You Got Lawyers In My Creativity!: The End of Redpill?

See the guy on the left? That's SOPA.

I am the Warden!!

As I look to the left at the number of posts I've made this week and find a big, fat zero (my apologies to all the big, fat zeroes out there - I meant no offense), I wonder just how lazy I've been this week. Then it hits me I haven't been lazy at all, just busy, and that's alright. Still, posting to the blog is much like having lunch in the break room with the rest of the staff; everyone wonders how heavy your workload is or thinks you're just being rude.

Two matters have been on my plate during this short week, three if you consider a nice visit with my parents early this week. First has been putting together the Kickstarter proposal for Killshot and second has been reading as much information as I can on this SOPA crap and how it threatens Redpill.

New Year's Resolutions

I am the Warden!!

Seeing as it's Christmas Eve Eve (yeah, that's right!) and 'tis the season for being with friends and family, I'm going with the assumption this will be the last post of 2011. Odds are I'll be right back online Monday, but let's play it safe, shall we?

2011 was the first full year of development for the Optional System and it's been an amazing experience thus far. But I've rambled on about this before. What I'd like to do now is write down some New Year's resolutions for the Optional System in 2012 in a non-binding yet highly encouraging format.

Publish Killshot: An Assassin's Journal
While my initial plan was to produce Redpill as the initial OS production, the Warden needs money. Plus, this mini-game has really started to take off and just screams for release. Some of the additions/alterations made to produce a smaller, faster version of the Optional System has lead to some dramatic changes to the core rules and I can't wait to click my DriveThruRPG bookmark and find Killshot's cover on the home page.

Gaming Ain't Cheap: An Old Man's Tirade

I am the Warden and I remember a time when roleplaying games were cheap!!

That's right. Why, when we played RPGs, there was only one rulebook at the table shared by everyone and we liked it. We loved it! There were none of these player splatbooks, character sheets, d7s, miniatures, and such. There was one AD&D Player's Handbook, dice, pencils, and scrap pieces of paper. And that was it.

Now, as much as I'd like to rant about how publishers drove us into a cost-heavy market of product lines and residual marketing, there's only one guilty party we can truly point the finger at: ourselves. That same original AD&D campaign eventually saw the table fill up with multiple PHBs, minis, homemade terrain, individualized character sheets based on your chosen class, and more. As we got older, we got jobs and had loads of disposable income. While all of our "peers" were learning that money could be exchanged for alcohol, drugs, condoms, and bail, we used our resources to construct a massive reservoir of RPG goodness. We brought all of this on ourselves.

Redpill Diary #4: Down the Rabbit Hole

I am the Warden!!

Seems I've decided to juggle several balls at once this week. No longer content to balance the delicate conclusion of Shadoworld while working on building a playtest job for Killshot, I've suddenly felt the need to get some work done on Redpill as well. Might have something to do with the numbers my Matrix posts get in comparison to everything else (about a 1000% difference).

As I've said in my original declaration of this project, I'm aiming to make Redpill a truly epic free RPG unlike all the other Matrix wannabes out there but there needs to be a coherent start for curious readers to latch onto. I could spend pages and pages going on about all the history of the Matrix setting and the intention of my game design, but then you're just reading the same kind of text as every other game out there. I want something captivating right from the get-go.

Redpill Diary #3: A Question of Choice

I am the Warden!!

While the majority of effort continues to focus on fine tuning the core components of the Optional System, my mind remains plugged into the Matrix. Mostly notes, concepts, and theories, issues which require decisions before taking it to the next step. One of the biggest remains how detailed the Matrix should be.

I had a "meeting" with a good friend about this very topic. I'm not a programmer by any definition - I still have trouble remembering the three buttons you hold down to reboot my Mac - but he is. And we talked about how the Matrix works as a hyper-virtual reality. In doing so, we came back to one major hurdle.

It depends on just how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

No More Decimals, Version 1 Is Ready

What?! I haven't posted since Tuesday? Holy crap!!

(ahem, cough, cough) I am the Warden!!

For the past 3 weeks, I've been knee-deep in rewrites for the Optional System. Completely, from scratch, start to finish. It has been a refreshing experience and has boosted my confidence in this game. There's still a lot of work to be done (there's a reason why it's not recommended to design a huge game on your own), but I'm feeling really confident about the latest updates.

On my screen, Optional: Playtest Version 1.0 sits smiling. 108 pages and 50,000 words of awesomeness. It's so good, it requires a made-up word: cramtapulous. Creator's pride, perhaps, but I'm feeling positive tonight.

Still, I'm going to wait until the next playtest on Friday the 21st before posting anything for it, particularly with some of the new terminology to ensure clarity. In the meantime, my mind wonders how to make vehicles work in the Optional System.

Redpill Diary #2: Real Men Use Their Fists

I am the Warden and I am Canadian!!

Go Habs! Go Jets! The clock ticks down to 4PM where the NHL finally restores some Canadian pride as Winnipeg has its first home opener in 15 years against my team of choice, the Habs. What does this have to do with the Matrix? Nothing, other than my eye darts to the clock every now and then to make sure I won't miss a beat.

The quintessential battle of wills between Neo and Agent Smith.

But I digress. Today, I want to talk about combat in Redpill (and every other other possible inception of the Optional System, for that matter). Specifically, hand-to-hand martial combat versus unloading a machine gun on the son of a bitch. During my first Redpill playtest (originally known as Matrix: Restoration), the players loaded themselves up with every firearm they could conceive of, including grenades and grenade launchers. Looking over their character sheets today, I noticed none of them prepared any Brawling skills or made any effort to prepare themselves for melee combat. They were expecting to enter the Matrix with guns blazing and nothing more.

Redpill Diary #1: Identity

I am the Warden!!

If you didn't read yesterday's announcement of my first fully detailed Optional System setting, then this might be a bit confusing at first. Go ahead, click here, scroll down to the bottom, then come back. All good? Let's continue.

Seeing as the first question players ask when you tell them about a new game is "What can I play?" it only makes sense to make this the first priority for Redpill. What do the players play? As leading as the title to this project may be, I want to have as much variety and exposure to the entire world of the Matrix as possible. It's not just about playing everything exactly as the films, but creating a vivid, expansive universe where players can mix it up and try something new.

A Look Back At The Last 49 And A Glance Forward

I am the Warden and this is my 50th post!!

Just over three months ago, my commitment to creating the Optional System truly began. It had been gestating for months before that and attempted at the table, though nothing had ever been written down on paper. The goal of this blog was to create a journal of progress, to motivate me to keep at it and think out loud when issues threatened to bring this game crashing down around me. To that end, it's been a rousing success.

I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to the need for attention to my work. Duh. To that end, it has been successful in meeting my first goal of playtesting: convince my friends. If my friends don't want to play it, what chance do I have of convincing strangers? I'd like to think I'm on course but I can't say for sure. Self doubt and all. Regardless, the game has evolved quite nicely over the last three months and there are parts of it I can't recognize compared to that first draft sitting in my mind.

To mark the occasion, I'm going to take a look back at the components of the Optional System and how's it changed since that first post on June 20th.

Matrix: Restoration (Part 3)

I am the Warden!!

I need a breather from all the awesome tweets and blogs talking about Gencon. As technology steps up to meet the pace, it becomes more and more obvious every year just how much I'm missing. Even Lady Warden knew it was Gencon and she's far from the roleplayer we are (though she does know which is the d10 in the pile). If you're sitting at home like me wishing you were invading a convention center at 1:30 in the morning rolling dice and sliding minis across a map, let's comfort each other, shall we?

Now that we have all that bonding out of the way, let's talk Matrix!