Supernatural Threats: The False Majooj
over 1 year ago – Tue, Aug 01, 2023 at 04:16:50 PM

We collected the bodies from the battlefield, dug a hole that was 30 fathoms long and 4 fathoms deep. We laid them in there, but as it was late, we covered half of the hole with earth and left the other half until the morning. We placed a sentry and it turned out that one of the dead clambered out of the hole at night and was found sitting on the edge of the grave, while some others had been turning, because they hadn't been killed, just wounded and shocked by explosions of heavy shells. This happens quite often.' - Letter from an unnamed Russian soldier during the first World War. [from Anthony Beevor's Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921]

What is the False Ma'jooj

As with all Supernatural Threats in Guns Blazing, there are two answers.

In fiction: The Ma'Jooj are a new type of creature emerging from industrialized warfare. They claw their way free from mass graves, corpse-strewn craters, and the cities reduced to rubble. Emerging amidst gore and death, they lead armies of Restitched: humans brutally stitched to their equipment as living war machines. 

They are an image of death in the modern age: Grey steel, battered flesh, and tattered uniforms, devouring everything within reach until starved or put down like a mad dog.

Narratively: The Ma'jooj embody of industrial warfare as a machine that uses people as parts. A machine with no purpose save endless, ruinous destruction.  It takes people and renders them interchangeable cogs in military operations: Swapping limbs as if they were equipment, stitching weapons to their bodies as if they were vehicles, and expending them as if they were ammunition.

It also represents a fundamental change in how war is fought. The massive weight and all-consuming violence of industrialized total warfare, changing the very nature of armed conflict irrevocably. A conflict that must be fought, must be opposed, but must be done with the tools that created it or else it will devour you and anyone else it can reach.

A History of the Ma'jooj

In Islam, Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj are a sign of the apocalypse. Described variably as a race of monsters or just deeply unpleasant people, they will emerge from their eternal prison in an endless tide, devouring all in their path, filling the heavens with missiles and seeing them return to earth drenched in blood. They are characterized by endless, ceaseless hunger, cannibalism, and violence.

They're broadly analogous to Gog and Magog in Judaism and Christianity. Though I'm not particularly familiar with those versions of the tale, and research is plagued by apocalyptic would-be theocrats spouting garbage, so I'm not going to pretend they're a particular influence here.

Yajooj and Majooj aren't portrayed often in media. Even the Muslim apocalyptic cranks who host sites detailing them, or insisting that current political events are them, often slap text over images of Orcs and call it a day.

Guns Blazing's approach instead takes heavily from factions like Star Trek's Borg, Quake's Strogg, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. It uses the mechanisms of repurposing and mechanizing human bodies to represent how modern war treats people. To portray a fundamental, horrific shift in how wars are fought.

The Ma'jooj in Your Game

The Ma'jooj are a straightforward and brutal foe. They have no allies, no negotiating, no complicating relationships across the lines of battle. Total war has no masters, merely those who lose more to its all-hungering maw, and those who lose less.

As such, player interactions with the Ma'jooj tend to be straightforward. Whether it's the main foe in a campaign or an emerging problem in a larger conflict, there's no negotiating with, subverting, or getting perks themed from the Ma'jooj. There's only violence.

You kill them, or they kill you.

As an enemy, False Ma'jooj are split into two categories. The Ma'jooj and the Restitched.

The Ma'jooj themselves are towering, durable killing machines. Born of death, they are sharp-edged parodies of the humanoid form, growing armor plates, grenades, and weapons of all stripe from their skin. No Ma'jooj have the Pawn or Shah roles: Even the Shrapnel-born, least of their number, are killing machines comparable with light walkers or armored cars. Their skin resists small-arms, they can pull weapons from their own flesh, rip men in half, and each and every one of them is a skilled surgeon.

Fortunately, they're relatively rare.

More common are their victims, the Restitched. 

The Restitched were living creatures captured by the Ma'jooj, cut apart, and reassembled into a variety of warforms. They range from domesticated animals turned into living alarm systems, to infantryforms with guns stitched to their torsos, to tortured agglomerations of many people, made to command formations or pilot large vehicles.

The Restitched are still living things. They bleed, breathe, and eat, though all thought excess to their purpose has been cut away from their tortured minds. They're designed like military equipment, tailored towards a given task or set of tasks, and everything extraneous to that cut away.

Mechanically, Restitched are skilled but extremely specialized. Most Restitched infantryforms, for example, have had jaws, tongues, and at least one arm removed, replaced with metal prosthetics so the limbs can be used elsewhere. Restitched Controllers, meanwhile, are dedicated command forms. They can neither move without assistance nor defend themselves, as these are extraneous to their purpose.

