Vurt: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game

Check-in time, Vurtlings!
about 8 years ago – Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 03:09:36 AM

For this month's peek, we'll tell you a little bit about BlurbFlies, which are a big part of Vurt Manchester. BlurbFlies are robotic insect drones which are swarming all over the world, delivering adverts, watching, listening, zapping, uploading, who knows! In Manchester's large outdoor environments, These Bugs will fill the air and serve as a real distraction for anyone who is attempting normal actions, like having a discussion, shooting, climbing or anything else that requires concentration.

Imagine that you've been wounded and you're hunkered behind cover, reloading your flame pistol in a desperate shoot-out. You take aim at your enemy and are about to fire... "OUCH! That looks pretty painful! Maybe a measure or two of BOOMER might ease your discomfort!!" A BlurbFly zips past your ear and hovers next to your gun. A holographic Boomer logo blooms from its fiber-optic butt. "BOOMER! One measure for a good time, two for a blast! Three for a clean and sexy death! BOOMER! BOOMER! BOOMER!"

Naturally, this kind of invasive advertising can make even the simplest of concentration based tasks difficult. Time to break out the Cyphers and special abilities! If you're an Admin, those who specializes in manipulating drones and BlurbFlies, you might be able to repel nearby Bugs, or even send your BlurbFlies to further harass your enemies! Also certain Cyphers might render you invisible to their senses, distract them to another area or even disable them.

As an Admin, the BlurbFlies you control come in a number of different models, by different manufacturers. They are upgradeable and fully modular. Whipoorwill Inc. manufactures a Beetle-like "Coleopter" which could be configured to scout with high powered optics and sensors, or rigged with a DasUber Industries Ballistic Speaker designed to deliver stunning or damaging sonic jingles and blasts. Another model might be configured to carry a drug injection cartridge or an aerosol dispersion device for creating a vapor cloud. Even without special BlurbFly-Control powers, disposable models can be used to perform automated functions like patrol and alarm, single target attack, sonic jingle or cosmetic effects that can aid in social situations.The possibilities are endless!

This is a tiny peek at what BlurbFlies, Bugs and Drones add to the setting of Manchester, so you can look forward to interacting with and manipulating these little robots in many of your adventures. We'll leave you with an illustration of a camera rigged "Coleopter" and a "FlashFly" projecting an advertisement. Thanks for staying tuned in!

-Lee

Down the Bottle in One Shot
about 8 years ago – Sun, Mar 06, 2016 at 09:47:06 PM

Well, Team Ravendesk has reluctantly packed their bags and departed 2016 Orccon in Los Angeles. We had a blast playtesting our intro adventure "Down the Bottle in One Shot" with two groups of tabletop gamers and we are pleased to report that they intimidated a VurtDog, chopped both jabbers off a Jabberwalker, traded a malfunctioning Randomino for a Sneeze Bomb inside a dream and got Shadow Snakes for change. They took Jammers, Lemon Stoner, Cherry Stoner, Ultragarlic, Boomer, and two Choke poppers over the course of the 4 hour sessions and hacked into a security system using a digital serving of Inpho-Josh. It was an unmitigated success and led us to the obvious conclusion: "Let the backer playtests commence!"  

We have sent out instructions to those backers who have playtest invites as a part of their backer rewards, so check the email listed on your Kickstarter account for more inpho.

In other amazing news, we recently received a delicious and nutrifying assortment of original writings from our patron and literary psychonaut Jeff Noon. I was so ecstatic reading it that I temporarily went blind in one eye! All you fans of Jeff's will be delighted to find these gems distributed throughout the corebook and those of you previously unacquainted with his writing will become instant Jeff Noon fans. It is pure treasure, created just for your game.

On the subject of game mechanics, Alexander and I have been hard at work ensuring that combat in Manchester is as realistic and brutal as possible. Remember that time your PC crashed the van, then got shot 5 times in a running shootout only to climb over a wall and escape? Remember how a half an hour later you forgot the whole thing? Well, that won't be happening on the streets of Bloody Old Manchester. In Vurt the RPG, brass knuckles to the jaw might just leave your PC mumbling miserably for the rest of the game session. Taking a cop bullet in the leg might well be something your character is cursing 3 game sessions later as you rub Vaz into that bum knee. Or, who knows, a hideous facial scar from an electronic knife could be turned to your advantage when explaining to the rent-a-cop that not minding his own business is a mistake. If you are the player who likes to shoot first and chat about it after, you are going to find yourself blasting frantically as you sprint for cover, rather than standing flat-footed in the open. Of course, a good standoff with arms-akimbo will be even more epic, knowing that that life hangs by a thread.  

