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Overview
Overview

I'm a huge nerd and love fantasy tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. I really like the stories and experiences that can come out of sitting down with a group of friends and playing together.

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I especially like the creativity that comes with it and being able to flex my imagination. As a hobby, I'd made a bunch of worlds and mechanical systems for me and my friends to play in high school. While fun, these were very amateurish and unpolished.

 

In late December 2018, I was struck with inspiration and started to create the Symbiote RPG.

I got a working version and tested it with some friends. There were a lot of problems and I kept playtesting with friends and even strangers at CMU to get a variety of perspectives and feedback on the system, iteratively improving it.

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In early 2019, the CMU RPG Association announced Game Creation Month, a competition to create the best tabletop game, and the winner got their game fully printed. 

I worked feverishly on developing and polishing Symbiote, submitted it, and won.

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However, that was not the end and testing went on. I worked with a friend to proof-read everything, added features, expanded on what was there, and spent a lot of time polishing the text.

 

By the end, I had written an original 125-page long book, made a cover, made some insert art pieces, and worked with my more artistically inclined friend to get nice drawings of some of the creatures in my world. I'd run over 30 playtests, and over 100 characters had been made for Symbiote.  

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In April 2020, I sent out the final version of Symbiote to get printed as a hardback.

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The Beginning
Desires

When I ​started Symbiote, I wanted a few key things from my system.

  • A flavorful and different experience from typical fantasy

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  • A lot of player freedom, especially when created characters.

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  • A unique world for these characters to exist within.

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  • Easy to understand mechanics​

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  • A harsh and bleak tone that did not overly restrict the player

A Deep Fisher, one of the creatures found in Symbiote.
The Beginning
Inspiration

Using these starting desires, I worked on the mechanics and world of Symbiote.

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  • I used a system based on six-sided dice with a simple way of calculating successes.

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  • I took concepts and ideas from the Cthulhu mythos, post-apocalyptic media like the Fallout games series and the Mad Max movies, and WWI, combining them to make a world for my players.​​

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  • Mechanics where characters could risk their health and sanity for more power​

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  • A character creation system where players choose unique backgrounds, the type of eldritch symbiote living inside them gnawing at their mind and body, the powers of their normal human body, and the powers that symbiote granted them.

The World and System
The World and System
Post-Apocalyptic WWI with Eldritch Horrors

In Symbiote, humanity uncovered the Old Gods - vast, caged, eldritch horrors of unfathomable power scattered throughout the globe, during WWI. Humanity tried to weaponize these creatures but they proved too powerful and a desperate fight for survival that decimated the planet ensued, ending with humanity and the forces of the Old Gods almost wiped out.

Players play characters who live a generation after the end of the war when societies are starting to rebuild and stabilize. They are gifted with an eldritch symbiote inside them that makes them very powerful. However, the horrors of the Old Ones still roam the world as well as the mechanical monsters humanity created when trying to fight them.

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I chose these key elements because they each brought something unique to the table.

The concept of Old Ones that are powerful beyond comprehension whos mere existence creates monstrosities from the wildlife gives rise to cool, mutated creatures that have an element of the unknowable.

WWI is an under-explored setting in my opinion because it combines a lot of bleak, interesting, and iconic aspects. You have the introduction of fully automatic weapons. The last cries of 'traditional' warfare, such as cavalry charges. Trench warfare. The rise of the gas mask as a necessity. It was a war so deadly it ushered in a fascination in death, and I wanted to tap into that tone when creating my world.

The post-apocalyptic setting really cements the desperate tone, with unreliable machines, massive ruins of old cities, and human ingenuity being pushed to its limits to survive.

Player Freedom

To allow players to have the freedom I wanted when created characters, I put in various meaningful choices during character creation.

Choose your core abilities and skills

  • 9 core abilities split evenly between offensive, defensive, and utility

  • 18 skills influenced by these abilities

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Choose your origin

  • 9 unique backgrounds, each with a distinct flavor

  • Variant backgrounds for extra customization

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Choose your innate powers

  • 18 character powers to choose from as you grow stronger

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Choose your symbiote

  • 3 vastly different strains of symbiote, Fighter, Trickster, and Weirdling-Tongue

  • 20 different powers each strain can choose from

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Evolve your symbiote

  • 6 possible evolutions for each strain

  • 6 powers that each evolution can choose from

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Choose your gear

  • 33 guns to use

  • 18 melee weapons

  • 15 miscellaneous weapons

  • 23 pieces of armor to wear

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A character with their symbiote active.
Unique Environments and Enemies

To flesh out the world, I wrote about the world, it's economy, the types of environments, the prevailing religions centered around the Old Ones, and the types of creatures players could encounter.

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The bestiary is over 40 pages and features creatures sorted by size, origin, and intelligence, with lengthy descriptions for each one.

The Final Product
The Final Product

This took a lot of time and effort to make, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and am very proud of the final product.

©2019 by Gordon Robertson.

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