Battle Century G Remastered Preview II

Last time I showed you the rewrite of one of the optional rules in the Remaster. Now it's time to show one of the new optional rules. There are several of those, but I think the one that will be of most interest to people as a whole will be the Custom Weapon Creation system.

Custom Weapons are something that's been requested intermittently over the years and was very close to getting made multiple times. This is for good reason, because while BCG+Z provide enough weapons for a wide variety of niches, some important niches (most notably beam weapons with specific energy costs) remain empty.  Custom Weapons address this problem.

The way Custom Weapon Creation works is very simple. When you create a Custom Weapon, it has a number of Weapon Points that you spend on Advantages (conditional or innate) and Keyword abilities. Additionally, you can also add drawback Keywords to increase the number of Weapon Points your creation has. It's nothing revolutionary and if you've played GGG or any of the classes with custom techs in MP it should be familiar to you. The most interesting thing about it, on a mechanical level, is the sidebar full of suggestions and examples for coming up with your own conditional Advantages.

Having said that, there are some caveats to this system. First, not all Keywords are supported. You can't make your own Techniques or Bursts because balancing those two would be impossible. Second, most unkeyworded recurring abilities cannot be replicated. That means no adding Tension to Damage, destroying whole Levels of Threshold, debuffs or any other fancy properties. The third is that you cannot use this system to customize the existing Weapons in the game. It might sound obvious but it's a real thing people will try to do and then they'll wonder how come their unlimited Bombardments break the game.

An additional thing I want to point out is that, going by the Custom Weapons rules as written, several of the existing Weapons in the SRD are unbalanced. This is the result of years of doing consistent buffs to Weapons that were underperforming. I tried to keep the numbers consistent with how most Weapons are costed these days, but a few Weapons will be better than any equivalents you try to craft with the system. That's not great, but I think most of us will agree that the older versions of many of the Weapons buffed in these past few years were, frankly, rarely worth using. If the price to pay to have all those Weapons be viable is to make some of the math inconsistent, then I'll pay it.

Now in theory I could redo all the Weapons until all of them have consistent math, but I don't want to be rocking the boat that much when we're one month away from release. There's a significant chance that I make a mistake in doing that resulting in some weapons becoming unviable again. I would rather have a handful of Weapons that cannot be replicated yet do their jobs than a perfectly consistent Custom Weapons system in which some Weapons aren't viable.

Having said that, some of the disparities between what can be made with the Custom Weapon rules and the premades are... Notorious. In particular two Weapons (Shocking Swordship and Charge Cannon) are still underpowered to the point that they're weaker than Custom Weapons made in their style so I'll be giving them minor boosts to ensure they can keep up with the competition. 

I know I said two months ago that the rules for the SRD were already locked down and there wouldn't be any more changes, but I think this is important enough that it merits going back on my word. More importantly, the main reason to not want to change the rules late in development is to avoid disrupting games that are already using the rules or to not potentially break the game in accidental ways. I don't think two niche Weapons getting minor is going to break anything or bother anyone. 

I'm less sure what to do concerning other Weapons that the system shows are clearly overpowered. These are: Finger Net, Bombardment, Lockdown Missile and Radiation Bomb. I would rather not nerf anything, but honestly these Weapons have radiuses so big and effects so powerful that I probably should give them a relatively small debuff so they don't feel too imbalanced.

I might reduce the Blast size from (2) to (1) for the sake of simplicity, give them all a Disadvantage to attacks, or a combination of those two. I still haven't decided. I'll let you know closer to release. Which, fingers crossed, should be next month.

Gimmick Out.

Battle Century G Remastered Preview I

With the Remaster being very close to finished, I figure it's time to talk about some of the changes that aren't in the SRD. First thing I want to talk about is that, in addition to updating all the Alternate Rules Modules from BCZ, I gave a complete makeover to some of them. The most notable of these is, I think, Corruption, which is the new name for the system that replaces the so-called Insanity Rules.

To summarize how the rules work: Every PC has at least one Corruption Theme, an ailment born from humanity tinkering with forces it doesn’t understand let alone control. PCs gain Corruption Points when using Corruptive abilities themselves or when NPCs use Corruptive abilities against them. The accumulation of Corruption Points makes life harder for a PC, to the point that it can make participating in Intermissions impossible, but it still allows them to participate in Operations. 

