LANCER One-Shot Module Jam

[idle cedar]

I would avoid the apostrophe in the feature name out of fear

it might work fine, but I'm just, not willing to tempt fate

[sweet gale]

It's getting changed when I think of a better name, which is what I'm doing now

[idle cedar]

https://watabou.itch.io/village-generator
commercial licensed 😎

[honest pawn]

hell yeah watabou

been fooling around with Affinity Publisher 2 and what I currently have, and it's looking like I'm gonna have plenty of space for spot art and my maps

[sweet gale]

I think I'm only going to be getting one more playtest in unless I ask for an extension, so I turn to the wisdom of crowds

Do I get silly and make this fish a size 4 for this test, or do I stay reasonable and keep it ar 3.

[honest pawn]

imo size 3 is more than enough

[sweet gale]

I suppose I should add the caveat that the gimmick of the NPC is that its abilities scale based on its size

[jolly hornet]

I'd say make it bigger, how often do you fight a Size 4 NPC?

[spare jolt]

I feel like I've barely started. Christmas kinda ate all my dev time.

[honest pawn]

I'll be honest that a large amount of my work was kinda brainstormed ahead of time and happened to make sense with the theme, so that's helped me make up for lost time

[sweet gale]

I used PTO so my workday has been chipping away at this.

[sweet gale]

why not give S4 a spin

what's the worst that could happen

[idle cedar]

size 4 threat 3?

no that's not right

range 5?

[sweet gale]

Size 4 with X burst where X equals size.

[idle cedar]

oh lmao

[sweet gale]

Huh. I'm now seeing that the macro is drawing the lower side too far.

[hollow turtle]

Annnnd playtest 2 and 3 done!

Funny that the ‘lose conditions’ sitrep was a bit more successful in killing enemies but the players felt like I made them work for their survival so that’s good!

[onyx fractal]

Playtest one in the bag

[hollow turtle]

Now it’s literally just formatting

[sweet gale]

These conditions are impossible to jam under

[honest pawn]

Looks like the cat is jamming just fine

[idle cedar]

I was writing like half the day today and realized
this shit doesn't fit into a single session if I also want combat

I guess I'm cutting out like 70% of the narrative I just wrote lmaoo

[spare jolt]

Added a new Phase 3 Component to the Leviathan's options.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dAaECU5vm_yKp-fSpHw9wAsBM2oJb63C95fosa3yIgs/edit?usp=sharing How does the durability of the components seem? With 9 of them for a Leviathan, they're not really supposed to all be 'Full NPC' tough (So they mostly lack defensive abilities, just having stats).

[spare jolt]

(If anyone has any thoughts on weapons that should be an option for a Giant Skyscraper Boss and are not currently, always up for ideas)

[onyx fractal]

The ever-present challenge

[sweet gale]

If the narrative segment takes too long in the playtest tonight, I'm gonna see if I can speed it up somehow or write a sidebar that advises GMs to go light on the flavor and get through it fast.

State the action, roll for it if it need a roll, resolve the action. Next player.

[onyx fractal]

Currently my solution is to have a literal physical IRL real-time timer on the narrative part

With a narrative justification for its existence

[sweet gale]

You exploded the cover on a geothermal vent and made some dangerous terrain. No need to go all James Joyce on the description.

[hollow turtle]

Yeah I’d shove a whole campaign’s worth of info in my one shot if I could but narrative can eat time more than you think

[sweet gale]

I mean, did I write two whole pages of narrative cruft?

Yes

But that's for the GM's enrichment

[onyx fractal]

Latest snippet from my location crawl key

[hollow turtle]

Which is why I specified in my writing that my one shot is fairly light on narrative play but did give some little bits and pieces GMs could pull on if they want to do more

(Not to mention that two of the fail states is a whole ass campaign hook)

[sweet gale]

I wanna write a "What if you want to do more in The Angsiyan System?" segment but that may be for a post-jam 1.1 release

[hollow turtle]

Yeah that might be a small after Jam project for me too, fleshing out The Cradle of Humanity as a place

[idle cedar]

i realized i was writing about like 10 npcs and 4 of them got a ton of details into why they're like that

and like, it's a oneshot

[hollow turtle]

It’s such a cool concept I originally had for a PC backstory

[idle cedar]

I'll cut it down to like 3 people

[hollow turtle]

And bringing it to the wider community is exciting

[sweet gale]

I'm just writing two dudes and hoping the dialogue makes it obvious that they're boyfriends

[hollow turtle]

Is Lancer, it’s in the 3rd party license that they have to be gay /j

[sweet gale]

Admittedly I'm hesitant because the failstate is ||one stays behind to blow up the outpost and take the leviathan with it||

[hollow turtle]

Aw you ||buried the gays ||

[sweet gale]

I haven't yet

But that's why I'm hesitant

[idle cedar]

make it ||ambiguous whether he dies||

[hollow turtle]

Honestly while I know the trope is kinda scary, gay people can die too

[sweet gale]

Though an alternative is ||let one of the PCs stay behind and do the baba-booey instead||

[idle cedar]

nuh uh

[sweet gale]

It is a one-shot after all

[idle cedar]

i had a phase where all my characters had a life expectancy of one session

no more

[hollow turtle]

I think it depends on how you frame it and how the characters are fleshed out. Are they just Gay? Is that it? Or are they people with goals and expectations that just so happen to be gay?

[sweet gale]

I do kinda like this. Throw a line in like ||"If Victor thinks I'm goin' down that easy, he's got another thing comin' when I see him topside."||

[hollow turtle]

I have in the opening of my Lancing Dawn campaign a gay couple that gets buried due to the Second Fall that the players discover in their printer garage. And while everyone does joke about it, I’ve never had any of my three groups go ‘that’s unfair’ because they are people beyond being gay and killable

[fierce sedge]

Feel free to ping me about it if you need to workshop stuff like that at any point. I'm fairly confident in my ability to judge how long some sections take.

[eternal dagger]

Are there any consequences to not submitting something to the Itch page before the deadline? Do I get excommunicated lol

[honest pawn]

Suji will be posting extension policy after the jam

[eternal dagger]

I'm sorry if I'm the billonth person to ask this

Holidays were really busy and work... is a thing.

[sweet gale]

It's a tricky time of year for sure

[idle cedar]

you can submit up to a month after the deadline

i have to figure out how to set it up

[hollow turtle]

Just doing some editting and listening to epic music makes its kinda funny

music worthy of a dramatic trailer playing while I fiddle with margins

[idle cedar]

margins is the uhh, not final boss of editing but like

idk grunts of editing

you keep doing it but there's still more

[hollow turtle]

Its fun!

I love fiddling with layouts

[sweet gale]

I'm in map design hell ATM

It's literally the last task I have to do

[onyx fractal]

Boy howdy, am I gonna have a banger of a blog post ready to go talking about running Lancer IRL after these playtests are done...

[fierce sedge]

Y'know something I've never considered but I actually kind of want to write into the project is the concept of a retired NHP.

Just someone who's managed to in one way or another retire from their duties and are enjoying life. Could be a fisherman.

This doesn't have any further effect on things but I just realised I don't think I've quite come across the concept before (which doesn't mean it hasn't been done), so why not include it over in a corner?

[hollow turtle]

Do it!

[fierce sedge]

I already have made the decision, only question is where to include them. Prolly wouldn't have mentioned them here otherwise.

Instead I largely just wanted to ponder on that lack of a portrayal of them in unimportant parts of society, away from shouldering whatever weights are foisted upon them

[idle cedar]

used to be a feared fleet command NHP nicknamed Leviathan but has since retired and gone into hiding

[last frigate]

There is that line in the Long Rim about "Free Deimosians" just kind of vibing out there

[idle cedar]

ask for help on one last job

[fierce sedge]

Nah, mayhaps someone else will want to write that, but for me it would take away from the point I wanted to make.

[idle cedar]

what are you going for?

[fierce sedge]

Which is just about the concept of someone existing, and having that be that.

Sometimes that's enough to make one ponder.

[hollow turtle]

Put em in a section of 'Background NPCs thr GM can use for (thing)' chart?

[idle cedar]

maybe just as another resident of a place, then? one of many who will provide exposition

[hollow turtle]

Like they're around and a GM can point em out but they aren't The Plot Driver

Just vibin

[fierce sedge]

I do get the temptation to make a figure like that a legend, a myth in the flesh. But with how easy it is for NHPs to become central to things I wanted to underline that this person is not that; whichever life they've lived is not one for fables.

I'll admit though that my original statement was more of a rhetorical question since much of this character is already fully formed haha, but I appreciate the want to help.

It just happens to be that with certain concepts when they spring to mind, at least for me, it's like the painting has already been made and you're just there to sketch it out :).

[spare jolt]

Added another Phase 3 Component, under the decision that Phase 3 Components are assholes who make players go 'Oh, I need this dead ASAP'

[hollow turtle]

Oooo that's a good one

[spare jolt]

All the Phase 3 ones are designed to be not just 'Another gun' and more 'Deal with me fast or I'll ruin your day'

Like the Paracausal Array locking people in the phantom zone until it gets blown up.

[onyx fractal]

Playtest 2 was sick as fuuuuuck

[honest pawn]

Love to see it

But not nearly as much as I’ll love to see the finished submission 👀

[onyx fractal]

Me too

The players did something super off the wall and it worked great

I'm very happy to see them take a different path than the players last night

I was worried at first that they would do something similar but they went wildly different

[final maple]

Current status: I am of course getting extremely distracted doing layout stuff while putting off actually making the dang encounter map(s) and OPFOR(s). Which is probably important if I'm going to be playtesting at my table tomorrow.

I was hoping to work faster and maybe even offer art services for other jammers, but at this rate I might end up using the extension just for this.

[hollow turtle]

workin hard or hardly working? 🤔
(Its like, coming together and I almost can't believe it)

spots typo

[spare jolt]

Yeah...I think I"m going to need more time. The NPC is still being worked on and between 'christmas' and 'one team member being bedridden with sickness', not much happened for chunks of the time.

[hollow turtle]

You take the time you need!

I am sure the community will be more than happy to get it whenever it is ready

[crystal wigeon]

Nothing like pressing the post button to see issues haha

[idle cedar]

ngl I might also not finish by deadline

or by playtest date, even

which would be pretty disappointing

[sweet gale]

After my last playtest, I'm feeling like I might need that extension

Partly because there was some things that needed revision or clarification or just a whole-ass QA pass, but also because work is back on now

[spare jolt]

Added a Nice Basic Phase 1 Gun for the Leviathan

[hollow turtle]

feels like I'm bastardizing Lancer formatting rules for my own use here but I like this little header thing so much

(Text is off center, its a 'fix later' thing)

[onyx fractal]

Today's inspiration https://seedlinggames.com/blogging/discourse/what_is_a_zine.html

[left mirage]

my insane holiday busy-ness has ended at last and 30mg amphetamine salts have seen 4 points on the Typhon completed in the past 3 hrs (another 4 to go)!

might test a combat tonight 🤔

[left mirage]

Had a successful test sesh for one of the combats!

