Zombie Scribe Games

Constitutional Design

2007-10-17T12:29:17Z

While reading up on political science the other day I came across three things that the book claimed make up a good Constitution:

Tradition: Laws are familiar to the people. The people are less likely to accept laws that are alien to them

Accepts Change: Able to change relatively easily when needed

Limits Authority: Prevents tyranny by the authorities but also empowers and them by rewarding for appropriate actions.

I think these three items can be applied to game design.

Tradition

The rules should be familiar to the players. This does not mean that you should design a D&D clone but that the rules should not be so exotic that it puts off players. Games that are examples of good traditional design are:

Irdium System
D20
MRQ
StarCluster 2
Unisystem
nWoD

These are all systems that use mechanics that have mechanics and dicing methods that are familiar to anyone who has been playing RPGs for a while. These types of systems are easy to learn and use because they have level of commonsense and are intuitive. Whether, its "roll under 30%" or "add dex + weapons skill" things tend to just click with the way the average person thinks.

Some non-traditional game types are Diceless games, games that use unusual props or dice, and systems that have a near lack of rules. Examples:

Amber
FUDGE
Wushu
Any card driven RPG

non-traditional games can be very well designed and fun games, but will likely not appeal to the masses. Games designed with Tradition considered tend to be easier for players new to RPGs to pick up an learn. There must be a balance of simple rules and enough rules to answer the questions of a novice. Any RPG that seems like a person is just "playing pretend" and not a game will fail.

Accepts Change

The game's rules should be made in a way that makes them flexible so that the GM can easily tweak or change rules without setting off a cascade of problems that cause balance issues. If changing one rule changes the entire game it limits the usefulness of the game. This limits the perspective players to playing your game only your way. Since very few games ever fully appeal to anyone this is a significant issue. Room must be left for tinkering so that game can be made to suit most people's purposes.

Building flexible rules can be achieved two ways:

Modular rules- all rules are compartmentalized. Because each subsystem is self contained you can make a change to any subsystem without affecting another. If done right you can completely remove one subsystem and replace it with a new one and not greatly affect the rest of the system.

Simple Rules- rules that are so simple that you basically are working with a skeletal system. This idea contradicts Traditional design and may cause the game to be overly simple. However; the lack of rules generally makes it easier to change or plug in new subsystems. Using this method when designing a non-generic system will lead to flavorless gameplay.

Limits Authority

The rules should limit the authority of both the players and GM by rewarding both for desired gameplay. If a game shifts too much power to either party the other is left open to oppression. typically this not a problem among gamers who are familiar with each other or have been gaming together.

The best way to avoid authority issues is to reward both parties for the desired gameplay. Maybe players get XP and GMs get "bennies". Often games are designed with rewarding players in mind but most don't reward the GM. A designer must recognize that the GM is also a player and there should be some reward system for them as well.

Many thing that encouraging competitive between players and the GM is a bad thing , but I think if designed correctly these types of games can actually be very fun and rewarding for both players and GMs. Of course it would not work without proper authority balance.

Accouterments in RPGs

2007-10-16T16:00:30Z

First a definition-

Accouterments:

1. An accessory item of equipment or dress. Often used in the plural.

I'm also going to use this great thread over on The RPG Site (Started by Clash Bowley) as the main reference for this discussion.

The idea of accouterments in RPG design is that iconic items actually define the setting, system, and what the PC will and won't be able to do in the game. So, as you can see accouterments are quite important to RPG Design.

What exactly are accouterments? Lightsabres, Blasters, Millennium Falcon, The One Great Ring, Magical weapons, Glitter Boy armor and cybernetics are all examples. Basically any items that are essential when defining a game, setting, or story. You cannot accurately describe SW without mentioning lighsabres, blasters, or the Millennium Falcon. These things are the face of the game, the things that give the game it's cool factor. Any item that, if removed, would result in the game less interesting is and accoutrement.

So, how do we use them in the course of RPG design?

Well, first there are different categories of accouterments. There are Iconic, Romantic, and Valance

Iconic Accouterments are items that define a game, but are not a commonly seen,used, or owned item. Among the everyday citizen Iconics are mysterious, legendary,mythic, and sometimes feared. Lightsabres & Glitter Boy Armor are examples.

