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.

Dreamation 2011 - Critical! and Geasa

There's a convention that I like to go to, and it's Dreamation. I find a pile of wonderful people there who I love talking to as well as get to play with a pile of games. Some of them are even my own.

There were two games that we ran. The first one was Geasa, and I ran a lot of it since it's the new game that we're pushing, and the second one was Critical!: Go Westerly! We got a couple of interesting insights playing these games.

Geasa

I only had one game of Geasa go off, there were four scheduled.

Lesson One:
Try to produce more hype for the game. I was hoping to get at least two of them off because I want people to play the game. They need to play it, or at least hear about it to want to play it. Must bust out the marketing chops, which we all know that most writers suck at this part of the biz.

The game went off fairly well. We did a lot of exploring in France just before the revolution. This was funny to me because this was the second time that someone decided to do that and one time was in Hamilton so there is no way that they were able to collaborate on this. I should probably find a way to write up a setting book for this time period because apparently it's pretty popular. I think I'll blame Montseigneur 1499 for this.

Lesson Two:
Make sure that you schedule a break. Geasa is a pretty demanding game and the fact that people just kept going means that it broke down pretty quickly near the end. I think if I give people that 15 minute break between every two times the game goes around the table then it will refresh the mind and give people the chance to do what they need to do. Must remind myself about that for the next time I run the game.

I also need to sit down and give people a slightly better overview of what they can and can't do. They can tell what their characters are doing, they can define anything for an NPP but they can't tell things about the other players. That's stepping on toes and should probably be reigned in better. Anyway, I think it went well and hope people enjoyed the game.

Critical!:* Go Westerly

Wow. This game went off so much better than I thought it would. Not that I thought it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be this much fun. The players really did have a good time with the characters and it was silly, but at no point in time did it because goofy, and that's my biggest worry. I don't want this game to be thought of as some sort of equivalent of Munchkin: The RPG or something like that. It needs to be able to stand on it's own funny.

Here were some lines during the game carefully written down by Geoff Bottone, who is one half of the creative team on this. They are listed by character, not by player.

Mary the Wench

As a duly-authorized employee of the tavern, offering to sell the tavern's provisions to the hungry Kobolds for gold. Thereby ending the battle with the kobolds with her unusually high common sense. Also, frequently using her common sense to help others.

Urist Axebeard, Tall Dwarf

When confronted with flying fairies: I can't reach them with my axe? Can I throw it at them? I really don't like fairies.

Urist: Wait, there's a plaque on this wall. And it says, "Perend Adventure Tours Dungeon Complex, Room A5? That...doesn't make any sense."

Urist: What's my name? You don't really care, do you? You'll just call me, "dwarf," anyway, so whatever name you give me is fine.
Mabel: Oh, excellent! You shall be known as El Tallface!

Barnabas Ramsey, Wizard

Discovering, through discourse with a kobold that he had captured, that the kobold was both a) very intelligent and b) a licensed therapist. Then the two of them proceeded to have a very nice conversation as they headed to the kobold lair (pronounced "lay-er" by the kobolds), where they found the others mired in traps and negotiations.

Taking out the entire group of anarcho-punk fairies by shouting, "this is ridiculous! We live in a feudal society! You can't tell me that you've just come up with this extremely advanced, modern, political system on your own in what is, essentially a vacuum! I don't believe it! I just don't believe in these fairies!"

This lead to the fairies keeling over and dying, because someone didn't believe in them. Everyone else was very careful not to clap.

This entire exchange with Aelae the Necromancer. It's paraphrased. The actual exchange was even more awesome.

