You can expect another RPG Kickstarter from me come March 2014. Nefertiti Overdrive is going to include the system – which was designed for historical, mythic wuxia, specifically in a Hollywood-ized Third Intermediate Period of Ancient Egypt. There will be an intro adventure as well, which includes six pre-generated characters. I’m also going to include a scenario generation system in which players actually drive the creation of the campaign or adventure in which they will play. They even get to design the character framework the adventure will use.
The first test-drive of the scenario design mechanics turned out so well, I’m going to include details of the setting with Nefertiti Overdrive.
The scenario design mechanics allow players to bid on different parts of the scenario. These are called features, and include Inspiration, Setting, Plot, Goals, and Themes. The game will explain these better, but Inspiration are very high level mechanics – like genres – while Setting is the physical space of the campaign, Plot indicates the overarching narrative in which the PCs are acting, Goals are what the PCs do in the game, and Themes are very specific characters, scenes, or actions that the PCs will encounter in the campaign.
In the first playtest, we got steampunk and Ultimate Fighting Championship for Inspiration; Europe and an archipelago for Setting; massive plague and supernatural factions at war for the Plot; finding the cure and stopping the war as the Goals; and opponent actively feeding the factional war and violent natural disaster scenes (eg volcanoes, floods, etc) for Themes.
That’s a heck of salad.
The players also decide on the framework or stats for the PCs. They chose Memories (kind of a version of background, in which a PC’s history informs that character’s abilities), Mechanics (this is open-ended, a players would choose Qualities to represent their mechanical skill/aptitude), Training, and Concept – which was subdivided into Martial Arts, Class, and Drive. These are all Qualities from which the PCs gain dice to use in Tests.
While the players were rolling up their characters, I had to design the campaign.
Stay tuned for what I turned out.
You can learn more about Nefertiti Overdrive here.