Violet

So excited to have a story coming out in Ghoulish Tales. It's my second story publication (first was Bury Your Gays, also published by Ghoulish Books) and it's such an honor to be included on that cover, to see my name next to award nominees and winners . . . crazy. When Bury Your Gays came out, my roommate asked me if I'd checked goodreads and I said no, I've never been on goodreads in my life. And I'm keeping it that way. Because as much time as I spent writing and submitting and yearning for that first story to get published, it also hit different to actually have it out in the world, to know that there are people I've never met reading those words and writing about them on the internet. Imposter syndrome, I guess. I went from being so sure that my stories were the best thing ever to wondering who ever trusted me pick up a pen in the first place, but I think that's all part of the journey. (And don't worry, it took me all of about a day to fall back in love with my own writing.) We live in a capitalist world, so there's a lot of pressure to publish. Seeing it actually in print, though, made me remember the power of the written word, the responsibility that comes with storytelling.

I dislike DnD 5E. It's a complicated relationship. I am aware that millions of people love the game, and I am genuinely happy that it has brought so many people into this hobby. I sometimes feel that bashing the five hundred pound elephant is a way of building up nerd cred, of dismissing others' tastes because we've been in the hobby since the good ol' days. I don't want to do that. I don't want to say that 5E can't be fun. I'm currently GMing a fifth edition game, and it's the best campaign I've ever been a part of. Too, the 5E design philosophy ought to be right up my alley. I love games that are streamlined but still have mechanical grit, density, and options. But at the same time, I can't stand the game. After this campaign, I plan never to touch it again.

Here's the thing: the elegance of fifth edition is centered on removing character incompetence. Your wizard never has to deal with the pain of rolling crossbow attacks at -1. If you run out of spells, you have cantrips. You attack with your best stat, deal high damage. Your fighter might not have a rogue's Expertise, but you'll never have to look down at a character sheet with two ranks among 30 skills. These experiences of incompetence, of weakness, are annoying. They can turn a player off from the game. But they also mean that your decisions mattered.

OD&D and 3.X are unbalanced, deeply imperfect. But they're art. The mechanics express something, force you to make decisions and, on some semiconscious level, learn about yourself through their consequences. 5E is an apple among oranges. The game, as an artifact, is devoid of passion, of anything artistic or expressive. It is an ode to the middle of the road, a mass-produced product designed to draw in millions with the lure of occult folk art--and yet, it lacks the courage or drive to make good on that promise. It is afraid of driving off its customers, and as such, refuses to include negativity in its experience.

Been working on Drengr, a homebrew Norse-inspired fantasy RPG. And the dice rolls, the skill checks . . . that's the core of any game, isn't it? I've come to develop a deeper respect and appreciation for the humble dice roll over the years. End of the day, every game is pretty similar in this regard: roll a randomizer, add bonuses from your skills. And from that point of view, it's hard to find a reason to deviate from a d20 system--unless it's to go to a d100 system. Either one provides a significant level of variance, which you can then tune by changing DCs and bonuses to taste.

But. Rolling a d20 feels different from any other system. The task resolution mechanic you choose is the most fundamental way of communicating the system's theme. It should have texture, flavor, but it should not be overly complicated.

This was what was going through my head when I designed (and redesigned) the dice system for Drengr. I wound up settling on a dice pool system: fate dice (d4s), skill dice (d6s), and gear dice (d8s).

Your character build determines how hard it is to score hits on each type of die. Wizards need only a 2+ on fate dice to score a hit; self-sufficient Wanderers, on the other hand, must roll a 4 on fate dice (but only a 3+ on skill dice).

Nothing revolutionary. But I think--I hope--that it meets the brief. It implies three forces of power, only one of which is truly a character's own. Fate and gear are external influences, but they can be every bit as pivotal as your own skill.

