Consuming is Creating or Why am I reading Game Books I'm not really gonna play

I have a giant pile of RPG books in my home. I'm sure I don't has as many as some, but I tend not to buy everything a game system puts out. I'll have a sourcebook here or there if it interests me, but for the most part I really just like buying the main book and seeing how they deal with introducing the world, the mechanics, all the kind of fun stuff. I do this because reading what other people are doing is perhaps the best way to actually get past any blocks that I'm having.

This has been said a million times before, and it will probably be said a million times afterwards but this is me saying this right now. If you're currently having problems with something in your game, stop and go out and play other games, read other games, cut the pages out of other games and eat them. Whatever you really need to do to help your head get through that problem, because otherwise you're going to beat your head in wondering why you can't figure something out.

Case in point for me, I've been bouncing that Being Human game in my head for a while now an how things were going to work out hasn't come together yet. There have been a few hit or miss things but nothing really helped pushed that dynamic between that drive the be human, and the desire to be the monster. I knew that I wanted a Wyrd, a breaking point that made you break the things you cared about but got stronger for it. I just didn't know how you were going to get towards that Wyrd, and a lot of other things. Just wasn't coming so I stopped worrying about it and started just reading other stuff.

I read Matt McFarland and Michelle Lyons-McFarland's curse the darkness, I read Ryan Macklin's Mythender, I reread Joe Mcdaldno's Monsterhearts, and I read Elizabeth Shoemaker-Sempat's They Became Flesh. These games all kind of helped form some ideas in regards to what I wanted to do. Now did I take the mechanics there and go "I'm going to use this!" No, I didn't. However, just some concepts and ideas that might work when modified for Being Human (because that's a better working title than Worst Enemy).

To be even more specific, I read They Became Flesh and enjoyed the idea of locking dice. Now I threw out the double mechanic because there's not a finite amount of dice in Being Human, you'll roll ... something (see, haven't figured out everything yet) something but any 1s that show up are going to be the things that get locked into your Wyrd. That doesn't mean you can't use them, but it's a physical representation of how close you are to going over that edge and pushing yourself closer to that edge of being a Monster.  Of course the thought process was a lot more like this.

"Okay, so doubles lock?"
"No, that doesn't make sense, maybe just 1s then."
"Yeah, that makes the tension exist without the finite amount of dice, every time you roll there's a chance that you will get closer to your Wyrd without guaranteeing it."
"Okay, what makes up a roll, damned if I know but I think that works better."
"Yeah, got to have that space for failure and 'Aw shit!'"

But you get my point, this comes from pulling in all this extraly awesome creative works and letting them rattle around in my skull for a while.

Just another little piece of straw on the back of the "You need to consume to create" camel.

Design Thoughts - Worst Enemy and Templates

How do people feel about templates? I guess it depends on how we define templates because that's kind of a wide ranging word. The most obvious answer are things like classes, because that's probably the most encompassing example of a template

I kinda hate classes though. They're extremely confining, in a YOU MUST ALL BE LIKE THIS, kind of way. I know there are ways around it, but if your reaction to a class is to try to find a way to circumvent it, maybe the best thing to do is do away with them all together.

However, maybe a template is less like a class and more like a race. Think of the race you are in Bulldogs and it gives you a some typical Aspects of each race. You don't have to pick them all, in fact you're encouraged to pick a couple out of all of them. It makes sense that you should have somethings in common with others of your kind, I just don't want it to have it be the be all and end all.

Right now I'm leaning towards that kind of idea. Where you have some traits in common, and some things that make you, you that are stricktly something that's your characters.

I was also thinking that as you play you should uncover your personal history, since a lot of these types of characters are immortal, or Damn near close to it. Atrocities committed, enemies made. Sure it's kind of like a plot path but why not? I mean these are old being, I think they should have a bit of that world weariness to them. Maybe this change is how they're trying to break free?

Thoughts?

Breaking the Rules of Game Design ... because I wanna

There's a couple of in-jokes around making RPGs. The first is, don't make a Fantasy RPG. Why? Because you're going to have to deal with the Juggernaut that is D&D (or as other people might put it, Pathfinder). Well, broke that rule with Critical! because I think Critical! does something the other two don't, which is be funny.

I've got my Indie Beef Games going, which I just think are a fun thing to name a series of games, so why do I want to think of a new game that I want to do?

Inspiration, perhaps. Maybe a fit of self destruction, which is ironic considering the game. I don't know. But I now want to break unofficial rule number two of making RPGs. I'm going to make a Vampire RPG.

Why? I think I kind of reached an epiphany about why I'm not a huge fan of the WW series of games. There's some great writing in it, some really good idea but I think the idea kinda gets lost in there somewhere. You pick up the books, and you get this great feeling that you're going to be dealing with the fact that you're playing people who are dealing with this monster within them and trying to latch on to some semblance of humanity before they're consumed by the animal within them.

I love that idea, I really do.

Then you get the list of cool powers that you can do, and look at all the invisible, super strength, jumping, flying, mind control, yippee awesome powers you get. Okay, it's written in a more sedate manner than that, but that's kinda what stick with me when I read those book. "Here is our thesis ... look at our shiny toys!" and it becomes about big power players, and large gigantic arcs, and city spanning plots!

This is cool. As I get older I start to understand what people like in games rather than just hating the game because I don't get something out of it. My problem is that ... I really like that thesis. I just don't like the path they took.

So I want to make a Vampire game. A Monster game really, you can be a werewolf, or a ghost, or a whatever but it's going to be something not human. It's now, and you're not running about looking at people like they're some kind of treat, or obstacle but as something you're striving to be. The biggest problem is you, you are your own worst enemy and the more you push towards the other side the more you're going to mess up your own life.

It isn't a beast that you become, but a broken down shell of a thing. It's not the horror of the destroyer, but the horror of nothingness.

Now, I don't have a die mechanic, I really don't have how things are set up yet but what I really want to do is this.

You have a Wyrd. A good a working title as any. If you're a Vampire it might be, "I will eventually kill and eat those that love me." If you're a Ghost it could be, "I push people away, for their own good." I werewolf might have, "I can't stay, I just can't."

Everytime you use a supernatural ability, you get closer to having your Wyrd take effect. Once you cross that threshold, you have a moment in the game where you deal with the effects of that. To whatever detail you want to use, but you will kill someone who loves you, you will push someone away, you'll leave and go somewhere else because you *have* to.

That is what I think would make for a fun Vampire game.

I'll keep you posted, but apparently I just decided that my working title is going to be Worst Enemies. Very working title.