Do Players Need The Rules To Inspire Them?

I am the Warden!!

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading through Fate Core and listening to a couple episodes of Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff, reflecting on Robin Laws' DramaSystem as I listen. While I'm only 2/3rds of the way through the Core and never read a damn thing on DramaSystem, the fact that both systems are known for incorporating character personalities and motivations into the game and offer a mechanical incentive for players to embrace weakness and flaws has seeped into my work on ScreenPlay.

At this stage in the game (a phrase which I'm using as a pun and not literally, but I guess it works both ways), I've focused almost entirely on the action component of things. Yes, there is definitely room for characters to flex out non-traditional aspects of a character as the Potentials work similar to aspects from Fate yet focus more on descriptive/experience traits of the character. For example, you can have Incredibly Strong, Quick Like A Bunny, or Bounty Hunter as a Potential. What's not built right into the game are mechanical benefits for embracing your characters flaws, which is instead left to the Director (GM) to work into the story as it progress.

So my question is this: do you truly need to create a mechanical benefit for accepting character flaws during play? Is it not possible for players to simply follow their own understanding of storytelling honed from years of reading and watching other stories to know it's boring as hell to have a character who is only awesome? Or do they need to receive a point of some kind like a music student getting a gold star on their sheet music every time they accept their character's goofs?

Personally, I'm in the No camp on this one, though I'll admit it really depends on the player and the type of games they experience. Seeing as ScreenPlay is not intended for just any roleplayer and every group, it seems fitting to me for there to be an understanding that people gathered around a type labelled as Writers rather than players would create interesting characters with strengths and idiosyncrasies. And that having those quirks come up during play serves the story more than it should provide a mechanical perk to your character sheet. However, this is only my opinion and so I want to throw it out to the masses for some feedback. Where do you stand on this topic? 

Business vs. Art

It's been four days applying my new writing practise and I'm ecstatic about the result so far. Not just the fact that I'm finally getting words through my fingers again but how well those words work together. Not only do I have an introduction for High Plains Samurai but it now has a voice and character. It's also brought up something else very thought provoking.

Throughout the online writing communities of the world, there are many inspirational posts about sticking to your vision, don't get caught up in what others are doing, writing is a labour of love and many more. The latest one I've seen was from Chuck Wendig and while I skimmed through it briefly this morning, there were many valid points about not getting caught up in others' accomplishments compared to your own. I have to admit I'm extremely guilty of that, especially of late. While it's not like I've been sitting on my laurels (that's a fancy word for my butt, right?), many others whom I follow are happily plugging away on their projects and getting the word out there. Not me and while Mr. Wendig's words are true to form, it does little to quench that need to kick myself in the nuts over this.

Anyone who knows what's been going on (even if it's just the basics) knows that things have been pretty crazy for the last while. I'm happy to say many things have cleared up over this summer (including a certain litigious issue) and that's created the need for new concerns and matters to address. Things that required my full attention combined with the insanity of my job (seems there really is no slow time for us when it comes to the behind-the-scenes workings of a ski resort) have made it difficult to me to keep up with the demands of my burgeoning game design career.

And there's that word. Demand. That's been bothering me, the feeling that I need to tweet more, need to post more on this blog, need to get the column done, need to move forward on Version 1.04 of ScreenPlay, need to this, must have that ready. There's a lot of must-haves when you're working on a new game, all of them part of the creative process.

Then it hit me - it's not the art of designing games that's bothered me, it's the business of selling them.  Playing to your audience, addressing them at their level, setting aside that precious creative time to plug your product ahead of time... all the necessary evils that comes with wanting the world to play your game once its ready. Maybe it's the fact that I work in marketing and particularly social media. I have to admit the more I've seriously studied this modern phenomena, the less I personal enjoy it. Maybe it's my compulsive nature as what I feel are my failings eat away at me like a gnat chewing on... whatever it is that gnats eat. (Meh, so I don't know much about the insect world. I can let that one slide.)

It's not like I haven't gone through all this before. Killshot was a big experiment in many ways and I'm still deciphering the clues it provided but there was also a major difference between then and now - I had nothing but time back then. The whole day was available to dabble in everything related to the project. Suffering from writer's block? Go on Twitter. Worn out on Facebook? Get some writing done. That doesn't apply any more, particularly in light of the fact that I have a very creative job. The biggest matter I'm still addressing is creative energy at the tail end of the day.

