Design Session 0

Design Session #0 is the first episode of the Design Sessions, as well as the first episode released for Eidolon Playtest entirely. It covers Luke Varner and Molly Rhinebeck introducing the EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self and the podcast to their new audience.

Origins
Several years ago, a tabletop roleplaying campaign they were playing had just ended. Luke Varner wanted to start a new one with a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure/Persona vibe to it. He looked around for a viable system, and the closest he could find was Monsters and Other Childish Things.

Monsters and Other Childish Things is a tabletop roleplaying game about children with imaginary friends who are monsters. While it was broadly similar to elements of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, it did not suit their purposes. After some time trying to use it, Luke Varner got the idea to just make his own system. He tried working on it, but quickly lost momentum. A few months of little progress later, he was discussing it with Molly Rhinebeck, shared it with her, and she started contributing.

Since then they've been working on it together inconsistently for around a year. At this point, they've completed the game but have no idea if its any fun. Hence, Eidolon Playtest. Molly Rhinebeck and Luke Varner wanted to provide this episode first as an explainer for their game.

Mechanics
EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is a tabletop roleplaying game is a Powered by the Apocalypse game. It is inspired by JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Persona, both series where protagonists can summon 'cool ghosts' with weird powers. Both franchises have problematic elements, so they wanted to capture the cool aspects of them while leaving other aspects behind.

The system is relatively open-ended in order to facilitate the wide variety of superpowers players may have, which requires an emphasis on 'playing in good faith'. It has Playbooks, each with a mad lib-esque sentence for generating a power. Some, like the Alchemist, could easily be overpowered in an unfun way depending on what the player writes down. While superpowers are more fun when creatively restrictive, ultimately it is up to what the group and the game master wants.

As there are nine Playbooks to test, the podcast will be structured into two campaigns releasing on alternating weeks. One with four players, one with five. Each testing a different Playbook. Luke Varner and Molly Rhinebeck then spend a few moments going over each of the Playbooks: the Vanguard, the Infiltrator, the Navigator, the Alchemist, the Virtuoso, the Veteran, the Beast, the Inhuman, and the Wildcard.

Predictions
Molly Rhinebeck offers no specific predictions for how the playtest will pan out, other than exposing a lot of ways things can be broken. In contrast, Luke Varner says his biggest worry is how the combat and damage systems will pan out. It is more numbers-heavy than the rest of the game, and they did not know where to start. He expresses concern that it may be hard to balance. Parties may easily defeat the first couple of enemies, before coming against an increase in difficulty that they cannot overcome.

Financing
At this point in time, EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is an eighty page text document. Eventually, Luke Varner plans to hire professional illustrators and either teach himself how to do book layouts or hire someone to handle that as well. All of this costs money, so they've launched a Patreon.

● $1/month gets early access to episodes, ideally a week in advance.

● $3/month gets future monthly episodes of Design Sessions

● $5/month gets their name read on the podcast, and early access to EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self.

Trivia

 * Currently, this is the only episode of the Design Sessions available for free.
 * Molly Rhinebeck mentions she played the Wildcard in a previous small off-air playtest.