Wednesday, June 9, 2010

StarCluster 3 - Almost ready for playtest.

I have nearly finished work on the StarCluster 3 game. I need to work on the weapons section, the ships section, and on the Robots section, and it should be ready for internal playtest. Figure a week or two. One change I keep tripping over is the shift from money to lifestyle. StarCluster 2 used Credits, and StarCluster 3 will use Lifestyle - Poor, Working Class, Lower Middle Class, etc. It makes things a lot easier both for me as a designer and for the group - less bookkeeping, no need to detail every purchase, no arguments about how much was spent in downtime... It does lose a bit of flavor, and the cash resource game is gone, but I'm cool with that.

Virtually everything in the game is customizable - ships, weapons, worlds, aliens, vehicles, and game mechanics. The Cluster is as big or small as you want it to be. You can use the old SC 2 Cluster if you wish, or any other method of generation, but that is no longer canon. There *is* no canon. The only Cluster that matters is YOUR Cluster.

SC 2 will remain available, for free DL and in print. The games are so very different I see no conflict, and whenever a new edition comes around for a game, there will be those who prefer the old edition. That's cool. I also see the supplements for SC 3 being very different than for SC 2 - more setting oriented guides for busy GMs, and fewer technical and character-based guides.

-clash

2 comments:

  1. Good luck with the playtest!

    The shift from cash to lifestyle sounds interesting - it redefines money in importance to that of any other resource (like oxygen or ammo) where your character is assummed to have 'sufficient', unless character lifestyle or the scenario requires more minute accounting. Shifts the focus back to Adventure! and away from Accountants in Space!

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  2. Hi Kobold!

    Exactly! Reduce the bookkeeping, avoid being niggly, and keep the focus where it belongs. You also have two lifestyles, your professional lifestyle - i.e. what you can afford from your paycheck - and your family lifestyle - i.e. what you can afford through inheritance and investments. You can choose to live off of either, effectively meaning you are limited to the higher of the two. I can see why some players might prefer their characters to live on the lower of the two, for roleplaying reasons like disgrace or a rift in the family, but generally the higher of the two would be used.

    -clash

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