Writing with Knowledge of Bloat

Excuse my rambling here but I think it'll help my design process. Please feel free to leave your thoughts.

I was able to sit down and push through my writer's block that was halting GRIT progress. I always knew what I needed to focus on but once I finally put it down on paper I decided that the 0.2 update would be labelled 'the Crawl update'. I believe that defines what GRIT is - or at least - it is what I like the most about it.

Vacuum Design

My current process has been entirely focused on writing the crawling rules in a vacuum - with the slightest of acknowledgement of how things worked beforehand. Things should be designed based on how crawling works, not the other way around. Nothing is set in stone - I can always go back and revise things when I decide on something cool that needs to be adjusted for.

Noticing the Bloat and Accepting it

As I slowly made my way through the procedure, I started to notice that the crawling rules seemed bloated - on paper at least. I will soon be playtesting the latest version of them in the next two weeks, so it will clarify if its just my rough first-pass writing style, or if things need to be thrown out. I can already see some rules or sentences that can be simplified or entirely removed. BUT I've decided to not waste time editing mid-writing. I spend way too much time doing that with other projects that I won't fall into the same trap. I'll just write and edit after it's done, or when I've at least playtested it.

Previews

Every round is dictated by a pace set by the group of players - this will generally dictate the group's intent. Are they wanting to avoid trouble and/or focus on finding things, they'll probably choose a cautious pace. If they want to wrecklessly cause trouble, they'll likely default to brash. If they are trying to finish the objective since they may not have much time left before the megadungeon wakes up, swift it is.

The original seed of the idea had one player 'leading' the group chose the pace and rolled the aspect that would be most appropriate. Based on the result that would adjust things this round. This is something I may revisit and may combine with the current version.

Something I quickly wrote after a quick re-read was the length of rounds. I am very interested in how I can help provide a little guidance with how to make that feel right, or maybe that's enough to allow the group to find a way to describe things themselves.

I really like the idea of dungeon exploration being structured in a similar way to combat. You are always in danger and fighting something, be it enemies or the environment. To keep it quick, you can only do one thing per round: overcome a challenge, seek something, or just try and get to the objective. These actions will also be resolved in that order as well which is something I am interested in figuring out how to make more sense. The built-in vagueness of the crawling mechanic is fun but also tests my tired brain sometimes.

The Seek action generally does one of two things: add to a progress bar (because you are travelling to something) or initiating/modifying a roll that will potentially uncover a thing. Bounding for the Objective is adding to the objective progress bar. Progress bars? Yep, if you aren't aware of original GRIT, there were a lot of health bars, camp project bars, challenge effort bars, and a vague zone exploration bar. Bars or clocks will be used a lot for tracking the various progress of exploring the mega-dungeon - both for quick-play and longer campaign/legacy play.

Something that I decided to utilise a lot of is timers. A ticking clock can immediately add a level of suspense and can lead to interesting decision making situations.

Timer challenges are currently about announcing that a terrible outcome will occur in this many rounds and letting the players decide whether: they can overcome it in time with only a one person focusing on it; needing to use everyone's turn to overcome it; or try to run away from the challenge before it goes off.

The Under (the living mega-dungeon) and the Denizen are two features that I want to make sure feel good, as they both are technically about the bosses of the game - these should be highlights.

Denizens are biome/region specific bosses that are in a dormant state until a noise level is reached. This is a number that the players will need to keep in mind when crawling through each different biome. If they wake, completing the objective may no longer be first priority.

The Under is the malevolent mega-dungeon that has swallowed hordes of treasure and powerful items. It is in an ever-changing state, making navigation difficult but not impossible. Mercenaries enter into the Under while it sleeps, hoping to procure gold and glory before the Under wakes and floods its caverns with death and becomes to unstable to stay within. Mercenaries are always on the clock once they enter.