Hiatus till 2015

Uncle Sam has my number so I will be out of state and without outside communication for a few months.  I'll be returning in 2015 ready to throw a book on the shelves.

Take care all.

Time

Originally today was meant to be my ship out date.

Due to some family medical issues I've been granted a brief extension for the next few months.  Despite the dour circumstances I'm happy that I have more time.  More time for my family, my friends, my extremely accomodating girlfriend, my endless crunch time at work and now and then here and there some more time to devote to this newfangled RPG product I'm developing (while I sing the praises of my dedicated layout editor.)

It's amazing how quickly 30 days can go by.  I intend to value the intermission I have left in the same way I held this brief passing span.  High energy and full of life.  At this point its the only way I know how to live.

Avatar's & Annihilation R&D Update: January 2014

January is coming to a close so it's time for me to assess how much I've accomplished in the limited time I have remaining.  This proved to be a hectic month for me, work hit crunch time and my project came into full focus with an encroaching deadline and fixing the many mistakes and delays of people who have dropped the ball once or thrice.  Design engineer, project manager, facilities engineer, security planning, I'm wearing a lot of hats right now but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Unfortunately, 11 hour days, being on call throughout most the night and generally busting my ass at work and maintaining my relationships doesn't leave me a whole lot of time.  One of the things I wanted to do to keep myself on track was to finish up the spell list which had been a perpetual thorn in my side for quite some time.  Expect a post explaining spell casting soon.  Creating rather than editing really enlivened me and has given me some semblance of hope that I'll get this done on time.  Well, I have faith in my layout editor, we'll see what he comes up with.

In the follow-up post to this I'll be putting up an excerpt from the books Introduction explaining the name of this book patterned after numerous other retroclones that came before it.

A to Z Catchup: Z is for Zelda (The Legend of)

It would appear that after the very long and cram packed, but still very well done Avengers movie I have very little time left to write up a post.  That's ok though, since today is my last A-Z post I'd like to spend a little bit talking about what it's been like doing this challenge and where to go from here.

First off it struck me today that I wasted a perfectly good opportunity to talk about running an eXiles themed campaign in the Marvel Super Heroes RPG for the letter X.  Which is a shame since it's been a long while since I've blogged about my stints in Superheroic roleplaying systems and eXile is a perfect setting for people who want to play established characters without mucking around without the overbearing continuity (it also fits the murderous transient mould so many games devolve into which may or may not be a good thing.)

Onto the A-Z Challenge.  I had a lot of fun doing this, although I must say it was quite a challenge.  Trying to put out quality posts full of meaningful or at least interesting content takes a lot more effort than I was expecting.  Those first few posts were easy because I had them already worked out, I just need to transcribe it to a blog post, after that things got pretty difficult and down to the wire at times (like right now for instance!)  This difficulty was compounded by my new hours at work, a sleep schedule that witnesses the crack of dawn and numerous social obligations that soared into prominence.  In short it was hectic, it was draining, but coming home everyday and trying to think of a relevant topic and quickly hammering out the details was quite a rush and it was all the more fulfilling with all the comments and remarks that accompanied it.  So thank you all for that.

Now what to do from here?  First off, I'm taking a much needed break!  At least a week, possibly more.  Writing and design take a lot of inspiration to get going and I don't have as much as that flowing now that most of my day is spent working rather than idling and daydreaming.  On the bright side I will be able to devote more time and focus to individual posts, possibly even fleshing out a few ideas I touched on in the A-Z challenge (if you have any suggestions let me hear them.)

Then of course there is also the final topic.  The Legend of Zelda.  A wonderful eries that has stayed the same in many ways but its gameplay and especially its design has changed drastically between iterations and especially console generations.  In the future I'd like to take a look at Dungeon design in the Legend of Zelda series.  In fact, I'd like to replay though my collection starting all the way in the NES, analyzing key features and framework presented by the designer and how they can be applied or at least understood in our own games.  This is a design blog after all.  Of course, there are always fun little puzzles to examine and steal for our own games.  I plan on doing a series on analyzing other games as well, Etrian Odyssey immediately comes to mind, especially a detailed analysis of class structures and and their thematic components within the setting.

