Looking for feedback on my new game: Low Fantasy Detectives

[MrGreen]

Hello everyone,

I've been working on this game for the past little while, and now the first draft is done and ready for some fresh eyes.
is a low fantasy detective procedural game. It's a very traditional take on the mystery genre, not really meant to reinvent the wheel.

I'd appreciate any feedback, and I'm especially interested in what information you feel is missing, or what points you feel I don't expand on enough. This is a very rough draft, just text, no editor besides myself. The design goals for this game were to create a simple, free game that is very focused on investigative play, supporting a range of styles.

Thanks for any help, cheers!
A

[Rob Lang]

Hello A,
Sorry for being slow getting back to you, I've been up to my ears in "How To" guides. I've not read your game just yet but will get round to it.

Welcome to 1km1kt!

[kylesgames]

Sorry it took me so long to read this; I saw it a while ago and it interested me but I had finals and starting on a new project (which serves as a testbed for some future Orchestra redesigns, including potentially scrapping Silver attributes, for those who are familiar with it), dealing with the aftermath of Undercover Hero Squad, my NaGa DeMon project which is on hiatus for a while, and a whole lot of holiday stuff to deal with, but now I've gotten around to giving it a quick read through the Conflict section.

I see a lot of stuff I like in the dice mechanic. It's pretty much Shadowrun in terms of the rolls, but with some added detail for the results. There's probably more on conflict in future sections, but I didn't notice very much about psychological warfare, which I think could be interesting (i.e. a serial killer who takes measures to drive others as insane as he is).

[MrGreen]

Thanks guys, I appreciate you taking the time.

It is indeed a very Shadowrun/WoD/Burning Wheel-like dice pool system.
I was discussing the conflict stuff with a friend and we starting talking about rolling Interrogation into the conflict system, so that will be much cooler than just a simple roll to interrogate. For now there isn't much more about conflicts in the rest of the document, but if there are places where you feel it would be appropriate to expand upon a topic in terms of conflict please call them out.

[Evil Scientist]

I really like the basic concept! I've been really keen on this type fantasy lately. An experienced fantasy theorist and taxonomist would say that Dungeon City Blues is not low fantasy, because "low" usually refers to the quantity of "fantasy elements" in the setting (e.g. normal world but with some magicians walking around) as opposed to high fantasy which is set entirely in a "made-up" world. gives us primary and secondary worlds. In your case, there's a pretty high ratio of fantasy elements: non-human races, that concept of the city, etc. It's low as in "low-life", it's dark and dirty and gritty fantasy!

Whatever. Holy smoke, I've just spent a paragraph arguing about a single word in a rather long proposal... sorry about that. Let's get down to business.



I've only skimmed through the text, but the first impressions are gooood. You've done a nice job translating crime/police fiction stereotypes into your setting. The list of various technologies is pretty throughout while leaving some place for the players to come up with their own ideas. The precint system looks good, but I need to give it further reading. And it's a nice idea, I've always liked when resource management is implented into a game.

Pet peeves:
I'd start with the setting description and then the system... but maybe that's only me.

[MrGreen]

Honestly, you are not the first person to call me out on my use of the term "Low Fantasy"; perhaps I am doing it wrong. I was under the impression it was the potency of the fantasy elements that determine it's height, not the quantity of individual fantasy elements. My bad.

Thanks for checking out the document, I'm interested to hear everyone's feedback once you've all gotten the chance to take a good look at it. Any concerns, objections or questions please don't hesitate to bring them up, I have fairly thick skin

[Evil Scientist]

[misterecho]

I like that you've taken two unrelated genres and smashed them together. I think that the Forensic Alchemists, allude to too much scientific knowledge. If this society has enough science to collect fingerprints, tissue samples, etc and have the science to anylise and store them, chain of evidence etc, why are they still in a medieval era of technology?

Keep up the good work!

p.s. I agree with your definiton of "low" fantasy... a medieval/dark ages era with little or no magic.

[kumakami]

to throw a word in on low fantasy.... it does mean little to no magic. A game of thrones is, in fact, a low fantasy.

dirty, gritty,and muddy would be discriptors for "DARK" fantasy.

just a note. CA would be the expert here....If I remember correctly he's the one with a english degree.

[MrGreen]