[7:35 PM]Captain: Hi I’m the game’s lead writer and project director, and i’ll be answering questions too 🙂1
[7:36 PM]Ashweather: I’m Ash, I’m the editor for Eureka since earlier this January, and I will also be tagging in. Been playing TTRPGs for 15 years, and I’d been looking for a good investigation game forever.(edited)
[7:36 PM]Chills: Hey there, I’m Chills, I’m mostly behind the visuals and module writing. I’ve been a DM for 8 years and have a history in roleplay and horror writing.
[7:36 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (Everyone please PM me with your IRL names so that I can include them in the Q&A log header, please. Assuming that you don’t want to give them here. )2
[7:37 PM]Captain: We are The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery, or “A.N.I.M.”, a very small TTRPG studio based out of the southern U.S. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a neo-noir investigation-focused RPG with (as you can probably guess from the title) a supernatural twist. Eureka fills several voids we have noticed in the TTRPG space. Eureka supports investigation to a degree we haven’t seen before, ensuring that searching for clues is a granular and player-driven process, but also ensuring that the whole story doesn’t grind to a halt after one single failed investigation check. Though most PCs will be mundane humans—or perhaps because most PCs will be mundane humans—Eureka also supports playing monstrous PCs, such as a vampire, in a way we have never seen before. This isn’t just a watered-down stat bonus, it’s like playing an almost entirely different game, with all the monster’s strengths and weaknesses to account for while solving the mystery, plus the added incentive to keep it a secret from the other PCs as well as their players. If you like or are interested in Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Dresden Files, X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Apocalypse Keys, or Gumshoe, you’ll probably find something in Eureka to really enjoy.(edited)
[7:38 PM]Captain: (done)
[7:40 PM]Captain: We have a free copy for everyone in promotion as well as a trailer and link to the kickstarter, if anyone would like some visuals to go with the Q&A2
[7:40 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Thanks, folks! The floor is open to questions!
[7:40 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Is this a modern-day setting?
[7:42 PM]Ashweather: Eureka is a contemporary game, and it is made to handle anything from about 1850 to the present day. It’s mostly the same as our real world (similar to the design ethos of Chronicles of Darkness, although there is no masquerade or secret society of the supernatural), and I would say that “present-day” is probably assumed to be the default.
[7:43 PM]Captain: Right, supernatural creature live among normal society, not outside of it
[7:43 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So the supernatural is out in the open?
[7:45 PM]Ashweather: No, the supernatural elements are not out in the open – its just fantastically rare! There is no conspiracy to hide it, supernatural creatures such as vampires remain mostly undocumented both due to their rarity (any given vampire might think they are the only one of their kind), but also due to their incentive not to reveal that they assault people and drain their blood on a regular basis.
[7:46 PM]Captain: Your roommate could be a vampire
[7:46 PM]Captain: And who’d believe you if you found out?(edited)
[7:47 PM]Chills: In one campaign, a player of mine had an elf character who had very clearly long pointy ears. However, whenever another character tried to bring up something like “are you an elf”, the elf character simply said “Elves aren’t real, idiot.” An inarguable defense.1
[7:48 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So it’s not just horror creatures that are real, but fantasy creatures as well?
[7:49 PM]Chills: It is mostly horror creatures, such as vampires and werewolves and more; the elf was a special request for that campaign. It is not a Tolkien fantasy setting, but something based on more folkloric or gothic horror.(edited)
[7:50 PM]Ashweather: Most supernatural things you can think of could be present in Eureka, but the book doesn’t present fantasy elements for the most part.
[7:51 PM]Captain: Right, the 5 playable monster types for supernatural PCs are vampire, wolfman, fairy, witch, and “thing from beyond”
[7:52 PM]Captain: (fairies and witches are absolutely horror-oriented in the folkloric sense, designing them to be both accurate to historical legends and still scary to a modern reader was fun)
[7:52 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What sort of fairy?
