Too many ideas!

I think many of you suffer from this problem. Most gamers are creative types, so we're always coming up with new ideas. Maybe it's a character concept you really want to play. Maybe it's a campaign you'd love to run. Maybe it's an adventure you'd like to develop. It could be your next awesome rule-set. But before you get to it, or just after getting started, you've already got another idea or three knocking around your brain.

I'm at that point big time right now. And since I'm actually starting to prep for my dissertation study, I really have NO TIME for any of it. But just got give you a glimpse of things you may, possibly, some day see from me in a possible future where I suddenly have oodles of time to write gaming stuff, here are some of the ideas I currently have:

Chanbara (of course, that's #1): My OSR with heavy character customization fantasy feudal Japan game. The third (or is if fourth?) draft incarnation of the rules are ready to be tested. I think they'll work better than before. I just need some time to run a few games. Well, that and flesh out the "starting area" for the campaign section of the book.

Presidents of the Apocalypse: Paul's and my take on super silly, super simple super presidential post-apoc gaming. One of these days, Paul and I will agree on a final version of the rules (or agree to make two versions). Then you, too, can be a mutated Founding Father beating the crap out of Ronald McDonald, Mikhael Gorbachev, King George III, Kim Jeong-Il, Justin Bieber, and any other foes of America you can think of, set in a ruined world of the future.

Under the Hillfort Ruins: The adventure module I wrote originally for 3E and have recently revamped for Labyrinth Lord (or whatever classic or OSR game floats your boat). A fairly standard dungeon tomb complex with lots of puzzles and traps, and plenty of loot as well. I just need to make a few edits, add some random encounters for the actual hillfort ruins above the dungeon, write up some hooks and rumors, and then this one will be ready to sell.

Demon Castle Dracula: This one's been on my mind recently, what with Halloween a week away and all. Not that it feels very Halloween-y here in Busan, where most people don't celebrate it. Anyway, this may end up being for LL or for Retro Phaze (the 8-bit OSR RPG) since it's basically the Castlevania games translated to table top. Could I get this Gothic horror-action sandbox ready for sale before next Halloween? Guess it depends on how the dissertation study goes.

Mysterious Seas: The maritime campaign I tried to run about 4 years ago or so. The idea was to mix up Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey, Sindbad the Sailor, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the like into a big nautical sandbox. If I get around to finishing this (I really only had the first map half-way keyed, and there are nine maps), it may have to get broken into separate modules for each sector.

Ghost Castle Hasegawa: The test adventure I created for the previous version of Chanbara. I'm planning to update it to the new version when I get around to play-testing it, so eventually I'll also probably publish it. A castle cursed by its lord when it fell to his enemies, the Hasegawa family would like the curse removed so they can move back in and restore their standing at court.

Oni no Ran: The old 1E/2E Oriental Adventures campaign I ran back in Evansville in the late 90's before going to Japan was building up to a conflict between the Oni King and the PCs' daimyo. It wouldn't be too hard to convert stats to Chanbara (once I decide this draft is final or not) and release this as either a series of linked adventures, or a mega-adventure (again, if somehow time ceases to be an issue).

Of course, if I ever get any of these finished, they'll be for sale from my DrivethruRPG storefront, Hidden Treasure Books. And if I have time to write up modules and game systems, hopefully I'll have time to create more of my paper minis series.

Rise from your grave

Funny how things work. I've completed my second ebook of paper minis for Hidden Treasure Books, and I'm just waiting on DrivethruRPG to OK it. Unfortunately, I didn't get it to them before the weekend started stateside, so I'll have to wait a bit for them to approve it and then I can start advertising it.

To tide me over (and because I can type on my tablet while outside with my son, but not work on digital image manipulation), I've started rebuilding Presidents of the Apocalypse from the ground up.

Part of the inspiration to go back to it was my ideas for re-vamping Flying Swordsmen. There's some overlap of ideas in the new Wu Xing system and PotA. Part of it is getting off to a slow start with Hidden Treasure Books. If I've got more material for sale, I stand to make more money, right? Finally, of course, was watching Mad Max: Fury Road.

