Devlog #5

After the latest round of playtests (and some bouts of weird inspiration), we've made some major changes to Catalyst. 

The goal here was to make the game read more closely to how it actually plays at the table: clearer outcomes, a more consistent escalation language, and tighter procedures for the parts of the game that tend to sprawl, especially extended challenges and magic. The result is a ruleset that leans harder into Catalyst’s core loop: roll, interpret, apply consequence, build pressure, hit a breaking point.

We also built a mini, quick-play version of the game called Catalyst: Spark.

Version Changes

• Made Pressure and Breaking Points the default escalation tool. Pressure is now positioned as the core system for anything that should take time, risk, or multiple moves to resolve, rather than a niche subsystem. Breaking Points are treated as the clear finish line for extended challenges, and the book gives clearer guidance for setting them so pacing is less vibes-based and more consistent.
• Reframed combat more explicitly around pressure and BP. Attacks primarily build Pressure toward a Breaking Point (BP), and so stacking resolve reads cleanly as pushing more Pressure into a hit, reinforcing the fantasy of committing effort for a heavier, riskier swing.
• Overhauled how magic and rituals run at the table. Spellcasting is now framed as a deliberate pressure engine with explicit steps and costs, rather than a loose special-case roll. Conduits are now a real stabilizing factor in combat, casting without one is meaningfully worse, stronger conduits limit how much Resolve you can safely push into a cast, sustained magic costs committed Resolve, and interruption and backlash are explicitly handled so the scene can disrupt spellwork in a concrete way.
  
• Clarified magical domains for faster play. The domain taxonomy is presented more cleanly as a root-and-expression map, making it easier to choose a domain and understand what it commonly does in practice. The presentation leans into a more primal, elemental logic in the examples and framing, which helps keep spell intent grounded and adjudicable.
  
• Cleaned up and unified defense conditions. Defensive setbacks are standardized into a consistent trio: Staggered, Exposed, and Vexed. The older inconsistency where an extra condition showed up in one place has been removed, so the rules teach one vocabulary everywhere.
• Improved gear and protection usability. Protection is treated more like modular kit with properties and clearer fictional triggers, reducing “does this count” debate and speeding up rulings. The focus is on gear choices feeling distinct and readable in play, not just numeric.
• Tightened GM-facing guidance and pacing. The book leans harder into a single repeatable play loop, with more of the practical “how to run it” glue spelled out, especially for extended challenges and magic, so sessions rely less on designer assumptions and more on clear procedure.
• Updated action outcomes and thresholds. The game now uses Breakthrough and Ruin language instead of the older Triumph and Catastrophe framing. Breakthrough is reserved for truly exceptional results, and setbacks sit in a tighter band below the target number, so you get fewer “soft failures” and more clean, decisive outcomes.

Catalyst Spark

Inspired by Grant Howitt's One-Page RPGs, Catalyst: Spark is a single-sheet, minimalist version of Catalyst.  We built Spark to see if we could strip the engine down to a single loop and deliver the same mythic-punk vibe with a fraction of the rules. It’s built to run fast, teach itself in minutes. 

Spark uses the same basic ideas, player-facing rolls, a resource you spend to push outcomes, and consequences that escalate, but it eschews the full game’s layered subsystems and detailed procedures.

So rather than trying to sell everyone into a full game that plays very differently from standard fantasy fare, Spark is being developed as a sort of minimalist intro to the full experience.