With that in mind, I built out the attribute system as simply as possible. For a game like this, I didn't want fiddly skills. I'm a fan of it in the right context, but after a good bit of tinkering, I decided against divisions like blades/brawl/clubs/polearms or run/jump/climb/swim. I wanted a simple skill list; but at the same time, the 5E skill list feels almost too simple. I think this is because the skill list, in 4E and 5E, is something of an artifact, a holdover from 3E. 3.0 and 3.5 both were too granular, had to be simplified. It's strange, though, to have a phrase like "Strength (Athletics) checks to jump." Why consolidate the skill list if you still need this degree of specificity?

I had no expectations for Arcane when it came out. I don't play League and don't intend to. But the show blew my mind, and a year and a half later, I can still say it's my favorite show ever.

Episode 1 is "Welcome to the Playground." The plot is pretty straightforward: a robbery gone wrong. Vi, Powder, and company bungle the robbery, the penthouse explodes, and they lose everything but a handful of crystals. There's pushback from the enforcers, Vander plays peacekeeper, and Silco experiments with shimmer.

What makes this episode stick? Long and short, it's a perfect Episode One: the character building, worldbuilding, and pacing are all on point, and it sets the stage for all the conflicts that drive the show. What follows, it's less of a breakdown and more of a commentary, a zoom-in on some of my favorite moments.

That first scene.

The opening scene is a flashback, our first look into this world, and it does what a good first scene should: it tells us what the whole season, maybe the whole show, is about. On a macro scale, it's the conflict between Piltover and Zaun: class struggles, the oppression of societal structures that built themselves over centuries. On the micro scale, it's the conflict between Powder and Vi: two people who love each other, but who are forced apart by pain. In three minutes, we see everything we need to know about their relationship.

The first shot is the bridge, the dividing line between Piltover and Zaun, in a firestorm. The first line is Powder singing: "Dear friend across the river, my hands are cold and bare. Dear friend across the river, I'll take what you can spare." The first character we see, it isn't either of our protagonists--it's an enforcer, their face demonized by the helmet and the glitched-out scribbling we'll later come to associate with Jinx's schizophrenia. The show is showing us, visually, that this is where Powder's mental illness starts. This is the root of her belief that everyone is out to hurt her, and who can blame her? Too, we're seeing people in order of power: first the city itself, then the enforcers, then the children. We are zooming in through layers of oppression. And in the background, the voice of a girl asking a friend for help, framing the maco conflict beautifully: ask without envy, and violence is what you receive.

The scene keeps showing and not telling. We see Vander's moment of realization, the point when he takes off the cast irons because he's seeing what his violence has wrought--not in the death of his allies, but in the pain of their children, now orphans.

Deeper than that, though, we see the core of Vi and Jinx's relationship--one which is founded in love, but which is deeply unhealthy. Vi is the protector. She will walk through the field of blood while Powder keeps her hands over her eyes. When they see Vander, Powder shies away and Vi steps forward: she will fight, will not let her sister get hurt. When they see their dead parents, Powder is not the first to cry--she looks at Vi. As long as Vi is there, she is safe. When Vi breaks down, Powder comforts her rather than crying herself. She is repaying the favor, learning by example: putting others before her. In short, they're codependent. Powder needs someone, and Vi needs to be needed.

The Job.

They rob the house, we get a chase scene. There's some great visual worldbuilding, and the writers also somehow manage to simultaneously capture the inciting incident of the show and a slice-of-life for the gang. This is just another day for them, and yet it spirals out of control so slowly and so inevitably. It doesn't feel forced, in my opinion, for one reason: the crystals. This is raw power that nobody understands--it's less like the main characters happened, by Main Character Syndrome, to stumble into the plot, and more like something was bound to go wrong from meddling with the arcane.

Another point: everyone--even Powder--is very competent. The heist goes wrong not because they fucked up, but because of bad luck and poor decision-making. Powder slips up, sure, but then, she's doing parkour at the age of . . . 10ish? She's also shown to have a keener eye for tech than the rest, and in the second episode, we get to see what she'd be like if she had access to a gun. The setup and character designs make me feel like Mylo or Claggor is going to slip up in some way and ruin the job; the fact that they don't is a relief. It would've felt like dumbing down the characters, taking the easy way out.