[7:53 PM]Ashweather: For the record, the vampire, witch, and fairy options are based more on historical folklore than modern tropes, so vampires are bound by rules like needing to be invited in”and compulsions to count large numbers of objects, and they don’t burst into flame in the sunlight.
[7:53 PM]Captain: Sunlight still sucks for them though
[7:54 PM]Chills: To add upon that, the fairies in Eureka are based on late medieval folklore, such as the fae.
[7:56 PM]Ashweather: It is left kind of deliberately vague, so that any specific kind of fairy can be played, but they must abide by restrictions like always telling the truth and being harmed by iron.
[7:56 PM]Captain: right, the “fairy” category is the broadest by far, since those particular legends are more varied than any of the other monsters
[7:58 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I’m assuming that they must be able to pass as a human, though?
[7:58 PM]Captain: Yeah, any playable monster must be able to pass for human. Inhuman monsters exist, but they can’t be PCs.
[8:01 PM]Chills: Maintaining the secrecy of the monster is a fun and challenging element of Eureka with mechanics built in to support it; its secret must be kept secret even from the other players at the table, making the reveal – if one occurs at all – even more exciting.
[8:01 PM]Chills: There have been campaigns where the monster has gone undetected the entire time, helping to solve the mystery while keeping their secrets under the other investigators’ noses.
[8:01 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): That would seem to require a lot of note-passing and/or private conversations with the GM.
[8:01 PM]Captain: If your PC is a monster, only you and the GM will know
@Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe)That would seem to require a lot of note-passing and/or private conversations with the GM.[8:02 PM]Captain: Yes it can, we have advice and guidelines in the rulebook for how to do this covertly and efficiently1
[8:03 PM]Ashweather: Handling splitting the party is probably the most GM-intensive task in the game, but Eureka really takes a lot off the GM’s plate in other regards, since the game is very player driven. Having recently run a game, I can say that it took a little getting used to, but flowed very well once we got our heads around it.
[8:03 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (Incidentally, that sort of situation is one that I think is done much more easily via online games, when the side discussions can take place in real time without any other players being the wiser.)2
[8:04 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): By default, who are the PCs, and what do they know or believe about the supernatural?
[8:04 PM]Chills: Our rulebook offers advice on that for both digital and in-person games, but yeah it works better digitally.(edited)
[8:08 PM]Ashweather: Eureka PCs are not larger than life heroes, the whole conceit of the game is that investigators are ordinary people who get in way over their heads, solving mysteries and getting into danger far above their pay grade. (even the monsters are ordinary people! Your vampire roommate has a job and plenty of mortal friends, hopefully including you.) By and large, characters don’t know about the supernatural other than whatever they happen to be – a mortal probably doesn’t know anything, and a vampire probably only knows that they are a vampire.
[8:08 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Ah, so they aren’t paranormal investigators by trade?
[8:11 PM]Ashweather: They may be, but most of them probably will not be. One PC was an HVAC repairman, we’ve had a Catholic nun, a twitch streamer (who was a vampire), a private detective, a housewife, and so on. They are ordinary folks who get involved for any number of reasons; maybe they had a loved one get hurt, maybe they are getting paid to look into things, maybe they’re just plain nosy! It’s definitely not like Delta Green or something like that. Characters shouldn’t have a bunch of resources at their disposal, which is part of why we say Eureka investigators shouldn’t be cops or special agents.
[8:14 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): That being the case, as in Call of Cthulhu, I can see assembling a group of PCs being a potential challenge. Does your game address that?
[8:17 PM]Ashweather: Eureka has advice for the GM and for players regarding what type of PC will fit a given scenario. Usually each adventure will have advice on how to get the party together and how to give them a common cause. If the investigators end up not completely allied with each other or keeping secrets, that isn’t a necessarily a problem, because the game is built to be able to handle a fair amount of PC vs PC conflict.(edited)
[8:17 PM]Ashweather: Of course it won’t be always be seamless, but in our experience, it hasn’t proven to be an issue during playtesting.
