Design Diaries: Sage

Beatrice, beastling sage. Art by Raphael Ferreira Braga

Most of the Infinite Re:Imagine team has spent a lot of time working on d20 TTRPG systems like D&D and Pathfinder. If you’re familiar with either of those systems, you might also be familiar with the term “Vancian casting”, which refers to the level-tiered, slot-based spell mechanics popularized by Dungeons & Dragons and inspired by the fiction of Jack Vance.

Vancian spell mechanics can be, in the modern gaming era, a polarizing topic. Some people like them a lot, some people don’t like them at all. I once heard a designer whose skills I greatly respect refer to them as “not great but better than every alternative I’ve seen in a TTRPG so far.” For our part, after discussing the kind of game we wanted the Infinite Re:Imagine TTRPG to be, we came to the decision that we’d probably be changing the way that magic and effect durations worked entirely compared to most other d20 TTRPGs, and that meant that a Vancian-type system likely just wasn’t going to be a good fit for our game.

The Infinite Re:Imagine TTRPG is set in the world of the Dream, and in a dream, time is relative and only relevant insofar as it impacts the narrative of the game. You won’t find mechanics with durations measured in minutes or hours in Infinite Re:Imagine; instead durations are measured in rounds or segments, and if something would have previously had a duration where you expect it to last an entire session (like D&D classic mage armor which had a duration of 24 hours in several editions) its duration is simply “until the end of this delve.” This foundation was the start of assessing how we were going to set up our most magical class.

Like Pathfinder Second Edition, Infinite Re:Imagine also uses a three-action system where each character gets three actions and one reaction on each of their turns. Big flashy abilities and effects where you combine several actions into one move (like a “Flying Elbow” attack where you run, leap into the air, and attack an enemy with your elbow) can combine two or three actions into a single move. That means that when crafting the sage, we also had the option of giving them cool magical effects they could perform that were limited not by how often in an hour or day they could be done, but by how many of the sage’s actions it took to perform them.

As we playtested within these parameters, we had one final piece of the puzzle we wanted to address: does a sage feel like it’s only accessible to some players, or is it something that anyone can feel comfortable playing? Wizards in many other d20 TTRPGs tend to have very high optimization ceilings with an endless array of variables to account for that can make them difficult for some players to grok, and we really didn’t want that here. If someone wanted to be magical and do magical things like throwing fireballs and creating fields of grasping plants, we didn’t want that to also mean that they had to have more system mastery than the other players. A design idea we’ve bandied about many times is the idea that every character, regardless of class or role, should feel like it uses the same “controller” as every other class (we’ve also referred to this as “four-button design”, a concept we’ve used as a litmus test without fully embracing; more on that in a future design blog!)

The end result of combining these elements was the sage, our first class with the tactician role and a wielder of magic who uses their understanding of Aspects and the Dream to do cool stuff all the time. No cantrips, no limited slots, just awesome magical effects with modular elements that allow the sage to feel like a potent character who is always doing big, magical things every turn of play. They don’t spike way above the performance of other classes like the dreamknight or sniper in the way that d20 wizards often spike above fighters or rogues, but they don’t ever run out of magic or end up using lower-powered cantrips to supplement their turns, either. Instead, they use multi-action spellforms and special feats that let them channel magic through orbs and wands, alongside unique Aspect overlays of their choosing that they use to change their attacks’ energy type, debuffs, or other parameters.

For example, the sage has a spellform called Meteor Fall where they drop a burst of astral energy in a burst that can explode and hit multiple creatures. By default, this deals astral damage (a kind of default energy type for magical effects made by manipulating the Dream.) If the sage uses their Channel Aspect action to draw on the power of the Flame, Meteor Fall does fire damage instead and can light affected enemies on fire. If the sage instead channels the Mountain, affected creatures have to use their Physical Defense (PDEF) instead of their Magical Defense (MDEF) and a critical failure on a save against Meteor Fall can leave the enemy vulnerable to follow-up attacks that deal bludgeoning damage.

The sage’s per segment and per delve effects exist mostly within the bonus boons they get from the Aspects they choose to specialize in, but Aspects and boons are something we’ll be talking more about in another blog!

