Three Dollar Quill

Actually, you know what, let's actually go into some detail here before I throw myself into bed.

With Villeins of Tomorrow, I'm trying to comment on or reframe a lot of the aspects of pulp science fiction that didn't age well. To be a little more concrete than that, I am in favor, for now, of space battles where describing them sounds like being trapped in a kaleidoscope. Not a fan of ancient eugenically-manipulated ancestral lines of ultimate space narcs.

So I've got this idea of different factions representing different strands of pulp science fiction (construed somewhat broadly), and player characters who clash with these factions as a result of their weird, problematic aspects. What I want to get a handle on right now is, what do the player characters do? Both in the sense of "what kinds of objectives do they pursue?" and "what tools are they given to pursue those objectives?"

Putting it out like this, I guess the solution is to come up with a bunch of distinct character concepts, situate them within the pulp milieu, and see what feels right. One thing that it occurs to me I'll be doing a lot is figuring out which "strengths" are actually weaknesses, and vice versa.

Places to look for mechanical inspiration: Apocalypse World and other PbtA games, Blades in the Dark and other FitD games, and, uh, Golden Sky Stories. Trust me on this.

Anyway, I can't pursue this any more tonight.

Good night.