Observations of the Fox

I calculated out what I need to produce the Town Guard boardgame ( the name is still subject to change ). To be eligible for The Game Crafter's contest, the total costing of the game has to come in at under $30 and it has to contain 12 figures. Costing $7.08 = 12 figures x $0.59 [Warrior][Rogue][Sorceress][Skeleton][Goblin][Knight][Dwarf Axeman][Orc][Elf][Adventurer][Zombie][Dwarf Crossbowman] $9.36 = 6 x $1.56 [108 cards (6 x 18 cards)] $0.44 = [1 rule document] $3.39 = [70 Circular Shards] $6.49 = [12 Large Hex Tiles] $2.99 = [Large Game Box (Top Wrap)] $29.75 Total I went through the figures during the week when I was fine-tuning ideas for the game. I was sure that all of the figures I wanted were 59 cents...but now when I look through them, I see that only the elf, dwarf and goblin figures are that price. Most of the human figures are 79 cents or even 99 cents. Since I'm cutting the budget pretty tight, I could exchange one or two figur...

What will this be?

This is an example of how a character will be constructed in the "Town Guard" game. A left half gives a character trait descriptor, while the right half gives a character race. Each trait half distributes four points between the four attributes (1 at 2 pts, 2 at 1 pt each, 1 with no pts). Each racial half distributes ten points across the attributes (2 at 4 pts, 1 at 2 pts, 1 at no pts...the image is wrong, but it's give an idea.). Each half gives an ability, which might be an action that can be taken at certain times, or a modifier that applies in certain circumstances. I don't know if we need anything more for the game at this time. A character compares their total attribute to a difficulty threshold when the confront a mission; easy missions have a difficulty of 3, moderate missions are 6, hard missions are 9. Each mission has a specific attribute that is used to confront it. The example character above would have no trouble contesting easy missions u...

The idea is a cross between Munchkin and Small World. Each player gets a character made up of a trait and a race...eg. "Studious"/"Elf", "Beserker"/"Halfling". The assorted characters are the members of a town guard, they will be paid bonuses for completing assignments and keeping the town in order. But they each want the bonus, and they aren't afraid to sabotage their fellow guardsmen. The characters move across a town map and complete missions that will keep the peace. Undertaking those mission requires meeting a certain difficulty/target number, you need to play cards to boost your skill up to the target number, and you can play cards to boost the target number facing your fellow guardsmen. Characters who complete missions earn gold, allies, equipment and other rewards that make future missions easier to achieve.   It's for the Game Crafter's Miniature Based Game Contest. Anyone interested?

A few people may know that I generated up a Goblin Tarot Deck in late 2011. I ran a crowd funded project to get it up and running, and while it made the necessary money to get funded, I didn't consider how much it would cost to get the decks sent out to people. I didn't want to let down those people who'd given me their money, so I've slowly been processing the orders and the project has almost reached it's conclusion...one more package to go. As a part of these final deliveries I've been putting together some special images, taking extra care on the cold-cast resin boxes, and trying to give people value for their money (even if I've been bad with the timing). Here are some of the sketches that have been sent to the those awesome people who've been patient and have offered so much to me for this project. I just thought I'd share.

Not much text for this one, I think the image should be pretty self explanatory.

The Game Crafter is running a contest to design a game that uses miniatures. I've meant to enter previous contests run by them, but things have just gotten in the way. This time I have plenty of ideas again, but which one do I use... Voidstone chronicles could be a good candidate, so could a few others. I've until mid June to work something out. Go over and have a look... Miniatures Challenge

In case the total isn't obvious, this is a test post to see if the new mobile blogging platform works. I'm adding a work in progress picture, a map for Voidstone Chronicles that I'm working on.

I wanted to write Voidstone Chronicles in the Pocketmod format; 8 pages of concise game rules. But it just isn't working for me. So, I'm amending my plans. I'm now tossing up whether to use a full book, or a series of pocketmods to cover various aspects of the system (one for character generation, one for adventuring, one for combat, one for magic, etc). It probably doesn't help that I've also produced 20 pages of illustrations for the setting so far.

