Bruno of Elthos

I got a Wacom CTL-470 Tablet.  It's an older, simpler model... an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

So, you can guess what comes next ... I shall of course be posting some of my better sketches here.  Just some fun things to pass the time, and I do want to learn how to draw a little better so I can update my Elthos Core Rules Book with some nicer looking art.   So here we go.

The latest greatest ...  introducing Bruno of Elthos.

Of course, you want to exercise your own creativity.  That's perfectly natural.  Unfortunately, in this day and age, most people say to themselves "oh, I can't do art", and "I'm not the creative type." along with a great deal of other nonsense.

Why not take up a creative hobby for yourself?  May I recommend https://elthos.com as an excellent place to start?  Go ahead.  Make both of our days.  :) 

Create your own World.

Elthos RPG - Mystic Powers

Today I want to talk briefly about the design of the Elthos RPG Mystic Power System because I think it may have some features that people don't know about, but might like. There's two aspects of importance here.  One is for the GM, and the other is for the Players.

I'll start with the Players.  First off there's two kinds of Mystic Powers: Spells and Invocations.  They both use Mystic Energy, measured in Points (Mystic Points) to cast or invoke.  So, the mechanical difference between the two is negligible, and the distinction is more for world organization than a distinct mechanical effect.  Spells are used by Magic Users, while Invocations are used by Clerics.  In the philosophical sense the Mystic Power is fueled and shaped in the first case by the Magician's personal Ego, where the Mystic is channeling their own Mystic Energy into the Spell and shaping it into the form they desire.  In the latter case, however, the Cleric is using their Mystic Energy to call upon their Elkron (the name by which Elthosian Deities are known), and if successful the Elkron themselves are being Invoked and it is their Power and their Will that is fueling and shaping the Mystic Energy.  So because of this, with some GM adjudication involved, and in some rare cases, the Clerical invocations can produce much greater variation in effect than what the typical Spell might produce... because the Elkron, depending on their Alignment, mood, and the circumstances, might cause the results to be larger (or smaller) and / or different than expected.  So Spells are more like scientific formulas that have a specific and known effect within a specific range of power.  Invocations, while usually conforming to expectations, don't necessarily do so.  This is especially the case when Fumbles or Critical Successes are involved.

Mechanically, Players get to flex their Mystic Powers.  They can do this by adding additional Mystic Energy than the normal cost of the Spell or Invocation.  They can then augment whatever properties of the power make sense given the power's nature, such as increasing it's Range, Duration, Damage or their Mystic Attack Level.  For example, a Fire Bolt is defined as follows:

Name	Fire Bolt
Cast-Time Units	Melee
Duration Units	Instant
Effect Units	Level 1 (1d6)
Geometry Units	Line / Bolt / Person
Range Units	Feet
Category	Combat
Type	Spell
Mystic Power Level	1
Alignment	Neutral
Description	Bolt of fire from hands or eyes that does 1d6 fire Damage to one opponent within Range. Bonus MP can be added to give a +1 Mystic Attack Level / MP, and/or +10' / MP Range, and/or +1 Damage / MP.

Fire Bolt costs 1 MP by default 1 MP to cast.  Like all Mystic Powers the default Range is 60'. If the Spell Chanter wants to extend its Range, an additional MP can be added to extend it to 70'.  If 2 MP are added the Range can be extended to 80'.  Or if more damage is desired additional MP can be added to increase the Damage Bonus.  Any combination of effects can be extended by adding Mystic Points, up to the limit that the Spell Chanter can cast into a single Spell (the limit is 2 x the Character Level). So a 4th Level Spell Chanter can cast a Spell with a Maximum of 8 Mystic Points.  In this case they could add 7 MP to their Fire Bolt, allowing, perhaps, +3 Damage, +20' Range, and +2 Attack Level. In other words, Characters can flex their Mystic Powers according to the properties of the Power.  Invocations, of course, work the same way... and behave like Spells, with the caveat that on Critical Hits and Fumbles they may do far greater unexpected effects than Spells are likely to do because the Elkron who is actually causing the effect has a vast amount of Mystic Energy they can potentially draw from, and possibly unanticipated motives for changing the effects accordingly.

