Play Aid - Summary Chart

Tha Summary Thingie

So people buggered me about a cheat-sheet and I promptly (as in, after a few ages) answered.
THIS is one very ugly but very useful chart with all the important bits out in the open:
- how to make Influence
- how to squander Influence
- how to incur in Opposition
- how to grab Equipment
- how to waste your precious Ties


It also sports some VERY IMPORTANT "Reminders".


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Alas the Tactical Ops Contest Part Two (dam'n I need a shorter name for this thing! >_<) is proceeding well, the first submissions are starting to land in my mailbox and OH BOY aren't they beeUtiful!
Keep em coming!
Carve your place into my game's history!

Tactial Ops CONTEST - Phase #2 !

The current Tactical Ops logo is this sad thing here...

...a nondescript "action oriented" clip-art randomly taken from the vast sea of the interwebs.
To change this despicable state of affairs I started a Contest to crowdsource ideas for a new, original logo.


(meaning I was too lazy to think it up by myself :P )


Now we have a brilliant idea for a new logo, all we need is ... THE LOGO ... which is what you are going to provide!
That's right!
Tactical Ops Contest Phase #2 is a graphic-design contest to see who will be the best at translating ideas into images.


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Tha Rulez!
The rules are very simple.
Starting NOW you have until 12:00pm (Roma, GMT+1) of Sunday 11 March 2012 to submit your works to my mail: Brom00@gmail.com
Remember to use the "Tactical Ops Contest 2" subject and to include your name/nick and to actually attach the file to the mail!
(I always forget about it, but I know you are better than me, right?)


You can submit as many entries as you want.
You can use any graphic format you like, as long as it is something our limited human technology can compute.


Awe inspiring artistic representations of the logo are very wellcome, but you also get extra points if you produce a vector logo ... extra extra points if you do both!
(infinite scalability IS useful in these troubled times u_u)


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Tha Gold!
What you win is immortality through artistic representation, meaning that in the final version of my game you will get:
- a Special Mention (!)
- with an Honorific Title attached to it (!!)
- which can be anything of your own choosing (!!!)
- a character or location or creature or organization in my upcoming Dreamwake Setting-in-a-Box named (and shaped) after you! (infinite exclamation marks!!!!!)


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Tha Thing!
So, with no further ado, I tell you that the winning idea from Phase #1 of the contest is ... the one by Michael Tangherlini!

The concept is:
the name of the game (Tactical Ops) written with some kind of military-ish typeface.
The O in Ops is a crosshair.
And the whole thing is somehow inscribed/stamped on a dog-tag.


Extra points if the final image is a perfect square and looks awesome even as a Forum/Facebook/G+ avatar.


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So, what are you waiting for?!
Get cracking you mindles slaaaa... err... Go Forth Ye Bold Contestants! è_é

Character-in-a-Box

In the Tactical Ops RPG you don't have a normal Character Sheet.
What you have instead is a deck of cards, or Character Deck.


It contains the following cards:
1 Identity card, to record your PC's name, race, training and Modes.
1 Score card, to record your current Influence and Resource totals.
1 Hurt card, to record all your PC's hurts and ailments.
1 Effort card, to keep track of all 3 Effort Pools.
3 Skill cards, to easily visualize all your skill Groups, Foci and Specialties.
1+ Perk card(s), to record your ever-growing list of Perks.


All these cards can be printed out from a single sheet of paper and then cut out and put into some oh-so-common protective card-sleeves.
A first draft can be downloaded from HERE.


Most cards require you to write stuff on them only sporadically, so you will not have to continuously take them in-&-out of their sleeves.
Some cards tally points that rapidly change during play... these cards are designed to allow for easy number-tracking using paper-clips.


Other cards that will be part of your PC are added on the fly as the game goes on.
Each one of your Character's Ties is represented by a single card, just like each piece of mechanically relevant Equipment.
These cards are simply post-it sheets folded on themselves to seal the glued edge and fit into a card-sleeve.


At the end of the day you end up with a slim deck of cards containing all there is to know (rules-wise) about your Character.

Tactical Ops in 8 moves

So my new project Tactical Ops ... what the eff is it?!
I'll tell you in eight points...


