Another busy semester is in progress. I did get a recent jonesing for pen-and-paper D&D, though. Specifically, I started sketching out an interesting half-orc wizard concept, but I had no way to squeeze him into my schedule. Then I thought of trying some play-by-post--you know, just a few minutes a day as a player--and thus found The Tangled Web.
I've been lurking here for a while, particularly watching this Arval Prison game. But, though I started a digital character sheet, I haven't gotten the time to actually finish it. If I can't even do that, there's no sense joining a game.
But, this brief foray back to D&D also brought me back to Zilch. I've actually been poking at that on and off for the last couple weeks, tidying things up here and there. It's still rather quirky in spots, but I like it, even after a long break. So I'm keeping that warm and we'll see what happens.
I've got a few programming, TA, and course projects building up, though, so it looks like I'll need to put the RPGing back down again for a while. Damn, there's just not enough time in the day anymore!
Showing posts with label status. Show all posts
Showing posts with label status. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, August 15, 2011
Resurrection (again)
I've been busy this past year finishing up my PhD work. There were few gaming thoughts to report during that time. That work is all behind me now, though, so hopefully I'll get back into things here.
In the past year, I've been working on zilch some more. It has split into two components now: a very lite simple nearly-boardgame core and then a number of cleanly modular optional rules to turn it into more of a lite RPG system. The core portion is pretty much done, though it hasn't been tested much yet. The RPG portion is fairly well sketched out but still largely in pieces.
Last month, B. and I sat down one night after a couple beers and whipped up a quick session. We only made it through a couple combats, but things went fairly smoothly there. I was also trying a card-based dungeon generation idea I had (which is also still largely in pieces). An hour or so wasn't enough to tell whether either zilch or the generation system are any good, but at least they didn't seem obvious broken. (We did have to fix the default zilch character generation rules a bit, though.)
B. and I have also been playing D&D by email. I've found this works out quite well. It takes about 1 hour per round/email. I always group his characters together in the initiative order (which is fine, as they only differ by +1 anyway). Once B. decides what Lacane and Gwulf are doing, the rest of the round is in my hands. The only thing I need to do is actually sit down and do this more often!
I have a couple stray backlog details I've been meaning to report, which I'll post soon. Then I'll report on some of my more recent endeavors.
In the past year, I've been working on zilch some more. It has split into two components now: a very lite simple nearly-boardgame core and then a number of cleanly modular optional rules to turn it into more of a lite RPG system. The core portion is pretty much done, though it hasn't been tested much yet. The RPG portion is fairly well sketched out but still largely in pieces.
Last month, B. and I sat down one night after a couple beers and whipped up a quick session. We only made it through a couple combats, but things went fairly smoothly there. I was also trying a card-based dungeon generation idea I had (which is also still largely in pieces). An hour or so wasn't enough to tell whether either zilch or the generation system are any good, but at least they didn't seem obvious broken. (We did have to fix the default zilch character generation rules a bit, though.)
B. and I have also been playing D&D by email. I've found this works out quite well. It takes about 1 hour per round/email. I always group his characters together in the initiative order (which is fine, as they only differ by +1 anyway). Once B. decides what Lacane and Gwulf are doing, the rest of the round is in my hands. The only thing I need to do is actually sit down and do this more often!
I have a couple stray backlog details I've been meaning to report, which I'll post soon. Then I'll report on some of my more recent endeavors.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
z20 Reviewed
For nearly three years now, I have had a love-hate codependent relationship with D&D. In short, I can't live with it, but I can't seem to live without it, either. When I come back to it after a break, I feel rejuvinated and excited by this old comfortable friend I know so well. But after a couple weeks, all the old irritants come back, and I'm driven away to some other gaming system thread... until I eventually come crawling back again.
I have come to think of "z20" as describing the history of this abusive relationship, including all my attempts to change d20 (rather than love it the way it is). It includes Drudge, mini20, d20house, etc.
Hyperbole aside, it is time to review z20 (again) to see what I'm trying to get out of it. What is my goal here? Is z20 meant to be a simple tweak of d20? A conversion of d20? Or a whole new system simply inspired by d20? I'm hoping that, if I can decide what I want out of it, I can then move past the tensions it's causing in my design work.
z20 is not meant be a whole new system--though it often seems to drift in that direction. There are other existing systems I could use if that was my goal. But instead I want to retain all my existing d20 content. Basically, I'm too invested, with hours and years of learning and a number of existing storylines and worlds defined in terms of D&D. I can't easily let it all go. (I would say zilch has been strongly inspired by d20, but compatiblity was never a concern there, and so zilch is largely separate from z20... except that now it is starting to feed ideas back to into z20.)
But z20 is not a simple tweak, either. It has gone too far for that. I've tried to throttle things to back to this level as d20house--which approximates a relatively normal level of house rules or the degree of changes made by Pathfinder.
So, if z20 is more than just a tweak, but not a completely separate and independent system, that means it's a conversion. It is a kind of bastardization: no longer the old d20 system, but not a new truly system with a life of its own either.
Other such hybrid/conversion systems already exist--such as True20 fantasy or Microlite20 (both of which have served as inspiration). So why not just play these then?
Mainly, because I don't feel the conversion goes far enough to capture all the content. Microlite20 actually caused the revival of z20 and serves as its core. But, while it simplifies characters--attributes, skills, feats, etc--it doesn't simplify the rest: conditions, special abilities, spells, magic items, monsters. This is frequently a problem: a d20 conversion system essential streamlines the first half the Player's Handbook, but neglects to do the same for the second half (the spells) or the other two core books.
And, I've come to realize, it's not really the character sheet that's my problem. Yes, it takes a long time to develop a character. But 1) this is usually fun in and of itself and 2) this is relatively minor investment in terms of a campaign that will take months or even years to play all the way through. Simpler characters really only help for one-off games or similar quick start situations with new players.
Instead, my problem is with the modifiers, the numbers to track, all the little details that are going on during play: basically, the reason it so often takes 3 hours to play through two minutes of combat. And this is not easy to simplify because of how entangled all these rules are. Monsters rely on all the special ability rules and spell-like abilities; spells rely on the possible character conditions; the combat rules inform spells and conditions and feats. Simply touching one of these systems ripples through all the others.
Another insight I've had is that a "conversion" is a temporary state, not a finished system. If the conversion is not completed, then it is simply an elaborate tweak--which is worse than the original system in terms of quick use. Even if the conversion ultimately simplifies the rules, it must still be applied on the fly. Each rule lookup now requires the DM do the lookup in d20... and then apply the conversion (hopefully without also having to look up the conversion rule). This is why I prefer finished system documents where all lookups need to be directed to only a single resource.
But, if I apply the necessary conversions throughout the system, I end up with a new system! Any additional d20 material must undergo the same conversion to be used. Furthermore, this is a massive undertaking. I'd have to touch every monster and the over 600 spells in the core rulebooks. While I've thought that some of this could be automated, it is really just not worth the effort. This much effort could instead be spent loosely converting existing material into a completely new/alternate system.
In short, keeping z20 compatible with d20 is only useful if the content can all still be used without conversion. But, since all the rules are form an interdependent system, more than a few tweaks breaks the system or makes it a new, incompatible game.