In the meantime I'm going to try and catch up my backlog of A-Z posts written by other people.  You all did splendidly and I regret not having enough time to browse through them all.  Thank you all for reading and stopping by and have a good night.

A to Z Catchup: X is for Xylophone (Cursed)

I've been trying to think of a good X topic since the start but I've come up with nothing.  So let's have a little fun instead, and as Dungeon Masters what could be more fun than a peculiar cursed item.  This time we have the accursed Xylophone, stashed in any decent horde it stands out from the rest of the mundane treasure.  This Xylophone has absolutely zero effect unless someone decides to play it using the mallets attached to its frame of petrified wood.  Once they do they'll be in for a surprise.

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing:  1
Alignment: Lawful
Movement: Inanimate
Armor Class: 9
HD: 1
Special Attack: Curse of Perfect Pitch, Curse of Perfect Melody
Magic Resistance:  Immune to all magical effects excluding dispel magic, disjunction and flame or wood properties.
Size: Small

A to Z Catchup: W is for Weakness (Damage Types)

The last thing I explored in my Damage Types series were the three generalized and conventional ways of dishing out damage with melee weapons.  This time I'd like to look at elemental effects for a bit.  Weaknesses and vulnerability have cropped up from time to time but for the most part in games systems this translates into nothing more than a flat damage bonus or damage multiplier and that's boring.

A to Z Catch Up: V is for Vanquish

So I have returned!  Albeit a few days too late.  I can't believe it's Z already and I was out of commission for so long!  I have some free time tonight and if my stomach continues cooperating I plan on cranking out a few posts.   In the meantime it is time to talk about Vanquish.

Aside from being an absolutely stellar game that riffs on the current chest-high-wall burly action hero cover shooter  Vanquish is a very fun word to use.  It's also one of the most common words you can encounter in any sort of heroic fiction where our brave young hero rallies his resolve and vanquishes the villain.  So let's make Vanquish into a game mechanic.  And since I've been having fun playing around with Intrepid Dice, let's base it around that.

Here's a quick primer on Intrepid Dice.  You have a seventh stat named your Intrepid score.  It is determined randomly (d6 + level) at the start of every adventure.  You can use your intrepid score to add dice to any roll you're making (recall that we're talking 3d6 in place of a d20, and regardless of the number of dice you end up rolling you can only keep 3) as well as a host of other fun tricks you'll find in the link above.  Kevin of KORPG has swayed me from using levels as a carrot for players so the Intrepid Score is how I've been trying to resolve my conflict in a level-less D&D. 

Now then, on to Vanquish.  We can treat it as a class feature, perhaps for our Underdog class or we can treat like other Intrepid abilities, useable by anyone.  I can see it going well either way.  Here's how it works:

Whenever you would deal any Wounds you deal additional Wounds equal to the number of Intrepid Dice you spent during any step resolving your attack.

So what does this mean?  It means the more you invest into an attack, the more spunk, boldness and trust in luck you place in that attack, for each die you personally invest from your intrepid hero's pool of dice you are more likely to strike down your villain and smite him where he stands.  It's the perfect move for any last ditch move and hero very nearly beaten, one last chance before its lights out.  Due to the nature of Intrepid Dice (they don't refresh until the start of another adventure) it is very difficult to abuse.  It can be used as an Alpha strike but is quite the costly gambit.

So there you have it.  Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for what I should do for X.  I'm completely blanking on what to do for that. As always, thanks for reading!

Crunch Time Results

Crunch time was a worthy endeavor.  Although I did not manage to fulfill all the goals I set out to these last few hectic days I still have the motivation to keep going and that's what is important.  As I mentioned previously I hadn't updated my formal draft in a while and instead stuck to my increasingly disorganized notes.  Part of the reason is layout, the other part was that I had to take care of a major rewrite of a core section of the system.  Until I did I didn't feel comfortable adding anything else while something so important was left broken and scattered.  I fixed that section, I rewrote it from scratch at least half a dozen times and I wasn't sure I'd ever make progress on it but I persevered.   I'm sure there's more necessary revisions to be done but I'm glad, because now I have something working, something that resembles what I originally set out to do.  Now, I can continue adding reworking now that I've slain this latest beast.  No longer does that insurmountable feeling hold me able fingers back, I can start writing anew and that made this an important hurdle to cross.

