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Sorta an evolution of Orchestra, Undercover Hero Squad, and its own pet project, Drifting is a game I'm starting to get a feel for how far I can push Orchestra's core system while still making a fun game.

Built around OrchestraS, Drifting maintains Orchestra's dice system while adding in an entirely different way to use it- the two would be almost similar enough to switch between, but Drifting has a major difference- it's not a d20 style "attributes are forever" thing, but it draws from a narrative storytelling feel.

Each character's attributes are determined by a "Lifepath", chosen by the player. They may branch out along this path at any time in order to make their character; the difficulty of starting games is determined by how long characters lifepaths are. Lifepaths can be forgone for a standard point-build system, but that's a little less fun and more mathematically sketchy (since players aren't forced to take good with bad).

Instead of Orchestra's static attributes-and consequential static dice numbers and modifiers- Drifting uses a token bid system; each entry on the pathway grants additional tokens in various areas (for instance, Soldiering, Piloting, M32 Atlas Cargo Vessels) that vary between general or specific. Each token can be played as a die to counteract the effects of a challenge or environment. Part of the idea of this is that the game can be played with a very lazy GM- by looking at environment or challenge tokens the narrator hardly has to think; this also allows narrator-free play since the players can choose destinations by mutual consensus and roll to determine challenges/environments by random.

Whether used or not, tokens give a +1 modifier to rolls in their specific area (not to exceed +3, enough to give a sizable advantage but not guarantee victory). Dice rules are similar to Orchestra in that even without tokens two dice are rolled, and with tokens additional dice are rolled and all but the highest two dice by numerical value are halved.

There's already a sizable setting page at , but for the most part the rules are limited to this page. I'll post up sections of the setting if people want them here.

Yeah, I do realize that a lot of my projects are vaporware: I should release what I have of Undercover Hero Squad for everyone to see (I'm gonna reboot it for next NaGa DeMon); Green Dawn is still nowhere to be found, partly because UHS stole all of its original content and my Google Docs goofed up; Orchestra is playable but stagnant and needs a lot of stuff redone; and my other projects I've mentioned are still a long way down the road.

I'm going to jump in and be a bit of a git asking you for a . This all sounds cool but I am not entirely sure what it is you're trying to achieve. Start with that and then we can provide more useful feedback.

And as for vapourware - I don't care! Just keep the ideas coming and one of them will stick.

The concept is (roughly) this:

Space opera travelers going through a sort of dystopian scenario (picture Battletech and Firefly having a offspring) and trying to complete personal goals in a world that has its own agenda.

It's pretty heavily story/environment based- it's inspired ever so slightly by Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, though more for the idea of it being a storytelling game with self-contained episodes by merit of character design than any real gameplay elements. There's also a goal of having one-shot sessions that include long-term character development; each session leads a character to advancement, and completing goals does too. The idea is that each session/goal is a novella in which the character is the main hero (unless they receive help from others, but I have to explain the "token play economy" before doing that)

Part of the idea is the unknown- I made the setting intentionally vague in a lot of areas, while covering a lot of individual environments in order to allow the narrator to come up with stuff while also permitting the players to have a general idea of the places they can weave into their objective stories.

It's built for pretty much any audience- theme tokens allow players to force the narrator to customize the game; by playing them when they enter a scenario they can change the mood (high-tech, military, horror, social, wacky, etc.), but primarily for the group of college friends I run a Shadowrun group for- most (if not all) of us are big sci-fi nerds, and it's built to be sort of a procedural space opera game.

I like your slider thing in the blog post, so I'm gonna borrow it.

Co-operation

Players co-operate X-------- Players compete

The only way players can interact is through co-operation, and unless you call token stinginess competition, there's no way for them to negatively impact each other.

Shared resources --------X Individual resources

Tokens are given to each individual player based on their character. There's no obligation to share, and gear is free and based on narrator's discretion/players' tokens.

Mechanics

Rules for everything ------X- General rules

Unlike Orchestra, there's not even individual skills. The only way there are "pre-made skills" is by a list of suggestions. Still, there's a good diversity in tokens and handling.