1) The Hamsterless Engine
Do you know those "narrative" games where we just somewhat like chat with each other?
Forget them!
Imagine instead a game with a proper GM that cooks up an engaging story, a complex plot, contents tailored for your PC ... but without a GM, and without prep times, and without you being forced to be the director of the story.
Every participant just plays HIS character, with just little extra contributions here and there if/when you feel comfortable.


2) Fiction Mastery
The system is simple, so you don't have to study 300+ pages of rules and numbers BUT it is also articulated, so you can min-max your PC, watch it grow and develop, you can thinker with its "optimal build".
All this is aggressively rooted into the game fiction, rewarding smart ideas and out of the box thinking.


3) Low Requirements
The game works with just 2 players and as much as 5 or 6.
There's no prep time, except for Character Generation ... which is quite brief.
You only need normal 6 sided dice; 3 colors is best, but just 2 will work fine.


4) Character-in-a-Box
Stop filling in tax modules to record your PC's stats!
Now your Character is sheet is a deck of cards representing his abilities, equipments, ties and all other important elements.


5) Setting-in-a-Box
Thanks to how the game works it is possible to translate a whole setting into a little-tiny-compendium supported by a set of cards, condensing what used to be a 300+ almanac into ultra-lite materials 100% playable.
Every Box is composed by:
- a veeery brief introduction to the setting
- a veeery brief description (no numbers!) of characteristic "active" elements (places, people, creatures, organizations, things, etc)
- some short lists (almost no numbers!) of mechanical elements pre-packaged to fit the setting's flavour (races, weapons, powers)
- each element (not in the lists) should have a card containing the element's Name, page number on the compendium, and a big nice picture (potentially substituting some descriptive text, making the compendium even lighter)


6) OUR Setting
With or without the use of a Setting-in-a-Box the game works in a way that spontaneously produces setting.
Through the act of playing you'll define a series of Places, Persons and other Details unique to the fictional world produced at YOUR table.



- Yet to come, but coming none the less -



7) Achievements!
Just like in a videogame, you can friendly compete with your friends to earn "_Badges_" representing various game-related things.
Each badge will have special one-shot powers.
The game will offer a standard selection, but in time each group is expected to develop its own unique Achievements.


8) One Hour Play!
The game will have a special play-mode designed to make it playable from start to finish in 60 minutes through the use of pre-gen Characters, pre-gen Missions, special Achievements and other minor adjustments.


- Other Work In Progress Annotations -
The game is currently in ALPHA testing.
It has worked so far, but needs wider and deeper abuse.

There is no Setting-In-A-Box as of yet, but I'm tinkering with the SLA Industries universe as a celebratory experiment ... and a unique and original Setting-in-a-Box (DreamWake)will follow soon after.

Character-Cards are being designed right now :P

A New Beginning!

Things change, hopefully for the better.
This blog will be (once again) my repository for current game projects.
It used to be in Italian, but now it's in English.
Deal with it :P


So welcome everybody.
Feel free to have a look around, and keep your eyes open for updates.
Our next project in line is... Tactical Ops!

Un nuovo inizio!

Dopo anni di stasi gli ingranaggi si rimettono in moto!
Questo blog subirà una grossa riorganizzazione per riflettere la nuova direzione dei miei progetti ludici.

Innanzi tutto la lingua, d'ora in avanti posterò in inglese per poter raggiungere un pubblico molto più vasto e variegato.
Questo è dunque l'ultimo post in italiano che faccio, salvo saltuarie eccezioni.

In secondo nuovo, una bella sfoltita alla colonna dei progetti in corso.
Tutto ciò che riguarda lo PsychoSys RPG è ufficialmente discontinuato e resterà a disposizione di tutti in un'apposita sezione Archivio.
IT:BRB verrà riproposto nella sua versione attuale... e col tempo ci rimetterò mano per limarlo un pò.

E poi apparirà il mio attuale progetto: Tactical Ops.
Ne parlerò più in dettaglio prossimamente, con developer diary e schede e carte e materiali e (in)costanti aggiornamenti.

Buon 2012 a tutti.
Stay PsychoTyc :P