Engineers are behind the wall while they deploy turrets/other goodies onto a conveyor belt
Players have to extract a cable attached to this loading machine in order to upload their NHP and sabotage the Typhon's ammo feeders.

alternatively, they can just destroy the feeder outright (but its an ultra/industrial or ultra/RPV so this may take more time)

Destroying it ticks the sabotage clock by one, taking it over ticks sabotage clock AND rescue clock by 1. It also prevents enemy reinforcements from harassing players at this location (normally going back and forth lets enemy reinforcements catch up to you)

• sabotage clock: removes deployment zones from combats as it clicks up, mission-kills the ||Typhon|| under some conditions
• rescue clock: recovers the PCs if they're lost to hull breach or a purge roll from the ||Typhon||, also changes some NPC behavior and whether the ||Rio Grande|| will directly intervene on the players' behalf.

Very excited to dump this out!

The actual combat portion took about 30-45 minutes and (depending on core powers) might have gone even shorter. Perfect for the 6 hour time limit!

[hollow turtle]

Laying out a sitrep for an LL12 oneshot takes up a lot of room who would of known 🤔

[left mirage]

👀

[hollow turtle]

Honest to god I am almost getting too excited to work on my project because like I'm actually so close to being done

weird af feeling

[weak nacelle]

The "I'm done, but waiting for the artist to get back so I can publish" mood q.q

[spare jolt]

Just got three more components to get done and this Big Boss NPC will be done.

Phase 2: Mine Dispensers, Subaltern Racks (Mines and Drones)
Phase 3: Earthblood Drill (Burn Magma Eruptions/Leaves Burning Terrain)

[weak nacelle]

Don't know if that's the entire map, but isn't that Player Deployment Zone very small? Like, what happens if the PCs show up in like a Barbarossa, an Iskendr and a Monarch?

[left mirage]

Throw em right next to it? I blocked it out in about 10s for a playtest tonight, none of my players were over size 1

If I were running a game and the deployment zone(s) were too small for my players, I would probably just increase it? I don't think that's ever happened to me, though

[hollow turtle]

I have to share some crisp editting with yall

like idk I want to eat this page

Its nothing terribly fancy yet

[left mirage]

Yoooooo

[spare jolt]

I hate players and want them to suffer: The component.

[fierce sedge]

To ask the obvious, will the Electropulse Mines have the mine tag? Primarily asking because I can see one point of confusion being whether or not the mines are immediately primed once deployed, as the wording kinda implies, or if they wait til the end of the Leviathan's turn.

I'd assume the latter, but felt worth bringing up.

[spare jolt]

In this case, it's the same thing. As the component instantly ends its turn when it resolves the activation effect.

[fierce sedge]

Ok, was wondering if they could deploy and then during the same turn ram their opponents into the mines, but that makes sense then.

[spare jolt]

Nah, the Chassis is a Separate Character from each component.

So if you have the mine dispensors activate and then the chassis activates later this round, it can push someone into the zappy boys.

Just two left. Subaltern Racks (Trying to work out a Fun Thing for drones to do that isn't just Be Mobile MInes)

[onyx fractal]

For some reason my hopeful brain thought the jam ended late on the 5th, like close to midnight

Nope it's 2pm est

[jolly hornet]

hey folks, quick question; if we worked on the oneshot in a group, and multiple members have their own itch pages, is there a way for the project to show up under multiple creators, or can it onl ever be published under one?

[honest pawn]

That’s a question for itch.io, but I believe it would need to be only 1 page, but it could potentially link to the other creators?

[north mango]

it's so cool to see the art on the page

[idle cedar]

i can say there is a way, but can't really give much details bc i forgot

[weak nacelle]

huh, til

[idle cedar]

ahh yeah it's exactly 14 days so it ends the same time it starts

[crystal wigeon]

I know this is definitely possible as I've been added to a project I didn't post and you can see it on a bit of my profile, but unhelpfully since I didn't do it I can't provide instructions haha, just that you can.

[onyx fractal]

adding text on top of an image is hard

[tepid pecan]

oh question is it possible to edit the project after submission

[idle cedar]

I think so

You should be able to push out any changes since it's your itch project, regardless of whether you submit it to a jam

if there's like a judgment there might be some restrictions but there isn't, so

[tepid pecan]

o7

[tepid pecan]

and has there been any luck on the details regarding this

[jolly hornet]

I have not tried it yet, but looks like it's possible: https://www.reddit.com/r/itchio/comments/x9x0el/can_i_add_our_game_to_each_of_our_members_itch/

I googled "submitting an itch project with collaborators" and got a couple results, some videos too

[hollow turtle]

excited editting noises on to the second combat and its going smoooooth

[buoyant snow]

how do you make custom encoutners? can you do it with the lcp editor?

[honest pawn]

Nah, lcp editor doesn’t do encounters

Compcon doesn’t share encounters either, just NPC JSONs at best

[buoyant snow]

so we cant do encountes in compcon at all?

[honest pawn]

Not in a shareable way no

You could make one for personal use but can’t really share it

[last frigate]

tried to come up with a table of effects that make the rampaging capybara more interesting than just "it runs around and hits people"

though a couple of them are just "it runs around and hits people"

[left mirage]

Officially crossed the threshold from "too much to play in a single night" to "stupid replay value" and further to "multiple groups could play this in a single night"

I take these slings and arrows for you, the people!

[left mirage]

The mirror (10x more powerful) each time I am tempted by this message:

[honest pawn]

Remember what happened to Achilles

The Greek hero most remembered for dying to his glaring weakness

[idle cedar]

imagine being a nigh invincible warrior and being remembered for dying lmao

[hollow turtle]

Its almost done

[left mirage]

Absolute king!

[hollow turtle]

Its so close

[left mirage]

YEAAAAA

[jolly hornet]

Would the oneshots count as game mods, or just other?

[onyx fractal]

Physical games

[idle cedar]

ttrpg typically fall under physical games, yeah

[idle cedar]

maybe i can try to finish it tonight

tells other people not to cram and considers doing it herself 🤔

[hollow turtle]

Ah I love using words programs don't recognize

this is mostly spelling errors with a few bleed warnings

[hollow turtle]

😄

its done!

[sweet gale]

So I'm doing the thing where the party doesn't have core powers and starts at +1 overcharge

But a part of me wants to have the ability to get a core battery reserve

Though it does leave me somewhat concerned about balancing around that

[hollow turtle]

Balancing around a core power for a one shot does take some time

if you already have everything worked out for the usual no core and some level of overcharge

then its best to throw a wrench in that

https://admiralstarnight.itch.io/bleed-the-heart

look at meeeeee

I did the thing

[hollow turtle]

#1325361820923461697 made a thread

Very excited

very fun

trying not to have a excited meltdown at 2am because household is asleep

[eternal dagger]

I'm cooking over here https://discord.com/channels/426286410496999425/1322261510831079564

Got a ways to go. Haven't even started formatting yet, but once the raw text is done hopefully that won't take too long

[split flame]

Dumb question, but the extension plan, is that "late submissions can be added" or "if you're accepted already, the deadline isn't fixed" type deal?

[onyx fractal]

Congrats!

[last frigate]

i suppose i should make a thread for mine too

[onyx fractal]

Pretty sure I'm going to have to submit something incomplete

But hey, it's the year of the beta! https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/2025-is-the-year-of-the-beta

Alright submitting my 0.8 version for now so I can fucken sleep

https://gordianblade.itch.io/the-demon-of-dogwater-gulch

[spare jolt]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dAaECU5vm_yKp-fSpHw9wAsBM2oJb63C95fosa3yIgs/edit?usp=sharing Do people mind looking at the 3 Chassis options here and telling me if they all seem interesting/fun? (Balance thoughts are also appreciated but not required)

[final maple]

I'm curious about this as well. I suppose the prudent thing for me to do at this point would be to recognize that I don't have a viable encounter/map and simply publish what I have as a funky gamemode 'suitable for one-shot play'.

[ember portal]

ITS DONE!!! MY TEAM AND I FINISHED IT!!!
We even got the lcp file working https://casnef.itch.io/consume-code
It's a fun little trip to a virtual reality simulation. You get to fight an evil program trying to consume the simulation.

[spare jolt]

The intent for feel for fighting the 3 of them is 'Giant Mech', 'Attacking Tokyo 3' and 'Arsenal Bird'

[final maple]

the "titan, fortress, aerospace" part?

[spare jolt]

Yeah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGad0EPq8gk&ab_channel=Shortanime_ This scene is like a solid 50% of the inspiration behind the Fortress one.

[weak nacelle]

As is proper in a one-shot, we'll only be supplying the most critical information to keep things tight :v

[idle cedar]

1. if you don't submit by deadline for whatever reason, you will be able to submit for up to 1 month after the deadline
2. once you submit your work, you are free to edit however much you want, even after the 1 month time. It's your project and it's up to you

[final maple]

• So Sloped Deflection is unlimited? Does it apply to the Titan chassis itself?
• I'm a bit concerned that Unstoppable Titan may have a tendency to create flat, boring battlefields as it slowly destroys terrain. Maybe this is a non-issue in practice or a good motivation for players to destroy the component ASAP. Should the titan compensate with ability(s) that create terrain?
• Fortress seems like a fun mix of Engineer and Goliath, I'd absolutely run it.
• Reaching for the Sun seems a little obtuse and contingent. It took me a moment to put together that it's a necessary corollary to Titan Of The Sky allowing ground-level melee spam (is that the intention?). I like the Aerospace concept a lot, but don't know if the traits fully deliver on the fantasy the same way the Titan and Fortress do.

[buoyant snow]

when putting down the name of authors or contributors, do we put down our irl names or usernames?

[spare jolt]

Yeah, Sloped Deflection is 'You need to focus down the chassis because it can protect its components at cost to itself'. It doesn't apply to the chassis, I'll make that more clear.

[spare jolt]

Yeah, Reaching for the Sun is basicly there to go 'Hey, melee people can take part in this fight'

As an enemy that is a Giant Flying Guy would otherwise be real miserable for grounded melee people.

(But yeah, flying is a tricky area to play in when it can be so 'no, you can't take part in this fight' at times, so I kinda wrote around it)

[buoyant snow]

have you been placing real names or usernames as authors?

[final maple]

I fully intend to stick to my artist name/business name. I'm unsure if there are specific guidelines or copyright reasons to go one way or the other.

[final maple]

Trait that requires it to land occasionally, and melee fighters can stand on top of it when it takes off and just stay there for a SotColossus style fight?

