Grabbing Eyeballs By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: After weeks of humming and hawing over what I wanted to attempt, building up a core ruleset, establishing a concept, and writing about it extensively for nearly every week over the past couple of months, I have over 3,000 words ready to share as Project Phoenix’s initial draft. But not yet. Last week, the topic was filling in those unexpected gaps...

What You Don’t Expect By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: It’s starting to get crowded in this flashback paragraph, but let’s stick to the immediate updates. First of all, you can check out all the previous Phoenix Project posts using the tag. Last week, I defined the exact terminology for two of most pressing and challenging elements in the game: Minor and Major Complications. With a clear...

Establishing Terminology By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: An internal debate between static target numbers and opposed rolls for Phoenix consumed me and I weighed the options between using one or the other and instead felt comfortable going with a healthy combination of the two. Whenever a character wants to change the outcome against a generic event, such as hot wiring a car, they roll against a Difficulty...

Active vs. Passive Defence By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: One of the key signatures of this game is the use of a bonus action whenever you successfully roll a previous action, though there is a cost. If you roll an even number, the bonus action is yours. No strings attached. If you roll an odd number, you can take that bonus action with a Minor Consequence to complicate matters. With the parameters of...

To Roll or Not to Roll By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: After establishing a signature mechanic for the Phoenix Project (yeah, I’m still playing around with the codename for this game) where characters receive Complications when rolling an odd number, the issue of Complication frequency – particularly with Minor Complications intended on a successful roll – and the need to provide a form of control...

Frequency & the Illusion of Control By The Warden PREVIOUSLY: With core mechanics in place, one of the signatures of this game (still known as Phoenix to the rest of the world at this point in space and time) is the use of even and odd numbers when players roll their dice to perform an action. Even numbers mean you’re in the free and clear (though it still depends on rolling against a target...