I've now slept on this, and I think the conclusion is clear. z20 is essentially a new game system, but it does not offer enough new or exciting differences from d20 to make it worth a lone-man translation of all the core content. I can think of z20 as Zludge for d20: an assortment of modular rules, sort of like Unearthed Arcana on steriods. As such, much of the work I've done could rollover into any future work I do on a new fantasy or generic rules-heavy RPG.
But I think my time and effort would be better served by searching for (or even developing) a new system unfettered by vague d20 "compatibility" or "equivalence" constraints. I could then translate only the necessary content of my world--a handful of characters--rather than all the d20 core content.
Therefore, my current plan is to shelve z20 indefinitely. I may be able to use the work for later Zludge Prime efforts. In the mean time, I'll play my existing d20 lines through to their ends (or at least to a good conversion point) as d20. I'll probably still poke at zilch, since that has a neat boardgame aspect to it. But, between d20 and zilch, I don't see a real need for a third fantasy RPG in my life. My game system design efforts would be better spent elsewhere.
For the curious: This is where z20 stands now.
I have come to think of "z20" as describing the history of this abusive relationship, including all my attempts to change d20 (rather than love it the way it is). It includes Drudge, mini20, d20house, etc.
Hyperbole aside, it is time to review z20 (again) to see what I'm trying to get out of it. What is my goal here? Is z20 meant to be a simple tweak of d20? A conversion of d20? Or a whole new system simply inspired by d20? I'm hoping that, if I can decide what I want out of it, I can then move past the tensions it's causing in my design work.
z20 is not meant be a whole new system--though it often seems to drift in that direction. There are other existing systems I could use if that was my goal. But instead I want to retain all my existing d20 content. Basically, I'm too invested, with hours and years of learning and a number of existing storylines and worlds defined in terms of D&D. I can't easily let it all go. (I would say zilch has been strongly inspired by d20, but compatiblity was never a concern there, and so zilch is largely separate from z20... except that now it is starting to feed ideas back to into z20.)
But z20 is not a simple tweak, either. It has gone too far for that. I've tried to throttle things to back to this level as d20house--which approximates a relatively normal level of house rules or the degree of changes made by Pathfinder.
So, if z20 is more than just a tweak, but not a completely separate and independent system, that means it's a conversion. It is a kind of bastardization: no longer the old d20 system, but not a new truly system with a life of its own either.
Other such hybrid/conversion systems already exist--such as True20 fantasy or Microlite20 (both of which have served as inspiration). So why not just play these then?
Mainly, because I don't feel the conversion goes far enough to capture all the content. Microlite20 actually caused the revival of z20 and serves as its core. But, while it simplifies characters--attributes, skills, feats, etc--it doesn't simplify the rest: conditions, special abilities, spells, magic items, monsters. This is frequently a problem: a d20 conversion system essential streamlines the first half the Player's Handbook, but neglects to do the same for the second half (the spells) or the other two core books.
And, I've come to realize, it's not really the character sheet that's my problem. Yes, it takes a long time to develop a character. But 1) this is usually fun in and of itself and 2) this is relatively minor investment in terms of a campaign that will take months or even years to play all the way through. Simpler characters really only help for one-off games or similar quick start situations with new players.
Instead, my problem is with the modifiers, the numbers to track, all the little details that are going on during play: basically, the reason it so often takes 3 hours to play through two minutes of combat. And this is not easy to simplify because of how entangled all these rules are. Monsters rely on all the special ability rules and spell-like abilities; spells rely on the possible character conditions; the combat rules inform spells and conditions and feats. Simply touching one of these systems ripples through all the others.
Another insight I've had is that a "conversion" is a temporary state, not a finished system. If the conversion is not completed, then it is simply an elaborate tweak--which is worse than the original system in terms of quick use. Even if the conversion ultimately simplifies the rules, it must still be applied on the fly. Each rule lookup now requires the DM do the lookup in d20... and then apply the conversion (hopefully without also having to look up the conversion rule). This is why I prefer finished system documents where all lookups need to be directed to only a single resource.
But, if I apply the necessary conversions throughout the system, I end up with a new system! Any additional d20 material must undergo the same conversion to be used. Furthermore, this is a massive undertaking. I'd have to touch every monster and the over 600 spells in the core rulebooks. While I've thought that some of this could be automated, it is really just not worth the effort. This much effort could instead be spent loosely converting existing material into a completely new/alternate system.
In short, keeping z20 compatible with d20 is only useful if the content can all still be used without conversion. But, since all the rules are form an interdependent system, more than a few tweaks breaks the system or makes it a new, incompatible game.
I've now slept on this, and I think the conclusion is clear. z20 is essentially a new game system, but it does not offer enough new or exciting differences from d20 to make it worth a lone-man translation of all the core content. I can think of z20 as Zludge for d20: an assortment of modular rules, sort of like Unearthed Arcana on steriods. As such, much of the work I've done could rollover into any future work I do on a new fantasy or generic rules-heavy RPG.
But I think my time and effort would be better served by searching for (or even developing) a new system unfettered by vague d20 "compatibility" or "equivalence" constraints. I could then translate only the necessary content of my world--a handful of characters--rather than all the d20 core content.
Therefore, my current plan is to shelve z20 indefinitely. I may be able to use the work for later Zludge Prime efforts. In the mean time, I'll play my existing d20 lines through to their ends (or at least to a good conversion point) as d20. I'll probably still poke at zilch, since that has a neat boardgame aspect to it. But, between d20 and zilch, I don't see a real need for a third fantasy RPG in my life. My game system design efforts would be better spent elsewhere.
For the curious: This is where z20 stands now.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Recent Threads
The spring semester is drawing to a close. It's been a busy one, with me actually focusing on my dissertation/implementation for a change. Sadly, this has meant less time for gaming. I hope to continue implementing into the summer, so there probably won't be too much of a gaming resurgence for a while. But, despite a grading backlog to still get through this week, the coming summer has stirred me to look through my various gaming threads once more:
• d20: I've been brushing off d20house and my Tellurian Tales characters and trying to get back into d20 again. The two players I actually have await me in two other D&D storylines. So I'd really like to get out of my current d20 doldrums.
In brushing off my characters, I'm reminded once more of the huge "character creation" side of D&D. As I was explaining to S., it has some of the same draw as Magic: The Gathering: There is a collection of different abilities that can be combined to form awesome combos. And, thanks to WotC's prolific publishing schedule, the library of possible components constantly expands. So there's this draw to familiarize myself with all the possible components and then flesh-out the "perfect" combos in accordance with some initial character (or deck) concept.
While this is still fun, sometimes of late I find it a bit tedious. Specifically, prestige classes annoy me. Many are close to what I want but none are "just right". So I've been designing a couple custom classes--but, since there's no real mechanic for this, it tends to take me hours of thought.
• Caligo: I poke at this occasionally and I'm quite happy with how it's coming along. So far it's staying pretty simple, which is good. I have a few different one-off story ideas I want to try... someday.
• Dark Heresy: A break-thru here in that this week I decided to drop my Zludge translation of this. While I'm sure the work already done on this will inform eventual Zludge Prime work, I decided to just leave Dark Hersey as it is.... because it's actually quite a nice system, especially now that I've come to appreciate some of the advantages of a roll-under die mechanic. I have lots of story ideas here, and I'd like to move into some serious campaigns with this once my d20 lines end. So I'm trying to shelve it again until then (and focus back on my d20 threads!).