Also, I really enjoyed posting everyday, although I certainly didn't have the time for it.  I think it's something to strive for in the future.  Well, provided I have anything to write about!

Armor Class VS Weapon

Despite hitting the hay a bit early last night (and tossing up a reserve post to maintain my crunch time post quota) I've made a substantial bit of progress.  I've added all the revisions, rewrites and new material since my original draft many moons ago.  All I have left for now is the equipment section and a few clarifying sections for the basic prototype.  Now that I've spoken of my success let me share one of my more recent failures.

A while back I was reading a post over on Delta's D&D Hotspot that was referencing a posting over at myArmory forums about a gentleman who decided to test some authentic or equivalent medieval weapons against cheaply made chainmail as well as a handcrafted set of the highest quality.  It's an excellent posting and experiment be sure to check it out when you have the time.  The test showed how different European weapons, as well as a katana thrown in to highlight a few differences, would perform against the most common of medieval armors, chainmail and jack (layered textile most closely related to brigadine.)  The tests provided some excellent insights and I thought I might veer more towards simulation side of game taxonomy [1] for my weapons system.  Mind you, this was before people declared with great fortitude their staunch distaste for weapons vs armor class in Jeff Rient's poll. Furthermore, I had already taken a stab at this before and the results were more trouble than they were worth.  Still I was sure this time would be different.

Now and Then, Here and There

Talking about the nihilism present in Dying Earth a while back got me thinking about other post-apocalyptic settings.  Actually, looking through my notes to find a quote from Dying Earth I found a poem that's presented at the start of each episode of a series called "Now and Then, Here and There"

Because ten billion
years' time is
so fragile,
so ephemeral...
it arouses such a
bittersweet,
almost heartbreaking
fondness.

I like to wax poetically when I first describe a setting to my players.  I think the above captures that feeling perfectly.  Of how insignificant civilization is, how in the grand scope of things what we build will never persist, what we exploit will not grow back, what we will have is a world spanning desert.

Now and Then, Here and There takes the standard boy travels into a fantasy world and turns it on its head.  Shu the protagonist is every bit the loveable idealist you're used to, the world however, is quite different.  Shu does not train with an old wise man, he does not exhibit any special powers, he's merely a boy who's been dropped into a hellscape of endless wastes in the middle of a wermacht of heartless soldiers in lockstep, many of them children.  All taking place in a giant doomsday nautilus aptly named Hellywood.

Crunch Time

Back on New Years I had made a resolution to get a working prototype done by Febtober, jokingly indicating that I wanted something done by February that could easily be dragged out till October using an old SNL Celebrity Jeopardy Reference.  Well, February has come and almost gone and I think I'd like to push myself these last three days.  Get all the new additions and revisions from playtesting down onto a hard copy rather than pushing it off even further.  To keep me in the mood and keep inspiration flowing I'm pledging at least one post per day.

To start I'd like to extoll the virtues of Notepad++.  When I first started working on my system, well before I even decided to do an independent system, I was writing down some thoughts here and there in a simple text document.  When I wrote up my original draft I put it in a full blown word processor, and later on I put that into Scribus, an open source desktop publishing application I was experimenting with.  Well if I may say, the worst part of writing an rpg system is the layouts.  Seriously.  Having something fit perfectly on one page is wonderful, having something be too long is painful as you try to cut content you felt was perfect or already tightly woven.  It's even worse when you have a new idea or a revision and you need to add something but it regrettably pushes you over your limit.  So word to the wise, save the fancy programs until you're ready to print and until then write to your heart's content and don't care about page counts or fitting in dense pockets of information.  You can cut and curtail that later in the revision process but that brings me to notepad++.

Since word-processors and desktop-publishers were a pain in the ass for adding in revisions and new content, both technically and psychologically, I had gone back to the good old notepad which was ballooning in size by this point.  I even split some off into separate text documents for various classes and core systems but that got a little unwieldy, especially when you're working off an archaic laptop with a small screen and an inability to multitask.  Notepad++ lets you view your text documents like you would in a modern code compiler, it's clean and streamlined and best of all you can open up all those tributary text documents at once and quickly switch between them through tabs (like a modern web browser).  It's lightweight and easy to use and I cannot recommend it enough even for the smallest of things.