It also dawns on me now that Killshot was not designed as a product; it was designed as labour of love. It was art. Could that be what's missing now? Have I started pushing myself too hard to follow-up the blazing success of that project instead of noting what worked was the art of its creation. I'm a big believer that tabletop game design is an art form and if you don't believe me, just take a look at the numerous discussion and disputes regarding game mechanics across nearly every forum available. We debate game mechanics the same way museum patrons delve into a painter's vision and intentions in a particular piece. That's what I love about this craft, not the business side of things. Yet, as it is with so many things, you can't have one without the other.

And that's what's bugging me today. 

Developing Ironbound

With the first ever playtest for anything ScreenPlay going down in less than four days, I've been working on drafting up some rough material for Ironbound. What is Ironbound, you ask? What a great question. Allow me a moment to introduce it.

Ironbound is a dark fantasy ScreenPlay where magic has been outlawed and its practice declared a sin by the Church. Picture a D&D-style world without the benefit of high magic merged with the harsh times and environment of Iron Age Europe. To combat these magic-users and the monsters they summon, an elite unit of soldiers known as the Ironbound are dispatched to investigate rumours of magic use and eliminate them using any means necessary (including the study - but not the practice - of magic). In this world, iron is considered a symbolic counter to magic and its affinity with the natural world (magic operates as a form of witchcraft with fireballs, summoning undead, and all that standard fantasy stuff).

In this game, the crew takes on the role of assorted members of the Ironbound dispatched to the town of Behn upon word of grave robbing and a kidnapping. While I have a few rough notes and mental concepts for the setting, my main goal is to have all the player components ready to rock and roll by Friday night and that means developing roles for the players.

Roles are a tricky part of character development in ScreenPlay, particularly for the lead roles. While there has to be some locked-in aspects to work with the story I have in mind, some flexibility is required for players to contribute to the final script. That is the purpose of gameplay - shared storytelling. It's why working on Ironbound as my very first ScreenPlay can be very helpful because the lead roles can be as loosely defined as roles within a medieval military unit. They must also simultaneously allow each crew member (player) opportunity to add their own personal touches to the cast they created for these roles, so here's what I have in mind.

Using the scout role as an example, here's how roles could possibly function in the game using the draft as it exists at this very moment.

The Scout

Magic-users typically dwell in the dark corners of the forests and thrive on the protection of unchartered territories. The Ironbound rely on scouts to guide them safely to their destinations, avoid detection, and discover clues to the successful completion of their missions. While no two scouts are the same, they are trained in the arts of tracking, stealth, infiltration and wilderness survival.

Equipment: Unlike others within the Ironbound, scouts are not commonly equipped with the heavy weaponry and armour of their brethren. As a scout, your cast member can start off with your choice of one-handed melee weapon (+1 steps to attacks; +2 damage), ranged weapons (+1 steps to attacks; +2 to +4 damage), and leather or hide armour (+1 steps to defence). Feel free to flesh out the rest of your scout's equipment as needed.
Grapple (Minor Complication): Scouts can place this Minor Complication on an opponent so long as the scout can use both hands (with at least one unarmed) and applied stealth into their triggering description. You must spend 1 Stamina to apply this Complication. The opponent is grabbed from behind by the scout and cannot move, speak, or make any noise capable of attracting the attention of another cast member without removing this Complication.
Skills: Scouts gain +1 steps when providing a description or reaction involving tracking, stealth, infiltration or wilderness survival.
Unseen: Whenever a scout has the benefit of moving in concealment or can take advantage of heavy coverage (such as behind a thick canopy of trees or bushes or a wall), you gain +1 steps to any Potential used to silently approach and attack a single target.
Wild Past: Scouts are commonly discovered in many backwoods outposts and uncivilized corners of the country. Develop a backstory for your scout with this approach in mind and include a superstition or biased opinion/viewpoint of magic in your character's personality. When you effectively play out this aspect of your character, you gain +1 steps to resist the effects of a spell.

What Do They Mean?

Even if you've had a chance to read the current iteration of ScreenPlay (available for download here), some of this means squat diddly to you. Allow me to explain.

Equipment 

For your average role-player, this is all standard fare but the mechanic of weapons and armour is a little different. One of the catches for each ScreenPlay is that they'll each require their own shopping list and I haven't gone into great detail on that as of yet. Not until I can see how often Complications actually come into effect and see a game in action. I do have a general guideline for Ironbound at this point.