People on DeviantArt get this game.

It was almost a decade ago that Paul and I came up with the idea for PotA. And I've mentioned it before, but the original version we hurriedly came up with was a bare-bones resolution system, and three charts (each d100) of crazy ass powers. But the powers were names only, no description. Part of the fun of the game was rolling up a random President. Part was trying to find ways to make the random names of powers into useful things to do. And part was being able to beat the tar out of Ronald McDonald, Kim Jong-Il, Teletubbies, David Hasselhoff, and Morning Musume (a J-Pop band) all in the same game.  Hell, in the same session!

Paul and I have made so many more detailed versions of the game over the years, but they've all been somewhat incoherent. This time, I've started by ignoring most of what came before, only bringing it back in when I see a need for it. And I'm looking at the game as what it truly is - a Supers game with a wacky post-apoc setting, rather than a post-apoc game with wacky characters.

Yes, they really get this game!

So hopefully, this version will be more coherent. Why are resurrected (or cloned, or unfrozen, etc.) mutated (cyborged) former presidents beating up historical and pop culture icons in a devastated wasteland? That's not important. They are. And the more "presidential" they are, and the more "American" their actions, the faster they will advance.

Y'all'r missin' out

Dean and Robbie played Presidents of the Apocalypse with me last night.

Dean was Emperor Norton, Robbie was Elvis Presley.  They played through my adventure Assault on Castle Hasselhoff, and of course threw a few unexpected curves into it (who knew that Minnie Pearl would be found hiding in a bunker with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver?), but it went over well.  The system is basically solid, I think the main thing I need to adjust is the distribution of attacks with and without special bonuses.  The "damage plus stun opponent" powers, which they several of, were maybe overpowered.

I'll make a few adjustments and play it again soon.

Presidents of the Apocalypse Play-test

I've talked about it before, and I'm going to run a session of my Stupid (that's Stupid on the Rients 3-point scale, and maybe just plain stupid as well...) but definitely NOT retro Presidents of the Apocalypse game.

This Saturday, Jan. 5th, 2013 at 9pm Japan/Korea time.  That's 12 noon GMT, early morning North America time.  Those of you in other parts of the world, do the math.  We'll play on G+ Hangouts, so if you're not already on G+ or you're not following me, you'll need to rectify that.

If anyone would like to participate, hit me up a note here on the blog, on G+, or by email:  the_boy_from_illinois [at] yahoo.  I'll send you a copy of the rules as they currently stand.

Character creation is simple and fun, and will be part of the process.  If you'd like to plan ahead, just pick out someone famous from U.S. history to play as, and we'll roll up your powers when the game starts.

This is not a class/level game in the traditional sense.  It's a bit more like the Forge stuff.  You'll need your standard range of polyhedral dice, two of each is best since most rolls are done with 2dX.

Oh, and bring your sense of humor! 

That urge to tinker

What's going on inside my brain?  Not exactly sure.  With three more weeks to go to finish up my Masters of TESOL (read, final projects/papers to prepare/write), I'm in the middle of the Busan Gamers' storm of character creation for potential games (Dean's looking to run 4E or maybe his own take on Jeremy's "Super Simple d20" game - and with Dean at the helm, I know it won't be 4E as just a series of tactical battles one after another, it'll be about story and consequences with the battles serving a purpose other than having them because someone wrote them), Jeremy had a zombie-hunting 40k inspired session of another system he calls Para Bellum that he'd like to continue, Justin just had us redo our Ur characters as Stars Without Numbers characters, and um, well, there is a Pathfinder game that I don't have time for as well but would like to get in on if I did have the time.

Add to that the fact that I've got work to do on Presidents of the Apocalypse.  I've also got the title for the first adventure I'll run with it (although other details of the adventure are rolling around in the back of my mind and haven't coalesced yet).  The title shall be either "Assault on Castle Hasselhoff" or "Escape from Castle Hasselhoff."  Maybe I'll do both as a series?