There are three reasons Corruption works this way. Thematically, it’s because only the "weak" and peaceful human side of the PC can no longer function normally, the part of them that is a replaceable cog in a war machine feels fine. Mechanically, it’s because PCs do not die or are retired from the narrative unless their owner wants to do so. Narratively, it’s something to decide between the PC’s owner and the GM whether the PC should be removed from play or not—if you can’t justify them staying as part of the game, then they are in fact retired.

Corruption Themes are more extreme narratively than the old Trauma Themes, and many are straight up fantastic, transforming the PC into a monster, having them be possessed by alternate universe versions of themselves, and other strange fates. Here's a sample Corruption Theme to give you a taste:

Integrated Pilot

Corruption 1-3 (Mild): Your Mecha sometimes feels like a better version of yourself. While you do admit those thoughts seem silly, you can never really shake them off. You might’ve even found yourself saying “I am Gear.” or something along those lines once or twice.

Corruption 4-6 (Moderate): You have begun to feel very insecure about yourself when out of the cockpit. Sometimes when you’re stressed you climb the cockpit, the one place where you’re both safe and powerful.

Corruption 7-9 (Severe): You can barely leave your Mecha without feeling sick, your limbs feel sluggish and some of your senses are diminished when you’re not in the cockpit. You may even feel a gross sense of dysphoria, wishing it was your real body.

Corruption 10 (Extreme): You have become another component piece of your Mecha. Your physical body could have partially or fully merged with the cockpit, perhaps you depend on the robot’s life support systems to live, or maybe your consciousness is stuck in the computer system.

This is the iconic Corruption Theme in my opinion, as it symbolizes the kind of consequences they have in a PC's life while also giving them an out of being forced to retire but still affecting their role in the game. It is also one of a handful of Corruption Themes that can be spun into a positive, as a PC who fully embraces their new self can simply just roll with it and say "Yeah, I'm a robot now, it's pretty cool actually". Corruption Themes aren't necessarily about losing who or what you are, but about transformation and pain, which can heal and make you stronger over time. It is not the most obvious difference between both rules, but it is an important one.

As for the ways in which PCs gain Corruption, I'll show the most important one

Victory at Any Cost

Reaction Power

Effect: You increase the result of a Test you just rolled by 5 or restore 5 points to your Threshold. At the Operation’s end, you gain a Corruption Point. You can use this Power once per Operation.

Ryo knew his Gear’s regular weaponry wasn’t going to be enough to destroy the giant lizard known as the G-Tyrant before it could regenerate. With a grim chuckle, he released the limiter on the Synchronizer and let the mech draw power directly from his own life force. As the fiery green light of his reactor blinded the whole of the battlefield, he yelled his iconic battlecry: “FUCK. DINOSAAAUUURS!“

Listening to Yuusou while using this Power is optional but recommended. Oh and, by the way? This is a Default Genre Power for games using the Corruption rules. That's right, everybody gets to have just enough rope to hang themselves with, for free!

NPCs can also cause Corruption, but to do so they must have a corresponding Feature or Trait and also must Defeat that PC in combat and also the PC must have not used Live Another Day. Doing Damage, or even reducing Threshold to 0, is not enough. The result is a system that puts the pace of Corruption largely in the hands of the Players, making it a much better way to tell stories of loss, trauma, change and all that jazz as the story is no longer 100% at the whims of the dice gods. It is, almost paradoxically (but entirely intentionally), a very empowering system and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.

That's all for now. Next update, I will show not a remade old system, but a new one.

Gimmick Out.

BCG Remastered SRD Update (Final?)

Come one, come all, to the hopefully final update to the BCG R SRD. It's taken a while and I'm sure I'll have to make a few correction for typos and the like in the future but now, as of this moment, the rules of Battle Century G Remastered are set in stone.

The full version of the game is going to have about twice as many pages. I'm still working on the rules modules and the setting, but the bulk of the written work is done and most of what's left to add in is art. Speaking of art... The SRD has some art now! It's at the end with the example PCs and NPCs for the introductory mission.

Dropbox Link.