The sage is, ultimately, a class that specializes in doing moderate damage to enemies in a few pre-defined areas, with overlays from Aspects that can take add a huge array of permutations to each individual effect. Once you’ve built your sage, you don’t have a significantly larger load of things to juggle than any other character, but you do retain a huge amount of customization and versatility. Hopefully you come to enjoy it as much as we do!

The Battle Unending

Injured dreamknight.
Art by Eleanor Ferron

So, it turns out that trying to plan an launch a new game system while tarriffs and production costs are completely unpredictable is really hard. Every time the team meets to talk about our goals and plans we end up changing something; a due date here, a release plan there, a fundamental discussion about when/where/how we’ll do a hardcover release every other week… And all of this as we’re watching peers in gaming and publishing shutting down or downsizing on a weekly basis.

BUT! It’s not all doom and gloom. We’re agile and resilient and we’re made up of folks who’ve been in publishing and games for quite awhile. A big “upside” to these events is that all of this turmoil started before we’d made a major commitment to customers or printers. There’s no books we charged 30% too little for sitting in a shipping container and threatening to tank a year’s-worth of profits like so many other companies are currently faced with. We’re still sitting comfortably at a point where we can make adjustments to our rollout and release our products in a way that’s profitable for us and purchaseable for our customers.

So, what exactly does all that mean?

We’d originally planned to have the Quickstart Guide in folks’ hands by now, but we’ve been taking that a day at a time to try and make sure that once we start the ball rolling, you’ll be able to enjoy a steady supply of supporting products in the form of adventures, monster books, and other key materials. We’re currently not planning on a physical release of the Quickstart Guide and instead keeping it as a digital-only product for the foreseeable future, though we’re open to adding a print-on-demand option if we see a lot of requests for it. We’re still aiming to have the Infinite Re:Imagine Quickstart Guide out by the end of the month, though we may push that a week or two as various other production needs demand. And we’re not going to be committing to a print release of the final book anytime soon. With print and shipping prices fluctuating wildly, we don’t want to commit to a price that’ll put us out of business before we even get started, and we also don’t want to try charging you $120 for a TTRPG book when we know that you’re navigating the tricky waters of the times right alongside us.

We’re going to be focusing on a digital-first product release that gives you an opportunity to enjoy the game, give us feedback, and get the best possible version of everything we produce. We’re not going to take the possibility of print releases for any of our products off the table, and we’re ensuring that every digital product is being produced in print-ready format so we can activate print-on-demand options for those of you who want them as the demand presents itself. We plan to be around for a long time, providing exciting new fantasy gaming products to our customers and financial opportunities for as many writers, artists, and designers as we can manage.

Thanks everyone for following along, and here’s to many adventures ahead!

Michael Sayre
Design Lead
Infinite Reimagine LLC

Design Diaries: Sniper

Bunson, sniper luminary

Art by Raphael Ferreira Braga

Working on the sniper class for the upcoming Infinite Re:Imagine TTRPG has been a lot of fun.

Several years ago, I was tapped to do the gunslinger design for Pathfinder Second Edition and I had a lot of fun with that, too, but there were significant restrictions:

It had to have legendary proficiency with guns (which sounds obvious but actually puts some big limits on the design space because of how powerful that proficiency progression is.)

It had to be, first and foremost, a gunslinger. Guns had to be at the forefront of everything it did and while we could backdoor crossbows in so the class had functionality for people who didn't like guns in their games, we needed to avoid diluting the theme by having it be too good with other weapons (so, for example, we never published the sling feat I wrote for the class since that diluted its core theme of “guns” too much.)

There were a few other strictures but those two were the big ones and they always left me wanting to do more than the space allowed. Later, I'd get the opportunity to do the Guns & Gears Remaster release. At that time, I had a new set of strictures to work with; I had a lot of free rein to make whatever changes I wanted mechanically, but the themes needed to remain the same, and I couldn't make any change that changed the page count or general layout of the book, since we were processing it like a heavy errata. I also didn't have any other design resources available since everyone was juggling so many other projects, so I had to stick to changes I could make myself while managing the largest creative team at Paizo and helping with production on multiple other products, like Battlecry! and the Impossible Playtest. So, I was able to get rid of some pieces of design that I'd never been happy about (like Singular Expertise), and brush up a lot of other content, but there was still fundamentally a lot of content that was enshrined by the needs of the brand.

