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. 

Revealing the Mysteries of Asylum

I am the Warden!!

What a great weekend. After a little thing called my wedding - and thanks to everyone's congratulations over the weekend - there was some gaming to run at this season's LUG Con. While I was only able to run one game in particular, I'm very happy it was Asylum solely because it was finally getting a run at the table.

For those who may have missed it, Asylum is the game conceived and drafted during a single week for EN World's 7 Day RPG Creation contest thingy back in May of this year. While it didn't win any beauty pageants, the mechanics really stuck in my head and I've tweaked them since that time and gave it a run for its money on Sunday afternoon with the help of Brian and Jeff. They play convicts freshly delivered to the island known only as Asylum. Their neighbours? 198 other convicts who have started up the Contest in an effort to become the last living resident and win a ticket home. In other words, it's a bloody massacre in a can and I'm the can opener.

Have a peak for yourself and let it play in the background while you work. The mechanics are fairly simple (especially in contrast to my earlier work) and I'm very pleased with how this game turned out. If you want to skip the video and learn more about it, just check out this earlier post about Asylum.

Down To The Core, Part 3: Containing the d20

This is a gif of my favourite d20, Big Red.
And now I'm facing the dilemma of not using it
in Optional Core. 

I am the Warden!!

After two weeks of intense hair-pulling and stressing out over some of the most complex school work experienced to date, it's finally time to return to the world of game design. While I do have quite a few projects on my plate, there is the matter of how to incorporate the d20 into dice pools for Optional Core.

Last time I wrote something for this series, I addressed the problem of dice pool sizes and how the make the d20 fit this new model. Back in the good ol'Killshot days, it was entirely common to roll anywhere from 6-8 dice in a single roll, attack or defence. It worked just fine for the style of the game - not crazy fast-paced, but strategic and cautious. For Optional Core, speed is of the essence, but the system is still based on the Optional System powering Killshot and one of those fundamentals is the use of dice pools. Considering the issues addressed last time, that leaves me with one invaluable question to finally answer...

How many dice will provide the perfect balance for Optional Core?

I put this question to members of the Optional Core community two weeks ago and the general consensus was 4 to 6 dice per roll was a good average. I'd agree with that, though I'm trying to lean more towards 4 dice as the baseline for your average roll. Problem solved, right?

A Playtesting Triad

I am the Warden and these are my new projects!!

With Killshot's ENnie safely escorted to its new home, perhaps it's time to start looking to the future. Again. Don't get me wrong, it's not the end of Killshot. My plan is to have Killshot Files #2 on virtual shelves within the next week or two, but there's more swirling around in my cranial vortex than assassins and bloody violence. There's espionage and bloody violence, storytelling and bloody violence, and quick-play action (with a chance of bloody violence). 

I have three concepts in various stages of assembly at the moment, each of them vying for top spot on the playtesting radar. Two of them should be no surprise to regulars, one is getting as close to an official announcement as can be made, and all three need to be tested. While I will most definitely have my award-winning Development Team try them out in various stages and at various times, these guys have regular lives and their own games in the works. That means I need to broaden my horizons privately before trying to go public with them. 

So here's what I'm looking for and doing so does not imply either of these projects will ever see the light of day (though Optional Core certainly gets preferential treatment because of its wide potential). Each of the three concepts is presented below in one paragraph to varying degrees of detail. If you see anything you like and want to playtest online, post a comment below and I'll add you to the list. 

Here we go. 

When Games Are Not Stories

An example of the animus slipping past the sight of
local guards in Assassin's Creed. If only it worked as
well in the game.

I am the Warden!!

Today is a day off to recover from the Return of the Torn Throat. Yes, I'm aware that I'm writing on my blog, so for argument's sake, this is not work. Seems that strep throat wasn't cured after all and has come back with a vengeance. After three nights of very little sleep, my mind was worn down and unable to complete a coherent thought. The majority of the afternoon was spent on the couch playing Assassin's Creed (which I picked up for $10 a couple of weeks ago and haven't been able to play very often until now).

As I write this, I'm knee deep in the middle of the first true assassination in Damascus and loving the fact that it takes place during the Crusades, something I read about extensively back in my post-college days. The graphics are amazing and the controls are very intuitive (assigning each of the four core buttons to the four limbs on the animus' body - head, hands, and the feet). Plus, the idea of playing an assassin sounds fun. Not sure why.

But there's a problem. I'm having a hard time investing myself into this story. It started the first time I saved a citizen's life and escaped from a pair of nearby guards to the roofs of Damascus. Easily making my way to the curtained roof garden, I ducked and covered just in time to remain out of sight... and watched as these "professionals" searched everywhere except the most obvious hiding spot in sight. "Bah! I've got better things to do," one decries and back they go to their post.

Really? (sigh)

Well Cut Me Open And Fuse My Ankle... They're Gonna Cut Me Open and Fuse My Ankle

I am the Warden!!

Three years after the initial accident and the original surgery, I'm going back under the knife. In the 961 days since that fateful moment, the nerve damage has made my right foot unstable, unreliable, and extremely painful with incalculable frequency and it's time to fix it. Or to try something else that may hopeful ease some of the pain and burden.

I'm currently scheduled to go back under the knife on October 11th (AKA Canadian Thanksgiving weekend) to fuse my right ankle, along with some other attachments, the removal of the original metal plating and screws, and the insertion of a pair of new screws leading from the base of my heel into my ankle. While this will severely limit my foot's mobility, the idea is to reduce the impact of the nerve damage running through the top of my foot. It's not a guarantee by any measure and the new surgery will have the same follow-up results as the original: no weight bearing on the foot for 8 weeks after the surgery and rehab. This time, however, there shouldn't be any need for a wheelchair because there are no other fractures complicating the matter. And more importantly, it's my choice, not a forced reaction.

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.