The idea of Nefertiti Overdrive was a mash-up of legendary Ancient Egypt and the kind of crazy, cinematic action of the Wuxia genre. With rules, characters, adventures, and campaigns, the book has that pretty much covered, but it doesn’t end there. Also included are rules for gaming groups to create their own mash-ups, including character Attributes.
The system for this uses bidding for players to signal their level of interest in contributing to each category. The input for each category is limited, and once a die is spent, it is gone, so if a player really wants to include a specific concept, she must bid high and hopefully secure her input.
The categories – termed Features – move from the highest level, looking at the Inspiration and Setting, down through Plot and Character Goals, to Themes that can include specific scenes or NPCs the player wants to see in the game. These Features are all described in the book, and examples of different Features, as well as an example of creation from bidding to final product, are part of the text.
Once the players have an idea of the kind of campaign in which they’ll be playing, they then bid to decide on the four Attributes for the characters in the campaign. These Attributes serve the same function as the Attributes presented with the Nefertiti Overdrive pre-gen characters – they provide dice for task resolution. Just as with the pre-gens, each Attribute might be a single Quality or a collection of Qualities from which the player chooses one to contribute to the Test.
It is likely that the process and the following PC creation will take a game session. Instead of having a character generation session, the group will literally have a campaign generation session. This can lead to some very crazy mash-ups.
But those, honestly, can be the most fun.
You can expect the Nefertiti Overdrive Kickstarter to begin on Monday, 17 March 2014. Mark your calendars and start saving your pennies.