SYNAPSE

Stretch Goal #4 Unlocked!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 02:15:02 PM

Hello again to all of you!

More good news today as we've knocked down another stretch goal :)

I'm very excited to unlock this goal because I have lots of fantastic plans already in place for all these adventures. This will now bring the total number of adventures in the core book to 6. How will these adventures work and what do they contain? Let me give you an idea...

Each of the adventures in the core book are designed to accommodate 2-3 sessions of play (at a typical 3 hour session time). They each contain information setting up the adventure, hooks to get the players involved, associated references to any required enemies or other information spread throughout the book, different ways the adventure can be resolved, and how it can affect the game world moving forward. They will also each contain between 2-3 fully fleshed out NPC's. For those of you backing the project at the Kitchen Sink level, its some of these NPC's that will be designed after you!

The adventures are also made in such a way that you can pick and choose what ones you want to play, randomly plugging them into a campaign you are already running, or they can be run back to back as their own entire campaign which by its end will have introduced your players to a majority of what the game world currently has to offer.

The first adventure begins as an introduction to the game with the players navigating the SYNAPSE world, what living in that world means for the characters, and how they choose to deal with society and their place within it. Further adventures have them running afoul of Authority, being introduced to the underground network of Cloak, diving into the conspiracies of the Stickmen, Being confronted by the horrors of the Flesh Benders, and now with this new unlocked goal... travelling into the Elsewhere.

Each one of these adventures is sure to be a wild ride for your characters, and I can't wait for you to play them. But that's not all I'm excited about... our next stretch goal unlocks a dossier of fully constructed NPC's just waiting for you to toss them into your game world!

More details on that one when we near it or knock it down, which at this rate shouldn't be long. We're now entering our final week of the Kickstarter campaign, lets get all these smashed out :)

Chat soon.

-Nick

Let's talk Temporal Disruptions
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 11:48:57 AM

Good morning everyone,

I hope we all had good weekends. Saturday & Sunday are typically a little slower as far as bringing in backers but we did really good and have made it half way to our next stretch goal. We're also now into the final third of the campaign. Things are looking great!

But I'm not here to talk about any of that. I'm here to talk about Temporal Disruptions.

The more I work on this aspect of the game system, the more it becomes one of my favorites. What are Temporal Disruptions you ask? Let's find out!

As psionic powers are used by characters, npc's, and enemies, those powers pull from the fabric of reality to be made real. The Hivemind (Game master) will keep track of this on a handy little sheet that can be printed from the core book, and as certain thresholds are hit, a roll must be made to see how reality is temporarily altered. These rolls are done on a D66 chart, something that should be familiar to most people who have played a D6 RPG system in the past. And these disruptions fall into 3 separate categories, Minor, Major, and Severe.

Minor Temporal Disruptions - are the first phase of reality unraveling itself and are often small, barely noticeable changes like something changing color, random sounds or smells, flickering lights, or the movement of a small item. Often these small disruptions are the first warning system players can use to know that they are nearing areas of increased psionic activity. They also become fun little narrative points.

Major Temporal Disruptions - these are much more noticeable and physically alter the world around the players in game changing ways. They include things like minor time alteration, ball lightning, changes in gravity, spontaneous combustion of nearby items, and small ruptures leading to the Elsewhere. Temporal Disruptions like these take a large amount of psionic expenditure and are typically only seen in places of conflict, and as such those conflicts because incredibly unique opportunities for roleplay.

Severe Temporal Disruptions - are exactly as they sound. Rolling on this table will bring creatures into existence that should not be, create voids in time, rip large holes to the Elsewhere, cause reality to pull from the life force of nearby creatures to repair itself, cause instantaneous aging, and dozens more things that should be impossible. These levels of disruption are rare, and not to be trifled with.

Each of the above levels of Temporal Disruptions have their own D66 chart, meaning that regardless of what level you are rolling for, there are 36 different outcomes for each. For the Hivemind this is a fantastic tool to create opportunities for roleplay, and for players it will constantly keep them on their toes as things happen that they just can't plan for. 

