Ganakagok. First, I saw the gameplay in my two playtests veer towards grisly cannibalism. Giuli & I even discussed how often the game seems to trend towards things we really have no interest in promoting. In play, the Fifth World always seems to wind up as a typically savage, violent, post-apocalyptic world. Seeing Ganakagok in action, even just a little bit, gave me a glimpse of the alternative. Giuli's report on how her game of Brennan Taylor's How We Came to Live Here sounded like it really produced something powerful, meaningful and mythic from everyone's contributions, too. It all makes me realize just how far the Fifth World has to go. I'll continue the v0.6.0 playtests, but I've already come up with some ideas for v0.7.0, including some Fate mechanics to oppose Will, and possibly eliminating the character sheet entirely, to put everything on the map.

News Dump!

• The Fifth World now has its own Twitter account. With a game that lives on a wiki, I've put some thought into forums (including some special play-by-post tools), play-by-Skype tools, podcasts and other alternative means of publishing RPG's, and how we might incorporate other social networking sites. Have any ideas?


• Look for "The Fifth World: Jimmy's Haunt" at Dreamation 2009. I'll have the Restless People out by then, v0.4.2 of the rules, and a custom-designed region of Morristown, NJ (where the convention takes place), including the local legend of Phoebe's ghost.


• An idea to replace the "Questions" mechanic: Can the story itself have relationships that the players share in common?


• Looking for a way to combine Blessings and Curses into one thing.


• Starting a playtest campaign at GASP Game Days starting in December. If you live in Pittsburgh, we'd love to have you! This will become the first ever Fifth World campaign, so we'll test how the game works over long-term play.


• Which sets a deadline for me to really revamp the character options by December 13. I'll have until December 21st to edit the document and get it all on the wiki after that.