One-handed melee weapons provide +1 steps to attacks and feature no other special features. They're nothing fancy and you still need to get in close to use them just as you would with unarmed combat. Two-handed melee weapons provide greater harm to your opponents and provide +2 steps in combat but they come with an alternate Complication that can temporarily eliminate them from your list of resources. Ranged weapons grant +1 steps and the advantage of distance and Ironbound's weapons mean they all come with the alternate Complication titled "Out Of Ammo," meaning you either bust the bow string, lose your arrows, or anything else you can think of at the moment. Armour simply increase your opposed roll by +1 steps for light to medium and +2 for the heavy stuff.

Grapple

I'd like for every lead role to provide a Minor Complication in the character's repertoire and this one seems the perfect fit for a scout. To ensure it's not abused (particularly against extras), it comes with a mandatory cost of 1 Stamina should a scout fail to completely subdue an opponent. During my first go at this role, it seemed like such a thing should be a Major Complication but that would require grappling to having far reaching consequences beyond normal subduing of your enemy. This way, a scout who fails to kill an enemy with a stealth-based attack can at least prevent them from calling out for help or running away.

Skills

A common provision for roles, this is a very basic skill system where the cast member gains +1 steps under very interpretive conditions.

Unseen

As with Skills, the Unseen ability allows a scout to benefit from poor visibility when they're trying to do their thing. It's a way of offsetting what I'm expecting will be a weaker role in open combat and based on my experience with thieves/rogues from other fantasy games, it really places the emphasis on the player to interpret how they can apply such an ability.

Wild Path

This is something experimental I'm trying for lead roles, something where the player can stretch their imagination and put their own spin on a role while gaining something for their efforts. In this case, finding a way for the scout to gain an extra bonus against magical attacks and effects based on their unique history. To be honest, I'm not sure if the wording on this one will stand the test of time, but it's enough to get the ball rolling and develop some feedback after the playtest.

What do you think? Good potential, too questionable, or there's really only one way to find out as you reach for your dice?

Download Version 1.01 of ScreenPlay's rules from here.

You can learn more about the development of ScreenPlay (AKA the Phoenix Project) on the Roleplayers Chronicle site.

And I'd like to give credit to Fraser Ronald for inspiring me to try signing all my blog posts with related links. If you're interested in anything you see here, you'll be equally or more happy with his own work and can find it here. 

Let The Judgement Begin!

And so it's time to start up the engine and get this new game out there into the world. On Sunday, I announced the first two phases of Project Phoenix in the 100th post of my regular column on Roleplayers Chronicle. First, there's ScreenPlay, a free supplemental RPG where players take on the role of Writers developing a movie script in co-operation with the Director (AKA the GM). Second comes High Plains Samurai, a mash-up of post-apocalyptic westerns and magic powered by the ScreenPlay engine. You can read all about them straight from the original post. 

That's all the technical talk. For my personal blog, I want to write about the personal challenges of undertaking this project. What crazy crap is going through my mind? What are my worries and beliefs? What are the behind-the-scenes going-ons in the eventual build-up of these games and this system? All of them are the kind of questions I'm looking at posing right here. And the first one is perhaps the most obvious...

What the hell was I thinking?!!

Right now, I'm nervous. It's been a while since I not only had a new game to plug, but maintained any significant presence online. Ever since the start of my new job (ironically as a Social Media Specialist), I've been almost entirely focused on my work's SM presence and not my own. With ScreenPlay (and eventually HPS), I need to get back on the horse and start plugging. Am I confident in my work so far? Definitely. I really like the tone and feel of ScreenPlay and honestly feel very proud of how different it is from Killshot. One thing I wanted to avoid after the Killshot Reloaded Kickstarter failed was failing to develop my game design skills further. I didn't want to limit myself in design styles and there are considerable differences between Killshot and ScreenPlay. With those differences come unique challenges, such as hoping those who appreciated my earlier work will like what they see in my new work.

It's all water under the bridge right now because the 9-page early draft of the rules has been posted for public scrutiny. There's no going back now. The next step is taking those written rules and putting them to practise. The very first ScreenPlay playtest goes down on June 18th with a little dark fantasy script I like to call Ironbound. I'll keep you posted as we get closer to that day. Until then, I have a paper bag to breathe into. 