Romantic Accouterments are items that define a game but not by being legendary or mysterious but by being widely available and accepted. They also have become somewhat romanticized. An example would be the colt revolver during the old west and cybernetics in Cyberpunk 2020.

Valance Accouterments are items that don't have any particular function or direct use in the game other than to add a described element. These items add color and flavor a game but generally don't have any direct mechanical purpose. The clothes the people wear, furniture, some technological items that are convenience items are all examples.

I think you need to use at the least 2 of the three in order to have properly designed game.

So, using Accoutrement to design a game first requires you to come up with the basic concept of the game. Is it sci-fi, is it fantasy, what type of social structure is used, what do PCs do? All of those sorts of questions.

Once you have the basic setting decided and what the players do decided on, then you toss in the accouterments. First I choose two Iconics, then four Romanics, and eight Valance accouterments. Take each one of the accouterments you come up with and write up a description of the item:

1. What they do?
2. How PCs use them?
3. Where they came from?
4. Their role in the setting?
5. How they are made?
6. Who makes them?
7. Who uses them?
8. Possible ideas how to use them mechanically in the game?
9. Do they require a power source? If so, what powers it?
10. What impression does the general public have of the item?

For Valance items less of these questing are important, but should still try to answer as many as apply.

By time you get done doing this process you should have come up with a considerable amount of setting info. You can stop there and go freestyle or you can repeat the process, building on the previous 14 ones.

Once you have sufficiently fleshed out the setting and feel of the game, design the mechanical bits to play on the roles and uses of the most important accouterments in your game. Keep in mind, not all accoutrement require that they have a mechanical effect on the game, just the few most important ones.

RPG Admix Re-Opens

2007-09-27T18:32:17Z

RPG Admix forums re-opened as of this morning. With a new look and focus, RPG Design.

Check it out and pass the word.

Fantasy Book Spot

2007-08-28T17:59:30Z

Well, I took a spot as an Associate Reviewer at Fantasy Books Spot, the premier review site for Sci-Fi & Fantasy novels.

I have posted my first review: The Sleeping God by Violette Malan.

Here's a link to my review page on FBS so you can check them out periodically

Vote for Zachary!

2007-08-07T15:13:32Z

Well the Ennies 2008 RPG awards are already in the works and we haven't even seen the 2007 results yet. At this point we are just selecting judges for the 2008 awards. For those of you the enjoy my reviews and like my taste in RPGs, I would suggest voting for Zachary Houghton. Zachary and I are online friends (Though we did meet at Gencon 2006) with very similar gaming personalities. Chances are if you like me, you'll like Zachary. Not to mention I think he is also the most qualified of the bunch as well.

VOTE FOR ZACHARY!

You can read Zach's bio here.

See all the nominees and get a link to the online voting booth here.

New RPG Design Forums Open

2007-07-09T20:03:23Z

I have heard several people say that they are not happy with the current RPG Design Forums for one reason of another.

So, I decided to start up a new one:

It just opened check it out!

Well, it's been a really long time! Here's what I have been upto.

2007-06-26T15:59:22Z

Well, i have been working on all og my game concepts, slowly, but I am working on them

Remeberance (My Game Chef entery that never got finished) is under construction and I still plan to finish it.

I have a Mythic RPG idea I'm working out the concept on :

A game that was partially about mythic stories and building a mythic history for your characters. Basically at the end each adventure the players write a short "history" about that adventure, keeping the mythic theme in mind. It may be on a paragraph or two, no long stuff needed.

Then the player gets to pick out one or two adjective-noun pairs and those become part of the character and have a mechanical effect on the game.

example:

Ryan's group just finished an adventure where he play the character "Dagmar". During the adventure Dagmar crossed the sea during a storm and was thrown overboard, later the other characters found him washed up on the shore, unconcious but alive. Later in the adventure he felled the madusa with a critical hit. Now the player gets to write a short, short story describing how the did it.

