
Data, Nerves +Acquisition
On Quisicosas since 9 July 2024
Featured in the newsletter of
9 July 2024 (on Substack)
What it is about
[COMMUNITY COPIES AVAILABLE BELOW] Have you got a game world you've been playing in for ages but it needs some fleshing out? Are there a bunch of groups vying for power in your big city and you want to find a fun way to determine how the balance of power lies? Does your setting need some internal development to really bring it to life? Based on the Beak, Feather & Bone SRD , this game gives you a way to build out your world and develop communities within it organically, all the while creating your own stories and lore to fill in the gaps. It's a very simple game that can easily go alongside any other system or setting (although the default in the book is a sci-fi city, you could easily adapt it to a fantasy town, space colony, post-apocalyptic wasteland or anything really!). You don't need to have drawing skills or to do any complicated maths - all that's required is a simple pre-drawn map, some way to colour it in, a standard deck of playing cards and somewhere to take notes. Playtesting has been done using a combination of Roll20 and GoogleDocs and if needed, maps can be easily created using the Watabou map generator . Simply choose or create some factions/communities and then take turns drawing cards, picking locations from the map to claim and write down the DNA of it based on the card chosen: Data What is this place? How would a non-player character describe it? What is it used for? What is it called or referred to as? Nerves What is it connected to. Is it of historical or industrial significance? Who or what passes through this? Is another faction or the ruling party involved in it? Acquisition How did this building come to be part of this faction's territory? Do they now own it or simply occupy it? Is their possession open or is it a cover for secretive operations there? Also, add some amazing NPCs to your world whenever you pull a face card and create some wonderful characters to feature in gameplay when you return to play the game you're doing this for. This project was originally conceived to help flesh out the world of the Cybertopia Actual Play podcast and videos of the game being played by the cast will go up on YouTube are now going up, so keep an eye out here ! Here's the first session, so you can see how play goes without leaving this page :)