This is the production blog for the crafting tabletop roleplaying game Skrap Packs. Here, I will be posting updates on the status of the game and general information for those who want to find out more about it.
How Do You Play Skrap Packs?
In Skrap Packs, players create characters that explore settings, scavenge items and assemble new ones that they can use to solve problems. Each item is in the form of a card, which are also used to help the game master (GM) in generating the world.
Each item is represented by a card that the GM pulls from one of the game decks, different decks representing a different kind of item.
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| Mundane Item |
- Mundane Items: Cards representing normal, everyday things that the player characters can find in the world. These are drawn to give player characters a reward for defeating enemies, searching the area, or building flavor for a new place or non-player character they're first encountering.
Plot Items: Unique items to the overall genre or setting of the story that the GM is presenting. These can be things like sci-fi weaponry, cursed objects, or even living creatures that act as tools.
Plot Item
Sentimental Items: Unique items with personal value to the player character. These are things that help them recover when in a tight spot, and can be sacrificed in order to resolve a problem as well as develop the character's identity.
Sentimental Item
When presented with a challenge, players will look at the items they have and propose to the GM how they can use them to resolve the issue. The GM and player go over a checklist to calculate a bonus that they'll apply to a roll to see if the move is successful or not.
What's This About Crafting?
There might be times when players realize their characters have items to put together a more useful tool than what they already have. When they do so, they present to the GM what they want to make, and the items they want to use to make it. The GM and player then go over a checklist to calculate a bonus that they'll apply to a roll to see how many uses this new crafted item will have.
Creating a Character
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| The current Skrap Packs character sheet |
Both when calculating the bonus for using items, and when calculating the bonus for how many uses an item could have, a major factor is what the character's title, or background is. There are no real stats in Skrap Packs, instead, characters effectiveness at performing actions is focused around the items they use to perform a task, and their character's effectiveness at using those tools for that task.
Players create their characters' title by interpreting two things:
- The scenario that their characters exist in, such as they are teens the night before graduation, partying at a cabin in the woods, or passengers on a cruise ship that has run ashore of a desert island. In campaigns, players take the role of interdimensional scavengers, going to different universes and getting caught-up in adventures as they attempt to steal everything that's not nailed down.
- The items their character starts with. Players are given a set of mundane items and a sentimental item that they compare with their scenario and decide who they're playing as.
Players write their character's title at the top of the page, and reference it as they play the game to calculate their bonuses.
Gameplay has players come up with interesting ways to use the items they start with, scavenge, or create, based on who their character is and how they develop over the course of the game.
Marketing Plan
The marketing plan for Skrap Packs is to produce individual packs based around themes. Each pack would contain a deck of mundane, plot and sentimental cards. There would be one deck of mundane cards that revolve around things you could randomly find in the setting proposed by the pack. There would be at least two different decks of plot cards, each for different paths that the plot could go down based on the pack's setting. Lastly, the single sentimental items deck would provide new fodder for character creation, both for players and non-players.
This ties into campaign play; players take the role of interdimensional scavengers, with each pack offering new locations to visit, plots to experience, and items to collect.
