Observations of the Fox

Of course my favourite completed game at the moment is The Law . It feels like the best possible evolution and convergence of the systems I've been developing and publishing for years. A few of my other games will always have a special place in my heart, and in the future I might create another game that becomes my new favourite. My favourite uncompleted game would be my Walkabout project. But it demands a degree of attention that I just can't afford to give it at the moment.  Sometimes I wish that I had worked on one of those big tentpole games that everyone knows, but just because I'm a white male designer it doesn't mean I automatically get in on those prestigious titles. Being on the opposite side of the world to those conventions where everyone gets to meet each other face to face doesn't help. 

In Walkabout, I toyed with the idea of character points as a way to determine whether characters were "interesting". With three different aspects to determine a character, each player receives six points; all characters need a culture, an edge and a dance. Common aspects cost one of those six points, uncommon aspects cost two of those points, rare aspects cost three, and super unique aspects might cost four (if group consensus allows them in the game). If a character has any points left over, they may purchase a quirk (which adds a bonus and a penalty to the character). Since all characters need to fill in all three aspects, that means a player could choose to have a "rare" culture (3pts), but that means they'd only have point to purchase an "uncommon" edge or dance, while the other would have to be a common variety...or maybe they could pick up two commons and add a quirk. All of the various aspects are equally balanced mechanically, the point sy...

This post is testing a theory...I can upload the map with my laptop and type in the text with my iPad. The general idea here is that you can build complex maps from simple sets of 2-phase geomorphs. All you need are a few geomorphs that link the sets, and a couple of signature hexes to bring out key points of interest.  Since there has been some strong interest in this series, I'll try to keep the inertia rolling with regular posts (despite the difficulties this poses).

In case you haven't seen it, Dyson Logos is running a contest where he has supplied a part of a map, and has requested people to finish it off. Here's my first attempt. (Shown with cat for scale) There are some other great entries over at... http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/further-maps-of-the-dungeon-of-lost-coppers/ Have a look at how creative people can be with a core concept to work from.  Once you've had a look, you might be inclined to attempt the contest for yourself.

I'm working on a few new character types for Ghost City Raiders, but a few things are bugging me. I like games where different characters bring new strategies and play styles to the table. The miniatures game "Malifaux" does this with certain heroic characters possessing abilities that flip core rule concepts on their heads to make wildly different play experiences...this means that some of the heroes are much harder to wrap your head around when you first start to play them, but it adds a quirky strategic element to play. The different teams in "Blood Bowl" do this as well, but at a simpler level. One team might have better stats for throwing the ball, and thus they become more strategically adapted toward a throwing game, while another team might have stats (and abilities) that lend themselves to a running game. I'm a bit worries that my first batch of characters for this game are all a bit vanilla. None of them really flip the game around in any d...

Just a quick note to show everyone the updated format for the first Ghost City Raiders scenario Gold Fever Scenario Update

It appears that I made a mistake in the first version of the core pocketmod playbook rules for Ghost City Raiders. I didn't include the end of turn sequence for refreshment and rejuvenation. While I was adding this in, I decided to add a bit of formatting to the project. Ghost City Raiders (version 2) Some time in the next couple of days I hope to have a couple of sample characters to send raiding in the rusted cities of a fallen world.

So, three days in, and I've had house-guests for the entire month so far. We were intending to have a Halloween party tonight...but that looks like a bit of a bomb. So I'm now working away on game design again. I've found an interesting template for a technical manual which will form the basis for the "Guide to Outback Survival". Once I plug the necessary titles in place and generate up a bunch of place-holder paragraphs, the guide expands out to 70 pages or so, and that's before images are put it. I'm gradually working through the place-holder paragraphs now. Trying to find the inspiration necessary to turn the random strings of " lorem ispum " text into intelligible phrases that make sense for the book. I joked over on the facebook page that I create games by doing the layout first...and this time I've actually done that for the survival guide. The catch is that the survival guide seems to be turning into more of a "Lonely Pla...

This year NaGaDeMon seems to be getting a decent crowd of participants. I've already put my hand up with the intention of getting a finalised second edition of Walkabout into people's hands (the first edition was created for Game Chef 2010). I'm hearing a few good things about some of the other games that people are intending to produce. For everyone who is participating, good luck. For those who aren't, go and have a look at the Google plus page or the Facebook group. They seem to be the two places where the action is focused.

My two design projects for this year have gotten to that point where things are locking into place...that has its advantages and disadvantages. Both games ("Hell on Eight Wheels" and "Walkabout") have a good solid framework, they both have some innovative systems (or at least retool existing systems in innovative ways), they work well in my mind, and have gone through a decent number playtest examples and simulations. But now I've reached that point where I just have to focus and get them finished. I really like these two games, I think they've both got some great potential for an entertaining evening (or afternoon...or morning). Its that point where I just have to focus on them and get them right. Both games need to be written up formally in a way that makes sense to someone reading them for the first time. In this regard, Hell on Eight Wheels needs a good series of procedural play instructions (and some solid explanations for play), it has a few of t...