Devlog #1: Ambition v0.1.1, Development, and Expectations

Hello! I want to use this post to give full context for the game, myself, this page, and to outline expectations and plans for the future.

Introduction

My name is Yanni Panagiotopoulos, you can find all of my links here, I am a concept artist that has 6 years of experience in the video game and TTRPG industry. I’ve been a tabletop designer in a loose sense, for about a decade and a half. Writing content for home games in 3.5, pf1e, and 4th edition. Writing settings, stories, classes, items, and spells for 5th edition and later Lancer games I used to run. I’ve always been making things as part of the play experience because storytelling was very important to me, I often felt like there was friction between the ceilings of the system and the narrative stakes, tones, and boons of play. I yearned for something more expressive to the kind of ideas of what a TTRPG is to me, something that at its core is about a shared story. A narrative you and the table are building together, where the math, systems, and tables were the things that grounded and anchored everyone to that same idea.

When working in the games industry I also realized that there is just a disconnect between the kinds of stories I want to tell, and the kinds of stories audiences were consuming. At least in the spaces in the industry I was able to find work in, I found myself wanting to move away from the kind of work I was asked to do and to start making art for artists. To collaborate on art with artists made for artists. I wanted to make something that I think mattered in a timeless or poignant way, like the pieces of media that have stuck with me and worked their way into this game. Games like Disco Elysium, Paradise Killer, the Outer Wilds, and Inscryption. Films like Le Samourai, The Conversation, Angels Egg, and Ikiru. Books like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Tao te Ching/Zhuangzi, the Lathe of Heaven, and Small Gods. A tabletop RPG where the narrative, tone, setting, and characters don’t stumble into something sublime but provides the tools and archetypes for the GM and players to build a shared story that is impactful, sublime, and timeless.

I realize that the ambition of that is inherently not for everyone, but it is the thing that I want and desire to play. I hope to find others that have been yearning for that kind of experience too.

What is Ambition?

Ambition is a 2-4 player fantasy tactics Tabletop RPG that is saturated with Daoist themes and narrative conceits about self-archetype and storytelling. The player characters, the Ambitious, look to shape the world of Imbrier with the strength of their hands, the cuttings of language, or indominable hearts. That shaping is an Ambition, a pursuit independent of beat to beat narrative movement of the story. Ambition’s roleplaying is defined by dispositions and voices, representations of the players subconscious thoughts and investments. The conscious actions of the players through the mechanics of the game shape the narrative, while the GM roleplays the subconscious expression of the player characters through voices. The more a player invests in particular voices, the more compulsive and frequent they will hear from them. Shaping their approach to situation, how their characters yearn to act even if they choose differently.

Ambition has three modes of play. Narrative Play, Engagements, and Tribunals. These modes of play are completely separate rulesets and mechanics tend to not overlap between them.

• Narrative Play is a rules light, freeform mode of play so that players can easily and without burden access their voices and autonomy, and in doing so build the story towards a narrative tension that must be resolved in…
• An Engagement. A rules heavy, turn based mode of play where tension is resolved through violence on a battlemap
• Or a Tribunal. A rules heavy, turn based mode of play where tension is resolved through conversation with the use of clocks.

Transitioning between modes of play will happen naturally through the course of the game. Narrative play tends to build towards tension that can only be resolved through tribunal or combat, but players have the agency to transition modes of play as they see fit, to apply a different set of rules to the situation to leverage the power they have been accruing through mechanics.

The rules are there to enable the power and choice of players. It is the core principle of Ambition, that the character you are playing is not set dressing to an underlying system. They are the underlying system, the choices you make, ways you choose to express, voices you invest into, all show up in the mechanical fiction of the game.

Development and Roadmap

This a small snippet of the development thoughts. For the full development thoughts, art updates, playtest content for v0.2.0, early access to playtest drafts, and my ttrpg musings. Check out my Patreon.

Ambition v0.1.1 is the minimum viable product of the game. It is a system that is complete enough to run, be playtested, and achieves the base mechanics and narrative control that Ambition as a system is striving for. It is still incomplete however, v0.1.1 is about 20% of the way there content-wise.

On the horizon there are three major updates coming that I hope to be finished with by Q2 of 2025. Ambition v0.1.2, Art Bible v1, and Ambition v0.2.0.

