Hello today! I want to keep polishing the experience of this game until I'm satisfied, because it's very dear to me. Since this is a tabletop, testing changes in sessions and applying them takes time. But I want to keep you guys updated and I like the idea of having almost this kind of "blog" to gather feedback, so please leave comments with suggestions if you have any! Heads up - if you're reading this, it's assumed that you know how the system works, so there will be minimal context given. With that out the way, I do want to talk about getting some help.

First of all, I want to do the main call to action of this post - I'm looking for players!

• Are you interested in this system, but don't have people to play with?
• Do you have an okay-to-decent microphone?
• Are you occasionally available on weekends for a 3-4 hour session? 

If you answered yes to any of the above, you are welcome to join us on the Discord server to help me test the system! 

I would usually got to /r/lfp but decided to try my luck here first. Currently, I try to run games on weekends, and since we don't have an ongoing long-term campaign, you will probably see lots of shorter adventures, so not much commitment is needed. If you want to, you can join the server just to keep an eye on the open games, help the system by discussing changes or listening to other people play (I try to record some sessions for historical purposes too). I'm also interested in people that have a group of friends and you want to play out like an origin of your team of OCs, or if you're a GM with no time on the weekend, you can probably find players to fit your schedule. Either way, everyone is welcome!

And now let's talk about one of the updates I have planned. You can find this one and more in the Google Doc right now and when I'm done testing them in a couple of weeks, they will be added to the official PDF. One of the things I could never find a proper use for was Stage Tags. With this system I wanted to ease the burden of pre-planning for the GMs as much as possible, so the idea was simple - to allow players to affect how the stage will turn out, kind of take part in the planning process and incentify GM improvisation. 

On paper it's a neat idea - ask the GM to modify their plans but in the vague way possible, just to highlight what players want to see in their stage. Kinda like the twitch integration of the Warhammer Vermintide 2 - the stage will actually not change that much, but just enough to keep it different. But it was also meant to be a consistent thing, so like the player chose a Barracks tag, the stage needs to be filled with enemies for most obstacles they face, along with an extra encounter. 

In practice, it turned out to be not as effective as I would hope. Just like with Ability Tags, it becomes just another thing that GM always needs to keep in mind at all times that is also in conflict with their plans. We don't have other GMs running the system yet, but in my experience the stage tags never got past a gimmick or two I put in the stage instead of like a… Mood of the setting, if that makes sense? Basically, around the end of every stage I got reminded that tags exist and I didn't use them to their full potential because I was preoccupied with running the game. And that's not great.

So here is my current solution - Set Pieces. Roughly, they work like this:

Create a Set Piece - Sometimes you will be asked to "create a Set Piece", usually as a result of a miss. This task is directed at the player and will give you a bit of GM creative control to put up against your heroes. You need to come up with something that will happen in the stage - it can be anything, as vague and as difficult as you'd like, and should probably involve elements that will help you get a better stage ranking, character development or higher momentum. After you come up with a set piece, GM will need to introduce it at some point during the rest of the stage and modify it as much as they see fit.

You remember that one white whale in Sonic Adventure 1? That's what inspired me the most. Instead of trying to "re-color" the whole stage, I want to focus on the one cool thing that happens, but still let it be in the hands of the players. The only thing that worries me, is that the players are shy and can't come up with anything on the spot, and the best solution to that so far is to allow it to be as vague as possible. I also currently replaced all instances of the Stage Tags with Set Pieces, including the one during Piece and Quiet. 

My hope is that at best, players will look at the stage, their character, their moves and their personality/relationship plans and will suggest appropriate more-or-less specific set pieces that they need to go through. "I want my hero's love to be in danger by the villain", "I want us to be attacked by flying robots", "I want the group to be split by an earthquake". At worst, it should also allow for way simpler and more vague options if nothing cool comes to mind, that the GM can spin to their liking, like "maybe an ambush of enemies?", "maybe something that damages our vision?" or "what if the weather changes drastically?".  And, an important part of this is that while players "create" the trap, GM still has the control over where, when and how it will spring, plus they can modify it any way they wish to fit the story, keeping it "fresh" for players. 

Now I just need people to test this, along with a couple major changes like Teamwork Rework and Boss Weaknesses that I have planned for 1.5

Either way, thank you for reading this. I hope this was some interesting insight. If you have any thoughts to share or a discussion on the top, please feel free to talk about it in the comments or join the discord! I will read and respond to all of them!