[spare jolt]

Maybe. Vaguely on that topic: Is there any sorta 'general form' you think might be missing for 'Giant Enemy Types'?

[final maple]

Could even just be an incentive/nudge for melee fighters to Grapple it while grounded.

Hmmmmmm. Giant snake/eel/centipede?

Kraken-style fights with tentacled abyssal horrors.

The subtypes I can think of would seem to be covered fairly well by combining components.

[ebon panther]

Just submitted my entry! Need to finish a section or two but ill do that tomorrow!: https://donkeyponius981.itch.io/ominous-sky-ravaged-land

[buoyant snow]

when we submit, do you have to make an itch io page with the zipfile of our stuff?

[slow topaz]

Just for clarification: if you need extension, should you still submit today and push updates on itch.io afterwards or can you just submit the whole shtick later?

[silent plover]

If you submit now, you can always update later. The jam will link to your project page, which you have full control over.

[north mango]

Aaaah, I'm so proud of making part of the project

Thanks for the opportunity and hope everyone that plays it like the game!

[split flame]

Awesome thanks 🙏

[honest pawn]

9 submissions already, we’ve already increased the number of known published oneshots by 450%

Even if they’re in beta, this is great haha

[buoyant snow]

do we place our irl names?

[onyx fractal]

If you want

I did. I think it's important for people to connect a creative work with the human(a) who made it

[buoyant snow]

does anyone have a png that Says Powered By Lancer?

the one on the massif legal website is not working for google docs

at least for me anyways

[onyx fractal]

The one on the Massif website is secretly a svg

Even though it says png

[honest pawn]

Clicking through should yield a png

Like on the massif site

That or right click save as, I forget

[buoyant snow]

nvm it works now

[honest pawn]

Either way if you can get an svg, it should be possible to covert it

[buoyant snow]

is this good enough for legal purposes?

[honest pawn]

In any case, I linked the pngs above

[honest pawn]

90% of the way there, include “Lancer is copyright Massif Press” somewhere

And probably thank Massif Press for use of the Lancer system

[buoyant snow]

if I use a map that I made using Inkarnate for a ttrpg oneshot that I publish, do I need to put the "powered by inkarnate" thing anywhere?

[slow topaz]

Crediting stuff never hurts, I guess.

[honest pawn]

Check the licensing for Inkarnate

If they care, they’ll spell out exactly how they want to be credited

[buoyant snow]

I paid for it, and it doesnt say anything that I need to disclaim it

I just know that they have a token stamp that says powered by inkarnate

but I dont understand much of the legalese

You shall own all rights to any User Content created using the Website or Platform and shall have the right to sell, publish, relicense and otherwise commercially exploit such User Content.

this means I am good, right?

https://inkarnate.com/terms

[honest pawn]

Sounds right!!!

[left mirage]

I know the one shot modules generally need to be playable with only core NPCs; how have you folks worded/ presented non-core npcs? Has anyone here put non-core npc alternatives next to the "default" core NPCs?

[buoyant snow]

is the lcp editor broken? I cant seem to change the numbers of my custom npc

[buoyant snow]

https://itch.io/jam/lancer-one-shot-module-jam/rate/3224526

done for now

[onyx fractal]

Great job!

[idle cedar]

do you have a pdf? that is like the one requirement for submission

[idle cedar]

hi, could you include the pdf separately from the rar file?

[idle cedar]

same with this one

[onyx fractal]

It's in the zip

Does it have to be separate?

Personally I prefer to download everything at once instead of a pile of files

But if it's a requirement of the jam to not have a zip, I can adjust

[buoyant snow]

it should be in the zip file, why? Is it not there?

[idle cedar]

having a zip is fine and i don't wanna police that, but have the pdf outside of the zip available as well

[buoyant snow]

can I edit the submission by editing the public page of my work?

[idle cedar]

it should work i think

[buoyant snow]

i dont know how to edit

where can I edit my project?

[onyx fractal]

click the "Published" button

on your project page

[onyx fractal]

Updated

[buoyant snow]

nvm I figuredit out

[idle cedar]

one hour left

and i think I'm not finishing it in time 😔
but i will do a late submission

[slow topaz]

You're not alone in that.

[idle cedar]

initially i said i hope for 10 submissions and we have exactly that right now

therefore i won the jam, we all did

[onyx fractal]

the real winners are the jams we made along the way

[slow topaz]

https://tenor.com/view/jammed-signal-spaceballs-jam-the-signal-block-the-signal-signal-interruption-gif-24854397

[fierce sedge]

Experimented with a similar concept way back when I was doing alternative difficulties for an encounter, and IIRC I ended up with two versions of using a table.

The first one was basically just having Table 1: Normal difficulty, and Table 2: Hard difficulty right next to it.

But the other version I was toying with had me explaining what was added or switched out, such as "-1 Hornet, +1 Spite". Both have their risks for confusion, but I liked the general structure.

If a bit bulky

[onyx fractal]

Since my module was intended to be an introductory module, I went out of my way to ensure that NPCs were core, and built using vanilla NPC building rules and vanilla features

[fierce sedge]

Yeah, where I used two tables in the past was just for any group that wanted more of a difficult fight so to speak, but with the understanding that I'd warned them.

[craggy bone]

https://itch.io/jam/lancer-one-shot-module-jam/rate/3224576

With thirty minutes to spare, we've finally finished our module!

[slow topaz]

Still heavily WIP:
https://itch.io/jam/lancer-one-shot-module-jam/rate/3224766

[fossil ice]

Just in time! https://morganjanearcane.itch.io/a-wake-writ-in-void with @finite brook and @nova umbra

[hollow turtle]

Holy shit that cover

[last frigate]

beeg mouth

[fossil ice]

The man’s a pro

[hollow turtle]

Zjake art always slaps

[nova umbra]

it's named The Yawn

[last frigate]

eepy

[left mirage]

the SHAME of submitting a placeholder bc I haven't compiled all details yet

[onyx fractal]

No shame

Release unfinished stuff

Big DIY energy

[final maple]

Slapdash version of Leviathan Heavy Assault Cannon has been uploaded! Now to eat a donut and then immediately get to work on revisions so it's actually playable. And has a description. And so on.

[honest pawn]

Damn, ran out of time for on-time submission

[final maple]

It's literally just the preview I posted several days ago with the red " to do " markers removed and the massif third party license text added.

[lost heron]

shoutout to the last minute gang, 6 when i checked last night and now 17 submissions

[honest pawn]

This is what happens when you get too deep in the layout and have GDQ distracting in the background lol

Late Submission it is!

[final maple]

OH YEAH GDQ IS ON.

[idle shale]

AHA!

https://aliceworks.itch.io/tennessee-garcia

aww, I was hoping it'd give us a preview image. Ah well

[lost heron]

I used this opportunity to really push myself on the layout design, i feel u

[idle shale]

This one's an indiana jones spoof @pearl ice, @balmy sluice and I have been working on! 😌

we hope it is good

[pearl ice]

It is nearly Christ-the-Buddhamas

[honest pawn]

Don’t mind me, just casually adding every jam submission to my Lancer Mission Collection

[final maple]

My personal bias is of course that I deeply appreciate anyone doing layout stuff. Congrats to everyone who has submitted and everyone who will submit and everyone who even thought about making something!

[lost heron]

I get a significant amount of traffic on my projects through your collection <3

[idle shale]

Oh yes Valk I have totally stolen your recommended tags for this one from waaay back when when we talked once about module release stuff

[pearl ice]

The idea of layouting is spooky and I have simply chosen not to do it yet for my large module draft

[buoyant snow]

dam...need art. All of you got art

[final maple]

Also extremely valid.

[idle shale]

id say this is why I am The Cool One but I also could not be bothered with it for jam xD

[fierce sedge]

Lol I feel you. To some extent I found that the scope of what I wanted to do prolly didn't suite the jam that well, so will be taking a bit longer and be its own thing.

Which is fine~

[pearl ice]

(she is the cool one, I just bash little figures together and call that combat layouting)

[idle shale]

In fairness! This is how the best projects start eh

[final maple]

You did a thing! That means the jam was a great success.

[idle cedar]

use public domain stuff!

[idle shale]

Game jams are just as good for sparking bigger goals as they are to slap something together under contraints!

[pearl ice]

I whipped up the cover in ~10ish minutes from public domain images and a free online text editor, it's a good skill to pick up

[idle shale]

yes absolutely

I still regret not thinking to check if the cover image I edited for my playtest last week was CC0 or not 😭

[last frigate]

congrats to everyone, whether you submitted or are still working

[idle shale]

still don't know, actually, didnt think about it til an hour before release and figured a new one was easier than tracking it down

[pearl ice]

surely this will be fine 🙂 (I used that image)

REGARDLESS

congrats to everyone on their jam submissions, this was really fun to work on

[honest pawn]

Literally this, I’m taking public domain clipart from openclipart

[buoyant snow]

at least I made a cool map in inkarnate

wanna see?

[idle shale]

nah nah I mean the old one I used not the one I dredged up for ya xD that one's CC0

[hollow turtle]

Gonna get a 3.0 pdf up on itch by the end of the day with editor stuff I missed last night XD

Just a few missing words/grammar mistakes

[buoyant snow]

#1216805351488356353 message

[hollow turtle]

Nothing terribly game breaking

But over all I am super happy with this Jam. I think I’d do another one… though perhaps the next jam can be some time when it’s not two major holidays back to back

[idle cedar]

ooh that looks gorgeous

[pearl ice]

The crunch builds character

[buoyant snow]

thanks

[hollow turtle]

It does but damn I only wanna build my character not that of my artist too 😭

[fierce sedge]

I do think that not holding it over one of the busier times of the year has been a recurring piece of feedback yeah.

[idle cedar]

yeah, that's been a pretty common frustration
if I do another one, I'll probably have it in a more open period

[hollow turtle]

(My artist went harder into this than I did I feel)

[lost heron]

this is so real, my unemployed ass was ready and then it was the only time the whole year i was busy

[idle cedar]

and do a whole mission next time potentially

[hollow turtle]

What about a narrative jam?

[idle cedar]

or like, "Act 1 Jam" type thing where you do whatever you need to start a campaign

[idle cedar]

what do you mean by this

[hollow turtle]

Like making a field guide about a place with maybe a few campaign hooks and important NPCs

[pearl ice]

mechanics jam would be cool

something like "make a PC license and make an NPC based off of the same themes / evokes the same concepts and mechanics"

[hollow turtle]

Idk if that’s be too easy for a jam, because I can lore write for days

[last frigate]

gazetteer jam would be cool

[hollow turtle]

But having more little guides to places around would be cool. I like having field guides

[idle cedar]

I can see something like "make a fragment that can be combined with other things" jam
maybe you just make a license, some npcs, or just the lore, etc

[buoyant snow]

one thing I wanna do is convert a homecampaign of mine into a module. I would add my mechs, talk about the lore...man

[final maple]

Classic.