For Gamemasters, building new Spells and Invocations is also something the system helps with by defining the the set of properties that make up all spells.  Those properties are listed above in the left hand column of the chart.  By defining these properties the Gamemaster can create any kind of Spell or Invocation with relative ease.  Doing things in this way also provides an relatively easy to way to compare Mystic Powers to assess what the relative Power Level should be.

In the case of the Fire Bolt above, its 1d6 Damage, simple Geometry, and short Range (measured in Feet, rather than Yards, Miles, or other distances), and other limited properties help to identify it as a Power Level 1 Spell.

So the nicety is that the definition of Powers helps the GM to ensure that the Powers are defined with appropriate Power Levels, which determines both how much they cost to learn in Mystic Learning Points (which are gained each Character Level) and how much they MP cost to Cast or Invoke.

Now the Big Idea here is that GMs will be creating their own Spells and Invocations for their own unique Worlds, and not using a specified Cannon of "Official" Mystic Powers delivered by Elthos RPG.  What Elthos does is provide a short list of example Powers from which the GMs are encouraged to extrapolate upon in order to fill out their own amazing Worlds.  In addition, the Mythos Machine allows GMs to Share their creations with other GMs on the system through the World Things Trading Post... a system that allows GMs to browse Powers, along with all other kinds of Things (weapons, armors, equipment, races, classes, etc) and "Import" the ones they like into their own Worlds.

And there you have it.  A brief description of how Mystic Powers work in the Elthos RPG.

https://elthos.com
#Elthos #Gamemaster #RPGTools #MagicSystem

Tenkar's Interview with VBWyrde of Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine

I had a nice time chatting with Tenkar about Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine ... here's the interview ... Many thanks to Tenkar for the interview! You can find Tenkar's Tavern on the Web and on Discord.


https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E292---Designers--Makers-Fireside-Chat-with-VBWyrde-Elthos-RPG--Mythos-Machine-e3cclj/a-ab8qkb

#Elthos #ElthosRPG #MythosMachine #Gamemaster
https://elthos.com

Elthos RPG - The World's Ultimate Fantasy Heart-Breaker

Someone on G+ recently mentioned that they encountered Elthos a while back and thought it is "the world's ultimate Fantasy Heart-breaker".  While not entirely surprising, given the very long haul this project has taken, I nevertheless find it amusing.  I have to wonder if it's true.  After all... it could be.  Perhaps I can take pride in that somehow?  After all, being the "ultimate" anything is distinctive.  Hmmm...

As to whether or not it happens to be true... How would I know? I'm just the poor shlub who's been tinkering away this for the past 40 years.  And I'm pretty sure I will continue to tool away at it, quite happily, for the next 40 years.  More if I can manage it. Elthos is my art form, and as such, it's something I work on because I enjoy it.

As you may know, the Mythos Machine is a major piece of the Elthos Project.  Aside from the simple enjoyment I get from tinkering with the code, I tool away at it because I would like to fulfill my vision ... The main driver in this regard is my own sense of satisfaction in knowing I thought up something that seemed useful for the world of RPGs, and then went ahead and persevered with it until I achieved it. I'm a pretty stubborn person, and this kind of project seems suitable for my temperament. I started the project in 1978 with the creation of my homebrew Elthos RPG Rules, and in 1994 I conceived of a computer application to help me crunch the numbers for game prep and so taught myself databasing and programming.  Between then and now I've been chipping away at this concept in my off hours as my Once and Great Hobby Project.

By 2000 I had a Visual Basic 6 application that does a LOT of very cool stuff related to world building and character management.  I mean a LOT of wonderful features are packed into that program.  Even more than the Mythos Machine web application does, actually. For example, it has a map painter utility that integrates the combat rules so you can run the entire game pushing characters around on the map and combating them, taking into account weapons and armors, magic, movement, terrain, and every rule I use to run my games. It's pretty damn slick, if I do say so myself.  But as it was a Microsoft VB6 project, it has fundamental flaws and I was concerned about being able to support it if I sent it out into the wild.  So I decided to shelve it, and work on a web application instead, largely because it would have a much easier support model.  It also gave me a chance to start over from scratch with the code base.  That's the Mythos Machine.  I began that in 2006.  Now, 12 years later, I think it's ready for public consumption. It doesn't handle everything the VB application does, but handles most of it.  I will add the other pieces as time, resources and interest dictate.