Oh, and Flying Swordsmen could use another editing pass if I ever want to release it in physical form.  A module or two for it wouldn't hurt either.  And there's the RPOL game I created and have recruited players for, but haven't done much beyond that yet thanks to the above mentioned grad school.

Yet what was it that I decided I should do last night, and am tempted to start working on tonight? 

Go through the AD&D 1E and 2E PHBs and start making some notes about how I'd do separate race and class in my "D&D Mine" rules.  I'm not planning on using them any time soon (want to get that RPOL Flying Swordsmen game running smoothly and also playtest PotA).  Yet the urge is there.  Dwarven Fighter/Thieves.  Human Paladins.  Half-Elf Rangers.  Gnome Illusionists.  Yeah, I could just use LL's AEC, but where's the fun in that, when I could do it myself instead?

I think there's something in the back of my mind that really wants to get back in the DM chair of a good old fashioned D&D game, instead of being a player (although as a player, I could really go for some space opera or supers gaming).

And I'm writing this blog post instead of writing the other Ur session report.  Oh well...

Progress on Presidents of the Apocalypse

With the election just over and Thanksgiving around the corner, I'm plugging away at the latest revision of Presidents of the Apocalypse.  We've always measured the special abilities and powers of the game with "stars" (up to five).  But some powers needed more than one level of ranking, so in this version, I've added "stripes" (also up to five) in addition to the stars. 

Of course, now I've got a bit of a problem that a few non-combat powers don't really need two ranking scales.

Anyway, the change in focus from trying to design a silly post-apoc game to trying to design a silly super-hero game with a post-apoc setting is working well for me.  I've got a better idea now of what the game is supposed to be about.

Presidents Arise! (700th post!)

In between preparing two presentations for my grad school classes for this week (one down this evening, the next tomorrow evening), what else did my brain turn to?  It brushed off the mothballs and began reworking my and Paul's super-simple, super-silly Presidents of the Apocalypse RPG.

Anyone out there remember me talking about this before?  The premise is that players run super-powered versions of Founding Fathers or other personages of (U.S.) historical significance battling a mish-mash of typical postapoc baddies (Mad Max biker punk types, mutant scum, killer robots), plus the dregs of both history and modern pop culture, all with a very silly sci-fi twist.

When I was in Japan, it was our typical "going away" game when someone left the group, and Paul and I are always tinkering with the rules, trying to get it right.  We've got the flavor in spades, we just need a rule set that supports it better.

Anyway, I've got a few ideas that just might make it work.  When I get them ironed out, I'll try to get my G+ Vaults of Ur crew to try them out.

The primary inspiration for the game were Brad Neely's George Washington and History Lesson No. 1 (JFK).  Look em up on YouTube if you don't know them.  Pretty funny stuff.  Here are some pictures that also show what the game is all about:

This one pic encapsulates it all perfectly.

A typical villain

Neely's JFK, Hyper-charismatic telepathical knight

He's coming, he's coming, he's coming.

Another villain

A PotA Mastermind level Villain

Update on my RPG developments

I've made another small change to Flying Swordsmen from the original D&D based Dragon Fist game.  Instead of the standard D&D style list of saving throw types, I've instead made each save against one of the 5 Taoist elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, Wood.  Each has a Yin/Yang association for effects that are not obviously of an elemental type, with Earth being the Chi save for spells/effects without either an element or Yin/Yang association.  I'm gonna tinker with the numbers a little bit, as well.  I think each of the four classes should be good against one type of save in particular, but I'll need to think a bit to decide which element best fits each class.  Earth (Chi) will be the save that's not so good for everyone (map to Save vs. Spells in D&D), but I don't want everyone to be best against Wood (AD&D's Poison/Paralysis/Death save).

Preliminary formatting is coming along apace.  I'm almost through with the monster section.  After that, it's treasure/rewards, then the Campaign Setting section which still needs a bit of fleshing out.  Finally, the appendices. 

