Observations of the Fox

As a roleplaying and general observation blog, I need to post about the impending 5th edition of D&D... ...but since there are so many other people already doing this (and very enthusiastically I might add), I just can't find anything more useful to add to the topic. I'll go on showing the development of my own stuff.

There are a few games that seem a natural inspiration for Hell on Eight Wheels. These are game combining strategy, a bit of luck and human interaction. I see these three aspects as being important to game play, and a good game places at least two of these in constant tension. So first, a bit of theory. You could look back at some of my game vector theory posts to get an idea of where I’m heading with this idea, but at the simplest level there are three forces interacting on the play of a game. Luck is the easiest to spot, often in the form of a rolling die or a drawn card. The game of “Snakes and Ladders” is a clear example where the only factor contributing toward a win is the outcome of repeated die rolls. No matter how many times you’ve played before, the result is purely based on the dice. This makes for a fairly simple game, and one that can be played by virtually anyone with the smallest amount of instruction. Strategy is harder to achieve, but is can be seen most c...

I like Bloodbowl, the fantasy football game from Games Workshop. I’ve never been a huge fan, I haven’t played it enough to have a favourite team or a series of strategies for optimal play…in fact, most of the games of Bloodbowl that I’ve played have either ended early because we got distracted by something else, or one of the players walked out due to arguments or someone’s blatant manipulation of certain rules, thus exploiting a loophole and gaining a huge advantage within the game. The only team I have is an unofficial team of female players produced by Shadowforge miniatures ( www.shadowforge.com.au ); and of the two copies of the rules I have, one was given to me free by a friend when he was tossing out some old gaming stuff, the other was the freely downloadable living rules currently used to play the game in sanctioned tournaments ( http://www.bloodbowlonline.com/rules.shtml ). Perhaps I like the idea of Bloodbowl more than I actually like Bloodbowl. Bloodbowl basically r...

I was pretty slack with my blogging during 2011. Too busy attending to other things in my life. Don't worry, I haven't made a New Years Resolution to blog more often this year, or to blog with better quality...after all New Years Resolutions have a nasty habit of breaking apart after a month or so. Instead I've just decided that I'll be focusing my personal game design projects around two topics this year. First a redesign of the game "Walkabout" . Second, the development of a roller-derby board game called "Hell On 8 Wheels" . Over the course of the next few months, I'd like to share the development process of these game with everyone who reads the blog. If you've got some good ideas along the way, or some points that you'd like to make about my designs, please feel free to comment or get in contact with me via other means. I always love to hear other people's input. In addition to these topics I might throw in the occasi...

I've just looked at the blog and have seen that on the last few posts it has been adding a horrible white background to the text, and has changed the font on me... ...time to do some fiddling.

As a part of the miniatures/live action game based in my goblin world, I've got four ways of inflicting penalties on a target: Injury (Based on Bones) - A physical form of penalty Dishonour (Based on Bugs) - A social form of penalty Scourge (Based on Cogs) - A spiritual/psychic form of penalty Panic (Based on Tools) - A mental form of penalty If a goblin suffers a point of penalty, all actions within that spehere suffer a minor impairment. If a goblin suffers a second point in the same form of penalty, all actions within that sphere suffer a major impairment. If a goblin suffers a third point in the same form of penalty, they are removed from play for the remainder of the turn. At the end of the turn there is a chance that a goblin will reduce their current penalties, but the more penalzed they become, the harder it is for them to shake off the issues that afflict them. The whole point here is that a goblin can drive off their foes by doing various types of harm, whether physically...

I don't like it when an author or artist simply uses a different font to represent another culture's language. To make the goblins distinct, I've been working on a numbering system and a complete language from scratch. The language won't be ready for a few more months (maybe even a year or two), so it won't be a part of the tarot release, but the numbers are ready and will be used to mark the cards. For more information on this project, see  http://www.indiegogo.com/the-goblin-tarot