 Populating the equipment section with items make using the craft mechanics has been difficult.
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 Once again we come to add to the News. This time it's less explaining what Mass Actions can handle and more what we haven't had the time to nail down. it's a "Why are these important" and "why we aren't going to get them done"?
What isn't covered: 
On the update this week we announced completing the foundation for entities. But I'm worried that the scope of the achievement is lost, if you don't have all the details. So that's what I want to do here, I want to fill you in on how we filled in the Entity Foundation.
Audio of the text Below
We've talked a little about Practice Mechanics in a previous Blog Post. But today I'm going into the Big problem with Practices. Yes I'm saying there is a problem with our Built from Scratch, pre-released System!
First I have to explain what the practices are supposed to do. Practices augment how your character interacts with the world and the Mechanics of said world. Not just to gain statistical bonuses but also to customize your character and gain valuable information that can flesh out a world. Example In the Practice Biological Systems(knowledge of an organism’s systems like: Respiratory, nervous etc) there's an augment called Isolate, it allows the character "to test/study a subject in an effort to isolate and identify which system(s) are or have been afflicted(effected)". The idea behind it was if your character encounters characters suffering or benefiting from the effects of drugs, poisons or diseases, they'd be able to identify and counter the effects. Saving lives or ruining highs.  We haven’t posted in a while and I wasn’t going to let that continue!  Dex X and I started wondering if people even wanted to play in a world too much like our own. Would they be turned off and say “I play games to get away from exactly this”. I always thought they would because you get to face those things with fists full of lightning. But that’s been my answer for years now and it no longer assures Dev X, I’ve been accused of Crying Lightning!
 This borough belongs to the teeth in the darkness, the whisperers in the walls and the eyes behind the cracked blinds. The three brothers have possessed the underworld of Brooklyn. Before when the family was in charge-, it wasn’t any better but you knew where not to be; now every dimly lit hall and darkened ally gives you goosebumps. Some nights it feels like if you stab a brick you’ll pull back a bloody edge. But it’s not just those three headed wolf posters, it’s also Rayven. The PMCs that won the Brooklyn Public safety contract. Display screen helmets replacing their faces with psychologically manipulative images, dozens of deep cover officers mixed in with the population and petabytes of spyware making them a force of faceless spectres. Most know Manhattan lights are too bright for shadows, most know their electronics are listening, most know the three headed wolf’s eyes stalk the streets and most should know that no one is who they say they are in the borough of Kings.
 The Duan of Destruction, Shogun of the silk streets, sterling silver; for his very words hold value. The true successor to the god king he shares a name; Ramesse, The undisputed underworld Emperor of the Bronx, has fallen. His generals, the architects of war have fallen as well but into perpetual infighting. New and old names alike are taking up the title of warlord and have fractured the Bronx beast. In this chaos the Flicher & Welsh Security force(winners of the public safety contract for the Bronx) have taken on a militarized approach to all forms of policing. They shoot first then shoot again and after the smoke has cleared they write the answers that best fits their narrative. The people like the land they inhabit are torn, not just by affiliation but between the blackest grey shades of the past, the possible greener pastures and the flames enveloping the now. Lines have been drawn in the sand and they are showing no signs of fading.
 Now I know I said I'd talk more about the setting than the system but what if I can do both? The mechanics of some of the items and equipment in the setting. Project Powerpunk takes place in an alternative near future, what we've been referring to as "The day before cyberpunk" but I can hear you ask, what the hell does that even mean ... technologically?! Technologically it means; body modification just below cybernetics, Rudimentary AIs are available on the open market, automated workers if allowed to are only permitted to function under close supervision by a trained professional, energy weapons are now seeing military application. But right now I just want to focus on Computer Hardware, software and the ways people are using them in world
Let's start with computers; Computers are advanced enough to be worn as jewelry[Diamonds On my fingers] or travel beside you as a silicone pet, with levels of modification that are mind alluring. Example: You can have ring computers, a computer that is divided amongst several rings themselves being powered by a bracelet battery and all of this is connected together by conductive tattoos!  In the world of Powerpunk, science and technology occupy a funny space. During the Cold War, technology was viewed as a necessary median; “the only true measuring stick for a nation’s greatness” necessity. It was a grand love affair, with the known limits of science being reestablished almost quarterly and the great nations treating scientists like rock stars. The East and West both took to collecting doctors, professors and engineers, like children collecting trading cards. Giving them larger budgets than many of them had ever dared to imagine, these scientific minds were tasked with finding and cultivating any potential advantage against the opposing bloc.
It was amidst this age of political desperation that all avenues of science, including the fringe sciences, were being treated with open minds and open wallets. This was a glorious time for scientists who started signing up with grant after grant and put real effort into experiments and inventions that they hadn’t ever thought they could complete. This was the age of “hypertech”. Super-science tools capable of bending terrestrial and celestial energies into fuel for weapons and vehicles, bending minds, transforming the body of a person into a walking arsenal of bio-weaponry. These tools that pushed through the established limits of the scientific field and into storied fiction appeared in every field. All the while the tensions of the Cold War grew closer and closer to the brink of open conflict.  I ran my first D&D game at the age of 12. It was a pre-made adventure from a magazine and had a redemption arc for a villain who forgot they were a villain, emphasizing that compassion begets compassion and “hurt people hurt people”. I loved the idea and couldn’t wait to see it all play out around my living room table. It was a disaster. The players were all older and more experienced than I was. They convinced me to let them bring their “usual” characters from another DM’s game with all their gear and within ten minutes the game was laying in broken pieces while they cheered one another on, whooping and hollering with sadistic glee at having broken the adventure so thoroughly. I was mortified and never wanted to run another game again. I was GM for my group until I was about 32.
The near collapse of this project made this more of a priority, then there was the mental toll that our dissolving partnership inflicted, the thousand cuts of everyday responsibilities etc. I found that there was nothing in the GM tank. I figured that with time and mental recuperation things would come back to me. Twenty years of running not only D&D but a variety of other ttrpgs had shown I had a depth of ideas for story seeds and though the games rarely saw a storybook conclusion, I was sure I would be ok. Then something happened. |
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