On the chase back across the bridge, one of the enforcers doesn't make the jump. It's not that big of a leap, but it is a very believable stumble. For me, this is such a great moment--it's explaining the world, the style, the rules of the show. It's telling us that people can be skilled, but they're not superheroes, not even action heroes.

Like, normally he'd make that, right? In a movie, anyway. In real life, I'd expect it to go exactly how it does. This sets expectations, sets the tone, and makes the main characters seem that much more competent. All in about two seconds of screentime. It's the small things, sometimes.

the brawl.

Not too complicated of a plot: street tough tries to mug them, they don't pay up, everyone fights. Powder runs and loses the treasure. What makes it stellar is the fact that the fight is only the backdrop, not the main focus. The focus is the characters. We have Deckard, the street tough--such a stock character, but even he has depth. The line "in my experience, trouble finds you" is such a prime example of good writing, of one line doing double duty. It's a threat, sure, but it also humanizes him. It makes us notice the scars on his face, realize that he's had his fair share of trouble that he didn't go looking for.

The fight breaks out, and we get to see Powder experiencing trauma purely through the shot's framing and the slow-motion. The return to a normal frame rate lets us experience her oh shit moment--again, purely visually. She runs, tries tossing a grenade, and the device malfunctions. Powder feels like a failure. There's an argument to be made that she was subconsciously self-sabotaging, that she wouldn't let herself make a working contraption because she needs Vi. Success would mean independence, would mean leaving the shadow of her big sister's protection.

At the end, Deckard pulls a knife and Vi walks up to him, asks if he wants to see how that ends. Because she's just taken a few punches and won the fight, this line feels earned. If she'd won easily, she'd seem arrogant here. If she'd gotten the shit kicked out of her, it would read like she was bluffing. As is, we get to see her as not only a badass, but someone who's willing not to fight. No empty threats from her--unlike Deckard--but she uses her words, this time. Doesn't want a death on her hands.

Welcome to the playground.

The title drop is in a song, both non-diegetic and later, in the Last Drop, diegetic. It's a banger, and the descent into the underworld is also pretty slick. Nothing special, but also beautifully executed. In my head, it's like the Mos Eisley cantina: a quick introduction to the scum and villainy, a vignette of a world that's dirty, inhabited, lived-in.

The other standout moment to me is Vander's introduction--not because of anything that happens this episode, but because the man he helps comes back later on to help Vi. This is just an example of what the show does so well and so consistently: there are no wasted details, and every character has depth. Everyone is human.

We see this again with Marcus and Grayson, the two enforcers. Grayson seems relatively important, but Marcus, in this episode, is just an overzealous nobody. The fact that he then develops into an important side character, that his story is shown with such depth and so little screen time, is incredible.

Vi and Powder.

The penultimate sequence is Vi comforting Powder, whose insecurities have only grown over the course of this episode--and understandably so. But she's not angry at Vi, even after she heard her seemingly agree with Mylo about Powder being a failure. She is not looking to right wrongs: she is looking for her sister's comfort. For attention. Vi is ready and willing to give it. Powder is her motivation for nearly everything she does. Vi rarely, if ever, does things for herself, for her own protection, security, or gain. Her selflessness is a great strength, but her codependence is what ultimately breaks her relationship with Powder.

This screenshot, it says so much about the show. For one, I picked it almost at random. Every frame is gorgeous. For another--look at Vi's face, close to the camera. Out of focus.

Out of focus. It's animated. There is no camera. It takes more work to put her out of focus than it does to put her in focus, and yet that decision was made. It tells us where to look, subtly tricks us into believing that this is real, what we're seeing, that it happened, was caught on film.

