Focus and the Power of Stats

An example of Strength vs. Dexterity.
If you don't know who they are, shame on you.

I am the Warden!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. One of my goals for the Optional System is to create a D&D-level of mechanics with the tone of an independent RPG. Disagree with this statement all you want, but the majority of major RPGs (meaning those released by big companies like Paizo, WotC, and Fantasy Flight) consist of locked rules, loads of charts, and enough pages to club your GM to death with. Independent games are built using minimal concepts, loose interpretations, and an emphasis on narrative rather than action. Fans of independent games love how they can "do more of what they want" without being bogged down by rules, while fans of major RPGs (man, I'm really hating that term) praise them for their clarity and precision. And here I'm looking to make some kind of hybrid. Good luck to me, right?

Flexibility seems the greatest difference between these types of games. There are elements to the Optional System I need to make clear and defined with no room for error, most of them relating to action and combat, but then there are others which should have room to twist, turn, and go nuts with. The player should be able to take their current selection of stats, skills, powers, and circumstance dice to describe their own actions in whatever original fashion they like. It is this ability for players to describe their own actions and participate in their environment to create mechanical benefits where I want this system to excel.

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.

Taking the Red Pill

I am the Warden!!

Checking out stats for the blog this week led to a rather startling development. All of a sudden, out of the blue, there was a huge swell of people checking out the Matrix: Revolutions posts from last month. There are no coincidences online, so I started digging around. Luckily, there's a very good reason and it's causing me to believe I should fall of the grid more often.

Keanu Reeves spoke with fans at the London School of Performing Arts and it wasn't long before someone asked him about the Matrix. Drop quote from Ain't It Cool News:

Says he met the Wachowski's (no emphasis on the word brothers), for lunch over Christmas and stated that they had completed work on a two picture script treatment that would see him return to the world of the matrix as Neo. Says the brothers have met with Jim Cameron to discuss the pro's and con's of 3D and are looking to deliver something which has never been seen again. keanu stated that he still has an obligation to the fans to deliver a movie worthy of the title "The Matrix" and he swears this time that the treatment will truly revolutionise the action genre like the first movie. Wachowski's are working on a movie called "Cloud Atlas" at the moment, once that concludes they will talk again. 

Optional Options?

This would be a shitty time to roll a 1.

I am the Warden!!

Busy, busy, busy, that's how it's been for the past week. Last Friday's playtest was perhaps one of the first in which the game was rather ho-hum, but more than reimbursed with the post-game discussion that proceeded it. In response to various breaks discovered in the Matrix playtest, I toned down some of the resources and went a bit too far. What followed on Friday was an interesting talk on probability and resources.

Since then, I've been plugging away on rewrites to shore up those gaps and fix up a few loose ends (particular stunts, which strayed too far off course from its original intention). What stands now may be the definitive first-draft release for Chapter 1; what's left are the individual dice groups and various character applications such as powers and skills. Any-who, I'm rambling and wandering away from today's post.

In that post-game discussion, the players offered their own take on some of the OSRPG's components. One of the reasons I chose these guys for initial playtesting is their experience in numerous independent games (especially Fraser Ronald from Sword's Edge Publishing). One of my goals for the OSRPG was to create an independent RPG with the range of a D&D-style game, hence the reason for a d20 as the base die. Fraser brought up a solid point I had not considered strongly enough on the greatest weakness to a d20: range.

Preparation

I am the Warden!!

As you can see, I've been hard at work and unintentionally forgot to post anything since Monday. Playtest night is tonight and I wanted to have an actual hard copy at the table. Enough changes have been made since the last Friday playtest that everyone has to re-build their characters, so the idea of having real paper to flip through seemed best.

Pop this pic on Photoshop and zoom in on the title page. I'll have all these uploaded here on Monday. Next step, the red pen of doom!!

(Kudos to a certain sneaky bugger who snapped this shot. Why do I still look like a skinny dweeb when I'm almost 200 pounds?!)

EDIT: Based on the latest playtesting session, there are a couple more changes I'm going to make before posting the latest draft. There will not be any uploads on Monday.

Death and Thugs

I am the Warden!!

One thing has become apparent in OS playtesting: it's fun to kill thugs! By the dozens too. Watching those 1-hit wonders drop like stones never seems too much for players. Every once in a while, a thug delivers a nasty punch or shoot a hero in the back for a couple of hits of damage. Nothing big, but enough to piss off that hero to cash in a nasty reaction or two. While thugs can be considered a success without any design revisions required, perhaps it's important to consider the role of thugs in the Optional System and how they impact the game as a whole.

Commence with non-analytical data!