Hello Ultrasmart backers,

I've got the third section from our draft manuscript for you today! This section is all about Building Blocks!

With our two previous manuscript releases, you now know how Storypath works, and even how to build on it. However, sometimes you need something specific. Your game might involve a lot of building strange scientific items or breaking into secure locations on a regular basis. You can use the core Storypath rules, absolutely, but you might want a whole new subsection of rules to give some real heft to these specific activities. We call these building blocks because you can add or remove them as you see fit and put them in whatever configuration makes the most sense to you.

These are only some of the possible building blocks you can add to your games, but these offer the most benefit to a wide variety of worlds. If you see one from another Storypath game that you like, feel free to lift it and make any adjustments you need to use it in your own game, using this chapter as guidance.

One quick note about Shipping before we get into the manuscript previews. 

First up, it's amazingly expensive to ship, especially from Onyx Path's home base in the US. We get that, but there's not much we can do at this time. Onyx Path is in a difficult space where the company is big enough that they're not saving money by fulfilling out of Rich's garage, but small enough that they can't really set up international partners to handle portions of the fulfillment. So we are where we are - for now. 

The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that international shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you live outside the US and aren't sure you want the hardcover or other physical items, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.

The first of the included example settings, Pinfall from Grace, Body Slams from Hell, not only offers a complete game set in the parallel version of the year 2000, but also illustrates exactly how Story Path was implemented and adjusted.

The Onyx Path team has plans to write two more, and as a backer you'll be able to vote on which ones you prefer.

For the first poll, you'll be voting on a Sci-fi setting example. Your options:

Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to this Update" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the Feedback Form image.

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK

I'm going to be sharing the manuscript in sections - building blocks, even -  over the next weeks, Part of the reason for that is to keep focus on one section at a time so that the team can gather feedback to help guide the manuscript through the next steps of editing and development. To that end, they've created a special Feedback Form for you to submit your comments after reading each section!

Here's the link to the SPU Feedback Form: https://forms.gle/1fGuU881zBHPsktz7