So, Infinite Re:Imagine and the sniper. When we started work on the core system design for this new game, we knew that we were going to use pieces of the PF2 engine that we really liked, but that we were also going to change/replace/remove a lot of other elements, and that created a ton of design opportunities. One of the big opportunities we've all been really excited about is making a TTRPG that isn't specifically constrained by D&Disms. For example, there's no fighter class in Infinite Re:Imagine; this is a game inspired by JRPGs and roguelites, so our classes draw from those inspirations.

The sniper is a master of ranged weapons, starting out with top-tier proficiencies in long guns, pistols, bows, and slings (note that we also completely redesigned the weapon system in IR:I, but that’s probably a topic for a different blog!) We drew inspiration from characters like Shadow Hearts’ Margaret Zelle, Final Fantasy VII’s Vincent Valentine, and others when we started developing this concept. Their core mechanic is a “targeting reticle” that gives them a bonus to hit and lets them pick a special effect they can get against their locked on target (if you’re familiar with PF2’s gunslinger, think about something kind of like Called Shot elevated with the support of a core class mechanic.) As you level up, the new feats you gain represent things like trick shots, new effects for your targeting reticle and new ways to deploy it, and unique ways to customize your ranged weapons to make a ranged fighting style that’s truly your own.

At this point in time, I don’t necessarily know what future classes we might do; the core four we’ve built for the Quickstart Guide cover all the major roles and party needs. However, we’re building a system that’s modular enough it can technically hold an infinite number of classes, and one of the reasons we have a sniper instead of a fighter is to create a design bucket that is broad enough that anyone with a ranged striker character concept they want to build can jump right in, but also narrow enough that we know now that it won’t be so overwhelming in the space that all future ranged strikers will need to be excessively specific thematically or excessively complicated mechanically to avoid stepping on the sniper’s toes. “Specific themes, accessible mechanics” is one of the guidelines of IR:I’s design, which I’m super happy about.

I’m really enjoying this design space we’ve created and getting to draw upon these inspirations that are so much a part of fantasy for me, but which aren’t part of the D&D lineage that other games I’ve worked on are kind of compelled to stick to. I’ve got this big inspirations board with names like SaGa Frontier, Shining Force, Chronicles of Amber, Shadow Hearts, Baten Kaitos, and others scribbled all over it, representing some of the games and influences that, for me, are part of the core conceptualization of what I think when I hear the word “fantasy”. Getting to make a game that taps into those inspirations has been some of the most fun I’ve had doing TTRPG design in a long time, and I’m hoping that when the Quickstart Guide finishes its journey through layout, people who grew up with the same influences I did will get to find this game and enjoy it, too.

Michael Sayre
Design Lead
Infinite Re:Imagine

Delvers Assemble!

From left to right: Beatrice the beastling sage, Liara the human dreamknight, Bunson the machina sniper, and Sei the elven mystic.

With the release of the Infinite Re:Imagine Quickstart Guide drawing closer by the day, we’re ready to talk a little bit more about the kinds of adventures IR:I enables and what kinds of characters we’ll be presenting for those adventures.

The Game

Infinite Re:Imagine (IR:I) is a d20 TTRPG combining roguelite and JRPG elements with modern TTRPG mechanics and conventions. Characters level up at the end of every 4-hour session (or after every two 2-hour sessions), gaining new feats, boons, and other benefits.

IR:I is designed that a group of 4 or more players playing once a week with a few weeks off for holidays and unexpected absences can take their characters from level 1-20 in about half a year, experiencing the full span of a rich TTRPG campaign in a more fast-paced delivery. Several of the folks working on IR:I are familiar with the way life tends to get in the way of TTRPG sessions, with folks finishing a school year and leaving to start new jobs, getting deployed by the military, or experiencing other life events. IR:I knows that reality and seeks to provide a game with all the depth of a lifestyle RPG like D&D or Pathfinder, but paced to accommodate the realities of group dynamics in the modern environment.

