I ran another game of The Beast of Limfjord last night, this time with the full compliment of 5 characters. It was a whole barrell of fun. I handed the characters out randomly and everyone was pretty happy with who they got (luckily!). I used the second set of intro text “You make good time…” and had the players eventually discover the villagers hiding under the chieftain’s house in a secret cellar (the villagers saw the characters coming and thought they were raiders). The rumours at the start of the game had established that the village was being harrased by a group of raiders and there was both a sorcerer and a foul beast involved. I introduced the idea that the raiders were mounted. There was lots of battle, plenty of arguments among the characters (the players decided that everyone except Brother Aldfrid followed the Norse Gods and so there was lots of clashes with the monk), and a dramatic battle that involved setting fire to lots of houses and longships!

Everyone had a great time and I learnt a few things too;

Hrofgar Whitebeard’s “Legendary Warrior” Legend might be a bit powerful. Removing the threat of injury in close combat is a HUGE bonus.

Erlend the Younger is a one-trick pony. He really, REALLY kicks arse in combat (he took out a difficulty 4 challenge singlehandedly with one action!). I am going to change the “Mighty Blow” ability to “Beserker” – use the following;

Beserker: Erlend follows in his father’s footsteps and is able to throw himself into a terrible frenzy in combat. Spend a Spirit point to “go beserk” and increase Erlend’s Prowess to d12 for the rest of the scene. You must also check off the “angry” condition until the end of the scene.

I need rules for Player-versus-Player conflict. I tried a couple of different ways and will need to think further on this.

Fate points might need further tweaking – maybe reduce them to 4. Only Erlend came close to losing all Fate points, and he threw himself into danger at every opportunity (at one point fighting 12 horsemen single-handed!).

The post-it notes worked well. I broke up really big threats (stuff I wanted to be impossible to defeat with a single roll) into multiple challenges. For example, the 12 horsemen were broken into three Difficulty 3 challenges that each had to be dealt with. I also used the post-it notes to indicate the burning building where prisoners were being kept (Difficulty 2 to put out the fire) and put a number down to indicate how many rounds before the people inside would burn to death – that really put the pressure on.

Resistance. I found single-threats needed something other than Difficulty to make them tough. In the fight with the sorcerer at the end I introduced “resistance” (I am trying to think of another name) that negated one “hit” that a player rolled (it was disregarded, as if it wasn’t rolled making it much more likely that a “complete failure” resulted). This turned out to be very effective, making the sorcerer much harder than his Difficulty 3 indicated.

Attributes might need renaming or tweaking – Lore is very vague, some characters never use bearing, that kind of thing. I could change the Attribute to “action” type things (Fighting, Stealth, Knowledge, Survival, Athletics…).

These are my initial thoughts. I am very pleased, once again, with how the game went. All the mechanics held together well, were logical and easy for players to grasp.

Now, how have YOU found the game?

Okay folk, as promised, I have the game I talked about last post ready. The Beast of Limfjord is inspired by dark age stories, Norse sagas and (of course) Hollywood. It is pretty much complete and experienced roleplayers shouldn’t have too much problem with it.

I am giving it away – FREE – so you can enjoy it. But here’s the rub: I want feedback. I want you to play the game, try it out and see what works for you and your group of friends. I want to know whether the rules were clear enough for you to play and overcome any problems that you may have faced during play. In particular, I am interested in finding out the following;

Drives: how often did they come into play – did players have enough Spirit points during the course of play – how often did players take Experience points over Spirit points?

Fate: did anyone lose all their fate – did you feel there was enough tension created (did players feel threatened)?

Difficulty levels: were the players / characters challenged – did you use the post-it notes and how do you feel it worked?

Twists: did you use some more than others – did players choose their own twists?

Risky actions: what kinds of risky actions were attempted – did this create tension?

So, there are a few things you might think about as you play. I really, REALLY do appreciate any thoughts and feedback you might have.

I ran a playtest of… a game last night. It is not Oro but uses the system I am planning to use for Oro. Before I get into the playtest itself, let me explain why I didn’t use the Oro setting. First, I am still struggling with the broad strokes of the setting, trying to get a clear picture in my head of what the setting is like; to this end I have decided that I might advance the storyline a little into the golden age of piracy – it is a setting that all gamers are familiar with, making it more accessible. The second reason I didn’t use Oro was because my group had talked about other settings for a campaign and I wanted to explore these. Finally, as I was wandering the library with my kids inspiration struck – setting, plot and title in one hit and I threw myself into this. I am going to give a brief “actual play” report to share the experience, then delve into the mechanics and my thoughts on them.

