Observations of the Fox

A few years ago I created a little thing called the " Hold Em Scene Generator ", using the mechanisms of Texas Hold 'Em (3 cards first, followed by two more in sequence) to create a range of quick scenes that might be easily added into any medieval/fantasy campaign fairly seamlessly. It worked well, I was happy with it, I wanted to revisit the concept for sci-fi, modern, and other settings. But like many things, I got distracted and moved onto other projects that seemed more pressing at the time. I've been doing a little work in that regard over the past couple of days. Not so much using Texas Hold 'Em to create scenes, but instead using it to rapidly develop interesting NPCs (their place in the world, their attitudes, their goals). This specifically doesn't include game statistics, I'm trying to make sure it's open and accessible to any game, but more to add the depth that many game systems don't think about. The idea is still nowhere near com...

If you bought a copy of my Goblin Tarot Deck, some of these images probably look familiar. I found them again, and I'll be usng them to attach to my recent "200 Word RPG" design that is morphing into a board game. I think that the goblin aesthetic suits the game pretty well. Give it a couple of weeks and it might be ready for playtesting.

For those who didn't get the share on G+, here's a link to my "One Page Dungeon" entry this year. The Star Pit

A few years ago, someone asked me fr a quick guide to my methodsfor creating resin moulds and casting with resin. I wrote them up these two sheets. Today's effort cleaning up some old paperwork found all sorts of documentation, sketches and notes. I'm not sure if it's been previously posted (in fact, I'm pretty sure that I haven't posted it), and since people seem to like my tutorials I figured I'd make sure it made an appearance.  This is just one of many things that may be making an appearance over the next couple of days.

Current Draft... The Harpy Pit Feel free to exchange harpies with your favoured winged menace Pit Wall Exploration Making one loop of the pit is treacherous and slow work that takes two hours. Roll a die for each 2 hour period of exploration (or part thereof), 0 A number of harpies equal to half the current pit level attack. 1 A harpy attacks. 2 Slippery slope (mark this on the map), succeed in a dexterity/reflexes check, or suffer injury when you drop 10 metres/30ft to the next pit path. 3 Slow ground (mark this on the map), this ground is rough and takes twice as long to pass. 4-5 Nothing happens 6 You find a secluded space suitable for camping (Mark this on map). For every 12 hours of exploration use a ration of food and water. If you pass through a designated danger zone 1 from your roll.   Cave Exploration When you...

I totally didn't realise that we were most of the way through the One-Page Dungeon contest, so I've started scribbling some ideas down. An ancient and degraded pit carved into the ground long before anyone can remember, there is a long winding spiral pathway from top to bottom (and a few settlements that see just enough traffic from travelling adventurers to remain viable trading posts). The walls are riddled with mines and caves, and journeying into one of them may lead you through a labyrinth and out through another. Mystic energy and swirling vortexes mean that travellers generally cannot fly down the shaft, and even if they do risk the winds, there are nests of harpies and other dangerous creatures also willing to take that risk for a quick feed. Going into the caves can be just as dangerous. More shading, and some quick text rules to explain how it works, and it will be ready to submit.

"I am Groot" It's not a lot but context is important and can turn a simple phrase into something funny, deep, confusing, or serious. Between studying Pragmatics (the use of language in context), and the current 200 word RPG design contest, I'm really thinking about ways to maximise the use of language by providing a quick context, then minimising the remaining word count.  I'm wondering if it would be too much of a cheat to use images and iconography to get meanings across, it would certainly do the job effectively...but are the images just a proxy for words? Hmm... This could get dangerous.