In my other RPG, Presidents of the Apocalypse, Paul and I had another one of those cycles where one of us adds a bunch of stuff that complicates the game (me this time), and the other wisely cut it down again (Paul, obviously).  Paul had some good ideas, riffing off of some of my good ideas from last time, and some new simplifications that will help keep this game as the beer-and-pretzels simple silly fun game we want it to be. 

I'm gonna try to see if any of the Busan gamers are brave enough to get silly roleplaying a cyborg Ben Franklin or mutated John Quincy Adams and give this new slimmed down set a try.

Project Updates

I had a bit of a breakthrough with the edits I need to make to the GM guide section of Flying Swordsmen.  I can cut a lot more of the D&D-isms that don't need to be in the game (it's the D&D chassis, but should play fairly differently than your typical dungeon crawl or wilderness exploration sandbox game).  I'm going to focus on building conflict and tropes of Wuxia movies and how to exploit them in game (hopefully without railroading players into a set plot).

In other news, Michelle is leaving Japan to join Jacob in California, so Paul made some more edits to Presidents of the Apocalypse and ran another game with some really trimmed down rules.  He said they worked really well.  I'm waiting now for an actual game report, and to take a look at what he's done.  I've been ankle deep in Flying Swordsmen so I haven't bothered to look at PotA for quite a while.  But if these edits by Paul are working well, we may be close to a distributable form of the game.

Wuxia Films

I've decided that I really ought to get to work on Flying Swordsmen.  I told myself I'd get Presidents of the Apocalypse banged out into a decent shape first, as it's the smaller game, but with a Gamma World game coming up with the guys, I'm not in the mood to totally go post-apoc, even if GW at its wildest and wahooest pales in comparison with the wild and wahoo of PotA. 

POTA: It'll be about 100 times crazier than this

Anyway, today I did some much needed streamlining on the "Running the Game" section for the GM.  I'd been adding in all these cool options and systems for running things before, and then realized, hey, this is a martial arts RPG.  The combat system is sound, and if anyone wants rules for dealing with bureaucrats or investigating the death of a merchant besides the game's default "feat" system (a specialized ability check, nothing like a d20 feat), they can make it themselves.

So cutting things down.  And making notes about the campaign world I'd like to throw in.  I'd originally been thinking I'd make it a bit tool-boxish, with ideas and suggestions for going full-bore fantasy martial arts, historicalish China, and points in between.  Now I'm thinking I'll modify the world I created for my d20 OA game, at least some parts of it, into a fantasy realm for Wuxia adventure. 

The Continent of Zhongyang Dalu...likely this will get done differently physically but similar politically

The game will likely be better for it, and I can always just stick in an appendix of semi-historical China stuff, or release a supplement later, or something.  The setting of the original Dragon Fist made me want to play just reading the fluff text, and I think a game like this stands relatively little chance of getting played without an equally intriguing setting of its own (come on, how many of you played Dragon Fist even once?  I played it twice, and wish I'd been able to play it more.)

Raw Playtest Data

Paul and the Yamanashi Crew playtested my latest revision of the Presidents of the Apocalypse.  It looks like the system may be serviceable but the presentation needs to be cleaned up.  I'm not so surprised by that, because I've been chipping away at writing/re-writing/editing it piecemeal.  Even though it's only a 16 page document, if I don't work on it for a few weeks then go back to it, it's easy to lose track of things.

Giving myself a hard deadline to get it into shape might help with that, but then this is just something I'm doing for fun.  I've got enough stress in my life without giving myself more.

Anyway, here's the email Paul sent after the game, and then follow up are some comments from players on a teacher's message board we use.

Paul wrote:

OK, we test-played PotA last night.  I will encourage folks to post any feedback they may have on the forum so you can see it as well, but the overall consensus was that it was more structured ---JD was also pleased compared to his initial foray with his 2-headed Clinton.  Of course there are still a few bugs that need sorting out.

More-or-less, I used the module I sent you, only changing up a few of the characters and tweaking a few stats.  We got started rolling up characters a bit late (7pm) so I kinda rushed through the adventure in places.  We managed to finish it at around 10pm ---so, after character creation, that left us just about 2 hours of actual play time I would guess. 

