itch.io

My partner and I are playing through and are encountering the man with the bandana who quizzes you. We ended up looking up a walkthrough of the answers, but now we’re curious: could anyone elaborate on the cipher he uses? We know the answer to the riddle, we just want to know how we might go about deciphering it ourselves.

This is a delight to hear! I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

I’m glad to be of help! You’ve read two of my titles so far, and in each case with enough attention to detail that you have something to say. That means a lot.

You’ll find that a lot of my work has gaps like this one, and quite intentionally so. I leave them because between the rules is where the players sit. When you find them in the future, know that I put them there with love for you, the people engaging with the work.

Oh, I see what you mean! Thank you for clarifying.

And to get it out of the way, I’ll answer your second question first: When you use the Specialist 4th Level perk, you take a Class Tag as if you had the class, and you can upgrade it as you would any other tag. Easy peasy. Use it as if you had the associated Class Move, as well.

As for the Psionics question - this is where things get rather vague, and I fear I may give a bit of a cop-out answer. Simply put, I would leave that to be house-ruled at your table as you please.

But I want to be more helpful than that. So I’ll give a couple of examples of how I might resolve the rule at my table.

1. Do as you say. When you activate Guile 2 via Psionics 3, you replace “Approach” from the Guile rules with “Effect.” Presumably, whichever effect you’re Casting Magic with at that moment.

2. Treat the Guile activation as if you were Influencing Someone. So pick an Approach to use, and apply your Trick to that approach for the duration of your Cast Magic.

3. Split your rolls. Make your Cast Magic roll to attempt to charm someone. On a success, then make an Influence Someone roll, with Guile 2 and the Approach tag of your choice; whether you use your social or mental stats for the latter roll would be another matter of table ruling.

Generally speaking, gaps in the design like this one are left there on purpose. It’s the kind of space I love to see as a player - it lets me use my imagination and shape the world of the game to my imagination. Rule things in ways that are fun for your table, and ignore anything that doesn’t speak to you.

The idea behind Psionics is that you can replace Source Tags with Tags from other classes when Casting Magic. So in your example, using Psionic 2 to activate Guile 1 from the Face Class, you treat the Guile Tag as if it were a Source Tag, and apply it to the Cast Magic Move instead of applying it to Influence Someone.

The way I imagine it is telekinesis. If you’ve got mind powers, then you can lift up a sword and swing it around with your mind, where a soldier would use their arms.

A couple of months ago, I was struck with a desire to find a game that captured what I love about Zelda, and came across the original free version of Forgotten Ballad. It was a gorgeous little game, and I was even inspired to write my own one-page game after the style. I just picked up the full version, and I’m stunned – this is phenomenal. Reading it inspired me allover again. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a while.

This game looks phenomenal. It does everything I find so intriguing about Mage, while being so much more accessible and honestly, more fun to read. And how did you manage to pack so much into just a couple pages and still fill the thing with personality and splash art?