No dice ------X- Lots of dice

It's not that you throw lots of dice, but everything is still based on rolling the dice.

Easy to die --------X Hard to kill

Characters essentially all have plot invincibility- while they may be knocked out for a session, they come back for the next one.

Character creation
Random (quick) --X---X-- Point buy (slower)

There are two methods- a lifepath system and a point buy system. The point buy system may not materialize, but it'd basically be a number of tokens equal to what one would get from the lifepath, only with the downside of not being able to get certain tokens.

Choose from a list --X------- Players make it up

Very much choose from a list. There will be many choices for players, but the lifepaths mean that people have to undergo radical changes to change direction (i.e. socialites tend to become better socialites, soldiers become better soldiers, and so forth).

Rapidly changing characters ---X------ Static characters (no advancement)

Characters change very slightly every session. Very, very slightly, but after a few sessions the sessions become noticeably longer in potential scope or the characters do much better.

Tactical

Grids + miniatures ---------X Scrawled piece of paper

The game's heavily built on storytelling, so there's no real use of tactical elements.

Precision measurements ---------X Purely descriptive Style

The closest the game comes to precision measurements is when there's space travel, which I sorta geeked out on, but the players won't really use delta-velocity or stuff like that to play.

Style

This is the schizophrenic section, as I like to call it, because it really depends on how the players act and choose theme tokens (assuming they make it into the final game).

Personal quest -X-------- World changing consequences

The game is entirely about personal quests. That's how characters are advanced. There's also no explicit system for long-term consequences for actions; the players aren't necessarily famous. That said, personal goals can cause major upheaval in social and political orders.

Humourous -------X-- Serious

This depends heavily on the game. The setting's written to be serious, but it can be changed pretty easily due to the lack of deep detail.

Realistic ----X----- Cinematic

Again, depends on theme tokens, but I tried my best to come up with some darn good semi-hard sci-fi research. I won't say where it qualifies on Moh's, but there's only a couple things that aren't really easily explained by science- how one solar system has so darn many planets (and how some have such pronounced features), which can be explained by fluke; and how the Theresa Cloud works, which cannot.

So give me the movie trailer experience for this game. I understand the flavor and there's a lot of individual planets and factions which is cool background once I get into it but what's the core draw?

The core draw is being a game that provides simple but engaging storytelling with a mechanics-driven playstyle that still allows dramatic situations and player failure as they work towards their goals in a faraway solar system.

OK, got a partial playtest done (ran into a time barrier, took longer than I thought it would), so I can be more clear since I've figured out some more about it.

The players are down-and-out wanderers with only a ship and debts to their name. Each chooses three goals and the Narrator chooses encounters that provide them opportunities to complete these goals- but failure complicates things and both consumes their tokens and gets them off the path for success. Players will not start on the path for success, and both success and failure reset their progress towards a meaningful success. Each character has three goals, but adds a new goal each session and only ~1-3 tokens, meaning that they get more difficult jobs. Failing sessions removes a goal, meaning that they get the game easier, but also causes the Narrator to give them a poor story. (Mathematically if they get perfect successes this means they'll burn around ~9-12 tokens to meet their goals depending on how hard the Narrator is). Add in that some tokens (resources, contacts, etc.) do disappear forever when used, they wind up backsliding very slowly.

This game is very experimental, and I think it shows through the abstract nature of success and failure- the Narrator doesn't necessarily give the players a loot haul and attractive partners, but rather the players are motivated by getting a happy or unhappy story ending. This is somewhat based on how I felt when I first beat New Vegas and discovered that my doing practically nothing led to a lot of unhappy endings, and asks the question of whether or not storytelling in and of itself can inspire play.

I've moved Drifting from the wiki to my personal site.

Old links are still valid, but will not be updated, since they primarily serve as an archive for my first ideas (I get sentimental about my games).

And nevermind the double posting, I had a sort of epiphany this morning-

I'm going to add an Privateer-styled trading game over the top of the storytelling, which will provide impetus for the players to travel and have various missions to make money. There will also be a focus on upgrading ships and accruing currency. It will require a decent rehaul of stuff, but the setting seems almost perfect for it with its relatively large variety of planets and things to see.