[idle cedar]

I'm really liking this idea
you can do more lore and make it like a field guide, or you can focus more on the combat, or use it to make licenses, etc

[idle shale]

I actually ripped into a few of my sketched notes for a larger game concept of mine for my one-shot’s setting, funnily enough

[tepid pecan]

our group ripped pre-exisiting narrative and design stuff (also we are still working on it lmao)

but yeah honestly it did realyl feel like it was a 1 week jam at times

[buoyant snow]

for me...I got inspired by the game The Wandering Village. When the concept theme became Leviathan I knew what I had to do

[tepid pecan]

at some point i thought

"is this really leviathan enough"

but then i brushed that aside when i realized we were donig a one shot about a revolution on a ship large enough to have a city council and neighborhoods

just an entire metropolitan area in orbit

[idle cedar]

I put too much focus on narrative while thinking "it's just narrative beats" and then realized I was making something like one and a half sessions worth of exploration

[tepid pecan]

whoopsie!

[hollow turtle]

Really just making excuses to not have to make more combats and detail them out so other GMs can play it but then it wouldn’t be much of a game jam if it’s all book and no game!

[idle cedar]

I was running a oneshot in preparation of the jam too, just like to judge how much time I'd have

[fierce sedge]

That's pretty much what I'm working on. Three general layers, divided in purposes as auxiliar, primary, and mystery/danger.

This is why it diverged from the game jam, since my aim is more to explore a kind of sandbox approach to what a module could be like.

[pearl ice]

I made that mistake with my first two one-shots, which both ballooned into triple-session things

I knew I had to just go "no! low narrative" for this one (and fortunately Cael and Nyx were on the ball with all of the great narrative challenges and such)

then again, those first two one-shots also had two combats, and Lancer does not like multiple combats in one session

(if you're including narrative, etc)

[fierce sedge]

Yeah lol, think my own internal calculus is that a scene will take about 30 minutes, so you have to be rather strict with them.

In that calculus a single room can itself be a scene.

[hollow turtle]

At my heart, I’m a lore writer

Combat is fun, but it’s not my mainstay and I usually prefer having all the first party NPCs at my disposal rather than just core

[tepid pecan]

yeah our narrative design early on was very hard on the "fast" esnese

we didn't even bother with like "mystery" or explaining shit that wasnt happening

focused only on things the player characters themselves would know

aka their hub, their jobs, recent local history, and what the neighborhood's been like, recently

[hollow turtle]

I loved my lore for my one shot and I want to expand on it so much

[tepid pecan]

i find that most everyone is fine with removing a lot of the decisions players and gm's normally get to make, as long as whatever they're doing is interesting

[fierce sedge]

My biggest miscalculation for a oneshot was one where I had I believe around 8 different distinct scenes. These were Outdoors Investigations, Entrance, Security Room, Upper Laboratory, Lower Laboratory, Lower Laboratory section 2, The Chamber, and then Escape + Combat.

This particular one shot I've later cut down to an hourglass shaped upper section, and cutting out a major chunk for. When I ran it later it worked out much better.

[hollow turtle]

But I knew if I got tunneled into it

I’d never finished

[tepid pecan]

like when i ran the og version of this, we straight up told the players "ok cool this is your job this is what you do your character must do this and this is why and they are onboard for it for this reason" nd that? that just works!

[idle cedar]

regarding late submission:
that's what it looks like to me, so I will need the link to the project
please either send me a direct message, or ping me here with the project link

[fierce sedge]

I've done a similar thing in the past, beginning with a briefing, and the bigger takeaway I had was that you can always be more blunt.

Tell folk what the stakes are and get moving!

[tepid pecan]

yeah!

i let them look at what's happening

drop them on the rails

[fierce sedge]

If you want to add complexity, it tends to work best when done in motion so to speak.

[tepid pecan]

they make a "Decision" (they're still going to fight anyways"

^

and at the end of that fight, another thing happens!

drop them in a quick time event

not a campaign

[pearl ice]

"punch fascists, explore temple, fight mechs" was the plot hook

we ball

[hollow turtle]

Rails for a one shot is just smart design because what else are doing in this one-shot. XD

[tepid pecan]

i think thats the way we view our philosophy for one shots

[hollow turtle]

‘You are Union Lancers, you are being thrown at Big Enemy, fight’

[fierce sedge]

"In three hours the planet will explode unless you prevent it. Go!"

[tepid pecan]

they're quick time events

you still have to push the button but there's not too much hard thinking here really

[idle shale]

I still find it so funny how hard of a pivot we took from the og ideas rattling around xD

[fierce sedge]

That's what I used as the basis for when I wanted to experiment with how much time a one shot takes, and tbh the data I got from it has since proven very useful.

[idle shale]

(Extremely for the best, to be clear!)

[idle cedar]

I dropped my original concept too in a lot of ways

[tepid pecan]

"hey the cops are doing some fucked up shit on the ass end of the giga-ship. block off this one random particular artery you're one of thousands btw good luck!"

[idle shale]

Also yes absolutely! Ours is really just three scenes in a trench coat (temple, ESCAPE!!! Combat) for this reason

[hollow turtle]

I do feel like the fact that I pretty much had the wireframe of my one shot ready to go from my ‘Robbing a Cradle’ one-shot helped a lot

I just stole everything from that, and shoved it into the Leviathan mold

[idle shale]

One of the smartest decisions I think we made was to explicitly do an in medias res energy - we cut to the PCs mid delve and the enemies have implied history with them, but any and all establishment of that is whatever bullshit you and your players ad-lib

[weak nacelle]

Weren't submissions supposed to stay open past the deadline? D:

[hollow turtle]

And honestly I feel like a LL12 one shot was a bit of a cheat on my end too

No need to try and explain how stuff works

Not really

This is explicitly aimed at veteran Lancer GMs and players

[idle shale]

They are you just have to request manually I think? Due to how itch.io game jams are programmed

[hollow turtle]

So here’s a set up GMs if you need to fill time for a night or something

Go nuts

[idle shale]

Yeah this

[idle cedar]

oh someone already linked it

[weak nacelle]

dm'd you

[buoyant snow]

how many encounters y'all are doing?

I did 1

[weak nacelle]

one

anything more and this is not a oneshot

[last frigate]

i think two is the upper limit if everyone is experienced

[hollow turtle]

There are two back to back combats in Bleed the Heart!

[last frigate]

but i did one

[hollow turtle]

Both are sitreps that are easy to end early if you focus the objective properly tho

[weak nacelle]

Also, lowkey a little proud of the energy of this cover-image

[hollow turtle]

spots sniper

[idle cedar]

oooh I love it

and the reference in the too

late submission thing seems to be working fine

[buoyant snow]

What ll range did you all use?

[onyx fractal]

I did LL0 and plan to add advice for higher level play in a later revision

[tepid pecan]

ll0 yea

easier to control for,

[slow topaz]

LLO, for introductory reasons.

[nova umbra]

We did LL6

[fossil ice]

We settled on it because we wanted to a) target folks who knew their way around the game and setting a bit, and b) support players who wanted to try out more complete builds. But it’s all very easy to adjust by changing the enemy tiers.

[buoyant snow]

For some reason I got the idea that this was supposed to be an introductory oneshot

[hollow turtle]

I did LL12!

[idle cedar]

i think around half the people did? not sure

[tepid pecan]

it cvould have been for any level, i just wanted to specifically make one for 00 that could be used elsewhere

[idle shale]

LL3 for ours!

[honest pawn]

I think mine’s targeting LL2, but as always it’s easy to uptier

[idle cedar]

i want to aim for 2 or 3

[weak nacelle]

LL4, specifically to be a bridge of "we played one of the official modules and we want to continue, but we're not quite sure about doing our own thing yet" where you have a short intermission that introduces slightly higher level play and gives a bunch of adventure hooks

[buoyant snow]

We made it at LL0. GMS vibes all the way. The only homebrew we added was a Tentacle NPC and a new Reserve: Hydrofoils. They turn water that you would sink in into difficult terrain

[left mirage]

LL5! Need more mid-tiers

[left mirage]

I forgot to say thank you, this was handy!

[honest pawn]

Working some combat benefits for the one-shot, thoughts? They'll trigger when a PC uses a quick action to secure an objective:

As part of character creation, each player should pick a hype track — a song or piece of music less than 5 minutes long that represents their character's ideals: Resolve, Freedom, Hope, Defiance, or another ideal approved by the GM. This decision affects both narrative play and mech combat.

During narrative play, when a PC makes a skill check for an action aligning with their hype track ideal, 1/session they may roll the check twice and use either result.

During mech combat, a PC gains an immediate benefit when they play their hype track. Below are several examples of benefits:
• Resolve: Immediately stand up, gain Overshield 4+Grit, and gain Immunity to Prone and hostile involuntary movement until the end of your next turn.
• Freedom: Clear Slowed and Immobilized, escape all Grapples, and fly spaces up to your Speed, ignoring engagement and reactions.
• Hope: You and all allied characters in Range 3 clear all conditions.
• Defiance: Hostile characters in Range 3 must pass a skill check with their worst mech skill (Hull, Agility, Systems, or Engineering) or be Shredded until the end of their next turn.

[hollow turtle]

look at all of em 🥺

Theres so many

and more to come!

I am honestly obessed with all the cool ideas

seeing how the theme had been used is so damn cool

[craggy bone]

I love the idea of integrating music into something like this!

I think it's a really fun way to give a personalized impact to otherwise "boring" actions like securing an objective

[hollow turtle]

@fossil ice Can I just say I am the biggest fan of the NHP just vibin with its equipment, no avatars of any sort? Banger name too.
Constance Orgone goes hard

[idle cedar]

love the description

[hollow turtle]

As someone who has worked with the public in a customer service sense I also feel for the "No, your emergency is not my emergency"

[nova umbra]

That was basically the first text that I wrote when we settled on the story direction, and I think it’s my favorite paragraph on the module

[nova umbra]

Constance Orgone sprung fully-formed from this part of my psyche

[fossil ice]

I love all the NPCs we landed on with this adventure but Constance was a pleasure to write dialog for

[slow topaz]

Only briefly looked at mission summaries at most, but what some art departments put out is just wow

[hollow turtle]

The more I look the cooler everything becomes

I've been so laser focused on my own stuff

I've had no real time to invest into actually like processing other people's stuff beyond what little snips I've seen here

Like we got a full on horror one shot that looks so slick

[sweet gale]

I've seen some cool art and that's neat

[hollow turtle]

pirate attacks

big ass blinkspace creature

The 'three people pilot a Drake?' Awesome

so much stuff

[sweet gale]

Aquatic combat with rules interactions that I only saw during playtesting and am literally writing a GM note about now

[buoyant snow]

Which one are you talking about?