• zilch: I was thinking about this yesterday and this morning. I was refocusing on it's mission: a boardgame-like dungeon-crawling RPG. Some elements of it--such as the spell system--I think could be used elsewhere (like in z20). But I really need to get back to a boardgame sort of focus. This morning, I started sketching out stuff on that: particularly, how I might generate a story/dungeon on the fly so no pre-game GM planning is required--only some (potentially collaborative) refereeing. We'll see where this goes...
• z20: Now I'm turning my eye to z20 once again... that old sore tooth that I can't stop poking.
[I apologize to my readers that my blog is so often a review of threads or a whining reiteration of the same points over and over again, but this blog is really sort of my gaming journal. This is where I come when I need to record (or, frequently, reaffirm once again) some gaming insight or goal.]
• d20: I've been brushing off d20house and my Tellurian Tales characters and trying to get back into d20 again. The two players I actually have await me in two other D&D storylines. So I'd really like to get out of my current d20 doldrums.
In brushing off my characters, I'm reminded once more of the huge "character creation" side of D&D. As I was explaining to S., it has some of the same draw as Magic: The Gathering: There is a collection of different abilities that can be combined to form awesome combos. And, thanks to WotC's prolific publishing schedule, the library of possible components constantly expands. So there's this draw to familiarize myself with all the possible components and then flesh-out the "perfect" combos in accordance with some initial character (or deck) concept.
While this is still fun, sometimes of late I find it a bit tedious. Specifically, prestige classes annoy me. Many are close to what I want but none are "just right". So I've been designing a couple custom classes--but, since there's no real mechanic for this, it tends to take me hours of thought.
• Caligo: I poke at this occasionally and I'm quite happy with how it's coming along. So far it's staying pretty simple, which is good. I have a few different one-off story ideas I want to try... someday.
• Dark Heresy: A break-thru here in that this week I decided to drop my Zludge translation of this. While I'm sure the work already done on this will inform eventual Zludge Prime work, I decided to just leave Dark Hersey as it is.... because it's actually quite a nice system, especially now that I've come to appreciate some of the advantages of a roll-under die mechanic. I have lots of story ideas here, and I'd like to move into some serious campaigns with this once my d20 lines end. So I'm trying to shelve it again until then (and focus back on my d20 threads!).
• zilch: I was thinking about this yesterday and this morning. I was refocusing on it's mission: a boardgame-like dungeon-crawling RPG. Some elements of it--such as the spell system--I think could be used elsewhere (like in z20). But I really need to get back to a boardgame sort of focus. This morning, I started sketching out stuff on that: particularly, how I might generate a story/dungeon on the fly so no pre-game GM planning is required--only some (potentially collaborative) refereeing. We'll see where this goes...
• z20: Now I'm turning my eye to z20 once again... that old sore tooth that I can't stop poking.
[I apologize to my readers that my blog is so often a review of threads or a whining reiteration of the same points over and over again, but this blog is really sort of my gaming journal. This is where I come when I need to record (or, frequently, reaffirm once again) some gaming insight or goal.]
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Too Many Systems, Too Many Settings
I'm back today to re-read my New Year's resolutions. It seems I've strayed from the path.
The big two projects of the past couple months (aside from working on my dissertation implementation more than in the past) has been zilch and Caligo.
zilch (which deserves a better name, but stands for "Zach's Implementation Lies Cold & Hoary") is what the domino die mechanic idea turned into. It's a sort of board-game-style dungeon crawling RPG. It's actually pretty sweet. You represent characters with 4 playing cards (one of each suit), roll d6s for skills, use dominoes for an exchange/stance-based combat, track details with poker chips, and use Scrabble tiles to track and cast magic spells.
Yes, I finally have a decent Scrabble-based magic system! This time I started with the ~600 D&D spells and distilled them down to 26 schools/tiles, rather than starting with the noun/verb approach of most rune-based system. Tiles are often still combined to produce the more powerful spells, though.
Anyway, the intention of zilch is to have a lite, "paperless" play style for one-off dungeon crawls or short campaigns.
Caligo (the Latin word for misty darkness) started a week or so ago when I got a free PDF version of World of Darkness from a DriveThruRPG sale. While overall I found WoD to be yet another standard, solid, reliable table-top RPG system, there were a few little rule nuggets that intrigued me. I started putting together ideas from DRYH, QAGS, etc, pulling together a very lite, narrative-focused system for descents into darkness.
As you can see, I've drifted from my goal of "no new threads."
In other news, today I bought a Warhammer Fantasy Grotek and Felix omnibus. These stories are good fun! As I've mentioned before, I often get overwhelmed in the bookstore: so many great stories, so many worlds! How do I play them all? How do I build something better myself?
Upon waking from my nap, I realized I don't have to. As GM, we often rely on pre-packaged adventure scenarios. Why don't I allow myself to expand the use of such aids to include other creative works? There's all these great adventure short stories out there--recentlyConan, Elric, and Grotek & Felix for me. What's wrong with "borrowing" those? Or maybe blending a couple together? Roleplaying is not a public presentation; it's a private, intimate sharing of tales. If my player's haven't read the stories themselves, the ideas are new to them.
I know this is certainly not a new insight. In fact, I'm sure I've read it a number of times in DM advice chapters: take ideas from your favorite shows or books! But I guess today I was ready for it, open to the idea that I am really only obligated to provide a fun afternoon for myself and my player(s), not produce a whole new creative vision for the world.
And this insight spills over into the rule design too. I'm getting overwhelmed here too. There are so many systems out there when you look past the handful of large publishers. And each one has some novel, intriguing aspect to offer. Yet there is no way to combine all these little gems, because each works because of it's home system. Lately I've been coming to appreciate even the advantages of different die mechanics. So many cool things are possible with only certain die mechanics; yet, each also has its drawbacks. But, in the end, you have to pick only one of them and play it.
It seems we all want, to some varying extent, to produce our own system: to tweak, to touch, to make the rules we play by our own. But, taken to excess (as I am always wont to do), this becomes divisive, producing a babel of systems so that players cannot move from game to game because each requires its own system. Obviously, there is a balance here. There must always be a bazaar of ideas and system options available; but it can be hard to decide to work towards system harmony and synthesis, rather than just throwing out one more discordant voice.
So, once more, I come here to put in writing: I need to focus my efforts on what I already have going!
The big two projects of the past couple months (aside from working on my dissertation implementation more than in the past) has been zilch and Caligo.
zilch (which deserves a better name, but stands for "Zach's Implementation Lies Cold & Hoary") is what the domino die mechanic idea turned into. It's a sort of board-game-style dungeon crawling RPG. It's actually pretty sweet. You represent characters with 4 playing cards (one of each suit), roll d6s for skills, use dominoes for an exchange/stance-based combat, track details with poker chips, and use Scrabble tiles to track and cast magic spells.
Yes, I finally have a decent Scrabble-based magic system! This time I started with the ~600 D&D spells and distilled them down to 26 schools/tiles, rather than starting with the noun/verb approach of most rune-based system. Tiles are often still combined to produce the more powerful spells, though.
Anyway, the intention of zilch is to have a lite, "paperless" play style for one-off dungeon crawls or short campaigns.
