[This is a minorly edited version of an update posted to my Patreon—please subscribe there for more updates about Hero Revolution, my other TTRPGs, and my poetry and fiction writing as well!]

Hello, all! 

I wanted to share some of the design process behind the mechanics of Hero Revolution and the base system I'll be using for it and the other games I'm working on parallel to it, because I've been inspired lately with regard to its progress on paper, and I want to give you all a better sense of how some of the moving parts interact with each other. 

The system, presently being referred to in text as the Loom system, has a number of very key parts to its play that are modifications or addons to its Forged in the Dark skeleton. One of them is the interplay between two rival spaces. Here are some snippets of what the Hero Revolution draft says about risk, which is the main mechanic which represents this in play: 

This game is about the complicated interplay between two states—the normalcy of living in a peaceful, idyllic city, and the strange new power that has emerged in attempt to subdue and dominate it. That relationship is abstractly illustrated in the game through a number known as the risk.

Whenever you attempt a roll of any kind, your goal is to have multiple dice roll a number equal or lower than the risk number, which is typically a number between 2 and 5.

The risk represents the relationship between the mundane and more peculiar realms that you simultaneously inhabit. One is always attempting to claim more power than the other, and due to your actions, the actions of NPCs, and the consequences of events, the dynamic between the two can shift easily.

The risk number is represented as a continuum between the Mortal world and the Masked world, with the normal world being at one end of the line and the peculiar world at the other end. Imagine it sort of like a tug-of-war that both sides are playing with a seven-foot length of rope; if one side gains more power, they take up more space on the continuum, which in turn changes the amount of influence each world has. So if the normal world is struggling to maintain control, its risk number will decrease—sort of like the other world beating them in that tug-of-war, controlling more of that rope, becoming more real and more powerful.

What Risk Does 

The thing that matters most to me in the development in this system is giving room for faction-level world conflict that are larger than the intentions of one or two NPCs. In this system, your actions have the capacity to impact the growth and maintenance of entire spaces—both the world you knew before the action and the weird new space that you are now learning of are fighting for the right to be real, and every action you or any of your allies and enemies take are essentially exerting your will on them both, insisting which one of them should take up more space in the moment. 

There are many mechanical implications for this that I would like to touch on in the future (if you want to see what the draft looks like so far, you can learn more by subscribing to my Patreon), but the intersection of mechanical and narrative result of this is that you witness the ebb and flow of tangible reality as a result of the conflict between these two worlds. Think of Stranger Things, where the more the Upside Down exerts control over Hawkins the more visible its effects become to the locals. (For my fellow Rider nerds, a good example would be Kamen Rider Gaim, where the slow encroachment of Helheim's vines on the city of Zawame becomes more prominent as more people actively seek its power. Yes, that's a Rider series reference. Yes, if you knew that reference I expect you to put a mandarin emoji in the comments.) 

Why Roll Dice This Way? 

This mechanic seems to inherently ask a bit more focus from the facilitator than most other games (hopefully not too much--I'd love to hear comments from others about it, especially as I hope to get this ready for playtesting soon). If an element of what decides your success is always in narrative flux, what might that potentially add to the experience? 

I wanted that state of flux to trickle down into the ways in which you actually resolve actions in game to add a bit of (but not too much) tension to your actions. Each realm's Risk Number is essentially an indicator of which actions are easier, and therefore imply a kind of narrative challenge to the player: do you want to make the more effective decision to keep performing actions that the world won't fight you on, knowing that those actions empower that world and further disrupt the balance between them both, or do you want to do something more balancing knowing it would incur a little more challenge from you? And the game has its own consequences and rewards based on which you take, especially if you choose to complicate those rolls further (using other mechanics I will chat about at another time). 

I am aiming for creating that rewarding experience of taking a chance on an action because you may not be good at it but you're in a situation where the world is literally on your side, or because it is a bit more risky but you trust your capacity to hit the mark. I'm also really inspired by the fact that the mechanical feedback from that is that even the tiniest action you take in the world has the potential to literally change it, and you are compelled to do so whether it is deliberately to bring about a kind of specific but intense change or to maintain the equilibrium between two warring conditions. The game encourages you to want to find the reason why you are in this world and engage with it--and even challenge it on your own terms--deeply and often. While the character playbooks are far from complete at the moment, the grounding intent of their design is to interact with the narrative implications of risk: to ask yourself often what kind of world you want to live in, and how your actions can make it so, even at the risk of other things that only its counterpart-world can offer you. 

I'll have more to share about this and other parts soon, but I hope you're as excited about this mechanic as I am! If you want to support the development of this game in real time before it comes out, and get more updates about its progress, the best way to do so is to support me via Patreon or Ko-Fi. Another good way to keep me on track to work on this game is to buy my other Itch content and comment on the games you have played!

Talk again soon! 

Best, 
Brandon