This is yet another in the series of reports on the development of Degrees of Horror. This one was originally posted July 9.
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Another Wednesday, another update! We’ve spent the last week mostly polishing the rules and mapping the plot points. Up to this point, our progress on the plot points has been pretty incremental. However, last week we had a major creative breakthrough. It was like the Grand unification Theory of Pinebox. Suddenly we saw how all our separate pieces fit together into the whole. It was amazing. I wish I could tell you about it, but of course you’ll just have to play Degrees of Horror for yourself. I can tell you that you’ll have the opportunity to revisit characters and/or dangling plot threads from at least four of our Pinebox adventures in a way that completely makes sense to the story as a whole.

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about what we’ve done to give Degrees of Horror the feel of playing in college. First, It should go without saying that the GM has extensive descriptions of places around campus. What I’d really like to highlight this week is what we’ve done from the character side. We’ve done several things to try to set the tone right from character creation.

First, you have to pick a major field of study. (Yes, you can pick “Undecided” for the first two years). Your major gives you a bonus knowledge die in your field, which could come into play if the GM chooses one of the Midnight Tales based on your major. That knowledge die also comes into play at the end of every semester, which is a nice segue to another of your character’s features.

Students have a new derived attribute, called their Studying modifier. This is a positive or negative number that is affected by the types of adventures you choose, your extra-curricular activities (more on that below), adventure deck cards, and GM whim. At the end of the semester (roughly every 10 xp), you take a Final Exam using your major knowledge die modified by your Studying attribute. After the exam, the modifier always resets back to zero to represent the beginning of the next semester’s round of studying. If you fail an exam, it delays your next rank. Your rank, in turn, dictates what Edges you can access. All of this works to make you consider what activities you pursue. Do you attend the party, or do you conduct some research? Do you join a band, or do you tutor your classmates? You can still create a combat-focused (or partying focused!) Freshman character, but you may find yourself surpassed by your better-rounded friends if you neglect your studying too much. That mirrors real life pretty well, I think.

I mentioned extra-curricular activities above. Universities sometimes call it “the other education”—the out-of-classroom experiences that shape and influence students as much or more-so than what happens in class. On the first day of our playtest, two of the players skimmed through character creation and skipped picking extra-curricular activities altogether. That’s a mistake for a number of reasons. For one thing, like Edges and Hindrances, it rounds out character. Choosing activities like a joining a Sorority, ROTC, sports team, school newspaper, or taking a job tell a lot about a character. Also like Edges and Hindrances, activities come with mechanical bonuses and penalties. For instance, taking a job increases your spending money, but it also comes with a Studying penalty.

Those are some of the ways we’re looking at grounding the campaign in a genuine college life feel. Remember, this is the campaign where you fight monsters, hunt ghosts, and unravel grand mysteries—all while maintaining a passing grade point average!

Here’s another of the progress reports originally posted on the Savage Worlds forums. This comes from July 2. I’ll probably post one report a day until we’re caught up.

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Last week I took Chapters 1-5 and dropped them into InDesign to create our first playtest edition Player’s Guide in layout format. This first edition (okay, actually 2nd edition but the first was never used) came to 50 pages without art (which will come later) and was used on Sunday for the first game in our in-house playtest campaign. We’ve run one-shots before, but Sunday marked the beginning of an entire Degrees of Horror campaign. Ed GM’d the game, while I, my wife, and another couple played as incoming freshmen.Two of the players plan on taking their characters into the arcane arts as those edges become available later in the campaign. One player plans on becoming a combat expert, and one plans on using technology in his character’s fight against evil. Of course, for now we’re all just one step above “fresh meat”. Those heroic traits are something that will come over time… if we survive!

It was a good first playtest, and Ed and I both walked away with a list of things we wanted to clarify within the players guide. If nothing else, the character creation portion got a good workout. I think it will take players and GMs alike some time to become accustomed to the Reputation and Studying derived attributes. New players will have to be careful about creating characters that are too specialized. If you build a combat machine in Degrees of Horror, you’re likely to fail your first Final Exam.

It is also worth considering your in game wealth. As ETU students, it is assumed that your tuition, dorm room, and on-campus meal plan are already paid for. What’s left is your “semester allowance”, and your wealth category determines the amount of allowance. Five hundred dollars a semester may seem like a lot, but if you buy a $300 shotgun then there goes more than half your allowance for the semester. Needless to say, there are Edges and Hindrances that modify all of those things.

Meanwhile, I’m working on writing the Plot Points chapter. The other chapters are all sitting at a first draft stage, so after this pivotal chapter is written then it’ll be a matter of filling in the book’s cracks and sanding it down to a smooth finish. Unfortunately the writing has been slow going due to real life getting in the way. Unlike some of the other publishers here, 12 to Midnight is all run during off-hours after our paying jobs and before bedtime. It’s hard to crank out 2,000 words a day when your you’ve only got an hour or two between the kids’ bedtime and your own. Even so, we are making steady progress. Holding that Player’s Guide draft in my hands felt really good.