1.5.0 First Look

For the past few years, I've worked hard to create a roleplaying game that, quite simply, "works." The biggest hurdle for a game designer and Game Master alike is merely getting a first session together. Once I had sufficient attention from playtesters and others curious about the game, they wanted to know the basics.

"How do I roll? How do I create a character? How do I interpret dice results? What should my first session be about?"

So, the previous feature updates have primarily been geared towards easing players into their initial experience, with a focus on explaining and clarifying what a typical playgroup will encounter in a one-shot or other self-contained adventure. All other design goals quickly became secondary, because few people are going to worry about what their next several sessions are going to look like if they can't get their first one off the ground. I left some suggestions about what GMs could plan for if they managed to get a proper campaign going, namely with the outlines for upgrading their characters through gear, but I left many specifics up to GMs to decide, because from where I was sitting, the community wasn't there yet. Players still needed to learn the fundamentals.

Yet, somewhere along the line, while I was preoccupied with helping the beginners, groups started sneaking past me and forging ahead. I started receiving more pointed questions about character progression and long-term campaign planning. As the isolated voices began to coalesce into a faint chorus, I realized the time had come to finally hammer out a more substantial long-term path for the system as a whole. So 1.5 is, more than anything else, about enabling a long-term play experience.

What Will Be In 1.5?

After receiving more feedback from players, the common complaints about the existing system were "there are no character progression rules" and "gear options are lacking." In short, there wasn't enough (mechanically) for players to latch onto session-to-session. So a number of additions will be made to facilitate these specific concerns, which end up dovetailing together quite well.

Character Progression

I will admit, this is a refrain that has frustrated me a bit. Not because I'm against the idea, but rather the fact that so many people have such a hard-coded preconception about what it should look like that they walk away from a read-through totally convinced that the game doesn't have character progression at all. It's by far the most FAQ the system has received, with many simply asking along the lines of "Where is the XP? Where are the levels?"

Sonic Tag-Team Heroes has always outlined character progression as being tied to accumulating gear, with a number of example upgrade items being listed to give players an idea of what it could look like. But, frankly, a lot of people need more help envisioning that, and it relies on a holistic understanding of the ruleset, which many people won't pick up on when trying to digest the system initially.

In 1.5, all the pre-existing guidelines for character progression have been compiled into a unified section and elaborated on. Additionally, there are options for two new character progression methods, Milestones and Point Buy. Rather than lock the system into a definitive gameplay loop, GMs are allowed to pick and choose which methods work best for their particular campaign. This helps the system maintain backwards compatibility with previous supplements as well as allowing for a greater degree of freedom than many RPGs offer.

Point Buy, in particular, will likely scratch the itch for players wanting to directly improve their stats over time in a way that's more consistent and predictable.

Gear, Gear, and More Gear

This is something that's been a long time coming and will continue to be a fixture of upcoming incremental and feature updates. It's also the most daunting, because it involves creating several new subsystems while balancing existing ones. To facilitate this great expansion, gear has been spun off into its own section of the rulebook, Gear & Special Items.

In addition to filling out the book with weapons, defensive items, gadgets and other tools, the mechanics of equipping gear will become more granular, yet more forgiving. There's no need to be near a Star Post to equip a new piece of gear, for example. The cap for gear equipped at one time has been increased to as much as can fit on your character sheet. This marks a shift from the previous philosophy of picking and choosing what tools to use for a mission ahead of time and simplifies it to consistent horizontal progression.

Meanwhile, the type of gear you have equipped will affect its properties as well. Some gear is more powerful or has the potential to improve over time, which means it will take up two or more equip slots. Stay tuned for more details on what that entails.

Nestled within this new gear section are the all-new vehicle options, which introduce a whole new subsystem to the game to facilitate all sorts of...

New Encounters

The addition of vehicles introduce a wide variety of encounter types, especially for racing and battles. The existing "Footrace" rules have been overhauled to accommodate a wider variety of race types, such as Extreme Gear and car races. Also included are rules for Vehicle Battles, which function similarly to Velocity Battles, but include unique mechanics for parties of characters acting together in a party vehicle, similar to how Sonic and Tails work together during Sky Chase in the videogames.

Another encounter type, Quick Time Events, will introduce a versatile way to play out decompressed moments in time and encourage freeform storytelling. In other roleplaying games, these are sometimes known as skill challenges, and I believe these have the potential to open up a variety of experiences that will empower players tell fun stories with the BLURR dice system.

New Layout

As you may have gathered from the preview images, Sonic TTH is getting a visual overhaul. As the book expands, it's increasingly helpful to have easy ways of orienting readers within each section. Now each section of the rulebook will have a dedicated border color, which will hopefully help readers find and remember rules easier.

As usual, I have no set date for when the next update will release, simply "when it's ready." However, I hope to have it release in 2026, so stay tuned for more news in the coming months. Also, if you want to get an early look at certain rules before they are formally playtested and added to an official release, check out the Discord server, where at the time of this writing the vehicle rules have been released, with more to come in the near future!

Thanks for supporting the game these past four years, here's to a fifth year and beyond!

Keep on Rollin'

-McShmoodle