Philosophy, writing, and reviews!
I don’t usually do a whole lot of talking about things that border on the political, but every once in a while I feel that there’s something that needs to be discussed in an open place by people who have a stake in it from all perspectives.
I’m an (admittedly amateur) game designer, and I work on tabletop roleplaying games. So far, this industry has not (typically) been targeted by moral panics, at least not as far as violent content goes.
I put off writing today and I want to go to bed, so I’m going to just toss out some quick release dates for stuff.
I’m having writer’s block on Oskan’s Prophet/Rediscovery/The Legacy of Eight novel. I’m going to go back to drafting and keep what I can, but I’m putting it on the backburner for now.
The advanced player’s guide for velotha’s flock is due March 20 to DriveThruRPG. I don’t have self-publish privileges yet, but that should make sure that it gets up before March 23.
I’m also working on a combat/gear test for Hammercalled. That will take the form of its own independent mini-setting and game. The name is still in the air, but it’s a post-apocalyptic take on political intrigue. Or, alternatively, a vehicle brawler set out in the desert.
The four core mechanics I want to test here are:
Plus the very basic frameworks needed for a playable game.
Once those core mechanics are finished, I’m going to move to Street Rats. The setting will be somewhat different from the old Street Rats, but it will maintain a lot of the core feel. That’s to test:
Then we’re going to have an Othenar release, which will focus on:
Once that’s done, we’ll bundle up the system and attach it to the Hammercalled system.
Is this a good idea?
I don’t know. It’s never been done. It gives us more time to build word of mouth before our big release, but it’s also going to be an adventure.
I hope you’ll stick with us through it.
Yesterday I talked about how Hammercalled was getting a simple-but-fulfilling action system, today I want to go into more detail about how each of those actions can be used in combat.
One quick thing to remember is that actions can be used in any order, and can be used simultaneously, or split apart to different parts of the turn. This impacts my decisions in some of the defensive rules, since I want Hammercalled to be quick-playing and not get bogged down.
Continue reading “Hammercalled Combat Revised, Part 2: Attack Actions, Move Actions, and Reactions”
I’ve gotten the idea that to get Hammercalled to the point that I want it to be at, I should probably break the development down into waves. The first wave of development is to focus on the gear and combat (the part of the game most currently developed, but also the most prone to needing a big overhaul.
When I started working on Hammercalled, I wanted a very complex combat system, but I’ve changed that to be more minimalist. I think that there are ways that I can still compete with and improve over equivalent market titles without falling foul of what I want to do here.
Continue reading “Hammercalled Combat Revised, Part 1: The Action Economy and Initiative”
As a GM, one of the greatest things that I found kept me back when I first started trying to provide a gaming experience to my players was my desire to create an “original experience” for them.
This led to a number of things that didn’t work: trying too hard to be original can mean that you reject the useful methods of the past that have been proven successful, and it can also mean that to compensate for the lack of existing material, you simply pass over into the realm of spectacle.
Disclaimer: I backed Spire’s Kickstarter campaign.
Spire (DriveThruRPG affiliate link) is a fantasy-punk (for lack of a better genre) roleplaying game designed by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor. The game is beautifully dark, focusing on cadres of drow forming resistance cells against high elf (aelfir) authoritarians ruling the titular Spire.
With velotha’s flock winding down (rather, still in fairly active development/maintenance, but not requiring 100% of my time), I want to take a moment to return to the Hammercalled Roleplaying Game and talk about what it needs as a game.
For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link). Moving into Peterson’s tenth chapter, the focus on honesty continues; this time with a focus on using precise language to simplify problems so that they can be solved.
As I’ve said a couple times before, this isn’t a review. I’m just using this post as a way to reflect on what I’ve read and commit it to memory (though readers are more than welcome to use it to pique their interest in the book or compare it to their own findings). A full review should be coming once I finish the book.
Continue reading “Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Rule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech”
Updated velotha’s flock today with some narrative poems and minor changes throughout. I’ve been putting in old German printers’ work, all based on Bible stories, to add some visual spice to the narrative. I think it’s pretty obvious that I used a bunch of Bible stories as inspiration.
This is just a tiny little post to let people here know.
I got Into the Breach today. It’s a tactical strategy game with roleplaying/roguelite elements. I figured that it would be an especially good case study after yesterday’s article on designing combat systems for games, and I was not disappointed.
The whole game is quite charming, as one would expect from a title from the FTL developers, though I think I enjoy it more than I enjoyed FTL (which I loved certain elements of, but didn’t particularly find replayable or mind-blowing, merely competent and well-designed).
Continue reading “Into the Breach Review & The Joys of Simple Combat”