Lastly, here are two illustrations you haven't seen by one of our talented artists, G. Asthma. Keep dreaming, Kittlings!

-Lee

Busy Bees Buzzing in the Game Cat's Office
over 8 years ago – Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 01:25:43 AM

Dear Vurtizens,

We have a lot of good stuff to talk about, so let’s just get right to it. Fellow feather-heads, prepare your brains for tasty inpho!

OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRESS:
1. Playtesting has begun.
2. Descriptors are done.
3. We’re delving deep into the setting section now, getting every detail from all the novels into the mix. Not just Manchester, but everything outside the city limits as well. The entire world is post-Vurt, you’re going to love seeing how that has affected everything.
4. Gear/Weapons section has begun. Again, so many wonderful examples in Noon’s books, we just need to incorporate every one and make sure they’re balanced.
5. Art is coming in in a steady stream of awesomeness. We will be highlighting one of our fantastic artists in an upcoming update, with sketches and full pieces to show.

ASPECTS WE ARE FOCUSING ON:
Gritty. Terrifying. Lethal. You’ll often want to avoid all-out combat unless you are rolling with some really powerful friends. When things get ugly in a Manchester street fight, they get very ugly very quickly. We are going to focus the dangerous feel of the game with realistic physics and believable lethality. While in the Real World – Damage is legitimately brutal. Yes, there are amazing weapons and powerful technology, but they also dish out amazingly powerful damage.

UNIQUE VURT CONCEPTS:
In most other Sci-Fi or Cyberpunkish settings, there are the hackers, the PCs who can use the ones and zeros to get what they want. But in the Vurt universe, there is no online file storage, no online data servers, no online video games, no online anything. In the Vurt universe, what connects the people of this future are feathers. Now some of you are thinking you might want to hack into feathers. That can be done.

Computers and sensitive/large data transfer still play a huge role in the future. All Robos have a CTPU (Central Thought Processing Unit) that can be used to connect them to other Robos. Even BlurbFlies, the mechanical bugs that choke the skies of Manchester with their incessant advertising jingles- they are also controlled through a shared network of sorts. But generally, data and secrets are stored in dark corners of the Vurt world, accessible through powerful feathers that are likely rare and well-guarded. But you’ll want to find and take those feathers, entering the Vurt World to explore and do battle or solve puzzling challenges. Survive long enough to pull out with the information before anything happens to your physical body in the Real World. Or find ways to move sideways through the Vurt feathers, hacking the doorways that open solely for the powerful, moving from one feather to another. But the likelihood of getting stuck in the Vurt forever is increased exponentially, so do the math, kittlings. Be careful, be very, very careful…

We’re pushing the mechanics of the Cypher System to its creative limits in a way that hasn’t been done before and it is working perfectly for the setting. We’re not changing any basics, don’t worry, it will be a seamless transition for any Numenera or The Strange players who love their system. We Yanks have a saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But you’ll feel like new aspects of the mechanics have opened up, that character creation has so many more options but still doesn’t feel overwhelming, that some of those optional rules in the CSR that looked enticing are now well fleshed out options to explore.

Cyphers are very prevalent in the Real World, and there is a global black-market and exchange that allows players to use their loot to invest in projects or teams, to build an empire. Crafting is something we are also very focused on, since the ability to craft cyphers in this setting opens almost countless possibilities to the players. Why not create a RoboShadowMan who spends his/her time crafting bootleg feathers to not only sell, but store information in? This bootleg feather might be used by a higher tier character who knows how to “hack-sideways” in the Vurt World; entering through your bootleg version, accessing another feather once inside, getting the knowledge or cyphers stored within, and surviving the trip back, battling Vurt monsters and dizzying situations weaved from nightmares and madness. Or maybe your PC will decide not to sell your crafted item, but trade it for something of equal worth. Shady deals like that are made all the time, both in the Real World and the Vurt World.

CYPHER EXAMPLE #1 - Jammers (in pill form)

CYPHER EXAMPLE #2 – Feather: “Baby Blue Driver”

OTHER NEWS:
Orccon is a gaming convention happening February 12 – 15,  put on here in Los Angeles by Strategicon. We will be running two one-shot sessions of Vurt, one on Friday, one on Saturday. If any of you are in the area and would like to be a part of this, let us know ASAP so we can make sure you get on the list.

Keep it safe and close out there in the Real World, kittlings. It’s back to the Game Cat’s office for us now, there’s still work to do!

