Hi everyone, this is another update, mid-2nd week from the release, to let you know how things are shaping up for Sapience.
Reviews
Sapience currently has an average of 5 stars on the Drivethrurpg sales page, which is obviously very pleasing, although it's only based on 3 reviews so far. If you have had time to read through the book and felt like leaving a review or clicking on the stars rating (preferably 5 of them *grin*), that would really help!
There is a review directly on Drivethrurpg that says:
I picked this one up on release and I’m so glad I did. A beautifully designed and amazing game. Really cool themes and thought provoking ideas presented. Highly recommend.
Also, the review-in-progress I mentioned last time has added another entry at https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/wir-sapience-by-brian-leybourne.893538/. Here's a quote from the review:
I've never read such a discussion in an RPG book, and it's actually quite enlightening, because in actual life, I share the ideas outlined under "Critical Theory", but when gaming (even in a "political" setting like Sapience), I'd usually tend to "Messy Drama" to give the characters a fighting chance to change things; it's good to be reminded that, when gaming, you do have the option of deciding how "politically real" you want to get. Actually, this thought alone warrants the price of admission for me.
The Mystery At Phoenix Station
Work progresses on the mini-supplement, and I am hoping to move it to the layout stage very soon. It's not a large supplement, but it contains the starter adventure, a new ship class, fairly simple rules for space stations (as they're not a large focus of the setting), and a few other goodies. It will be free in PDF form for all Kickstarter backers, and you'll be able to buy a print copy at cost like the main book (assuming I do a print version, which will depend on how many pages it turns out to be).
Discord and the Die Bot
I mentioned in the last update that we have a Discord server now. The address is https://discord.gg/b8nDy7Cg. Please feel free to stop by and say hi! Also, there is now a Discord die bot on the server that you can use for online play.
On Discord, use the !help command to see what commands the die bot accepts, but essentially, you create a character entry using !charcreate and then use !skillcheck to make die rolls. You can !reroll and !push your rolls as usual, and the bot also supports Wounds, Strain, and Recovery. It's great, please check it out.
You can even invite the bot to your own discord server, use this link: https://discord.com/api/oauth2/authorize?client_id=939688618795073566&permissions=3072&scope=bot
Future Plans
After the mini-supplement, I am considering making a follow-up book for Sapience. Whether it happens will depend greatly on the reception of the game going forward, and what income I get from sales of the book because I don't want to do another kickstarter if I can help it (although that may be unavoidable). If I do, it will be entitled Leviathan Rising, and will definitely involve these secretive folk (identities obscured to protect the innocent):
The Leviathan has finally arrived, but two hundred years too late. Turns out they haven't been having a good time at all, and now they want what they feel they're owed...
Contact Details
As always, please feel free to contact me through any of the below channels, and when/if you get a game of Sapience going, I would love to hear about it!
Twitter: @rpgsapience
Discord: Sapience
Webpage: http://www.sapiencerpg.com
Email: bleybourne@gmail.com