Caligo (the Latin word for misty darkness) started a week or so ago when I got a free PDF version of World of Darkness from a DriveThruRPG sale. While overall I found WoD to be yet another standard, solid, reliable table-top RPG system, there were a few little rule nuggets that intrigued me. I started putting together ideas from DRYH, QAGS, etc, pulling together a very lite, narrative-focused system for descents into darkness.
As you can see, I've drifted from my goal of "no new threads."
In other news, today I bought a Warhammer Fantasy Grotek and Felix omnibus. These stories are good fun! As I've mentioned before, I often get overwhelmed in the bookstore: so many great stories, so many worlds! How do I play them all? How do I build something better myself?
Upon waking from my nap, I realized I don't have to. As GM, we often rely on pre-packaged adventure scenarios. Why don't I allow myself to expand the use of such aids to include other creative works? There's all these great adventure short stories out there--recently
I know this is certainly not a new insight. In fact, I'm sure I've read it a number of times in DM advice chapters: take ideas from your favorite shows or books! But I guess today I was ready for it, open to the idea that I am really only obligated to provide a fun afternoon for myself and my player(s), not produce a whole new creative vision for the world.
And this insight spills over into the rule design too. I'm getting overwhelmed here too. There are so many systems out there when you look past the handful of large publishers. And each one has some novel, intriguing aspect to offer. Yet there is no way to combine all these little gems, because each works because of it's home system. Lately I've been coming to appreciate even the advantages of different die mechanics. So many cool things are possible with only certain die mechanics; yet, each also has its drawbacks. But, in the end, you have to pick only one of them and play it.
It seems we all want, to some varying extent, to produce our own system: to tweak, to touch, to make the rules we play by our own. But, taken to excess (as I am always wont to do), this becomes divisive, producing a babel of systems so that players cannot move from game to game because each requires its own system. Obviously, there is a balance here. There must always be a bazaar of ideas and system options available; but it can be hard to decide to work towards system harmony and synthesis, rather than just throwing out one more discordant voice.
So, once more, I come here to put in writing: I need to focus my efforts on what I already have going!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
New Year's resolutions
The past few months have been rather slow with the gaming as I've been busy with my PhD work. Now the pressure is really on to finish that up this Spring semester. So it looks like the RPGing will be scanty for the next 6 months or so. However, since it's my addiction, it's unlikely to be completely non-existent...
And on a related note, I was in the bookstore a couple days ago, flipping through RPG books and settings. Though I was intrigued by a few setting images, I realized that I really could fit some of these into my existing worlds. For example, there's the whole "jungle filled with vine-covered temple ruins where savage lizardmen worship dark gods yet lost laser guns can still be found" milieu. I realized such a planet could easily be placed in a Warhammer 40k universe (along with a separate Shadowrun-like hive city planet, etc.). Similarly, such a jungle (sans laser guns, perhaps; though with Magic Missile wands available) already exists in the extreme south of Tellure. So I don't need to build a whole new campaign to run an adventure or two in these worlds.
So, with these two insights in mind, I'm figuring out which of my many threads are important enough to keep open, and which should be shelved for now.
These two are merging somewhat, as z20 becomes complex enough to support d20 PCs. In short, I can run z20 rules as DM while players are still working in d20. The core of z20 is pretty close to done, though. That's good! And I'd like the combat system--particularly possible actions in combat, etc--to (mostly) mirror Zludge Prime. It's already close, so that should reduce duplicated work between these two threads.
• Dark Heresy/Zludge Prime
I'm converting DH a bit, and using it as the basis of what I want Zludge Prime to be. I need to decide if I want to play it with its own d% mechanic for a while, or some QAGS-like variant, or straight Zludge 2dF. But this should eventually become my heavy-weight simulation-gaming system.
• QAGS
I just downloaded the QAGS quick-start last month and it seems pretty cool. I'd like to play around with it a bit (as is only; no tweaks for now!) with a few one-offs adventures.
• Mythic/Dynamo
Along with one-off games, I'd like to explore this way of generating stories on the fly.
This primarily means finishing the narrative-based combat system I've started. But I also need to figure out how exactly Huffy varies from Fluffy.
• Fluffy
This too needs to be clarified.
• Zludge
Zludge Prime, Fluffy, Huffy, (and even z20 to some extent), distilled into modular rules and a collection of GM tools. Is this still worth doing?
• System reading backlog
I have a number of free and quick-start PDFs downloaded, nearly all gaming/simulationist in nature. Most of these boil down to essentially the same thing: a collection of attributes/skills/feats to define PCs, a die mechanic, and a list of combat moves. In the process of clarifying Zludge (above), it'd be good to skim through these for more comparisons and ideas to filch.
S.'s line. Decent testing ground for z20.
• Dragonwars
B.'s line. The place for d20house (though it may become more z20 behind the screen).
• Tellurian Tales
My original, primary line. I'd like to get back to some solo play on this again. It's been way too long... Should perhaps be a d20 PC test-bed for z20, with a focus on story. (Now that I've got the d20 rules down, I'm finding solo combat to be rather tedious...)
• (Warhammer 40k)
This is my own tweak/compilation of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. The story has only be slightly sketched so far, so more notes, sketches, or even testing solo one-offs would be good. (However, real play should not start until after the dissertation or one of the other campaign threads closes!)
• (One-offs)
If they truly are one-session games... (but see below).
Shelve these solo Tellurian strains for now. The Planescape Gith monk thing is meant to be preparation for Dragonwars after the end of RHoD, but that'll be months yet, so don't worry about it now.
• Columbia: Fantasy in the New World
This started as a "D&D western" idea, but has expanded to include Carribean pirates, lost Atlanteans, and dark jungle ruins in the jungles of South America. But, as mentioned, versions of these things could captured in my other settings (at least for now).
• Squirrel Attack! & Mouse Guard
I'd like a little anthropomorphic animal action, but I should leave this be for now. The official Mouse Guard RPG looks really good (and a little more narrativist than I'm used to), and so I wouldn't mind reading/owning it at some point though.
• DRYH
I enjoy this system, and have a few ideas on more insomniac stories, as well as other forms of madness (including something along the line of JAGS's Wonderland). But these will keep until after I finish my dissertation...
• God's Dogs
Except for the one adventure I already have prepared for B., this is too similiar to Dark Heresy to have a separate campaign (especially right now).
• Heavy Metal Atomic Wasteland
Nothing planned in this at the moment anyway.
• Tor-Lomlin
I think B. needs to take the lead on this one before it'll move ahead.
• (As-yet-unforeseen world ideas)
My one-offs rarely stay that way, but tend to become full campaign worlds instead. Beware those! Jot the ideas down, but don't spend more than one writing session on them.
Well, with all that in black-and-white, it seems pretty clear: focus on playing my main/oldest 3 D&D lines. To that end, tweak z20 as necessary. In preparation for the future, play around with Zludge Prime and Warhammer 40k. For lighter gaming, try QAGS and Mythic in some one-offs. Other ideas--whether rules or worlds--should be jotted down for future exploration and expansion, but no new lines should be started for now.
And on a related note, I was in the bookstore a couple days ago, flipping through RPG books and settings. Though I was intrigued by a few setting images, I realized that I really could fit some of these into my existing worlds. For example, there's the whole "jungle filled with vine-covered temple ruins where savage lizardmen worship dark gods yet lost laser guns can still be found" milieu. I realized such a planet could easily be placed in a Warhammer 40k universe (along with a separate Shadowrun-like hive city planet, etc.). Similarly, such a jungle (sans laser guns, perhaps; though with Magic Missile wands available) already exists in the extreme south of Tellure. So I don't need to build a whole new campaign to run an adventure or two in these worlds.