[sweet gale]

Engagement/adjacency/threat when dealing with flying targets

[honest pawn]

Demon of Dogwater Gulch hex crawl is lookin clean and neat with its layout

[sweet gale]

especially the interactions with prone and flying

Which leads to some excellent stuff about how you can use BCL/ram to free an ally from a mechanic and not worry about knocking them prone so long as they're flying

or my favorite player exchange so far

"I guess I'm gonna use balance control lockout on you. Which way do you want to be pushed?"

"up"

"Up?"

"UP"

[onyx fractal]

I've been exhausted today and just took a long nap because I stayed up till 4:30am working on my module, but I'm looking forward to reading everyone's and seeing all the fun stuff we made

[hollow turtle]

I wanna continue showing off my module so much its kinda silly

"I made dis :3"

me. I made a Thing

[sweet gale]

I'm leveraging the heck out of that late submission deadline to get at least one more playtest in. It should be feature-complete by then, and if it goes well, I'll be posting it the next day.

[sweet gale]

I'm feeling the same way

Oh dang that means I could use a purple name

[onyx fractal]

oh yeah

it's time

how do i metamorphicize myself into a creator role

[last frigate]

i think you ask a mod

[idle shale]

omg this is great! honestly the text example is such a nice format touch too, I need to remember to steal it in the future

[nova umbra]

That was inspired by In Golden Flame!

[idle shale]

(also, this is a great reminder for me to make sure I go through a couple of these and comment on em! rising tide lifts all boats and such, plus people here are just so good)

[onyx fractal]

@hollow turtle I'm having a hard time figuring out how to download your PDF :o

[idle shale]

The leviathan heavy assault cannon one's title really grabs my eye btw. Excited to see what direction that one takes the Leviathan prompt, since im guessing itll be quite standout to the rest of the pack

[onyx fractal]

Actually, I'll take it to your thread

[fierce sedge]

Wdym? You have one

[idle shale]

This is a great idea btw - I'm a huge fan of music integration to ttrpg gameplay, it kinda shows in mine tbh xD. My personal suggestion is to encourage it being clientside rather than suggesting it as a thing the PC does, so it is a shared experience

"GM, can you cue up "Big Fig Wasp" on the foundry playlist" means that both youre cutting off any combat music you have that could clash, and the rest of the group gets hyped with them

[honest pawn]

It’s a linked thing, I mention that the GM should prep a speaker or something to share the music

[idle shale]

ahhhh gotcha gotcha! thinking steps ahead 😌

[honest pawn]

I’m mostly looking for input on the combat effects tbh

[idle shale]

hmmm... I have a very limited sense of homebrew mechanics, but Freedom stands out to me as a bit "whoa" next to the rest - namely the extra movement. This could b e because this is a bit more of an active benefit than the rest, which play with conditions though

[onyx fractal]

Hmm, maybe @spare jolt could hook me up with the Creator role? Not sure who to ping

[honest pawn]

Orange can also help

[idle shale]

Ill also point out that there is overlap in Hope and Freedom (If I activate hope near you, I clear your slowed and immobilized, limiting the utility of you activating Freedom) but that might be kind of a non-issue when its such a situational occurrence, and grapple and movement boost is great in itself

[honest pawn]

(And other orange names)

[onyx fractal]

Oh I thought it was Centcomm not curators, but that works too

[fierce sedge]

I've done some similar stuff in letting folk pick a track of their own choosing now and then, though should do it more often. Main issue I can see with this implementation are the following.

• Switching to the track.
• What to play once the track is finished. Does it loop until the action is complete.

In terms of the effects, they're all fairly strong though Idk if Hope can be expanded to range 5. Also the usual of pondering if it clears self-inflicted statuses. Personally I believe it's fine if it does; let folk break the game if it's for a oneshot, and feel clever about it.

Defiance may take a hot minute, but ought to be fine. I may change the wording to Lowest instead of Worst, in case someone's a Veteran with accuracy on a skill and people are confused, but I don't think it's particularly unclear.

[hollow turtle]

Yall my first sale

[fierce sedge]

I can still let Ikiryo do it since I shouldn't hog all the fun lol.

[spare jolt]

Done

[onyx fractal]

Wooo thanks!!

[hollow turtle]

This thread gonna turn us all purple

[idle shale]

What if we were all purple

[sweet gale]

Well now I HAVE to finish it

[fierce sedge]

It would go against my branding

[idle cedar]

i still remember the feeling too 💖

[last frigate]

burple

[hollow turtle]

Orange abusing mod privaleges to stay orange I see. Classic

[nova umbra]

I love watching people turn purple as the thread scrolls down

[last frigate]

lmao i set mine to pwyw and $1 and got a $5

[fierce sedge]

I mean I'm not really a mod lol, step below that.

[sweet gale]

"curator"

[idle cedar]

should i collect both purples 🤔

[fierce sedge]

Still abusing the powers for the sake of branding, but there's a difference.

[idle cedar]

oh wait there's like 3 purples right

[onyx fractal]

https://tenor.com/view/thanos-power-easy-there-we-go-gauntlet-gif-17279062

[fierce sedge]

Ye

[hollow turtle]

at least you admit it, I'll give ya that

[honest pawn]

I always read “PWYW” as “I’m giving you $5 whether you like it or not”

[idle shale]

as one should!!!!!

[last frigate]

thx c:

[idle cedar]

that is indeed what pwyw means
"what you want"

[sweet gale]

This jam is gonna make Valk go broke with all us on the PWYW

[fierce sedge]

There's artist, comp-con dev, and content creator I believe

[idle cedar]

one of my new years resolutions is to practice art

[fierce sedge]

Of which you're not actually a content creator funnily enough

[idle cedar]

i could collect all the purples

[fierce sedge]

Tis why you've got a different purple

[idle cedar]

I've made the 40 hooks but i don't feel like that's enough
i want to do the jam submission and then ask for the second purple

[honest pawn]

I’m showing restraint but also there were some projects I wanted to pay for that were outright free, and I was very angy about it 😡

[idle shale]

I should honestly talk with my squad about if we wanna think about PWYW tbh, considering its just good practice even if the prospect of sorting out splitting profit is Scary™️

[fierce sedge]

Tbh it's, like, just ask one of the mods about it. Not particularly gatekept roles

[idle cedar]

and in 2025 I'll do some art and pick up the last one

[idle shale]

A task for tomorrow once both of them are awake tbh 😅

[idle cedar]

i mean i want to actually earn it lol
like i want to be up to my standard

[fierce sedge]

Oh nothing wrong with that, just being clear

[onyx fractal]

I've gone back and forth on whether to charge for mine quite a bit, but right now while it's not finished, definitely don't think I can justify charging for it. Happy to just have a thing I made out there

[idle cedar]

this is my new years resolution bingo

[fierce sedge]

There was once one person who asked for it before reading the book I think, but eh not the end of the world.

[idle shale]

see, this is the power of PWYW dodgepong! Just think of it as "tip jar" and set the recommended to $0

[idle cedar]

i think you have to set the recommended to a non zero value right

[idle shale]

aha, that'd make sense. You can tell I have never published on itch.io in a monetary capacity

[idle cedar]

i think if you don't feel confident about your work, $3-$5 is a good range to start

you could also put up like a hundred community copies

[hollow turtle]

I started at 3 because it felt like a good middle ground for me.

Its kinda low but as my very first published project

[sweet gale]

I'm only saying PWYW $5 because I know that's the value where you get more than a shiny nickle after PayPal's through with you

[onyx fractal]

ohh shit I should probably save these graphic files that I exported but didn't actually save, huh

[hollow turtle]

(I also am not starving for cash so I don't mind keeping it low. but you all still deserve to get paid for your work)

[hollow turtle]

do it before the power blinks in a minute

[sweet gale]

I don't.

[onyx fractal]

what's the worst that could happen

[hollow turtle]

losing hours of progress please I am a Graphic Designer who has had the same hubris

please I beg of you

[idle cedar]

sounds a lot like "every creator deserves to get paid except me"

(half joking)

[onyx fractal]

I rage-switched to Affinity Photo after Photoshop crashed twice on me twice in an hour yesterday

[sweet gale]

Ngl after all my formatting fights I'm giving Libreoffice a sideeye

[hollow turtle]

No the difference here is I am looking at payments not for their monitary value but just as a little dopamine hit

[idle cedar]

yeah same

[sweet gale]

I don't wanna use gdocs for future projects but at least it would behave as described in the documentation

[idle cedar]

i still remember my first $3 on my pwyw
and also a $10 on the same project

[hollow turtle]

Since this a side project and not my job, the money honestly doesn't matter that much

But I am grateful for whoever bought it just the same

[idle cedar]

only got like 3 payments but like you said, it's not about the money

[sweet gale]

This endeavor has cost me a whopping ||$8|| I know I'll live

[pearl ice]

I technically have all of my projects on PWYW, but they're set at pay 0 and I have no payment mechanism attached to my itch account

Power move

[sweet gale]

And some people will hopefully get a fish friend who's fun to throw at players out of the deal

Plus it'll let tech attack players hack into a fish and that's funny

According to a playtester, setting a fish on fire with system crusher feels very satisfying

[hollow turtle]

Precook the fish

[buoyant snow]

i dont have payment set to my account, I assumed it was going to be a free module

[idle cedar]

you can do free, pwyw, or paid with community copies

if you want to increase your reach

of course you can just make it paid only too

there are different flavors of "free"

oh there's the "it's an intro to the bigger content, the first part is a demo" too

[onyx fractal]

I also considered "coupon code if you subscribe to my blog"

[weak nacelle]

I need to figure out how to do community copies

[honest pawn]

I think this is it: https://itch.io/docs/creators/exclusive-content#how-you-can-use-rewards/giving-away-a-limited-number-free-copies-or-perks

[weak nacelle]

Yeah, that seems to have done it

thank you 🙂

[idle cedar]

y'all are so cool

[honest pawn]

No u

But yeah happy to see some fresh creator blood out there

[weak nacelle]

This was definitely a nice occasion to force myself to finish something, it's so easy to get stuck in the funk of a day job instead of making stuff <.<

[idle cedar]

https://heliospectral.itch.io/leviathan-heavy-assault-cannon
does this count as lancer for the purposes of #lancer-game-recruiting 🤔

[final maple]

God I already have some rebalancing on that thing I want to do I'd better publish v0.6 fast.

Anyone who runs leviathan heavy assault cannon right now is effectively playtesting the thing (and any feedback from the experience would be very welcome. I should probably update the itch page to say this).

