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.

The Bringer of Doom

I am the Warden!!

Yesterday was an offline day for one specific reason. I had a giant stack of loose papers - legal documents, old projects, assorted receipts, and more junk than I thought I could hoard - in an old filing cabinet. What I needed was just one and since I had to tear through the cabinet looking for it, seemed only fitting to sort and collate them once and for all.

While I found what I was looking for, I also found a lot more. Old projects and adventures never intended for publication. Not only that, but there were typed. On a typewriter. (Now that I think about it, they were probably written on the typewriter secured down in the basement. Whoa! Maybe I am a hoarder.)

Titled "The Bringer of Doom," it's an introductory AD&D quest for the Planescape setting. The heroes gather themselves in the town of Clearsky for an annual tournament when suddenly there is an explosion in the sky and a horde of demons and planar monsters stumble out to ransack the town. Complicating matters is a giant force field surrounding Clearsky, trapping everyone inside until the heroes can hack-and-slash their way to the culprit and save what remains of the town.

Kill... No, Wait. PAY What You Want

I am the Warden!!

To mark the ENnie Awards nominations and Judges' Spotlight awards announced today, I'm moving ahead with a new pricing plan for Killshot through all OneBookShelf sites. Effectively immediately, Killshot: The Director's Cut and Killshot Files #1: Blaze of Glory are both Pay What You Want. It means exactly that: you can pay as much or as little as you want, including free.

There's never been a better time to pick up this now award-winning RPG of action, investigation, and strategy. Now there are no excuses.

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that the original link for The Director's Cut would not work with the PWYW model because of the POD option. It has since been fixed and there is now a separate PWYW version of The Director's Cut. The original is still available for traditional PDF and POD purchases. 

Killshot Gets the Nod

I am the Warden and Killshot: The Director's Cut will be receiving one of five Judges' Spotlight Awards at this year's ENnies!!

I just finished posting about it on the BRG site, so you can read the formal reaction there. Right now, I'm about to give my personal reaction to this nomination... I mean, award.

HOLY SHIT!!!

I'm stunned and keep clicking back to the nomination page to make sure there isn't something I'm missing. More importantly, that this isn't another nomination. It's an actual award, a point of recognition specifically set aside for Killshot and four other exceptional products by an individual judge who felt it deserved merit.

So here are the thoughts racing through my head this morning, all of them trumping my original work schedule for today.

1. I cannot give enough thanks to everyone for their support with Killshot since it all began on January 2, 2011. From the very first crack at the Optional System with my good friend, Kieron, to today, all of you have been incredibly supportive and eager to find out what's next for Killshot. I think it's safe to say this award means she's not done yet. Not by a long shot.

2. I need to get to Indianapolis. Holy shit, I need to get to Indianapolis. Double holy shit, I don't have a passport.

3. You know when actors are nominated for Oscars and at least one of them tells the story about how they found out when other people started calling to congratulate them? Yeah, that's what happened here. I slept in past announcement time (hard time sleeping upstairs in such extreme heat) and when I turned on my phone just before 10AM, it started beeping and whistling that I thought my phone pulled a fire alarm. Most mornings, I take the dogs outside for business, brew coffee, feed everyone, and take my phone and coffee on the back step to read and go over my plans for the day. Right now, I'm sitting with a luke warm and completely full cup of joe and my laptop on my lap (how ironic) because there's far too much typing required from a phone.

Once again, incredible thanks and praise to everyone who's supported Killshot, BRG, and my work over the past couple of years, to all the nominees who have helped the indie RPG industry shine, and to my darling wife-to-be how sat up in a half-dazed sleep trying to figure out what I was saying when I jumped on the bed to tell her the news.

Think I'll start with a fresh cup of coffee. There's lots to do today. 

The Reloaded Black Box

I am the Warden!!

Before we get started today, what do you think of the new presentation? Maybe it's the graphic designer in me rising out of the ashes, but I wanted to revise this blog's visual appeal a couple of notches and make it easier to read. There are still a few tweaks to make here and there (I'm not overly satisfied with how this layout adjust to the mobile format), but it's a vast improvement from before in my book.

Now to the actual topic of the day: analyzing the wreckage that was the Killshot Reloaded Kickstarter. Trust me, I've been pondering on this a lot and there are two major issues developed from this project so far.

A Question of Impact?

I'm quite satisfied with the Kickstarter's reach and the numbers collected (other than the lack-of-hitting-a-goal thing). Here's what the stats say.

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.