kedamono | Entries tagged with rpg

I've been publishing playbooks and one page RPGs now since March of this year. Some of them were me just republishing my stuff on DriveThruRPG, others were created after that. And everyone was always work.

The Trouble with Rose playbooks were part of a spate of ideas that I came up with, after my friend Todd Zircher published TTwR on his own site. One was one I had started and finished after a lot of revision, and another just flew out and poof I put out my playbook Gamma Watch: The Trouble with Rose. That's part of a set of different things I want to publish under that name. But... that's for the future.

Right now I'm cranking on my One Page Wonders, I'm working on another adventure page for Kids' Last Tour, and I just released Toys of Tomorrow. But my next project has the working title of Into the Chasm. Like Kids' Last Tour, Chasm will have a series of "strata" pages, but it will lead to a definite end. How long it will take me to release the full series, I'm not sure. But I do know that I will have to release three products to launch the line: Into the Chasm: First Strata, Into the Chasm Companion, and Into the Chasm: Second Strata. The first two will provide the background and premise for the game, But First Strata has to do double duty: Provide enough background to be viable and stay within the strictures of being a One Page RPG. (No, I'm not going to cheat and say one page, both sides. Most folks don't have a printer that can do two sided printing.)

I'm letting it stew right now, mainly so I can rethink it's layout. I can't make the type any smaller, so I have to either cut text or rewrite and compact descriptions and rules so that they still work, but take up less space. Be less wordy. Wish me luck.

So, since my last post, "Once More into the Breach", I've done a lot of skull work on my RPG, but haven't put pen to paper, or electron to iron oxide, as the case may be. Part of the reason is that I'm doing away with "experience points" or "skill points", basically any kind of points you accumulate and then between games, "level up" your character in one or more areas.

I'd rather the players have the option to "level up" a skill or stat during the game, instead of between games and make it an in game event. I'm going to do this through the use of story points. Story points will make it easier for your character to do something, from a bonus to a drop in the number of dice you roll, to reducing damage, adding player created elements to the storyline, and, increasing skills or stats permanently. I may toss in the buying off of a "vexation" or buying a "virtue", my names for disadvantages and advantages.

Every player would start out with 3 story points, and a pool of story points, say 2 or 3 per player, would be available to draw more story points from, and spent story points would go into this pool. So for 4 players, there would be between 8 and 12 story points in the pool.

Now, I emphasized Player for a reason, these are story points, so the player gets to use them, not the character. When a story point is used, the player must describe how the point is used. Say the player's character is seriously wounded from a gunshot, the player tosses in a story point and says "Luckily for Lord Haversham, his silver plated whiskey flask slows the bullet down enough that, though he is still wounded, he is not down for the count..."

So how much should I charge for using story points for the different features?

Well first, I need to nail down how you earn more story points. Originally, I envisioned that players would earn a story point if they have a character involved in the current "act" or "scene". I may still keep that idea. Additionally, if you amaze, boggle, or otherwise impress the GM, you get a story point. If you place your character into conflict, you earn one. If you place the character into danger, you earn 2. I may include the other players agreeing to give you another story point from the pool for whatever reason.

The other question is "do you get to keep them between sessions/games?" The answer is no. Any unspent story points go away at the end of the session and you get 3 at the start of the next session, though I may have a hideously expensive virtue that allows you to hold on to one or two points between sessions... maybe.

The final piece is how often will the players spend their story points during a game. Will they only spend them during combat? Or will they spend them like pennies in a candy store?

That will take some playtesting to determine. Is 3 starting story points enough? I'll have to find out.

More later, it's late, I'm tired, but I had to get this out of my system or I'd never get a lick of sleep tonight.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Lullaby Land
Current Music: Snores

Every so often I get the game design urge. Last time I came up with a system that when I did my first alpha playtest the game crashed and burned. Some serious design flaws that let a boy scout fight a giant mutant duck and win barehanded against it. So that one went onto the shelf.

But now the bug has bitten again and I'm working on another new set of RPG rules. The working title right now is "Clockwork Capers" but that may turn into an adventure or series of adventures. This time, I'm using time honored rules for creating a set of RPG rules:

I'm using rules from other games.

Well, sort of. I'm taking elements from different games and melding them into a new rule set that may be the game system I've always wanted. It's a one-game mechanic system, you have to roll less than or equal to your attribute plus skill ranks to succeed. That's normal, but what's different is that the number of dice you roll isn't fixed, it varies based on the level of difficulty. The harder the task, the more dice you have to roll.

To make sure I finish this, I'm going to hold my first playtest in January, 2009.

More to come...

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: Looking for my Muse

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Uncle John's Rantings

Wherein the owner froths at the mouth

Entries tagged with rpg

Creating games and oh the work involved!

On Game Design

Once more into the breach...

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May 2020

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