Observations of the Fox

Just when I thought I'd have some time to work on a couple of games and get a few long standing projects back in order... I end up on the front line. One of the "essential" workers in society, as a school teacher now required to generate physical lesson plans, as well as digital versions for students in rural locations where internet may or may not be a reliable thing. I'm sure things will calm down soon, but the nature of that calm is unpredictable at this time. More coming soon. --- P.S. It's really starting to feel like I'm writing the prologue to my own Apocalypse Daries story. I'm almost getting the feeling that it's time to swap out the LARP tips on my arrows for the live/hunting tips. We'll see where this goes.

This pandemic has hit fast hasn't it. A month ago, we heard there was an illness but it was mostly confined to China, with a few outbreaks that generally seemed under control in other parts of the world. NOw, it's everywhere. Folks are self-quarantining, others are disappearing (hopefully they'll be back after a social media isolation period), people are hoarding, infrastructure is collapsing. As a teacher in the Australian state of New South Wales, I have been deemed an essential worker in the community, which means I'm not on self isolation but I feel for the folks who are. It's really starting to feel like the opening scenes to either of the two game projects that I've been toying with for years. Walkabout starts with an undisclosed apocalypse. It alludes to some environmental catastrophe, and implies a time of darkness and chaos when people turned on each other. That basically derives from the Mad Max movies more than anythng about nuclear holocaust, ...

I'm even behind in my catch up, where I had intended to do seven days each post until the end of the month. So, back to the RPGaDay treadmill. Maybe one post this morning, and another to finish everything off tonight. 15. Door A few years ago, I developed a system for analysing and considering roleplaying games. I called it my " Vector Theory ", and it has basically informed all my game designs ever since. The whole idea here is that a story moves in a linear path, sometimes straight, sometimes curving based on pre-existing elements in the setting. Sharp corners occur when game mechanisms come into play, with different types of mechanisms influencing the story path in diferent ways. Another analogous way to look at this might be a series of dungeon corridors. If you follow the story, you follow the corridor. Occasionally you'll see a door. It might lead to another corridor, following the story in a new direction, or it might lead to a room where a variety of ...

I've considered this idea a few times, but it's creeping back. The core rules for a game fit on a single sheet, and the entire character sheet fits on two sides of a bookmark. The important bit is the character's story,  and this is written out in a diary. The character sheet/bookmark is used to mark the place in the diary where the character is up to. When the adventure is over (or when travelling between towns), we can skip some pages until the next important events begin. If a character dies, their diary becomes an in-game journal and artifact of the setting. Future characters can find these as they resolve their own stories, perhaps finding clues that help their own stories. A diary used for these purposes would track other people met during a character's journey, as well as any character development that might impact the story for more than a couple of days (such as new skills, serious injuries, reputation/infamy, etc.). Each day should have enough room to w...

When I moved to this part of the world, I tried to find out how to get in contact with the local indigenous community. The first few people to give me an answer generally told me... "we don't have any". That rang alarm bells for me, because I'd seen from a few sources that I'd moved into traditional Barapa Barapa lands. Here's an example website that shows this . But I've also seen images of indigenous massacres since colonialism, and there's a notable marking in this part of the country. I'd been told by a couple of people that they'd be interested in hearing the story of indigenous communities here, and what happened to them, but I'd also been told that there might be some people with a strong interest in keeping those stories unknown. Either way, I really want to do something relating to the river, probably as a sourcebook for Walkabout. The name of the river on maps is the Murray, but in one of the indigenous languages it...

The first part of Apocalypse Diaries is based on the typical teen soap opera that was prevalent on the TV channel CW, before all the DC superhero shows became popular. I guess those types follows are probably still screened, but they aren't really the kind of thing that keeps my interest for long. I've always found these shows more interesting when they get to they end of their run are are filled with stupid stuff to try and lure back the ratings. The bit between the shark jump and the inevitable axing. That's where these twisting storylines come from. Some are typical soap opera or teen drama fodder, some are a bit more extreme... they'll get more extreme as either time goes on or the apocalypse crashes across the world. The question is which events will be more chaotic, hopefully both will be good fodder for stories. I need more of these. Currently I'm thinking that there will be a playbooks depicting different types of characters, with 13 common story twists,...

Here's my current thoughts on Apocalypse Diaries. Pocketmod 1... the basic rules. Pocketmod 2... the specific variations to the rules for the character you've chosen (including character sheet on the back page) Pocketmod 3... the specific apocalypse for this character's story. To play the game, a player will need: three pocketmods a diary (with plenty of space to write in... probably a page per day) a pen a standard deck of cards (I envision players purchasing diaries that embody the lives of the character's before the apocalypse hits... girl character's being written in the cutest diaries that can be found, jocks writing their entries into diaries depicting their favourite sporting teams, business people writing into formal planners, etc.) Basic play procedure follows the Texas Hold 'Am procedure. Before you write anything, draw three cards. The highest of the three cards will describe either the person involved in the incident you are des...

