Project Announcement: Zet Platoon!
Hello Friends,
In lieu of a realm guide this month, I am excited to take this opportunity to announce a special project I have been working on, which I am tentatively calling the Zet Platoon! In a nutshell, the Zet Platoon will be a pocket RPG where each player commands a captain (their ‘character’) and a four-person squad as part of a special forces platoon in the Bahenian army. Here are a few highlights of the game:
Squad Based: Instead of acting as a single hero in a fantasy setting, most of the actions the players will take while playing Zet Platoon will be accomplished through their squad. Each squad will consist of four units (plus a captain) that can each take individual actions (attacking, casting spells, etc.) during the player's turn. With five actors under their control, the players will enjoy a great deal of action economy right from the get-go.
Mission/Battle Centric: As the heroes will be commanding what is, essentially, a small army, gameplay in Zet Platoon will be mission driven, as opposed to traditional free-form adventuring. The players will receive orders from their Bahenian HQ, fight battles, and recruit allies using a system of mission seasons.
Prestige-driven progression: Instead of a traditional experience point- and level-based progression system, Zet Platoon will utilize Prestige to facilitate the evolution of squads and the development of captains. As the Platoon completes missions, the players will earn prestige which they can use to recruit new and more powerful volunteers and unlock skills and abilities for their captains.
A Grim Military Setting: Bahenian special forces do battle with the greatest foes humanity has to face, and unfortunately this often means that the lives of those brave souls who volunteer to serve are tragically cut short. Zet Platoon is a game in which casualties are an expected and common outcome. While character death is often a relatively rare occurrence in TTRPG’s, in Zet Platoon players should expect to lose units in each battle, forcing them to constantly be looking to replenish their ranks. Because of this…
Quick and Easy Set Up: The Zet Platoon system is designed to allow players to quickly build their captains, fill out their squads, and get into the game. Going from a blank squad sheet to playing the game should take less than ten minutes, especially for players familiar with the system. This is accomplished through streamlined mechanics for captains and standard attributes for units, allowing for flexibility and ease of use.
A hard release date for the Zet Platoon hasn’t yet been nailed down, given the amount of testing and tuning needed to make such a system balanced and fun. My intent, however, is for final publishing to happen in the next couple months. As a little heads up, I will be going on a vacation for most of October, so I would not expect the final product to come out before November or December. If all goes relatively smoothly, however, the first Verdian RPG system should be up and running before the year’s end!
I am very excited about this project and have already spent many happy hours in development. Hopefully the end game will be something folks will enjoy, but in the meantime stay tuned for more lore and adventures from the Verdian Tales!
Best,
Eric
