Ah yes, Another Causalty of the Worst Game Chef Ever

Well the title says it all mostly. But just to recap.

This gamechef sucked, because the guy organizing it attempted to do something big and yearlong and flaked out two weeks into it. Apprently going to flake out for 50 weeks.

I can appreciate that hey life gets busy sometimes, but shesh. 50 weeks, thats not getting busy, thats someone gave the fuck up. But hey we all know that 3 weeks of enthusiasm and 2 weeks of work are far better than 2 weeks of game chef, right ?>wrong.

I can only hope this goes to proove to whoever does the next one (if anyone) that emphasis should be put in execution and helping people compete not dimwitted ideas and 8 bit sprites .

Eitherway, this blog and this game is dead. Thanks anyway.

Transhumanism An Intricate Affair, Revision 1

Thanks Dave for your feedback and thank you my beautiful wife for the help with the Appendices.

AIA, Revision 1

Download my digitial minions, Download!

Also, your feedback is coming

Reciprocal Arrangements

I am for a limited time, Offering Reciprocal Readings.

That’s Right, You read my game , I read yours. If you want to talk about it, make a blog post or whatnot, as apposed to some of the forum type arrangements people have been forwarding.

So any takers.

Submission Woes

So how do I do a one year submission. I thought I had it figured out and then i realized I posted in the wrong space and there is still no word for those of us in the month+1 day to the year catagory. I thought I would ask.

Thanks Again,

Ah Goot Soomting Four Uu

Well Here it is, First Draft of Transhumanism: an Intricate Affair

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so Oddly enough

So oddly enough a handful of my Transhumanism ideas have meticulously welded themselves to my idea for a spy game and I’m left with something that’s rather in between. I’m not sure its any good, but I have 14 pages with a novel system and a generic type technological singularity setting that should work and all that. Its still not really seen the light of table, but I have played with it a little and all signs point to go.

I hope to have a document for the infonet by tomarrow sometime.
not really what i expected.

Why do we do that thing we do.

So yeah, I still have this blog, I don’t know if I’ve been deleted from the combulator or not but here it goes.

Why do we do that thing we do. In other words, why do we write games (and some even try to sell games) when its such a small hobby anyway. I mean its a small hobby for the likes of Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf. Why do individuals even attempt to sell in this kind marketplace besides being able to say that they did or in some sort attempt to ramp up or resume building for a bigger project. I dont get it.

Lets say that there are about 330 million people in canada and the us.  How many Dnd books do you think sold in the last year. 50 thousand? 100 thousand.  I really don’t know but lets roll with 100 thousand. That means that one person in 3300 purchased dnd.  Lets compare that to i don’t know AIDS. One in three hundred people have aids. One in three thousand ‘play’ dnd… (those are 2003 numbers from http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hiv_aid_peo_liv_wit_hiv_aid_percap-aids-people-living-per-capita if any of you want to get angsty about it). That means there are 10 people with aids for every person who ‘plays’ dnd (and yes i know purchased in the last year and ‘plays’ are two very different things but do you really think active players significant outnumber the number of people who ended up purchasing the books.)

But that’s Dnd. Lets take story games and let me tell you that’s a tiny number. It adds at least an order of magnitude to the above numbers if they were remotely plausible. So why do it. Why write games for this tiny reified community of ‘story gamers’. Good Marketing is on writing for those aids people that outnumber us story gamers about 100 to one. One Perfectly serviceable response would be ‘i don’t write for the community’ but rather “I write for my friends/family/neighbours” and that’s really great I dig it. But then why is there all this emphasis on selling games , rather than just making games, enjoying games, and loving games…

In other news, I may be restarting my entry into the contest working title, AIDS the RPG, I have high hopes…

To my commenter:

Yes, I do really see it in the community overall, but I find the emphasis on revision, playtest, and layout in this contest to be more aspects of the same if you see what i mean. Does a free/for the community product really need an alpha/beta/revision/final product timescale, Does Free/For the community products really need to compete in layout with published products, Do Free/For the community products really need extensive playtesting before publication. I mean these things will undoubtibly lead to a more finished and polished product, one which is certainly closer to publication than others, is that really how we want to judge our stuff. Maybe I’m just being a crybaby, wouldn’t be the first time in my life.