I should admit that my expectation is not to sweep the RPG market and become rich on the back of Elthos RPG, though. To think that is even possible would be blatantly absurd, of course.  Even if it were hugely, enormously, outrageously successful, we're really talking about a tiny niche hobby, out of which I am trying to provide something of interest to an even tinier subset of GMs who happen to want to create their own Worlds (and would like comprehensive computer support with building and running their game Worlds, but that's a different kettle of fish, in relation to Elthos RPG, which I'm talking about in terms of it's success as a stand alone RPG).  Planning on becoming rich on that prospect would be akin to depending on winning lotto as a career plan. And if that were my goal, then yeah, I'd say I'd be likely to end up in Fantasy Heart-Breaker territory.  But that's not my expectation, so on that level I don't think this outcome is likely. Financial success would be nice, but is hardly necessary. That said, of course I would like people to take a look at what I've created because I honestly think it's worthwhile. But for my own sanity, I don't want to depend on that result, either.  I want to enjoy it for what it is, and leave the rest to fate, or destiny, or luck, or the Tao, or The Gods, or whatever.

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

But as far as money is concerned, I derived my entire programming career from this project, having taught myself programming so in order to work on it starting in 1994. I make a very decent living as a programmer/analyst, so I have to include that in my calculations as to how much money Elthos made for me.  Fact is, if it weren't for Elthos, I wouldn't ever have become a programmer ... this plus the fact that I've had a fabulous time Gamemastering Elthos and tinkering away at the Mythos Machine over the years... even without it being successful in the market, I think  I'm already way ahead. And I never borrowed money for the project so I don't owe anyone anything. It is very cheap to run, and I can keep it online at very little cost.  So, I'm not in a rush to make money on this thing.  I just want it to be done with as much excellence as I can put into it.

As I look at it, I've managed to successfully create something pretty awesome while avoiding all of the usual tricks, traps & "Imperial Entanglements" associated with Capitalist System.  Because of that I completely own Elthos. and so I am at perfect liberty to do with it whatever I want. And it does a great job for me. I use it to run my own games, and my friends have had a myriad hours of fun romping around Elthos killing monsters, taking their stuff, and saving (er, sometimes destroying) the world.  And that makes me happy, too.

What would be especially cool, though, is to find in the end that I added something to the world of RPGs that was not just some transient wisp of an idea, but something that really helps lift the hobby, overall, and in the long run. I think Mythos Machine as an innovative piece of RPG software has a shot at that. But that is not my goal for the projec,t either.  It would be a lovely if all goes well, but it's not the reason I work on it, either.  Again, I'd be crazy to assume that my work will be influential in the world of RPGs as there's waaaaaay too many brilliant people contributing far more popular ideas to the hobby than I am.  But still, I don't know too many who have stuck to creating RPG game prep software for their systems quite as doggedly as I have... so there's a chance that 'ere the end Elthos and the Mythos Machine will prove of some value to Gamemasters creating their own Worlds.  In this I do stand some chance of winding up in the Fantasy Heart-Breaker zone, but again, I'm not convinced of that either.  After all, even if no one uses it... I use it.  And to very good effect for my games.  So at the very least, I constructed a software system that helps me run my games.  I think that's pretty kickass, so I don't think I will wind up heartbroken if people don't wind up finding out about it.  Maybe that will turn out to be a cool thing in its own right... the only person in the world who uses a specific software application to run his world?  I don't know ... somehow I see kudos there.

But yeah, of course I hope Gamemasters will look into Elthos and find out how it and the Mythos Machine may be useful to them. And yes, I hope people support it so that I can keep improving it. Why not?

But, what I'm actually shooting for is something just as ridiculously improbable as financial success... probably more so...  I want to help encourage and foster human creativity.  I feel like we are living in a time where creativity and imagination are under direct assault by The Powers That Be.  Free thought is at a low ebb and there's way too many people who are all too willing to give up their own ideas and creative powers to those who claim to be the true arbiters of creative value.  I want to resist that because I think it's rubbish, and the Elthos Project is my way of doing that for myself, and a tool I want to offer others to help them do the same.  The Elthos Mission is all about exercising your own imagination. I know, I know ... you can stop laughing now.  I admit, it is an uphill battle.  But fortunately, the RPG community is bursting at the seams with people who already have the spark of creativity.  I just want to fan the flames and help inspire more of it.  Lots more.