So maybe in his story Ryan uses these adjective- noun pairs:

Thunderous Blow
Underwater Helper
Glorious Ruse

Then he picks two, writes them on the character sheet and gets a mechanical benefit.

I plan to come up with catagories for adjective-noun combos to fit in and each one has an area of the mechnics it can affect.

Like for the three in the example you would have:

Damage= Thunderous Blow
Social= Glorious Ruse
Contacts= Underwater Helper

So Thunderous Blow would only affect the damage mechanics. Glorious ruse would give some benifit to social situations. Contacts would give a character a contact in game.

I was told that a game by the name of Formless does something similar, but I have never seen it.

I'm also continuing work on Ghost Walkers:

You are driving down the road and a car comes out of nowhere, but you zig and zag around it avoiding a crash. Or so you think. In fact you did not avoid the crash and were dead on impact but a shell of your former self lives on. Your soul ,disjointed from your body, enters another plane waiting for the body release strand that binds it so it can continue to the afterlife. Some people(Ghost Walkers) are able to recover their souls. Each Ghost Walker has different ancient mystical heritage that when revealed in full gives the character the ability to recover their soul. However, a Ghost Walker cannot in one fell swoop discover all that needs to be learned about their heritage. They will learn piece by piece a little at a time as they investige and research. As they learn more characters manifest super-human powers. Once they discover the way to recover their soul, they are left with a decision. Either become fully human again and lose their powers or not recover their souls and keep their powers. Ghost Walkers sometimes are able to detect each other and sometimes form Cells where they assist each other. The world ,though, is not always a rosey helpfull place and their are those who oppose Ghost Walkers. A Ghost Walker can access the spirit realms. Spirit realms are paralell to the modern world is some way. Like there may be a spirit realm where all the people in the living world have a spiritual incarnation in the realm, though they are not aware of it. If something happens to an incarnation in a Spiritual realm, something equally bad happens to them in the Living world. Ghost Walkers not only can access the spirit realms but when they Ghost Walk they actually enter the spirit world. While in the spirit world some of their powers get even stronger than they are in the living world, while others may get weaker. Now spirit realm can take any form, fantasy, future, time travel, Lovecraftian or pretty much anything else. Common things that are in all of them is that each person in the realm has a living world version,Ghost Walkers are generally the people running the show(governments,nobility, ect...), and every action in a spirit realm has an effect in the living world. Ghost walkers have their enemies, the "Perishers". Perishers are similar to Ghost Walkers, but cannot save their souls. Ghost Walkers walk among the everyday people, though they are not seen: not by strangers, not by friends, not by family. All their loved ones go on living lives without them. Infact, the longer a Ghost Walker takes to recover his/her soul, the more the memory of them fades. Eventually they will be totally forgotten - No one will even remember they lived, their existance fades from society. All records of birth, marriage, and death disappear. All the memories made with friends and family fade into non-existance. If that is not harsh enough, Perishers are actively trying to keep GWs from recovering their souls. Why? While Perishers cannot recover their souls, the do not fade away either and are able to take on any form. In the instant a GW dies, a Perisher goes to work.He does his best to make the family forgett faster: Starts dating the GW's spouse, maybe becomes your 3rd gade daughters best friend @ school. This is not a good thing, Perishers are evil. All of the worlds most evil peopl are/were Perishers. Hitler, Sadam, Serial Killers,Wife beaters, violent criminals, and the like are all Perishers.

Remembrance and Fate

2007-03-30T15:09:43Z

Ok, so decided to go with fate for the system for this game despite my want to design my own fudge based game. It just turns out that FATE fits the bill nearly perectly for the frantic, high action, and cinematic theme I'm going for.

I'm going to toss out two of the three Game Chef ingredients (money & drugs) as required and hardwired elements of the game. I'm going to keep the memory loss bit but throw some soap @ my inner hippy and tone down the mechincal effect it has on the game.

Otherwise, the the concept is the same, its just a little more towards a traditional RPG than the origional plan.

Well I have hit a snag

2007-03-23T14:19:58Z

Real life issues will make it impossible for me to continue the Game Chef 2007 Comeptition.

I do plan to continue working on this game, an hopefully publish it.

