I made velotha's flock back in February 2018. It's a game that I actually got quite a few fun sessions out of in addition to the experience and handling of a larger game.
But now I'm thinking about doing a 2.0, both because it's October and velotha's flock is the sort of Gothic weirdness that does well around Halloween and because I've been back in the aesthetic mood to do it.
It's worth noting that 2.0 for velotha's flock is not going to be hard, there are just three things that I really want to do, plus a stretch goal:
- Develop the setting and themes.
- Murder the advanced player's guide.
- Get it properly illustrated (at least the cover).
- Print?
Expanding Setting and Theme
When I got started on velotha's flock, it was quite a while ago in terms of my ability to tell stories through games. It's only been a little over a year and a half in calendar terms, but it's like half of my career in game designer terms, especially if you consider the volume of my output over the last year.
The Mystery of Velotha
One of the elements that didn't ever really get explored in detail is who Velotha was and what the korakthropes really were in a broader sense. Some of that is intentional; they're not from this world and don't belong here, but I want to bring up the weird elements more and tie in things other than just the more obvious "hey, there are bird-person hybrids!" that wereravens evoke.
Another thing is that there are just some elements of the lore that didn't get looked at or that seem kind of stupid. Originally there was a proscription on technology, but I think that's kind of lame. There might be lore stating that korakthropes from the Old World can't use it and figure it out, but I don't know that it really works anyway. Shapeshifting is much more influential than most technology anyway.
Refugees and Immigrants
I didn't really touch on how the flock settled in our world, and some of that was just due to time and the weight of free verse poetry. I want to go back and do more in the future of dealing with the korakthropes who aren't true believers in the prophecy. There are some who have become more tied to our world, and that should be brought up and explored, and there's a distinction here as well between those who view our world as a stopping-off point before the Promised Land, those who are happy where they are, those who have fallen in with the local powers that be, and those who want to return and reclaim the Old World.
I feel like there's poignant and important space to explore there, and since the flock that gets examined in the early bird edition is almost exclusively limited to those seeking the Promised Land it is a little too one-sided and doesn't give players the room to explore.
Life in the World
Being set in an urban fantasy setting is cool and helps to mitigate a lot of issues, but I still feel like there's something missing here.
To steal an idea from John Wick: you don't need to reiterate everything, but we should know how societies apart from our own operate on a basic level.
There are oblique references to flocks and societies, but we don't see a lot of specific details. Some of this was intended to give a high degree of flexibility, but it's also not helpful.
The Advanced Player's Guide for Velotha's Flock: A History
So I'm sitting on a 57-page player's guide for the 62-page velotha's flock. Some of that is character sheet dead-weight, but even so it's 50 pages of mostly rules.
So why do I want to get rid of it?
Let's go over the development of velotha's flock really quick:
February 2018
I write the core velotha's flock rulebook and get it published on DriveThruRPG.
March-July 2018
While working on the advanced player's guide, I do playtesting and editing.
July 2018
I release Hammercalled's quick-start and stop work on velotha's flock.
Current State
I have two .pdfs that are separate entities in the product line, one advanced, one not, but not available as stand-alone products.
My idea is that it would be better to have a free verse and a prose edition, so that we can keep our fancy schtick and also have a game that's moderately mainstream. The prose edition would never be split into two books (since it's made after the APG is almost done anyway) so it doesn't make sense to have the free verse edition in two as well. That's a great recipe for confusion after there's already some room for confusion.
Why kill the Advanced Player's Guide?
I want to take the things that really work from the advanced player's guide and integrate them to the core rulebook. Once that's done the remainder of the APG is stuff that just didn't really land well in play-testing, like alternate dice rolling methods and human and fallen angel characters.
There are really just four things that will make it back over, and they're all big ones and fit neatly in the core rulebook.
Advancement Rules
These are a little bit iffy and definitely need some playtesting, but I generally think they should have been in the core rulebook all along. I don't think they're absolutely necessary, but the game as it currently stands is great for a lot of one-shots but not so much for long-term games, and the characterization lends itself more toward longer games.
New Archetypes and Exile Clans
One of the things that I want to explore more in the new game is a larger slice of the world, so this makes sense. The other archetypes add more to the game and push beyond the set of Pearson's archetypes that were the original options. Since character creation is pretty heavily based on the pieces players choose, that gives more leeway and flexibility for schticks.
None of this has a reason why it couldn't be in the core rulebook, especially if there was some condensation and something like the reference tables was integrated into the rulebook itself.
Expanded Adversaries
I don't really have that much in the APG for adversaries, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't take what I have and put it in the core rulebook. This was definitely an oversight. However, they're also generally not playtested.
Playing with Cards
The d12 & d6 system that is the core of velotha's flock can be directly replaced with playing cards. I've done it in playtesting and I think it's even more fun. I want that to be part of the core rulebook, especially since there are times when playing cards can be more convenient than dice (for instance, to play on a stream you can easily hold up a card to the camera, which you can't do as well wtih dice).
The way the tarot and moon dice work is simple enough to replace with the face value of the cards and their suit, including shuffling out a suit when you would adjust the moon dice threshold. It's not 1:1 on outcomes, but it's 1:1 on characters and within tolerance on the probability side of things.
Illustration
I don't have a freelancer budget, and can't draw to save my life. I've made a massive loss on every game I've ever done. I'm a hobbyist.
I'm also confident that the current cover is not helping velotha's flock at all.
The current velotha's flock cover. Very minimalist, and probably on-brand, but not necessarily going to pull people's attention away from other things.
Now, there are solutions to this. We could go and find more engaging art, or use something like Pixabay to whip up a cover, but I don't like doing public domain too much. I'd be willing to try and kitbash some old public domain stuff together to get a better cover than currently exists, but that's a lot of time and I'll be honest and say that I don't think it's good.
So the question remains: how to raise money to get the book illustrated?
I'm thinking of crowdfunding, probably Kickstarter because it's what I've seen done most. If it fails, it will still generate some traffic and might be able to swing me some more donations and move me toward getting a game done.
Thoughts on Print
I'm not entirely sold on print. I've been meaning to get a final product set up for print but never actually done so, so we'll see. My big thing is that there is a lot of extra work for print and it's painful to handle. I might try to do PoD through DriveThruRPG, but I definitely can't manage a print run while also being a full time student and having other work that might actually bring me money.