Here are some observations:

1---The big one being how to deal with combat ---what can defend against what. 

For example, if Obama's only defense is a Mind Field (Mental), can he even defend against an Eisenhowitzer (Tech)?  The answer was a little hazy, but I remember you mentioning something about defending at a level lower if the type doesn't match.  Anyhow, I basically assigned each Defense a power level for each of the 3 types in a notation similar to your Sample Opponents (I mentioned something about doing this in an earlier email).  It worked for the most part, but it made having multiple defenses a little less important ---so I've now gone and altered the numbers to more extreme levels so that one item might have a good defense in one area and a rather lousy one in another.  Of course players with more than one can switch out defenses on their turns once they realize one is offering less protection vs. a certain type of attack.

2---Next is the Offensive powers: Each President got at least one, and some two, depending on the type of character they made.  But generally, they ended up using and re-using the same power again and again.  Maybe we need to grant more variety in the initial powers and lessen the points to power things up (EP) at character creation.  Hopefully this will give more options and encourage more diverse play.

3---The election.  I was worried that it might bring things to a grinding halt, but it didn't.  Players were actually thinking about who to vote for, and they did it quickly enough.  Next time I might try to get them to do a little campaigning ---have each player briefly state why they believe they deserve to be voted for (reminiscent of White Wolf, remember?).  If the speeches were delivered in order of descending EP or something, then everyone would know where each player stood in potential votes, if that's a good thing…  

4---Anyhow, the players liked the voting thing, and I let them spend any gained points during this election time to kind of level up.  Most only tried to enhance the power(s) they already had though rather than gain new ones.

Only at the end did they realize that it's not always advantageous to vote for the best candidate as you'd be making it harder for yourself to win.  We ended with a tie between Clinton (Jacob) and Teddy Rosevelt (Ryan), but Ryan had more overall EP, and thus was elected Pres. because of the bonus 2 votes granted.  I assume Clinton then became the Vice-Pres of the Apocalypse…?

Unfortunately, we can't force people to spend their EP on new powers in order to help them diversify, so I propose that we either eliminate the EP buying thing and think of a new system, or we reduce the number of EP PC's start with and give them a free roll on any chart during an election period.

Spending EP can be a double-edged sword.

5---It could have been just the type of game I ran, but I noticed that some Utility tasks were trumped by Offense tasks. Ex: Hoover (Michelle) was faced with either trying to hack the computer or simply tack her Chainsaw to it… she opted for the latter as she had no real computer skills.  Fair enough, I found that in many situations the PC's were tempted to blast stuff, but in the spirit of the game they tried to do other stuff when possible ---Michelle talked down a rabid Barney and scared him off, for example.

Overall it was rather well balanced, though I did tweak a few things beforehand out of fear the Presidents would become too powerful---starting EP=20; cost to improve star levels also increased: 1, 3, 6, 12, 25.  This balance prevented anyone from starting with a 4-star Power.

During the adventure I "killed" various presidents about 4 times, but it was cool that they could auto-rez following each encounter.

6---Another more specific point is in the rule about character generation that says to roll once more for your Role, but not for your Class.  Following, there is an example that shows two new Powers being chosen.  Which is it?

I personally think the more powers, the better ---to diversify a character.  Also I'm a fan of the random roll over the choosing of a specific thing.

I still think we should assign a bonus of some sort to a president using a power that bears his name ---maybe an automatic star level.  Of course this can only be done if powers aren't chosen.

7---For Initiative we used a simple system: the person to the immediate left of the GM went first during the first encounter.  The next encounter we started with the person to his left, and so on...  Like how the button (dealer) moves around the table in Texas Hold'em.  It worked rather well, and kept things flowing quite nicely.  Of course the GM also eventually gets a turn to go first.