Remembrance- My game Chef Project

2007-03-21T16:45:10Z

Ok, so here is everything I have so far, ouch, me head hurts.

What is this game about?

You awake to a buzzing neon sign and the crackle of the bug zapper claiming its last victim .The feeling of cold steel in your hand and bodies strewn across the room cater to your sense of horror. Numb to the chaos that surrounds you, not knowing who you are, yet shocked at what you may have done. The others left standing look every bit as pale and shocked as you. Across the room you notice a white bag in the midst of the blood and gore, strange enough, it is unstained. As you pull the zipper, you hear the sound of screaming sirens getting closer. Your mind races, trying decide what to do...

Remembrance is a game of lost identity, a mysterious package, and murder. The characters are thrown into a desperate situation not knowing who they are or how they managed to get into their situation. Players slowly piece their characters memories together; sometimes the memories are sweet, sometimes they are less than pleasant. One thing is for sure, the characters are always harried by the law and those who oppose them. Every person they come in contact seems to know something. With each conflict comes a new remembrance.

The characters awake in a strange place each with a weapon in their hand. The room is completely unfamiliar and they have no memory of who they are or how they got there. A large bag of drugs and cash surrounded by dead bodies complicate things even more. They have no form of ID and no direct knowledge of who they are.

Each character has something that draws them to the bag of money and drugs (the package). They can be drug addicts who upon seeing the drugs start craving the next hit. Maybe the character is a greedy gambler who can’t resist the money.

Beyond knowing their connections to the package, each character also has a personal item in a pocket or something they wear that connects them to their identity. An engraved lighter, a wedding ring, a picture, or any other small object, is the only hint of who they are. The characters try to find out who they are and reclaim their memories. Each time they encounter people with a connection to the package, they flashback and remember a little bit more.

When the characters hit the street, they find that they have no friends. Few people know them and that those that do are the most likely ones to do them harm. Going to the police could be a hazardous affair, with the bodies you left behind. That’s assuming the police are on the straight and narrow, which they most certainly are not. Do you ask a stranger for help? What would a stranger think if you told them your story? Would they call the police or maybe they are the eyes and ears of those who did this to you?

If your characters can fight through the opposition, paranoia, and their connection to the package they will earn their remembrance.
Title: Remebrance

Ingredents: Currency,Drugs, Memory

What it's about: The characters awake in a strange place each with a weapon in their hand. The room is completely unfamiliar and they have no memory of who they are or how they got there. Complicating things are the large bag of drugs and cash and dead bodies that they also have no idea about. They have no form of ID on them. The characters don't know if they they know the other players, but if they did they have no memory of them. Each has something that draws them to the bag of money and drugs, some are addicts, some are greedy, and some owe people money. Characters are free to make up their own conections to the drugs and/or money. Beyond knowing their conections to the drugs and money, each character also has a personal item in a pocket or that they are wearing that contects them to their identity. Players can choose this item, though it should not be something that directly reveals their ID.

So the characters try to find out who they are and reclaim their memories. Each time they encounter people with a connection to the package, they flashback and remember a little bit more. So in the begining of the game each player gets to assign a new clue. Funny thing is, their connection to the package is so strong they cannot and will not give it up, one character is always carrying the bag. The intial clues tend to be a bit more revealing than the rest, giving the characters a place to start.

Begining clues might be: a note with an address and name on it, a phone number, a receipt, or whatever it may be. The GM decides the starting clues, but the players get to decide their personal item which will also include some sort of hint. Maybe their wedding ring, photo, or whatever elso the player could think of that may hint @ something about them.

Four main antagonist will be:

the package: they can't leave it, its like they are addicted to it and some are literally which may cause conflict on its own.

Police: At some point or another they make an appearance @ the site where the chacters awoke and find the bodies. If they PCs stay around to long after awaking they may run into them right in the begining, which would certainly cause problems. Of course carrying around large amounts of drugs and money are not good when dealing with police, not to mention they (the PCs) are not totally sure in the begining if they killed those people or not.

