Sean - saw that you were struggling a while ago. Sorry I didn’t see it earlier. Wanted to let you know that UW has given my group some really great play. Everyone loves when we do Cramped Quarters. We look forward to whatever you do next. Thanks you for making a great game.
Designing Uncharted Worlds 2nd Edition
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@SeanGomes, any updates regarding UW 2nd ed? A friend of mine asked about playing UW the other day. I would like to playtest any new materials.
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Hi folks. Whew. It’s been… a while. The usual: Brain no worky good, meds help, getting psych help, ongoing process, good days, bad days, and really really bad days, the whole shebang. But I’ve been working on a bunch of stuff and I’m finally ready to share it with you all (especially folks like @Deckard and @aaron.griffin who were asking about playtest documents).
Here it is! The first playtest version of Uncharted Worlds 2!
I realized that I was going waaaaaaay too deep in my design, writing verbose explanations of mechanics, getting caught up in the weeds, rather than making something playable. So I ruthlessly cut down on my materials until the majority of the game fits on two pages.
Two. Pages. Two mother-loving pages.
—Insert Incoherent Barbarian Howl of Pain and Victory Here—
I can’t quite articulate how much of a struggle it was to condense all that into two pages. I can’t even keep my forum posts succinct.
Anywho, the only thing missing from the above doc are the Origins/Careers (especially the Career Moves and Skills), so using the playtest right now is like playing with level 0 characters. Still! This was a remarkably useful exercise, as it allowed me to really see where all the core components connected to each other. I’m proud/amazed at how the systems interlocked, even at this early stage.
I’d love to hear your impressions/feedback! I’ll try to update the playtest with pre-made characters (with actual careers and origins and such) this coming week. I’d be stoked if folks would be willing to give it a spin in the near future.
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While working on the PreGen characters this past week, I formulated a design philosophy for the Careers going forward. It proved to be super helpful as a tool/way of thinking, so I thought I’d share it.
As with the previous edition, UW2’s character archetypes will be combinations of two careers. Basically, each career is half a “Playbook”, so you can mix-and-match elements you like to create your own Archetype.
I’ve started defining careers by their Goals and Methods; what they want, and how they accomplish their goals. This allows a two-career combination to be approached from different angles, where one career provides the objective, and the other career provides the means to achieve it.
For example:
Academic career
- Goals: Discovery and Advancement
- Methods: Logic, Analysis, Medicine, Programming, Chemistry
Military career
- Goals: Domination and Defense
- Methods: Violence, Weaponry, Discipline, Coordination
Mixing and matching the Goals and Methods allows us to build a number of different archetypes. In this case, both a “Battlefield Medic” and “Tactical Officer” would be Military Academic archetypes, but differ greatly in their gameplay and roleplaying opportunities.
Here’s the current (very early) list of Careers, Goals, and Methods.
| Career | Goals | Methods |
|---|---|---|
| Academic | Discovery and Advancement | Logic, Analysis, Medicine, Programming, Chemistry |
| Advocate | Leadership and Diplomacy | Empathy, Advice, Planning, Speech, Inspiration |
| Clandestine | Subtlety and Access | Stealth, Sabotage, Surveillance, Hacking |
| Commercial | Prosperity and Ownership | Assets, Wealth, Bribes, Trade, Resources |
| Explorer | Travel and Exploration | Tracking, Vehicles, Maneuvers, Stunts, Luck |
| Industrial | Construction and Repair | Engineering, Upgrades, Explosives, Technology |
| Military | Dominance and Defense | Violence, Weaponry, Armor, Discipline, Bravery |
| Personality | Celebrity and Authority | Fame, Seduction, Charm, Intimidation, Contacts |
| Scoundrel | Freedom and Satiation | Misdirection, Crime, Drugs, Speed, Wits |
| Survivor | Survival and Resistance | Ingenuity, Adaptation, Endurance, Anger, Scrounging |
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This is a great concept! It looks like an improvement to me. It not only gives us an option of skills but a good list of goals and motivations for the characters. There are a couple that feel a little odd to me like Chemistry instead of say Science in general or the Method of Anger but generally this is a really intriguing way to build characters.
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“Chemistry” rather than just “Science” is a fair point, I just have it on there as a reminder of the practical application of a kind of science (to create mental connections to other careers, like an Academic Scoundrel could be a “Drug Dealer” etc)
As far as “Anger” goes, I agree, that should be “Defiance”, I just couldn’t think of the word at the time.
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I really like the kinds of combinations and characters this makes. The Personality Academic could be the Academic that loves doing interviews. The Survivor Explorer could be the Outer rim Homesteader just trying to survive after the government support stop coming.
