I almost forgot to post an update for this week! Whoops!

• We're now up to 53 weapons & items in the gear catalog. Really been enjoying designing this stuff.
• Made some adjustments to the Tag system and removed a few status effects that felt redundant.
• Aaaaaalmost done with the last 3 classes. They need a little more refinement to round them out / make them feel cohesive.
• Refined the quick start rules.
• Up to 40 pages written on the playtest document. Been running into some writer's block.

Didn't get up to anything too crazy this week:

• Focused on the gear catalog, with 42 Weapons & Items designed. Was only planning on releasing 50 for the public playtest, but might do more.
• Started tinkering with boss stat blocks and game mechanics.
• Tinkered with a web-based map to make it easier to play games virtually, such as over Discord.
• Just received another of the finished illustrations.

Hey horror fans! I wanna talk about the Others, the monsters the GM gets to play against the party in The Veil is Torn. Each one is based upon an established horror trope, and each has a specific method for being defeated. I only have 4 thought up currently, and would like to have 6 for the full release, so if you have any ideas/suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Genre: Biological Horror

Monster: a sentient, parasitic fungus that mutates its victims.

Gameplay: zombie apocalypse. Players have...

I keep trying to come up with names for in-setting scary megacorps, only to discover there are companies with those very names already in existence...

Something, something "life imitating art", I guess.

Nothing too much to update ya'll on this week, but I have plenty of things moving behind the scenes:

• Redesigned how weapons function to make each category feel unique.
  • Melee can attack fleeing enemies without spending an action.
  • Firearms can aim outside their max range, but have disadvantage when doing so.
  • Spells cause you to gain Void, eventually eating into your health once your Void meter is full.
• Built out some standardized weapon keywords to add some sub-themes to...

So this week, I've been tinkering with the different categories of weapons that players can utilize. I wasn't happy with the original setup, so I'm completely redesigning... all of them, lol. And honestly, they feel better, at least conceptually. Nothing I have here is particularly revolutionary, but I feel like they now each have defined playstyles.

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Melee

High damage, but typically can only hit enemies adjacent to your miniature. Since you will often spend a turn closing the distance to your...

We've been making some progress this week! So far...

• Finished the Trinket system for player character creation
• Finished the Quirk system for player character creation
• Implemented better balance between Stress, Void, and Corruption meters
• Updated the digital character sheet to incorporate everything above
• 37 (total) pages written for the playtest document
• First draft of the book cover received (maybe you saw it in my earlier post :) )

Also, here is the link to...

It's been a slow week with little progress made. Worked on a lot of various things, but nothing actually finished...

• 3 artists hired. Finished artworks coming soon.
• Worked on Trinkets & Quirks for character creation. Almost done.
• Played around with some boss designs, just nothing of interest to show off.

TViT Dev Update 03

Making steady progress!

• 3 of 6 player classes refined and ready for public playtesting.
• Built the 1st draft of a website for The Veil is Torn! HTML is cool, but also I hate it at the same time (because I'm not good at it).
• Made some revisions to the web-based character sheet, and set it up within that website.
• 2 artists hired and in talks with a 3rd. First art piece is almost done!
• 33 (total) pages written for the playtest document.

One of the artists I'm working with sent me her initial drafts and dayumn. I'm excited for the final versions.

TViT Dev Update 02

Busy, busy, busy week over here, both at my day job as well as my game development projects. So what's changed this week?

• Tweaked some larger game system rules to make things easier for players to interact with. I'll have to go back and tweak some class-specific rules as a result, but oh well.
• Built the 1st draft of a digital character sheet that can run on your web browser! Will be a nice option for folks who don't want to manage a paper character sheet / weapons / items /...

There's a new stray cat living in my neighborhood- I've already encountered him several times while out for a walk or taking out the trash.

He's a friendly little guy who likes head scratches, and I'd love to take him, but I can already tell by his demeanor that he's likely happier living outdoors than he would be living inside. So I'll just settle for giving him scratches whenever I see him.

ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

Aging is the realization that Bionicles will simply never be as cool as they were in your child mind.

You only get to ride that high once.

TViT Dev Update 01

Okay, so the whole point of me blogging here is to track the progress I've made on my TTRPG... so how far have I gotten?

• 2/6 playable classes refined for playtesting purposes
• 41/150 weapons & items created
• 1 artist hired and in talks with a 2nd one
• 15 pages written for the playtest document

Perhaps I'm simply not the most creative person, but I've never been good at creating new characters from scratch. I've always been better using a writing prompt style - taking 2 or 3 character traits and mashing them together to see what kind of person that would be.

And that is exactly how character creation works in my upcoming TTRPG, The Veil is Torn. At the start of any new campaign, each player will get the chance to create a new Survivor (the term I use to refer to player characters). First,...

Why is it that (for me, at least) creative inspiration always seems to strike late at night?

I get home from work, decompress, and you would think that would be the perfect time. Nope. 11pm rolls around? I am now possessed with that creative spark and I've got 3 new ideas to implement into my game, working on it until 1am... and then I have to go back to my day job in the morning. Time for more caffeine.

Anyone else? Just me?

Reminder to my fellow creatives: perfect is the enemy of good.

You can always make improvements later.

In its current (draft) state, The Veil is Torn supports 3-7 players.

One player takes the role of the GM (Game Master). The remaining players take the role of Survivors.

The GM guides those Survivors through a scripted or freeform campaign, acting as a narrator and playing as The Other, the campaign's primary antagonist.

The Survivors each build their own character based upon a random Quirk and a random Trinket, then picking out a Class and selecting their starting equipment.

During...

Greetings everyone,

I'm Tom, the head of Root And Bone Gaming, a 1-man-and-2-cats indie game studio.

I'm currently working on publishing my first full game, a post-apocalyptic TTRPG titled The Veil is Torn. I'll be posting development updates and any random ramblings about game mechanics that need to escape my brain.

This place seems cool. \(ᵔᵕᵔ)/