Preview - Rot Tactics (Patreon)

Late last year I played a solo game called T-Def by Lari Assmuth. It's a simple system meant to replicate the feel of X-Com games by putting you in charge of some incredibly squishy rookies as they fight tooth and nail to battle off the alien invasion that threatens to wipe out all humanity. It was pretty cool if quite flawed. The core system had a lot of promise but  I could never get into it RAW (rules as written). So, like any reasonable game designer, I set about tinkering with it and making my own version and while it is FAAAAAAR from done I thought I'd give y'all a sneak peek of Rot Tactics (placeholder title which will make sense in a moment).

This project came about from a story that I was writing called, you guessed it, Rot. The premise was that the world was being consumed by a horde of twisted mutant abominations known as The Wretch and no matter what the inhabitants of this gunpowder-fantasy setting did, they knew they couldn't win. Anything dead the Wretch could turn into one of them, even their own dead could be brought back. So, the story follows a religious order who are currently under attack by The Wretch as they make the difficult decision to leave the safety of their monastery fortress and travel across the lands to the Ark Portal which leads to a new, safe world.

Thankfully, they aren't alone. Many of the order have opened themselves up as hosts for Angels as the divine spirits of angels and demons cannot pass through the Ark Portal without a host. And herein lies the issue for our main character, she's locked outside the monastery with the Wretch. Desperate demons vie for her attention, demanding to be let in so that they might save her life and have a shot of escaping this dying world but our main character refuses. She has been told she is to be a vessel for an angel but in this desperate moment her will falters and rather than die she eventually makes a deal, praying for anyone, anything to save her and ends up with a spirit called Rot.

The game, while not about the religious order from my as of yet unfinished story, puts you in charge of a religious order with ~100 acolytes. Your caravan has a limited amount of weapons and food at the start of their journey and like the "funnel campaigns" of DCC will see a lot of members die before you start getting experienced soldiers. Surviving missions gets any acolytes involved some XP, once they get past a certain level they start getting new abilities and, most excitingly, the option to become a host to an angel or demon which is determined - like most things in the game - with a 2D6 roll. 

Demons are all about personal power at a cost while Angels focus on utility and helping their squad. There are 18 of each and a dozen weapon types so far and there are opportunities for characters to get surprise bonuses, permanent wounds, prosthetics, and other effects that set them apart from the characters around them.

My goal for this is to make it a sort of Banner Saga/ FTL style game where you travel across a map, visiting settlements and facing challenges on the road while the ever present threat of The Wretch keeps a constant death march behind you.

I'm working on this in a very casual, fun sort of way and don't have a timeline for release just yet but if you would like to be kept up to date with its progress, let me know in the comments and I'll share more :)