In Development: Eden Fallen

[Austin]

Independent publisher Akhelas has a new roleplaying game in development using Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine under the Open Roleplaying Creative (ORC) License.

Eden Fallen is a science fiction roleplaying game set on a generation ship launched from Earth to begin colonization of planets outside the solar system. Centuries later the vessel—built around and within an asteroid—still drifts through the void. No one knows when—or if—it will arrive. The Founders built this ship as an inspiring symbol of humanity's unity. Generations of crisis have shattered their dream. The inhabitants of Eden now live grim lives reusing depleting resources. Players will take on the roles of heroes and antiheroes, fixers and breakers, struggling to survive. Design goals include:

• Newbie-friendly iteration on classic D100 mechanics
• Unfamiliar cultures to roleplay, such as the AI-worshiping Hullbugs or the downtrodden Passengers
• Rules for an augmentations powers system enabling players to gain cyberpunk prosthetics, grafted plantmeat, or perform superhuman stunts
• Complete colonypunk setting focused on the City—Eden's semblance of “civilization”
• Gamemaster support including secret histories, end-game crises, and a complete collection of antagonists

All new rules development will be freely available for use by other game designers under the ORC License.

Akhelas has published independent work for RuneQuest since 2019 through Chaosium's community content program, the Jonstown Compendium. Eden Fallen is Akhelas's first original game.

Eden Fallen will be crowdfunded, with further details to be determined. Any crowdfunding campaign will provide a playable Beta to backers upon the campaign’s completion. To follow the development process and help support the game, check out the Akhelas Patreon page. News from Akhelas is also available at our website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

 

[g33k]

I get more than a little bit of the Metamorphosis Alpha vibe, minus the whole "culture that forgot its origins / fallen to superstitious ignorance" elements.

[DreadDomain]

Looks interesting! Very happy to see authors starting to use the new BRP!

Mechanically, what will the game take (and leave) from BRP:UGE?

[Austin]

12 hours ago, g33k said:

I get more than a little bit of the Metamorphosis Alpha vibe, minus the whole "culture that forgot its origins / fallen to superstitious ignorance" elements.

Huh, never heard of that. I'll have to go check it out! Thanks for the tip. 😄

8 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Mechanically, what will the game take (and leave) from BRP:UGE?

I'm a bit leery about getting into details because we're just at the start of playtesting and a lot could change very rapidly.

One of my goals is to have a single task resolution mechanism, and for most tasks to be resolved with a single D100 roll. In particular, that means cutting the resistance table, then figuring out how to handle situations where we'd normally use it. Single method of task resolution - in my opinion - helps make D100 games more newbie-friendly.

We're also consolidating skills into a smaller list. My basic goal is to have most of the character sheet adventuring stuff fit on one page, then the back page has stuff like augmentations, equipment, resources, etc. I don't want players to have to hunt for skills, but to have a quick list of options how they might act or respond to a situation, and to identify how likely they are to succeed.

Like I said, I'm leaving out a number of details because I don't know what will or won't change as we work. But I hope that helps sate your curiosity!

[Sam E.]

13 hours ago, g33k said:

I get more than a little bit of the Metamorphosis Alpha vibe, minus the whole "culture that forgot its origins / fallen to superstitious ignorance" elements.

Yah, I'm thinking it's more than a little of an homage. 

[Tirapheg]

Crel, it sounds like Open Quest would fit the bill, looking at what you want for your rulesysytem. Check out River of Heaven, which is a sci fi setting using Open Quest to see if you like those rules. 

[Austin]

We've started our first playtest campaign for Eden Fallen! Tonight was character creation and session zero. Had a good time discussing the setting, muddling through my first draft's text, and describing baseline expectations of the setting (the currency is Meat, gravity is pumped through tubes, dystopian corporations are trying to establish a stranglehold on resources, etc.). Looking forward to diving into our first adventure next week! My notes are currently looking at a sort of murder mystery, but we'll see how it actually plays out. (Don't worry, none of this game's players use BRP Central.)

I've got one player with some RuneQuest experience, and the other two players haven't really played BRP-family games much before. I'm looking forward to seeing what some fresh eyes and unfamiliar players think of the game!

[Austin]

On 8/2/2023 at 6:32 AM, Tirapheg said:

Crel, it sounds like Open Quest would fit the bill, looking at what you want for your rulesysytem. Check out River of Heaven, which is a sci fi setting using Open Quest to see if you like those rules. 