Alexander

Here are a few images we'd like to share with you, enjoy!

Play to Win, Future Manchester!
over 8 years ago – Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 04:17:30 AM

We are knee deep in the Vurt, and have been focusing on a few specific aspects of the game over the past month, namely the Setting and the Characters parts. Those of you familiar with Numenera or The Strange know that these two parts make up nearly half of the overall (non-rules) material for the corebook. In those 2 sections alone, we already have a solid 125 pages completed! We are in an excellent point in our overall progress, right on track and loving it!

I (Alexander) am currently in London for two weeks and have been working with Jeff Noon on the project. It's been great fun going over all the material we've done so far, and developing some of the evolving concepts of the future-Vurt universe with the man who wrote it! I'm in Manchester at the end of the week to location-scout and take a ridiculous amount of pictures of the city to give to our artists. It also looks like I'll be there just in time for the freezing rain and 80 mph winds. Woohooo! 

VURT Development Update #1
over 8 years ago – Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 02:51:51 AM

Greetings Kittlings!  

Did you miss us? We missed you! 

We at Ravendesk Games have been working furiously since we spoke last, and are so excited about the progress. Here's a little bit of what's going on...

Testing - The playtesting phase is approaching very soon, and we'll be reaching out to those backers who will be a part of this process. What we've tested so far in-house has been a blast, we're regularly surprised by the way the Vurt Universe is being opened up through the game mechanics. And the Cypher System is proving to be very appropriate to the feel of Vurt; applying Effort, the occasional GM intrusion, and the concept of PC's having an Edge, all without feeling over-complicated.

Crafting - This is something that we have been passionate about from the get-go. While we may not have unlocked the crafting companion during the kickstarter, it is still something that we plan to produce as a supplemental book. However, the basics of crafting will be included in the Vurt corebook, and more than just a passing mention. We see crafting as something integral to the flavor of the game, and we'll give you more than enough to sink your teeth into.

New Types, New Descriptors, New Foci! - The Vurt corebook will have everything needed to play, just like Numenera or The Strange. While Vurt is a stand-alone game, we also have the great advantage of using a system that already has many fans. Players familiar with other Cypher System games will find it very easy to jump right in, but will find that even more has been opened up and explored. We are giving players the means to create not just their ideal character, but one that will be intriguing and fun to play for more than just a one-shot session if that's what you'd like.

New Items, New Cyphers, New Artifacts and Oddities! - Those who've read Vurt or any of Jeff Noon's other novels in the series will be excited to know that we have included every detail from the books. I can almost hear you now: No! Really? Not possible! That would take months, maybe years to extract and thoroughly identify each bit of technology or setting details from the books! To which we respond: Yes! It did take over a year, and it was insanely detailed work that often felt like we were needleseekers in 4+ giant haystacks, but we did it. We did it because otherwise, this would be a generic sci-fi game with really cool ideas, but no substance. We are chock-full of delicious Noonian substance, you will LOVE it!

Online play - This was always going to be a major focus for us with this game. "Old-school" face-to-face sessions are wonderful for many of us, often preferable, but rarely realistic. Scheduling is the bane of all tabletop RPGs, always has been. But with sites like Roll20 and Fantasy grounds, or even simple Skype groups or Google hangouts, we get to play when we do have the time. Also, it allows us to meet and play with people from all over the world. We've already spoken with the folks at Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, and fully expect to have official Vurt character sheets, adventure modules, and art assets available and integrated by the time the book hits the shelves next summer.

Music - The initial writing and tracking session was mind-blowing. We can' wait to share it with you. Our plans are to have the Vurt game soundtrack available for you a bit before the corebook is published, to get you in the mood and excited to play. The 2 hour soundtrack is set to have four individual 30 minute tracks that each have a specific mood. Melodies and ambient sound effects will be delicately mixed to not be distracting (a real danger for any background music). The soundtrack also will be playable all the way through without distracting track-breaks, so one could hit play and leave it on for the entire session without issue. What Adam Gubman is writing is haunting and immersive, and will be produced by a team of experts who also just happen to be gamers as well. They know how to make this shine and allow players to really feel the world. We can't wait to share this with you!

More updates to follow, including pictures of the Dev team and testers, teaser-art and some enticing previews of blurbs from Jeff Noon, who has already begun writing for the game as well. 

Thank you again for your faith in us and the project. We're working non-stop to make the best tabletop RPG game ever, and moving forward, full steam ahead!

The Ravendesk Team (10/15)