It's killing me. If I had to put into words the barrier that's always in my way when I start working on Apocalypse Diaries, I don't think I could put it more succinctly than Paul Czege did over a decade ago. " When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't  fun. " Apocalypse Diaries has always been designed as solo play, which has meant that a player weaves their own narrative, but it's not designed to tell the story of a " Mary Sue " or a " Marty Stu ". ...well that's not entirely true. I don't care if the character's in Apocalypse Diaries start their lives without major problems, and with everyone desiring them and fawning over them. But this should only game make the apocalyptic fracture in the game more dramatic when all hell breaks loose. I want players to be able to introduce things, but not know if those things will be beneficial or detrimental to them u...

Here's a few of my scattered accumulated thoughts for this project... Draw three cards. If you drew more red cards than black, use this list to prompt today's response. (The lowest card determines the rank question.) A - What do you want most? 2 - What is stopping you getting it? 3 - What else do you want? 4 - What is stopping you getting it? 5 - What won't you sacrifice to reach your goals? 6 - What might you sacrifice to reach your goals? 7 - What will you sacrifice to reach your goals? 8 - What have you sacrificed already? 9 - What do you want people to know about you? 10 - What don't you want people to know about you? Face - What dream did you have last night? (Add the red joker, if not already present in the deck) If you drew more black cards than red, use this list to prompt today's response. (The lowest card determines the rank question.) A - Who do you like most? 2 - Who do you like least? 3 - Who do you respect? 4 - Who do you owe a ...

One of my white whale projects is called Apocalypse Diaries . The concept has generally revolved around a single player game, where the players literally buys a diary and writes entries in it day by day from the perspective of a fictional character. The entries they write form the basis of a story, where an iterative system provides writing prompts based on the previous things written while adding plot twists, benefits, complications, gradually developing the character and sometimes changing them as they respond to the events in the world. It was always intended to play out in two phases... pre-apocalypse and apocalypse... surviving in a Machiavellian world where the highest stakes are loss of reputation, friends, wealth, or possessions, followed by surviving in a world going to hell, where literal life and death are on the line. After the Catacomb Quest project, I'm thinking of revisiting the concept, perhaps running each phase of the game as a procedural engine in it's...

The series follows the adventures of the titular hero in the real world and in an alternate reality, referred to as the Outback. In the real world the Maxx is a vagrant, a "homeless man living in a box", while in the Outback he is the powerful protector of the Jungle Queen. The Jungle Queen exists in the real world as Julie Winters, a freelance  social worker  who often bails the Maxx out of jail. While the Maxx is aware of the Outback, Julie is not, though it is integral to both of their stories.    - Wikipedia Now imagine this as a game where the apocalypse is just around the corner. Is the "Outback" a flash forward to the apocalypse? Is it a spiritual world about to collide with our own and cause the apocalypse? When a character emerges from the "Outback", are they returning to our world, are they returning to the another realm? Can they really be sure of anything? If we assume that characters are viewing the "Outback" simply as some kin...

Thinking about storytelling from a GCR perspective has really made me think about different ways that storytelling and games can be united. This whole 'Rentpunk' thing has brought my attention to tw really interesting tools... Ren'Py and Twine Both of these are interactive storytelling engines, which seem to produce the kind of computer game stories that I associate with the term "Japanese cRPG". These are little tales that often revolve around relationships (boy chases girl, girl chases boy, boy chases boy, girl chases girl), and that might be because they are often developed by people with a fanatical devotion for anime. These two programs basically write "Choose-You-Own-Adventure" stories, and it would take a lot of work (or a good team) to get something that looks professional out of them. Their end product seems to be very linear, some might call it "narrative illusionism" because it looks like the player is making choices, but t...

Another of my White Whales...it's a single player game. During the first phase of the game, the character’s life is good. They start with a sizeable pool of resources at their disposal but minimal character depth. During the course of the first phase, it is easy for a character to convert their resources to character depth; but for every degree of depth the character gains, the fewer the resources they have at their disposal and the harder it will be for them to continue to operate in the shallow and superficial world of socialites and glamour.   At any time, the apocalypse will strike. When this occurs, the second phase begins. Many of the renewable resources of the first phase become single use entities, others disappear completely. Now the character must rely on their depth to get them through the worst of the events that the Apocalypse might throw against them. The game is played out with a single player writing out a diary of their character’s life in the worl...