Juggling It All

I am The Warden!!

Recent events have really put a strain on many of my previous plans, but in a good way. For the past three years, I've had the unfortunate luxury of too much time to work on damn near any RPG project I wanted. What started with the final days of my Emerald Press work in D&D support became Broken Ruler Games and lead to nearly six ongoing projects waiting to be first to the finish line. Optional Core, Killshot Files, Wildpath, Fenga, and a couple more that have either never been mentioned or is not yet ready for an announcement. 

Now, I'm employed. And going to school. This seriously changes my output for the next while, yet I'm really glad it's working out this way. One, a little stability at home is far more important as my wife is busting her pretty little butt on her own school work. As cool as it is to have some cash coming in for Killshot, it's not even close to providing anything other than some online movie rentals and PDF purchases after covering all my core expenses (domain name, stock art for Killshot Files, etc.). 

Two, all of the work done over these past couple of years was an exploration into my potential and understanding of game design. I've learned a lot about my skills, the industry, marketing, and more that there's a solid ground for me to stand on now. I know what worked and what didn't, providing a stronger starting point for all the other projects on my plate. What remains standing as the smoke clears is an ability to cut through the hiccups and incertainties of before and get straight to work. 

The question is how to give all these ideas the time and devotion they need to either reach their endpoint or fold if the project loses its appeal. There's no doubt I won't be able to juggle as many projects as I could before and my new work will certainly occupy a lot of my attention and there's a (currently) top secret freelance project hogging that time. It doesn't mean the other projects will sit by the wayside, just that they've been paused. 

Juggling projects is like buying movies from the $5 bin. You grab it because the flick is a steal and you're excited to watch it, but that doesn't mean you get around to it right away. These projects will remain on my shelf; it's a matter of when I get to play them, not if. 

So if you've been reading this blog and there's a project (or two or four) you're tuned into, feel free to give me a little poke every now and then. I'll do my best to try and keep them on my plate without spinning onto the floor. 

I Now Pronounce You... Fenga!

I am The Warden!!

We have a habit of tweaking games in my house. Sure, sure, here's how the game works according to the regular rules, that's great. Maybe for the first play just to give us the overall idea of how it's supposed to work. After that, we need to find a way to make it something more our speed and style. It's something my wife and I have done long before we met and it's become one of the bonds uniting us. Sometimes, I think the discussion and debate on revising our games is the majority of the fun.

And what madness did we concoct over the weekend. Fenga! No, no, not "Fenga." Fenga! With gusto.

It's simple, really. It's Jenga played with Fudge/Fate dice. Build the tower as usual and remove 3 pieces from the top. Set them aside. Determine the starting order for the game as per the usual Jenga rules and the every player rolls 4 dice on their turn.

• Every "-" is a piece you have to remove from the tower. Set it in the pile. 
• Every "+" is a piece from the pile you must add to the top of the tower. 
• Every blank means you don't have to do nothing. 

Otherwise, everything else works exactly the same as the original wood piling classic. For a game that can already be incredibly suspenseful, adding in that random element of how many pieces you have to pull and place on your turn really ramps it up a notch. Oh, and to try it as part of Dread? There's only one way to find out.