Barnabas: You may be evil, but you don't have to be a jerk!
Aelae: Sure I do, it's in the contract.
Barnabas: You have a contract to be evil?
Aelae: Yes! I graduated from the Wizardry with a major in Necromancy and a contract that says that I get to be a jerk whenever I want!
Barnabas: Really? You're a graduate of the Wizardry? Me too. But I was valedictorian!
Aelae: So was I.
Barnabas: Oh.
Aelae: Incidentally, if you're a graduate of the Wizardry, what are you doing slumming it in this dungeon with these idiots? Shouldn't you be teaching classes?
Barnabas: I don't...have...a graduate degree...Um...Can you write me a letter of recommendation, maybe?

Barnabas: "I know, I'll summon a fire elemental. That should solve the problem. This is a dungeon, nothing in here should catch on fire."
Mary: "What about the wooden kiosks outside?"
Barnabas: "Fire elementals don't buy things."

Daffodianna, the Very Nice Bard

Played by, possibly, the nicest person at the table. She was quiet and sweet, and played songs that gave everyone bonuses virtually all the time. She also conjured an impressive goblin-repelling force bubble out of song. And, was responsible for this little exchange.

Player: Okay, now that combat's over, I'm trying to do (something not combat-related, I forget what it was). Do I still get the Bard's song bonus?
Daffodianna: No. I don't play music when combat's over. There's no point. It's just not exciting.

Angelique Doto, Quillsman

Bartender: Okay, you're standing at the end of the stairs. The basement floor has collapsed out from beneath you and you see the remains of the basement, about twenty feet down, in another cavern.
Angelique: I jump down! Hoorah!

Things like the following happened all the time, but this was by far the coolest example of Angelique. Who had no weapons or armor of any kind.

The players fight two skeletons. Urist kills one. Angelique says.

Angelique: I do a leaping dive roll, grab the skull of the skeleton that Urist just killed, and throw it really hard at the other skeleton. Success!
Bartender: Okay, you hit the skull with the skull in the back of the...skull...The other skeleton crumbles. It looked awesome, by the way.

Marten Iij, Priest of the Thief

Marten: "I'm not going hunting for kobolds. All we're going to do is run into traps."

Marten (upon seeing a woman trapped in a heavily trapped room with whirling death blades and the like): Ma'am, is it all right if I try to steal from you? (He knew that if he was robbing her, his chance to succeed would be higher).

Stelph the Elf

Stelph's constant running patter about how he was better than everyone else (in both incarnations) was just hilarious. And then there was this:

Bartender: The undead are pouring through this tunnel, which looks like it's been hastily dug. Roots from trees on the surface protrude through the ceiling in a lot of places.
Stelph: I use my nature-based magic to convince the trees to attack the tunnel, because I am a Defender of the Forest. I fail. Oh, nature, why have you foresaken me.

And this:

Bartender: The elf introduces herself to you as Tulip. She flicks her blue hair absentmindedly, stares at the floor, and says, "heeey." (this was me, channeling Ke$ha, though Stelph doesn't have a beard).
Stelph: Heeey. I'm two hundred.
Bartender: "I'm 198."
Stelph: Oh. Really? Well, huh.

What I got to do!

I got to play with Brennan and Amber with a couple of Brennan's games. I got to play Three Black Crows, Three Dead Men and Sparks from the Fire both games that Brennan did for various contests. They were both an amazing good time. Amber and I both agreed that had we not been so exhausted we probably would have had even more fun, which is amazing when you consider the fact that we had a great time. It seriously was one of the big highlights and I recommend that you pick up Three Crows and check out the rest of the games from Galileo Games. Seriously good times there.

Also, Brennan has a bag of awesome. It's making me want to scour through ebay to find something similar. It was just too amazing.

All in all it was a great con. I can't do anything but recommend any of the dexposure cons if you can make it. Not only are they a great and good time, you'll get to see and play a bunch of games with some amazingly awesome people.

I was just disappointed that my games conflicted with my chance of being a Cosmic Roadie!

eBooks and the like

I don't know if you know Adam Jury but I would recommend that you check him out either on his blog or on twitter. I mention him because he's talking a lot about ebooks. Not PDFs, but ebooks. The things that can be read in electronic readers.