8---Some of the powers that people ended up with seemed a little broken, but since they mostly just had the one Offense Power, limitations on use were not really enforced.  Ex: Clinton had the Eisenhowitzer (which Jacob played as unzipping his pants to bring it into play).  Anyhow, it can only be used in a Medium range or further situation, so all he had to say was, everybody step back before he "fired."  And Ryan had the Fillibuster of Doom which has AOE as well as the ability to stun for d☆ turns (he had ☆☆☆=d8) ---which means it could stun up to 4 opponents for 1d8 turns each ---too powerful if it hits, especially since there are usually only a few opponents to begin with.

I know these are small details that test playing will bring out, but just thought I'd mention them.

9---AOE worked well enough though we wondered if the attacker should roll to hit each opponent as well as roll for each damage (I recommend using the D&D system: roll to hit each individually, but damage is rolled once, makes sense for AOE where it is essentially one attack).  The only change I'd make to simplify it would be to limit it to 1 plus the star level, and not allow it to target any more beyond that.

Stun and Weaken also worked out fairly well and were easy enough to follow---one of the problems with 4E is that there can be so many effects in play that it is such a pain to keep track of.  Often when a character was stunned in this game, I just said you miss your turn, and if I forgot they reminded me.

Healing on the sliding scale was pretty cool too (again, Clinton unzipped his pants in order to bring forth his healing wand and touch the afflicted).  But a few other special abilities that some of the powers have might need further explanation.  We had to look a few things up and were curious about others like how Frighten works for Ulysses Undeath when it is a Defense power… 

10---What makes up a round.  This wasn't as much of a problem as I thought it might be (even for the power gamer).  Basically, a PC could move and do an action, be it an attack or a utility action like heal or a whatever.  It was simple and easy.  Nobody questioned it.

11---I assigned EP for doing all sorts of things, but particularly for killing bad guys.  One potential problem is that if someone is using an AOE attack, he's going to end up killing more enemies and thus earning more EP than the rest.  What can we do about this?  I guess, not assign EP per enemy killed as it should be a group effort.  I put some stipulations on how much EP an encounter would grant each PC depending on whether they "died" or not, but beyond that EP wouldn't matter in the election if it was shared equally.  Hmm, something to think about…

12---I'm not sure about Amendments to Constitution because they never came into play at all during our game.  I kind of think they are redundant.  I understand that they are meant to serve a few purposes, but we should just cut them and eliminate a system that the EP could easily handle.  I mean, you can spend EP to buy AC's, right?  And at the end of the game AC's count for votes (well points, but it's the same thing).  Why not just have EP handle all this? 

At the end of our game some people had as many as 30EP left---meaning, under this new idea, they could have spent EP to re-roll up to 30 times.  That seems a lot if we think Action Points, but we could set some limit (like once a turn), or make it cost 2EP per re-roll, or make a player pay a cumulative double EP for each roll throughout the adventure.

In the end, the EP spent hurt the players chance of being elected.

The Max Double rule could just be for growth then.

Anyhow, sorry, I know that's a lot to digest ---I wanted to get it all down before I forgot.  Hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from with these points.

One player suggested that it would be fun to have the presidents battle it out in the end to decide who the real President of the Apocalypse was.

On the message board, JD wrote:

Good things include originality of abilities and enemies, a very large comedy aspect and ease of play.  Taking movement out of the equasion saves a lot of time.  The instructions need to be rewritten though, as there are several parts that are really vague and other parts that just don't add up, for example you're supposed to have 4 abilities at the start, not 5 right?  I'm also not 100% clear on the body/mind/tech attack system.  According to how we were playing, A body attack can only be blocked by a body defense, right?  But if that is the case, why is there that 0/+2/-2 section?  That makes it seem like you can block any of the three attack types with any defense.  I'm not sure.... anyway that really needs to be clarified. 

And Michelle wrote:

The same thing as JD, I wasn't sure how defense worked. Can tech only block tech? Can tech block mind and body but at a penalty? Then why do some defense powers have B/M/T modifiers? My defense power was tech, but had a +2/0/+2 modifier, making me think I could use it against all attacks. The easiest way to fix this, is to give all defense powers a B/M/T modifier.

Here's my suggestion for a normal defense-power modifier. It's like rock, paper, scissors. Body attacks are strong against Tech defense, but Body defense is weak against Mind attacks, etc.

