The Power 19 are an excellent set of questions that every RPG designer should aim to have answered - eventually. I've already answered the biggest three questions for Hostargo, and now it's time to drill down into the details. As you discover a little more about my game, I hope my answers get you excited to jump into the world of Hostargo!
4) What does your setting do to re-enforce what your game is about?
Hostargo - the city/setting - IS what the game is about. It pulls a lot of random people from all over the world into a small mining town and says: now what? But that's not everything. The magnetic technology allows for airships and weird science, the arcane magic allows for otherworldly encounters and ancient ruins, and the exploding advancements allow for wild west cowboys to have cybernetic body replacements. It's all for the rule of cool: giving players awesome and surreal abilities. Add in the bubbling pot of trouble, Hostargo itself, and the setting oozes adventure!
5) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
Character creation starts with the character's born somewhere else in the world. They end up in Hostargo just like most of the people there - by either the lure of fortune and opportunity, or simply following the flow of jobs or research in their respective fields.
Past that, every quirk, gear, and life path decision drive the idea that everyone is unique, and has a unique set of abilities to bring to the table. The class/calling pairing system is about giving people weird abilities while maintaining a party balance (perhaps that's more along the lines of just a good multiplayer experience, but still).
6) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
The game aims to provide a broad toolset for players to solve problems. They have mental, physical, and social attributes. They have social connections as well as combat gear. But the biggest reward, XP, is given only for accomplishing goals. Likewise, the characters can only "Rest & Recover" when they've gained XP, so this idea pushes along interesting stories and objectives more than any metagaming grind.
7) How are behaviors/styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Characters are rewarded with XP when they make progress in the story. This allows them to R&R, recovering per-rest abilities, their effort pools, and even gives them a bonus luck point (each unspent XP also acts as a re-roll mechanic). Then when they accomplish a major goal, they gain 5XP, and have the opportunity to spend it on character advancement: increasing their stats and/or gaining new abilities.
8) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
There are three distinct styles of play which govern whether the GM or the players have more narrative control. There is always a GM, and there are always heroes, so a pretty standard RPG in that regard, but if you read my answers to "the big three", you'll understand how the narration is split up in each.
9) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
This again is based on the three styles. In the first, the players are there as paid hires, so the GM has the freedom to throw almost anything at them. The players care because their characters work for their corporation. This is the easiest but potentially the least solid version.
In a crew style game, the players work for themselves. They only go after jobs that they want, but they want to take jobs as presented by the GM in order to gain coin, which allows them to upgrade their tech trees and eventually work towards a life of retirement.
In a gang style game, the players are there to shape the world. They take direct actions to implement agendas that they themselves come up with, so they inherently care.
10) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
The resolution mechanic is a single die roll, low is better. On 1's, the characters "Ace", and get to add special effects to their actions. As character skill increases, the size of die the player rolls goes down (d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4). This allows for more skilled actions to have less variance, which was a side design goal I had when I started this project.
11) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
The resolution mechanic is aimed at making the players feel good about what their characters are good at. As skill dice decrease in size, the probability of rolling an Ace is increased, giving more and more actions to have those extra special effects. While this mechanic has nothing to do with the setting part of "what Hostargo is about", it has everything to do with making the players have fun.
Thanks for your time!
As always, I love comments or feedback! And I'll be back next week for answers 12-19!
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