Monthly Mecha: NOVA 2e w/ Spencer Campbell & Galen Pejeau

• A sci-fi heavy setting with sparks (exosuits)
• using the rules lite Lumen system (d6, dice pools)
• which emphasizes combat

The original NOVA was ENNIE-nominated for its ruleset and layout.

• New rules, Sparks, enemies, and lore
• A suite of GM tools for creating and running missions
• New ways to customize Sparks, plus a few new sparks
• Art direction and illustrations by Galen Pejeau

Asa: Players love the NOVA setting, and it has been central to many of your projects. What do you think people find appealing about the NOVA setting? And what will NOVA 2e bring to the setting?

Spencer: We all hate the sun, right? I think one of the appeals of the NOVA setting, both as a designer and for people playing in it, is the wide variety of factions that make up the world. That's why I started making all of those spin-off games. While the Sparks of NOVA will always be the "stars" of the show, I wanted to also think about the sorts of stories that would rise up if we had a chance to follow around some Lunar Cultists, or a Corvus assassination squad.

I also think it's because the setting isn't exactly sci-fi. I mean, it's certainly not hard sci-fi, we're talking about a world where the sun supposedly blew up and everyone is doing fine (all things considered). There is a fantastical element to the setting that is really fun. Like, you have mini dyson spheres in all of these cities as they harness shards of the sun, meanwhile there's a group of people who can do literal magic because the moon is cursed and giving them powers. 

Asa: Your last ruleset was ENNIE-nominated and inspired numerous spinoff games. What are some of the updates you have made to the rules and why?

Spencer: I had three goals in mind for rules updates. First was to speed up the game even more, even though combat is already quick. That came in the form of changing how we represent the battlespace with zones and paths mapping, and by changing how drops worked. The idea of drops is tech from my original LUMEN ruleset, and it is very videogame coded. Enemies literally drop blobs of health and ammo from their corpses when you take them out, so your characters are always feeling powerful. While fun in practice, it actually takes a ton of momentum out of the fight with how they are generated. So I've smoothed that out.

Second was giving players more control over how their Spark is set up. There is a new stat called Capacity, which is basically the number of combined powers and mods your Spark can equip. This allows players a lot of flexibility with how they build their Spark. They could just jam their Spark full of powers, giving them a wide array of things to do, but all of them at a sort of "entry level." Or, they could pick a couple powers and load up on mods. Now they are much more specialized, but really good at what they do. This is also a tool to help folks find a playstyle that fits their preferred cognitive load. If you like a lot of options, you can give your character that. If you want just one or two buttons to consider on your turn, that's totally viable as well.

Finally the GM is getting a whole bunch of support. A much requested feature was clarifying how enemies actually work. I'll admit, it is waaaaay too loose in original NOVA, so that was my number one priority. On top of that I've given the GM so many more tools for both building and running missions. Basically GMs are going to have a lot more fun playing this game. The idea of NOVA has always been that the Sparks are going to win, and that's still the case. But now the GM has a few more things up their sleeve that the Sparks will have to contend with to earn that win.

Asa: Galen Pejeau will be doing the art for this project, and you've partnered with him before. What about Galen and his art drew you to working with him on this project?

Spencer: Galen is just unstoppable when it comes to sci-fi art. One of my favorite things about working with Galen is how cyclical the process feels. Galen and I are comfortable with him just taking big swings on the direction of certain characters, and he always produces something amazing. Truly, with all the work he has done on all of the other NOVA setting games, he has firmly established himself as the artistic director of this setting. He has this magic power to take this world inside my head and put it on the page in the coolest way possible.

Asa: Elsewhere, you have said that this will be your most ambitious project to date. What are you most excited about with this project?

Spencer: It might be silly, but I'm most excited about NOVA getting to that "happy" place for me. That place where I feel like it's really the game that I've always wanted it to be. Because once that's done, then I can really be set loose in terms of making more stuff for it. For years I've had all these fun ideas for supplements and other goodies for NOVA, but never worked on them because the original game wasn't quite there. I want that foundation that I can build on for years to come.

Oh, and to fix the setting. Spencer from 5 years ago made NOVA set on Earth, and that is very much not the case. It is connected to my ongoing world, Obron, which connects nearly all of my TTRPGs. So I'm excited to get the setting back on track, since I'm a bit of a lore fiend haha.

Asa: As anyone who follows you on Bluesky will see, you end up drawing a lot of robots, machines, and space people! What mecha ttrpgs have you worked on?

Galen: Lots! The actual number is a moving target, between projects that have published, that have yet to be published, and those that will never see the light of day. Looking at my shelf though, Apocalypse Frame by Binary Star, Rig by Michael Elliott, and Aether Nexus by Absolute Tabletop are prominent favorites, in addition to so many of Spencer's four letter titles. Space knights are a kind of mecha, right?

Asa: And how did you start illustrating mechs and robots?

Galen: In the margins of my school notebooks, like a lot of kids, I imagine. Professionally, I got into drawing on the net back in 2017, as a way to fight deal with insomnia and a newborn. Some folks on the internet liked my drawings, so I just kept plugging away, and eventually made a Blades in the Dark hack called Crash//Cart. The character "Charlie" was my first published robot.

Galen: It's quite likely that folks who read a mecha newsletter already know this, but most every mech is a kind of figure who sits somewhere on a grid between the points of FIGHTER PLANE/TANK/ANGEL. A lot of the fun of this job is talking it through with the customer and finding out what that figure is, and where that mecha goes on the grid. For example, the first figure below, from an as-yet unannounced project, is a swordsman+tank, while the second figure, from The Facility, is a monster+angel. Once you've got the concept, assembling a series of references, then sketches, and then paints, is just a whole lot of time spent squinting at a tablet.

Galen: I love all of my clunky, malformed children equally, but I think the one that's got the most potential is Boundless Space, which takes the Boundless engine by René-Pier Deshaies, and puts it into the setting of an asteroid belt in the aftermath of an interstellar war. It's a lightweight rules system, but still has room for space trading, Expanse-style ship to ship combat, and stories of humanity and transhumanity. (You can find the playtest here: Boundless Space Playtest.)

Galen: Spencer and I have been working together for, geez, years now. He has been a role model client and creative partner, clear in what he wants from an artist, and willing to give me plenty of rope to fiddle around with new ideas. This new iteration of Nova is bringing to a head a whole lot of themes and ideas that have been simmering for awhile now, and I'm pretty stoked to help realize that. We get each other hyped about the current project, and the future ones.

Galen: I would encourage anyone reading this to draw every day (or play music, or write, or any other creative endeavor). Do it for yourself, it's good to get that stuff out of your head and onto a page.