It's possible. I ended up deciding against OpenQuest because it's a bit too crunch-lite for my personal taste. Looking for my Goldilocks space. The current draft might be "lighter" than my general preference - I've been trying really hard to be crunch/math-averse in working through the gameplay basics - but I think that "lighter" spot might be the right level for this game.

It'll be interesting to see how the playtest goes. I'm expecting it to be a bit of a fustercluck, but a fun one. We're playing on basically a half-finished vomit draft because if we try waiting until I have good text, the rules will be too baked for my brain to handle revising.

Anyhoo, thanks for the recommendation! Much appreciated.

[Austin]

Something from a recent Patreon update which may be of interest to fellow gamers. We've been playtesting Eden Fallen, including experimenting with an iteration on BRP's core D100 mechanic.

Quote

 

Right now, my core mechanical concept is that you roll one D100 against a "general" skill and a "specialist" skill, if you have one relevant. This creates a matrix in which you can partially succeed by rolling under one skill, but over the other. It also creates situations in which a character can be a jack-of-all-trades, but the specialized character is still better at that particular task (since they can effectively score two successes).

This is working, so far, because I've reduced the number of skills compared to BRP quite a lot. My inspirations for this are OpenQuest, Dragonbane, and Rivers of London. Ultimately my goal is that all skills are on the main character sheet, so that you can roll the D100 once and compare easily to everything you need just on that front page.

Like I've noted, there's lots of roughness to smooth out, but so far this iteration on the BRP core mechanic seems to be intuitive and enjoyable for my players.

 

 

[g33k]

51 minutes ago, Crel said:

Something from a recent Patreon update which may be of interest to fellow gamers. We've been playtesting Eden Fallen, including experimenting with an iteration on BRP's core D100 mechanic.

This is an interesting mechanical variation.
Is "two successes" (vs. just one) your version of a "critical success" then?

I note that one could -- hypothetically -- go broader, such as d100 vs DEX*5 / Thrown Weapons / Hatchet for up to 3 successes... or DEX*5 / Guns / Rifles / M16 for four... or more??!?

[Saki]

My thought - isn't the design space of using two skills on a single roll covered by Augmenting? Any reason why not to just go with the regular augmenting rules from BRP?

[Austin]

On 10/6/2023 at 3:34 PM, g33k said:

Is "two successes" (vs. just one) your version of a "critical success" then?

I see it as closer to a "special" than a "critical." As we've been playing, I've realized I need to rework starting skills + the matrix for "levels of success" so I'm not 100% sure yet. 😄 I'm currently thinking 1 success is "partial" with a chance for complications, 2 is "full" success, 3 is "critical" success (succeeding on both, and rolling doubles).

On 10/6/2023 at 5:00 PM, Saki said:

isn't the design space of using two skills on a single roll covered by Augmenting?

Correct! Two of my goals with this streamline experimenting are:

1. Resolve all tasks with one D100 roll
2. Minimize math in the task resolution process

I'm more familiar with RQG than BGB, so I'll point at how RQG's augments require two dice rolls for a single task. If memory serves BGB you add a portion of one skill's percentiles to another? Which is the type of annoying math I don't care for.

I do have a scale for circumstantial modifiers, steps of +/– 20%. But I'm trying to have the character sheet's value typically reflect exactly what the player needs to roll to know if they succeeded. So no calculating or checking Skill/5, Skill/20, etc. And if it doesn't work, I'll go back to the traditional way of doing it. But for the moment I'm more curious about trying to iterate than using the classic unchanged.

[Saki]

On 10/8/2023 at 10:59 AM, Crel said:

I'm more familiar with RQG than BGB, so I'll point at how RQG's augments require two dice rolls for a single task. If memory serves BGB you add a portion of one skill's percentiles to another? Which is the type of annoying math I don't care for.

BRP:UGE offers both versions as options, either running it like RQG or adding 1/5 of a complementary skill to your main one. 

[g33k]

5 hours ago, Saki said:

BRP:UGE offers both versions as options, either running it like RQG or adding 1/5 of a complementary skill to your main one. 

The big BRP books are all about offering the options!

[Austin]

I've decided to halt the Eden Fallen playtest for a variety of reasons, mostly involving personal mental/emotional bandwidth. I'd not call the game dead, but we've successfully held one scheduled session since September. Consequently, I haven't actively been working on the game while trying to get playtest feedback.

There might be some version in the future focusing on the setting utilizing BRUGE mechanics, rather than iterating from a foundation of BRUGE mechanics. No promises.