I've blogged about the evolution of Little Colony before, but I'm coming back around because the newest version of Little Colony is joining my zine lineup on itch. For those that have been following along, this version of Little Colony is very much like the previous version, but it's been modified to use the Five By Five dice mechanic and the good vs evil mechanic that I introduced in High Five.
The transition proved to be surprisingly easy. This is largely due to the way that the good vs evil mechanic introduced in High Five expanded the Five By Five resolution method to something greater than a simple binary, yes or no. So, here we are again, but ... Why are we back here? What is Little Colony?
It all started with Golden Sky Stories. I wrote a three part review of Golden Sky Stories, it really made an impression on me. In fact, I will be posting those reviews with corrected hyperlinks for my new blog address in the near future, because I don't think that Golden Sky Stories can get enough love.
I wanted to make a game that had the potential to give me the same feels that I imagined that Golden Sky Stories gives, but is also a game that is mechanically familiar to my more traditional RPG gamer sensibilities. (giving it a greater chance of finding it's way to my table.) This search brought many great games to my attention, but none of them quite fit the bill ... but take a look at Colostle and Cozy Town, two awesome looking RPGs that I discovered during my search and stick specifically in memory.
Anyway, I wanted to make an RPG about people in a community NOT killing goblins and dragons. This pursuit got me thinking about making a "Little House on the Prairie" kind of RPG. But, I needed to figure out what the game play would look like. Eventually, my mind came around to the Icon Relationships in 13th Age.
Little Colony takes the Icon Relationships idea from 13th Age along with the One Unique Thing, idea also from 13th Age. I love those ideas from 13th Age. I love them so much! What I don't love are the D&D trappings that the rest of the game is built on. So, I threw everything else out. I just kept those two great ideas and I built the whole game around them.
I moved from the prairie into outer space, and Little Colony on the Big Moon was born.
This new version trades a dice pool mechanic for the Five By Five rules system as mentioned at the beginning of this post and marks the third Five By Five zine publication to find its way to itch. As always, the PDF is pay what you want (including $0.00) so, feel FREE to give it a look.
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This sounds really interesting. I definitely appreciate the approach of taking what you like from a game and jettisoning what you don't. Makes you wonder what 13th Age could have been if they weren't trying to be "the new D&D" option, etc.
ReplyDelete13th Age is great. When I want to play D&D, 13th Age is the flavor that I prefer. Or, it used to be. I don't want so much crunch anymore. These days, less is more. In that vein, I think that “There and Hack Again“ might be my D&D of choice. Sadly, I don't really want any flavor of D&D. Or, maybe not so sad. It means I might actually run my own game designs. Crazy, right?
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