Joining up with Patreon has enabled me to get money for making games, which is kind of magic, I think. However, those games need playtesting, and that’s where you come in.
ONE LAST JOB
My current project is called One Last Job, and it’s a game based around reminiscing about a past that never actually existed. You and the other characters are ageing professionals pulled together for One Last Job; you start the game with a blank character sheet, and everything is filled in by other players. Your name, your abilities, your equipment, your secret shame, everything. This is done through telling anecdotes about the good old days and establishing facts about the other characters.
For example, another player really miffs a gunfighting roll. You flip one of their dice to a success, meaning that they now pass, and say “Man, that was lucky. I haven’t seen you shoot like that since you lost an eye in a knife-fight with your ex-wife.” That player succeeds this time, but… well, now they’ve only got one eye, shooting things in future is going to be significantly harder. Also, they’re divorced. Also, their ex-wife was a psycho. Maybe it was one of the other player characters?
You can use it to tell stories about: professional thieves, cyberpunk criminals, wild west desperadoes, fantasy adventurers, apocalypse survivors, and inquisitorial acolytes. At least, those are the ones I’ve written setting info for in this edition; I reckon you could tell a cracking story about regency ladies, too, or WW2 commandos, or pulp adventurers, or modern-day monster hunters. Anything where there’s a mission and a crew of desperate people willing to do it.
By the end of the game you should have complete characters, finished the mission – or fucked it up beyond all recognition – and worked out just what happened that pushed all of you out of the game in the first place.
PLAYTEST
If you want to playtest One Last Job within the next month with your gaming group, wherever you are – it’s a one-shot game, and it should take about two to three hours to play – then drop me an email. I’ll probably be running a couple of sessions myself in Sydney, but I appreciate that’s not an easy trip for most folk who’ll read this.
(Also! I need art for the final release. If you know of anyone who could kick out a couple of black and white drawings for $60 US – or, indeed, you are that person, then drop me a line. It’s half of what I’m paid to write the damn thing, which I feel is about fair.)
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