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.

Redpill Diary #3: A Question of Choice

I am the Warden!!

While the majority of effort continues to focus on fine tuning the core components of the Optional System, my mind remains plugged into the Matrix. Mostly notes, concepts, and theories, issues which require decisions before taking it to the next step. One of the biggest remains how detailed the Matrix should be.

I had a "meeting" with a good friend about this very topic. I'm not a programmer by any definition - I still have trouble remembering the three buttons you hold down to reboot my Mac - but he is. And we talked about how the Matrix works as a hyper-virtual reality. In doing so, we came back to one major hurdle.

It depends on just how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

Process of Elimination

I am the Warden!!

Playtesting can be a strange experience. At the end of our last session, my fiancee (those of you paying attention will know her as "Lady Warden") came to me after the guys left with a consoling tone and a sympathetic rub on my shoulder.

"Didn't go well, huh?"

Confused, I asked why she assumed as much.

"Because you guys didn't roll a lot of dice, you were just talking."

Au contraire, I explained. If anything, this last playtest was perhaps one of the most productive as we branched out from the core system into various alternatives for the dice mechanic. Seeing as this is called the Optional System, having just one method of achieving the same objective isn't mandatory. What came about from our last playtest was a fierce, competitive possibility to the OSRPG's dice mechanics.

Wanna hear about it? OK, you talked me into it.

Let the Playtesting Begin

I am the Warden!!

Behold the awesomeness of the Optional System. Optional: Playtest (v1.0) has been uploaded and can be downloaded from the Optional Library to the left or you can go to the brand spanking new Optional: Playtest page for downloads and more. Anyone new to the blog should definitely check this page out for details on what the hell I'm talking about.

Once again, anyone looking to try this game out is welcome to download the PDF, read through, and contact me with question, concerns, or ideas for your own OSRPG game. Looking to run a particular genre and want some creeds, options, and power? No problem. Ask and ye shall receive.

A Character Sheet In Two Pages

I am the Warden!!

In preparation for playtesting, the first volume of Optional: Playtest, and the constant whining of a certain pair who shall remain anonymous to the public, a new draft of the Optional Character Sheet is available. It includes a second page for various notes, equipment, writing down creed benefits, and three special boxes I'd like to explain.

Throughout fights and challenges in OSRPG, there are 3 events all players need to make note of: series, critical hits, and the Edge. All characters have their own abilities when any of these events occur in a game, so to help keep players organized, we've set up these three event boxes for you to write down as they apply.

No More Decimals, Version 1 Is Ready

What?! I haven't posted since Tuesday? Holy crap!!

(ahem, cough, cough) I am the Warden!!

For the past 3 weeks, I've been knee-deep in rewrites for the Optional System. Completely, from scratch, start to finish. It has been a refreshing experience and has boosted my confidence in this game. There's still a lot of work to be done (there's a reason why it's not recommended to design a huge game on your own), but I'm feeling really confident about the latest updates.

On my screen, Optional: Playtest Version 1.0 sits smiling. 108 pages and 50,000 words of awesomeness. It's so good, it requires a made-up word: cramtapulous. Creator's pride, perhaps, but I'm feeling positive tonight.

Still, I'm going to wait until the next playtest on Friday the 21st before posting anything for it, particularly with some of the new terminology to ensure clarity. In the meantime, my mind wonders how to make vehicles work in the Optional System.

Stunts, Boosts, and Blunders

I am the Warden!!

In the Optional System, a stunt is an attempt at completing two options simultaneously. Seems fairly simple, right? Yet no other concept in the game has undergone so many revisions and tweaks or caused so many bald spots on my precious scalp. As the game evolved into a more complex ruleset, stunts became a liability and was nearly cut from the entire process.

Many other games use a stunt mechanic, but these are your typical point distribution. Do this real good and you get a stunt point, or everyone gets to do one stunt per encounter, blah, blah, blah. Not me. I always wanted stunts to be an integral part of the game with inherent risks and wicked benefits, it just never played out quite as I hoped at the table.

Over the past couple of weeks as the latest batch of revisions make it from brain to computer, it's the stunt mechanic which has undergone the largest transformation to what I believe (AKA hope) will be the final version (or final enough that it just needs a little tweaking with difficulty dice and such).