Tag: Street Rats

Hammercalled Design Objectives (Or “Why You Should Play Hammercalled”)

I’ve become a bigger fan of planning recently as a way to prevent mission creep, and it was very effective for velotha’s flock, which released (mostly) on-schedule without any sacrifices to its core content.

So, as we move into Hammercalled entering regular testing by April and potentially being available to the public in its first wave release around that time, I want to share what my design objectives are for the game.

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Title Release Dates for March 2018

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:

  • combat
  • characters
  • gear
  • vehicles

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:

  • super-technology
  • cyberspace (maybe?)
  • non-human characters
  • advanced talents and traits

Then we’re going to have an Othenar release, which will focus on:

  • magic
  • well, pretty much just magic, really, but that’s a heck of a beast

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.

Things I Learned from Being a GM & a Designer

I’ve been a GM and game designer for years now, and one thing that’s always struck me about the process is how much skills overlap there is in the process, and how many nuggets of wisdom carry over from one to the other. I’ve been thinking about some key points now that I’m working on two projects that should see the light of day relatively soon.

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March Status Update

I’ve been meaning to get better about blog communication stuff, and this will be the place I do so. I’ve got a number of projects underway right now, and some I’ve got brewing in my head and I may or may not start once I get stuff done.

Before I get started, I’d like to point out that working on multiple projects is a good thing for me right now; I write whenever I have a good idea or inspiration for design, which means that individual projects grow a little more slowly, but mechanics get more polish and I have much greater net productivity.

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Street Rats Alpha 3 Released

Street Rats is now in Alpha 3! This update isn’t the largest update ever in Street Rats’ history, but it has some of the largest reaching effects on gameplay and is a marked improvement. There’s not much in the way of new features, but play has been improved significantly. Since you’re probably already privvy to the changelog if you own it on DriveThruRPG, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to you if you don’t yet, since it’s pretty much simple improvement stuff going on.

For more commentary and explanations, read on after the break.

You can get the core rulebook over at DriveThruRPG: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/169540/Street-Rats-Alpha

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Revising Hacking in Street Rats

Street Rats has actually been seeing updates the past couple weeks, despite me not posting about them here. Part of the reason for this is because there haven’t been a whole ton of progress on bits that I consider particularly interesting, more just on things that have to get done to get a finished  game out. There have been some adjustments in plans. First, most of the setting is getting cut from the main book; some brief blurbs will be available, but Phoenix in the UAS will be the only setting place to get wide coverage. I want to keep Street Rats’ total running length below 300 pages, and something had to be cut.

One of the other things getting “cut” is the hacking rules as they stand. Right now they are not only bulky, but they’re too similar to other games on the market that have widespread problems on account of… their hacking systems. Hacking should be both a robust experience and a quick one, so it is getting new and exceptional mechanics; this puts it a little outside the rest of Street Rats, but when dealing with cyberspace such things are necessary.

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Street Rats Alpha 2.0 Released

Keeping on course with the weekly update schedule I’ve been attempting, Street Rats Alpha 2.0 has been released. If you’ve been playing Street Rats already, you might wind up having (or wanting) to remake your character, as there have been significant changes to the character creation process and some of the Duties have been tweaked and rebalanced. More after the break.

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Street Rats Alpha 1.1

Street Rats Alpha 1.1 has arrived. It’s been a frantic week, but we’ve been able to do some things, including setting up a nice new forum which should make us a little more open to people and have our own little corner of the web, but mostly revolving around a pretty nice changelog (if I may say so myself). A lot of the things that really cheesed me off about the state that I released Alpha 1.0 in have been fixed (note that I try to release something every December 24th, which is why it was released as it was.

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Street Rats: Alpha 1.0 Released!

Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone! I am pleased to announce and officially publish the alpha version of Street Rats, a cyberpunk roleplaying game that I’ve been working on for the past few months.

The year is 2098. As humanity prepares to move into the 22nd century, it must come to terms with the horrors and splendors of the 21st century. Nuclear war, the creation of digital sentient “life”, international identification databases, and the rise of corporations and secret societies behind the scenes have shaped the tide of world events.

Street Rats uses a core mechanic with a d20 and margins of success and failure, combining rapid single-die play with a hybrid class-based and point-buy system and quick lifepath character creation: you can get ready to play in a matter of minutes!

Download links after the break.

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