Observations of the Fox

   8-bit gaming...actually, I think the colour range above is closer to 16-bit gaming. When I started working on this idea, it was called BYOM (Bring Your Own Miniatures), because I knew I wouldn't have the resources to release a range of miniatures to go with a wargame (or even a skirmish game), and because I've got heaps of minis from companies that have gone bust, or simply one-off minis from indepedent producers who never had their own rule set to work with. I wanted to make a fun set of rules that worked on a basic grid, where players could bring their minis from a variety of genres to explore a variety of settings and scenarios.  It's still a valid idea, but these days players could 3d-print their own minis and terrain, or still buy stuff from assorted vendors who are designing a wide array of interesting stuff. I've seen so many new terrain and miniature manufacturers in recent years that I've thought about revisiting this concept. I had been looking (a few y...

  They're here. I've been so busy with other stiff, while building the Tulou and Fortress on the side, that I didn't even realise that the Cathayan Miniatures have already dropped.  Now it's just a case of gathering together some funds, buying a battalion box, and a sky lantern box, and a shugenja riding a dragon, and... this is going to get expensive. Then finish the tulou before they get here.  

So, I've probably mentioned already that there are issues that have prevented me from continuing my high school tabletop roleplaying club. As far as I'm aware, there are investigations still ongoing, and I'm not allowed to publicly disclose what's happening. However, I'm also aware that there are a few regular readers of the blog who know exactly what's going on. I've got a half dozen students who ask me on at least a weekly basis to give them updates on the situation, and I know that as soon as the club is ready to go again, it will resume with a bang.   In the meantime, I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.   I reached out to the Warhammer Alliance , to get the tools ready to start a new club, or at least expand the potential within the club once it resumes activities. The starter kit had to be sent to a school address, so I was thankful that the front office staff notified me immediately on it's arrival yesterday. This evening I unboxed it. ...

It always begins with an idea. The idea was to make some terrain in preparation for the final arrival of the Cathayan miniatures in Warhammer. I posted a link to the video...but here it is again... I've been waiting 30 years for this...well actually I've been waiting for the Nippon miniatures because I wanted to have samurai and ninja running around the table fighting off against Skaven and Chaos cultists and anything else that might be found in the Warhammer Old World... I figure the Nippon might be further down the track, and might be a barely touched spin off like the Brettonian armies, the Kislevites, or the Tilean trade guilds. At least we're getting the Cathayans, and that's a great start. My wife wants a full army (because we've got a queen coming who can magically transform into a dragon, and military hot air balloons), I want a full army... so we'll need some terrain to display our models on and to work as signature pieces to add to a table for conducti...

Have I mentioned Mana Crusade?  I'm sure I did.  If not, it's getting a second playtest sequence next next. The whole game was developed by Erin Gumiho, a friend I was introduced to a few years ago, even though she had moved in a few of the same circles as me for years. I've bounced ideas back and forward with her, but Mana Crusade is her baby. A private Discord saw a few of the team from Beneath the Glass and Steel throw some support and input into the game.  The idea is that the core rules are on a tri-fold which also serves as the character sheet. The complete rules are no more than another tri-fold. I guess you'd basically describe it as a single character narrative war-game for several players to play concurrently. It draws a bit from the old Inquisitor game from the Warhammer 40k Universe, and maybe a bit from the old Braunstein games that started off the whole RPG hobby.  Everything else in the game is written on cards that get attached to the character sheet...

I've done sequences of blog posts on mapping and geomorphs . I've also done a sequence on building terrain elements ... so none of this is particularly out of the ordinary, it's just been a while since I've done a series of posts like this. For this project of physical geomorphs, I need to work out what sorts of environment I'll be simulating with the tiles. For this, I'll think about the various types of miniatures in our collection, because there will be conflicts where one side or another has home ground advantage... there will also be a range of locations that are just fun to play scenarios in. My wife has a small horde of undead miniatures, which would tend to imply a graveyard or necropolis of some type. She also has a horde of fantasy celts, so a suitable village, some forests, rolling hills, or farmlands might be appropriate. I've got a bunch of goblins and gremlins from various games, who might be found in swampy or bayou areas. I've also...

