The First Orrery Playtest is Live!

By RJ on 20 January 2023. 

It's here: the first public playtest of my upcoming tabletop roleplaying game, Orrery, is live. 

Inside the first playtest document linger the following game concepts:

• Core game mechanics and ideas (action points, escalation die, no skills/classes, et cetera).
• Character creation.
• Five, fully fleshed out ancestries.
• Four, in-progress backgrounds.
• A deep dive into the Orrery itself.
• Dozens of Orrery keystones.
• The item system.
• Three powerful artifacts.
• Three spell lists (Arcane, Divine, Primal).
• The swing of combat and action/action points.
• Various ailments and conditions.
• The rules on death.

In total, it's 23-pages, not including the extra Prime Orrery sheet.

I'm looking for any and all feedback.

If you would like to test out the system, get a feel for its style, and provide feedback, head on over to the RJD20 Patreon. For $1 per month, you can receive complete access to all Orrery playtest materials: the core book, the Prime Orrery, and the Orrery Bestiary.

Next Friday, I'll be releasing the first full Monster Pack: goblins. In Orrery, many monsters are split into packs, giving a variety of foes to pit against the characters. For example, in the goblin pack, there are grunts, bruisers, commandos, swashbucklers, gorgers, and more! The final Orrery Bestiary will include dozens of packs in addition to solo monsters like the basilisk, dragons, and the phoenix.

The next version of Orrery will likely drop in a month's time, around February 20th. In addition to cleaning up the current rules, it will introduce two new ancestries, fully-fledged backgrounds, a sample Orrery adventure, and a few other secrets.

If you would like to learn more about Orrery before committing to supporting it on Patreon, check out this page about the game or this article announcing its creation. Succinctly, it's a mix of Dungeons & Dragons, Path of Exile, and a few other tabletop roleplaying games I think have compelling mechanics. They're all mixed together with one of my homegrown settings, Golgifell!

Related Articles

• I'm Making My Own Tabletop Roleplaying Game
• Do We Want One D&D?

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As always, thanks for reading. Please send all inquiries to rjd20writes@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Here's to greatening your game and world: cheers!