July Progress Report!

First off, for those of you who have access to either the Dropbox or Drive folders for Blood, Sweat & Steel, I have updated the character sheets!  Please download them, take a look at them, and let me know what you think!

Thanks to some exhaustive and robust play testing, there have been quite a few updates to the game in the past month.

• First, the 6 month experiment with the Gifts/Flaws system has come to its conclusion.  Comparing the notes and feedback between it and the Qualities system, I have decided that Qualities are better fit for this game.  This was a really tough decision, as the Gifts/Flaws system is considered the "standard" for Fudge, and Qualities are much more like Aspects in Fate.  As much as I wanted to keep things "old school" where I could, Qualities seem to fit the feel of the game better.  Qualities also streamline the game a bit, as it is 1 trait replacing 2 traits.  They are also self-balancing, and I miss having the Quality Types as a great way to encourage players to come up with more diverse traits for their characters.
• Switching back to Qualities game me more room on the character sheet for Skills, so I was able to increase the font size for them which makes them much easier to read.  It also gave me more room for the Rank drop-down boxes, so I made those a little bigger as well to make the Ranks more easily readable, even when the sheet is zoomed out to full-page view.
• Speaking of Skills, I've refined the list quite a bit.  There are still a total of 48 Skills equally divided into 8 categories, but I've streamlined some of the Skill names.  I also completely redesigned the Magic Skills to better fit the new magic system.  Here's what the new list looks like:

Athletic/Dexterity	Magic
Acrobatics	Alchemy
Athletics	Artificing
Riding	Divination
Running	Hypnotism
Sleight of Hand	Rituals
Swimming	Spells
Combat	Professional
Melee	Artisan
Mounted	Entertainer
Ranged	Farmer
Read Opponent	Hunter
Thrown	Merchant
Unarmed	Metalsmith
Covert/Urban	Scouting/Outdoor
Investigation	Boating
Observation	Mountaineering
Poisons	Navigation
Stealth (Urban)	Stealth (Nature)
Survival (Urban)	Survival (Nature)
Thieving	Tracking
Knowledge	Social/Manipulative
Civics	Carousing
Geography	Diplomacy
History	Haggle
Language	Intimidate
Nature	Lie
Supernatural	Seduce

• In order to maximize the space on the character sheet and make everything fit as well as possible, I split up the Harm (Wounds & Stress) into 2 separate tables.  I also added a small box into each table that automatically keeps track of the total penalties for Wounds and Stress.  This should make tracking Harm even easier!  Here's how that looks:

• The Divination and Hypnotism Skills are fully detailed and written up.  The Spells Skill is nearly complete.  I've also added Alchemy and Artificing to the Magic Skills Group.  I haven't written them up fully yet, but I have their core structure and mechanics designed, so I should have these fully detailed by the weekend.
• I'm developing the Ritual Magic Skill as a different system than Spells.  I have tried writing up a "Rituals-only" system with the bottom 2 levels of magnitude usable in Conflicts.  However, trying to use one magic system in a game with 2 different methods for pacing and tracking time turned into a nightmare.  The Ritual Skill will be very similar to the Spells Skill mechanically, but they will be very different in size, scope and flavor.

These are the big changes that have occurred in the past month.  I'm going to get all of these changes into the rules pdf before I do another revision.  If all goes well, I should have a revision ready for review in the next 1-2 weeks.