Update for the Week of April 30, 2021

(Covenant’s playtest rules are out! Download a copy now and tell us what you think! If you like what you see, think about becoming a patron!)

Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Covenant’s playtest adventure is done! Find out more below the fold.

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

• Covenant’s playtest adventure, Welcome to Bitter Springs
• Our work on the game’s universe
• How to become a playtester

PLAYTEST ADVENTURE

Welcome to Bitter Springs is done! You can download a PDF of it here.

Keep in mind that this is a first draft, and a very rough one at that. It’s basically just a series of notes for the Force Majeure, who’s supposed to do a lot of improving to fill in the gaps.

It will, however, occupy at least one gaming session and (hopefully) entertain the people playing it. It also tests some of the more problematic or experimental rules in Covenant.

We’ve had someone offer to play this adventure with their gaming group, so we’re waiting on them to iron out the details. We’ll update you when we get more information.

GAME UNIVERSE

Let’s show you what we’ve been doing while we’ve been waiting to playtest Covenant.

These are Sean’s notes on the Terran Federation, one of the Covenant’s rivals in the game. We had a friend with geopolitics experience look at the politics in the game’s universe last year, and now, with the game rules and playtest adventure finally finished, we can start incorporating their input into the game.

In case we haven’t covered it here, the Terran Federation is dominated by humans whose ancestors survived the destruction of Earth. The Covenant had been terraforming planets to serve as refugee camps in case something like this happened. The planets were barely habitable by the time Earth was destroyed, but there wasn’t anyplace else to put 10 billion humans.

The Terran Federation seceded from the Covenant with the help of the Old Empire, another rival of the Covenant. However, when the Old Empire tried to take over, the Terran Federation declared war. The two have basically been in a state of alternating hot and cold war ever since.

We intend to do this analysis on all the major domains in the game until we get enough playtest data to start editing Covenant’s rules. It’s a way for us to improve the game while we wait on this vital information.

BECOMING A PLAYTESTER

Have you downloaded Covenant’s playtest rules yet? Did we mention that they’re free? If not, do it now! They’re free! All we ask is that you tell us what you think about them. You can send your feedback in two ways:

• Email us at radiofreecovenant@gmail.com
• Join our Discord server

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