Anyway, here's the rules changelog from v1.5 to v1.6: 

• Added the "Critical Failure, Failing Forward and Exceptional Success" Rules Module to Page 13 as a sidebar.
• Simplified the rules for Cores. Now they lack a Speed score and are explicitly a fifth level of Threshold that protects the pilot from harm until it is destroyed, at which point they take 2x Damage from Mecha as normal. 
• New General Trait - Skill Synergy: Gain a bonus to a trained Skill roll once per Episode equal to 1 per 10 CP you've spent on Skills.
• Readded NPC-exclusive abilities that were somehow still missing from the SRD
• A million non-rules small things like adjusted flavor text, examples of character/mecha gen, more advice, etc. 

If you want a complete changelog of what changed between v1.2 (aka Errata Edition) of the game and the v1.6, here's the earlier posts for reference: First Post and Second Post.

I guesstimate that the Battle Century G Remastered manual will be done around January. I should know better by now than to give dates that assume nothing will go catastrophically wrong in the near future, but, dangit, I want to believe.

See y'all soon with good news, hopefully.

BCG Remastered Progress Report

Hello friends, this is your regularly scheduled infrequent and sporadic update about the progress of BCGR. 

First, a quick check on the SRD: I did another editing pass, added more play advice including suggested houserule sidebars and character creation examples. I'm basically waiting for the art of the intro oneshot characters and mecha to be finished and then it's done.

As for the corebook, I've finished updating all the various Rules Modules (some of these are less 'updated' and more 'rewritten from zero') along with the GM chapter. What I've got left to do are the fluff chapter and the premade enemies. That and the art, which is hopefully going to flow faster now that we've got the process and general aesthetic down.

That's all for now. Next post should be the final SRD update.

BCG Remastered SRD Update

Hello, hello, hello beautiful gentlepeople once again. I am here, on the last day of the month, just a few hours before the clock announces it is no longer July, here to share an update to the BCGR SRD with you all. Without further ado, here's the download link and here's the changelog:

Rules v1.5 Changelog:

• Everything has flavor text now!
• Added a new functionality to Equipment Tests for canceling penalties to using Skills without Equipment.
• Made Intermission Damage mechanics less lethal.
• Intermission Grunts only have one Plot Armor Layer and do not get to Test Willpower to avoid Defeat.
• Added a narrative rule called The Dramatic Finish at the end of the Operations section.
• Clarified in the Skills section with Skills can carry Disadvantages for using them without Equipment.
• Deceptive Fighter slightly buffed with additional options. 
• This is my Battlefield now lasts one Round but lets you change Terrain types per use to compensate.
• Come at Me Bro lasts one Round but now you autoroll 10 on punishment attacks.
• I am a Loose Cannon now halves bonus and self-Damage but the bonus applies to everything, not just a single attack.
• Stake my life on it is Reaction Speed instead of Setup and can be used to make a self-destruct attack now.
• Techniques increase the Tension cap to 20 instead of 10.
• Clarified that Superheavy Machinegun can, in fact, be used to Suppress despite being a Line.
• Living Weapon was rewritten to make sense under the new Deathblow rules.
• Simplified Invasive and Crush the Insect.
• Did you notice Antimatter Shot was missing from the previous version of the SRD? Well, it's back now. Rejoice.
• Magic Bullet's now gains +1 Advantage instead of adding Tension to Damage.
• There's an introductory oneshot scenario at the end of the SRD now. It has two difficulty settings (Tutorial and Challenging) and can be run on either Combat Only or Full Narrative modes. The scenario includes two pages of setting information.

A lot of these are things that I talked about in previous blog posts. Others are corrections on things that changed too far during the previous update. And others are part of the ongoing quest to try and make a bunch of complicated and/or bad options be simple and/or good instead. I figure I can talk about them later during the long wait for the proper, full version of the Remaster. Instead, I want to talk about something else, part of what I am hoping to achieve with this Remaster.

One thing that vanilla BCG doesn't do very well is tell you what playing the game is like, beyond giving a few examples or making anime references and hoping that's enough to grasp what the system is trying to do. That's what I'm trying to correct with the addition of the Dramatic Finish rule and the inclusion of a oneshot introductory scenario.

