Shadoworld: The End of the Beginning

I am the Warden!!

Notice a bit of an absence, did ya? I have to admit, last week's "vacation from unemployment" was exactly what I needed to refresh my creative juices. While this may sound contradictory as this blog is also supposed to act as fuel for the fire, there's nothing better than running what may have been the best game of my gaming career to not only rejuvenate creativity but also give me cause to sit back and reflect.

The main purpose of this Weekend Extravaganza was to wrap up the old Shadoworld campaign once and for all. Or, at the very least, wrap up the storyline so we could indulge in the occasional return to that domain. The main theme of Shadoworld is captivity; the PCs are prisoners magically sealed within an entire world through binding shadowmarks preventing them from ever leaving the former continent of Barsaive (from Earthdawn - I just blowed it up a little more and made the Horrors victorious over the Name-givers). At bare minimum, I needed to wrap up the continuous storyline involving one PC in particular, Dorion, and his quest to free his brother, Rheece, from a lifetime of servitude to Boccob.

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.

Shadoworld: Loose Ends

The original Shadoworld logo, built long before I knew
how to make logos.

I am the Warden!!

These past couple of days have been remarkably emotional for me as I pour over all my old Shadoworld notes to compile everything for Shadoworld: The Finale. And it's been amazing and refreshing how much I can still remember with just a single name, reaffirming once again that my RPG design work has helped me regain confidence in my cognitive functions. After reviewing everything I have, a checklist of concrete plot points for this final adventure stand at the ready.

But I'm not writing about those individual points because my players read this blog and most of that checklist revolves around the revelation I call The Answer, the truth about why everything happened in the campaign. The Answer has existed since before designing the first encounter of the first adventure nearly 10 years ago and has only been tweaked here and there to account for new details, new PCs, and sudden moments of awesomeness waking me up at 4 in the morning.

My point being the entire campaign has been about revealing The Answer. So why am I still unwilling to write it down for the purpose of telling it to the players?

Shadoworld: The Beginning of the End

I am the Warden!!

For the past week-and-a-half, I've been plugging away at Killshot, producing 45 pages of material for rules and character creation and enhancement. Now I must put all that aside - everything involving the Optional System, for that matter - to start working on something I never thought would come: the end of my old Shadoworld campaign.

When I say "Shadoworld," I don't mean the campaign setting released by ICE. I didn't even learn about their work until a random Google search years ago. My Shadoworld is a D&D 3e campaign started back in 2001 with my good friends and regular gamers, Derek, John, and Kurt. It was a very intense, heavy-roleplaying, action-packed series of adventures simmered in a long-stewing backstory. Everything hinged around the PCs trapped in a prison world known only as Shadoworld to its inmates (which is Barsaive from FASA's Earthdawn game, except the Horrors actually finished off the Name-givers) run by an enigmatic figure called the Warden. Now you know where I got my name.

Killshot: An Assassin's Journal

I am the Warden!!

Been pretty quiet around here, huh? You don't think I've been slacking off, have you? Far from the truth, my friends, the Warden has been typing away.

I've been toying around with the idea of putting together a short, basic OSRPG mini-game for a couple of weeks to meet a couple of objectives. First, to demonstrate the Optional System in something a little more user-friendly than a generic system resource document. And second, because I'm broke. Sitting at home designing roleplaying games while unemployed doesn't exactly add any digits to the back account... yet. I wanted to design something quick and simple, yet engaging, to engage players and show off just how versatile the Optional System is.

The idea came to me suddenly last week and I've been plugged in front of my laptop ever since. It's (tentatively*) called Killshot: An Assassin's Journal. What could you possibly play in a game with a title like that? Why, assassins, of course.

Pieces of Pie

I am the Warden.

Believe it or not, this may actually be the first post not directly involving the Optional System. Sacrilege? Perhaps, but the mind cannot focus on just one thing without going a little ca-razy. Rest assured, OS remains behind these next thoughts, as well as every other independent game out there.

I've bitched about marketing before. I've often wondered if I should have studied it at some point and time, including now, but I always snap myself out of that mushroom-induced absurdity. Two-thirds of marketing, I've been told, is about what's worked in the past, meaning too much emphasis on copying success. Very little individual achievement. Pass.

I like ideas which buck trend, run off in their own direction, and work despite those odds. It's similar to improv, a passion I've been denied for far too long. When an improv skit works, it's pure gold because you're able to do what takes most people weeks or months of rewrites and rehearsals. It takes skill and talent and shoves it to the front of the line.