[onyx fractal]

That's the best place to be in

[sweet gale]

The first rule of publishing a thing is that people will find some bugs you didn't pretty quick

[nova umbra]

Ours had been up for like an hour when we caught two typos 🙃

[hollow turtle]

The quickest way to find typos is publish it

[slow topaz]

@final maple Totally hooked me on the module title

[sweet gale]

I mean that's just inevitable. You'll always find the typos and grammar errors after posting too.

[hollow turtle]

Spelling was fine for me but grammar was definitely my weak spot because my mind fills the word gaps a lot

[honest pawn]

I will happily plug Pesto’s Guide to Testing for folks in that stage of the game: https://pestopublications.itch.io/pestos-guide-to-testing

[onyx fractal]

Man I haven't even looked at mine since I posted it

[hollow turtle]

I think my v3 has the weird missed words fixed, but who knows!

[onyx fractal]

Taking a nice little break

[hollow turtle]

That’s half the reason I started a thread

So people can come and complain about my typos XD

[sweet gale]

Changing the "edited by" credit on mine to say "nobody, and it probably shows"

[final maple]

The thing I'm proudest of honestly was changing the title from "Fire The..." to "Fire Our..." to instantly imply the group coordination angle of the module. Oh it's an 'us'? It's our plural assault cannon singular? Sure is.

[weak nacelle]

our Assault Cannon Comrade

[slow topaz]

Hardest thing about jamming is ignoring the screams of my editor-brain, cause I know I won't have time to proof-read anything.

[slow topaz]

I love about that title that it's not only funny, but immediately sets a scene

[hollow turtle]

Trying my damnest to balance ‘make it perfect’ and ‘make it done’

[final maple]

Would you believe I actually drafted the intro text crawl first, and as I was nearing the end realized I could just set the 'punchline' in a really big font?

[hollow turtle]

Yes

Sometimes it’s take a bit for those really good ideas to crawl to the forefront

It took a bit for the theming my module to come out from ‘idea’ to ‘hey everything on theme’

Naming the combats to hook in with the title is what put a bow on my module

[onyx fractal]

I'm just glad the idea I was stewing on ended up being perfect for the eventual theme with no changes lol

[hollow turtle]

I really enjoy the Keep Calm meme used as the cover

Simple effective and really easy to make

[final maple]

-# The "really easy" part may or may not have been load-bearing.

[hollow turtle]

It’s the coconut jpeg all over again /j

Still, it’s a very fun idea. I wanna see if I can find the time to run it one day

[final maple]

I would be honoured! Hopefully it has a map by then.

[hollow turtle]

If not, the Lancer community is nothing if resourceful

[fossil ice]

I don’t think this got cross posted so I wanted to share @finite brook ’s art for the module w y’all

[honest pawn]

absolutely dope

[idle shale]

Ohhh wow! This all looks gorgeous

[slow topaz]

Insanity.

[idle cedar]

late submission instructions are in the pins

please direct people there if they're confused 🙏

[fierce sedge]

Oh damn that's a lot of quality art for two weeks worth of time.

[fossil ice]

the man’s an absolute machine. We were gonna be jazzed with a piece of cover art and instead we got this

[rigid grail]

Oh I've been reading the Wake Writ with Void oneshot materials as well and it really does look like some top notch stuff on all levels

I'm kinda improvizing a map together and its still fairly messy atm, but I am down to share some of the retrograde tokens I've been working on for it!

[sweet gale]

Just to confirm. retrograde sprites are alright to use in PWYW content with credit, right?

[onyx fractal]

They didn't specify PWYW

#1302159260842463342 message

Which isn't... technically a "license"

[idle cedar]

i asked in their server (which you know, you gotta go to the server to find the answer) a while ago before the jam, and the answer was basically along the lines of "a bunch of our user base uses retrograde for commercial purposes already"

I would recommend citing sources but I'm pretty sure that's not even a requirement

couldn't find like an actual license statement

[onyx fractal]

It doesn't seem like they are interested in providing one

[idle cedar]

i don't wanna extrapolate that much but it's possible

[onyx fractal]

Fair

[honest pawn]

"the user base is using stuff commercially without permission anyway" is no basis for a license lol

But glad that Retrograde swung around in this channel earlier, regardless

[delicate geode]

tfw the end of 2024 and start of 2026 has you so busy that you can't participate on the One-Shot Module Jam....

[onyx fractal]

maybe that leaves time to do something in 2025... :P

[idle cedar]

it's not, i wanted to get a clear answer but i think they were just busy idk and i didn't really feel like i should press for answers? probably just social anxiety or whatever though

[onyx fractal]

I am 100% certain that a lawyer would advise me not to use their content without a formal license

But also, whatever

[idle cedar]

there's still another month for late submission if you want! I missed it too, and i did this whole thing bc i wanted to have a place where i can make something

i mean we did get a yes on the use for the jam

[onyx fractal]

Sure, but that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. A formal license makes things explicit

In practice, I think it's fine.

There's a small amount of risk involved though

But for something this small-scale, I'm not terribly worried

[idle shale]

gestures to any random 2 week gap there are game jams everywhere for those with eyes to see….

[idle cedar]

next one will probably happen around spring break or summer break time, I think
or like whenever, idk

anyone can also just, make their own jam

would love to coordinate but there's no obligation to reach out to me

[sweet gale]

re: retrograde

that's good. after today, an unrelated combat, I think that I for sure need to create some graphics and rules explanations for how adjacency, engagement, and threat work when dealing with the Z axis

Especially since the fight in my one-shot play with the Z-axis a lot

also turning off LQoL auto-engage because that seemed to lead to some confusion

[split flame]

That's fair, I've paid for Pierce the heavens more than once 😂

[last frigate]

managed to get a playtest in today, but my group decided to use their characters from before, aka gorgon, mourning cloak, and calendula

i have discovered intangibility and gorgon core destroy my encounter

[sweet gale]

To be fair, what encounter isn't reduced to dust the instant a gorgon hits the core power button

[last frigate]

yeah lol

i figure that most other comps will have a more interesting experience

[pearl ice]

we added simulated attrition/balancing rules to ours

one-shots with core powers and base overcharge are... not really balanceable

[sweet gale]

I put a blurb about suggested adjustments on page one of mine

[last frigate]

well i gave them the choice of no core but base overcharge, or core but overcharge at 1d6

but they all chose to have their cores

[last frigate]

same

[pearl ice]

ah, we did "everyone starts at 1d3, keep your core and go to 1d6+4 or give up your core"

which is a bit harsher

(precisely because some cores are just so powerful)

[last frigate]

yeah, i might have to try that for the next playtest with my other group

ill keep that in mind

[sweet gale]

grammar issue

[idle shale]

easiest way to find em

[idle cedar]

i think some sort of "only one of you can use core powers" also works

[sweet gale]

Living up to the credits

[delicate geode]

Punk af, i dig

[crystal wigeon]

Hey @idle cedar , what's the policy on submitting multiple entries? I'm working with someone on an entry but also had my own solo idea outlined. Both are late 😅 Also both would be on my itch account, not sure how itch handles that. Thoughts?

[onyx fractal]

Wrote up a "pre-postmortem" for the jam while thoughts are still fresh in my mind https://gordianblade.com/the-demon-of-dogwater-gulch-pre-postmortem/

[hollow turtle]

lots of good thoughts in here but I suppose that no starter frame could ever be perfect.

I'm no Everest pilled GMS stan but the Everest's action economy being a broken is what makes it great for when a newbie gets all sad their guns missed and a GM or fellow veteran player can go 'hey, you still got (x)!' and they can try again.

[idle cedar]

there is the one entry per team requirement that i put there with the intention of "don't work too hard" so strictly speaking, I feel like i shouldn't allow it but

[hollow turtle]

And sadly, when your low level, it really doesn't get as much time to shine except maybe in the repair department

[idle cedar]

but y'all already made it so i guess it's fine I guess

[onyx fractal]

Everest is powerful but it makes a hard game to learn even harder. The accuracy juggling is even more amplified when playing IRL

[crystal wigeon]

Well the thing is my own entry is only like 10% done so you can certainly so no and I won't lose a whole lot. Up to you 🙂 But I will say it's mainly due to holdups on the team side and I want to work 😉 and I'm good at dropping things if it's too much

[hollow turtle]

Honestly as someone who hates math, Lancer is just plain better online with tools to do most of the math and checks for you

(which is not a point in its favor ngl)

[onyx fractal]

Haha yeah, because then you have to play online 😜

(online play is fine, I just prefer IRL play when possible)

[hollow turtle]

if someone tried to sit me down to learn Lancer irl... I'd probably die

[onyx fractal]

It was rough for my table of 5 LL0 newbies on Wednesday

[idle cedar]

oh alright, then yeah I'll just say no now before I get used to being lenient with the rules in future jams
and be more clear about the team rules in the future bc there were questions about it

[hollow turtle]

also I'd probably want the Chomo over the everest

but I am also an experienced player who can never go back to not knowing

[onyx fractal]

Chomo is great because the core is one-and-done

[hollow turtle]

and I remember early days, before Chomo existed I only had the Sag and Everest

mine was everest and my biggest gripe with lower levels is how often it felt like stuff was like one space out of reach

its good at a lot of things but that Jack of All Trades really bites at times when an enemy is one hex from a frag sig

[onyx fractal]

Monarch is peak newbie mech. Shoot everyone with missiles. If you're shooting missiles, you are doing it right. Your core shoots everyone with a missile all at once. That's it, that's the mech

[hollow turtle]

I suppose as long as you never do the 'give an LL0 a chassis of their choice'

that's gone mid every time I've experienced it

😔 The euphoria of completing my project has worn off. While I do not have work tomorrow I can feel the spoon void so alas

I will not run my module, just vibe

I really wanted to but I cannot go into the negatives with my spoons or else my games suffer

[idle cedar]

I respect your self restraint

[hollow turtle]

I did it twice to myself before so it was a hard-learned lesson

[idle cedar]

i think I'll have to do it a few more times before i convince myself it's a problem with clear cause and effect

[hollow turtle]

Suji no

[idle cedar]

why am i so tired? must be paracausal

[hollow turtle]

Suji

https://tenor.com/view/no-family-guy-bad-dog-newspaper-peter-gif-9587434

[idle cedar]

i am a creature of habit and my habits are unhealthy
jk I'll be better, i have to get that "run another jam" box on the bingo board

[idle cedar]

can't believe I'm cutting the gays to make it fit into a oneshot 😔
there were just too many redundant NPCs

[buoyant snow]

This is a bit of a random question...but is anyone from Australia/new zealand? I want to look for art and depictions of south east asian, pacific island and Maori culture. I want to find fair use images to use for a project and I dont know where to start

[spare jolt]

G'day mate. Sadly I'm not Aboriginal Australian, Pacific Islander or Maori, so I can't judge if it's respectful.