To make it clear, this is an idea separate from experience. Experience systems in roleplaying games tend to be a way that the character learns from the events they participate in, they may gain knowledge from overcoming a monster or they may improve their skills by repetitive use. Experience is a measure of how a character develops within themselves, renown and prestige systems are ways in which the character is perceived by the community around them. In many games, the two are intrinsically interlinked. An adventurer in old-school D&D gradually fights enough monsters and overcomes enough encounters, through this time they become known in the local community and when they develop enough power there comes a time when followers flock to them and eventually they might even build a castle or stronghold of their own. But the paradigm starts to crumble with characters like assassins who try to remain as secretive as possible, or rangers and barbarians who live far from the eyes...

For those who haven't seen the types of characters who will be running around, and having adventures in the world of Voidstone Chronicles...here is the kind of thing you can expect. This particular young lady could be a warrior or rogue from the Air clans to the east of the world. This illustration was done by me, but I have a range of other artists who have off their services to the project and I hope to share some more of their work soon.

I've been working on some ideas for battle maps to be used in Voidstone chronicles. At this stage I'm not sure whether to follow this concept of CGI terrain, or whether to draw hem up manually with a more anime vibe.

The core system of Voidstone Chronicles is based on the core system of Tooth and Claw. The combat system is a complication on that basic die rolling mechanism, with the hope to give more of a video game style of vibe. The combat wheel is the main modification here, but I'm still toying with ways to make things run smoothly while adding some more strategic elements into play. One of the things that I've recently been considering is the notion of variable predefined successes based on the actions chosen. For example, combat with a sword might be split into thrusts or slashes...if you get extra degrees of success on a thrust it might do more damage, while if you earn more successes with a slash it might take less time to accomplish this action. The mechanism can be found in the Cadwallon RPG from Rackham, and it seems to be a nice way to differentiate weaponry without getting into lots of nuanced technicality that really slows down a game. A couple of the ideas I've had ...

This notion of a twelve step combat track seems to be generating a bit of interest, which is great. So it's time to move forward on the concept...time to really get into the minutiae of how the system works and how to keep it running smoothly in a variety of situations. Characters in this system are chosen avatars of spiritual forces, perhaps demigods. They are a distinct class separate from the citizens of the world, they will be constructed by combining a heroic path (an occupation)  with their culture (the people they grew up with). Each of these will be defined by a single pocketmod booklet, and the character will be written up in their own pocketmod. In addition to the character's pocketmod, there will be a series of quick reference cards indicating weapons/armour/equipment and special powers/spells available (Much like the way you open up side menus and submenus when you are playing a computer game). There will also be combat manoeuvres written on cards so they can...

(I know, I should be up to 9 or even 10 by now) Dungeons and Dragons has alignments. Vampire the Masquerade has paths of morality. Judeao-Christians have the ten commandments. Description: There are paths that govern our actions in the real world and there are paths that govern our character's actions in the imagined worlds of our roleplaying sessions. Different games handle Morality in different ways, sometime regimenting the concepts into the rules and experience systems, and sometimes leaving the area of morality as a "fruitful void" to be explored through the emerging situations as story, mechanisms and players intersect. Why do we need morality systems in a game? The simple answer is that we don't. There have been plenty of D&D campaigns that have done away with the concept of alignment, ands the concepts of "humanity" and "morality" have been hand-waved in a vast number of Vampire campaigns that I'm aware of. Some games don...

If there's one thing I love about the movie "Suckerpunch", it's the epic combat sequences. One girl against a giant biomechanical demonic samurai, a team of physically adept specialists rnning through treches against hordes of undead steam-powered nazis...forget the story, if the story is good then that's a bonus, you don't sit down to watch a movie like this for it's engrossing plot (there have been plenty of critiques about the storyline of Suckerpunch scattered across the web...I really don't want to get into them here). It's really anime in its style. Epic sword fights, epic gunplay, over the top action. It is what I'd love to see in Voidstone Chronicles. I think the combatcrcle described in the last post is a good step in that direction, it allows combat to become a fluid thing, not divided into discreet rounds. I want this combat system to tell stories, like the conflicts in Suckerpunch, or in anime, or the duel between Inigo Montoya ...