I'm just going to copy and paste the Dramatic Finish rule here so we both know what I'm talking about:

The Dramatic Finish

When the GM confirms that a PC has Defeated an NPC, and after figuring out whether said NPC flees, ejects, dies, lives or whatever other fate happens to them, the owner of the PC has the right to narrate a Dramatic Finish. This is a spectacular description of the PC finishing that Enemy off.

The description should be appropriate to the result of the Might Test. If the result is the exact number needed to defeat them, then a lucky ricocheting projectile hit the enemy in the back or it collapses from a combination of many small cuts of your blade. If, on the other hand, the Might Test gets a result over 30 and overkills the enemy by 10 Damage, then your mech burns with a bright battle aura and punches a robot into a mountain so hard that the mountain explodes, or you can shoot a beam so powerful

it launches the enemy off-planet and into the sun. If there was no Might Test, judge it based on the Damage dealt.

The appropriateness of a Dramatic Finish depends on the tone of the game. The group should discuss beforehand to decide the levels of realism people can work with.

That's it. It's barely even a rule. It's more of a suggestion. But I think that does a lot for helping make the game feel like a game about cool robots doing cool robot things. This plus having a whole anime episode included in the SRD ready to run with its own prewritten plot (albeit an extremely basic one) is going to do a lot for newer players and GMs to grasp what makes the game work.

Oh yeah. It doesn't have any art right now, but the scenario is going to have art. Like this:

While the power of the imagination is unlimited, having art to sell you on the idea of what the units look like is going to help you get more immersed and invested into the fantasy the game provides with noticeably less effort. Also, I like having art, when I can afford it. So there.

Hopefully I can put up the SRD with all the art sometime August. I'll see you all next post.

Gimmick Out.

Remaster Mechanics III

Since I don't have the new Remaster update yet (it turns out that when you say "it should be done by [date] if nothing goes wrong", things usually do go wrong) I will talk a bit about the changes to the Reinforcements mechanic, which is pretty much the only one to have gotten a full revamp:

1) The first and most important change (because the rest of their mechanics were rewritten around it) is that Reinforcements are now placed on the map. They can get attacked by Enemies just as if they were PCs. By far the most common complaint about Reinforcements was that they had to "choose" to get attacked on their own by deliberately taking the Overwhelm Action. This presented a disconnect between mechanics and narrative that was too jarring for a number of people who wanted to use them and it's why I'm now trying something a little bit different.  These Reinforcements can move around the map, must be targeted the old fashioned way by Weapons, have a Defense rating, etc. 

2) They have a fixed initiative of 20 instead of 10. This guarantees they will go first 99% of the time. The idea is that it makes their buffs and debuffs a lot more effective. This will be necessary because they're extremely vulnerable and enemies allowed to freely attack them will probably take them out in short order. So now there is a more interesting dynamic between them and the PCs, who must protect them in order to keep them around. 

3) Speaking of said boons, they no longer have multiple abilities per Round. Now they can only use one Power per Turn (granted, some of them cost 0, I'm just trying to keep the number of extra rules to a minimum here). Instead of having a small pool of regenerating Reinforcement Points, they have a larger one that only goes down over time. Several Powers have stayed the same (barring an appropriate point cost change), while others have been rebalanced to the new rules more thoroughly.

I'm going to be tweaking these a bit more as we go. I think that, as they stand right now, they're probably too fragile (a number of Grunt attacks equal to their power level will take them out) and won't have much of a chance to do anything at all. Also I sense that a few paragraphs could afford to be clearer, so even beyond the mechanics there is a need for touching up the text.

At the very least, I think they need a couple more paragraphs regarding their use. How much should they be getting attacked, letting the Players know they must be protected, etc.

That's all for now.

Gimmick Out.

Remaster Mechanics II

In addition to the Tension touchups mentioned last time, I want to try and put some bandaids on the Character-scale combat system. What that system really needs is a full rewrite, which is beyond the scope of the remaster, but I think I can at least tweak the numbers here and there to make things a little bit better.

In general the Match subsystem suffers from being: 

1) Heavily skewed towards PCs trained in fitness + combat 

2) Exceedingly lethal to PCs without awareness + willpower both 

3) Not very engaging even when you have all those things. 

