Interview with the AntiPaladins
While I was waiting for Randall Stukey to be able to get back up and running (if you’re reading this, please help support Randall and his wife in these tough times) Ray Nolan and Phil Morris of AntiPaladin Games contacted me about doing an interview. How cool is that? I eagerly pounced on the opportunity, and both Phil and Ray took the opportunity to answer my questions (sometimes individually and together in the same question, even). Their fantastic insights follow! Read more…
Interview Delayed, But Big News
I was in communication with Randall Stukey, creator of Microlite74, for an interview when his computer died. There’s a possibility that it might be the power supply, meaning he could be back up and running with in a week or so. Let’s hope. Read more…
Interview with Robin Stacey!
For my first interview dealing with microlite games, I went straight to the root. Robin Stacey, also widely known as Greywulf, is the creator of Microlite20, a condensation of the 3.5 edition d20 SRD into an easily-manageable, pocket-size game. Read more…
Examining the Microlite
Over the past couple years, the phenomenon of “microlite” gaming has grown considerably. Starting with Microlite20, the trend of boiling systems down to their barest essential elements has taken on a life of its own, including Microlite74 (and the upcoming Microlite75) and the new Mini-Six from AntiPaladin Games. I’ve been a fan of Microlite20 for some time, admiring both its simplicity and the ease with which it can be modified while still remaining true to its core principles. Mini-Six looks to do the same for the d6 System.
I’m playing around with the idea of investigating the microlite phenomenon a little more closely. I’m going to try to ask a few interview-style questions of the guys at AntiPaladin as well as Robin Stacey (the creator of Microlite20 and the gentleman responsible for starting this whole thing) to see what the people at the core of the movement feel and think. Are the core principles applicable in general? Can any game or system be condensed into a microlite version? Is there any system out there just begging for the treatment? Let’s find out.
After-Action Report: Game Fu 7
In the middle of the holiday season, Game Fu 7 came and went. Once again I threw my hat in the ring, and the result is a game (and another incomplete project) called Qiangdao: Way of the Gun.
The primary ingredient focus in GF7 was the Genre Blender: take two genres, eath with a set of tropes, and combine them. Qiangdao (kludge Mandarin for “way of the gun”) combines the genres of Western and Wuxia. The characters are wanderers with amazing techniques, but instead of moving through a mythic-legendary China, they travel the trails of the American West. As usual, I spent far too much time dallying around and not actually working on the game. In the end I had to tighten the focus from a general game about those wanderers to a scenario-based game wherein the characters participate in the classic “clean up the town” story, common to both Western and Wuxia.
Character creation is simple and fast, with only four stats. Each stat has skills (“specialties” in this game) which are player-determined, and each character also receives items and Techniques. Techniques are the character’s powers, intended to be something like Charms from Exalted. They too are player-determined, along certain guidelines.
The mechanic involves a pool of d6s, but with a twist — it’s a “reverse” pool, where all dice must succeed. Any number on the die except “1″ is a success. The number of “1″s showing determines the degree of complication or failure of the task, meaning most of the time, characters succeed in what their players wish for them to do. The more better the character is, the less dice the player has to roll. Penalties are assessed in added dice, bonuses in removed dice. Techniques often allow a player to ignore penalty dice in certain situations, as do items/tools.
Even though it’s more an idea sketch than a full game, it does seem to work well. It’s just begging for expansion, especially the setting details.
New Year, New Goals
The last quarter of 2009 was a time of focus on other aspects of my life, and this blog lay fallow during all of that. But now that the year and decade* have turned, it’s time for me to start thinking about gaming again. So here are some goals I’m setting for myself. Not quite resolutions, and not iron-clad; flexibility is good, and plans never survive contact with reality anyway.
1.) Finish and publish a project. I have many half-finished game projects lying around in various states of need. 1914 needs work on the setting and “what do you do with it?” ideas. Mad Science Boys needs a setting and also guidelines for rivalries and sidekicks. Seasonalis needs further expansion, sample islands and so on. Simfanad needs OGL monster conversions and then a rewrite into a presentable document. Any one of these is ready to go; I just have to get off my duff.
2.) Find a design partner. Still looking. There’s a guy on a message board who offered to help, but I haven’t spoken to him since November, so I don’t think he’s the partner I’ve been searching for.
3.) Try more games. There are a myriad games/systems I’d like to try out — BRP, Savage Worlds, Star Wars Saga Edition, d6 (including Mini-Six).
4.) Run a game. I need to get over my fear of the work involved. I know I have problems creating plots and I don’t like prep work. Running something light and off-the-cuff for my group shouldn’t be too hard, and they’re quite forgiving. I just have to stop worrying about “doing it right”.
5.) Game more. And here it is, the same “goal” I have every year. My group sometimes game on both Friday and Saturday, but I still feel like we’re not really doing all that much. I need to find additional play groups to feed my needs.
Finding Direction: Looking for a design partner
I’ve allowed this blog to lie fallow for some time for multiple reasons. I haven’t been doing as much gaming since I moved, and I haven’t had the energy to keep up with projects like the 3.5e D&D character designs. There are several games I would love to get into, including Pathfinder, Cthulhutech and Rogue Trader (when it comes out), and with my birthday coming up I’m hoping I might get a core book for a new game to help spark something.
Another primary reason has been that I tend to have trouble fully realizing a game project. I start with great enthusiasm and a plethora of ideas, but I start running into walls of perfectionism and unexpected necessities; I get bogged down in things, I try to do too many things at once, I realize things I need to be adding in that I hadn’t anticipated. My energy runs out, and I get stuck staring despondently at the unfinished project, never going back to it even though I say I will.