So, with these two insights in mind, I'm figuring out which of my many threads are important enough to keep open, and which should be shelved for now.
Rule systems [OPEN]
• z20/d20houseThese two are merging somewhat, as z20 becomes complex enough to support d20 PCs. In short, I can run z20 rules as DM while players are still working in d20. The core of z20 is pretty close to done, though. That's good! And I'd like the combat system--particularly possible actions in combat, etc--to (mostly) mirror Zludge Prime. It's already close, so that should reduce duplicated work between these two threads.
• Dark Heresy/Zludge Prime
I'm converting DH a bit, and using it as the basis of what I want Zludge Prime to be. I need to decide if I want to play it with its own d% mechanic for a while, or some QAGS-like variant, or straight Zludge 2dF. But this should eventually become my heavy-weight simulation-gaming system.
• QAGS
I just downloaded the QAGS quick-start last month and it seems pretty cool. I'd like to play around with it a bit (as is only; no tweaks for now!) with a few one-offs adventures.
• Mythic/Dynamo
Along with one-off games, I'd like to explore this way of generating stories on the fly.
Rule systems [CLOSED]
• HuffyThis primarily means finishing the narrative-based combat system I've started. But I also need to figure out how exactly Huffy varies from Fluffy.
• Fluffy
This too needs to be clarified.
• Zludge
Zludge Prime, Fluffy, Huffy, (and even z20 to some extent), distilled into modular rules and a collection of GM tools. Is this still worth doing?
• System reading backlog
I have a number of free and quick-start PDFs downloaded, nearly all gaming/simulationist in nature. Most of these boil down to essentially the same thing: a collection of attributes/skills/feats to define PCs, a die mechanic, and a list of combat moves. In the process of clarifying Zludge (above), it'd be good to skim through these for more comparisons and ideas to filch.
Campaigns [OPEN]
• OmriS.'s line. Decent testing ground for z20.
• Dragonwars
B.'s line. The place for d20house (though it may become more z20 behind the screen).
• Tellurian Tales
My original, primary line. I'd like to get back to some solo play on this again. It's been way too long... Should perhaps be a d20 PC test-bed for z20, with a focus on story. (Now that I've got the d20 rules down, I'm finding solo combat to be rather tedious...)
• (Warhammer 40k)
This is my own tweak/compilation of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. The story has only be slightly sketched so far, so more notes, sketches, or even testing solo one-offs would be good. (However, real play should not start until after the dissertation or one of the other campaign threads closes!)
• (One-offs)
If they truly are one-session games... (but see below).
Campaigns [CLOSED]
• Interludes & Ailithorn & (solo Planescape)Shelve these solo Tellurian strains for now. The Planescape Gith monk thing is meant to be preparation for Dragonwars after the end of RHoD, but that'll be months yet, so don't worry about it now.
• Columbia: Fantasy in the New World
This started as a "D&D western" idea, but has expanded to include Carribean pirates, lost Atlanteans, and dark jungle ruins in the jungles of South America. But, as mentioned, versions of these things could captured in my other settings (at least for now).
• Squirrel Attack! & Mouse Guard
I'd like a little anthropomorphic animal action, but I should leave this be for now. The official Mouse Guard RPG looks really good (and a little more narrativist than I'm used to), and so I wouldn't mind reading/owning it at some point though.
• DRYH
I enjoy this system, and have a few ideas on more insomniac stories, as well as other forms of madness (including something along the line of JAGS's Wonderland). But these will keep until after I finish my dissertation...
• God's Dogs
Except for the one adventure I already have prepared for B., this is too similiar to Dark Heresy to have a separate campaign (especially right now).
• Heavy Metal Atomic Wasteland
Nothing planned in this at the moment anyway.
• Tor-Lomlin
I think B. needs to take the lead on this one before it'll move ahead.
• (As-yet-unforeseen world ideas)
My one-offs rarely stay that way, but tend to become full campaign worlds instead. Beware those! Jot the ideas down, but don't spend more than one writing session on them.
Well, with all that in black-and-white, it seems pretty clear: focus on playing my main/oldest 3 D&D lines. To that end, tweak z20 as necessary. In preparation for the future, play around with Zludge Prime and Warhammer 40k. For lighter gaming, try QAGS and Mythic in some one-offs. Other ideas--whether rules or worlds--should be jotted down for future exploration and expansion, but no new lines should be started for now.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
History of z20 and Zludge
As the last couple posts have hinted, my z20 project has been quietly resurrected, despite earlier posts suggesting this is a doomed endeavor. I started wondering at this--where did z20 come from? How did I get here, and where do I think I'm going?
However, in digging for the answer, I found that z20 is intricately tied to the history of Zludge. Pouring through my archive of Sent email messages to S. and B., I was able to reconstruct the following chronology:
Jun 2007: I become intrigued by Fudge and Fate 2.0 (effectively a specific flavor of Fudge). Fudge in particular is filled with good ideas, but in a very "...and here's another good idea" style, leaving the GM to roll these ideas into his own perfect system. I start my own Fudge derivative named Zludge: a mixture of Fudge, Fate, d20, and GURPS ideas.
Jul 2007: I finish an early version of Zludge largely shaped for a sci-fi campaign (including psi rules, for example), though still intending to be a largely universal system.
Dec 2007: After repeatedly being frustrated by the slow rate of D&D combat--particularly the modifier tracking and rule details--I consider a possible simplification project. Zludge comes to mind as a base, and so I begin a document to blend Zludge and d20.
Feb 2008: The Zludge-d20 project grows beyond a simple hack document and becomes its own system: Drudge.
Mar 2008: After playing around with Animal Ball's Instant Game, one day S. and I just sit down and play a rules-lite system I come up with in an hour based on bare-bones Zludge. Originally named Fluff, this soon becomes Fluffy.
There are now three flavors of Zludge going: the lite Fluffy, the original Zludge (which I start calling Zludge Prime), and the relatively rules-heavy Drudge. The idea comes to make Zludge a roll-your-own system. However, instead of just being a jumble of ideas, it would be a system of clearly-defined, compatible modules. GMs could define a "zenome" document for their particular instance of Zludge that would specify which rule modules they are using. Thus, the rules could be lite or heavy depending on GM preference or the particular campaign. Furthermore, when I found a good mechanic idea in another system, I could port that single idea into the framework of Zludge, thus being able to experiment with small pieces here and there while still keeping the bulk of my gaming system constant.
I begin surfing more and more RPG test drive rules and indie RPG system for neat ideas.
Apr 2008: I start this blog, whose name is even inspired by Zludge.
Jul 2008: Fluffy (and its basically synonymous incarnation Huffy) sees some action on a long car trip with B. in a Heavy Metal Atomic Wasteland campaign setting. (Sadly, this never got documented properly here on SludgePit.)
May 2009: After 18 months of work (not 15), I call an end to Drudge. Essentially, Drudge had wandered too far from d20 to be at all useful. It would have been easier and faster to just completely reimagine the d20 content in a Zludge system. Intrigued by True20, I instead consider a d20-True20 blending named z20.