And I mean--look at it. At this piece of art. Look a the love in Vi's eyes, those eyes we can barely even see. Look at the hurt on Powder's face, the way she's pouting. How her shoulder's hunched. The art style does an amazing job of capturing emotion, of exaggerating just the right amount, of noticing and capturing the different planes of the face, the micro-expressions that make an emotion seem real. And you can't fault the composition--Vi in the foreground, big, protective. Powder in the background, backlit. She is the focus. Too, she and Vi are both surrounded by light on one side, darkness on the other--but Vi looks at the light, and Powder looks at the dark. It is, perhaps, her only real fault, the defining factor that makes one traumatized sister end up on the good side and the other on the bad side. Everything else Powder suffers is a matter of circumstance. This decision--reflected again in Episode 9 (and probably elsewhere), in a frame so beautiful I painted it and hung it on my wall--is the one thing that, in my mind, truly reflects on Powder's character. She is focused on her failure. She almost forgets to show Vi her success, the bag of crystals she held onto. It's not that she's wrong for feeling dejected, or that it's as easy as deciding to feel happy. It's more like this: looking at the light might not make you happy. You can't control that. But you can control the fact that you gave it your attention. That you tried. That you fought, that you searched, even if you came up lacking.

Vi is a fighter. Jinx, ultimately, is a destroyer.

Silco's lab.

Vi and Powder leave us on a perfect crescendo, a fade out, a vow that this city is gonna respect them--and then the writers leave that, somehow manage to pull off something better. We get our reveal of Silco, who's so over-the-top he ought to be trite, but he's not. The sadism, the scarred face, the orange eye--they're all too much. But they're balanced perfectly with his sibilant voice, his menacing but not overbearing manner.

We see Deckard, learn that he's answering to someone, that this underwater lair is the center of a secret organization. And again, no detail left behind--Deckard, that random street tough, is important.

Silco and his mad scientist--who, best I can tell, is named Singed--feed a rat some shimmer and watch it kill a cat. It's a perfect way to show off the drug. We could've seen a human hulking out, but instead we're also shown what the drug is for: reversing the roles, turning the hunter into the hunted. Making the meek powerful.

precious

Arcane fanart. Acrylic on canvas.

The struggle with cyberpunk is that it's supposed to be punk, but it's also all too real. The days of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic are behind us. The idea of the sci-fi corporate supercity, this neon-limned sprawl of concrete, vice, and pollution no longer seems like a frighteningly possible dystopia, but like an exaggerated reality. At its inception, cyberpunk existed in a liminal state between the primary and secondary worlds. These stories were ostensibly set on a futuristic Earth, but there was a sense that it was an alternate future, that these worlds were a warning about something that only had the slimmest possibility of really happening. They read like secondary worlds in the same way that Middle Earth reads as a secondary world: familiar in its bones, in its soul, but not in its details. The fact that that gap is closing, that we're watching those prophecies unfold, is at the heart of the current generation of post-cyberpunk fiction. Gibson's Agency, Stephenson's Termination Shock. Matrix: Resurrections. These stories deal not only with the dread of capitalism's brutal advance, but also (in my opinion) with the writers' mixed feelings over having predicted it, over creating a vision and aesthetic so powerful that our world is actually changing--purposefully--to match it. Just look at the MetaVerse. A Stephenson invention, now marketed as a reality, like that's supposed to be exciting.

This is a problem for me, because I love writing cyberpunk. I stumbled onto The Matrix in middle school, but it didn't sink its teeth in until I came across Shadowrun 4th Edition at Borders. Here was a world that felt lived in, in much the same way that the original Star Wars must've wowed people in the 70's. Arguably, Star Wars and cyberpunk both fit into the classic definition of the latter: high tech, low life. Luke is a farmer; Han's a drug trafficker. And while Star Wars is and will remain my all-time favorite, the cyberpunk genre brought an edge with it, something that grabbed hold of me, hit the dopamine button in my brain: the neon glow. Holograms and flickering advertisements in a rainy night. Smog dyeing the sunset crimson and purple. LEDs glowing from every nook and cranny.

And now, your average gamer's battlestation looks like something out of Bladerunner. And part of me rebels against that: do we not realize that we're losing? We're a couple short steps away from corporate citizenship, for god's sake.

