The Far Roofs
So today I want to talk a bit about what this game wants to be. In particular, I'm going to go over its key technical and artistic goals.
The Far Roofs focuses on immersive hidden world fantasy adventure. It's intended to offer the experience of a grounded, emotionally real base world attached to an idealized, fantastic "hidden world" setting.
One might say, the streets and buildings and houses of the game's world are basically our own. Above us, though, is a stranger, more idealized, and more fantastic place. It's hard to get to. It's dangerous. It's less grounded. It's full of wonder.
This divide exists to make the game feel as real as possible, if you want to go that way. That's part of what hidden world fantasy is about, after all---the idea that magic is here. That it's not in some distant alien land or mythic future or past.
It's here, if you want to reach for it.
(Now, the game is flexible enough that you can play "protagonist" types instead of realer people, and many traditional gaming groups will probably prefer that, but that'll mean getting less of that immersive effect.)
The mood the game is interested in is that feeling you get when you take a huge risk---move to a new place; try a new thing. The feeling you get in those times in your life when everything is alienated and wondrous and terrifying but there's also so much more *hope* than there was in the still times before.
It's a mood of being swept up and called forward.
This is, among other things, meant to be a game for people who've been beaten down or exhausted by the ... everything ... to feel that sensation of moving forward again.
To remember what it's like, why it's worth it, how to reach for it again.
It's meant---and I do understand that I am finite and flawed and this can only go so far---as a tonic and refreshment to the soul.
The Far Roofs uses a 5d6-based dice pool system for day-to-day task resolution. It's relatively traditional and optimized for fast, fun dice reading. There's a loose consensus I've seen in RPG design circles that dice are for when outcomes are uncertain and both options are interesting, and I don't disagree ... but there's also this thing where rolling dice to decide is intrinsically interesting and fun, where it's fuel for a certain part of the brain.
This game tries to get as much out of that side of dice as it can.
You'll also collect letter tiles and cards over the course of the game. This is for bigger-picture stuff:
To answer big questions and to complete big projects, you'll either assemble representative words out of those tiles, or, play a poker hand built out of those cards. Word and their nuances express ideas and shape how outcomes play out; poker hands, conversely, just give a qualitative measure of how much work you do or how well things will go.
In keeping with this, the campaign is represented principally in the form of questions or issues your words and hands can address. Player/GM-created campaigns would be the same.
Physical and Electronic Product
I wanted to put the print version within the range of as many people who might need that tonic as possible. That means that for this particular game, I wanted to cover the full territory that I'd normally cover in a two or three volume set (core rules, setting, and campaign) in a single 200-250-page volume.
In practice this means there's a guide and examples for constructing the setting, rather than a deep dive into a fully-detailed world; that there's a bit less in the way of whimsical digression and flourish than in the writing I'm known for; that there's minimal "flavor" text on abilities; and that the campaign presentation is pretty fast-paced.
Conversely, it means that the game should be easy to absorb and to share with other possible players, and, that the game and campaign in this one relatively small volume should provide enough content for five or six years of play.
The book will be 8.5"x11" with grayscale art, available in a limited hardcover print run and a print-on-demand softcover form.
You'll see a lot of talk from me and others about the talking rats in this game. They're one of the jewels of the experience, and I think they're probably a significant draw just for being talking rats that are core to the game.
... but I'm going to hold off for now, because, to be clear, this is not a game of playing talking rats. It's just a game where talking rats and probably one of the top three most important setting elements.
I couldn't get that feeling I wanted of ... the base world being grounded realism; of the hidden world pulling you up and out and into a world full of magic ... with your playing rats, with your playing something so distant from the typical player.
So this is not a game of playing them.
They're just ... I like rats, and so I made the rats in this game with love. They're great ... whatever the equivalent is to "psychopomps" is for a magical world instead of for death ... and a way of talking about how in the face of the world, we're all pretty small.
I'm really excited about this game; the playtest was lovely.
I hope you'll enjoy it as well!