[8:19 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Is the game designed more for one-shots or for ongoing play? Because if the latter, I would think that the PCs would have to start being more proactive in order to encounter the supernatural a second time. A second chance encounter that involves all of the same PCs would seem to strain credulity.
[8:22 PM]Chills: We actually have a section on this in the rulebook itself! It is meant for one-shots and short campaigns ( 2-8 sessions ), and does work well with a rotating cast of characters. The rulebook goes into detail on the benefits of each type. The characters who end up showing up in multiple adventures are likely to be the types of people who are proactive in seeking out mysteries or the supernatural. Characters who don’t show up in multiple mysteries are likely the most rational and smart.(edited)
[8:25 PM]Captain: because they bow out after surviving their first vampire/werewolf/whatever encounter and try to keep their nose out of further ones hahaha
[8:25 PM]Captain: then again, sometimes that stuff doesn’t wait for you to come to it, it comes to you
[8:26 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): You mentioned witches being a PC option, which implies that magic exists in some form. Can the human PCs gain access to magic, and if so, what forms does it take in this setting?
[8:31 PM]Chills: There aren’t any codified ways for mundane characters to gain or learn magic or supernatural ability during play; generally, a character is made as a human with some sort of supernatural ability, and the origin of that ability is up to the GM and player to figure out. Rather than a character knowing how to cast a Fireball spell, it would rather be that a character is a pyrokinetic, with all of the interesting narrative possibilities that brings. “Magic” is open-ended but limited in scope, and usually not in the form of in-game codified spells.
[8:31 PM]Ashweather: In the rare case it would make sense for a character to gain magic during the course of play (perhaps for a specific adventure) that could be worked out at the table.
[8:31 PM]Chills: A pyrokinetic character in question. : )
[8:32 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Nice!
[8:32 PM]Captain: some promotional art by one of our team artists
[8:32 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So what sorts of abilities do witches have in the game?
@AshweatherNo, the supernatural elements are not out in the open – its just fantastically rare! There is no conspiracy to hide it, supernatural creatures such as vampires remain mostly undocumented both due to their rarity (any given vampire might think they are the only one of their kind), but also due to their incentive not to reveal that they assault people and drain their blood on a regular basis.[8:35 PM]Silverlion: Except for an obscure NHI document?
[8:36 PM]Chills: Alongside being able to swap between various magical abilities, witches have the ability to place a vareity of extremely potent curses on their enemies, ranging from petrifying them to turning them into a toad to placing them into slumber. And of course they can fly on brooms.(edited)
@SilverlionExcept for an obscure NHI document?[8:37 PM]Captain: What is the NHI?
[8:40 PM]Silverlion: National Health Institute. In joke from the Kitty Norville Novels. She’s a werewolf who actually finds a document mentioning the supernatural (made by a legitimate government in her world.)
[8:41 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Do you have a character sheet that we can see?
@SilverlionNational Health Institute. In joke from the Kitty Norville Novels. She’s a werewolf who actually finds a document mentioning the supernatural (made by a legitimate government in her world.)[8:41 PM]Captain: Hahaha, yeah that hits the nail on the head actually.
[8:41 PM]Captain: We put them in promotion , but i can post one hereEASY_PRINT_CHARACTER_SHEET_Jan_1_2024.pdf902.74 KB
[8:41 PM]Captain: here let me get some screenshots
[8:44 PM]Captain: there, that’s the whole (prototype) character sheet
[8:46 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Are the Traits akin to attributes? I see that they provide modifiers to the skills.
[8:47 PM]Chills: Yeah, traits are often based on the personality of the character, and it range from providing contextual bonuses to completely turning on its head how certain characters interact with certain rules. We’re pulling up some examples now!1
[8:47 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Are they chosen from a list or player-defined?