Defense Type       Vs.          Body / Mind / Tech Attack
Body                                   0   /  -2   /  -1
Mind                                   -1   /   0   /  -2
Tech                                  -2   /  -1   /   0

Some defense powers could be stronger or weaker, like -3/0/+4 or -1/+1/0.

Also, some of the attack powers were labeled Weak or Strong vs. X. I wasn't sure how that affects rolls or damage. Adding a B/M/T modifier would help.

This may not make a lot of sense to anyone who has never read the game, but I thought putting it all here would make it easier for me to find it later.

Paul's off to India for a week, but when he gets back I'll try to get him to write up a session report.  I saw the adventure he was going to run them through, but I'm curious about what sorts of characters everyone made, and how they handled the various challenges in a bit more detail than Paul sent me in that email.

 

Traps as a Greater Challenge

On the subway today, both to and from a private tutoring session, I was making notes for some traps to put in the Megadungeon.

Of course, I don't need to take notes about pit traps, pendulum blades, lock needles, and the like.  I was brainstorming ideas for more interesting or elaborate traps.

And I started writing quite a few ideas for traps that were intended to create interesting challenges for the players and their PCs, rather than just the typical damage or delay effects of most traps.

And I liked it.

It got me thinking in ways I hadn't before.  What about a trap that will hinder henchmen/hirelings but leave the PCs alone?  Traps that affect logistics, like ruining rations or disintegrating all torches and lanterns.

And some 'traps' that aren't traps per se, but are more fool's bargains that the players might be foolish or desperate enough to attempt, like a magical pool that will give a spell-caster back their daily spell allotment, but permanently lowers one ability score.  Or a magical funnel that if you pour treasure into it, half of the treasure will be teleported to your home (got that XP earned) but the other half will disappear, never to be seen again.

I really like how my ideas were developing.  They're creating interesting choices for players, rather than just knocking off a few more hit points, or forcing a saving throw against some nasty effect.

Of course, there are also a few ideas for easily escapable traps involving an overly elaborate death, Dr. Evil style.  The game wouldn't be as fun without them.

But I'm more jazzed about these traps that are designed to make "story points" rather than just having them be a hindrance or obstacle to be overcome in the standard sense.

______________________________
On a separate note, my class work hasn't been too bad yet, so I've had a bit of free time to work on Flying Swordsmen RPG while I wait on Paul's feedback about my latest version of Presidents of the Apocalypse.  The FSRPG monster section is about half finished now.  PotA will likely be released as a playtest version soon if Paul gives it the thumbs up.

Goals for the New Year

I'm on vacation this week, which means (as it often does) that I have LESS free time than when I'm working.  My wife is always there with a "you're not going to work today, let's do this..." when I'm on vacation.  Koreans really need to learn how to just take a day and relax.

But I digress.

This year, as I think I mentioned, I'm going to start work on my Masters in March, in addition to my full-time job and private tutoring on the side.  So posts to the blog will likely become pretty scarce.

I'm also going to have a lot less time for RPG gaming, and related writing.  So here are the goals I'm shooting for this year:

• Get Presidents of the Apocalypse in a semi-presentable form before March.
• finish up the work I need to do on my screenplay before the end of the year.
• Keep posting to the blog at least twice a week on weekdays and once on the weekends.
• Flying Swordsmen will have to stay on the backburner.  Maybe I can finish it in 2012 before the Mayans return and blast us from their Deathstar pyramids.
• My video game monster book, if I get around to it, will likely become a group collaboration thing with me as editor, instead of me doing all the writing/thinking on it.  I'll keep you posted if I need some help on that.

Character Creation vs. Game Play: Where's the Fun?

Just a couple quick thoughts and questions for the peanut gallery.

In a role playing game, should the character generation process be fun in and of itself?  If so, is it a sign of bad game design or good game design if the process is as fun, or even more fun, than the game play itself?

Just some thoughts rolling around in my head regarding PotA, the upcoming Gamma World 4ED&D game we're gonna play, and Utilitarianism's wacky idea of 'units of pleasure.'

