Publicising my new game

My new game design is nearing its play-test stage.  Board and counter art is complete, cards are in-progress, rules, still to be done.

I've been pondering how to approach telling the world about this fantastic game.

I liked the approach taken by the designers of Where There Is Discord. They got the game into the database at BoardGameGeek and started throwing up over a number of weeks a few teaser items, and even posted the rules asking the community to proof read them.

Once that was done they started posting well written and detailed Session Reports, each made of multiple posts made on separate days that really related the narrative of the games story. All in all it was a good way of building interest in the game, it certainly sucked me in, I ended up buying the game (and I'm delighted with it!).

I still have to finish up the little details of the game, but once that done I'm going to start following the model above. I'll register the game, put the call out for play-testers and start posting teasers and rules on the 'Geek. Of course I'll post those same teasers here. It'll be an interesting experiment to see if such an approach works with a print and play game!

Designing a new game

I've been working up a new game design for a few months now.  When I say "working up", what I really mean is that I've been thinking about it. What "thinking about it" means is that when I wake up in the middle of the night stressed out by work and money worries, I try to distract myself by thinking about this game.

I've found that during this game thinking I get into a mental flow. Where ideas build one upon another.  I'm also a bit of a writer and the I enter the same "flow" state when I'm sketching out a stories outline. It's a hard thing to describe, but it is most definitely a different state of mind. I suspect that it is almost meditative, perhaps it is meditative, I've never studied that sort of thing.

Do other game designers do a similar thing? Let me know if you do, I'd like to think that I'm not a lonely weirdo!

So what's going on in my mind during these flowing game design periods? I usually start by reviewing what I'm trying to achieve with the game, what the feel should be, and how the interaction with it should feel. From there I start going over mechanisms that could be used.  There is no order to this, I don't have a list to work from, it's just a random selection. Each one is considered, can I use it, how, where, what for, would it be better than one I've already decided on, which is best, all these questions just kind of whirl around in my head.

For example, if I'm thinking of cards within a game, there are so many uses that can be made for them I usually work my way through them all. Consider this little off the cuff list of possible uses...

Resources ... wood, sheep, computer time, interrupts
Timing .. count down, count up, increasing danger levels
Combat ... collecting combos, take that, initiation
Events ... lose all your items, an ogre attacks, you gain a gold, jump forwards to spaces

That's just a sample of what can "flow" over my mind in the middle of night, along with counters, tiles, dice, figures, tables, charts and every other game crafters tool.

I find myself considering, as I've said, what the feel I want the game to give the players, and so my mind often drifts into art, but this is a dangerous area for me, I'm no artist, and despair lies this way! Where, I ask myself, can I get public domain art, and so what Google searches can I use to find what I need....

But enough of the midnight stuff, what about the actual play testing? Well, in this case I take the ideas I've been pondering in the night and with pencil sketch out a board, then if there are counters in my idea, scissors find their way to a cereal packet, and if cards are in order, a few A4 sheets of paper are cut up.  Then these components are marked with a pencil. and finally the whole laid out on a table.

During this phase I'll put counters on the board, cards in my hand, and shuffle everything around seeing how they fit together. Try different set ups. Consider the juxtaposition of the various parts and how the board might be rearranged.

Then the cat walks across the board, sits on it, gets bored and walks off, and if I'm lucky something the cat did makes this paper and card game work!

In the case of last night, the cat didn't help. But I did rough out a play sequence for my current design and discover that the feel is right, but the game was too easy and needs to be ramped up.

That's all for now.  I just thought I'd share some thoughts about how I'm going about my current game design. Tune in later for more. :)

Epistolary

A set of rules for a "Story Writing" game have appeared on RPGGeek called "Epistolary", don't worry that's not a swear word.

The easiest way to understand this game is to refer to the book Dracular by Bram Stoker. This famous book is written with each chapter being an extract from a diary, journal, letter or even a report from a newspaper. The whole effect of which is to tell the story from multiple points of view.

This free set of rules lays out a framework to allow you and a friend ( perhaps two friends ) to write a story in this way. Each taking turns to write a part of the story from a certain point of view, and then hand off the story to your fellow player(s) by giving them a choice of "leads".

I think these "leads" are the challenge and the beauty of the system.  Suppose I've just added a section to the story, I finish off by offering between three and five leads to the next player.  Leads take the form of chapter headings, such as :

• The shadows advance!
• A friend.
• Long lost love returns.

So the next player looks at those leads and decides on which one they want to pick up and use as their next section heading.

I find that whole idea fascinating. I can interpret the leads given to me, but as I have no idea what leads I'll be offered they can inspire your creative juices and take the story in a whole new direction.

The system is not just limited to the classic letter writing age, but can be brought up to date or even into the future.  A "chapter" ( a grand title for a section you write ) can be a letter, a blog post, a video transcription, a transgalactic finance report, literally anything you can conceive.

If you have a space half hour and have creative writing "urges" this is well worth a look.

Alien Module 1:Aslan

Alien Module 1:Aslan is an expansion book for the well aged "Traveller" RPG.  Traveller has been through many releases over the years, but this review refers to the original release.