[8:48 PM]Chills: The traits come from a fun list in the rulebook, and we’re pulling up some.
[8:48 PM]Ashweather: As stated, there is a list, but the book does give guidelines on making your own if need be.
[8:49 PM]Chills: Traits show that in Eureka, abilities are based on who your character is rather than just how good they are in combat, for example. There is a focus on the personality of the character and how that manifests through gameplay.
[8:49 PM]Captain: I’m grabbing a few screenshots from the trait list right now
[8:50 PM]Chills: I’ve seen so many interesting characters based on what traits they have and how that modifies the character’s interactions with the world around them.
[8:50 PM]Chills: I’ve always loved character creation, and Eureka really makes it feel it is about making a person rather than a tool.
[8:51 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Nice!
[8:51 PM]Chills: The traits play a big part in that.
[8:51 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Kolchak?
[8:52 PM]Ashweather: Yeah!!!!
[8:52 PM]Captain: Yeah!!
[8:52 PM]Chills: WOW
[8:52 PM]Ashweather: Kolchak: The Night Stalker is a huge, huge influence on Eureka, and I think you’re the first person to notice that independently
[8:52 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Go me! \o/
[8:52 PM]Ashweather: GMshoe indeed1
[8:53 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Can you describe the game’s task resolution mechanic? The example we often use here is adjudicating a PC trying to jump over a gap.
[8:56 PM]Chills: It uses a 2d6 system with a 10+ as Full Success, a 7-9 as a partial success, and a 6 or below as a Failure. So as an example, roll 2d6 and add the modifier from the Athletics skill. If they get a Full Success, they jump it no problem. If it’s a Partial Success, they will make it but not gracefully, and something bad may happen such as making noise or getting hurt. A failure will have them fall into the gap.
[8:56 PM]Chills: From my experience, Partial Successes have made for very interesting narrative opportunities, since they are contextual.
[8:56 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): No Critical Success level, I take it?
[8:58 PM]Chills: A double 6 will mean a roll is a Full Success no matter what, but its not an extreme level of success, such as double damage or the such.
[8:58 PM]Chills: A double 6 means that even the scrawniest scrapper could get that lucky hit….!
[8:59 PM]Chills: I’ve seen cool narrative moments from that.
[8:59 PM]Ashweather: Side note: It’s worth noting that Eureka splits rolls into “Investigation-Rolls” and “Non-Investigation Rolls” because its mechanical focus is so heavily on investigation. An Investigation Roll is any roll which seeks to gain more information about the mystery at hand, basically. Jumping over a gap would almost always be a Non-Investigation Roll.
[8:59 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How to Investigation Rolls work?
[9:00 PM]Chills: Great question and I’m really excited to answer. Typing up now.1
[9:04 PM]Chills: First of all, “investigation” is not a skill; it is task resolution as any other, in which specific skills are used to investigate specific aspects for information. The major difference between an investigation roll and a not-investigation roll is, first off, the consequences, in which jumping over a gap may result in a character getting hurt, but a failure on an investigation roll usually means they do not get information. In addition to just giving information, investigation rolls fill up what is called the Investigation Bar. All investigation rolls give investigation points (failed rolls give more investigation points), and when the bar is filled up, the character gets a Eureka! point. Eurekas! are highly valuable and can either increase the odds of success on a roll or it can turn a previously failed investigation roll into a success, retroactively revealing that information as the character has that “Ah ha! Eureka!” moment.(edited)
[9:05 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Huh. That’s darned clever.
[9:05 PM]Chills: Thanks!
[9:05 PM]Captain: thank you 🙂
[9:06 PM]Chills: When I created the Investigation and Eureka! system, it was as a direct response to my dissatisfaction with other systems, in which bad rolls just mean a halt to the story.