In theory, Matches are for the Fitness specialists to show off and get things done in a single roll or two, much like PCs with other builds can get things done in other scenes the same way. In practice, gaming groups attempt to stick the whole party in Matches and most of the players have a bad time while one (or two) carry the rest.

Fortunately, one of the changes to the Remaster already addresses point 1 somewhat by buffing Deathblows and making Offensive Miracles worth using. This way you can use Charm (+ Temperature) or Awareness (+ Phantasm) to keep up with a Fitness + Combat specialist, albeit at the cost of self-damage plus lower damage output once you run out of free Deathblows. A focused combat specialist will still be better, as they should be, but at least there's ways for other PCs to keep up.

For point 2 I want to add a change to the way PC Damage works. Right now, everyone who loses Layers of Plot Armor must Test Willpower vs fairly high DNs (10, 15, 20) to avoid defeat. This method is fine for NPCs but it's too random and disempowering for PCs so I'm going to tweak it a bit. The DNs for resisting Defeat will be 5, 10, 15 and further instances of Damage past that will need a 20. Additionally, Grunt NPCs in Matches will only have one Layer of Plot Armor and are immediately Defeated with no need to roll once it's full. This gives even Intellect builds (for which Matches are supposed to be one of their main weaknesses) a fighting chance against a Grunt or two if they can score some lucky hits before the musclewall NPCs bully them into submission. 

As for point 3... Well, it's still not an engaging subsystem, but it's not meant to be. It's there to provide another form of gameplay when you're not doing mecha combat.

In addition to all this, I also want to tweak the Invasive Feature a little. Right now, it's confusing, has math + memory complications and makes PCs drop out of combat to one bad roll, which, while that's definitely part of the terrifying intent behind Invasive, it's probably too much. We're gonna make Invasive (and Crush the Insect) use the same DN 5, 10, 15 and 20 benchmarks for the Systems Tests to give low Systems builds a chance to be in the fight for more than a Round or two and let high Systems builds take it easy for a bit knowing they're safe until they lose one or even two Layers. Also, I'm going to tweak the wording of the Invasive ability itself so it's not a pain in the ass to manage. Here's the new rules text:

Effect: Halve all Damage you do to Enemy Mecha. At the end of your Turn, if you've dealt 3 or more Damage to any Enemy Units during it, their Pilots lose one Layer of Plot Armor. Pilots damaged this way Test Systems instead of Willpower to avoid defeat. For each 3 additional points of Damage dealt during that Turn, they suffer a Disadvantage to the Systems Test. 

The trigger is much more limited in that it can only affect one Layer at a time and doesn't work with off-turn damage abilities, so the amount of Damage needed to lower from 5 to 3. 3 Is high enough that Bombardment spam is not going to be enough to insta-wipe all the PCs (because it's all halved) but it is also low enough that any moderately optimized Grunt stands a reasonable chance of doing that much. Rivals and Bosses will be compensate for this low Damage output with Disadvantages to the Systems Test to compensate, making even the first or second attacks moderate threats.

That's all for now. Next month I hope to have the next version out, if nothing goes wrong. See you then.

Gimmick Out.

Remaster Mechanics I

The Remaster's v1.4 rules update has a whole bunch of mechanical changes, which are mostly explained in the accompanying changelog, but I never really sat down to explain the underlying philosophy of the changes as a whole.

I want the Remaster to feel like an upgrade that seamlessly improves the experience for as many players as possible. Obviously, pleasing everyone is an impossible goal, but I think most of the changes work as intended. But more on that in a bit. Going back to the philosophy of the Remaster, most of the changes fall under the following categories:

• Streamlining rules or abilities that were unnecessarily complex.
• Buffing abilities that were too weak.
• Nerfing only for the most blatantly overpowered abilities or adding limitations to the most easily exploitable of them.
• Removing or changing rules that weren't being used as written to how they were supposed to work.

So if I made a recurring joke of repeating the reasons for some of the comments in the changelog, it's because the underlying logic is very consistent and it's (presumably) a better read than having me say "This was unnecessarily complicated and also weak so now it's simpler and stronger." a couple dozen times. The one big exception to these principles are the Allied Reinforcement rules, which got a major rewrite. I considered these safe to rewrite because they're an optional rule that only comes up at the GM's whim during specific battles.