Now, I don't doubt that it's totally possible that they will set it up so that .pdfs can be read in e-readers, but there's also this possibility that it won't. Technology is a fickle entity and sometimes it goes in directions that you don't expect it to because of the technology that's already there.

With that in mind, I'm going to start trying to convert all the books that I am going to be printing into .epub format. I'll have to do the research to figure out how much to charge for these formats, but I figure that making a book easier to be purchased can't be a bad thing.

I'm going to start testing it out with Mile High Dragon, but Geasa will be the first released book that's in .epub format as well.

See Adam, all your tweeting has gotten to someone.

Party Games

One of the things that I haven't been too good at is coming up with party games. You know the type, the one that deals with words or phrases or some such thing. The kind of games that you bring out when there are a large number of people and a certain level of alcohol. Yeah, those types of games.

Not to say that these games aren't bad. I love those types of games. One of the homeschooling moms brings in Taboo all the time. I grew up playing Boggle, and Charades, and Pictionary. These games are a lot of fun. They just aren't the types of games that spring to my mind when I start designing games. Then, at Gencon, we were just talking at dinner and making jokes, like any table of friends would do, and all of a sudden a party game sprang out of it.

Now I find myself trying to come up with the rules for this game and its harder than I thought. The problem, unlike the more standard hobby games that I tend to make, is that the game itself is rather simple, and I'm worried that people will get bored with it too easily. Now, instead of cutting overly complicated rules and ideas, I find myself trying to make them up. It is an interesting problem to have for once.

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A question about the future - Faery Curses

I've been thinking about stuff and how to publish things in this new age where the old models for everything are slowly dying around us. How I might want to do things differently.

There is a new method of doing things, which is through the ransom model which has worked well for Arc Dream publishing. There is the Creative Commons License, which I think is gaining more and more steam and rightfully so. There is even the old stick my head in the sand method and hope I luck out. However, with our latest experiment not working out the way we thought it would the last idea seems to be the worst of that lot.

Now, I do have Feary Curses (it has a new name, but I'm sticking with the working title because that's how I've talked about it here, but for the record I seem to be going with Geasa) and I was thinking what would happen if we just released the text as Creative Commons by-nc-nd license.

My question, to the three people who read this blog and anyone else who might stumble upon this. What should I do? Should I use the by-nc-nd license, or should I make it a less restrictive CC license. Should I give the older method a good ol' college try again. Do I take a page from Arc Dream and try the Ransom method.

Thoughts?

Faery Game

I have decided that the best games are the ones that come to me on the streetcar. They just seem to come out and then they're good ideas, much like any ideas they're things that are rooted pretty deep in you.

I want to do a Faery Game. Not something like Changeling, or anything thing else out there. I want it to be mean. Really mean. Almost disturbingly mean. I don't know where this is coming from but it was just something that dropped on my shoulder.

Here is the basic premise.

You all play people who have willingly, or unwittingly, made a deal with a Fae to try to achieve your goals. You play your character and a Fae who is busy trying to own as many people as they possibly can. So you want to make sure that you keep the other players at your beck and call, and at your beck and call not the other faeries.

I'm going to try to get more of it down later, but that's the first idea I've got in my head.

Alpha Version 3

The nice thing about Alphas is that you will find what's wrong with them pretty quickly and then need to fix them.

The bad news is that for a DCG/CCG that means you're either modifying a lot of cards, or making up new ones. I tend to go for the new ones, which is bad on me but I think makes it easier to test. I'm not above modifications, but wholesale changes need to be made ... well, wholesale.

Things are shaping up a bit more. I still need to make the game deadlier, right now it's really hard to attack anything or anyone which means that I think I need to give people attack abilities more often. That way you're not stuck with a bunch of people who sit there looking "pretty." I am toying with making attack a permanent stat, but then I think the game loses some of the strategy.

Decisions, decision, decisions.