Author’s Diary for December 18, 2020

(Don’t forget to contribute to our Patreon campaign or join us on the Radio Free Covenant Discord server! Don’t forget to tune in to the Radio Free Covenant podcast every Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. Pacific) on our Twitch page and get a summary of the game rules!)

Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

We’re almost done with Covenant’s playtest rules! Find out more below the fold.

Here’s what we want to talk about this week:

• The appendices that we finished this week
• The purpose of these appendices
• Our progress on Covenant’s playtest rules
• How to become a playtester

WHAT WE DID THIS WEEK

We’ve finished five appendices in Covenant’s playtest rules this week:

• Designing Items: Rules for designing weapons, armor, and miscellaneous “gear”. Characters will still need to buy or craft these items after designing them
• Predesigned Items: Off-the-shelf weapons, armor, and gear that players can use to kit out new characters
• Traits: An alphabetized quick-reference list of character traits that characters can use for their bids
• Conditions: An alphabetized quick-reference list of conditions that can affect characters and their items during games
• Abilities: An alphabetized quick-reference list of abilities, similar to D&D 3.x feats, that characters can use during games.

PURPOSE OF THESE APPENDICES

Except for the Designing Items appendix, these appendices are designed to be quick references to be used during character creation and play. Appendices like these, especially ones that are just glorified lists, are usually best placed in the back of books. That helps readers to find the information that they need quickly and relatively easily.

OUR PROGRESS ON COVENANT’S PLAYTEST RULES

When we last talked to you, we’d finished 165 pages. We’ve added a lot since then and have gotten the total page count up to 246. That’s over 80 pages. Not bad.

We have just one more appendix to write: a master list of advantages and disadvantages for bids. We expect to finish that over the weekend, or sometime next week at the absolute latest. After that, we’re done!

God willing and the crick don’t rise, that will give us two whole months to edit and polish everything before distributing Covenant’s rules to our playtesters on Feb. 28, 2021.

BECOMING A PLAYTESTER

Do you want to become a playtester? Just drop us a line at radiofreecovenant@gmail.com, and we’ll put you on the list when the rules are finished at the end of February.

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That’s about for now. Talk to you next week!