Jun 2009: I essentially realize the differences between True20 and d20 are too minor to be bothering with a synthesis. In short, I'm simply bastardizing d20 without significant advantage. I decide to end z20 in favor of d20house, which is just a handful of house rules for d20 and an digital DM's screen to speed play.
Aug 2009: I discover Microlite20. This is d20 streamlined! I think my own strength is streamlining--making simpler rules that are still effectively equivalent to the source. But I suck at actually trimming and drastically cutting away the fat (and even some of the meat, if necessary). Microlite provides the core I've been looking for.
However, there are a number of things I don't like. For instance, the core rules are so lite and streamlined, but the equipment lists are so long and detailed, spells are still straight from d20 (and so too detail-oriented), translated monsters have no special abilities at all--essentially just attack bonuses, AC, and hit points. In short, it feels like a hodge-podge.
I start pulling Microlite20 into a single document and tweaking what I don't like. Of course, I find myself adding a lot of old Drudge ideas, etc. It grows beyond the Microlite core, so I call it mini20.
Sept 2009: mini20 has stopped being even "mini". But it seems to also be close to my original goal way back with Drudge: a lite version of d20. In short, its the d20 that I always wanted to play. I resurrect the name z20.
So that's how I got here. As to where I'm going... maybe in another post soon I'll talk about some of the things I proud of in z20, and see if I can ever answer that still-haunting question: "Why convert or change d20 in the first place? Why not just play d20 as is, or else start a new system from scratch?"
However, in digging for the answer, I found that z20 is intricately tied to the history of Zludge. Pouring through my archive of Sent email messages to S. and B., I was able to reconstruct the following chronology:
Jun 2007: I become intrigued by Fudge and Fate 2.0 (effectively a specific flavor of Fudge). Fudge in particular is filled with good ideas, but in a very "...and here's another good idea" style, leaving the GM to roll these ideas into his own perfect system. I start my own Fudge derivative named Zludge: a mixture of Fudge, Fate, d20, and GURPS ideas.
Jul 2007: I finish an early version of Zludge largely shaped for a sci-fi campaign (including psi rules, for example), though still intending to be a largely universal system.
Dec 2007: After repeatedly being frustrated by the slow rate of D&D combat--particularly the modifier tracking and rule details--I consider a possible simplification project. Zludge comes to mind as a base, and so I begin a document to blend Zludge and d20.
Feb 2008: The Zludge-d20 project grows beyond a simple hack document and becomes its own system: Drudge.
Mar 2008: After playing around with Animal Ball's Instant Game, one day S. and I just sit down and play a rules-lite system I come up with in an hour based on bare-bones Zludge. Originally named Fluff, this soon becomes Fluffy.
There are now three flavors of Zludge going: the lite Fluffy, the original Zludge (which I start calling Zludge Prime), and the relatively rules-heavy Drudge. The idea comes to make Zludge a roll-your-own system. However, instead of just being a jumble of ideas, it would be a system of clearly-defined, compatible modules. GMs could define a "zenome" document for their particular instance of Zludge that would specify which rule modules they are using. Thus, the rules could be lite or heavy depending on GM preference or the particular campaign. Furthermore, when I found a good mechanic idea in another system, I could port that single idea into the framework of Zludge, thus being able to experiment with small pieces here and there while still keeping the bulk of my gaming system constant.
I begin surfing more and more RPG test drive rules and indie RPG system for neat ideas.
Apr 2008: I start this blog, whose name is even inspired by Zludge.
Jul 2008: Fluffy (and its basically synonymous incarnation Huffy) sees some action on a long car trip with B. in a Heavy Metal Atomic Wasteland campaign setting. (Sadly, this never got documented properly here on SludgePit.)
May 2009: After 18 months of work (not 15), I call an end to Drudge. Essentially, Drudge had wandered too far from d20 to be at all useful. It would have been easier and faster to just completely reimagine the d20 content in a Zludge system. Intrigued by True20, I instead consider a d20-True20 blending named z20.
Jun 2009: I essentially realize the differences between True20 and d20 are too minor to be bothering with a synthesis. In short, I'm simply bastardizing d20 without significant advantage. I decide to end z20 in favor of d20house, which is just a handful of house rules for d20 and an digital DM's screen to speed play.
Aug 2009: I discover Microlite20. This is d20 streamlined! I think my own strength is streamlining--making simpler rules that are still effectively equivalent to the source. But I suck at actually trimming and drastically cutting away the fat (and even some of the meat, if necessary). Microlite provides the core I've been looking for.
However, there are a number of things I don't like. For instance, the core rules are so lite and streamlined, but the equipment lists are so long and detailed, spells are still straight from d20 (and so too detail-oriented), translated monsters have no special abilities at all--essentially just attack bonuses, AC, and hit points. In short, it feels like a hodge-podge.
I start pulling Microlite20 into a single document and tweaking what I don't like. Of course, I find myself adding a lot of old Drudge ideas, etc. It grows beyond the Microlite core, so I call it mini20.
Sept 2009: mini20 has stopped being even "mini". But it seems to also be close to my original goal way back with Drudge: a lite version of d20. In short, its the d20 that I always wanted to play. I resurrect the name z20.
So that's how I got here. As to where I'm going... maybe in another post soon I'll talk about some of the things I proud of in z20, and see if I can ever answer that still-haunting question: "Why convert or change d20 in the first place? Why not just play d20 as is, or else start a new system from scratch?"
Sunday, September 20, 2009
z20/Omri: Death of Myrksog
After a 3 month break, S. and I got in another Omri session today. Omri and party managed to find and slay Myrksog the bugbear; details appended to the "Myrksog" section of The Amazing Escapades of Omri Buckle & Co.
We played using z20, which is what I quietly renamed mini20 to earlier this week (thus effectively reviving that old obsession). I had drawn up some crude character sheets a couple weeks ago. They worked well, though I need more room for gear and maybe less room for tracking spell effects. I still haven't found the best way to track spell effects--how much the GM should track and how much the player should be responsible for, and how to note it in either case.
We played a little more than 2 hours, which is quite a bit longer than our normal goal of 1 hour, but it seemed to move along pretty well.
As usual, I forgot a few details here and there--such as the miss chance for shadowy light, especially when characters without lowlight vision moved away from the torch-lit area. But that's pretty minor.
I used poker chips to track hit points and spell points and that worked nicely.
z20 grapple rules worked well--there was a significant amount of grappling happening, all without GM pain! S. also used the "Heroic Exertion" rule that I came up with just a day or two ago in order to turn a failure into a success on the last blow against Myrksog. This made for a much better story (rather than trying to chase Myrksog down into some tunnel, and maybe even seeing him get away). The exertion also left me with a karma point, which I already have plans for. (Bwahhahahaha! <--Evil GM laugh.)
A couple z20 alpha test notes for myself: While I really like being able to choose from the whole spell list, it does means spellcasters can do almost anything. I think more specialist spells would be a good way to encourage focus/customization. Imposing limits on spell selection would mean more rules (so I'd rather not do it), but I may still give it some thought. The number of spells cast felt about right though.
There were some other d20 features lost in the adaptation. For instance, without feats, Jimmy doesn't have Rapid Reload anymore and now takes a turn to reload his crossbow. Also, Solomon Jack isn't very "bardy" in terms of game mechanics. Again, not sure what I want to do about that.