A New Direction For The Hood

You may or may not know this but I've been writing an online column for Roleplayers Chronicle going on two years now called Under the Hood, dealing almost exclusively with RPG mechanics and the industry from a design/publishing standpoint. While it took a back seat to my brief rest period over the past couple of months, it returned to the forefront this past weekend with a new direction: detailing the entire design process for a new project I've undertaken, tentatively called "Phoenix."

Check it out, if you like. Details are a bit light at the moment and additional posts arrive every Sunday (give or take) on Roleplayers Chronicle. 

Ironic Writing

I am the Warden!!

Before I get started, I've been experimenting a bit with the opening tagline. My "pregnature," if you will. Tried capitalizing the "the" in the Warden and didn't like it. Too smug, not my style. I'm humble with exclamation marks!!

Anyhow…

After two weeks away from the word processor, I was finally able to fire off a couple of entries for an upcoming project. And it felt goooooood. Under normal circumstances, I'd use this opportunity and your current attention to go into detail about what those entries are and for which project. It's part of the process and something missing from my regular activities (and I must apologize for that).

But there's a catch. For a couple of months now, I've been working on an unannounced project I can't talk or write about. Not because someone's life is at stake and if the kidnappers find out I squealed, they'll kill Victor for sure. No. It's simply not my project to announce or discuss. (So yeah, it's not a Broken Ruler project.)

So here I am. Following a routine from conception to writing to blogging and kinda hanging myself on the last part. All I'm doing is wasting your time, right? Wow, what was I thinking?

I've been itching to share something about [secret project] for a while now, especially after receiving some concept sketches this past weekend. Those very sketches forced me to plant my arse down in this chair and getting cracking, dammit! If for no other reason than to provide assurance of my involvement in something. I've been firing off about a lot of potential projects on this blog, some of them brought up earlier than I would normally reveal to provide relief when I wanted to talk about this one. With this new job, I've had to reduce my design work to a single project at a time (in a manner of speaking) and [secret project] was it.

Hence I've reached a dilemma: how to tell you about [secret project] without breaking my promise to [secret publisher]? Maybe - just maybe - I can avoid breaching my agreement and instead tease you with subtle, non-specific revelations. For now, I can leave you with this icon to indicate the system. The rest will depend on time.

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.

Moving Forward With Wildpath

A rough "logo" for my latest project and likely
the first foray for the Wildpath System. 

I am the Warden!!

Sure, it's been three whole days since the Development Team drove up to the 'Frew for some playtesting and nothing's been posted to brag/moan about it, but I have a really, really, really good reason.

I wrote a new game using the same system. My bad.

Thanks to the two playtesting sessions (including the LUG Con game mentioned in my last post), both of which had two players and a Director (myself), I'm extremely confident this is a workable game. While I'd like to conduct some more testing and up the ante on this one, the results have been positive enough at this point to consider what to do with everything as a viable product.

Asylum was written using the Wildpath System, but I'm not completely sure that particular concept is the best approach for a wider audience. As a story-slash-RPG hybrid, the potential audience is limited. Add to that my current limitations in publishing (AKA no in-store distribution at this time) and the pickings could be a bit slim for Asylum. What this system needs is a bigger launch under a wider banner, something that will appeal to a larger number of fans in either genre.

Sidebar. One of my favourite tools in the ol'laptop is Evernote because I can jot down ideas as they come to me and reference them in a handy list with keywords. Plus I can access and add with my phone when I'm on the go, such as a couple of ideas jotted down during the dog walk last night. After going through my list of ideas-on-pause, I found one that just might suit the need.

DAY 1 is a survival game, as is Asylum, save for one important detail: players take on the role of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary moments of tragedy, such as a massive flood, terrorist attack, or any siege lead by giant monsters. This game is about telling the story of people caught up in extraordinary moments as they attempt to survive the first day. While there's nothing to stop any story from advancing into the second day, the first week, or an entire year, it's designed to act primarily as a one-shot game you can repeat over and over again with different situations and characters every time. After drafting up close to 5,000 words for Day 1 on Saturday night, I think it's time to give this one a run. I'm planning to run it for my Development Team later this month, hopefully with all four members.

In the meantime, feel free to have a read and get a feel for more of the Wildpath System and Day 1's first draft. There's still another section to cover with regards to establishing a dilemma, building a group, establishing connections, and so forth, but I think there's enough here to get the point across. If you have the time, let me know what you think. 

Gaming With Icons

I am the Warden!!