Surprise Purchase

When I came home yesterday, my wife had a surprise for me. 

She had purchased a large table and 8 chairs from a used furniture dealer.  The reason is that we're teaching some small group lessons in our apartment in the evenings, and one of the students is partially disabled--bad legs.  Sitting on the floor Asian style isn't good for his legs.  And my wife also thought having a table looked more professional (I agree).

So anyway, I'm happy about that and all, but what went through my head when I saw the table set up in the spare room was not, "Hey, that'll be great for class." 

It was "Hey, that's perfect to play D&D around!"

And it is. 

This is turning into a very good week for me!

Oh, and the first draft of the new version of PotA is finished.  Gonna give it an edit, with some advice from Paul, then do a bit more formatting and font selection. 

The lighter side of the end of the world

Not much to post today (or at least this morning). I spent most of my free time yesterday working on PotA. It's not easy. I'm at the stage where I'm being forced to look through all the silly powers we've created, and decide "what exactly is the function of having a 'cybernetic ass' and if so, is it necessary to the game?"

In the original game, we left it up to players to decide what and how certain powers functioned. Some were of course obvious. A shotgun is a shotgun. A radiation blunderbuss is similar, but a clever player would also be using it to cause radiation poisoning, or to slowly mutate her pet dog into a ferocious three headed slavering hulk of fury. Crustacean Control? "Release the lobsters, Smithers!" McKinley's Mullet? Hmm, not sure on that one.

The real trick is to make sure all the powers have some sort of use in the game, but also keep the goofy feel of the game. Hopefully I'll get it right this time.

Presidents of the Apocalypse is coming!!

I got a fair amount of revision done on my latest version of Presidents of the Apocalypse.

For those who missed it, this is a silly little game that my Yamanashi crew put together.  The premise is that after the Apocalypse, various Founding Fathers or other famous folks rise from the ashes to battle evil.  Our original version was a modified version of the PDQ system (which I'd seen in a game called Questers of the Middle Realm).  Instead of the normal PDQ system of players deciding on their 'descriptive qualities' we made three random d100 charts: Mutations, Mental Powers, and Technology.  Players got to roll a bunch of times on the charts they wanted, then battle robots, mutants, and redcoats in the blasted wastelands.

It didn't work out quite how we expected.  Character creation was a ton of fun.  Game play was really incoherent.  We've revised it a time or two, and play tested.  Still haven't gotten it right.

Well, I'm giving it another shot.  Hopefully, this time I've got a system that is more intuitive for players to figure out what they're supposed to do.  It's still got lots of crazy random powers, but players get a bit more choice about how they create their characters and more of an idea of what sort of roles they're supposed to play in the game.

Anyway, here are some scans of the original play test.  This was Mark's last night gaming with us.  I only have 4 of the character sheets, but this will give all of you an idea what you can expect from the final product.

Andy Jackson, played by Jacob Paul

Lady Bird Johnson, played by Atley

Thomas Jefferson, played by Mark

William Henry Harrison, played by Josh

Edit: Paul just informed me that cybernetic ass Andy Jackson was his character. There's no player name on the sheet, and I thought the art work looked like Jacob's.

Presidents of the Apocalypse and other fun stuff

I've been piecing together some ideas I've had for the silly Presidents of the Apocalypse RPG Paul and I put together back when I was still in Japan.

I sent him the first bit of it, and he sent me some major revisions he'd done last year but never sent me.  I think it'll be a lot of work to fit them together, but we'll see.  Mine's a bit more 'loose' than Paul's version.

Got lots of great ideas for the video game bad guy book.  Some suggestions were things I was thinking of anyway, but some others were games I've never played, or had forgotten about.  This will definitely be worth doing.

That means Flying Swordsmen RPG will get pushed off the back-burner even.  Oh well.

I've started re-reading "Return to Brookmere" but I'm not sure if I'll get a review of it up tomorrow morning.  Might have to wait until Saturday, as I'll be playing board games tomorrow night.