That sense of doubt, that itch, pokes at me when I'm writing and find myself describing more of the same. It made me feel sick watching Edgerunners. The idea of losing your family to random violence because you don't make enough for health insurance isn't fiction--so why is this show dressing it up like it is? Like that's just as outlandish as a thousand-foot holo ad, a street tough with mantis blades in her arms? Did the showrunners not know what they were doing, somehow? Were they just jumping into this genre because they read Neuromancer once, thought it was such a wacky idea?

But then--oh-so-late to the party--I started playing 2077. I rebelled against it at first, felt the same itch, the same existential dread. But then the story revved into overdrive, and all at once, I realized: this here, it's the classic example of tropes done right. The world might be forty years old, but it's flawlessly realized. And, more than that, it is aware of the genre it exists in, of the evolution. There's something about the game that makes me want to be V, to live in a world where you have to carry an SMG to leave the apartment. To live loud. Even a month ago, I would've said it's the feeling of agency, the idea that, in a world of violent conflict, each person is more able to make a large-scale impact. But I don't think that's it, not really. Night City crushes you, makes even the most outrageous victories seem short-lived, insignificant blips against the weight of the world.

The moments that shine out aren't the big ones, they're the small ones. Seeing Mama Welles at the wake. A visit from a stray cat. Going to the ripperdoc and seeing the option to change appearance, because in that world, it's just that easy, and all of a sudden, I can be seeing a face I like in the mirror.

And here's the crazy thing: part of this reality we've stumbled into, this pseudo-cyberpunk corporatocracy, is the fact that's it's almost that easy to switch bodies here, too. We're getting there. There is beauty in all things, even the dark ones. There is beauty, too, in the impetuous, borderline-nihilism of an edgerunner, in the willigness to engage in hopeless rebellion. And there is a beauty in neon lights.

I was sad to see DSF go, of course. I hope they come back some day, but we'll see. Part of me feels like we're seeing the end of an age, especially with the troubles Clarkesworld (among others, I assume) is having with AI. Short stories have been dying for a while, I feel, but now . . . now, I'm not sure what the solution is.

Maybe more of this. Rogue art floating on the internet.

Anyway, here's a vampire story. Four-minute read.

DEEP ROOTS

     It’s a devil forest, this one--old, full of hate. Maybe from the six years of deforestation that killed off a solid third of its mass. Or maybe from the pack of bloodsucking fiends that made it their home and drained every last member of the logging crew dry.

     You know. Six in one hand, really.

     Either way, these trees here, now, they belong to the vampires. That much is clear. The lodgepoles and spruces stand guard over discarded corpses, starved aspen saplings and ravenous fungi clawing at the decomposing remains. Sap bleeds from splits in the bark. There's no running water in these woods, only puddles and ponds choked with rot. The one I’m looking at now, this too-still pool in a fifty-foot clearing, it's giving me the chills. It feels like a vampire spot. The crescent moon is reflected in its glassy surface along with a rocky outcropping that part of me--the lost, joyful part, the part buried under trauma I don’t intend to process, maybe ever--is scanning for bouldering routes, hearing Evrett call back “V4, V5 on that overhang, you think?” in that omniscient, indubitable big brother voice. I move toward it carefully, eyes wide, tracking every owl and squirrel, but even so, I almost miss him, hiding among the rocks. The dark prince.

     His smile widens when he sees that I've noticed him. "Have you come here for me?" He’s excited, can’t hold his fangs in, and it’s giving him a lisp. Would be funny if he didn’t look so hungry, if he had a sexy stranger at the hotel bar vibe and not a coked-up creep with a foot fetish vibe.

     "That's right." I unsheathe a pair of stakes. Vampires, they like their drama, like to talk before they fight. One of their rules, maybe, up there with the garlic and the crosses. I’ve learned the rules well, know them back and forth, could recite them like a blood-spattered Pledge of Allegeiance. “Took me a lot of slaying to get here,” I say. “Your daddy dearest, he killed my family.” I don’t know which felt worse--the times when I couldn’t say it without crying, couldn’t get the words out, or the fact that now, my voice doesn’t even shake. “I’m returning the favor,” I whisper.