This is a great new direction!
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Hey Sean! I’m part of the podcast Very Random Encounters. We played UW on our 3rd major season of the show and really loved it! I now use Cramped Quarters in everything I GM. I’m also making another podcast, Game Mechanics, and I was wondering if you’d like to be a guest on the show to talk about Cramped Quarters? This is the only place online I could find to contact you, so forgive me if this is not necessarily the best place for this request… but in any case, thank you so much for the game and specifically for one of my favorite RPG mechanics ever! I’m looking forward to V2!
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Hi Logan! I’m honored (and flattered) that something I made had such a positive impact. I’d definitely be interested in being a guest on your podcast. It’s true that since G+ went down I’ve been difficult to reach, but I check in with the Gauntlet every day or two, so probably best to contact me through here. Toss me a direct message and we’ll discuss dates.
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Career Moves
I’ve mentioned these in the past, but now that I’ve got a working draft of the core rules, it’s time for me to revisit them. The idea here is that each Career grants a unique Move that is significantly better than the core Moves (Control, Confront, and Cooperate), but are significantly more restricted in their applicability, their core stats, and their resultant effects. In this way, I hope to create niches for character archetypes, situations where character X will be able to shine and create a unique story beat.
My first draft of these elements were… fine. Passable. But lacked oomph. I wanted each Move to both exemplify the core of the career’s goals/methods, and be versatile enough that it would be useful to multiple character concepts/archetype.
I started my second pass on the Career Moves. This is Maneuver, from the Explorer career:
MANEUVER - Explorer Move
When you embrace momentum, and pull off incredible acts of speed and maneuverability, Roll +Finesse (acrobatics/parkour) or +Expertise (driving/piloting).
On a 10+ choose 2:
• Close the distance/Take the lead
• Thread the needle/Hard to follow
• Take the high ground/A better angle
• Right yourself/Back on track
On a 7-9, choose 1.
On a 6-, choose 1, but you create major consequences as well.
The inspiration was a mix of Assassin’s Creed parkour, Star Wars trench run/asteroid belt, and Mad Max/James Bond-style driving stunts. It embodies the Explorer career, that need for speed, the constant forward momentum, but still plays well with a bunch of other careers. This Move is the current benchmark for the rest of the career moves.
Thoughts on the above Move? Anything missing or confusing about it?
In tandem with the Career Moves rewrites, I’m still working on pre-gen characters, and I’ll have a few to share in the coming days.
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Thanks for the quick response! I’m so excited to talk! I think I’m too new here to send DMs… could you potentially start the DM conversation?
Informal polling/tapping into the hive-mind:
I’m looking for a good term for “if you are in a position of superiority” that gets used in a few Moves. Currently it’s too wordy, and I’m looking for something that would act as a fitting shorthand. The shorthand should preferably express general “superiority” that could be equipment/resource-based, positional, social, etc. And should be somewhat scifi themed.
A few ideas:
…if you have an edge…
…if you have the upper hand…
…if you have the advantage…
…if you have hold over them…
and so forth. Do any of those work for you folks? Any other ideas?
Have the advantage seems the most neutral.
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I’m partial to “if you have the upper hand”. It was the first answer that came to mind after I read your question, but before I read your suggestions.
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Heyo! Uncharted Worlds 2 is not dead, but it is grievously wounded at the moment.
After a few of months of on-and-off design work, I finally put together a working first version of Uncharted Worlds 2, and ran it for my playtesters. I was tooling around with PbtA-style Moves but with the concept of “advantage” and “disadvantage”, which added extra results to the base 10+/7-9/6- results of Moves, along with the Control Move that alters the scene (mitigates disadvantageous issues or creates advantageous situations). So there was this idea of set-up/pay-off cooperation between characters.
Ran a couple of sessions, and ultimately? It absolutely failed. Like, HARD. The thing I wanted to accomplish, the whole set-up/pay-off? It was mathematically the most dangerous, least efficient way of doing stuff. All that design work ended up being a pretty catastrophic failure.
And that’s ok.
We learn from failure. Sure I’m disappointed; I had really hoped this idea had legs. But after playtesting it, I had to face the fact that it was fundamentally flawed.
I’m now forced to take a giant step back, and really examine the core of PbtA-engine and how it expresses the ideas of success, mastery, tone, and so forth. I have more thoughts on this (which I’ll probably post as a different topic in the coming days, since it’s more general PbtA design-musings.)
Anywho, that’s it, thought I’d drop in and say that I’m still around and still working on it (sloooowlllly).
