Hello! It's been way too long since I've posted. Do any of you even remember me, or am I just talking to a wall right now?
Anyway, I'm not living in China anymore. Public spitting, food poisoning and no cheese anywhere aside, it was a great year. I miss it already.
To ease my sorrow, I've spent my free time sipping
baijiu and designing a game that borrows rules from
Dungeon World. I plan to keep all of Dungeon World's fast-paced, straightforward, cinematic qualities and adapting the game play to fit a weird west setting. I'd like to play a game where the sheriff rounds up a posse to liberate the spider ranch from night goblins. Some anachronistic steampunk stuff might show up here and there, but nobody's going to be flying around in a gyrocopter with a steam-powered top hat or some crap. I'm in the process of banging out a few classes, each with a unique mechanic. I'll post the playsets when I start feeling good about them. Here's what I have so far:
Citizen
Shopkeepers, barbers, prostitutes, farmers, etc. who find themselves caught up in adventuring. They lack the obvious abilities of other classes, but make up for it by having uncanny luck. They're much better at making good impressions, finding connections and holding onto money than their rougher companions.
Mechanic: Luck. Can spend class points to force GM to re-roll.
Fighter
Brawlers, Kung Fu disciples, tribal warriors, etc. Guys who can bring a knife to a gunfight and win. They can hold their own with firearms, but they prefer taking out their opponents with hand-to-hand weapons, swinging and grappling.
Mechanic: Momentum. Pushing the advantage or losing ground in a fight gives bonuses or penalties to rolls.
Gunslinger
Someone who can shoot the hat off your head or turn a brace of revolvers into a Gatling gun. Not all of them squint and smoke cigars.
Mechanic: Grit. Gunslinger accumulates class points based on his deeds that can be spent to improve rolls.
No-Account
Scumbags, grifters, rustlers, hatchet men, etc. Too many of these people on the frontier. The smarter ones escape the noose by making themselves useful.
Mechanic: Knacks. Can do sneaky thief stuff, including dirty fighting moves.
Occultist
Slightly unhinged individuals who devote themselves to the mysteries of the occult. They are the only class capable of casting magic.
Mechanic: Circles of magic. Learn spells by advancing in different magic circles.
Ranger
People who choose a hard life in the wilderness. They are highly sought after, because the frontier would be rough place
without the man-eating centipedes. Their hunting and trapping lifestyle makes them formidable with long guns.
Mechanic: Wilderness lore. Can spend class points to automatically succeed at certain wilderness skills, such as hunting, tracking, finding the right herb to reverse a friend's transformation into a werebat.
The humans thought they had inherited the world! They let their castles, monuments of a so-called dark age, crumble. Drunk with faith or reason, humans burned or buried spell books. The greatest minds published treatises about man and God and law. Monarchs declared themselves divine and built opulent palaces at the expense of their subjects. Cities became huge and squalid as farmers flowed in, abandoning their land in hope of steady wages in a factory.