     His eyes glint with cold amusement. "You may try. Our hate has deep roots." He holds my gaze, his face inscrutable, and I sink back on my feet, holding my stakes at the ready.

     He is still for a long moment. Then, with a flicker of a grin, he lunges forward.

#

     It’s never easy. But it’s always easier than they think. They have the speed, the strength, the fangs, but like all killers, their greatest strength is that they think they have the right. That mortals are here to be their toys, their livestock. Why give a sheep a fair fight?

     Only, when that sheep grows horns, when it sees you butcher its older brother and its twelve-year old sister, its sick mom and the dad who’s giving her tea in bed, when it comes to your home to demand justice . . . that’s when you realize, too late, that it could’ve been dangerous all along, was choosing not to be. That it’s a hundred forty pounds of pissed-off muscle and fight-or-die adrenaline. That you should’ve been fighting like your life depended on it, because this wasn’t a slaughter.

     At least, not the one you were thinking it would be.

     The prince, he’s quicker than most. He smacks me around a couple times, gloats, then gets caught in the line of my crossed stakes. Flinches back. Snarls at this wooden crucifix. “C’mon, you bastard,” I mutter.

     I’m expecting him to charge.

     Instead, he shifts. Is a bat, vanishing in the night. But I’ve seen it before, so I know not to look behind me until I hear that whoosh of displaced air, feel that back-of-the-neck prickle that comes with dark magic, can practically smell his iron breath on the air. I know to wait until he’s looming to drive a stake under my arm, into his waiting heart.

     It snaps into his chest, cracks his ribs, sends him reeling, crashing into the pond. A choked gasp escapes his lips. "Not bad," I say dully. “Six out of ten. Good effort, but your heart wasn’t in it.” It would be a joke if I still felt capable of them. I reach down, pull the stake free. His muscles seize. A rattling breath escapes his lungs. His body starts to disintegrate, drifting away like ash on an autumn wind. He's convulsing . . . but not, I realize, from pain.

     He's laughing.

     I pull him up out of the water by the scruff of his neck. "What?" I say. Part of me wants to believe he’s a little bit human, here at the end, that maybe he just likes puns. But I know better. They lose their souls when they die, like any living thing--one of the rules.

     "You don't . . . see . . . do you?" he gasps, and I follow his gaze back down to the pond. “My children,” he whispers.

     It takes me a moment to realize that his isn't the only reflection that's missing.

     There are no trees in the water.

     Deep roots, I realize. Fear pierces my gut. Because maybe, maybe I learned the rules too well. Forgot to look outside them. Forgot that there are mortals who we write off, too, other than sheep and cattle.

     That maybe blood isn't the secret ingredient.

     Behind me, something creaks in the night.

     Something big.

END.

Here's the thing that bugs me about not just D&D, but damn near every TTRPG out there: combat is boring as hell, and it takes forever. It's not boring from a story perspective--it's where the stakes are highest--but in terms of the mechanics, the actual gameplay, it's just. so. dull. Your turn is simple: you move into a position where you can attack, and you attack. Healing is the only other action you see, and it's rarely optimal because of the binary nature of hit points. Outside of that, the only variation is in how you attack--which spells, which feats, and so on.

In designing Drengr, I'm taking a page or two from wargames and from skirmish games like Imperial Assault--the types of games which, after all, spawned D&D. I don't want combat to require its own rules manual, but as long as it's getting a chapter in the book, it should have enough mechanics to be interesting. Tactical. Strategic.

Two main points here: actions and damage/death. The latter is big enough for its own post. For now, suffice it to say: I, as a GM, am afraid to kill players. For this game to work, I had to waylay that fear, and as such, there are rules not just for Valhalla, but for bonuses gained from suffering wounds.