[buoyant snow]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaitiakitanga

the theme I was going for.

I wanted to find art related to this concept

[spare jolt]

Oh, I'm Australian. I really can't comment on NZ stuff. Sorry, I wish I could help.

[left mirage]

Looking forward to posting the first "real" version today

If I had to do one thing over again, it would be to set up template encounters in advance. focusing on the map and consequences is just way more fun!

[idle shale]

Solidarity, had to cut fleshing out my single allied NPC for time too

(We still have her in there and she appears, we just cut her to a brief sentence of vibes and naught else because it’s unlikely to come up in play)

[onyx fractal]

When is the extended submission deadline, again? Is that when we plan to do a #lancer-news announcement?

Useful for me to have a deadline for my v1.0 revision

[idle cedar]

uhhhh

1 month so February 5th

[onyx fractal]

Got it

[idle cedar]

no plans on the announcement yet but it should go out soon

[buoyant snow]

this might sound like a dumb question, but how does one configure payment to receive money from donations and purchases?

on itch.io I mean

[hollow turtle]

It’s in your settings

Don’t forget to do the tax interview

[buoyant snow]

do I have to put my card info on this account?

[onyx fractal]

https://itch.io/docs/creators/payments

[buoyant snow]

do I need to make a paypal account to receive money?

[hollow turtle]

If you want to use the money it’s PayPal or the other option they offer in that page but idk how that works

You can still get money held by itch if you don’t connect something to it, you just can’t do anything with it

Least that’s how I interpreted all the stuff on those pages

[buoyant snow]

i guess i need to fix my paypall issues...ugh

[sweet gale]

Nothing quite like an 13th 11th hour NPC rebake to get the brain going

The more I looked at it, the more I felt the design was unfocused and complicated to use, so I spent my lunchbreak analyzing vanilla NPCs for statistical and behavioral patterns

[fierce sedge]

Tis the road to madness

[sweet gale]

In reality, it's me procrastinating on trying to figure the rest of the opfor out.

[fierce sedge]

Madness and some fun redesigns.

Oh wait I just realised I can throw my redesigns into some encounters and no one can stop me. Neat!

[sweet gale]

I think it gave me some good insights on how to adjust the mutations to be more archetypical of offensive/defensive/controller abilities

[fierce sedge]

If you're looking at first party NPCs though, I'd recommend checking out the Wallflower ones

Since to me at least the design of those does show how they were informed by the first generation of NPCs.

[sweet gale]

tl;dr- it's like the MBT where it has very few base features, but selects from a pool to let it take on different roles on the battlefield

[sweet gale]

I've been doing this, as well as the tempest and the leech

Though the tempest was more for statistics

[honest pawn]

There’s times I look at the Wallflower NPCs as overcorrections, too; I like to think my own designs land somewhere in the middle lol (or reacting in a different direction altogether )

[sweet gale]

I know I went too far with my last playtest when even I was like "for a "saves matter" as a subtheme, I sure am asking for an annoying amount of saves"

"I, the GM, am annoyed by how many saves I'm making my players do."

"That's probably bad."

[fierce sedge]

It can be easy to overdo something just because it's intended to be a theme throughout the work.

[honest pawn]

Keying up my city with some interactive parts (CW: propaganda, state violence/cultural destruction):
||```
Map Key
1 – Theater District: Vox Vulpis censors arrest a theater crew for converting a state-approved play into a musical. The censors prepare to take the crew to District 6 for “re-education”. If rescued, the crew provides Knowledge (Lancer, p. 51) of the state of the rest of Edda.

2 – Yggdrasil Park: Green area renowned for ancient trees. Vox Vulpis machines dig up the cultivated flowers and chop down trees. A paving Vehicle (Lancer, p. 51; treat as Tier 1 Barricade with Vehicle template) prepares to create the “Yggdrasil Parking Lot” for commuters to the new Vox Vulpis HQ in District 4.

3 – Mural District: Vox Vulpis flying spray-paint drones are “democratizing” art in the district by painting over historic murals with “user-submitted” art pieces (read: propaganda created by Vox Vulpis’ bots). The drones can be scrapped for their Jump Jets (Lancer, p. 51).

4 – Radio District & Vox Vulpis HQ: Torn down painted radio equipment in brightly-colored piles of refuse. Replaced with looming broadcast towers branded with Vox Vulpis logos visible from all districts. When PCs enter, progress to Sabotage (warn PCs).

5 – Sculpture Gardens: Vox Vulpis forces tear down antique metalwork sculptures made from recycled radio equipment and replace them with statues of the Vox Vulpis board of directors, which can be salvaged as Extra Repairs (Lancer, p. 51).

6 – Academics Row: Universities of the arts repurposed by Vox Vulpis as “re-education centers” and “corrective facilities” for political prisoners. Liberating the prisoners sparks a riot, which creates a Diversion (Lancer, p. 51) attracting Vox Vulpis attention.

[rigid grail]

Made this as the header/backdrop image for my upcoming run of A Wake Writ in Void (Based on the IPS-N security concerns plot hook)

[eternal dagger]

Hey I just had a thought, I don't know if this has been discussed anywhere in this thread and I apologize if it had but we (myself included) should really think about anti-AI glazing at least the cover art for our stuff.

I know how hard y'all have worked and I don't want it to just get thrown into the furnace by some loser

[hollow turtle]

Won’t someone think of the Trout Population?!

[honest pawn]

I’m 80% of the way done with my trifold pamphlet

All that’s left is the remaining 100%, lol, lmao

It’s literally 1 of the 6 panels, but it’s the Combat Panel™️

[ember portal]

You got this!

I love a good trifold

[buoyant snow]

where did you all get art?

[onyx fractal]

For tokens, I used retrograde. For my cover, I used an artist from my local RPG meetup. For the combat map, I used the Lancer Map Creation tool. For my hexmap, I used some assets I found on itch with a CC license

[nova umbra]

Ahhhh I’m so pumped someone’s running it! Let us know how it goes!

[idle cedar]

this is from the wip citation page for me

[fossil ice]

Second this, feedback is very welcome

[honest pawn]

For my trifold, Openclipart

[onyx fractal]

Looks like a lot of people used public domain art in their submissions, looks great

[prime ivy]

I don't know if it's intentional, but Adelaide from A Wake Writ In Void is giving me big Haman Karn vibes.

[onyx fractal]

Finally getting around to reading some of these rad modules

[finite brook]

🙂

[onyx fractal]

I'm debating running my module at a local RPG convention later this month, or maybe recording an online play of it

[rigid grail]

Currently looking at running on like the 19th because of scheduling hell but yeah! I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm kinda repurposing a czepeku map for this one that isn't a 100% fit but it should be functional enough, I did end up going all-in on making the enemy tokens pretty though (used a Balor for the hive so I can flavor it as ||something Broken Wing stole from an evidence locker somewhere post-sanjak||)

also the party I have for it unintentionally built a great setup for the tower-defense type combat
they've got a barbarossa/saladin, an iskander/seeder, a super high mobility mourning cloak, an empakaii/zheng and one undecided

[finite brook]

this rules lmao we had so much fun putting this together im so glad people are this excited about it

[slow topaz]

Empakaii/Zheng O_o

They didn't put two superheavies on one frame, right?

[prime ivy]

Nasty, Brutish and Short; A Wake Writ In Void; and Bleed the Heart have all really impressed me. I'm only just starting to sift through the entries, but these three have set the bar pretty high right out of the gate.

I'm interested in seeing Sisyphus once it's finished. I'm surprised that Rising Tide is listed on the submissions but seems to be locked. I get an error message saying I cannot access it when I try to visit its page.

[idle cedar]

https://djed-moros.itch.io/sisyphus
are you able to see this? I seem to be able to see it

[prime ivy]

Oh, sure, I can see the Sisyphus page just fine. It's Rising Tide that gives the message.

[idle cedar]

oh oops

[prime ivy]

I'm just holding off on Sisyphus because that page says it's still WIP. I'd like to soak up the full experience once it's ready for prime time.

[idle cedar]

oh I think rising tide might be a case of "we wanted to submit this before deadline"

[onyx fractal]

Yeah I'm gonna keep fiddling with mine over the next week trying to get it to 1.0

[onyx fractal]

(I'm not the Sisyphus author to be clear)

(but my submission is also still WIP)

[prime ivy]

Doesn't matter to me! I'm just jazzed to be getting all of these cool new modules.

[rigid grail]

they did lmao, most of the players are going all in on goofy gimmick builds for this one

[onyx fractal]

I gotta admit that my drive to work on the module has gone down after pre-releasing lol

[final maple]

Last I heard is that glaze/nightshade are ineffective at their stated purpose, and possibly even make imagegen results more robust rather than hindering them. Which is unfortunate because I love the theory and it would be fantastic if those tools worked.

[eternal dagger]

Damn.

[final maple]

Yeah.

[weak nacelle]

out of curiosity, is there somewhere I can read up on the efficacy of these tools? I can go google myself of course, but was wondering if you remembered where you read that

[final maple]

I ended up asking a couple of people I know about it. So far the best writeup about it I can find is this:
https://hackernoon.com/new-research-reveals-vulnerabilities-in-popular-art-protection-tools-against-ai-theft

Some additional posts:
https://spawning.substack.com/p/we-tested-glaze-art-cloaking
https://huggingface.co/blog/parsee-mizuhashi/glaze-and-anti-ai-methods
https://x.com/KeyTryer/status/1804188384560136361

Key 🗝 🦊 (@KeyTryer) on X

Glaze are so dishonest about this because the paper doesn't just show that Glaze doesn't work against anyone determined to bypass it, but it actually doesn't work AT ALL, using fine-tuning scripts the authors found on HuggingFace with no effort to bypass Glaze.

Twitter · Jun 21, 2024, 4:23 PM

[weak nacelle]

Thank you! So are there tools that (currently) actually work?

[final maple]

And additional commentary:

it's kind of an intractable problem
because like there's no way to screw up an image in a way that will affect every single learning algorithm, right? while still leaving the image recognizable
it's a little bit shameful, because they're university research lab products, and the researchers in question should know well enough that what they're doing is just an abstract experiment in creating adversarial examples for specific models and that's all that it can be
but like, I guess either for clout or funding reasons, they present it like if they do more research it'll help them "win the fight"

[final maple]

As far as I'm aware, no. It's looking like the very nature of training data means anything short of "you can't see the image" will either not work across all models or quickly be, as one person put it, "outfoxed".

[weak nacelle]

That's unfortunate

[final maple]

Yes.

[weak nacelle]

(but thank you for the literature, I'm attending a game jam later this month that's supposed to deal with impact of AI on game dev. This is useful to know)

[final maple]

My understanding is that the ship sailed about a decade ago with metrics, data-scraping, and image rights being claimed in complete favour of social media platforms, and nobody (including myself) realized how monumentally important that would be come 2020.

