With just two weeks left to go until AUGMENTED is released, I'm still venturing back to tinker and add more material to the core rulebook. This time around, I've added added some optional rules and provided some guidance for players and Supervisors. Here's what you can expect to find in the optional rules section:

• Equipment rules: The game doesn't provide any guidance for equipping Agents, which will be totally fine for some groups. Other players may want a bit more guidance, so I included a simple mechanic to help track what equipment each Agent has available to them on assignments.
• Tags: Played as written, AUGMENTED requires Supervisors to make a lot of judgment calls that some players may find a bit arbitrary. The game doesn't provide any explicit means of distinguishing an elite enemy from a run of the mill goon, for instance. While some groups may enjoy this freedom, others may find it difficult to gauge relative threats and difficulties. The Tag system provides a means of clearly labeling what sets some threats apart from conventional ones. Tags must be overcome in some way before action can be taken directly against an obstacle.
• The Panic Button: AUGMENTED assumes that players will leap directly into the action without endlessly planning their assignment. In reality, however, the Agents they're controlling would never go into danger without a plan. The Panic Button is similar to the "flashback" mechanic from games like LEVERAGE, allowing the group to execute a deus ex machina once per session to explain how they anticipated their current predicament and put a contingency plan in place to bail them out of trouble.

At the moment, I don't anticipate adding anything new to AUGMENTED, but I felt the same way when I launched the preorder and the game has grown from 20 pages to 36 pages in that time! I'm still planning to create a short setting guide that details a possible version of the future, but I would prefer to not incorporate that setting into the base rulebook. Part of the intention behind AUGMENTED was to create a game that any group could begin running within minutes of opening the rulebook. Creating some expectation that Supervisors and players need to familiarize themselves with a campaign setting feels antithetical to that goal. At the same time, I recognize that some people do want some setting details to work with, so that's why I'm planning to release that material as a separate guide. If I eventually do a print run of the game, I may incorporate it into the core rulebook, though.

That's all for now! Things may be a bit quite on the AUGMENTED front during the next week as I work to prepare WEIRDWOOD for shipping out to Kickstarter backers, but rest assured I'll have plenty more to say as we get closer to the March 30 release date.