[9:06 PM]Ashweather: We always want to keep the mystery moving – failing to get information at a key moment and stalling all progress is the worst feeling ever for this type of game.2
[9:06 PM]Captain: It also makes failure into more of a good thing
[9:06 PM]Chills: Plus, the system rewards proactively searching for clues, even if one does not have the most optimal skill, because any Investigation roll, including failures, rewards points.
[9:07 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So if used to turn a failed Investigation roll into a success, it’s simulating a thought about the circumstance that the PC has had time to stew over a bit?
[9:07 PM]Chills: Yeah!
@Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe)So if used to turn a failed Investigation roll into a success, it’s simulating a thought about the circumstance that the PC has had time to stew over a bit?[9:07 PM]Captain: exactly
[9:07 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Hmm. So how does that work if the initial roll was to, say, find a hidden note? How would the PC suddenly realize the contents of a note that they never found in the first place?
[9:08 PM]Captain: but it doesn’t make the mystery too easy to solve, because you only get one Eureka! point for about every 5-10 investigation checks
[9:08 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Or are Investigation rolls not for discovery, but rather for interpretation?
[9:08 PM]Chills: The answer to this is that you never roll to spot the thing – if something is visible, it is visible. It would be more like the investigation roll is to decipher the code in a note.
[9:08 PM]Chills: Exactly!
@Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe)Or are Investigation rolls not for discovery, but rather for interpretation?[9:08 PM]Captain: that’s a perfect way to put it
[9:09 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Wow, I’m on a roll this evening.
[9:09 PM]Captain: investigators dont need to succeed checks to find clues, just to get more useful information out of them
[9:10 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So when it comes to something that’s hidden, do the players roll, or do they just have to describe an action that would reveal the item?
[9:10 PM]Captain: the latter
[9:10 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I take it that a statement of “I search the room for clues!” would be insufficient?
[9:11 PM]Ashweather: Yeah, if a journal is in a desk drawer, and the PC opens that drawer, they see the journal. Actually, in the haunted house escape room which serves as Eureka’s “tutorial” adventure, there is a key hidden under a pillow to encourage this kind of searching and turning over every leaf.
@Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe)I take it that a statement of “I search the room for clues!” would be insufficient?[9:11 PM]Captain: correct, it would be very much insufficient. “My character bends down and looks underneath the truck” would be more like it1
[9:12 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How does combat work?
[9:12 PM]Ashweather: The GM is supposed to give detailed room and clue descriptions to facilitate more specific interactions than something as vague as “I search the room for clues”(edited)
[9:13 PM]Captain: this is gonna be a long answer (to combat i mean)(edited)
[9:17 PM]Ashweather: Eureka’s combat is very deadly and likely to be over very quickly. It is a scenario that most investigators are going to want to avoid, just like a person in real life wants to avoid ever having a gun pointed at them. If it does break out, though, it has a lot of rules to cover it. It has to be deadly to encourage it not to be the primary method of conflict resolution. BUT! If it’s going to be deadly, it also has to be deep and strategic, otherwise it feels cheap and doesn’t reward careful planning or investigation (think of a scenario where the investigators dig up a monster’s weaknesses for example).
[9:18 PM]Captain: and as another example, think of the investigators being able to pull up a floorplan of the building they have to break into
[9:18 PM]Ashweather: So, the mechanics, briefly:(edited)
[9:23 PM]Ashweather: It’s not a separate set of mechanics per se, it uses the same 2d6 resolution system, an attack roll would just be a skill check (for example, Firearms if it was with a gun). Characters have relatively little health, and a static health pool. There are two types of health, superficial (fistfights and the like) and penetrative (for more deadly fare). Every human character has 5 of each, and weapons are very deadly – any bullet will deal 4 penetrative damage, which will leave a human with 1 penetrative health and immediately must make a roll to avoid being completely incapacitated. If they go to 0 penetrative health, they just die. Where the depth comes in are the many factors which determine whether the bullet hits or not, such as distance, cover, shooter skill, whether the target is moving, and so on. In Eureka, having the initiative and getting the drop on someone is an extremely potent tool, just like in real life.(edited)
[9:24 PM]Ashweather: There are a number of different options for what to do in combat, like grabs, throws, disarms, shoves, and so on, just to give you an idea of the depth there!