Back when I started the project, I wanted to see if I could find a way to use computers to bring people together, rather than drive them apart and isolate them. I think I came up with this idea after seeing a film called Future Shock in the late 70's. I watched the movie and said to myself, "OMG, screw that. We can definitely do better".  In fact, the Elthos Project is kind of a big jab in the eye of the direction the Big Technologists have taken things over the past 50 years. Frankly, I want the world to go the other direction, and I want to try my best to inspire people to embrace their imaginations, and create fantastic, amazing, powerful, and wondrous Worlds of their own because I believe that it is the power of human creativity and imagination that will allow us to escape the Techno-Prison being rapidly constructed all around us. If I can help to inspire people to think for themselves and use their own minds and hearts and creativity then I will consider the Elthos Project a true success, even if it does nothing for my own personal fortunes. And we won't know if I managed to achieve that for a long time to come, actually. I do suspect I've had some modest success already with this, but I will have to leave that to future historians of RPGs to ultimately decide.  If' I'm lucky, my timing is good, and I can bring enough excellence to my work, then I hope to help people see the value of their own ideas... if I can do that I will have achieved my true objective.

Of course, in the end, since I owe no one anything, and have no need for Elthos to be successful, and have enjoyed the hell out of the thing for 40 years now, I'd have to say, it seems to me to be about as far away from a Fantasy Heart-Breaker as it could possibly be.  And even if I don't achieve my self appointed Prime Directive, at least I will have tried my absolute best.  And that's ok with me.  I feel proud of the fact that I worked towards a goal that I feel is worthy of my time and effort.  Whether or not people acknowledge that or find it useful... I can't control that.  So I leave it to destiny to work out.

So while some people may be thinking that Elthos is the ultimate Fantasy Heart-breaker, my opinion is that it is unlikely, and that the jury is still out on this anyway.  As far as I'm concerned it hasn't been anything other than a wonderful and wondrous hobby project for me all these years, and that I don't feel heart-broken about it. Nor do I think I am likely to, regardless of how things pan out in terms of its marketability the years to come.  It's been a great project, and I am having a tremendous amount of fun with it.  I expect to continue to do so ad infinitum.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain my viewpoint on that because someone recently mentioned that they had that idea that Elthos is "the world's ultimate Fantasy Heart-Breaker".  I found it amusing... but also I want to mention it was a bit confounding. Just the label itself seems intended to be discouraging.  I don't know who came up with that phrase or why, but what's wrong with people trying to put their projects out there in the public domain?  So what if they are not financially successful?  As long as they don't have freaky expectations of getting rich off of RPGs they should be safe from the dread doom of Fantasy Heart-Break.  I feel like I want to reject that label.  I don't like it.  I strikes me as a bit of a cruel thing to say about anyone's project, whether it is successful or not.

But who knows... it may turn out to be true in the end. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, and the work I'm putting into this project will be ignored by the community, it will have no success in the market, and I will eventually find myself heartbroken because of that.  Still though, I won't know that for a good long time, I suppose by then there's a good chance I'll be senile enough to really be enjoying myself in the World of Elthos!  Haha.  And in the meantime, I'm having fun and expect to continue doing so for a good long time.

I do hope you will take the time to look at Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine. and decide for yourself if it is worthwhile, and potentially useful to you.  Enjoy.  :)

:)

Improvisational Game Theater - Thoughts

I originally wrote about Improvisational Game Theater on my blog in 2006. I subsequently wrote a number of posts, either as comments or supplemental explanations of why I think IGT is likely to become "a thing" in relation to Professional Gamemastering.

There have been a lot of GMs that have come to the Professional Gamemaster Society wanting to make a living doing Pro-GMing.  Their idea, as has been mine, is that it would be absolutely fantastic if we could turn our favorite hobby into a career somehow.  Like artists and musicians, and other performing artists, we'd like to do what we love for a living.