Most RPGs have you taking several actions a turn--move, standard, and swift, or move, action, and bonus. But one thing I like about those skirmish games is how the actions are limited; so, in Drengr, you get one action a round. Too, it's a tactical game, so I'm leaning into that: the presumption is you have a battlemap, or even 3D terrain. Theater of the mind is dope, but it's not what I'm after in this game. Ranges are measured in squares, my shorthand for either (a) a literal square on a grid or (b) one chunk of movement, one mini's base, measured however you like--one inch, two centimeters, a quarter banana, whatever.

The three main actions are to move up to four squares (or push yourself for a dash), attack someone in your range, or charge half your speed and then attack with a bonus. The latter makes combat a game of pacing; charging in gives you action economy, lets you make the first strike, but it also means you're committed. You can be surrounded.

The attack mechanics took some tinkering, but at this point, I'm satisfied with the balance I've struck between narrative interest and ease of play. When you're attacked, you can choose to defend by dodging, parrying, or countering. The first two let you cancel some or all of the damage with an opposed check. The latter lets you make a free attack, with both you and your opponent taking full damage from each other's strikes. It becomes a risk/reward balancing act: can you take a hit right now, or are you about to drop? Is it worth a wound to deal one in return? Will your counter kill your opponent before his blow lands? Compared to the standard attack check vs. AC, it introduces one additional roll into the game, but because they're simultaneous, I haven't found it to drag play down too much. Too, it increases engagement. When a player is attacked, they have a decision to make--they have agency, even when it's not their turn.

So far, I've gotten very positive feedback on these mechanics. They're not for everyone, I think, but my friends are gamery enough to enjoy a bit of mechanical crunch, and for them, it's making the decisions feel impactful. Weirdly, limiting actions makes the big ones and the small ones all feel . . . better. More important. Attacking always has weight, but when you choose not to attack, to just move, that suddenly feels like a bigger deal--especially because your opponent can't automatically close the gap next turn. Even beyond that, swapping weapons starts to feel less punitive, somehow. I hate playing Pathfinder and spending my move action to sheathe a weapon. Weirdly, though, when that's just your whole turn, it feels . . . fine? Must be because the turns move quicker, I'm not sure.

Been working on a Norse-inspired fantasy TTRPG called Drengr. One of my favorite mechanics is the character sheet. I'd been playing Descent with friends and had fun with the card-flipping mechanics, where each card has two paired abilities that you have to constantly switch between. I wanted to put that into an RPG, and I wanted it to mean something. That led me to Drengr.

Instead of choosing one class, you combine two. One, your ready state, represents your training and acumen. This is your chosen career, and all its abilities go on the front side of your character sheet. The other, your focused state, represents your emotional core. This is where you go when you dig deep, when you call upon everything you've got, and all its abilities go on the back side of the character sheet. You can pair any one of the ready states (Wizard, Warg, Wanderer, and Warrior) with any one of the focused states (Berserk, Trance, and Wildshape), which allows for a variety of characters out the gate. You can keep it vanilla with a Warrior who goes Berserk, for example, or you can go for an eldritch knight-style build with a Wizard who goes Berserk or a Warrior who Trances.

I like this design because it's mechanically interesting. It turns seven options into twelve combinations, and it also adds a strategic wrinkle to the gameplay. There is some overlap between your ready and focused state, but for the most part, the abilities are kept separate, so you have to decide what tools you need at your disposal in this moment. Your ready state is generally more flexible, more tactical. Your talents give you an array of options. Your focused state is usually more powerful, but it's also less flexible and more vulnerable. You might be able to take more hits while berserking, but the wounds you suffer will likely be more severe.

Or at least, that's the idea. In all honesty, I'm struggling a bit with honing in that balance without making the mechanic feel limiting. A Wizard shouldn't forget all their spells when they enter a Trance. A Warrior's martial training shouldn't go out the window the instant they go Berserk. The issue I'm struggling with now is continuity, a sense that your character is the same person at their core.