Hacking a New Phase, pt. 2

The Lonesome Phase had it’s second playtest a few weeks back. Looking over my notes and letting things tumble over and over in my brain gave me some more insight into what’s going on and what I want to be going on.

Hacking a New Phase

Part of the brilliance of Swords Without Master is how simple and elegant it is. These qualities lead people to think that hacking it is as simple as changing the tones of the game. While this may be a necessary step, it is not sufficient. One must look at all the moving pieces of the game.

Having spent time doing so, I saw a void in the Phases that I felt needed to be filled in order to hit all the moods of a proper Western game. I wanted to create a new Phase to juxtapose the smallness of the characters against the grandeur of nature/the works of humanity/the unknown. This might be considered a sort of “Anti-Rogues” phase; instead of showing off against the background of the story, you are the background that the story shows off upon. For now I decided to call this the Lonesome Phase.