Now a number of people have pointed out that the economics of Professional Gamemastering do not seem to work all that well, especially at the small scale of local tabletop RPG games with a handful of people, and it's hampered a lot of potential Pro-GMs because we don't see a road from here ($) to there ($$$).  For most, not only is it hard to imagine how to make any money at all Gamemastering, but the the notion of making substantial money seems a pipe dream and beyond the realm of possibility.

I do not think so.

Again, and for the umpteenth time, the answer is in Professionally run Improvisational Game Theater.  In 2006 I sketched out a modality by which I would do it for my own world of Elthos.  Since then, I've not had the ability to sling it together because I have other work under the umbrella of the Elthos Project to tend to first.  And of course, it goes without saying, again, as usual, I am the worlds greatest slow poke, so please don't rush me.  Nothing good comes from rushing.  Of course, in the meantime, there have been a number of enterprising people who have raced ahead of me and produced variations on the IGT concept, and some quite successfully.  Critical Roll comes to mind as an excellent example.  Kudos and congratulations to all of those fine people!  They're doing a great job, and I'm thoroughly impressed, even while being jealous and annoyed that I'm such a super-slow-poke at all of this. But I digress.

At any rate, I want to talk about this again because I read a post by RPGPundit who is railing in his own way against one aspect of Improvisational Game Theater. His gripe is that what people are watching it for is entertainment, like watching a Soap Opera, or Serial TV Show, or something like that, and is largely divorced from the actual game of D&D. A large percent of the people who are watching IGT on twitch are not watching it because they play RPGs, or even intend do to so... they are watching it because they are interested in the Characters being played and their stories. And yes, very much like like people who watch Soap Operas.  And it annoys him.  Ok, my guess is that he's annoyed for certain reasons, though he doesn't quite elaborate on what those reason are exactly, and I'm not going to speculate about that. And this post is not a rebuttal to his point.  I agree with him completely.  I simply don't share in his angst about it.

The reason why is because, as I've made the case to the Professional Gamemaster Society before, this kind of viewership is exactly what is required for Professional Gamemasters to make real money Gamemastering.

No, it is not the same thing exactly as standard table top role playing.  I know, it isn't.  And the reason why is because with a generalized audience which includes a large number of non-role payers, the story and character development that would go on in a good IGT game is what that audience would be most interested in.  Random Character deaths would, in all likelihood, irk them, especially if the randomness was too extreme, and/or their favorite Characters get killed by a random (read stupid) die roll.  Nor would they be likely to be very into the rules, or watching the usual D&Dish rules banter, or much of the OCC activity that usually attends most tabletop role playing game sessions.  What they would be looking for, instead, is a compelling story where the results of the actions of the characters is both interesting and meaningful within the context of the World being played.

Improvisational Game Theater, in my opinion, will evolve into one of the major forms of entertainment of the 21st century.  It's taking time getting there, and even the best of the current efforts have self-limiting flaws in their implementations, but as everyone can see... progress in the direction of successful IGT is being made.

Personally, as soon as my other project work is complete, I hope to join these efforts with my own attempts at this thing.  I believe that those who can really pull this off will be at the center of the entertainment world in due time.  And really, I think it is just a matter of time.  People are already doing some great things.  And audiences are already being primed for this through the activities of shows like Critical Role.  Everything is slowly moving in the direction of a fusion of entertainment and gaming.  And no matter how much RPGPundit gripes that it's not real D&D ... it will nevertheless become an enormously rich, diverse and fabulous form of entertainment, and sustain many awesome career arcs for Professional GMs of the future.

Thoughts on Professional Gamesmastering

I'm interested in exploring the concept of Professional Gamesmastering.  I'd like to start by saying that I've done it myself several times, and it's been both a fantastic experience, and to some degree profitable.  You can read my notes on it here:  http://elthos.com/ProGM/ProGM.aspx

I'd be curious to hear what others think of the concept, and if anyone else has managed to make money Gamesmastering.