Now let's look at the negative side of the v1.4 update: The way the Tension cap affects all the builds designed around Tension buffs.

The Tension cap hurts basically everyone who uses Techniques and outright makes the hyper-specialized builds designed around one big attack unplayable. On one hand, it's impossible to balance the absurdity of these latter "all or nothing" builds without making them unplayable. On the other hand, many of the Tension buffers feel like a gamble that you may not get the full (or any) benefit out of, depending on how the mission goes. I Am a Loose Cannon, in particular, will semi-regularly hit the Tension cap while doing a whole lotta additional damage to themselves for no extra benefit. That feels awful to play with and not even in a way you can play around since it's a luck-based Power.

Something's gotta change there.

Below is my current idea for how to further tweak the Tension cap and its associated problem abilities.

Tension Cap: Techniques can raise the cap to 20. 

For the more casual Technique users, this is basically the same as having no Tension cap, so it's a considerable buff to them. 20 is a pretty big number, to the point it still allows all-in hyper-focused builds to exist, but they won't be hitting 30+ Tension in Turn 1 like it was theoretically possible to get before. So overall this is potentially dangerous but still balanced by the existence of Genre Powers like Impregnable Defense and Take Cover!

I Am a Loose Cannon: It now rolls 1d5, dealing twice that much self Damage and gaining the result in Tension until the user's next Turn. 

This change works on multiple angles. First, it most obviously halves the total Damage taken and dealt. Second, it works not just for one attack but until the user's next Turn. (Also the 1d5 is just a shortand, it's a 1d10 but halved) The first bit means it's useful for builds that want to inflict a bit of self damage but don't want to potentially kill themselves. The second bit means it can be used to boost multiple attacks, trigger secret equipment and is compatible with things like learning computer and lightspeed assault. That gives it more of a niche than just being another GP on the big pile of buffs for Technicians that make a single big attack.

So that's two of the things I'm thinking of changing. As usual, I'd like to hear opinions of this before running forward with it.

Gimmick Out.

The Setting of BCGR

I said last month that I wanted to write a new setting for BCGR. Today I want to talk a little about it, just enough to give you an idea of what kind of experience I'm hoping to accomplish.

The stage is set 2000 years in the future. Humans are rebuilding civilization after a terrible war forced everyone to hide in underground Arks for centuries. The Holy Technocracy, a transhuman cult that worships the AI known as Deus Machina, wants to brainwash and convert all of humanity to their hivemind. Standing between this machine god and world domination are the PCs who, using the advanced humanoid robots of Steel Dragon Industries, must put a stop to their conquest plans. Meanwhile, a plague of cyborg monsters emerges from the bowels of the Earth and attacks the cities of both warring factions. Can the PCs find a way to stop both of these threats, before the world is destroyed once again? 

There are three key themes to this setting that I want to emphasize:

Big Heroes vs Big Villains: While the Holy Technocracy are convinced that they're doing everyone else a favor, they are capital-V Villains. They brainwash people, raze the terrain and chew the scenery while doing it. And the monsters? Those are even worse, their armies are a seemingly-infinite force of nature that cannot be stopped or reasoned with. The PCs and their allies are the only ones who can fight against both of these threats on equal footing.

Evolve and Adapt: In order to overcome the challenges of the new era, humans are changing. Fantastic advances in biotechnology allow humans to manifest psychic powers at the cost of burning their cells and risking shortening their lifespan. Genetically engineered babies can be bonded to symbiotes granting anything from regeneration to shapeshifting. The PCs can even ride domesticated breeds of the giant monsters that would otherwise be enemies.

The Responsible use of Technology: Cool as they may be, giant robots are extremely dangerous and must be employed with care. Collateral damage destroys the fields where food is grown, levels the homes of the people that live in them and risks stirring the dormant monsters underground. The PCs must protect civilization and nature both, while preventing the enemy from recreating the frightful weapons that once brought about the end of the world.

That about sums it up, I think. There's a lot going on in the setting and I think it's really cool, to the point that it would be compelling even without the giant robots. I view it a lot like UC Gundam, in that it's a developed setting that just happens to have giant robots on top. There's a lot of work left to do until it's finished though, so I won't be able to show it in full for a while. Luckily, the Remaster gives me a lot to talk about so there'll be plenty of updates until then.

