Radio Free Covenant – A Podcast about the Science-Fiction Roleplaying Game "Covenant" and Urban Fantasy Novel "Crossing the Line"

Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Today is the public release of Covenant’s playtest rules, everyone! It’s been a long time coming. You can download from Google Docs.

PLAYTESTER QUESTIONS

These rules are free, and you can use thesm however you want. However, we do want a few things from you if you do.First, use these rules to make characters and run a game of Covenant (several, if possible) with your friends.Second, answer these questions for us, based on your experiences playing the game:

• What did you like about the rules?
• What did you not like about the rules?
• What do you want to be clearer?
• What do you want to change?
• What do you want to add?
• What do you want to remove?
• What rules did you ignore?
• Do you think you could play a full game session without looking at the rules?
• Were you able to play the way you wanted?
• Did you feel like you were in control of the game and the story?

Remember, these rules will change. We want your input to know how to change them.

PLAYTESTER LIFELINES

If you have any problems or questions, please email us at radiofreecovenant@gmail.com or drop us a message on our Discord server at  https://discord.gg/VJKJBUd. We will respond to them as promptly as possible.That’s about it for now. Talk to you on Wednesday, or tomorrow if you’re a patron (hint, hint)!

(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

Covenant’s playtest rules are done! Find out more below the fold!

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for February 26, 2021”

(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 Player Consent chapter and with Covenant’s playtest rules!

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for February 19, 2021”

(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’ve finished taking notes for the Player Consent chapter in Covenant’s playtest rules and are almost ready to write it! Find out more below the fold.

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for February 12, 2021”

(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’ve finished rewriting and laying out Covenant’s playtest rules! All we need now is to write a new chapter on player consent. Find out more below the fold.

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

• The work that we did this week
• Our progress on Covenant’s playtest rules
• How to become a playtester

WHAT WE DID THIS WEEK

We have started taking notes for a new Player Consent and Trauma chapter for Covenant’s playtest rules.

The rules already have a chapter on player consent, but we decided, while editing them, that it needs to be expanded and updated.

We’ve finished taking notes from that old chapter, because there’s some material from it that we want to salvage. We’ll also be taking notes from some other documents, including:

• Consent in Gaming by Sean K. Reynolds and Shanna Germain
• X-Card: Safety tools for Simulations, Role-Playing, and Games by John Stavropoulos
• Boundaries in Play
• Gaming as Women – Finding My O with the X-Card by Beau Jágr Sheldon

OUR PROGRESS ON COVENANT’S PLAYTEST RULES

We hope to finish taking notes on the new player consent rules by next week. That will give us two weeks before our Feb. 28, 2021 deadline to write it up.

We should point out, though, that the rest of rules are done. That means that, even if we don’t finish the new chapter on time and have to release the playtest rules with a placeholder for the player consent rules, it’s going out at the end of the month.

We don’t want that to happen. We want player consent to be baked into the game as early as possible. However, if we don’t add the player consent chapter in this iteration of the rules, we will add it in a later iteration.

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 it for now. Talk to you next Friday!

(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’ve finished editing Covenant’s playtest rules! Now we’re going back and rewriting them to add our edits. Find out more below the fold.

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for January 29, 2021”

(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 editing Covenant’s playtest rules! Read on to find out more.

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for January 22, 2021”

(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’ve started editing Covenant’s playtest rules! Click through for more.

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for the Week of January 8, 2021”

(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

Happy New Year! We hope you spent this first day of the new year doing something you liked. We spent it editing Covenant! Find out more below the fold.

Continue reading “Author’s Diary for the Week of January 1, 2021”