Yes, there's probably a better title for this sequence of posts... but that was first to come to mind. In 2008-2009, at Gencon Oz, I met the team from Griffin who were spruiking their "Ultimate Table Top Terrain" (or UTTT) system. It's been that long since I've wanted to do something with their products, and a cursory glance across the internet seems to indicate they might not even exist any more (they do still have a Facebook group , so I'd love to hear if they're still active at some level) Evidence of the UTTT product can be found scattered across the web, with images on Pinterest and general search engine results. I liked the system because it was made up of hexes that could be linked together like geomorphs. The hexes were also a decent size, with 37cm (just under 15 inches) across the points of the hex, and 32.1cm (just under 13 inches) across the flats. A few hexes could be laid out, with half hexes, and "shards" to create a dec...

Two train trips this week meant two false starts on a new project. I start things to keep my mind active, because grinding down on existing projects is often monotonous, and frustrating. The problem here is that I realise, once I get a bit into the "new" project that it isn't really new at all. Quite often I'm just retreading the same ground, or fusing together elements of two old projects. It's like taking a massive journey, walking a few hundred metres from home, going back to the house and then starting another journey the next day. Even if you set out in different directions every day, you don't really get anywherr, but you do develop intimate knowledge of the local area around your house. I feel like I've developed that intimate knowledge in a specific field of game design, but it doesn't feel like an area that many other people want to play in. It's adjacent to a few different more popular areas, and occasionally another designer will...

I've done 50 of these modular dungeon geomorph components now, and gradually I've been trying to push the envelope with them. I've similarly generated about 40 tables to go with various maps (where a few of those tables have been applied to two geomorphs because they just worked... or because my muse fled as I was putting together the 10-map booklets). Another 10 of these, and I'll be ready to upload a new batch to the store... then it might be time to take a break and work on some other projects for a bit.

The Modular Dungeon project was primarily designed as a tool to quickly lay out a battle map for the "Bring Your Own Miniatures" system I was working on. As a secondary objective, it was intended to be versatile enough that it could be used with a variety of games that use grid based combat systems. But the BYOM system isn't just a combat system, it is intended to have teams of miniatures fulfilling objectives and weaving together ongoing narrative. That means it's time to add some more variation to the maps... variation in the form of quirky things to do, objectives, and other elements. To those ends... here are some pipes which will be embedded into one of the next batches of maps. I'll probably also include some pipe valves to be manipulated.   

There are a lot of fiddly rules if I want to cover all the contingencies that might arise in a game like this. It's easy to see how rulebooks for wargames can run into hundreds of pages, especially when there are rule lawyers who look for loopholes in the rules to exploit to their advantage. Everything needs to be worded incredibly carefully if a design is going to follow this methodology. I don't know that I really want this game to completely go in that direction, but it's already started creeping beyond the minimalist aesthetic. The working document is currently over 13000 words, and I haven't even started detailing the background of the world intended to serve as the backdrop for the game, or the various schools of magic and their available spells. More to go. I just hope I don't lose too much motivation on this project before I finish... or suddenly find another twist in my life that totally disrupts the project. I feel like one of those is one the horizon...

I don't claim to be a brilliant painter of miniatures. I've won a couple of contests here and there, but I certainly haven't had the available time or resources over the years to dedicate myself to that craft. As I'm putting together the illustrations for this project, I'm choosing an assortment of my figures from lesser known manufacturers, and figures for whom I can't even remember who the manufacturers are. After all, that's one of the main points of the game. I wish I still had that multi-thousand dollar camera for taking these shots.

After reworking the rules, it's easier to work through the pixellated layouts. There's still a bit more work to do on these, and when they are compiled into their book, there will be a lot more detail around these pixel images, and a range of supporting play examples. It's actually starting to feel like this project is getting somewhere.