Where I'm going with this is ... I think the future holds in store for us the opportunity for a much more dynamic form of entertainment than simply going to the movies or playing video games.  The problem with these activities is that they are essentially passive.   Yes, even playing a video game is passive in the sense that you're not really creating something, but are following along in the groove of someone else's creation.   I'm thinking of first person RPGs like World of Warcraft.   In that style of game you are in someone else's world.   Yes, you can run around and do stuff in that world, but you can't really help to create it, nor can you really affect it very much by your actions.  That kind of gaming, while obviously far more active than a movie, is still passive in comparison to your average run-in-the-mill tabletop RPG.   In those games you participate in the creation of the actual history of the world.  You are, as it were, a main character in that story.  And that's a lot of what makes it so great.

In the future I believe we will have the tools, and I'm working on one aspect of that with the Elthos RPG system, that will allow for a much more dynamic form of interactive gaming.  Roll20 has brought us into a collaborative virtual gaming space and that's a big step in the direction I'm pointing to.  The next step, I believe, will be an online utility that parallels Roll20 and allows Gamesmasters to create their Worlds online, and play out campaigns in that world.   The Elthos Gamesmaster's Toolbox and World Weaver's Studio is designed to make Creating Worlds, and Gamesmastering them much easier by providing Gamesmastering functions that handle the number crunching and record keeping, leaving the Gamesmaster free to do the more creative work involved with story and world development.

Finally, I envision a further phase in which these worlds are tied to graphics engines that allow the Players and GMs to go fully into their Virtual Worlds en mass, and play in ways that games like WOW don't quite allow (yet).  With Live Gamesmasters who not only run the major NPCs (and mostly act like Admins in an IRC Chat Channel), but allow them to manage a large number of groups of players in their Worlds - all with the same virtues of tabletop RPGs, but with the added advantages of stability (ie - not losing track of stuff), accuracy (the computer does the number crunching), transparency (the computer could allow people to determine who did what when, and what the odds were / are), and enjoyment of mind blowing visualizations of people's worlds.

This all will give rise, I hope and believe, to a class of Professional Gamesmasters.  These people will have a combination of necessary skills to entertain large numbers of people with fantastic worlds, and exciting adventures in an online environment that I suspect will be emerging in the next decade or so.   The skills necessary for Professional Gamesmastering involve knowing the tools, as well as all of the current challenges that GMs face, such as social skills, math skills, knowledge of history, of story arcs and character development, and of the ability to improvisationally represent multiple non-player characters as well as monsters (to name a few off the top of my head).  Yes, there's a lot of skills required for the successful Gamesmaster.   But mastering those skills is incredibly rewarding.  And I would love to see a future in which those Gamesmasters who excel in their art are also able to be rewarded financially as well, so that they can take the hobby to the next level and make it into an experience that extends and enhances the entertainment possibilities for society.

Yes, people will still read books.  I know I will.  But I would also really enjoy being able to play the hero of a story that I am helping to create in a fantastic virtual world whose concepts I would never have imagined on my own.   And that, friends, I'd be willing to pay for.  I think many other people would, too.  And that would be the basis for starting to think about Professional Gamesmastering as a serious pursuit.

Would you be interested in a gig as a Professional Gamesmaster if the tools and infrastructure were available to you?   I would.   Would you be interested in participating in the advancement of this concept?  I would.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on this!  

My Selected Badges for Elthos

Ok after much hemming and hawing these are the badges that apply to my GMing style:

Story Aspects

Story - I tend to put a premium on Good Story in my world. If you Role Play your Character well, and don't take foolish chances, then I find that tends to result in better stories.  Meanwhile I try my best to build the back story based on literary sources and classical themes that tend to help bring out certain literary qualities into my game world.  I have written up my actual game stories and posted them here:  Elthos Example Games.

Drama - My games do tend to focus on interesting Characterizations and Drama, including romances, betrayals, and the great wide spectrum of human glory and folly. Definitely.

Exploration & Mystery - The essential plot lines of my world largely concern exploration, and the solving of mysteries.

Mechanics Orientation

GM Fiat - My world is not an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune. The GM has the final say. Period.

By the Dice - I play above the table, open dice rolls, with the odds of winning stated in advance in most cases. However, that is only true for rolls where the Player Characters are involved directly. When it comes to behind the scenes things, such as whether or not a villain decides to sneak up from behind or wait until another day, I do those rolls without announcing their intent. Leaving those kinds of rolls a mystery for the Players, I find, enhances the game.