The Beast of Limfjord

So, the game we played was called The Beast of Limfjord and was a story set in dark ages Denmark. I wrote five characters because although I have some ideas about character generation I was more interested in presenting an interesting situation and testing the action resolution mechanics. The characters were

• Hrofgar Whitebeard, legendary warrior and Chieftain without a clan
• Signy the Fierce, his daughter and warrior woman
• Erlend the Younger, a young warrior seeking to win Signy’s heart and Hrofgar’s approval
• Brother Adfrid, a priest struggling with his own shortcomings
• Yngvild the Alfar, a frost-covered elf wandering the human lands

The last character I threw in to turn up the “fantasy dial” a bit and test a couple of parts of the system. As it turned out I only had two players so I offered them a choice of “combos” (Hrofgar and Signy; Signey and Erlend; or Adrfrid and Yngvild). Marty was keen to play the greedy, arrogant monk Adfrid, so Brad took the role of Yngvild – a fae creature with little understanding of human customs.

We started by going around the table adding “rumours” they had heard about Limfjord, the beast and the people that lived there. This was great because the players gave some cool suggestions about what they might expect -all the warriors are dead, men and women went missing but only the remains of men are found, smoke and flames. The characters then journeyed to the village of Limfjord. After narrowly avoiding a lynching from the suspicious locals they Brother Adfrid convinced the Cheiftain that a Christian such as himself could succeed where others had failed. Yngvild promised that a reward would not be necessary, much to the distress of the monk. They explored the local forest, were attacked by hungry wolves, found the lair of the beast and dispatched it before discovering the true horror of the situation. Let me set the scene;

Having just clubbed the beast – a human sized, scaly hound – the creature collapsed to the floor of the cavern and vomited up its last meal (the villager the characters had hired as guide). From the surrounding cavern tunnels and alcoves three village women appeared (one of them was Ingrid, the Chieftain’s daughter); each was heavily pregnant. This turn of events worried the characters as no mention of pregnancy had been made at the village, but the worst was yet to come. Before the characters could do anything Ingrid dashed across the cavern, threw herself to the ground and began to eat the vomited, masticated and dripping remains of the villager. The look on Marty and Brad’s faces was priceless – I live for these moments. BUT THEN, mistaking the womans actions for custom, Yngvild got down on the ground and joined her in the meal! I laughed my ass off. Marty and his monk were horrified. I laughed harder.

Brad further escalated the situation by describing the fire that they had thrown the beast onto actually regenerated it. It grew more heads; Ingvild went into labour; packs of wolves descended on the cavern; there was a run through the snow to the icy fjord before the beast was finally killed and washed away into the sea. The Chieftain, impressed, converted to Christianity.

We had a blast and the game mechanics worked brilliantly – far better than I had expected.

The Mechanics

As I mentioned in my last post, the rules are a bit of a Frankenstein from a variety of games. This was my main worry, that the variety of different elements would not work together. Here is an overview of the system;

Characters are defined by Attributes, Edges, Keys and Legend

Attributes are Strength, Agility, Lore, Bearing and Prowess. Bearing is charm/will and prowess is combat ability. Each attribute is rated with a die typ (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12) which means every character will be really good at something and pretty poor at something. I really like the idea of characters not being “average” at lots of things and it automatically creates “niches” for each player (”I’m the good fighter”; “I’m the knowledgeable one”).

Edges are equipment, special abilities, skills and any other qualities that might be advantageous. Each Edge is rated with a die type (d10, d8, d6, d6, d4, d4). In the playtest I had these filled in, except two which the players filled in.

Keys are the goals and motivations of the characters. These are just like in Shadow of Yesterday or Lady Blackbird. When you roleplay your keys you earn “Spirit points” (or fate points, or luck or whatever). Spirit points are spent to roll extra dice and make declarations.

Legends are special powers and cool things that a character can have – a legendary qualities. In the playtest each character had three options and players had to just pick one. For example, Brother Aldfrid was able to “bless” other characters, providing a bonus to their dice rolls and Yngvild could turn an area she touches into slippery, freezing ice.

When attempting actions the GM sets a difficulty of 1, 2, 3 or 4. The player roles a relevent Attribute die, plus any Edge dice that might be useful and can spend Spirit points to add d6 into their pool. Every roll of 4+ is a “hit” and players are hoping to get a number of hits equal to or greater than the difficulty.

• No hits = complete failure and the situation escalates
• Hits don’t equal difficulty = action succeeds with a twist
• Enough hits = action succeeds
• Extra hits = remaining hits are “spent” by player to make declarations about action

Example: Signy is fighting off a pack of wolves. The GM sets the difficulty at 2. Signy will use her Prowess (d8), Steel Sword (d6) and let out her Battlecry (d4) as she fights. The player rolls all three dice scoring 2, 1 and 4). That is only one hit, meaning the action succeeds but with a twist. This might mean that Signy drives off the wolves but is injured in the process; or the wolves flee because something more dangerous approaches; or the wolves flee but take all her rations and supplies; or she escapes the wolves by falling into the freezing river; or any number of other possibilities.