I brought a PDF of Alien Module 1:Aslan via RPGNow.com and it's the PDF I'm reviewing.

The PDF is not a specially constructed PDF, rather it is a scan of an original hardcopy. The scan suffers from the source document being well thumbed, the covers are worn and there has been no attempt to tidy up the imagery.

After seeing the cover page I had feared for the contents, but on paging through the PDF I found all of the pages inside to be cleanly scanned and easy to read. Unfortunately various pages of the original document had been stamped with "GDW Library" and these appear in the PDF, on one page even partially obscuring some of the text.

The PDF pages are a 1 to 1 scan of the original book so the PDF is 44 pages long (including the covers).

This book presents the reader with pretty much everything you need to know about the alien "Aslan" race. Aslan are bipedal aliens that resemble an earthly Lion on two legs.

Here's what the book contains:

• Anatomical diagrams
• Introduction to the Aslan empire
• How they measure time.
• Physiology
• History
• Society
• Government
• Armed Forces
• Language (including tools for generating Aslan words)
• Character generation (including Aslan careers, skills, mustering out)
• Aslan Weaponry
• Special rules for Aslan world generation
• Encounter/Patron tables
• Aslan's in the Imperium
• Humans in the Aslan Empire
• Aslan space vehicles.
• Scenario
• Map of Aslan space.

The book is made up of dense text in a two column layout. There is enough information here to create Aslan PCs and to go adventuring in Aslan space without there ever being a Human involved. Each of the sections above are very detailed and extensive, you will not lack for knowledge. It's hard to explain just how much detail is crammed into this book, but there is a lot of it.

I'm very happy with my purchase. It only cost $5, but I would have been willing to pay a little more had the book not been a simple scan. They have missed an opportunity in not creating a new digital layout that could be rendered comfortably by any E-Reader.

Summary : Buy it.

Death Bringers

Late last night I finally managed to release an RPG campaign book that I've been working on for about six months.

"Death Bringers" is a campaign book for the "3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars" role playing game. The campaign contains 20 missions on twenty different planets and each mission is broken down into anywhere between 3 and 8 separate combat encounters.

The back cover blurb is...

Death Bringers is a series of twenty pre-programmed combat missions for "3:16 Carnage amongst the Stars"

Each mission centres around destroying all life on an alien world. ALL THREATS TO THE CONTINUANCE OF PARADISE ON EARTH MUST BE ELIMINATED.

Each planet presents a unique challenge with different world wide conditions and a new life form to be eliminated with extreme prejudice.

Each plantary mission contains 3-8 seperate combat encounters building a progressing story as the play moves from encounter to encounter.

The game is available for purchase from RPGNow.com

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Playing "3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars"

I started GMing a game of "3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars" game a good while ago on the RPPG-Geek forums. I took it through the first three missions, then another guy "Howitzer" took over the GMing role and breathed new life into the game.

As a "For Instance" of what this guy has done to the game...

Our characters are inside a massive hurtling asteroid that's been targeted at our home planet. We were in a warship, but it crashed into a massive cavern on the asteroid. Inside we find another smashed up ship from earth. We meet the survivors, only to find ourselves surrounded my beasts of half shadow and half our-imagination.

So these "ghosts" of our former comrades, lost loves and parents slide on up to us ...then attack. Troops in power armour taken out by ghosts! Oh the ignominious-ness of it. My character is left "crippled" by this attack. One of the other troopers is not as bad, he's "a mess".

My character did manage to kill 8 of the alien scum in the process, but he's unlikely to survive another attack. Things are looking grim. Surrounded by aliens. Trapped in an asteroid. No ship, no com' and rapidly running out of friends. Great game :)

Playing Evil in RPGs

Gosh I don't know what's kicked this off but I've recently heard two different podcasts discussing the pros and cons of playing Evil characters in fantasy settings.

Trying to remember - it hurts! - which podcasts it was, but I think it was Fear the Boot and RPG Circus.

Anyway neither show really hit what I thought was the "answer". Okay, now you're wandering what the question is ...aren't you. The question is "how" to play evil characters?

Why is that even a question? It's the question because most peoples initial view of "evil" characters is the baby eating back stabber who is some kind of constantly uber evil person. That's the problem. If you try to create a group of PC's of that type the group cohesion will not exist they will constantly be attacking each other!

What you need to do is accept that "evil" is more insidious. Look around the world we're in, look for evil and how it manifests.

For example, lets take the Nazi example. Nazi's imposed evil practices on the countries they controlled. They were organised, but they were also cohesive. We see this type of evil all of the time. What we call evil is so often the imposing of "evil" policy. So, be it a dictator in some desert country killing his own people, or some euro' with crazy ideas about people of another religion, they are imposing evil policies.

At the top of these organisations the people are generally quite evil , but even so they don't eat babies, or at least not in front of their followers.

When you want to play an "evil" campaign ( you sick git ) your PCs will have to be cohesive and organised. You could play the minions of the super evil character. Another alternative is to play bandits who are considered evil by everyone they pillage. Another alternative is to be a spy group, perhaps mercenaries who join up with the good guys but with a plan to double cross them.

In summary the group can be evil, but they have to remain a cohesive group. They can be "evil" to each other!