Tactical - Since I play by the Dice, it is considered good form in my world to consider the tactical situation and maximize your chances of success if you can.

Character Death - I do play by the the dice, and so Character Death is something that can definitely happen. That said, in the past, I've allowed some Characters the chance to escape Death's grip, and return from the Other World, so keep that in mind.

Run Away - Because I roll above board and stick to the outcomes indicated by the dice, and I allow for Character Death, Players are advised that sometimes discretion is indeed the better part of valor, and running away from insurmountable odds when you can is considered a sign of wisdom in my world. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a heroic death, when the end result is something worthwhile. And again, some Characters may simply feel that running away is cowardly, and so they will not do so, and thus take their chances. The odds of such Characters dying in combat is relatively high, but then again, they are more probable to be remembered as heroes by their posterity.

Use Your Brains - Player Skill is important in my world. If you can role play your Character well, then a lot of times you can make up for deficiency in particular Character abilities, work around them, or render them unnecessary. I put a premium on Role Playing over Gaming when it comes to the Story aspect of the game. Of course, that does not mean I will fudge skill rolls or allow players to succeed at skills they do not possess just to advance the story. But just like in life, play to your strengths for the best chance of success.

By the Book - I have a set of medium-weight traditionalist Character Generation rules, and relatively simple Conflict / Skills Resolution System, which I don't usually deviate from. The operative word there is 'usually'. I do not believe in *never* deviating from the rules, and so I allow for some (albeit rare) exceptions to existing rules, or modifying the rules over time when it becomes apparent that they are not balanced, or do not produce the desired effect.

Tinkering - While this may seem somewhat a contradiction to Playing by the Book, my rules are somewhat in a state of flux while I iron out the details based on actual game results (a very long process), though mostly stable, so yes, I am still in tinkering mode, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Improvisation - I tend to improvise quite a bit on Non-Player Character descriptions, personality, and decision making. However, I will often know prior who the NPC is, what they are trying to accomplish, and what powers and capabilities they have, and strongly resist deviating from preset abilities.  I also value Players who are able to improv their Characters as well.

Mirror, Mirror - Although it may not be obvious, I do absorb Player ideas during the course of the game, and may, or may not, reflect those ideas in the story over time.

Creature: Giant Pylori

I have just added the Giant Pylori as a creature to my World today, and then generated a character sheet for it using the Elthos RPG Web Application.  While these will be rare creatures to encounter in my World, I do look forward to the day that the Party happens upon a particularly dark and dank series of tunnels somewhere in the unexplored depths ...  :)

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Giant Pylori

Habitat	Description	Notes
Dark wet places such as caves, or within bodies of water such as lakes.	Green and black spotted floating tube-like creature with 7 long tendrils at one end, and a beak-like mouth. The tendrils end in sharp points, and are used for movement, and grabbing / stabbing prey with poison barb.	These non-intelligent creatures are voracious eaters of flesh, with a preference for mammals. They usually move in groups of 4 to 20. The tips of their tendrils have a poison that causes paralysis on critical hits, and they can attack four times per melee. They are very agile in the air or water and can float up to 2000 feet in the air, and dive as deep as 1000 feet in water.