The Man: This is the person or group that engineered their memory loss and put the players in their situation. As the players go, they will uncover not only their ID, but the ID of "the man" and discover why they were put into this situation. The man could be a psycho who just enjoys tormenting people or could be group like the mafia. The man will typically try to use the PCs for his/her purpose. maybe they are using them to transport the drugs or knock-off a rival, but they could just be doing it for fun. He may periodically contact the players in some way to nudge them one direction or the other via threat or deception.

Third party: depending on where the game goes, there could endup being more anagonists unrealated to The Man or Police. Maybe street gangs and the like.

While the characters have no idea who they are, they do still have the skills they had before losing their memory, though initially they don't know they have them. Players will chose three skill sets to start. A skill set is just a broad term that covers all skills that a person of a proffesion or study may have. When a character gets into a situation that someone of his skill set would be familiar with the player may imediatly write down a skill appropriate to the situation and skill set. An example would be a person with a Law Enforcement skill set is in the middle of a gun fight and picks a fallen gun up of the floor. That character instantly remembers how to properly use the fire arm, though they are not sure why. He takes up the gun a shoots his way out and is totally amazed at how easy it was. This "skill finding" is another way for a PC to piece together who they are.

The endgame is when the players eliminate "the man" and clear themselves with the police (or cover it up). The players are free to go back to their lives.

I see it as a mish-mash of Lock Stock and two smoking barrels, SAW, Uknown, Snatch and Reservior Dogs.

"Who gets to control the clues? Is there a GM who does this, or is it all player driven?"
there are various ways, sometimes the players get to insert clues, sometimes the GM does. Some ways the players insert clues are:

#1: choosing their personal item @ the begining of the game.

#2: When a scene is started the players get to set the stakes, which may include finding new information. The GM frames the scene by describing the setting and situation, the players may insert some things into the scene. The players set the stakes, the GM sets the complications. When a player sets the stakes they must say what their action for the scene will be and say what happens if they succeed. The GM tells them what happens if they fail. then the scene plays out. If player succeed, he gets to narrate what happens, which could include finding a clue. An improtant thing to remember is that a scene will only happen if it is important to the characters and/or antagonist and theer is a conflict, so most of the scenes will involve someone who is involved and knows something or has some sort of clue that drives the story.

#3-Skill finding during play will also reveal info about the characters and players choose if and when they aquire a skill.

The GM inserts clues by:

#1- Setting the initial scene

#2- controling what NPCs are present in a scene.

#3- Direct contact from "the man" or Police.

I like the idea about skill sets, but could you go one step further and leave all characters blank until the player narrates that they have this or that skill?
yes, I think I can. Since I plan to use a variant of fudge/wushu this should not be a problem. The mechanics are going to be very simple. Also, it fits better with characters actually being generated during play since they don't even know their names. If they don't know their names, how would they know what they are capable of in the first place? My plan is to have a certain number of points that they start they game with and get reset after each session. During play if they decide that their character "finds a skill" they spend a point or two and write it down, now they have it. For each new clue they reveal they get another point. If @ any time they have no points left, they can burn kismet to aquire the skill. Kismet (which is totally different than "skill points") is the characters ultimate fate, what will be their undoing. Kismet can burned to aquire a skill, to save them from death, to make one cinematic action, or to get an extra clue when successful in a scene. Kismet can also be lost in a failed scene. If you have no more Kismet and fail in a scene, your kismet becomes true.
An example Kismet would be:

"I'm and agent of the Man"- 3
This means that character has 3 Kismet. If at any point he loses or spends all of his kismet and then fails in a scene, somehow he remembers that he is an agent of the man and now plays his character that way. Now he could play the character like Saboteur or maybe he just tries to hide it from the others. The others may at sometime find out though.

Once a kismet is activate and knew one must be written down, and activated in the same way as the first.

Tags are things that are deeply rooted in the character memory and are still there despite the loss of their ID. Players open the game with five remembrance tags, which they define. Tags are activated when the character comes in contact with a sound, sight, smell, or interaction that is similar to a past situation. When a tag is activated the player may immediately narrate a flashback scene, interrupting any other narration, if any, that is taking place. Narrating a flashback scene earns the player one Kismet.