Yes psionic powers have the capacity to turn a group into something beyond powerful, but using that power too much and too often can lead to some unexpected results.

That's it for now! We'll talk soon about how the adventures work once we knock down this next stretch goal :)

Take care.

-Nick

Stretch Goal #3 Unlocked
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 11:21:45 AM

Happy Friday everyone :)

Let's end the week off right with some more good news, we've unlocked our 3rd stretch goal!

There's nothing better than having new and fun baddies to toss into the path of your characters when the need arises. And now we'll have 3 more to add to an already BIG assortment! Enemies in SYNAPSE are loosely divided into three categories. 

There's your "mundane" enemies, who are like your common street thugs, beat cops on Authority's payroll, and your nosy neighbour just waiting to rat you out for lifting your car with nothing but your mind to get the keys you dropped under it. The usual's, and we've already got plenty of those so we won't waste this stretch goal on adding anymore there.

Our next group of enemies we've temporarily tossed under the title of "advanced". These enemies are a much larger challenge with more tools at their disposal to ruin your day. Think Authority PSI Hunters, The Stickmen, and Unhinged Psionosist's. Sticking any enemy from this grouping in the path of your players is sure to ramp up the tension, and at least one of our new additions will end up here.

Lastly are the enemies labelled as "otherworldly". These are the ones who defy explanation, and generally come from, or are touched by, the Elsewhere. They include things like the Flesh Benders, Husk Walkers, and Mind Eaters. These enemies pose the most dire threat in the world of SYNAPSE, and we'll definitely be adding to them with this stretch goal.

But we're not done here, there's plenty of awesome things ahead!

The next stretch goal unlocks another entire adventure in the core book so let's make it happen! I'll talk more about how all the adventures will be laid out, and what's included in them as we get closer to hitting the mark.

As always, thanks for all the amazing support, and enjoy your weekend!

-Nick

The Dreaded Middle
over 2 years ago – Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 03:45:17 AM

Morning everyone!

We're just over the half way point of the Kickstarter campaign and into the part I like to call "the Dreaded Middle". It's here where the campaign page is buried in the middle of tons of other projects and it's just more difficult to get eyes on it. But we're still in a great position!

Luckily we're still slowly moving towards our 5k stretch goal and we have a few other things working in our favor to get ourselves across some more benchmarks in the days ahead. There's currently just shy of 400 people already waiting to be alerted when the project hits its final 48 hours, if we even pick up a small percentage of these fine folk to our cause that will give us a nice boost as we pass the finish line. Until that point though we have ads running across multiple social media platforms, and we try to do as much community outreach as we can each and every day. 

Being a very small indie game dev I can't exist without people taking a chance on me and my vision, and for that I humbly thank each and every one of you who have backed the project so far. Even if you've just looked at it, I appreciate the time you've given.

Anyone who knows how I operate also knows that even if we don't hit certain thresholds to unlock things, if I think its vital and will make the game better, I'll put it in there. So have no fear, you'll get the best version of SYNAPSE that I can create for you!

Fingers crossed the next update is stretch goal related :)

Take care, chat soon

-Nick

Next Stretch Goal in Sight!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 08:45:05 AM

Morning everyone,

I hope we all had a good weekend, maybe some of you even got to chuck some dice with friends! This mornings update is just a quick check in with some fun new info.

We find ourselves here on Monday morning with the 5k stretch goal only a couple hundred dollars from unlocking itself which is very exciting. For anyone that forgot, it will add 3 New Enemies to the core rulebook for your players to run afoul of.

We've also updated the stretch goal graphic (shown below) to show two additional stretch goals. Once the enemies and new adventure get unlocked we have the NPC Portfolio, and Expanded Lore sections ready and waiting in the wings. Both of these will add a significant amount of information to the SYNAPSE rulebook for you to utilize while running game sessions. We're crossing our fingers and toes that we get there!

As always thank you for all the amazing support, we'll keep doing everything we can to get additional eyes on the project each and every day.

Take care

-Nick