No restitched are Ferz, and most have no weapons unsuited to their chosen role. A dedicated sniper or gunner has no sidearm for enemies that get close, a dedicated room-clearer has nothing accurate beyond short range. Additionally, they tend to be fairly poorly armored, as even the most impressive Restitched is fundamentally disposable.

July Update: Life Happened. Also: Major Narrative Rewrites
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 11:26:18 AM

So sorry for the radio silence. Had some wild life developments over the last few weeks that, alongside some playtesting results, delayed me. I should have dropped an update in regardless, and I apologize for the delay.

Life Update?

Can't talk about it yet. It's personal, not professional, but it shouldn't cause a longterm delay.

Playtesting Results?

This news is worse:

I deeply dislike how the game functions outside of combat at the moment. I think the clocks work fine, but current guidance on clock length is too generous, it's too disconnected from what happens in combat and missing impetus to bring the game together thematically and mechanically. I thought the unreleased faction rules would fix that.

They didn't!

So now we're going back to more extensive rewrites which are delaying...quite a bit, to be honest. I'm hoping to be back on track for the expected release dates, issues like this are factored into the development time, but We'll See.

Stress, Cycles of Play, and Flying Circus

There's a pretty excellent roleplaying game called Flying Circus by Erika Chappell. It's my favorite nominally-PBTA game, and if you like biplanes (And are an adult), you should check it out.

At the core of Flying Circus' gameplay loop, meant to encourage the irresponsible, self-destructive lifestyles lived by many period pilots. Going on missions gets you stress, which you need to blow off in town to avoid catastrophe, but your main ways to vent stress are self destructive vices of various sorts. You can build and maintain healthy options, but it's difficult. Stress will often encourage you to move between towns to outrace the consequences of your actions, keeping you from putting down too many roots.

This system is really effective at shaping Flying Circus' play cycle. So, when I went back to basics for the narrative phase, I decided to look at it for inspiration.

By inspiration, of course, I mean I have ripped it off pretty shamelessly and will be crediting Erika in the final book.

Stress in Guns Blazing

Alright, I admit, the ripoff isn't completely shameless.

While Stress is great as a way to propel and tie together the game, the dynamic of revolutionaries, freedom fighters, and insurgents is a very different one to that of fighter pilots. It's less hedonistic and far more likely to stick with a specific location and its associated NPCs.

Instead, Stress serves to model the trials and tribulations of irregular combatants in the period. The combination of trauma, combat stress, and political struggles that causes freedom fighters to make mistakes, independence movements to hurt innocents, and international brigades to collapse into infighting.

As such, here's how Stress works in Guns Blazing at time of writing:

During Character Creation, you pick Stress Triggers. Two of these come from your playbook, the rest you choose from a pre-selected list. Whenever you hit a trigger, you gain a Stress. Some moves, enemies, and other mechanics can also cause you to gain Stress.

While you have more than 3 Stress, you suffer additional complications on rolls you can't apply a skill to. While you have more than 6 Stress, you suffer additional complications on all rolls. These complications represent actions taken or elements overlooked because of the stress you're under. Ie. snapping at a friend or lover, overlooking a poor element of a deal, or missing a detail while under pressure. If you hit 10 Stress, you make a catastrophic mistake, progressing the Campaign Clock, damaging a positive Bond, and erasing 3 Stress.

During the narrative phase, you can spend campaign ticks clearing Stress. You can also take take Consequences when invoking an Aspect clear 1 Stress instead of gaining any mechanical benefit.

We're Getting Minis
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 12:12:49 AM

First things first: 85% of you have completed your surveys! This is great, but if you haven't, remember to complete it ASAP. I can't send you your rewards if you don't have a finished survey. If you haven't received the email, use this link to get one.

With that in mind:

The Minis

I've wanted to commission minis for Guns Blazing since I had the idea for the project. The game's tactical focus warrants minis for in-person play, but the nature of the setting meant that there are...enormous holes in a theoretical miniature line. 

Designs like Iramite fungiforms, more obscure Jinn, and Majooj are completely unrepresented.  Players and figures from nations that didn't exist historically would warrant their own uniforms, and extant miniature lines tend to focus on the colonizers rather than the colonized.

So getting a remotely satisfying miniature line for Guns Blazing would mean, well, making it myself.

Fortunately, I know a guy.

Obadiah Hampton is a member of the local wargaming scene who's created custom models for local tournaments and events before. He's a really skilled sculptor, and the moment he mentioned he'd be willing to create some sculpts, I knew I was in good hands.

And what hands they were!

This little turntable gives you a good look at our first mini: The Sporeling!