Examples: "Sara's death" "Friday night @ The Rock" "the junkyard" "A deal gone wrong" "Family business "

Lets say the GM is framing a scene where characters walk into a bar called The East Side, looking for Sal. The GM begins describing the how the bar is smokey and dirty, smells of week old beer.

A player with a character with the above tags could interrupt the GMs narration:

Player: " I wan't narrate a tag!'"

GM: "ok, go for it."

Player: " Friday night @ the rock, I'm in a club named The Rock. Since I'm a horrible dancer i'm standing on the side watching Sara dance, man, she knows how to move the right things the right way. While I'm standing there, drink in hand, a man approaches. I greet him "Hey, Sal". He has a gold Rolex on his left wrist and on the same hand a large gold pinky ring with "Italia" emblazoned on it. "

The player can go into as much detail as they like. They can also wrap more than one tag into a Flashback and get two bonus Kismet for each additional tag included. For instance the player could narrate "friday night @ the Rock", "Sara's Death", "A deal gone wrong", and "Family business" in one scene and get 7 Kismet. Maybe a drug deal the characteer was doing as a part of his family buisness with Sal went wrong? Sara went missing form the dance floor that night, and turned up in the river dead.

Every, fifteen minutes of game time, something is going to happen even if the players don't go looking for trouble.

In fact the game opens with the threat that police will be there any second. This is the sort of pace the game will have to it. The less the players push the game, the more the game pushes the players into action.

Every fifteen minutes, the GM decides if the players moved the story forward, if not he drops a bomb on the players.

Like in the above scene where the characters were going into the bar, one had a flashback, and now knows the guy @ the bar is Sal and goes to talk to him. The 15 mins are up and nothing major has happened. The GM Drops a bomb, " as you sit down, you feel something poke you in the crotch. Looking down, you see Sal has a pistol resting on your sack. He says " Don't say and F'ing word, you little prick.Where's my dope and cash? Don't get any funny ideas either, my boys over there will wax all your buddies before they know whats going on."

Some things will be set such as the police showing up , other times it will be up to the GM to spring something on the players.

The game is frantic, everywhere the characters go, something seems to go wrong.

System to this point:

I'm rethinking the mechanics, and infact looking into goin with a stripped down version of Fate. Keeping aspects and Fate points but ditching some of the other stuff.

Aspects in play would all work like the destiny Aspect. When a character gets into a situation they can declare it a destiny scene, where they suddenly remember something about themselves that is very important. This is ussually triggered by something that happening in the scene that is familiar to that aspect. The player then writes down the aspect and one appopriate skill at the highes level of the pyramid (Great). throughout the game they can discover upto 5 aspects and 13 skills.

1 @ great
2@ good
4@ Fair
6@ Average

Combat will be a simple contested roll. I have more to think on tough, so i'll get back to you later.

I think the Aspect idea you describe is cool, but is it too easy? If I can say any scene is a destiny scene, why wouldn't I just call them all Destiny scenes and get all my skills?

Well the key thing here is that it must be destiny scene to get an aspect. The scene must be very important to the character, and if they activate an aspect they must narrate how this is an important memory. When you do activate the aspect, you must choose one skill that starts @ Great and use it in that scene. It need not be a destiny scene to get a skill. generally you are only allowed to activate a new skill once per scene, it must be relavent to the scene.

So lets say the characters spent to much time hanging around after they awoke.A player decides that the sight of the lights and the sound of the sirens from the police along with the gun in his hand, will activate an aspect. "My cahracter was a on the SWAT team"
Player writes down "SWAT Team" as and aspect and chooses "pistol use" @ great for his skill. Choosing Pistol use means he must use that skill now.

Also, I don't want to make it too difficult to gain aspects and skills, after all those are two large parts of how the characters regain their memory.

Game Chef is a blast!

2007-03-19T21:33:39Z

So far I'm having a great time designing my game and nearly as much fun reading others people's design logs. If I would have known it would have been this fun, I'd have done this last year.

Coming up with a concept wasn't as dificult as I thought, infact I had several ideas for both groups. I guess for me so far game chef has lit a fire under my ass to get designing things again. I'm liking the results. =-)

Game Chef is up and running, check out my design!

