Current Progress and Current Issues

Hey y'all! First real post of the year and it's time for some actual content.

I've made a lot of progress on the game so far, given that I started only a week ago. The Introduction is written (albeit badly), and the Character Creation, General Rules, and Combat chapters are polished enough for a first draft. All that's left now are Magic, Wilderness Exploration, and Creatures.

So far, the game runs a lot like Brighter Worlds without the Callings, and maybe with a teensy bit of additional combat strategy. Adding a sort of zone-of-control feature felt like a good choice, which will help get encounters to be a bit more strategic overall (we'll get to that when we do the Creatures chapter).

I'm currently working on the Magic section, where I've got spell-based magic (known as jādu), potion magic (known as... potion magic, sadly), and boons. Jādu is easy to design, it's very similar to Cairn or Brighter World's base magic systems. Potion magic is a looming wall of dread seeing as I have no idea what I want out of it or how I plan to make it work (there'll probably be a post about that), and boons are a second, larger looming wall of dread in which I know what I want and can forsee no easy way of getting it accomplished via game mechanics.

 Future problems aside, let's talk about the current ones.

 

1. Assumptions of Familiarity

Very quickly, one of the biggest problems I ran into was that this game was "too Indian." Now, this wouldn't be a problem usually, but this is my first time making RPG content that isn't meant for my table, meaning that I'm trying to communicate ideas based on my experiences and positionalities to people who don't have them.

In simpler terms, I make assumptions on what people know and imagine about South Asia and Hinduism that they might not make.

In today's earlier post I wrote that the game was influenced by Raji. To most people, that would mean nothing! I also write (in the game's PDF) that the game is based on the Konkan region of Maharashtra and Goa. What does that mean for the Westerners reading it? I make assumptions about what people might know about the Konkani climate or geography, about Hindu stories and beliefs, and about familiarity with the region as a whole. Since I'm producing content for a different demographic, I need to start removing those assumptions from my head and filling those gaps so they can enjoy playing through the stories I grew up in in the way that I do.

So now I'm walking a fine line. Too desi, too much Marathi language, too many assumptions, and the people I'm writing for won't be able to enjoy these stories. On the other hand, if I walk the path too safe, don't include Marathi words, and whitewash things, the game just isn't what it was meant to be.

2. Origins

On a completely unrelated note, let's talk about race! Specifically, race in fantasy RPGs, and by race, I mean species. My very first draft of Jangli included four origins, my less connotation-heavy race stand-ins: humans, ardhāsuras (half-demons), vānaras (monkey-like people), and yakshas (fey). On my second run, I've cut ardhāsuras because having demon players in the game about killing evil demons wasn't a smart move. I added nāgas (half-snake people) to replace them.

Now, the problems I'm currently trying to solve are 1. Why? and 2. How do I get people to play humans?

For the first question, I knew I wanted to do origins because I have always loved the idea of dwarf clerics and elf rangers and all in my fantasy games, and because I was really excited to include vānaras especially, due to my love for the Rāmāyan (for reference: vānaras feature heavily in the Rāmāyan, including one of my favorite gods, Hanumān). To make the whole Origin business feel less like a choice between human and vānar and more like a typical race-pick in a fantasy game, I added two more options. I'm still not sure if that's sound enough reasoning to include Origins though, or if they just muddle up the game too much from the get go.

This leads me into my next question. If I have four Origins, and one of them is human and the other three are really cool Hindu creatures, what's stopping people from just playing the really cool Hindu creatures? Do I even want people to be playing yakshas and nāgas? I feel like nāgas being all snake-like in the lower half makes maneuvering terrain pretty complicated, and giving players the option to literally be the fey but not giving them any bonuses for it feels strange and like a cheat. Ultimately, I don't see what's stopping everyone from shunning the human in a game where I imagined a party of mostly humans with maybe 1 or 2 magical origins.

Honestly, I don't know what to do there. This post is about my problems so far, so yeah, it's not solved yet. If anyone has any advice, I'd gladly chat with you about it!

 

Final Thoughts (sorry I had to do it)

Since I didn't mention this in the introductory post, I would love to talk with y'all about anything I write here, and really anything at all! If you've found your way onto this blog, you're probably a really cool person with opinions on the stuff I have opinions (and questions) on. I really love discussing things with people, so feel free to shoot me a DM on discord (#ashvg) if you have thoughts.