Gimmick Out.

Introducing Battle Century G Remastered

I really wanted to post this last month, but it wasn't in what I'd call a presentable state. It's still incomplete, but what is finished is good enough to use. Without further ado, let me tell you about Battle Century G Remastered.  

This baby's got big 80's energy.

In order to explain what Battle Century G Remastered (BCGR for short) is, I first need to explain what it isn't: It is not a second edition of the game. BCGR is an update and improvement to BCG, but doesn't break away from the mold enough to count as a second edition. If the current version of BCG is v1.2 and the suggested balance changes & errata I posted a while earlier are an unofficial v1.3, this would be the game's v1.4 update. 

Here's what the finished version is going to have:

• A compilation of the rules in BCG and BCZ.
• Integration of the errata and suggested balance changes posted way back in 2018. 
• A handful of additional improvements to Intermission abilities (Miracles, Equipment, etc.)
• Substantial editing and rewording to make the text easier to parse.
• Improvements to the alternative rules modules in BCZ (plus some new ones).
• Updates to the premade NPCs in BCZ.
• A better, more fleshed out and cooler setting.
• A premade campaign scenario 6 to 12 episodes long.

Currently, I'm up to the first four bullet points. You can check out the System Reference Document here. The remaining four bullet points (particularly the final two) are going to take longer to finish.

Here's the full v1.2 to v1.4 Changelog: LINKING IT BECAUSE IT IS SEVEN PAGES LONG. I'm also noting which ones are from v1.3.

So I've been wanting to make a second edition of BCG for a while, because there are a bunch of things in the game that I think I would do differently today. There are two problems with it though: 1) It's very different from BCG, it's like the jump from GGG to BCG. Still recognizably the same game, but I can see some considering it a downgrade. 2) It's gonna take a long time to finish and I think I owe you all some content before that's done.

This Remaster is that content. BCG:R is my way of saying thank you for sticking with BCG after all these years. I don't want to spend millenia tweaking and adjusting rules again, but I think I can make a few changes here and there to make the game just a tiny little bit better for everyone.

I've learned a lot about game design since BCG came out. Making MP, in particular, has given me the chance to practice with tighter worldbuilding, easier character creation for beginners and premade campaign scenarios to help give GMs a good idea of how the game should go. I intend to put these skills to use. Once it's finished, the Remaster will be the same BCG experience but with a prettier package and easier to learn.

The one thing I will be sad to see go is the flavor text. The little references like Sunbot 3 and the Nu Ganmen make me smile to this day, years later after having written them. But BCG is a game that can be somewhat difficult to get into and a more cohesive and better written out setting makes that part so much easier. Flavor text can be a big help to properly convey worldbuilding so I should redo every entry from the beginning. Some references may survive the process, others may not. I think it's a worthwhile price to pay.

So that's what I'm doing. I haven't said anything about what I want to do for the setting, modules, etc. but I'll get to that in future posts.

Gimmick Out.

I'm alive

"I should make an update about updating" I wisely told myself this week. People love updates about updating, right? Just a reminder that you're alive and totally working on something that you can't show yet. Always the sign of good project management... It's almost like I'm a real content creator! Anyway, as I sat down to do it, I looked at the date of the last post.

Nearly a year since the last update. JFC. Had I been a week later, it would've been the anniversary of the last time I posted something here.

You've already heard plenty of jokes about 2020 having made time meaningless. They're no longer funny (that is if they ever were intended to be funny, rather than a mere coping mechanism for the writer and reader alike to bond over their shared circumstances) but the joke being old does not make the fact that the world was frozen for a year any less true.

Basically, I had no idea it had been nearly a year since the last blog post. I even stopped posting about MP, partly because I was too busy being overwhelmed by last year's events, partly because I realized that I associate this blog more with BCG than with MP so writing something about the latter didn't come to me as naturally as the former.

Enough rambling. I just wanted to say that I'm 3 weeks away from the delivery date of the last bit of MP kickstarter content. After this, I want to do some BCG-related stuff. So stay tuned, actual content will be coming soon.

Gimmick Out.