Alba: 24XX

Still on the road towards an original ruleset for Legends of Alba, I took a side path into the world of 24XX. For the unfamiliar, 24XX is the SRD created by Jason Tocci to accompany his 2400 series, a collection of modular, rules-light RPGs. They all follow the same 4-page format, designed to be printed double-sided on a single sheet of A4, with a cover page for art, the middle pages for the rules and character creation, then the back page devoted wholly to random tables for creating adventures. I absolutely LOVE these games! Each one is so packed with ideas and the setting comes through so clearly through the wild cover art, character options and adventure tables. It's impressive and inspiring stuff.

I'd already been thinking that it might be worthwhile trying to write up Legends of Alba using a few different SRDs, sort of like trying on a bunch of different hats to see which hat suits you best. Or maybe even just to get an idea of what you actually want in a hat. It can be a hard question to answer if, like me, you're not really a hat person. So over the last couple of weeks I've done a treatment of Legends of Alba using the 24XX SRD, and you can check it out here!

Fingal's Cave, Island of Staffa, Scotland by Thomas Moran (public domain)

I've not play-tested the game (maybe someday?!) but it's at a point where I'm happy to leave it for a bit. It was a lot of fun to write, and a really useful exercise. I wanted to record and share some of the things I learned from it, so here we go:

SCOPE: When you've only got 4 pages, the scope wants to be narrow and specific. Probably more so than what I went with. This will be my D&D background showing, but Legends of Alba is quite a big setting in terms of scope. There's clans, kingdoms, there's the hags, there's The Legends, The Otherworld, there's deities, there's history, there's the land of Alba itself... any one of these could be a 24XX game on its own probably. I'd like to try again and do a 24XX game based around the clans of Alba, where its all about reputation and community; then maybe another separate one on weird and wonderful Otherworld adventures. I think either of those ideas would fit the format well.

TIME: Part of the appeal of 24XX is how small the games are, but I deluded myself a little into thinking I could rattle one off in no time at all. These games are small, yes, but they are dense. The lower word count doesn't necessarily mean less stuff, it just means each word is doing more. Games take time to make.

SKILLS: Most of 24XX games use a wide set of skills (15-20). A lot of these games are set in strange sci-fi settings so I think the skills really help in nailing down some world-building (what sorts of things can people do in this setting?). But even though these are fun and flavourful, I found myself spinning on them when it came to writing character options. With the wide range there's a temptation to try and cover everything. But you're never going to cover everything, so I think embracing that there's going to be some blurred lines and fuzzy edges, and keeping with a narrow set of abilities (3 or 4) is the way to go for me, or certainly for this game.

FIRE: Following on from my last post about a core resolution mechanic, I've been thinking about what else the game needs to start to come alive a bit more. The sort of fire Lucy H Pearce talks about in her book Burning Woman is an idea that's really stuck with me; a righteous inner fire, the burning of which will lead you to yourself. I thought about bolting on a rule for Fire and, though I decided against it to keep in the minimalist spirit of 24XX, I want to write it down here as I might come back to it. Characters would gain Fire by enacting a virtue or ideal that is sacred to them (e.g. their Clan virtue, or something more personal). Fire could then be burned to get help on a skill check, or as defence.

I think that's it for now. Until next time!