The High Struggle (Part II)

A Preview of a Preview

Thanks to Sean McCoy for the sample layout.

I’m still deep in the salt mines of completing the first draft of the second edition of Thousand Suns, so today’s post will be brief. However, as I did at Grognardia last week, I wanted to pop in to let everyone know that my silence over the last couple of weeks is not an indication of anything dire but rather of the fact that I’m simply very busy offline.

One of the things that’s taking up a lot of my time is finalizing the rules for the High Struggle, which I first talked about here at the beginning of March. That’s taken a bit longer than I’d anticipated. However, it’s also born a fair bit of fruit. I’ve been doing some internal playtesting and that’s given me useful feedback. I’ve also shared an early version of the rules with some friends and colleagues and the response has likewise been good.

My hope is that I’ll be able to share it with more people in the next couple of weeks. I’d like to get more eyes on it, as it’s an integral part of the second edition of the game and I want it to be as good as it can be. At the same time, I recognize that the rules are necessarily loose and require a fair bit of interpretation to work as I hope they will. They’re neither a full-bore simulation of interstellar politics that covers every contingency nor a free-for-all Braunstein. Comfortably occupying a middle space between those two extremes will probably not please everyone, but, at the end of the day, I’m the person whose opinion matters most and, so far, I’m pleased with my progress.

In any case, I’ll return to regular posting here and at Grognardia once I have a better handle on the High Struggle and other chapters of Thousand Suns. As always, thanks for your continued interest and support. Both many a great deal to me.