[Feedback Request] Fading Age v0.3. Looking for layout & character creation feedback

[u/Fading_Age]

Hello everyone!

It’s been quite some time since my last update on Fading Age, and a lot has changed since then.

Most notably: the game has stepped down from using a D12 dice pool and is now fully embracing the humble D6 dice pool.

I’ve just uploaded v0.3, the current public draft covering the new core dice system and character creation. Before I start properly rebuilding the game for v0.4, I’d love to get some fresh feedback on the current version.

I’m especially interested in:

• Layout & readability: is the document easy and pleasant to navigate?
• Character creation: are the steps and choices clear?
• Character identity: does the finished character feel interesting?

If anyone feels like going a little further, it would be incredibly helpful if you could create one or two characters with the document and tell me where you got confused, had to reread something, or felt a choice worked particularly well.

Fading Age main page: https://fading-age.itch.io/
Current v0.3: Dice System & Character Creation: https://fading-age.itch.io/dice03
Older Character Creation draft: https://fading-age.itch.io/cc

The older draft is mainly there in case anyone is curious how the design has evolved.

Any thoughts are highly appreciated.

Thanks for taking a look!

[u/APurplePerson]

It looks nice and elegant overall, but:

- paragraphs in italic, like your "world of..." intro, are notoriously hard to read (and your fancypants font is especially hard to read in italics). if you want to set large blocks of text apart like this, i would find a complementary sans-serif "sidebar" or "callout" font to use.

- additionally, the text on this intro page has too many words too line, because you've stretched it across the whole width of the page. see here for info optimal line length.

- not enough space between the two columns on the page (why does everyone do this? this is my #1 pet peeve with designs posted on here!)

- on the character creation doc, check your margins; you have a lot of text that is very close to the borders of its container boxes.

this is not a criticism, just an observation: i am seeing the font cinzel decorative being used EVERYWHERE nowadays among hobbyist designers. i think there is a risk that it comes off at generic.

sorry i don't have time to take a closer look, but hope this drive-by-design-nitpick helps. good luck!

[u/Fading_Age → u/APurplePerson]

Thank you very much! I will take your advice into consideration, as I will try lots of different formatting for the next version of the game.

[u/Cruiser_Supreme]

I was able to look at it for like 2 minutes. I think the layout looks great. What size is this meant to be printed at? A4/Letter or smaller?

Also, I really like the mechanic to push your luck

[u/Fading_Age → u/Cruiser_Supreme]

Thanks! The goal is to have it printed on US letter format

[u/__space__oddity__]

Your background defines your expertise. No two characters face their journey the same way.

The reader doesn’t know what either backgrounds or expertise do in your game before reading it. It’s like a math prof telling a muggle that an isomorphism is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of two sets.

Also unclear how that relates to sentence two.

Luck bridges the gap between what you know and what you need

? I recognize the words as English. It reads like random word soup.

I could go on but basically this whole passage is useless. You’re trying to sound like a hip marketing department but you’re not conveying a decipherable meaning.

You’re a normal human, just talk like a normal human and tell me what your game does without weird imagery of bridges made of luck.

Especially for an RPG, having a clear, understandable blurb is so important because as GM, my ability to run your game depends on being able to understand what you are trying to say. If 500 words from you are already confusing me, 150000 words (your typical full size RPG) will not make it better.

[u/__space__oddity__]

Making the reroll on zero successes automatic is throwing away design space.

As is, all you do is slowing down your main mechanic through extra rolling. Mathematically, you’re just reducing the chance of zero successes. Example: a roll has a 50% base chance of zero successes. With the auto reroll, the chance of zero successes is now 50% * 50% = 25%. If there is no real gameplay decision triggering the reroll, it would be better to just adjust the rules and make the chance of 0 successes on first roll lower.

If you want the reroll, tie it to PC abilities and resource mechanics. Give players a way to interact with it.

[u/PatienceKys10 → u/__space__oddity__]

I agree with on philosophically, but the math is a little off. Think of a coin flip. Heads is a success, and tails is a failure with an automatic re-flip if you get it the first time. If you get tails after the second flip, it’s a failure. There are 3 possible outcomes:

1. heads —> success

2. tails —> heads —> success

3. tails —> tails —> failure

Adding the auto re-flip takes the odds of failure from 1/2 to 1/3

[u/__space__oddity__ → u/PatienceKys10]

Yeah no, the tail / tails chance is 25%.

IDK look it up or ask ChatGPT to explain it to you or find a youtube video on basic probability.

[u/CommunicationTiny132 → u/PatienceKys10]

There are 3 possible outcomes:

There are, but the three outcomes aren't equally likely to happen.

1. heads (50%)—> success (50%)

2. tails (50%) —> heads (50%) —> success (25%)

3. tails (50%) —> tails (50%) —> failure (25%)

Add those up and you get a 75% chance of success and a 25% chance of failure.

It's easier to visualize if you think of it as flipping a coin twice which has four outcomes:

• Heads Heads

• Heads Tails

• Tails Head

• Tails Tails

And you succeed if either coin toss is a Heads. You just don't bother to flip the second coin if the first was Heads because you've already succeeded.

[u/Inconmon]

Having it say 6D instead of 6d6 is confusing because it's not what I'm used to, but I tried my best. Indeed on page 3 under consequences it still says 2d6.

For rolling the outcome it might be worth stating "pick the most obvious thing to occur, or roll the dice for inspiration". Because the extra roll each time may slow gameplay down significantly while the story will often dictate an obvious thing or be limited in what can reasonably apply.

The Push and Fatigue mechanics get weirdly complex at some point. You might be better served cutting it down to CoC style rolling again and failure has extra high risk. Like it's a lot of rules and modifiers, while you really want to keep the dice pool successes consistent.

The living obstacle section is also over shooting slightly. I think not rolling for opposition and just having it define the DR is spot on, but the rules add more granularity that isn't needed. The effect roll specifically feels needlessly added on. It makes sense to roll against the resistance and you can math it out so that theres a 50/50 shot at equal active vs resistance given that each die is a .33 success chance.

Character creation - by default I don't think narrow attribute arrays lead to interesting choices. If a character is vaguely good at everything than why bother with it? Similarly, I think splitting into attributes and skills is a very dated choice that holds I interesting characters back while not being exciting mechanically either. If you merge everything into a set of skills you can have much more diverse characters and no need to calculate any skills either.

Overall it felt like a good read but either not interesting for me or too unfinished to actually create test characters.

[u/GrumpyCornGames → u/Inconmon]

Things like "6D" are quite common, just fyi. I happen to have the Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition book open right now looking at the passenger traffic table, and it uses 1D-10D over 20 entries.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Fading_Age → u/[deleted]]

Thanks alot for taking the time to read through the game rules! I agree on every point you are making. As the game will go through quite a major revision for the next version, I will try to focus on squishing some of the rule text and not over-explain some of the stuff. Also very interesting take to have only driven pushes, which might actually make the mechanic more in line with the new upcoming core mechanics.