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Random design musings:
One of the mechanical components I’ve been playing with is to break from the traditional 2d6, and go 3d6 keep 2 highest for cases of significant advantage (usually when set up by an ally, making cooperation rewarding), and 3d6 keep lowest 2 for situations of significant disadvantage, meaning that it’s worthwhile to circumnavigate or fix obstacles that stand between you and your goal (allowing the GM to modulate difficulty by putting more stuff in the way), but still allows for a Hail Mary, do-or-die moment.
And then something funny/annoying happened. I read Impulse Drive’s rules. And there was that mechanic staring back at me. And my first reaction was to say “oh well I guess I’ll have to come up with something else”.
Which is a dumb reaction, doubly so because both systems are PbtA. I’ve been trying to be mindful of how I think, to catch bad habits or mental stumbling blocks. And it’s funny because from a logical standpoint, it makes perfect sense to use this, but my ego balked at the idea.
I suppose it comes from a place of low self esteem. I was ok using Apocalypse World mechanics because I was at least treading new thematic ground with it, and innovating in certain areas. Impulse Drive is a popular, well made game that shares a genre with Uncharted Worlds, so I have the instinct to differentiate my own offering as much as possible. No stepping on other designers’ toes.
I’m probably going to be running playtests with my regular group using the 3d6 advantage-disadvantage setup. And hell, hopefully it does end up working well enough to be added and designed around. I just have to get over this mixture of jealousy and low self esteem.
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I think you just need to distinguish Uncharted Worlds in a thematic or setting way from Impulse Drive. Less everything but the kitchen sink and more you play UW for a game that feels like X or Y. Like Impulse Drive gives a more team oriented Star Trek feel and UW felt to me very much like Firefly. As long as your archetypes, space battles, shady deals, and gunfights feel different, then sharing the dice mechanics is no obstacle at all.
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This aligns nicely with my previous design goal of refining UW’s setting and themes, so yeah. Good to keep in mind.
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Career Moves (yet again)
After scrapping a lot of the core mechanics (the whole advantage/disadvantage system, etc), I spent a lot of time doing the design equivalent of plucking away at guitar strings. Not really playing anything, just “noodling”. Ended up listening to the Gauntlet Podcasts, and I gotta say, it really give me a lot to work with. It made me go back and really re-examine my Career Moves, which are genre- and archetype-defining elements that will shape the whole game.
I ended up overhauling a lot of them, re-shaping them, and bringing them to a place where I’m much more happy with how they play and what they can do. The big change was to make sure all the results created more narrative. It seems like a “duh” thing to say, but it’s amazing how easily one can create a Move with a result that’s simply “You now get [a bonus] to [a type of action]”, without any narrative change, without any real resolution.
One big thing that I implemented here (that I haven’t seen elsewhere, as far as I know), is the concept of the Double Trigger. Basically, each career is linked to a combination of two stats (there are 5 stats, thus 10 two-stat combinations, one for each career. It’s clean. I like it.) Each career’s Move has two ways to trigger it, which calls on one of the two different stats. For example, the Personality Move “Impress” reads like this:
IMPRESS – Personality Move
When you dazzle people with stunning charisma and raw appeal, Roll+Influence.
When you impose your presence through intimidation and authority, Roll+Force.On a 10+, you are treated with absolute respect and awe. They hesitate to offend or oppose you. They want to be on your good side and act in ways they think you’d like.
On a 7-9, choose 1. They could still be useful.
- They are wary and closed. They are jealous of you.
- They are sycophantic and smarmy. They want to use you.
- They are clingy and annoying. They are smitten with you.
On a 6-, you pushed too far, and have earned their lasting animosity.
While the three sets of results are the same, as written, the context and method that triggered the Move will also have a profound effect on the way the Move plays out.
So when creating a character, choosing your strong and weak stats will also open different avenues to interact with the same Move. It also allows two characters to share a career while not stepping on each others toes. A Commercial Personality who focuses on Influence will have a very different way of using Impress than a Military Personality who leverages Force.
I’ve uploaded all 10 Career Moves HERE, I would love to get feedback on which Moves pique your interest, which Moves feel clunky or un-fun, any thoughts/critiques are very appreciated.
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Newly arrieved here and recently bought the books, and I am happy to see that a 2nd edtion is in the works, and so fare, you are doing a great job.
And I think this really would work well with the nature you have infused into Uncharted Worlds with it’s flexible character creation.
The first edition made some moves unappealing to certain types and career depending on their stats which gave a sense of “wasted space/I have no use for this”. But having an option that broadens it would lessen this greatly.
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