Thank You

Last week I released a beta preview of At Death's Door to gauge interest and assuage some of my friends who have wanted to put their eyes on the game and I must say I was delighted at the positive reception! In just a few days nearly 50 people have snapped up the pdf either via purchases or through community copies. Thank you, all. Even if you didn't pay for the game yourself, know that I'm grateful to have At Death's Door read by so many people.

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about a post-release update that might interest you, some of the changes I made, and some of my design goals looking forward. If you're planning on playtesting the game, I'll also have a short list of items that I'd love to get feedback on.

Initial Updates

For those of you who hopped on the game day one, I've just updated the files with a few updates that I'd like to talk about. This update focuses on increasing clarity and accessibility, which is something I plan on returning to throughout the design process.

Disambiguation around the word "mystery"
Mystery is a major theme of At Death's Door but the word itself was being used in too many places for too many things. For that reason I've made a few tweaks to clarify things.

• The "mystery track" is now the "resonance track"

Players who draw upon mysterious forces resonate with it. This should be familiar to fans of External Containment Bureau, the game on which At Death's Door is based.

• Supernatural elements are now referred to as "mysterious forces" more universally.

In too many instances I was using "mystery" as a catch-all.

• "Mystery" is now used mostly as a descriptor or as a term to describe the focus of an investigation.

Vignettes have been replaced with "narrative threads"

While I am fond of the term vignette to describe focused roleplaying scenes, I decided to differentiate more between the two major types of roleplay-centric procedures in the game.

• "Weekly vignettes" are now "Investigations"

The term investigation better describes what players DO in these scenes.

• "Special vignettes" are now "special procedures"

Again, this is a more straightforward title. The term "vignette" is now reserved solely for short asides or montages such as those explored in the special procedure, An Extended Voyage.

Vignettes/Investigations have been tweaked

One of my goals for At Death's door is to streamline the weekly investigations  players do and have them focused on the roleplay elements as much as possible. To that end the potential rewards players may receive for performing an investigation have been made universal, by default, though some exceptions exist. You can find the resolution rewards in the "Investigations" sub-section of the "narrative threads" chapter.

I'll be looking more closely at investigations and special procedures throughout development.

Excerpts + Handouts have been added

I've included a zip file with a number of book excerpts and handouts I think player may find useful. In my own home game, I play entirely on an online whiteboard program called miro. By simply dropping these pngs into the whiteboard space you can populate it with useful information. If you don't have access to a whiteboard space I've also provided a very simple google sheet for use in online play.

Printable versions of these handouts will be provides as development continues.

Trillium Frost's vessel, the Luminary, is now a dirigible

This was inspired by a conversation I had with an early reader of the game and I love it, so it's now the default.

Future Updates

As a means to set expectations and focus playtesting, I'd like to talk a little more about the development of At Death's Door and the future direction it might take.

At Death's Door begin as a rather simple conversion of Blades in the Dark to the setting and premise it has today. What's changed is the focus: namely on making a rules-light game that, nonetheless, keeps players attention with interesting lore, exciting questions, and dramatic roleplaying scenes. To that end the game has a much greater focus on improvisational decision making and freeplay than most Forged in the Dark games. This is by design, and I plan on emphasizing that element further in the future.

Indeed, many of the classic Forged in the Dark tools players are used to are merely tools for adjudication in At Death's Door. Entire investigations may take place without a single action roll.

When rolls are made, they are quick and decisive. Action in At Death's Door is bombastic and dramatic and not overly concerned with resource management.

 I am exceedingly interested in the FEEL of this game and whether or not the procedures that exist support the premise of the game and feel natural to engage in. Investigation procedures, specifically, should be exciting to and fruitful. It is this interaction that I'm most interested in receiving feedback on.

The other element I'll be looking at is the setup for the quest. Keys, clues, rumors, etc. are potentially a lot of pieces to keep track of and I want to see how folks feel about parsing those bits and pieces. I feel they are supported by the blackboard and by the connection system, but only time, and testing, will tell. Know that making notes, asking question, and drawing connections on the blackboard is meant to be a CORE activity in this game.

Readers of the book will note several placeholder sections. In addition to the above I plan on fleshing out before the final release. I've also received some initial sketches for chapter intro art, which should really round out the game's aesthetic. What do you think of the art and layout so far? I've tried to provide a varied experience in terms of page layouts and textures to help make navigating the text that much easier, visually speaking.

How'd I do?

-Justin