[X] My Assistant

[Wordman]

Jeremy Keller, author of the ENnie Award-winning Chronica Feudalis, is kickstarting his new high-tech, hard-boiled roleplaying game Technoir. He is also running a public beta of the game, so you can download the beta and see how it works.

I highly recommend at least reading this game to anyone who has any interest in Shadowrun at all, particularly if you like a more serious side to your games. Even in beta stage, it is quite wonderful. I guarantee you will see at least one thing in it that shows a different and better approach to something you've had a problem with in a Shadowrun game, perhaps without even realizing it.

The elevator pitch for the game:

Technoir is an RPG in which you play characters entrenched in the criminal underground of the near-future. These protagonists use illicit skills and high-tech gear to exploit opportunities in the hopes of escaping their desperate lives. It's the shady stories of hardboiled crime novels of yesterday set in the dystopian sci-fi cities of tomorrow.

Technoir is currently in development. A public beta version has been released for external playtesting. Please download the necessary materials from the left-hand column.

[Backgammon]

Cool that it encourages "failure" or at least getting hurt, and rewards it. I have been thinking for a while that a noir setting needs that.

A similar RPG, this time purely Noir, not sci-fi, is A Dirty World. It has some really good ideas.

[Tiralee]

Ok, stream of conciousness review:

Hmm, nice pledge system there. Tempted to put a fat wadge of change there just to see a protaginist called Chet Awesomelaser. Or Hugh G. Rection. Or Amanda Hugankiss.

Could have linked it better....ok, reasonably clear, would have been nice to be able to grab a zip of the whole thing to tool about with.

Reading through - interesting concept, but gods, I wish he'd bothered to take 20 minutes to spellcheck/grammar check the PDF's.
(It's a small thing, I know, but it totally demeans the good things that they've put together and makes it look like he's typed it out via text-message on the train to work.)

Game- looking like a vampire/SR combo with a grouped hybrid mechanic.
Ohh!!
The "Verb" idea is very,very clever - rewards those with a decent knowledge of dramatic narrative with monster dice pools (Ok, "Push" pools). I expect to see this again in ~ 5 years when people revamp the old favourites.

Game setting literally reeks of Shadowrun with a hunk of WoD ansgt. Could have mentioned the dead oceans due to acidity, starvation amongst the supposedly-rich..ehh, it's beta.
I keep looking at the mechanics and wondering how to make a mage. It's not helping:)

Grrr... "Specks" - visual overlay AR...should be "Specs" or (Groan) "Spekz"


...Frankly, I think he's wasting his time making a pen-and-paper RPG. All this could be easily made into a quite addictive flash minigame. ie:
You are an Investivative/Courier/Soldier (Detect, Fight 2, Hack, Move 2, Prowl 2, Shoot -fast, tough, intuitive) that has the fleshing-out process of their contacts randomly generated or from an assigned "party" of players at that moment.
Spend the cash (Kreds....I'm whimpering here!) and bam, use the adventure-roller to make your play.

Survive a session, allocate your points, continue. God, it sounds like bloody mafia wars.

Shall dick about with this and see how it goes.

-Tir.

[SuperSpy]

Yeah, sorry about the typos. A lot of it was written directly into InDesign which doesn't have auto-spellcheck. But the text has been extracted to text files now, better spellchecked, and gone to the capable hands of the editor.

Huh, I don't know why it's "specks" and not "specs." Thought I had a reason at the time, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was.

And if I could have a whole slew of "protagonists" named after the MST3K Space Mutiny names, I would be a very happy man.

-Jeremy