Hello backers!

If you backed at a tier that lets you vote in the backer-curated episode poll, that poll is now live at the bottom of this update. It'll close in a week, so make sure to get over there and vote soon. Thank you to everyone who made a suggestion (and especially to those of you who will hopefully tolerate the ways in which I adjusted your suggestions to fit the poll)! I would love to do all these episodes one day.

Because a whole bunch of mechanic names might be unclear, I wrote up a brief description of each mechanic on the poll that you can vote for. Take a look below:

Only current player speaks (Microscope): Here's the full rule, as quoted from Microscope: "Only the current player gets to contribute. Other players should not give suggestions or ideas, and the current player cannot ask for input either."

Paint the Scene (Brindlewood Bay): "If there is an idea, theme, or visual motif that is particularly important for an encounter or scene, ask the players what their characters observe in the scene that reinforces that idea, theme, or motif." The Paint the Scene original blogpost: https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/paint-the-scene

4d6 drop the lowest ability scores (D&D): To get your six ability scores, you rolle 4d6, drop the lowest, and add up the other three.

10x10 murder grid (Inheritance): This larp has 11 characters, and there's essentially a 10x10 grid for what happens if any one of them tries to kill any other of them with results like "Arvandil kills Fulla on the spot as Fulla gives Arvandil a deadly wound" and "Ring dies like a chump on Arvandil's sword."

Seasonal changes (Under Hollow Hills): in this PbtA game, each playbook has a Winter mode and a Summer mode which causes the character to change depending on the season.

Free play (Blades in the Dark): an explicitly demarkated phase of play outside the main structure of the game's gameplay loop where you're neither taking downtime actions nor actively involved in a score.

Usage Dice: a kind of resource tracking mechanic that uses die sizes. For example: you say you have d8 arrows. Every time you fire an arrow, you roll a d8. On a 1, the d8 becomes a d6. When your eventual d4 rolls a 1, you're out of arrows.

Resolve Tokens (Good Society): Offer a resolve token to someone to make a suggestion for some complication to the story that would affect their character. They can accept the token, ask to change the request, or politely reject the suggestion and token.

Jenga tower (Dread): the original game using a tumbling block tower. Set up your Jenga tower. Every time you do something risky, pull a block or three. If the tower falls, you die.

Roll and Keep (7th Sea): "Using ten-sided dice(d10s), players roll a number of unkept dice, then keep and add the totals of their kept dice, notated as XkY." i.e. Roll 4d10, keep the highest 2. https://rollandkeep.fandom.com/wiki/Introduction_and_Design_Goals

TBD Funnel module: A funnel is a kind of adventure where each player starts with 5+ characters, and the adventure is highly lethal. Traditionally you start a campaign with a funnel, many characters die, and each player comes out the other side with one protagonist who's been through the ringer. If this wins, I will pick a funnel module later.

Setting Elements (Archipelago): perhaps better popularized by Dream Askew // Dream Apart, setting elements divide the world into a bunch of different ideas such as "magic" and "the natural world" and "American bullshit" depending on the setting, and then each player is responsible for GM duties when it comes to their setting element (i.e. I get to say what happens with the storm, because I have the "the natural world" setting element).

Ancestry Feats (Pathfinder 2e): special abilities you can pick up for your character as you advance.

Weak Moves (Dream Askew // Dream Apart): When you perform a weak move (i.e. "Get caught lying, cheating, or sneaking"), you get a token. You must spend a token to make a strong move (i.e. "Draw a weapon before anyone can react").

Troupe Play (Ars Magica, Florilegium): there are many characters at play between all the players, and specific characters are not necessarily assigned to specific players. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troupe_system

IRL time limit (The Straights Are Not Okay): this larp lasts a hard 60 minutes, and you start a timer to enforce that time limit. In addition, each character has a shorter timer after which they must do a character-specific triggered event.

GM Intrusions (Numenera): similar to Good Society's Resolve Tokens, the GM can offer a player an XP in order to make something true about the world that inconveniences them.

Funky Dice (Genesys): I'm honestly not sure how this one works, except that the dice in this system have specific symbols on their sides, not the usual 1, 2, 3, 4... numbers.

Rituals (Sleepaway): short procedures / minigames outside the core game loop that provide respite, shortcuts, reflection, and other experiences.

Character Roles (Kingdom): in Kingdom, instead of a dedicated DM/player power split, each PC has one of three roles in the story's central community: Power (who makes decisions for the community), Perspective (who says what will happen if a particular decision is made), and Touchstone (who says how the people of the community feel and will feel about any particular decision). These roles can change over time.

Resistance (Blades in the Dark): as a player, any time something happens to you, you can say "no it doesn't." Resisting like this costs a random amount of stress, which you have a limited number of.

Dice Exploder season 4 has funded! We ended up with two bonus episodes, and I couldn't be more excited to bring this thing to you all. Thanks so much for your support. Special shout out to Evil Hat for once again picking up a curated episode - they're great people over there.

We also funded my dad joining the Dice Exploder Discord. If you want to come hang out with us in there and/or say hi to him, come join us there!

To everyone at the Keep The Lights on reward, this is probably the last you'll hear from me through Backerkit, but you can keep up with the show wherever you get your podcasts or on the Discord.

To everyone at higher pledge tiers, your rewards will primarily be delivered through your backer surveys. Keep an eye out.

If you picked up an ad, fill in the survey as soon as possible to ensure I can run the ad this season.

If you want suggest a mechanic for the backer-curated episode vote, send in your suggestion via the survey as soon as possible.

Problems? Other feedback? Feel free to get in touch at [email protected].

Again, thanks to you all for the support, and I'll be in your ears soon!