DYING SUN version 1.2 has just been released!

Hello there, wastelanders! stay awhile and listen to the news of the desert...

What's changed?

After many playtests and pondering into the text, some fixes were in order. 

Defense and Breaks

Diverging a little bit from "core 24XX" rules, in DYING SUN when you decide to break an item for defense, you avoid being hit altogether (instead of turning it into a hindrance). This was my intention from the beginning: In DYING SUN, the pieces of armor you have equipped are basically your Hit Points, and when all of those break, you are "naked" (one hit could mean 1-2: death, or 3-4: being hindered). Adding a hindrance on top of the breakage of the piece of armor felt too harsh (and I never ran it that way, anyway)... and this way gives the players an interesting choice: "Oh, I rolled a 3, do I take a hindrance now, OR do I break my last piece of armor now, but risk dying on their next attack if I roll a 1-2?".

Since I was running the game in that way and it was the intended original design, I just fixed the text in the RULES column to actually reflect that.

Class Changes

The Warrior originally had the skills Melee (d8) and Warfare (d8). The latter was rarely used, and even though I envision the fighters of the wastelands as connoisseurs of battle tactics and mercenary army strategies, I decided to replace that skill with the much more useful and classic "Athletics" (There was an internal debate inside me voting for Muscles, Mighty Thews, or something of that ilk, but eventually the more generic Athletics won). If a player wants to pick Warfare as one of their extra skills and talks with their GM about introducing situations in which it might matter, all the power to them, but for most other people it's just too niche of a skill to have as part of the initial Warrior's kit.

Apart from that, I also changed the wording "Increase X skill" to "Begin with X skill" in the class descriptions, because many players observed that you don't have anything to increase yet, at least at that point. Silly me. Thanks players.

Species Changes

In the previous 1.1 version update of DYING SUN, I nerfed the skill increases gained by the Human from 3 to 2, because that Species "was too OP" compared to the others. Turns out, it was just that the other two were not interesting enough in terms of mechanics, and their abilities were too specific and didn't come up as much in game. And Humans having 2 skill increases was just too good, it was still a no-brainer.

So, for version 1.2, what we are doing is improving the KREEN'SEKT and the LIZAR'DRAC instead. HUMANS go back to having 3 skill increases, because it makes sense for "versatile generic men" and it allows players to pick Human if they want to play a "jack-of-all-trades" archetype, OR a super-focused character that begins with higher skill ratings.

KREEN'SEKT

Kreen'Sekts gained a clarification in their "4 arms" description: "can wield more weapons/tools, or help yourself". I see this as the Kreen'Sekt using their extra arms/hands to improve any action they are doing in which it would make sense, gaining that extra d6 from the help mechanic. Think of a Kreen'Sekt shooting a bow with two arms but reloading their arrows with the other two. That looks awesome, right? Or a four-sword weilding 'sekt... yikes. But it doesn't have to be only combat-related: Think of them tying two ropes or lifting a barred gate: It makes sense that they receive help as if someone else was lending their two arms for the action... Anyway, you get the point.

Kreen'Sekts also gain a new skill, Jumping (d8), to represent that they are really good at jumping. Having that skill on their character sheets invites players to actually do some jumping with their 'Sekts.

LIZAR'DRAC

Lizar'Dracs received a new skill, Resistance (d8). The description implies that it refers to heat/fire/thirst/hunger, but I purposefully don't specify that you can't resist other things. I want to let the players and GM decide that on their own, depending on how tough they envision their lizardmen in their games.

They also gained a new "regeneration" ability, albeit in a fiction-first, diegetic wording: "You can slowly regenerate wounds or missing body parts". I have my own interpretation of how this "healing factor" works for 'Dracs in my games, but I rather not impose it to others (specially not through a devlog post instead of the actual rules!). You do what you think makes most sense in your setting. OK, I will tell you a bit of it... My Lizar'Dracs heal/regenerate fast, but not "wolverine-fast"; far from it. As for mechanics... I just wing it, maybe allow the removal of hindrances way faster than for other species. A Lizar'Drac player in one of my games wanted to regrow a severed hand in the middle of a fight scene... I not only didn't allow that but went as far as describing its slowness by referencing the little hand scene in the DEADPOOL movie, and its obvious jokes. But yeah, do it however you want.

MAGIC Changes

Not much has changed here -- I really like how the freeform magic system works in DYING SUN. I did specify that when you use DEFILING MAGIC, "the spell effect is stronger". The benefit was not very obvious for my players (other than the mechanical side, of rolling more d6s and improving their odds of success). Also, I specifically didn't want to specify the "area" or "range" of defiling when you "desecrate a bigger area": I envision it as "you just pull whatever life essence you can from around you, without any self-restraint. If you are in a crowded area, it might mean a few meters around you. If you are in the middle of the desert, it might be kilometers-wide". When I run DYING SUN and a Warlock defiles at that level, I give their spell the strongest effect I can imagine it could have (without resorting to Ritual-level of Sorcery).

Other

Nothing remarkable; I did fix some random typos here and there.
I would like to "playtest" the back page with all the tables meant for the GM, but the problem is: I always playtest as the GM of this thing. (And I kinda already know what I meant when I wrote those sections). I either need to find someone to run the game for me, or... Hey you! yes, you... If you run the game and have any input, questions or comments about the tables on the back page, let me know. I can explain and rewrite those sections if they don't make sense.

And finally... THE SPANISH VERSION!

So, you've probably already noticed: English is not my primary language. It's spanish, actually. Hola! 

Many of my local friends who are not so english-savvy (or just like to see me work) asked me for a spanish translation of DYING SUN. Well, here you go, guys. Not that I'm expecting for you to actually pay for a copy of my game... Ah, who am I kidding, I will probably print them for them to put at the table of our next session.

BUT for any other spanish-speaking fans of 24XX or DYING SUN, here you go guys: Ahora ustedes son la última esperanza de los débiles y oprimidos bajo el SOL MORIBUNDO.

A few comments on the Spanish translation of a 24XX game:

• Most keywords are easy enough to translate and often used by many other RPGs (skills=habilidades; check=chequeo, etc). But hindrance was a hard one: The way Jason uses it with different conjugations in a diegetic way is awesome, but there's no one word that directly translates and sounds good enough ("molestia"?). I tried using "complicación", "agravio", but they didn't sound good enough. Eventually I settled with "perjudicado" for hindered, and avoid any occurrence of "hindrance" which would translate to "perjuicio" and it totally sucks, HAHAHA.
• The bulk of the translation work, as is usual for english-to-spanish, is the word count. I had to make some layout-magic and also remove or summarize text for it to fit in the same space as the english version. Some was literally lost in translation. I think it is still understandable enough.

Well well well, my fellow wanderers of the red wastelands, this is it for now. There might be more updates in the future, but as everything else in these broken lands, it is uncertain. Farewell, and may you find shadow during high noon!