Not having to track squares and attacks-of-opportunity was nice. Overall, z20 flows pretty well, though it still takes a pretty hefty amount of time just adding up various modifiers. (Admittedly, there were 9 combatants involved.) I don't think I'll make any changes on any of those until after a few more game sessions.
Overall, a great evening--fun story and good feelings for the z20 game system. Maybe soon I'll be able to successfully end this 2 year obsession with streamlining d20!
We played using z20, which is what I quietly renamed mini20 to earlier this week (thus effectively reviving that old obsession). I had drawn up some crude character sheets a couple weeks ago. They worked well, though I need more room for gear and maybe less room for tracking spell effects. I still haven't found the best way to track spell effects--how much the GM should track and how much the player should be responsible for, and how to note it in either case.
We played a little more than 2 hours, which is quite a bit longer than our normal goal of 1 hour, but it seemed to move along pretty well.
As usual, I forgot a few details here and there--such as the miss chance for shadowy light, especially when characters without lowlight vision moved away from the torch-lit area. But that's pretty minor.
I used poker chips to track hit points and spell points and that worked nicely.
z20 grapple rules worked well--there was a significant amount of grappling happening, all without GM pain! S. also used the "Heroic Exertion" rule that I came up with just a day or two ago in order to turn a failure into a success on the last blow against Myrksog. This made for a much better story (rather than trying to chase Myrksog down into some tunnel, and maybe even seeing him get away). The exertion also left me with a karma point, which I already have plans for. (Bwahhahahaha! <--Evil GM laugh.)
A couple z20 alpha test notes for myself: While I really like being able to choose from the whole spell list, it does means spellcasters can do almost anything. I think more specialist spells would be a good way to encourage focus/customization. Imposing limits on spell selection would mean more rules (so I'd rather not do it), but I may still give it some thought. The number of spells cast felt about right though.
There were some other d20 features lost in the adaptation. For instance, without feats, Jimmy doesn't have Rapid Reload anymore and now takes a turn to reload his crossbow. Also, Solomon Jack isn't very "bardy" in terms of game mechanics. Again, not sure what I want to do about that.
Not having to track squares and attacks-of-opportunity was nice. Overall, z20 flows pretty well, though it still takes a pretty hefty amount of time just adding up various modifiers. (Admittedly, there were 9 combatants involved.) I don't think I'll make any changes on any of those until after a few more game sessions.
Overall, a great evening--fun story and good feelings for the z20 game system. Maybe soon I'll be able to successfully end this 2 year obsession with streamlining d20!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Resurrection!
It's been a while. The hiatus was not due to a loss of interest in either RPGs or blogging. Instead, I've just been busy with other things, and so haven't had time for either.
This is a disappointing state of affairs. It seems each semester something gets neglected: usually either my research or my gaming. This semester, it was the latter (which, incidentally, had pretty good consequences for my research--I'm starting to implement Marlinspike now). Hopefully next semester it can be my TAing and grading job that's neglected--I could use some practice getting by with less time on that one.
RPGing has become part of my identity--a key feature of how I define myself. But this makes it all the sadder that I so rarely actually do it.
So it's time to get back to it all!
This evening during my run, I was thinking I might go back to the Monday gaming night at Ward Warehouse and rejoin my old D&D group there. It's been a year. Sometimes it was frustrating how slow things went, but at least it was playing. And lately I've been dragging my feet on things because I want more entertainment and less of the work involved with DMing and designing. I've even been pushing S. to try her hand at DMing.
Zludge still needs work. Getting back into D&D would be good just to index some of the irksome things that Drudge should strive to overcome. (Look for some Notion threads on those!)
But, if I just want to play, I do have a bunch of solitaire lying stagnant on scraps of papers and text files on my hard drive. Lately, I've been in a mood to play something, but RPGing just seems too daunting and time-consuming. Time to overcome that apathy.
So, in the spirit of revival, here are a few backlog posts from this summer that never made it up here.
This is a disappointing state of affairs. It seems each semester something gets neglected: usually either my research or my gaming. This semester, it was the latter (which, incidentally, had pretty good consequences for my research--I'm starting to implement Marlinspike now). Hopefully next semester it can be my TAing and grading job that's neglected--I could use some practice getting by with less time on that one.
RPGing has become part of my identity--a key feature of how I define myself. But this makes it all the sadder that I so rarely actually do it.
So it's time to get back to it all!
This evening during my run, I was thinking I might go back to the Monday gaming night at Ward Warehouse and rejoin my old D&D group there. It's been a year. Sometimes it was frustrating how slow things went, but at least it was playing. And lately I've been dragging my feet on things because I want more entertainment and less of the work involved with DMing and designing. I've even been pushing S. to try her hand at DMing.
Zludge still needs work. Getting back into D&D would be good just to index some of the irksome things that Drudge should strive to overcome. (Look for some Notion threads on those!)
But, if I just want to play, I do have a bunch of solitaire lying stagnant on scraps of papers and text files on my hard drive. Lately, I've been in a mood to play something, but RPGing just seems too daunting and time-consuming. Time to overcome that apathy.
So, in the spirit of revival, here are a few backlog posts from this summer that never made it up here.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Picking up the Scattered Pieces
Well, this past couple months have been a bit scattered as I work on various projects:
• D&D: S. and I played some on Omri's line this weekend. I spent a day hacking B.'s OpenRPG XML tree to streamline play on Dragonwars. And last night I put in a bit of dungeon crawling on Tellurian Tales--though nothing major to report there yet.
I also got to check out the new 4E books at Borders. I only had time to flip through the PHB, but I was pretty happy with what I saw. Interesting decision to cut alignment down to LG, G, N (unaligned), E, and CE. The new gods seem cool. A lot of things like skills have been nicely simplified (often mirroring changes I've made in Drudge), but things are a bit more complicated with characters in other areas, as there are so many powers to choose from at each level now. I think it was a nice idea to turn a lot of the spells into character powers for spellcasters, except for rituals which take too long to be cast in combat. Still, with all the other stuff I have going on right now, I probably won't buy the books for a while. (But the SRD is probably out there somewhere.... Oh, foul temptation!)
• Zludge/Drudge: I've been rereading the Fudge SRD straight through, just to make sure I've covered everything I should and to pull any missed good ideas for Zludge. I also combined the 3dF of Fluffy and the 4dF of Zludge Prime into a single 3dF progression for both systems. Zludge is getting more streamlined, and I'm quite happy with it on paper. I still haven't had a chance to playtest it much yet, of course.
I've also been checking out diceless games, and I've been hacking out some co-GMing rules. Hopefully those details will make it up here soon.
• Lite Gaming: Reading Fudge's magic system got me thinking about my "non-Scrabble" magic system and so I pulled that out again late last night.
• Inspiriation: I went ahead and bought the Iron Kingdoms World Guide off eBay. So far, it's made for nice bathroom reading. I plan to work their history into my general Tellurian history document; doesn't look like it will be too painful.
• IN Research: I've also finally gotten back into my IN research by reviewing my two big spiral sketchbooks of notes, writing up a Table of Contents/Summary for each.
Anyway, this is just an overview. A lot of these projects will turn into links as more of the details get posted.
• D&D: S. and I played some on Omri's line this weekend. I spent a day hacking B.'s OpenRPG XML tree to streamline play on Dragonwars. And last night I put in a bit of dungeon crawling on Tellurian Tales--though nothing major to report there yet.