As the most basic Iramite fungiform, the Sporeling was a clear pick for the first mini to make. Any Iramite force in the RPG, or colonial empire in the wargame, will see entire squads of Sporelings pop out of destroyed units and slain foes. Its cane toad back and hexapodal, lizard-like gait are distinctive, and the design is simple enough to make a good testing ground, giving me some idea as to if I want more of these in the future.

I am beyond thrilled at how it turned out. 

The model nails some impressively fine detail for those with fine resin and powerful printers, and still looks good with more durable resins instead.  I'm in love with the little tendril of drool, and look forward to making this available for folks.

Future Models

The goal is to commission one model from each starting wargame faction and supernatural threat, each representing something you can't really get anywhere else. At current time the planned models are:
British: The Iramite Sporeling, completed above. The most basic Iramite fungiform.
Majooj: The Restitched Cog, one of their basic infantry units.
Basilisk: The Iconoclast, one of their mid-range monstrous infantry.
Atom: The Ash Ghul, one of their Jinn elites.
Green Banner: The Hinn Revolutionary, one of their basic infantry units.
Mysore: The Bandoqchi, one of their elite infantry units.
After the first few STLs are designed, this part of the project aims to become self-funding: New STLs are commissioned whenever the existing STLs fund them. I'll also talk a bit more about what I'm hoping to accomplish with the STLs as they roll out.

Getting the STL

The STL wasn't part of the Kickstarter campaign: I wasn't sure if the final product would be print worthy while the campaign was ongoing and preferred to underpromise and overdeliver rather than the other way around. Once I've done some final checks, I'll be adding it to the pre-order store, and everyone who backed at the Complete Package or higher will get the Sporeling STL for free.

Otherwise, the STLs will be available for digital download in a week or two. Additionally, I'm chatting with some local 3D print shops so folks can purchase printed models directly. Once we've got more designs ready, I'll also set up a commercial print license in case you want to sell official Guns Blazing minis.

Roles for Friend and Foe
over 1 year ago – Tue, May 23, 2023 at 04:13:18 PM

Surveys have been mildly delayed: I made some mistakes in initial setup and it's taken a few days for Backerkit staff to walk me through fixing it. However, the smoketest is out, so about 20 of you should have received the surveys to make sure everything is working properly. Once twe've confirmed that nothing's gone horribly wrong, the rest will go out.

 Until then, let's talk combat roles and playbooks!

A Brief Overview of Combat Roles

Combat Roles are a way to classify who does what in a fight. They can be formal or informal, and may or may not have actual in game effects,  instead their primary role is to ensure that different units in armies, player parties, and hostile encounters are actually filling a niche and bringing something new to the formation as a whole. Done well, this results in a mixed-role formation that is both more interesting and more effective than a mono-role equivalent.

The traditional MMO trifecta (Tank, Healer, DPS), for example, is meant to ensure that someone's managing hostile aggro, someone's keeping the group alive, and someone's actually taking out hostiles. It's an easy way to sort players and ensure you have a group that's at least theoretically able to approach content.

In wargames, roles are generally based off of battlefield position or historical orders of battle. 40K has roles based loosely on ORBATs, with Headquarters, line troops, elite units, fast skirmishers, and heavy support units, but what precisely qualifies a unit for any of those roles can vary by army. Infinity's roles are nominally based on the role of a unit in the army's composition (Mercenary, Line, Veteran, Headquarter, Special Training) or equipment (LI, MI, HI, REM, TAG), but the roles judged by players are informal based on what they're going to do in game: Rambo, skirmisher, ARO piece, and their ilk.

In RPGs, you have the additional complication that player characters and enemies work on very different rules and narrative roles. Their roles don't necessarily map onto each other, and roles are much more often informal than formal. Importantly, classes and playbooks are distinct from roles: Classes can have overlapping roles, or a single class might be able to fulfill multiple roles.

The archetypical example of combat roles in RPGs comes with D&D 4e. Player classes are separated into Controller, Defender, Leader, and Striker, while enemies actually have two axes of roles: Their specialization and their seniority. In addition to being Artillery, Brutes, Controllers, Lurkers, Skirmishers, and Soldiers, enemies could also be Minions, Elites, Leaders, or Solos. 

(This is also basically how Lancer approaches its combat roles. The roles are a bit more symmetrical, but secretly some of those Monster roles are basically just subdivisions of player roles, so it converts fine)

Designing Combat Roles in Guns Blazing

Guns Blazing's combat roles are shaped by the need to genre-emulate first person shooters:

A role like Striker or DPS just doesn't make much sense. It's a shooter, everyone should be lethal in combat for both verisimilitude and genre emulation. Similarly, I didn't want in-combat healing to be a true specialty, and supernatural elements are being kept far away from broad role design.