Courage Wolf Leads by Example

Ciao!

Failure

So My Games not going to be done in a week, and problem not even two weeks, which more or less was the two medals I was personally interested in. I have half a rough draft of somethign that doesn’t really work the way I want it to, I think. Failure is often informative so here is my critique and break down of what I did wrong.

1> I expected feedback, without resorting to Crying Werewolf. That was a mistake, the nature of an RSS feed means that with 100 odd blogs all churning posts, It means that anyone who is not posting alot is quickly lost.  I missed a few days and then all of a sudden my blog was more barren than subsavana africa.  This is combined with the fact I’m not a big name or a Forge Darling leads to even more ignoral than my other game chef experiances.

2> The Freemason stuff, because people can’t take a joke, which is what makes it funny oddly enough.

3> I’m kinda burned by this whole game design/Game Chef bit. I don’t plan on paid publication because I’m not here to learn DIY lessons and how to overthrow Wizards of the coast. This game chef (and a few of the last contests i’ve been on, especially from story games) seem to be about sucking capitalism’s dick. That turns me off a bit.

So for now, the games on hold, If I finish it, you’ll get it when I damn well feel like it, and it will be free and never published and if that makes me a bad story gaming indie minion well so be it.

L

With Diagrams Continued

So I found this bit with the Diagrams helpful, so now I am continueing with it. Namely Identifying and clarifying another aspect of GM control that needs to be wheedled out so I can figure what should go where. We also had a question about what the difference between the Yellow Arrows and the Blue Arrows are.

First the Yellow arrows are rewards from the Gm. They are benefits from the Gm handed to the players. They come in a couple of different forms as can be seen more clearly in the revised diagram, but basically they are the bennies that encourage certain actions. Mainstream examples of this include Xp or Action Points from dnd, but also things like the keys to the kingdom for staltwart adventurers and so on.

The Yellow Arrows are litterally punishment from the Gm. Admittedly its the good kind of punishment (Whip Crack!). The Gm rather than just giving the players what they want, is constantly delaying or preventing reward (which is a kind of negative punishment) and inflicting new problems or costs onto the players (which is a postitive punishment). The Blue Arrow is litterally the punishment tax that the players must pay to get by the Gm, and the yellow arrows is the gm, rewarding the players for doing it in a certain way.

Here is the revised Diagram.

Two Big Changes.

First notice the tiny yellow arrows besides Player Based Problem Solving?  I have in mind a way to make the colourful but often useless addittions players can make during combat more impactful by having a clear mechanical reward for such things. Colourful play litterally costs less. The Gm will return some dice when colourful play is made, and that is represented by the tiny yellow arrows.

Second notice, the Grey Gm based problems? My little model hasn’t actually decided how exactly the GM based punishment should work I realized. I know how I want the dice on the playerside to work, but not on the GM side. I’m still ironing this out but I think this is an important step.  Part of this is dealing with how exactly the vital stats should work but part of it is as well, deciding how the monsters/challenges/combat/love affairs should work. Should they just trigger the delayed punishment (in the form of vital stats) or should they add to the vital stats (something like ,being revealed in your love affair with an enemy agent may justifiably add to your stress level).

Something that also has been somewhat downplayed but is a bit more central to the game as originally concieved was the idea of Ideology (what assets were originally headed under). Ideology and training was surposed to form a kind of one two punch of character that would enable you to quickly get a grasp of what makes your character tick (like race and class) but also provide a key to which the gm could reward you (more like alignment in dnd). Originally the Ideology was going to give you a conceptually opposite power in order to enable ‘moral exporation’ and then i realized with my wife’s help , that all the moral bullshit at storygames was just that , moral bullshit (take that Swine!) .

Now I am left without a clear view of where Ideology is surposed to be , now that the game has taken a much less level/race/class bent and more of an oppened ended question bent. I don’t know whether to scrap it or not, part of me says its important and the other part of me is saying that anything that needs to be said about your character ,should be said about your character and not on your character sheet. So we will see. I am totally itching to get some writting done, but I dont get off work til tomarrow, so Friday! I AM COMING FOR YOU!