[9:28 PM]Ashweather: One of the most unique elements of combat is the Woo Roll (named after action director John Woo). In other RPGs, projectiles such as arrows, bullets and so on just disappear into thin air if they miss. In Eureka, projectiles that miss hit something and the Woo Roll determines what they hit. When a bullet misses, a Woo Roll is made, which determines if the effect is positive or negative for the shooter, and we have a table with suggestions when the result would not be “obvious” (i.e. a negative result when shooting a bad guy taking a hostage almost certainly they hit the hostage, where a positive roll might hit the fire extinguisher behind the guy and distract him long enough to perhaps charge him.)
[9:28 PM]Ashweather: (done)
[9:28 PM]Captain: https://youtu.be/SqMPzcGQJzA (Hard Boiled, a John Woo film)(edited)YouTubeTue NguyenHard Boiled – Trailer (HD)
[9:29 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): A very good John Woo film, at that.
[9:29 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Not that this would come up often in this sort of setting, but how does armor work?
[9:30 PM]Chills: We do have rules for armor! Armor tends to reduce damage by half. Certain armor only works against certain weapons, such as a leather jacket working against knives but not bullets.
[9:30 PM]Chills: A bulletproof vest works against bullets but not against small knives, and so on.
[9:35 PM]Rockwell32001: how do martial arts work?
[9:37 PM]Chills: It would generally be governed by the CQC skill, which would work on the same Full-Partial-Failure system as said above, and it is supplemented by the various abilities that are covered in the rulebook, such as Grab, Throw, Disarm, Shove, and so on.
[9:37 PM]Rockwell32001: ok.
[9:37 PM]Chills: This makes sure that players are always aware of exactly what their characters could do, and its not just a vague “Roll to do something”
[9:37 PM]Chills: YEah as listed there.
[9:38 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (Are you guys okay for time? We’re going over a bit here, but if you can stay, I do have a few more questions.)
[9:39 PM]Captain: We are all good to keep going 1
[9:39 PM]Rockwell32001: good here.2
[9:39 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Do you have a fear mechanic?
[9:40 PM]Captain: there is a looooooooooooot to say about that, so be prepared for long answers
[9:41 PM]Chills: Oh yes! It is the Composure mechanic, which determines how composed the character is, which affects how well they can function in any situation. This manifests as the composure acting as a cap to their skill modifiers. So, if a character’s composure has fallen to 2, then all skills cannot go higher than 2 until that Composure is raised.
[9:41 PM]Ashweather: Composure is very central to Eureka and its feel at the table, and it plays into almost every one of the game’s systems.(edited)
[9:41 PM]Chills: Imagine shaking hands.
[9:42 PM]Chills: Hunger and fatigue can also drop Composure, but the main thing that drops it is fear and stress.
@ChillsImagine shaking hands.[9:42 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I often shake hands.
[9:42 PM]Captain: hahaha
[9:43 PM]Captain: now we talk about “Tiers of Fear”
@Captainnow we talk about “Tiers of Fear”[9:43 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I knew this whole thing would end in tiers.2
[9:44 PM]Chills: Specifically, each character has their Tiers of Fear, which determine how a character will react to a given situation. We’ll pull up an example to visualize it first.
[9:45 PM]Chills: The Tiers of Fear are a set of modifiers for Composure checks, and appear on the character sheet, ranging from horrific to ridiculous, based on how a character would personally react to those situations.
[9:45 PM]Chills: Like other aspects of the character sheet, this shows more about who this character is.
