Big Technical Project
A downloadable module
This is a module that complies with the MOSAIC Strict framework, it isn't a playable game itself but an optional short bundle of mechanics that can be included as part of another roleplaying game that doesn't have conflicting mechanics in this area (whether a full standalone game, a combination of other MOSAIC Strict modules, or just freeforming).
This module is about working on a big technical project. You could use it for anything from people coding a new app in a Silicon Valley startup, to a Manhattan Project -style crash program to develop a technological advantage over a dangerous adversary, to a Galactic Patrol engineering team trying to keep a prototype ship together as they test out an experimental faster-than-light drive. If you want to get meta you could even use it while playing designers, writers, and artists trying to put together a tabletop RPG for a big corporation.
When people really make things they know how much effort they've put into them, but they can never know for sure how well they work until they're tried. That doesn't feel like waiting until the end and rolling a die against a target number to see if it succeeds, whether something works or not is already built in. This module tries to give a taste of that experience by having the results of your efforts feed into a black box that you can only imperfectly infer the contents of.
The mechanics in this module were inspired by a subsystem in my game Sunshine Over My Shoulder, substantially adapted to be MOSAIC Strict compliant.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
This looks pretty cool, never know when you need a subsystem for an ongoing technical project! I'm especially interested using it in a SF/Spelljammer setting for spaceship subsystem usage, makes me think of FTL :o
I'm having a little trouble comprehending the rules, but running a test session is helping.
I had a couple questions though:
Good questions! The intention is that quality can never go below zero but there's no upper bound. The number of tests in the suite is something the players can know and roll for themselves (and writing tests can add to an existing test suite or start a new one, for example one test suite might be focused on the engines while a different test suite is for the weapons and defenses), the hidden information relates to the numbers in the use cases, not how many use cases there are. The idea is that you know how much you've tested, but you only have an educated guess about how well that corresponds to how well you've tested.
Ok cool, that helps a lot. It had sounded like all dice were rolled (in secret) by TM, except a character's Skill Dice.