Dreamers and Delves

Dreamers run the game and present the various segments of a delve that the players, whose characters are called delvers, will explore. This includes a variety of puzzles, combat encounters, and other types of challenges. Each 4-hour delve is comprised of 3 Exploration Segments and 3 Encounter Segments; these can be broken down into smaller segment groupings for players with smaller windows to game.

Dreamers are aided in adventure creation through the use of Aspects, thematic story elements supported by mechanics that make adventure generation quick and easy. Every Aspect comes with encounter adjustments, thematic boons, and other materials that can make building an entire night’s session a task you can accomplish in as little as 15 minutes!

Delvers

Delvers are the heroes of the Dream. Everyone other than the Dreamer plays a Delver. Delvers are built using the character CAPS method: Class, Ancestry, Profession, and Skills. Each of these components provides a package of tools for your Delvers to leverage as they explore the reaches of the Dream.

Every class has a particular associated role that they play in a group, and we’ll talk about those roles through the lens of our luminaries presented in the art above (described below following the image from left to right.)

Beatrice is a sage. Sages have the tactician role and are good at debuffing enemies and dealing damage to multiple enemies at once.

Liara is a dreamknight. Dreamknights have the guardian role and excel at fighting on the front lines, with abilities that allow them to charge into the thick of the fight and absorb large amounts of damage.

Bunson is a sniper. Snipers have the striker role and their preferred strategies involve singling out a specific target and and attacking them with high accuracy and damage.

Sei is a mystic. Mystics have the supporter role and are good at mitigating damage done to the party, healing wounds and covering the party with temporary Hit Points that help prevent lasting injuries.

Get Ready to Dream!

Partial cover image of Infinite Re:Imagine Quickstart Guide cover; art direction by Brent Holtsberry

Welcome to another Wednesday! We’re excited to share a sneak peek at the cover for the first of our upcoming products, the Infinite Re:Imagine Quickstart Guide.

This product will include:

• All the rules you need to start creating characters and playing the Infinite Re:Imagine TTRPG

• 4 classes presented at levels one through three: the mighty dreamknight, the blessed mystic, the clever sage, and the deadly sniper!

• All 4 core ancestries of The Dream: animalistic beastlings, immortal elves, clever humans, and mighty machina!

• 4 professions to help your character navigate the world outside of combat: musical bards to uplift and entertain, brewers to make restorative drinks, smiths skilled at crafting and repair, and pigeoneers whose avian companions aid them in scouting and sharing information.

• A collection of Aspects to help Dreamers (the player running the game) craft deadly delves and reward their players with potent boons!

Those of you who’ve been following us might be curious about Aspects and boons. While we’ll be talking more about these in upcoming blogs and presenting several of them in the Quickstart Guide, we thought we’d give you a quick explanation here.

Aspects are specific elements of The Dream that your characters can dive into and explore. Each of these Aspects represents a specific concept and comes with supporting materials; for example, the Mountain Aspect includes a list of monsters typically encountered in mountainous regions, quick rules for encounter and exploration adjustments to represent the challenges of exploring a mountainous area, and an array of boons specifically tailored towards representing the kinds of treasure and abilities one might find or master in a Mountain adventure. Dreamers building an adventure can easily combine Aspects to create a specific experience; for example, a Dreamer wanting to run an adventure where the players delve into an ancient glacier could combine the Aspects of Ice and Mountain (or if you want a spookier “Mountains of Madness” vibe, maybe the Aspects of Ice and Nightmare!)

Boons are the rewards delvers receive for completing encounters and delves. These can be magic spells, useful items, or favors from creatures unique to the Aspect the character received the boon in. Many boons have limited uses and won’t carry over between adventures, but each time you and your friends complete a delve, everyone’s delver will choose one boon they gained to become a permanent part of their character!

Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of our home page to be the first to hear when the Quickstart Guide is available for purchase and download!