• Ambition v0.1.2 is an errata that is looking to add more content making it easier for GMs to pick up playtest the system for their home group, adding more lore and setting content, and reworking Witch and the current magic system.
• Art Bible v1 is the content I am developing to codify the visual language of the game, for myself as a concept artist, and for when I want to contract out art to be made for the game. It is going to explore and ground out class identity, bloodlines, culture, the voices, layouts, symbols, language, ecology, architecture, etc. Its not going to all be done at once, but updates to the art bible will be posted frequently as development picks up.
• Ambition v0.2.0 is an addition to the last major systems of the game; bloodlines and cultures. Increasing the level cap, adding 6 new player classes, tons of new options, new downtime and narrative play rules, and much more. v0.2.0 is independently a larger slice of the game than v0.1.1 is currently and once v0.2.0 is shipped the rest of the content for Ambition is just building upon and fleshing out the system.

Ambition v0.1.1 Features:

Here’s the content included in the 239 pages of Ambition v0.1.1. Playtesting and feedback is instrumental to me at this stage, so if you are running the game or playing please send me feedback through this form or on the forums here on itch: 

• An introduction to the world and setting of Ambition. Its stakes, themes, tones, and history.
• Rules for running and playing engagements, tribunals, and narrative play
  • Engagements are rules heavy, turn based, and resolve narrative tension through violence on a battlemap
  • Tribunals are rules heavy, turn based, and resolve narrative tension through conversation with clocks
  • Narrative Play is rules light, turn-less, and builds tension to later be resolves through engagement or tribunal.
• Feature complete voice and disposition system
  • Six innate dispositions with 6 voices each
    • Psyche: Interact with the world through people
      • Voices: Volition, Empathy, Derealization, Wile, Gaslight-Gatekeep, Monomyth
    • Reason: Interact with the world through Information
      • Voices: Visualization, Conceptualization, Grimoire, Drama, Deduction, Axiom
    • Soma: Interact with the world through your physical form
      • Voices: Tolerance, Flow, Frisson, Control, Physicality, Fight or Flight
    • Agility: Interact with the world through objects and sense data
      • Voices: Elusive, Delicate Touch, Latency, Triple S, Perception, Kinesthetics
    • Fate: Interact with the world through purpose
      • Voices: Luck, Destiny, Benevolence, Felicity, Martyrdom, Authority
    • Sanity: Interact with the world through ignorance
      • Voices: Sixth Sense, All-Night Movie, Composure, Collective Unconscious, Kafkaesque, Unknowing
  • A set of general voice features accessible to all archetypes.
• Feature complete levels 1-3 for the Bulwark, Witch, Sundance, Lionheart, and Fool archetypes
  • 4 additional expressions for each archetype unlocked at third level
    • Bulwark - Parriarch, Landsknecht, Bersegliere, Witch Lancer
    • Witch - Gunwitch, Pact of the Nameless, Pact of the Wisp, Pact of the Whisper
    • Sundance - Firewalker, Crowd Pleaser, Editor of Edicts, Icarus
    • Lionheart - Saint, Castellan, Valkyrie, Keeper
    • Fool - War Jester, Harlequin, Folk Hero, Pierrot
• 10 Complete Ambitions to guide characters goals and reward narrative engagement with the shared story.
  • Solve the World, Blacken thy Name, Wanderlust, Virtue, Influence, Escape from your Past, Save Them, Vendetta, Revolution
• A rules glossary for players for engagements for quick access to the rules on actions, keywords, and status effects
• A complete GM guide to running engagements, tribunals, and narrative play
• A complete GM guide to preparing content and running your own game in the world of Ambition
• A building NPCs section that combines classes, traits, and types to generate multi-faceted adversaries for your players to overcome.
• A Grimoire with varied tables of items, weapons, spells, and armor
  • An armory with 72 different weapons and 36 different pieces of armor to choose from.
  • An equipment grimoire with different equipment, miscellaneous items, potions, kits and poisons
  • A spell glossary for Witches 1-3rd level spells containing 42 unique spells.
  • Statblocks and progression for 4 witch familiars. The Imp, the Wisp, the Unseelie, and the Beldam Polyp.

Thank you for your support

Ambition is the game I’ve always wanted to play and that I still can’t believe I am making. Your support means the world to me and engagement with my design and storytelling from Ambition is the core reason I became a concept artist in the first place. I have so much content on the way and I can’t wait to share it with you.