[final maple]

You're welcome! I imagine this stuff would be very useful to know, and I hope it helps!

My personal perspective is very "Automation is here now and there will only be more, I would like its benefits to be distributed and not centralized to business/datacenter owners and big name IP rights-holders". Or as one Pnet user put it, "I would like AI to do the dishes so I can make art, not the other way around".

-# I also think relying on copyright and intellectual property legislation is dangerous, because Copyright most benefits the people with the most lawyers. Those people are not artists.

[delicate geode]

Well Worded. I Concur.

[fierce sedge]

That and to some extent whilst there's a technology at the centre of this, what tends to be the more concerning forces are market powers which are utilising it as an instrument for other gains.

It'd certainly be nice to have the art not be scraped, but unless the economic forces at play change that's unlikely to happen sadly.

[delicate geode]

the problem is money, as always

[fierce sedge]

Pretty much; there's an aspect of this which is an outgrowth of petrol dollar and how tech start-ups' evaluations tend to be based on innovations not in terms of technology but rather as financial instruments circumventing regulation (Airbnb, Uber, and Doordash for example).

Which is a deeper dive into things; Financial Times' Alphaville tends to be rather good on reporting about it.

But in regards to the technology as it is, whilst the Stochastic Parrot is a lingering spectre; https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922 and the technology itself seems to be growing more and more slowly, this kind of stuff where you are scrambling it in one way isn't something I'd trust to work long term; largely because if nothing else the technology is decent at adapting through evolutionary principles.

Doesn't mean the product ain't still bad though to be clear, but I'm digressing a bit from One-shots at this point.

[weak nacelle]

On a more on topic thought, I'm happy it took almost a full day of stuff being onlien before someone called me on the obvious inspiration of the one-shot 😄

[onyx fractal]

Listen, if nobody would have made a Seven Samurai module, I was gonna do it

I'm just glad it exists now because that means I don't have to do it

It's great!

I'm almost done reading (or at least skimming) all the modules

there's some really awesome stuff in this jam!

Thanks for hosting it @idle cedar

[weak nacelle]

there is a hair under 30 Magnificient 7 / 7 Samurai references in that module, up to and including the sitrep having exactly 3 enemies that could be classified as 'muskets'

[onyx fractal]

lol sick

[weak nacelle]

amazingly, during one of the playtests I ran, the young and exuberant character made a very reckless move out of the settlement, and it got the most reliable melee tank of the party destroyed

the system works

[onyx fractal]

Life imitates art

i just wonder why you had to name your module after me :[

Whew! Finally got through them all

Can't wait to see the late submissions

[slow topaz]

Thanks for the encouragement! If someone has trouble accessing itch.io pages, they've been down for me since this morning.

[nova umbra]

This is such a good spin on the characters and lore, I love it

[onyx fractal]

ugh I stayed up way too late last night fixing my pages-to-spreads converter script

The damn bookmarks wouldn't keep their heirarchy

[fossil ice]

We actually had an outline of some of the Broken Wing NPC pilots, but we cut it since it went outside the scope of being a one-session thing. But I love the use of ||the Balor/Maw for the Hive||, it gives a lot of personality to the unnamed NPCs and adds drama to how far Herschel is willing to go. Awesome choice! Edit to add; also it’s cool that since you have 5 PCs the ||hive will be elite, which makes it appropriately scary for the players when it drops in as reinforcement!||

[fossil ice]

Itch status report: https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/itch-io

[rigid grail]

oh I'm glad y'all like the sprite concepts! ||I had considered doing a more generic one for The Hive, but when I found out I could put a red cape on the Balor I knew what I was going for||

[onyx fractal]

wow adding color to the page header really makes it pop more than I expected. Glad I'm taking time to experiment with adding more color

Should hopefully break up the black and white monotony

[prime ivy]

I'd love to hear about the cut content. It's one of the best modules I have seen so far. The more, the merrier

[fossil ice]

We wound up having a ton of cut content b/c we were trying to keep it tight (@nova umbra is a harsh, but fair, editor). I had conceived of the Breachers as being a duo (or perhaps, trio) of cosmopolitan refugees who survived the ||destruction of the Cosmopolitan ships Herschel tried to evacuate from the Yawn’s first appearance, and chose to follow him to the ends of the galaxy||, while the Demolishers were a couple of mercs who were just chuffed to work with an Albatross, regardless of his status

My version of the ||Hive was that they were an SSC operative trying to right the sinking ship when Herschel starts to go off-script|| but I actually like Ailyn’s version a bit more since in retrospect my version feels inconsistent with ||SSC’s involvement in the situation||

The adventure starts with the PCs coming back from mounting some sensors for the scientist’s research, but I had originally conceived of it being sort of an action sequence of getting closer to the Yawn to collect readings and making some skill checks to avoid getting pulled into the gravity well, but it was hard to make that fit the limited time, as well as the consequences of failure being… the module is over and you are lost forever or something, lmao

[rigid grail]

Oh this is really cool to hear! I'm the type to name each NPC in an encounter (or at least anyone with more than a basic statblock) so I love getting some detail like this

[fossil ice]

Me too, but I’m excited to hear how other people play it

[rigid grail]

also because of the shared ||captain ahab|| vibes I am considering having Herschel talk like ||Igon from Shadow of the Erdtree|| a bit

[fossil ice]

Valid

CURSE YOU, FOUL YAWN

[prime ivy]

Super cool stuff. The rest of the Broken Wings being survivors and fanboys makes a certain amount of sense. The intrigue with that Swarm pilot is interesting, but I can see how it might be hard to play out in a one-shot. That feels like a sub-plot that needed more time to cook and foreshadow the pilot's true allegiance. I agree that Ailyn's idea of Herschel throwing everything at the wall is a good one.

[sweet gale]

So I've got a big, spooky controller/defender type setpiece NPC in my LL0 Holdout one-shot and I'm struggling with an NPC to cut out of the opfor from (they're others but they're not getting cut and thus are omitted):

RPV Assualt
RPV Scourer
RPV Engineer
RPV Archer

Any thoughts on who gets deleted

[pearl ice]

A Scourer without the ability to reliably chain hits is kind of lame, so there you go

[onyx fractal]

Engineer. Drones make their turns take longer, so it will make the session go longer

[sweet gale]

The last playtest had an engineer and it was wrapped in 3 hours.

mostly due to a tempest charge blade deleting structures in a single hit

[sweet gale]

This is a fair point

[onyx fractal]

Then I'd say Assault. They are a bit vanilla, and the rest of the NPCs are more threatening and therefore more impactful on player resources in a one-shot scenario

[sweet gale]

In terms of the flavor of the NPCs, Assualt and Archer also fill similar types of "laborer mech with an overclocked rivet gun"

[onyx fractal]

Right

Archer is labeled as controller but it has reliable 3 and can usually shoot twice a round

So it warps the combat more than Assault (in a good way in this context, IMO)

[sweet gale]

Plus the impairs for when big fish does things that ask for saves

[onyx fractal]

indeed

[sweet gale]

I do agree that scourers not being able to double-tap trivializes them somewhat, but the goal of the NPCs is mostly of the "ignore us for the fish at your own peril"

[onyx fractal]

because of the RPV impair?

[sweet gale]

RPV because I want them to suck and also they're unpiloted

[onyx fractal]

What I mean is that you're saying they can't reliably chain hits due to the impair?

[sweet gale]

I believe that's what ash and gold was implying but I don't want to make assumptions

[onyx fractal]

It's fair

Could include judicious use of Lock On as part of their tactics

[pearl ice]

That's what I was saying, ayup

It's somewhat counterable by Lock On - Skirmish, but that just means they're firing at net neutral instead of accurate

[honest pawn]

Scourer naturally has 1 acc on the gun tbf

[hollow turtle]

Give any NPC a spotter scout buddy if you want them to hit

[sweet gale]

Scout is one of the unlisted NPCs

Or "surveyor" per the flavor

[pearl ice]

ah, yeah, then you're fine to scrap the assault

[sweet gale]

Into the bin it goes

Archer (Riveter), Scourer (Welder), Engineer (Fabricator), THE CURRENT (a big fish), Scout (Surveyor)

[weak nacelle]

from personal playtest experience, you could also give them my dice

the playtests for Nasty, Brutish and Short have given me a new appreciation for why people tell you to use the Pirate template with care

[hollow turtle]

That’s why when I put a pirate templated Cataphract in my game, I made sure to put down ‘no deadly’

Just the prying claws, which kinda nerfed the template use

But hey GMs can always put deadly back on if they want

[weak nacelle]

Oh no, this is a 7 Samurai/Magnificient 7 kind of deal

[idle cedar]

https://tenor.com/view/lotr-funny-gif-21548565
GMs putting deadly back on

[weak nacelle]

I want them to blow holes into people who stick their head out of cover

[hollow turtle]

Funny how two different uses of Pirate for two very different things

My use of Prying Claws is specifically so I can try to force a pilot out onto the field and then not attack them

My high damage yield comes from the Ultra with Extra Deadly in that fight

Which, can I say, is probably one of the scariest traits I could put on a Specter

Because while hunt can be turned off pretty easy, the flat 5 damage it normally does is… okay but easily tanked at LL12

The extra 3d6 on that first crit tho is spooky

[weak nacelle]

Remember Pilots: Putting Points into Hull is cowardice in combat 😛

[idle cedar]

just dodge

[hollow turtle]

The nightmare that is Evasion 20 mechs can not be understated

[slow topaz]

That's what the Dusk Wing thought on the last mission right before eating a stun in front of the Ultra.

[nova umbra]

EVA 17 Atlas pilot reporting for duty

[hollow turtle]

Report back once you hit 20,

Watching an NPC roll a 19 and miss is the funniest shit

[onyx fractal]

I need opinions: Black text with lighter background 1️⃣, or white text with darker background 2️⃣?

Weirdly, black text has a better contrast ratio, but white just looks so much better to me

Thanks all, confirmed my suspicions

I'm happy enough with a 4.5:1 contrast ratio on the white text

[idle cedar]

how do you measure that?

[onyx fractal]

https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

4.5:1 is the minimum for WCAG AAA rating on large text

[charred crow]

white text on colored bg is more reminiscent of existing lancer stuff

[onyx fractal]

True! I hadn't considered that

Not that I'm trying to mimic that at all

[idle cedar]

neat, thank you

[fierce sedge]

I'll be the one exception to the evaluation lol, but think you've you your answer

Another thing with white is that it stands out more as a contrasting header

The one thing I won't recommend, and this is on a personal note, is two different hues of the same colour.

[onyx fractal]

I always appreciate being challenged on my thinking