That quickly meant that combat roles were looking much more like wargame roles than traditional RPG roles. They were based more on your ideal position in a squad and on the battlefield, the maneuvering niche you'd prefer to exploit. And that brought me back to Chess.

I played Chess a lot as a kid. I was in my Madrasa chess club, played in tournaments, and was generally mediocre at it. However, I really loved the game and enjoyed chess history, especially its origins in Shatranj.

Even if it wasn't a 1-to-1 match, it'd be a really cool naming convention and fit the game's positioning focus. So all the existing playbooks got assigned names based on pieces in Shatranj, I slapped the identity mechanics into place, and called the Roles finished.

Then playtesting started and the initial roles were A) too restrictive and B) not super interesting.

They limited playstyle too much and the unique perks they unlocked weren't grabbing player attention. When players talked about the character mechanics they were excited about, or that shaped how they played, it inevitably wasn't anything to do with their roles.

So, one more round of revisions. The role perks solidified into their current forms: They now defined one key aspect of play for the character and provide access to new perk options, but don't really restrict your options in play. You're rewarded for playing into the role, but you're not punished for leaving it. 

The Roles

Guns Blazing currently has six combat roles, three of which are available to player characters. Each is named after a piece in Shatranj, gives you a perk that defines how you clear conditions in combat, and lets you access perks that share its keyword. The player roles are:

Rook: Based on the Chariot in Shatranj and the Castle in Chess, the Rook encourages you to shape the battlefield to your advantage from relative safety. It provides the In Control perk, which lets you clear conditions by supporting your allies. It's associated with the Captain and Engineer playbooks, the game's command and demolition specialists.

Knight: Based on the Horse in Shatranj and the Knight in Chess, the Knight encourages moving quickly and getting entangled with the enemy. It provides the Into the Breach perk, which lets you clear conditions by injuring foes at close range. It's associated with the Vanguard and Butcher playbooks, the game's maneuver and melee specialists.

Elephant: Based on the Elephant in Shatranj and Bishop in Chess, the Elephant encourages methodical gameplay based around fortified positions and long fire lanes. It provides the Second Wind perk, which lets you clear conditions by directly spending stamina, but as it doesn't oppose hostile reactions you need to be safe when you use it. It's associated with the Artillery and Hunter playbooks, the game's heavy weapon and stealth sniper specialists. I am debating changing its name to 'Alfil' or 'Fil' and accepting the confusion, as both Elephant and Bishop are noticeably longer than the names of other game pieces and this annoys me.

This trifecta is less about how you contribute to the battle and more about where you contribute to the battle. Knights want high risk positions where they get in among the enemy and cause hell. Rooks don't want to expose themselves to fire, and work best in a pseudo-support position. Elephants want to find somewhere with good sightlines and heavy cover, destroy everything in line of sight, then find somewhere else with good sightlines and heavy cover.

Enemies also use these roles: Shocktroopers and trench raiders are Knights, machine gunners and snipers Elephants, and officers or mortar crew Rooks. However, Enemies also have their own roles with their own unique mechanics. These include:

Pawn: Based on Sarbaz in Shatranj and Pawns in Chess, the Pawn is disposable and common. Indeed, to fit the first person shooter genre, most of your enemies in Guns Blazing are Pawns. Pawns are defined by the Squad ability, which lets them work together for bonuses and functionally treat many Pawns as a single foe.  Pawns were originally mooted as a player role, where you'd play as multiple, more disposable folks, but I couldn't put together a version of it I was happy with and the remnants of that playbook became the Captain.

Ferz: Based on the Ferz in Shatranj and the Queen in Chess, the Ferz is a greedy combatant, either gaining strength from their allies or actively sabotaging them for their own gain. Vehicles and mechs, reliant on lighter infantry to keep threats away from their vulnerabilities, are often Ferz. So are the self-devouring horrors of the Basilisk or the mightiest Majooj, which disassemble their subordinates to augment themselves. Ferz are defined by the ability to spend resources from their allies in some fashion.

Shah: Based on the Shah in Shatranj and the King in Chess, the Shah is extremely vulnerable but makes other enemies more dangerous by their proximity. They're inspirational leaders, mission-critical VIPs, and the like. A Shah is defined by having at least one ability that does nothing for themself but supports an ally while being no more competent a combatant than a Pawn. 

Backerkit Surveys Soon
over 1 year ago – Fri, May 12, 2023 at 01:52:49 PM

Hey all, super short update:

Kickstarter just cleared the funds, which means the backerkit surveys should be headed out soon. This also means that production is about to boot up in earnest, so expect more frequent updates now that weve got the money.

Unfortunately the funds arrived while I'm out of town for business! I dont get home until Tuesday, so expect those surveys on the 19th.