[SIGNAL ACQUIRED]
[DECRYPTING]
[TRANSMISSION BEGINS]
Hello again, faithful readers! After a year of hiatus to deal with my son, work, and attending University, Glass Shadows is back on track and barreling toward publication at a breakneck pace. In the last two weeks, we’ve completed the background setting material, completely re-written the character generation chapter, simplified some of the Boon trees, and started work on the Gamemastering chapter, which is now the last unfinished chapter.
The new background material includes an overview of how the world got the way it is, a detailed timeline from 2018 to 2112 (Present day for Glass Shadows), and a detailed look at the ECILAL Sprawl, which covers almost the entire east coast of the United States. Following that is a close look at other locations in the United States and around the world, including one in orbit! We’ve also included details regarding the technology prevalent in 2112 and the lifestyles of the rich and famous, as well as the scum that live on the streets.
We redesigned Character Generation for the dynamic network play-style to take between 10 and 15 minutes for each Operator. Gameplay is now focused more heavily on the Players, giving them the responsibility of selecting and defining Operations, gathering their group of Operatives together and interacting with each other and the world. The Gamemaster works with the players to create memorable characters and operations. As the players create their network, the Gamemaster is given tools to highlight the characters’ specific strengths, and drive interaction in the adventure to come.
The Boon trees involved with Cybernetics and Genetic Augmentation received a major overhaul, to give control that is more creative to players regarding what specific cybernetics they may have, and adding additional weight to the bonuses they receive mechanically. This required an overhaul of all of the character generation packages and Kits that used cybernetics or genetic augmentation. In the process, we also redesigned the packages to ensure that every one of them had options for cyber or genetics.
We’ll talk more about what we’ve done and provide some samples of actual text for you over the next few weeks.
[TRANSMISSION ENDS]