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Elthos ODS Character Sheet
Adventure Group: Giant Pylori
Print Date: 7/18/2011
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Formulas
MDX = DX + DXM         | Modified Dex = (Character Dexterity + Armor Dexterity Modifier)
AL  = CL + MDB         | Attack Level = (Character Level + Modified Dexterity Bonus)
TAL = AL + ALM         | Total AL = (Character Attack Level + Weapon AL Modifier)
AC  = MDB + ACM        | Armor Class = (Modified Dexterity Bonus + Armor Class Modifier)
MAL = CL + WSB         | Mystic AL = (Character Level + Wisdom Bonus)
MAC = CL + WSB         | Mystic AC = (Character Level + Wisdom Bonus)
LP  = Base + (CL x ST) | Life Pts = (1 + (Character Level x Strength Requisite))
MP  = Base + (CL x WS) | Mystic Pts = (1 + (Character Level x Wisdom Requisite))
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Character Name.......... Gia Fig 1___________ Player: GrayFalcon__________
Race (Gender) Class..... Giant Pylori (F) Fighter___________ XP Base: __20
Character Level (CL).... __2        Bonus       Movement: 4 -> 4
Strength (ST)(STB)...... __4        (+0)        Weapon           DMB ALM TAL
Wisdom (WS)(WSB)........ __1        (-2)        *Sting 1d6______ _+0 _+0 __4
Dexterity (DX)(MDX)(DXB) __5 -> __6 (+2)      ________________ ___ ___ ___
Attack Level (AL),(MAL). __4,   __1             ________________ ___ ___ ___
Armor Class (AC),(MAC).. __4,   __1
Life Points (LP)........ __8                    Armor        MOV ACM DXM DAB
Mystic Energy (ME)...... __2                    Super-Reflex _+0 _+2 _+1 _+0
Current Experience...... ___40                  ____________ ___ ___ ___ ___
Iron Pieces............. ____0                  Armor Total: _+0 _+2 _+1 _+0
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Equipment: None
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Skills: Wrestling (2), First Aid Self (2)
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Mystic Powers: None
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First appeal to the Indie Crowd at Story Games

Ok, on the advice of the guys at the Indie Explosion (Independent Game Developers) I put out a call for game testers in the Westchester area. Lets see what comes of that. It would be great to start some focused play testing, at the very least on the ODS system, but also the Mythic Template System as well (not to mention the web application).

Ok, here we go.

You can find my post here:

http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=5454

Dreamation 2008

Ok, well I had a bunch of schedule conflicts this weekend so I was only able to make it to Dreamation 2008 on Sunday. :(

But it was well worth it to drive to New Jersey, and as a bonus I got to sit in on the Game Design Panel for a second time. That was very interesting and much larger than the one in the summer. A number of people shot the shit about their games and got tons of hard-knuckle feedback, myself included. Overall, I think the reaction to my game was positive, and one item at least was identified as unique to my approach, which was gratifying. I got to hang out with the designers for a while before heading home. Again, I found Luke Crane, John Hicks, Rob Donoghue and the rest of the Indie crowd really high energy, enthusiastic, welcoming, funny, hard-hitting, and fun. I give the experience an A+.

I also got a really great play description about A Wicked Age, btw. We discussed various ways that I might be able to adapt the concept and system for my own way of playing my homebrew system, which the guys were rather enthusiastic about. Adaptation and reuse is a key component of the Indie Scene and encouraged rather than discouraged, which makes it all rather cool. The short version is that it would be possible to utilize components of the game in a variety of ways, and the one that struck me as interesting for my own purposes would be something in the way of using it as the basis for a Social Combat system. I'd have to add a few Wicked Age requisites, and apply the rules in certain circumstances, but it can be done.

The downside of the rules, from what I could gather from the discussion and lots of questions and answers from the guys who played it, and the designer who was hanging out, for *me* (ie - this are downsides only because of my own play biases and not because of any inherent defect in the game itself), is that the game tends to lean towards short term games rather than long term, and it does not really focus on the tactical combat element of the traditional RPG, which is something I happen to be a fan of. I'm with Rich at Overstuffed Dicebag (http://overstuffed-dicebag.blogspot.com/) who in a recent post* pointed out that having a balance between tactics and story is not a bad thing. That said, there are tons of great ideas in the A Wicked Age (the Oracle System is another thing that I think has generic usefulness, potentially), and if I can adapt the elements I like for my own use I certainly will. But first I have
to obtain a copy. The frustrating part was that I showed up without cash, and the ATM at the hotel ran out of money, and the gas station with the ATM the hotel recommended was closed. Bleh. So I couldn't buy anything. And I had a devil of a time getting home, too. But it all worked out in the end.

If you are interested in checking out the game you can look for it here:

http://lumpley.com/wicked.html

I also thought this game showed promise:

http://www.chimera.info/nine-worlds/

But like I said, I couldn't make it this time until Sunday, and so I had no chance to play anything, and little time to browse around. Drat! Well, there's always the summer DexCon.

* http://overstuffed-dicebag.blogspot.com/2008/01/defending-gamist-and-simulationist-play.html

And now back to Elthos Development!


The Elthosian Magican Astro-Tarot Card (late stage draft)