2007-03-19T20:51:03Z

Remembrance, by Michael Crow

You awake to a buzzing neon sign and the crackle of the bug zapper claiming its last victim. Cold steel in your hand, bodies strewn across the room. Numb to the chaos that surrounds you, not knowing who you are , yet shocked at what you may have done. The others left standing look as pale and mute as you. You notice a white bag in the midst of the blood and gore, strange enough, it is unstained. As you pull the zipper, you hear screaming sirens getting closer. Your mind races, trying decide what to do...

Remembrance is a game of lost identity, a mysterious bag of drugs and cash, and murder. The characters are thrown into a desperate situation not knowing who they are or how they got into this mess. Characters slowly piece their memories together,sometimes they are less than pleasant. Always harried by the law and those who oppose them. Each conflict, a new remembrance.

you can read my design log here

Design tools

2007-03-13T16:39:14Z

Since I will be giving the Game Chef a go this year, I went looking for some design articles and advice to get the juices flowing.

Here are some links that I found:

Troy Costisick's Design page and his Socratic blog are both great.

RPG Theory Review has a lot useful info.

clehrich has some cool stuff on his LJ.

The RPG Design Handbook is a great resource.

Thor's blog

John Kim's jhkimrpg and RPG Site are both great.

[Unknown LJ tag]

Well, I entered the game Chef 2007.

2007-03-12T16:35:56Z

That's right, me, the guy who can't seem to finish a project to save his life has entered the Game Chef 2007.

My thought is maybe this is the best way for me to get the routine down in quick order and see what happens. Should be a lot of fun, there were over 60 games submitted last year and likely more this year. All I ask is that I come up with a game that isn't a steaming pile of gaming filth. In the best case I would come up with a basic frame work for a larger work and use it as a springboard.

We will see, I'll post updates of my progress here when it all gets rolling.

I got my copy of Rifts SourceBook 1 !

2007-03-09T17:10:55Z

Ok, maybe as a fledgling game designer I should not admit liking Palladium games, but I do. Sue me.

Anyways, I recieved my copy of the new version of Source Book 1, and it rocks. I can't say i remember exactly what was in the first version because mine was loaned and never returned some time ago, but it seems to me to be quite a lot more thick.

I have hear complaints of power creep, but don't really see it myself.

Agon, yes, it rocks.

2007-03-09T17:07:11Z

So I ordered Agon last week from IPR and got it yesterday and I'm very impressed with it. Eventually, I will get around to doing a review.

Burning Empires & CoS were my top indie/forgie games, but with Agon coming in thats gonna change.

anyone else have this yet?

Game Designers Auteurs, does it happen?

2007-03-09T16:47:43Z

First a definition of Auteurs: a filmmaker who has a personal style and keeps creative control over his or her works.

The question was brought up by Warthur over on The RPG Site . So, can a Game Designer's creativity overpower players and GMs in play? Can an RPG be designed ,to the point that regardless of the players or GMs intent , so the game always plays as designed?

here are my thoughts:

#1- Yes, I think that a game can be designed so tightly that designers playstyle is the only way a game can be played. For instance, Dogs in the Vineyard. In DitV you can only play a zealot, so you can't play someone on the other side which would make the PC interaction even more interesting. Trying to do so would "break" the game as it is written.

#2- Yes, a game can be designed so that the game always plays the same (in the grand scheme). DitV is always going to play out like a crusade, it is the one and the only direction the game can go. Sure, how the crusade is implemented and how it pans out will be different every time, but it will always be a crusade.

Big Book O' Tech Review

2007-03-09T15:38:40Z

The Big Book O' Tech (BBoT) from Better Mousetrap Games is a compilation of smaller tech based supplements for StarCluster 2. The PDFs that are included are:

Vehicle Design Guide
Robot Design Guide
Weapon Design Guide
Starship Construction and Engineer's Guide
Smilin' Jack's Used Spaceships
Guide to Biotechnology

BBoT is the ultimate guide to technology for StarCluster 2. This is 115 pages of 100% hard sci-fi goodness.

