Positions, Puzzle Boxes, Adversaries and More
Friday, June 26th, 2020
One of my BitD groups recently had a discussion about play styles due to some questions involving how one goes about negotiating for Position and Effect. One of the players, frustrated by the system, wanted to know what the normal difficulty of an action should be. The thing is, in BitD, there’s no real answer to that question.
FMW AtD AP Post-con Review & Other Letters
Sunday, May 6th, 2018
Forge Midwest 2018 saw the play of two games of At the Dawn. One was with three players, and the other was with two. However, one of the players in the first game was unable to complete their elf’s story-arc due to time-constraints. While he was fine with this, as it was late and he wished to go to bed, I still feel badly.
A quick summary of the tales told follows:
What the Morning Brings
Friday, May 5th, 2017
Appropriately enough, I woke up this morning thinking about At the Dawn. Specifically, I’ve always worried the penalties are too harsh — they’re not, they’re brutal, and that’s good because, in this case, it drives the narrative conflict — but my brain was whispering to me “Why not change the penalties into an increased Threshold?”
Which is not half-bad as an idea: it still ramps up the difficulty and removes the (appearance of the) penalty death spiral, might make those precious additional dice more important, and doesn’t require quite as much record keeping for a player.
Waking Up
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
While working on Niflgap for Robin Laws’ Hillfolk game, I’ve also devoted time to reworking and cleaning up At the Dawn. It’s become more than a game, it’s become something of an art project as well. I’m seeking feedback on the current iteration, as well as deciding how I want to proceed with it. Get in touch with me if you’re interested in being a part of that.