[9:46 PM]Captain: Here is a filled-in Tiers of Fear for Comtesse Yvette Preux, an 800-year-old vampire PC
[9:47 PM]Captain: she appears in more of our promotional material
[9:47 PM]Ashweather: Anytime a character encounters a situation that matches one of those fears, they are forced to make a Composure roll (still a 2d6) with the relevant modifier. Failure means they lose 2 or 3 Composure (out of 7 total), Partial Success means they lose 1 or 2, and Full Success means they don’t lose any. As you can work out, Composure can drop very quickly in a frightening situation!(edited)
[9:48 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I assume the vampiress is freaked out by other monsters because she doesn’t know that they exist?
@Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe)I assume the vampiress is freaked out by other monsters because she doesn’t know that they exist?[9:48 PM]Captain: indeed
[9:50 PM]Captain: plus, they can’t do much to hurt her, but, as a vampire, she knows full well what a vampire is capable of, and what could happen to her mortal friends should another be allowed to run amok(edited)
[9:51 PM]Captain: (another amusing note is that this character is, generally, a skeptic)
[9:52 PM]Ashweather: If Composure drops too far, not only does it limit skills, but failed Composure rolls start costing Superficial health if they can’t drop Composure any further, which means that getting too frightened can result in dying of fright, or Composure loss from failing to eat, say, could lead to starvation.
[9:53 PM]Captain: But before dying happens, they’re more likely to pass out from fear or hunger
[9:54 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Does the game have an established cosmology? Are there demons and angels, for example?
[9:56 PM]Ashweather: Eureka has a specific setting in mind, which never really explicitly laid out except in, for example, Monster traits. However, the details of the cosmology and such are left intentionally vague so that many kinds of stories and adventures with potentially conflicting lore can all be played using the system.
[9:56 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Does the game have a bestiary, and if so, how large is it?
[9:58 PM]Ashweather: It has the playable Monsters, but beyond that, it does not currently have a bestiary. We do have plans in the future to release a supplement along those lines – for the time being, each adventure module we write has its own antagonists and threats which are statted and described in the adventures themselves.(edited)
[9:59 PM]Captain: The playable monster rules can easily be used to create NPC antagonists
[9:59 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Hmm. Do you offer any guidelines to GMs for creating supernatural antagonists, and if not, how can they avoid, say, creating a ghost that your own currently-unwritten ghost rules end up contradicting?
[10:02 PM]Ashweather: There are some guidelines in the book in the section on inhuman monsters. Honestly though, we’re really not too concerned if one group’s game with a ghost in it ends up contradicting the setting we have mind or anything we might write in the future. These are inexplicable phenomena; one “ghost” working differently from how we decide to write a “ghost” in the future isn’t a problem. That’s part of why specific lore and cosmology is left a bit vague, as well.
[10:03 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Fair enough!
[10:04 PM]Ashweather: The PCs are not supposed to understand the exact mechanisms by which a ghost works, say, even though they might find out a way to stop it. They aren’t the ghostbusters, they are more like Mulder and Scully from the X-Files. They are lucky to even find a way to stop the monster in question, understanding it scientifically is not on the table, no matter how much that might haunt them.1
[10:04 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Now it’s time for a segment I like to call “Two Tough Questions.”
[10:05 PM]Captain: alright
[10:05 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Question #1: No game is for everyone. That being the case, what sort of gamer will not like Eureka?
[10:06 PM]Zarek – Rochai (Indominant): So forgive me if this was already answered. But if I may, how do you handle the potential opposition or clash of players hiding information about their characters from each-other? Above it was mentioned that as a vampire you’d hide it from the other characters and players. What would be the expected result if that was found out and the others in the group then want to kill a fellow player?
[10:06 PM]Ashweather: I think that players who prefer to take a more passive role, or prefer to create more passive characters, will not mesh well with the system, because Eureka is extremely character driven.
