The Back Room: Memo #2

The Two Swing Minimum

Welcome to The Back Room, where the lights are neon, the signal is encrypted, and the plans are still half-written on the tablet. This is where I think out loud, try things before they’re ready, and invite you to watch the mess take shape.
Thanks for sliding back here with me, I appreciate it.

In all things creative, I take at least two swings.
That’s just me. I mostly don’t trust the first results. They might be good, but I have nothing else to compare them to yet, so I need a second swing at it.

Lately, I’ve been dragging ass about playtesting Mad-Dice, my dice app. Not because I don’t want to — I do. I’m excited about running games AND testing my code.
The obstacle?
As always, it is: what game do I run?

It’s the same friction every time — the indecision that kills my schedules. I can never pick on time. And I don't know why. 🤷🏾‍♂️

I landed on CBR+PNK for this first trial. It’s designed for one-shots, which means I can run a rotating table, test across different players, and dodge the campaign pressure trap. Perfect. However, this choice means I don’t get the two-fer I wanted from running a supers game… This is the better option …I think.
CBR+PNK uses a D6 pool, which is easy stuff for this first outing. In terms of app logic, rolling 1d6 is not very different from rolling 1000d20s. What I need is app friction, people using it. This’ll do nicely. It’s a Forged in the Dark variant, and I have experience in that game’s flow. I grabbed the CBR+PNK Augmented PDFs from DriveThru, saw the beautiful Character Keepers folks had built, and suddenly...

I Am Excited.