Drawing up the rules for this new miniatures game in the form of pixel art is a delicate process, and it really requires knowing how the rules work in advance before the layout can be developed. It's not like writing things up in a word processor where it's easy to delete a letter or even a word, because the pixelisation causes minor changes to instantly cascade, and the programs I'm using don't do things automatically for me. At the moment, I'm looking at producing two or three pixel images for each section of the rules. That means two for character and team generation, two to describe the majority of elements in the play sequence, two for the down-time sequence between games, etc. Over the past week, I've really refined the rules for creating characters and teams to use in the game, and with this solidly in my mind it has meant that I've been able to spend an afternoon and evening redrawing the pixel art.  

Just when I thought Games Workshop was irredeemable, the last few years have shown some really interesting products released by them. Female figures for various factions, new rumours of plastic Sisters of Battle, Age of Sigmar skirmish rules, a revised Necromunda, and now Warhammer 40k Kill Team . It's almost like they want to get new people into the hobby, and get people who left them to return. A lot of these ideas seem designed around the idea that not all players want massive armies with 100 figures a side playing battles that take hours to resolve. It goes against the ethos that they've been pushing for years, where the aim has been to push players to buy as many figures, codexs and terrain pieces as possible... an ethos that has driven away most of the players I know who have been struggling to justify expenses on hobby goods when rental and utility prices have been increasing far faster than their wages, and surviving is more important than play diversions. This idea o...

Something I've often found in the games that I've run is a need to balance rigidity and flexibility. Order and chaos. If I'm going to run a game in a clearly defined and highly detailed world, I'll prefer to give the players free rein in that world, letting them set their own goals and agendas while exploring and revealing the unknown. If I'm going to run a game with distinct scenes and elements that follow a specific narrative to their conclusion, I'll tend to give the players more room to describe the setting and the world leading up to that conclusion. A defined world with a defined narrative feels too "railroady", unless the players have some other outlet to express their creativity. Perhaps the setting and the over-riding narrative arc are just a framework for play, while the dramatic tension and creative outlet come from the interactions and relationships between characters. Such statically framed relationship games have been a fertile ground f...

...and why do we care? ...and how do we get it? ...and what difference does it make? (You could probably add a dozen follow up questions of your own) I've discussed the notion numerous times over the years (such as here , here , here , here , and here ). My thoughts generally haven't changed. It's possible to have asymmetric characters and still have fun in a game, but if you're going to do this you need to make sure the unbalanced elements of the game are offset in some way, or maybe make the game about something that isn't impacted by those unbalanced elements. Have a game with an awesome warrior, a street urchin, and a wizard... then make the game about their relationships with the community where they live. Of the posts linked above, the most relevant for my current thoughts is the third one ( about "point-buy" systems ). Once you know what the game is about, and once you've decided that players may be competing against one another...

Part two of the "Bring Your Own Miniatures" concept is a series of modular maps. I may not have the capacity to produce miniatures, but I can make my own maps, so these will be included as a part of the final game. I've been working on these maps for a while, drawing up the various layers, creating textures, and generally getting the comonents in order so that they can be scanned at A3, then reduced in size to A4/Letter size, giving squares of roughly 25-30mm which is the standard base size for many miniature battlegames. Finally, I've managed to scan a couple of these images and digitally manipulate them into something that approaches the desired end product. More work to go, we're still not done yet.

I've just spent today writing abilities for "Bring Your Own Miniatures" and I've realised something. I think I've been writing the game in the exact way that I've said I hate. I think I've been designing by exception, creating a series of little rules to cover specific situations rather than my usual game design paradigm of creating a limited set of large sweeping rules that add complexity where they overlap. But the thing is, when I look at most miniatures rule systems, this is exactly how most of them do it. On the positive side, after discussing the game with some other Aussie designers, I think I've reconciled some of my problems with race and culture for this game. I've looked up the formal dictionary definitions, and something that manifests as a result of genetic input is referred to as simply a "trait", so that's what I'll be using in the game as a name for abilities derived from a character's genetic herit...