@Zarek – Rochai (Indominant)So forgive me if this was already answered. But if I may, how do you handle the potential opposition or clash of players hiding information about their characters from each-other? Above it was mentioned that as a vampire you’d hide it from the other characters and players. What would be the expected result if that was found out and the others in the group then want to kill a fellow player?[10:07 PM]Ashweather: Well, they want to kill a character in the game, and that would be AWESOME. If they want to kill the player, not so much, and frankly I wouldn’t play with a group like that!
[10:07 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Question #2: No game is perfect. That being the case, what is your least favorite aspect of Eureka?
@AshweatherWell, they want to kill a character in the game, and that would be AWESOME. If they want to kill the player, not so much, and frankly I wouldn’t play with a group like that![10:07 PM]Zarek – Rochai (Indominant): Sorry, correction would be the players character haha
[10:08 PM]Captain: inter-party conflict is something that has made for some very very memorable scenes
@Zarek – Rochai (Indominant)Sorry, correction would be the players character haha[10:08 PM]Ashweather: Yeah no problem, the answer is that we want that to happen. PC vs PC conflict is great and has been extremely fun and entertaining in playtesting. That said its also pretty rare.2
[10:08 PM]Zarek – Rochai (Indominant): Okay, so it’s something you actually want to happen, that answers my question.
[10:08 PM]Captain: people sometimes do decide that the vampire PC is a greater threat to society than the actual villain2
[10:09 PM]Captain: as for least favorite aspect, let us think…
[10:09 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (Bear in mind that it doesn’t have to be something that you actively dislike. Just maybe something that you don’t think you quite nailed to your own satisfaction.)
[10:11 PM]Ashweather: We have a great rule for initiative in melee, but we’re not too satisfied with the way initiative works when guns or other ranged weapons get involved. It has a separate initiative system, and its frankly just not very innovative and may get overhauled as we edit. Its a problem we’ve been chewing on.(edited)1
[10:12 PM]Captain: Luckily, most instances of combat do not last enough rounds for this to matter much (which is by design, it is very rare for combat to last more than 4 rounds)(edited)
[10:12 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): A solid answer!
[10:13 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Thank you folks so much for staying so late with us. The game sounds quite fascinating, and I plan on making use of that free beta copy.
[10:13 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Before we finish, is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up?
[10:15 PM]Ashweather: I think we covered pretty much everything, but there is one little extra feature called Truth, which all investigators have. Its an aspect of their personality (something like “loves violence,” or “overconfident”) which tends to get them into trouble or spur them into action. If an investigator acts in a way in line with their Truth, they get a potent bonus to the next few rolls. It helps flesh out characters even more!
[10:16 PM]Ashweather: Thank you so much for having us so late, it was a blast, I hope you enjoy that beta copy!!!
[10:16 PM]Chills: The kickstarter has all sorts of rewards that let original content into the book, such as writing in encounters on the Hunting Tables, which are tables full of encounters in which monster PCs find people to feed on. You too can get eaten by a Vampire.
[10:17 PM]Chills: You could even get your own investigator into the book with a full-body artwork!
[10:17 PM]Chills: I’m excited to see what sorta custom encounters people will be putting into the tables.
[10:17 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Usual reminder: If you’ve enjoyed this Q&A and would like to treat me to a coffee or two, you can do so at https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe. Anything’s appreciated! Ko-fiBuy Dan Davenport a Coffee. ko-fi.com/gmshoeBecome a supporter of Dan Davenport today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.1
[10:17 PM]Chills: Visit the kickstarter! 11 days left.
[10:18 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll get the log posted and link you! Feel free to link the folks to the Kickstarter!
[10:19 PM]Captain: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anim/eureka-investigative-urban-fantasy hereKickstarterEureka: Investigative Urban FantasyInvestigation that trusts your intellect, gameplay focused on WHO your character is, and deadly realistic combat await in this TTRPG!
[10:21 PM]Captain: we got two new backers during this Q&A. I don’t know specifically if they were from this server, but if they were, thank you, whoever backed!