Since the last time I wrote about Optional Core, I've been wondering how to present a quick-play system as quickly and efficiently as possible. Poking around throughout the RPG marketplace, I found myself checking out some in-progress work for icons by Chris Tregenza and his card-based RPG system, 6d6 (as well as a few others I forgot to bookmark). It's an approach to game presentation that's picked up speed recently, with D&D's 4th edition and Fate Core as the most prominent examples. Over the past week, I've been dabbling with some icon designs for Optional Core and they're now ready for public sharing and input.

A Year of Killshot

I am the Warden!!

Yesterday, I posted the sales results for Killshot after a year on the shelf. Today, I'm looking at those results from a game designer POV.

As a publisher, it's my decision that Killshot is financially successful, but only by a small margin. While it's currently in the hole by $121, that's easy enough to make back over a few more months if things continue on a predicted course (meaning the attention from last month slows down exponentially until it dries up again by the end of the year). While it's not a profit, it's not a loss either and in independent publishing, that's pretty good for a first time at bat.

Regular readers and Killshot fans will know I've been knee deep in putting together a sequel to the game, Killshot Reloaded. With this kind of information in tow, especially when combined with the ENnie award (which is a HUGE factor compared to the same time last month), I need to make adjustments and decisions about Reloaded, how it will be designed, and how it will be released. Plus it's handy for other project down the road as well, especially with Optional Core.

The thing about Killshot as a whole is that it was one big experiment. Everything, every single step in the process, including design, was an experiment to analyze for future projects. How it was released was another step in the experimentation and these numbers provide some crucial facts on the success and failures of that experiment. Here's what I've gathered.

Down To The Core, Part 1: Construction Begins

I am the Warden and this is my 200th post!!

In times gone by, I've made a point of marking these milestones with a review of the previous 49, 99, or 149 posts before. Over the past few weeks, I've been juggling back and forth between carrying on with tradition or forging a new path. There's a lot to talk about over the last 49 posts, from the Kickstarter to the ENnie award, but my mind is looking forward once more and the ideas are far too fresh to get caught up in the past. Today, I want to talk about the future of the Optional System and the evolution of the Optional Core.

I've used the name "Optional Core" before to describe a planned project where Directors could create their own customized version of the Optional System and provide an open system for use in multiple genres, settings, and styles. In a sense, that has not changed, but the application is currently undergoing significant revisions. My original plan was to keep working on these revisions privately and without making a fuss out of it, but we are talking about a special milestone and this blog was fundamental in the creation of the Optional System and Killshot. Denying that fact is denying my creative process. AKA why fix what's not broken?

Remember when I talked about quick-start adventures as a possible product line? Optional Core would be that product line and the system powering it. A kind of condensed and simplified version of the original Optional System from which each adventure can expand and amplify as needed. Existing primarily as a series of quick-start adventures, it could also exist as a series of free, promotional rulebooks for willing and/or experienced players to take the rules beyond the game, create original characters, and expand the adventure into a full-on campaign.

Game Times & Learning Curves

Think, think, think, think.

I am the Warden!!

For a few weeks now, I've been pondering the difficulties of introducing a new game to the masses, particularly when those masses have a massive pile of games from which to choose. There's no disputing the flexibility of a group depends on its age - younger players with fewer mandatory responsibilities can invest more time into learning a new RPG versus their older counterparts with many obligations to fulfill before fun time can even begin. Back in my high school heyday, tackling Advanced Dungeons & Dragons wasn't an issue because we were playing at least 30 hours of roleplaying games in a single week. Today, it's nowhere close to that amount (and that's with fewer responsibilities than most other players and GMs my age - no kids and no job.)

Is it really that simple? While it makes sense in one degree, something about "older players don't have as much time to learn new games" sounds like a scapegoat because if there's one thing social media has also taught us, it's that older players still make time to read new games. On bus rides to work and during frequent downtimes set aside to catch up on casual reading, learning a game from its core rulebook doesn't carry the same demands as actually running a new game for the first time.

Reading a game and playing it can be two dramatically different things, something I learned when I first starting running the Marvel Heroic RPG. Scouring through the book, I was floored by what I was reading and made three passes through the core rulebook just to ensure I had it down. When it came time to drop dice with players, I had a hard time keeping up with certain aspects (but that's a reflection on my limitations, not the rules). And that's why games have house rules.

