“This recreation tells the story of the blue-collar crew of a scavenger ship as they discover alien wrecks in quest of priceless salvage. As they penetrate the construction they might face not solely pirates, alien beasts, and technical hazards, but additionally the corruption that comes from being too near tears within the cloth of actuality.”
Charlie Dunwoody (CD): Thanks for speaking with me once more. What impressed you to write down Vac Fits and Duct Tape and what sort of universe did you wish to deliver to life?
Fenris-77 (F7): It was a few issues actually. I began the sport a number of years in the past and had simply gotten into Trophy and was (and nonetheless am) enchanted by the foundations. Trophy: Gold particularly is a guidelines mild deconstruction of conventional OSR type play and it actually impressed me to play and write. Whereas taking part in and working lots of Trophy I began to tinker with the notion of hacking the foundations for one thing else. I did not wish to tread to shut to the fantasy milieu of the bottom recreation and began excited about varied science fiction prospects. Exploring wrecked alien ships appeared like a strong sci-fi equal of dungeon crawling (as many different designers have already realized, I am you Area Hulk. As soon as I had that primary concept the transfer into area truckers as characters led me to varied films and reveals like Alien and Firefly. Superior video games like Mothership inhabit this similar normal design area. The fundamental setting conceit is that the characters dwell in a system lower off from the remainder of humanity by the collapse of its void gate, an occasion that additionally spewed millennia of collected area junk into the system. This labored for the essential concept I wished of scavenging wrecks, however the area junk additionally added the chance to make use of just about any form of alien or wreck in a selected recreation and have it ‘make sense’ from a story standpoint. So a small recreation with a sketch-level setting can deal with a number of completely different sorts of sci-fi tales. I wished to GMs to have as a lot freedom as doable inside the essential setting.
CD: How did Vac Fits and Duct Tape evolve and alter out of your preliminary concept into its remaining kind?
F7: I initially wrote VSaDT based mostly on Trophy: Darkish somewhat than Trophy: Gold, which is a way more horror-indexed recreation aimed toward short-form fantasy wilderness exploration (one or two classes). Trophy: Darkish would do a beautiful job particularly of dealing with a narrative like the primary Alien film the place you’ve gotten lots of participant vs participant and many of the characters die. I spotted fairly shortly that I wished one thing with extra of a marketing campaign really feel and so shifted over to the Trophy: Gold guidelines.
CD: You talked about the gorgeous artwork by BrotherFel. How did you and Brother Fel meet and what was the method the 2 of you used to show your written and/or spoken concepts into remaining artwork?
F7: Amazingly, BrotherFel was the primary or second particular person to reply to a submit I made on Discord on the lookout for artists to assist with the sport. We hit it off straight away and I beloved a few of his first idea work. He performed in some playtest classes and received excited and the remaining is historical past. I am simply sorry the sport languished in growth limbo for some time and it is taken me this lengthy to get his artwork near publication. Numerous the artwork within the ebook is linked fairly intently the brief fiction it accommodates and I could not be extra happy with the outcome.
CD: What was essentially the most difficult a part of designing Vac Fits and Duct Tape and why?
F7: I feel essentially the most tough half was making an attempt to create a world that appeared rational and lived in contained in the small web page depend. Trophy does this effectively, which helped, however I needed to pack lots of evocative element into different components of the sport, like gear for instance. I additionally determined so as to add some brief fiction bits to “illustrate” varied elements of the foundations in addition to serving for instance of what play would possibly appear to be. To tie every part collectively the fiction bits within the guidelines, plus nearly all of the artwork, tie on to one of many Salvage Runs, known as Black Obelisk that comes with the primary guidelines.
CD: How do you propose Vac Fits and Duct Tape to be run and what instruments do you present GMs to deliver adventures to life?
F7: Vac Fits and Duct Tape is a really mild recreation in nearly each respect, nevertheless it nonetheless gives all of the transferring components GMs have to run nice video games. Like its dad or mum recreation Trophy, VSaDT is commonly run with only a flowchart and no precise map (though it really works with maps simply effective). A given journey, known as a Salvage Run, is damaged up into thematic and geographical chunks known as units. Every set is a big space, or collection of linked smaller areas, and every set has particulars for foes, hazards, and salvage the group would possibly discover, in addition to evocative moments for play and a primary query or objective that drives exploration. So, for instance, the set objective is likely to be navigate the wrecked hanger bay and find the northern transit tunnels. The set gives every part you could run that little bit of the journey and transfer on to the subsequent set. Vac Fits and Duct Tape additionally has a relaxation and restoration play loop (the equal of the OSR camp section) and a bigger structural loop that covers going again to Bastion Area station, promoting stuff, paying the payments, and discovering your subsequent job. I’ve had folks use Vac Fits to run Mothership adventures, that are way more particularly structured with maps and rooms, and so they mentioned they ran the journey and transformed on the fly and it went very effectively. The bottom Trophy: Gold guidelines are equally straightforward to make use of to run a variety of OSR modules from many methods with minimal conversion.
CD: Was Trophy your first alternative for recreation system and the way does the system assist deliver the universe of Vac Fits and Duct Tape to life?
F7: Vac Fits and Duct Tape was by no means alleged to be something however rooted in Trophy. One little bit of OSR DNA that Trophy retains is that characters are fragile and dying lurks round each nook, and that appeared to suit what I used to be doing to a tee. That is very a lot a recreation about inventive play and drawback fixing and never character sheet widgets. The Trophy die pool mechanic particularly permits for and maybe even calls for that gamers get inventive with serving to one another, utilizing gear, and utilizing the atmosphere to resolve the issues they encounter.
CD: Anything you’d wish to share with the readers of EN World?
F7: I am already arduous at work on a Bastion Station complement for VSaDT so this would possibly not be a one and finished launch. I hope that everybody who buys Vac Fits and Duct Tape actually enjoys it, however even when they do not, I’d encourage them to try Trophy by Jesse Ross. It is marvelous.
