Sine is a cinematically inspired roleplaying game. Rather than complex mechanics, we focus on adventures favouring rich lore and player driven storytelling. Players typically adopt the role of a Catalyst: a genetically engineered super soldier designed to fight back against a ruthless alien species known as the Stock. Twenty years after the invasion you and your Squad work to help reestablish humanity as the dominant species on Earth.
The official website can be found here
The Itch page can be found here
The trailer can be found here
One of the unforeseen benefits of the Sine system was how dangerous and fast paced it felt during combat. This helped reinforce the post-apocalyptic world as hazardous and framed the system as a byproduct of the realistic nature of the setting. Since players were encouraged to make big choices, it largely solved the issue of players "checking out" when it's not their turn. Now, everyone was enjoying the fast paced TV show that they were creating together. And hey, if a character is put in a dangerous situation that leads to their demise, there’s a whole section on character death.
Teamwork makes even more work, but it’s worth it.
Sine was developed by me and one other designer with a singular focus, to make a world people will love. Of course, that comes with its own challenges. We didn’t always agree on the best method for achieving our desired outcome, and this led to a lot of collaboration between us to come to an agreement. In these instances, I always preferred to dive into the details. I would ask, why we wanted something, what does it serve the players, and how can we make the mechanic fit the world. An example of this was Formalism. In Sine, Formalism is an ability that allows players to control the natural elements of the world, Avatar The Last Airbender style. Originally, every character could be a Formalist. But I started to see that this led to some pretty intense power creep with some classes. I suggested cutting Formalism but my partner was adamant about keeping it. So instead, we started questioning it.
Why do we want Formalism? - Because it’s cool and fun
How does it serve the player? - It gives an additional ability to characters.
How can we make it fit the world? - We make it come directly from the Stock
With these questions in mind I proposed that we limit Formalism to a specific class. This way it can still be an option for players, but within some limitations. With that limitation, it opened up a story element where Formalism could also be dangerous for people, which meant that not everyone should be one. I determined that creating some mechanical limitations for players actually opened them up to being more creative with their characters, and our own world building. This taught us an important lesson, limitation can lead to innovation and it’s something we used to guide our designs going forward. Without sacrificing the simplicity of course.
CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The biggest challenge with the design of the SINE system was building everything from the ground up. What started as a homebrew D6 system with a basic storyline needed to be built into a comprehensive system and spanning narrative. The design of the system went through several iterations, tweaking the classes, character abilities and actions a player could take on their turn. It can often be overwhelming for players to grasp a new system and I didn’t want Sine to bog players down with an abundance of rules and mechanics. That said, it’s also important to have a structure to the game. Eventually, I landed on more cinematic mechanics that focus on empowering player choice and letting their character’s be as cool as possible. I wanted players to feel like their characters were in a high budget TV show and that they only really need to worry about what’s realistic and fun. With this system, players could focus on creating a memorable story.
But here’s the thing, not everyone knows how to tell a story. Solution? Teach them. As part of the sourcebook, I dedicated a section on the basics of narrative design. This included the foundation of character creation, worldbuilding, theme, plot and most importantly, improvisation. At first this was regulated to the Handler section, but after some testing it was moved into the player section as well. This is a collaborative story after all.
How to stand out.
There are a lot of TTRPG’s out there and although we knew that Sine was special, we needed to build uniqueness into the design. For that, I workshopped our Pillars.
Each pillar represents a problem that needed to be overcome. The market is saturated with dark dystopian worlds? Let’s go in the opposite direction and build a green, vibrant world teaming with life. A barrier of entry for players can be learning a new world they have no relationship to. So instead, let’s build a world around the one they know and encourage players to keep it local. By its nature, Sine is a dark world built on the death of billions. Not really a joyous weekend event. So, I built guidelines for players to laugh and have fun with the world, despite its gritty backdrop. These pillars helped us stand out from the crowd and more importantly, help players experience something new and fun.