Thank you for reading my Blog and giving me feedback, I appreciate it.

l

Now with Diagrams

So I’m still musing my way threw bits here ,but I got a picture to help everyone get up to pace with my design thought atm.

Here is the basic paths I think that the dice can take in the game.

So now , I have to consider how I want the dice to act both while they flow, and when they get to vitals.

First character creation atm is basically assigning dice into catagories (Assets, Training, and Gear) . I like this for a couple of reasons because its both fast and allows the same character to be different at multible times (depending upon what they are prepared to do, and what the player wants to accomplish) which I think in a Jack of all trades business like spies works perfectly.

Secondly we have Player Based Problem Solving. As obstacles come up , the Players are expected to solve the obstacles or problems by throwing dice at it. I’m still not solid on how exactly the dice are going to work at this point, I’m thinking likely it will literally be as simple as moving a dice from say assets to vitals (althought there may be an elite version including some sort of rolling or roll off if multible PC’s or BBEG’s are involved.)

Thirdly we have Gm based Opputunities, where the Gm in his or her infinite wisdom introduces a new asset, training, or gear to the PC’s and that is represented by giving them dice. This section here is pretty directly tied into my concept of Karma because in my mind the dice for the gm to give out as they see fit, also includes any unused dice from character creation , essentailly giving the players a way to tell the gm they want some good useful stuff to come up in play for taking less dice immediately .

So as you can see, Dice will be moving arround, Atm I’m kinda planning only d6′s because ordering a pound of d6′s online is fun, and its the most common and easily accessible dice.

But the pressing element of design I really got to figure out at the moment is as subtitled here

What to do with Vital Dice

So over the course of the game, Dice will be filtering in the Vital Stats, but I haven’t really addressed what to do with  them. I know that I want them to be used dramatically to limit the player. Ie when your picking off mooks they shouldn’t matter, but when you finally lie steal and cheat your way to the church tower to take out JFK, I want the Blood Dripping from your wounds, The Lies and Deceptions you told to get there, The Shakey footing from the ledge, and the Pain from the combat to matter.

How I do that both in a fun and dramatic way is up to debate.

First, I can help ensure Fun by removing super penalities. A super penalty is a penalty that not only punishes you, but one that removes you from the game in some way. For example, in my original conception of Stress or PainI would have knocked people unconcious. Not only is this perhaps not the most true to the Spy novel as it could be, its not very fun to be taken out of the game. This is of course contrasted with the need for effective and scary punishment. So Shock will likely kill you (as makes a lot of sense) but I’m still unsure if Pain should knock you out (which still makes alot of sense) and what exactly stress should do (unbalance seems pretty right on the money)

I can also ensure Dramatic by doing something that has kinda stuck with me in my writting and gming career. Unpredictibly Post poning the inevitible. Honestly most bits of an RPG are either threw system mastery or knowledge of your friends pretty predictible. You know that theirs some monsters in the cave or that the princess is really a doppleganger or whatnot. The real drama is not how but when. To that end I need to make Vitals both predictible and unpredictible.

So If you want to give me some helpful suggestions on how to handle Vital dice feel free here is knida where I am at now.

1> Vital Dice are kept long and rolled seldom. (when dramatically appropiate or whatnot)

2> You probably can’t spend Asset / Training / Gear dice to remove Vital Dice (I’m waivering on this one, and I would like your opinions, If I don’t allow it it seems to make Medicine a loser but If  i do, it seems to make Vitals a loser. Perhaps some middle ground where Medicine allows rearrangement or helps with the checks but not the number of dice.

3> The Dice are probably going to be Rolled and the rolled again, If the second roll is tallies higher than the first its going to be ominous.  (Their’s a lot of ways to get arround this exactly, I may roll for failures (lets say 1′s on a 6 sided dice) , I may tally total, they may be able to be skilled out or something you get the idea.

4> It seems likely that there will be a fixed effect for going over an established vital, I’m still waivering on how to do that exactly. Will it be a fixed and choosen effect, Will it just the fixed effect, I’m really leaning to the first and including some kind of status bar in addittion

So that’s it tune in tomarrow. FOR MORE THINKING, writting will probably be friday/Saturday