While it is designed for use with the SC2 game engine, it is also very usefull for any sci-fi game no matter what system you use.

With so much to cover in this review, I'll break it down into mini reviews, one for each PDF included.

The first 42 pages of the PDF are for the Starship Construction and Engineer's Guide. This PDF will walk you through generating ships from hull to guns and sensors.
The frist thing you do is decide what tech level you will build the ship for then you move on to the hull. A description of how hulls are made is followed by a list of the eight hulls you can choose from. Each hull is rated by shape, Cost, tonage, and tech level. This supplement leads one to believe that hull design in SC2 has not advanced much since all hulls that are listed are TL 7.
The Hull section is followed by Docking, Emergency Air Locks, Bays,Life Support,Scanners,Denfense,Control, and practiclly anything else you could think of to put on a ship. The Dirve Systems section is the most impressive though, with its great detail. It covers everything from Matter to AntiMatter ratios to fusion drives. The Orien drive is my favorite, basically you blow 20 megaton fission or fusion bombs up behind the ship and the blast psuhes the ship. There is also a very good weapons section.
The next PDF is Smilin' Jack's Used Spaceships which is a colllection of four used ships. Each of the four ships has a diagram showing it's shape and layout and full list of specs. A nicely done description was written Jack's voice for each ship, which reveals some history and interesting facts. Smilin's Jack's is not just a list of ships, there is also a guide to finanacing as well.
The Robot Design Guide is next in order. There are two basic types of robots: Normal Brain and Self-Programming. Noramal Brain robots have to be manually programed to and Self-Programming Robots are given a skill set to start with, but can learn more on their own. Once you have a brain selected you go on to selecting a torso, extensors, manipulators, locomotion, surface, and powersupply. Once you picked those you chose starting programs (Skills & senses) which is dependant on the brain you choose. Each brain starts with a number of programs and can learn 1to 3 per year(if self-programing) upto its max number of programs. You can create anything from a drone to sentient robot using these rules.
The Vehicle Design Guide is much lighter than the Ship Design rules. At the most simple point you are just adding up the tonage and "factors" assigned to each component. The tonage and "factors" partially determine some stats like speed. While the VDG will give you enough to build vehicles it lacks the detail that makes the ship design rules so great.
Weapon Design Guide is a great tool for making custom weapons for your SC games. Rules are given for modifing damage,accuracy,price, and concealability. The system basically works by raising or lowering a stat and balancing it out by lowering or raising another. It is more expensive to modifier some things that it is others. The rules are written to use a weapon for the list in the core book as a template and then modify if from there by either raising or lowering stats.
The frist thing you notice with the StarCluster 2 Biotech guide is the mostly naked woman on the front cover, don't worry there's no frontal. Even if I don't take into account the woman on the cover, this is one of the better covers I have seen from Flying Mice.
The first part of the pdf is about augmentation. Genetic pre-birth engeneering. It is split into two section TL8 & TL9, the difference between the two are TL8 augementations only modify attributes while TL can also include things such as: Exotic Appearance , Arbitrary Shape,Gills, and others. The cultural & treatment of augmented beings has its own section.
Androids are synthetic beings made by creating totally new DNA, so they are not in fact human. Androids can be humanoid in shape or in the shape of any animal. Biotech also details uplifted animals,modified beings, Replacement tech,clones, and most every kind biotech I can think of. The descriptions of how these are all culturally accepted(or not) adds more roleplaying opportunities.
The Good: A hugh amount of detail ,Many options, additional setting flavor, sound hard sci-fi. cross system use makes the BBoT a better value.
The Bad: the vehicle design rules were a bit of let down, but only when compared to the shipgen rules.
The Ugly: nothing ugly
Why you would like it: If you need a book filled with descriptions of ship components and of the tech or if you are already a fan of SC2 this is a must buy.
Why you wouldn't like it: If you don't like hard sci-fi or have no use for a lot of technical jargon and detailed specs.

Buy it here!

Liquid Crystal Review

2007-03-09T03:42:35Z

Just got a copy of Liquid Crystal Review and will be reviewing it in the next few days.