Rough Ideas: The Interrogation

A suspect being grilled in the interrogation room
from the game, LA Noire by Rockstar Studios.

I am the Warden!!

There's a strange thing that happens in the creative mind. Defeat doesn't dampen it's spirit, but makes it stretch its muscles and try again. While I was initially thinking about going back and touching up a few older concepts (such as the Wildpath System devised for the EN World 7-Day contest a few months ago), something else has arisen to occupy my time. For now. 

I've been playing a lot of LA Noire for the past month and what I love (though I'm not very good at it) are the interrogation scenes. Reading facial expressions and holding people to direct evidence in a quest to obtain the truth and find the guilty party. Absolutely love it. Interrogation scenes can make for some of the best moments in a great series or movie (the best being those from the original BBC series, Cracker, with Robbie Coltraine) and I suddenly found myself wondering how to design a focused game for just such an idea. 

The first thing you need to eliminate is any abstract mechanic for handling lies or intuition. While I'm sure one is possible, what I'm looking for is a challenging game of deception and mystery where an abstract mechanic, such as dice rolls, assists rather than informs. In other words, players have to think their way through this game. 

Learning From Failure (AKA Not the End of Wildpath)

I am the Warden!!

A winner has been declared in the EN World 7-Day Design Contest and it's Daughters of Lear, a storytelling game placing players in the role of actors putting on a play with, I'm guessing, heavy Shakespearean influences. Asylum didn't even rank within the top 8 of nearly 40 entries and received only 5 votes (or 6, if you count my own vote).

D'oh.

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets about investing the time in creating Asylum or the Wildpath System behind it. First, there's still a chance Morrus will want to publish it if he found it to his liking and saw potential in it. Second, there's loads of potential for Wildpath. I may have sold the rights to Asylum, but a system is not bound by such rules and there's no mention of it being called Wildpath in the submitted text.

If you haven't had a chance to take a look for yourself, it's available through this link now that the contest is over. Let me know what you think, what works, and what doesn't. 

7 Days: Asylum Is Complete!

I am the Warden and... phew. Hold on, I just need to catch my breath. It's been a busy week.

Ok, here we go.

I am the Warden!!

Asylum, my entry in EN World's 7 Day RPG Design Contest, has been submitted before the deadline will be ready for your vote. Because I promised to get off the computer over an hour ago, I'm going to keep this short and simple. If you want to know what Asylum is all about, go here, and you can go here to learn how the mechanics work.

This was an absolute blast to put together and I'm looking forward to Game Chef in just a couple of weeks. 

7 Days: The Creation of the Wildpath System

I am the Warden!!

Regular readers are probably aware of the heaping plateful of responsibilities on my plate at the moment: Killshot Reloaded, school, video editing, launching a Kickstarter, even some ongoing plans for Optional Core, but it seems all that was just not quite enough. What can I say? I'm a sucker for lost causes.

Over the weekend, I posted a note on my bulletin board titled "List of Regrets." On there are two entries: NaNoWriMo 2012 and the D&D Next Character Sheet Contest. Both of these are contests or tryouts I wanted to invest time and energy into completing, yet never did. Why keep account of such failings? Because it's how I motivate myself to add less and less to the list. Every time I add something to the List of Regrets, I feel motivated to keep something off its ruled lines of damnation.

So when EN World announced a 7 day RPG design contest, I latched onto the idea and neurons started charging up. At the very least, my entry is accepted and potentially published if Russ likes what he sees and finds potential in it. At best, I stand to pull in a much needed $1000, meaning that only thing I stand to lose is skipping another entry on the List of Regrets.

I wanted to create an original RPG that could work within 20 pages, including character creation and setting material. That meant foregoing the standard RPG mechanics (unless I wanted to use an existing system, which I did not) and trying something simpler than my usual work. Going over various notes recorded into Evernote, I found some rough concepts for a story RPG system where players do not roll to see if their action succeeds, but rolls to determines how many times they get to take over the story in a round.

Name Recognition and Kickstarter

I am the Warden!!

After reading fellow OTGD Fraser Ronald post about his Kickstarter endeavor on the Black Gate site yesterday, this particular paragraph caught my eye, travelled along its corneal pathway and began feasting on the cognitive processes of my brain. In this post, Fraser's comparing his success to the success of another OTGD member, Jason Pitre, and his Spark RPG Kickstarter.