I also got to check out the new 4E books at Borders. I only had time to flip through the PHB, but I was pretty happy with what I saw. Interesting decision to cut alignment down to LG, G, N (unaligned), E, and CE. The new gods seem cool. A lot of things like skills have been nicely simplified (often mirroring changes I've made in Drudge), but things are a bit more complicated with characters in other areas, as there are so many powers to choose from at each level now. I think it was a nice idea to turn a lot of the spells into character powers for spellcasters, except for rituals which take too long to be cast in combat. Still, with all the other stuff I have going on right now, I probably won't buy the books for a while. (But the SRD is probably out there somewhere.... Oh, foul temptation!)
• Zludge/Drudge: I've been rereading the Fudge SRD straight through, just to make sure I've covered everything I should and to pull any missed good ideas for Zludge. I also combined the 3dF of Fluffy and the 4dF of Zludge Prime into a single 3dF progression for both systems. Zludge is getting more streamlined, and I'm quite happy with it on paper. I still haven't had a chance to playtest it much yet, of course.
I've also been checking out diceless games, and I've been hacking out some co-GMing rules. Hopefully those details will make it up here soon.
• Lite Gaming: Reading Fudge's magic system got me thinking about my "non-Scrabble" magic system and so I pulled that out again late last night.
• Inspiriation: I went ahead and bought the Iron Kingdoms World Guide off eBay. So far, it's made for nice bathroom reading. I plan to work their history into my general Tellurian history document; doesn't look like it will be too painful.
• IN Research: I've also finally gotten back into my IN research by reviewing my two big spiral sketchbooks of notes, writing up a Table of Contents/Summary for each.
Anyway, this is just an overview. A lot of these projects will turn into links as more of the details get posted.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Scattered Pieces and Tangled Threads
Well, not much to report this month because I just haven't had time for much roleplaying work. I've been busy with the end of term and the big grading backlog thereof. And then there's a few computing projects I'm starting to work on. Next month I need to start work on my IN research, which has been on hold these past 5 months. (Ouch.)
Looking back through my timelog, it seems February and March were spent on Zludge/Drudge design (over 90 hours!), and April was blogging and short/indie games. Right now I'm trying to pick up the pieces and decide which project to return to first.
• D&D. This week I've been refreshing my Dragonwars characters, dusting off OpenRPG, and doing some long-term planning in prep for some summer gaming with B. It's amazing how characters seem to get stale when you haven't played them in a while.
Working on D&D gets me thinking about all my other lines too. We haven't gotten back to S.'s Omri line since my last post on it. Tellurian Tales has been languishing in Mor Dunehaim for over a year now.
• Drudge/Zludge. Working with D&D is faintly depressing these days knowing that 4E will be out next week. This has also taken some of the wind of my Drudge sails, since so many of the little 3.5 irritants will be fixed in 4E. But D&D will remain focused on miniatures and combat strategy, so I think there will still be a place for Drudge.
On the Drudge front, I've been trying to slog ahead with my Ailithorn: Demon Hunter line as an alpha test. But Drudge is still in many incomplete pieces, and so progress is slow. Also, I'm trying to overhaul Zludge to be a proper parent system, but it's a massive undertaking. I've been tinkering with it this week though.
• Lite gaming. A Fluffy (non-Scrabble) urban fantasy magic system is still on the backburner, as well as an interesting potential storyline to go with it. Part of the stumbling block there is that the basic gist of the story/world (uninitiated character gains strange powers, learns of magical parallel world, and must deal with the machinations thereof) is essentially the same as DRYH, albeit with a slightly different feel. S. enjoyed DRYH, so I've been wondering if I shouldn't just stick with that for a while longer instead. So I've got a few idle notes there too.
• Inspiration. For all that on my plate, I feel the urge for something new. Admittedly, I'm looking for more content than rules (since I already have my Zludge pet project). I stood around in the local gaming store for an hour or so yesterday, trying to find something worth dropping $40 on despite my dire poverty. Nothing quite fit the bill. I'm thinking about checking out Iron Kingdoms though. I flipped through a couple books--their Monsternomicon and Five Fingers: Port of Deceit--but their core books seem to be out of print. But I've long been attracted to trying a sort of steam-punk, late Renaissance/early Enlightenment/Age of Discovery, musketeers-style fantasy setting. I think I could fit this well in the civilized Midlands of Tellure, currently empty on my maps. So this got me thinking of my Interludes D&D line, which I'd be happy to switch over to Drudge. Pirates, swashbuckling, dirty city intrigue, and blackpowder pistols! Yeah!
So all these things are simmering along. Hopefully this month some of them will get pulled together into some rousing game session or solid rules documents. If so, you'll hear about it here first!
Looking back through my timelog, it seems February and March were spent on Zludge/Drudge design (over 90 hours!), and April was blogging and short/indie games. Right now I'm trying to pick up the pieces and decide which project to return to first.
• D&D. This week I've been refreshing my Dragonwars characters, dusting off OpenRPG, and doing some long-term planning in prep for some summer gaming with B. It's amazing how characters seem to get stale when you haven't played them in a while.
Working on D&D gets me thinking about all my other lines too. We haven't gotten back to S.'s Omri line since my last post on it. Tellurian Tales has been languishing in Mor Dunehaim for over a year now.
• Drudge/Zludge. Working with D&D is faintly depressing these days knowing that 4E will be out next week. This has also taken some of the wind of my Drudge sails, since so many of the little 3.5 irritants will be fixed in 4E. But D&D will remain focused on miniatures and combat strategy, so I think there will still be a place for Drudge.
On the Drudge front, I've been trying to slog ahead with my Ailithorn: Demon Hunter line as an alpha test. But Drudge is still in many incomplete pieces, and so progress is slow. Also, I'm trying to overhaul Zludge to be a proper parent system, but it's a massive undertaking. I've been tinkering with it this week though.
• Lite gaming. A Fluffy (non-Scrabble) urban fantasy magic system is still on the backburner, as well as an interesting potential storyline to go with it. Part of the stumbling block there is that the basic gist of the story/world (uninitiated character gains strange powers, learns of magical parallel world, and must deal with the machinations thereof) is essentially the same as DRYH, albeit with a slightly different feel. S. enjoyed DRYH, so I've been wondering if I shouldn't just stick with that for a while longer instead. So I've got a few idle notes there too.
• Inspiration. For all that on my plate, I feel the urge for something new. Admittedly, I'm looking for more content than rules (since I already have my Zludge pet project). I stood around in the local gaming store for an hour or so yesterday, trying to find something worth dropping $40 on despite my dire poverty. Nothing quite fit the bill. I'm thinking about checking out Iron Kingdoms though. I flipped through a couple books--their Monsternomicon and Five Fingers: Port of Deceit--but their core books seem to be out of print. But I've long been attracted to trying a sort of steam-punk, late Renaissance/early Enlightenment/Age of Discovery, musketeers-style fantasy setting. I think I could fit this well in the civilized Midlands of Tellure, currently empty on my maps. So this got me thinking of my Interludes D&D line, which I'd be happy to switch over to Drudge. Pirates, swashbuckling, dirty city intrigue, and blackpowder pistols! Yeah!
So all these things are simmering along. Hopefully this month some of them will get pulled together into some rousing game session or solid rules documents. If so, you'll hear about it here first!
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