What I need is a design partner, someone to help out by working on the bits that frustrate me, keep me focused and motivate me when I get run down. There are certain aspects of game design that I find I have little taste for (equipment lists, fiddly spot rules for things like fire, falling and poison, etc.) and it would be great to find someone who enjoys or at least doesn’t mind those things, and also enjoys bouncing around ideas to watch something grow.
The person I’m looking for would be a full partner, of course. I’m not looking for a lackey or someone to mooch work from. Yes, at first I’d want this person to help me finish the projects I have started (my Game Fu games, and so on), but I’d also want to do the same for this prospective partner. After that, the sky’s the limit.
Ideally, I’d also like for this person to know or have some idea about publishing, even if it’s just putting stuff up on Lulu. Getting my/our stuff out there and deriving a little bit of income from it is a goal.
The question now is, where to begin? Do I go onto the RPG forums I visit and start asking around? Should I try to increase the visibility of this post and hope to attract the right eyes? I’m thinking a bit of both. Now I just have to get psyched up and do it. Not knowing where to begin is a real problem, but being afraid to try is an absolute killer.
Game Fu 6: Robotica
I dilly-dallied way too much for this version of the contest. Stormhunters was a great concept, but I kept picking at myself, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted the focus to be, and how I was going to do certain things. As usual, I started with far too grandiose a vision, and by the time I narrowed it down to Ghostbusters-style action in the wake of tornadoes, I’d burned far too much time and energy.
So I went back to the ingredients list and started again. I liked the idea of shapeshifters, but I wanted to do it in a different fashion. A friend had been talking about BattleTech a lot, and inspired by the idea of the Clan OmniMechs as well as the Alchemical Exalted and their modular Charms, I decided that the characters would be robots that “shapeshifted” by swapping equipment modules. I also kept the “archetypes” ingredient, and soon realized that I was looking at a very old-school setup, with four basic “classes”. The difference is that the robot’s archetype can be swapped, changing the basic stats. The game is all about the robot characters performing missions and gaining credits to buy better equipment and upgrade themselves. Straight to the essence of old D&D, if you ask me.
I had only about four days left when I actually started writing, and even then I couldn’t concentrate for more than an hour at a time. I did manage to squeak in a complete, if bare-bones, document, but a lot is missing. The document contains the basic concept, the dice mechanic (1d10, blackjack roll-under), the four basic archetypes, nine or ten modules for each of the four attributes, quick and dirty rules on mission and credits (which serve as XP and money all rolled together) and some stats for hazards. It is available for download in two places:
I was working at very high speed to finish the document late last night, so the prices for modules are instinctual and not anything resembling balanced. Ideally I’d like to go back and put some more work into it, preferably with some help. It’s an idea I’d like to share.
Game Fu 6: Initial Concepts
I had an idea before the contest started, but I didn’t think I could pick ingredients to match the concept. After staring at the list long enough, however, I found I could make it work. (Ingredients list is in this post. You can view the whole thread from there if you wish.)
Our three categories this time are system, setting and tagline. “Tagline” is a short phrase describing something about the game, a bit like you’d read on the back cover, and must be constructed from two individual phrases. With a bit of work, I came up with the following. This is the initial concept for my project, Stormhunters.
System
* There is a goal based system that gives experience for character improvement
* Character creation is based on archetypes, but characters may change archetypes during downtime.
* Damage in combat is not random.
Setting
* “Monsters” are not real life forms. They condense out of the air / some other medium to attack people when it is disturbed.
Tagline
* The threat of Nature over all forces us to ask: what is Evil?
Concept
In our world, intrepid men and women seek to understand the forces of Nature in order to better predict the coming of violent storms. In doing so, they hope to save lives. These stormchasers put their very lives at risk in order to advance our knowledge.
In a world just a short step away from ours, the forces of Nature are not blind and dumb. They are possessed of will and desire, and what they want is often at odds with human wellbeing. Storms seek out and destroy human habitation, leaving spirits and monsters in their wake to further the havoc after the initial strike. Ordinary people are helpless against them; indeed, ordinary people do not know these things, and would not believe if told. Only stormhunters — men and women dedicated to protecting humanity against these forces — stand in the way of the destruction. Posing as stormchasers, the stormhunters exist in a twilight world between the mundane and the paranormal, both equally dangerous.
Stormhunters live a life of constant travel across the heartland of the United States and mind-numbing boredom punctuated by episodes of thundering fury and blinding terror in battle against a storm. To those who float through life untouched by the power of the storms, those who do not believe in the danger of the storms or the spirits that spawn from them, the stormhunters are useless drifters. To those who owe their lives to a stormhunter’s diligence and courage, the stormhunters are heroes.
Stormhunters draw resources from groups scattered throughout the country, but the bankrolls are never enough. They can count on support from some individuals throughout the nation’s heartland — former stormhunters and their families and friends, people saved by stormhunters in time of need — but even then they must carefully husband their resources and make difficult choices. The larger a stormhunter group is, the more effective it is, but the more expensive it is to maintain.
One question lurks in the mind of every stormhunter, however: are the storms and their monsters evil? Is nature malignant, or is it simply uncaring of human suffering and dreams? The question may not matter. Every human life saved by the efforts of the stormhunters and their stormchaser compatriots is a victory.
Game-Fu 6: Here We Go Again
Rather surprisingly, the group perked up suddenly and wanted another go. We’re starting tomorrow at 4 PM GMT / 10 AM EDT, and running until September 6th. I’m looking forward to actually being able to compete this time, without any stressful distractions.