Compare the success of Centurion with the success of Spark. The difference? Jason Pitre has spent four years not only perfecting his game (puts my year to shame . . . head hanging over here) but also being heavily involved in the RPG community. That pays off when it comes time to release. He knows lots of people, and those people know his game, and they will proselytize for him. Now, I doubt Jason was only involved in the RPG community with the expectation of drawing on the community to help pimp his game, and I further doubt that his community ties were the only differences between our campaigns – Spark is a very different game than Centurion– but it helped to get the word out to people to whom his game would interest.

Publicity is a bitch. Or an asshole, depending on your preference. It's all fine and dandy to have created something, but it needs to latch on to the public's attention to grow, fester, and mature to become noticed, then appreciated, and finally applauded. It's a concentrated game of chance unless you have any combination of natural charisma, connections, money, and more importantly, time. This is something Jason Pitre had plenty of for his Spark RPG Kickstarter and kudos to him for it.

Of those four lucky charms, I have one. Time. And even then, I don't. It's the curse of hindsight to look at someone else's achievements and kick yourself for not aiming in the same direction and I try not to get caught up in doing things exactly like others. However, there are great lessons to learn from others and I'd offer no service to myself and my work if I didn't look at what these two have done (yes, Fraser, even you) and make notes.

Cleaner, Simpler, Smaller!!

I am the Warden!!

Yesterday was the start of revisions for Killshot Reloaded's options chapter. You know those days when you get started on a large chapter/project and it starts with complete unawareness of just how much of a difference your work will bring? That was yesterday.

One of the primary goals for Reloaded is to create a cleaner version of the game while simultaneously allowing assassins and Directors more flexibility to take the game and run with it. While making a post on G+ about the process, it occurred that I've probably run close to 50 jobs for Killshot and various recent offshoots of the Optional System since it's creation and publication. In that time, I've noticed how players have translated and interpreted their options, listened to their opinions, and have now set a goal to use those opinions and concepts in mind for the new edition.

What I did not expect was just how improved these options have become. I hate putting it that way, because it instantly comes across as if the game was broken. And I hate saying THAT because the original edition of Killshot is by no means perfect (need I point out the major faux pas of having an option and skill both named "Survival").

Using My Big Boy Words

I am the Warden!!

You'd think by my blog alone that there's very little action going on right now, but that's so far from the truth. Aside from the official announcement of Killshot Reloaded (see the BRG site for details) and the progression of development in the new edition, I've also been plugging away on a new Kickstarter video for the upcoming Shaintar campaign by Sean Patrick Fannon, finishing up the final piece for Killshot Files #2, putting the next instalment of High Plains Samurai together, and working on a silent project on the side. If I haven't been posting enough, it's because I'm writing too much.

And that's the irony of today's post. It came to me last month that perhaps I haven't been writing enough, particularly when it comes to adventure design. When I'm running a game, I'm a massive fan of improvising. I'll detail a basic plot, flesh and stat out characters, establish locations, and run with everything as it plays out to provide players with a rich and reactive setting.

The problem is the contradiction with what I really need for adventure design and publication. It's something discovered during the past couple of Killshot or Optional Core sessions that must be seriously and correctly addressed in the new edition. When you don't write down the entire adventure and plan out your fight scenes in advance, you tend to take liberties with your text. For example, it never occurred to me during any of the various drafts for the three jobs published in Killshot: Direction to include a sidebar or any relevant information on how to set up a Tracker for a given scene. There were rules for determining all the chips needed on the board and that seemed good enough. What I've noticed is that without having a solid foundation to set up a scene through the game's mechanics, there's no telling how good or poor the scene will play out. So much information is missing from the text that Directors will have to embellish as they see fit and that can cause serious problems in game satisfaction.

Perhaps no other evidence is required than the outcome of the first session for High Plains Samurai. While the YouTube broadcast was cut out early and remains unavailable to those outside of the Development Team sitting at the table, the last fight scene went horribly awry. Everything went wrong and the fact that I never bothered to write down a set-up for the fight scene contributed to that problem. And it didn't help that my qi points mechanic was totally screwed up.

For tomorrow's game, I've made adjustments and wrote out every fight scene (all five of them) in complete detail, from how many Teams are provided in what order to a list of pre-existing triggers and outcomes for the fight using the new fight management system undergoing construction for Reloaded. How will it turn out? You can find out tomorrow as we stream a live broadcast of the game through the Optional Core community on G+.