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Showing posts from April, 2017

40k retrospective

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I was reading through this article about early 40k , it's a really interesting read and intersects a few ideas I've had over the last few months. A few points... I generally agree with the idea that GW has never given a good reason why they got rid of Squats as a faction, but I suspect it was easier to rebrand the "Space Elves" as Eldar (and now "Aeldari" to conceal that origin even further), while the "Space Dwarves" would be too hard to dissociate from their Dwarven heritage. I miss the bad puns in GW character names. I miss a lot of that old 80s attitude, but I've moaned about that here on the blog a few times. There have been so many missed opportunities by Games Workshop in the desire to simply sell more minis...again something I've moaned about a few times. I really miss that early idea of a techno-fantasy battleground. I'd totally love to do a mixed 40k/Fantasy battle. It's a shame the games keep diverging furth...

An era has passed

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One of the most influential people in my life, I will now never get the chance to meet. The Author of Zen and the Art of MOtorcycle Maintenance has passed away. One of my favourite RPGs of all time is Mage: the Ascension, and this game is heavily based on the two books written by Pirsig. ZatAoMM and Lila, both define elements of the game, the former providing a context for the magical attribute of Arete (representing both an inherent understanding and one-ness with the universe, akin to a level of divinity...but not quite, I can't make a glib single sentence description...just go and read the book already ), the latter providing a deeper context for paradigms and ways of viewing the universe ( again...just read the damn book ). I used to read these two books annually, but it's been a while since I did so. I must get around the reading them again. I've also got a book called "Zen and Now" in which another author and motorcyclist traced the journey taken b...

Heavy Armour Test

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First thoughts on the "200 words" entries.

Maybe it's easier and quicker to explain something if the existing audience has a common point of reference. I've talked about this a few times over the years. Shorthands and stereotypes instantly convey a wealth of information as a direct data packet between the communicator and the recipient of the message. Once those are out of the way, the real storytelling (or new data flow) can be started. I base a lot of my games on that strategy. Characters are often made up from template fragments, where choosing the naturally fitting components leaves a player with a stereotype or caricature, while choosing disparate components gives a memorable and different character (but one with internal struggles that cause problems of their own). But that's playing within the rules. Playing with the rules is something different. I consider hacks to be lazy game design, they basically shorthand something that players and GMs are already familiar with, then apply something quirky or novel ...

Collaborative Worldbuilding

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Here on the blog I've generated a couple of worlds in two distinct series of posts about world-building. But I love the idea of creating something collaboratively, to generate something that no individual mind could have achieved on it's own. I've done collaborative worldbuilding a few times before, and have often found that you need to walk a careful tightrope to avoid generating something that "looks like it was designed by committee". Lets see where it heads.  

200 Words (Part 2)

Looks like it's fine to post these 200 word games for feedback while the contest is going...so here's the second iteration of what I've been working on. Old Scratch There were thirteen of you at the start; each gaining a supernatural talent from a ritual exactly one decade ago. Tonight, back at the crossroads, Old Scratch calls his due. Thirteen “power coins” at centre of table. Start 13 pages with sentence describing character before the ritual, then number 1-10 down the page (1/year) Write these questions on index cards, each player also writes their own question on a card…     Who was betrayed?     W hat was sacrificed?     Who died? (choose NPC; remove question if none left) All players dealt a five-card hidden hand (standard deck). Each chooses a page (others are NPCs) Sequence     Begin Year     Randomly Deal Questions     Everyone cuts deck, highest goes first. ...

200 Word RPGs

It's that time of year... I have to write roughly 30,000 words worth of university assignments...and 200 words worth of RPG. If you're not sure what I'm talking about...visit this link. I've completely one of the 3 uni assignment and a single 200 word RPG entry. Now it's just another 18,000 words worth of university assignments to go before Thursday. I can't remember if I'm allowed to post the game design idea somewhere else before I enter it in the contest, otherwise I'd include it below.

No humans

After a few recnt projects, I'm falling more in love with the idea of settings where there are no humans. Instead, I'm thinking more of multicultural/multi-racial settings, where the default race isn't specifically defined as human, but is instead defined as a mongrel hybrid of the setting's original races. Then throwing in the twist that there are "mongrel/human" supremacist groups who claim to be the most powerful in the land, only because they are the most numerous...certainly not because they are the most pure. I come to this again as I consider a fantasy version of The Law. But I need to make sure the base version is complete first...and I need to eliminate some university projects before I can go much further on that.

Further Flavours in the Mix

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Further to yesterday's post , I couldn't add Blade Runner wholesale into the mix, because Blade Runner is essentially an empty world, where the remains of humanity exist in vast technological cities while the majority of humanity has already ascended to the stars. The concepts of policing in Blade Runner are also quite different to the authoritarian attitudes of policing in the Judge Dredd universe (and that remains the core concept around which other elements must fit). But just because I can't mesh the two completely, it doesn't mean they are mutually exclusive, after all they both fit in the cyberpunk mould. I can certainly add elements of Blade Runner to the mix, Replicants might be a potential fit for the setting, along with robotic animals (because the natural animals are now rare due to planetary environmental degradation). Flying vehicles are common to both settings. I'm sure there are numerous other little bits and pieces that could be ported across....

Other Inspirations

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When I create projects I can never draw on a single inspiration. It's probably one of those reasons why I can't handle straight up fan fiction... I need to create something new, something interesting and a bit different. So I'm thinking of adding elements of  Max Headroom  into the mix for "The Law". Maybe a few other cyberpunk elements... It's just a case of working out what works best for the vibe I'm aiming at. Throwing a few blatant call-outs into the mix, and a few easter eggs for those who know what they're looking for. But with Max Headroom as an 80s British take on a Amercian dystopia, it clearly has to be involved.

Cityscape Images

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I think we're getting a good feel for the urban blight of The Law with these images, just a few more to go.

16-Bit Law

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(Click image to zoom in) Maybe I shouldn't bother with all the post work on these images. Maybe instead, I should just stop the render 6.25% of the way through (at the end of the second of the four rendering passes). This leaves the images with the kind of blocky pixellated art that we saw in "high-end" computer games of the late 80s and early 90's. The general imagery I've been aiming for in The Law has been inspired by punk 'zines, Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and the comic 2000 AD circa early 80's... but if I shifted that to circa 1990, it could turn into something very different. (I just looked at my screen at roughly this point in the rendering process, and that's what crossed my mind)