I have to say that this system worked extremely well with my group. There were very few complete failures or complete success, but heaps of twists – which I really liked. When there was a twist I usually left the effects up to the players and Brad in particular was keen to really throw himself into the poop.

At the end of the game Marty, Brad and I had a chat about what worked and what might need tweaking. Both guys were very enthusiastic but Brad was worried that he never really felt threatened. Each character has a “Fate” track and when it is filled (there are only three spaces) you are out of the scene – unconscious, kidnapped, whatever. When you out-right fail (get no “hits”) you automatically lose a fate point and when there is a twist you might lose one. I might have been at fault, not inflicting enough harm on the guys when there was a twist, but this was because the suggestions for twists they came up with were so good. The guys made some suggestions on how to fix this (reduce your attribute by one die step when you get a twist, representing strain) but I am not sure if this is the solution. I also think that I could increase the Fate track (to 6, maybe) and cause you to mark a space for every complete failure and twist – that would really put the pressure on and might be too “deadly”.

On my side of things, I also need to clarify for myself (and all future GM’s) how monsters and other threats work. I was giving threats Fate boxes like players (1,2 or 3) and a Difficulty and each success or twist would reduce the fate box total by one. This works if players are just going “I attack the creature” becuase you can do the “you succed so it loses one Fate” thing. If players want to “drive off” or “scare” or “tangle” the creature though a single success (or even twist) is (by the letter of the rules I have written) enough to do this. So I need to think this through.

My next step is to write up a couple of pages of GM notes and example encounters and create a complete package for The Beast of Limfjord, just like Lady Blackbird. The idea being that I can solicit feedback from people about the system mechanics. I will get on this when I have nutted-out the Fate mechanic. Overall, though, I am pretty happy with this first iteration.

After a few fits and splutters I have actually made some progress on Oro. I have nutted-out the basics of the core mechanic and general feel for play. I still need to really delve into the setting and figure that out, but I am happy to finally have something on paper. This is kind of backward for me as I usually work from setting backward. The mechanics are kind of the bastard love-child of Shadow of Yesterday and Savage Worlds, with a lot of inspiration from John Harper’s Lady Blackbird. It uses the whole gamut of polyhedral dice, specific stats but no skills, it has equipment and other assets lossely defined. I have even worked out the basics of the experience system. I am hoping that this all swirls together into a fairly free-flowing, rules-light cinematic game of action and adventure, with enough depth for extended play.

More later.

What an amazing week I have had. Yes, it has been as busy, stressful and demanding as normal, but I also feel a strange stirring of my soul, in regards to gaming. I have had some amazing experiences that have set my mind a-flutter. Let me catalogue them as they happened;

Friday. The last day of the school term and not a lot of work left for the students, so (on a complete whim) I took my copy of Once Upon A Time to school. I tentatively offered my year 9 students (there were only 5) the chance to play this story game and after a brief explanation of what it was all about, all of them were playing. These are kids that don’t like to write or read, but they loved telling stories. So, when my year 7 students arrived I asked them if they would play. There were 20+ kids in this class, so I grabbed a group to “demo” the game, then split the deck of cards so everyone got some and within 10 minutes all the kids were playing. For forty minutes straight. It was AWESOME.

First, this is testament to what a fantastic game this is. I will be picking up at least one more copy so I can play it at the end of the year with even more kids. Second, it goes to show that no matter your background, age, or interests, you can get a kick out of telling stories. Third, offering a story-telling game in the form of a card game, boardgame or other more “traditional” format is a great way to bridge the gap for new players.

Saturday. I went to club and over the course of the evening got into a couple of conversations with my usual gaming group about settings, game style and that kind of thing. They have been keen for a “campaign” style game for a while (I keep bringing new games which does not help) and we were talking about options. The players knew I am engaged in a design challenge and there was an implicit assumption that I would write them a game. This is cool (and daunting, but cool). While we talked about Oro, they also hooked into another setting I had mentioned – one inspired by the art of Frank Frazetta, but using character motivators similar to those in Shadow of Yesterday and Lady Blackbird. This is the game they are expecting next week.  There was a distinct “we don’t need to track hit points and gold” mentality and a keen desire to have stories character driven. Duff was even keen for pregenerated characters, which is totally cool.

Sunday (morning). Two of my nephews visited today (11 and 12 years old) and we played a bunch of games – nothing roleplaying, but definately “gamer” gamers. We had a blast and they wanted more. Unfortuneately I was exhausted. However, I have a chance to catch up with both of them, and another nephew this week and I am thinking I can get them to roleplay. Three guys and their uncle kicking in doors, killing monsters and taking their stuff. I am totally psyched about this idea. A short time ago I even entertained the idea of writing them a game (don’t worry, the feeling passed), but I think I will use either Dungeoneer (the old Fighting Fantasy rpg) or Dungeon Slayers. I like the idea of Dungeon Slayers because I can print each of the boys out a copy to take home, thus seeding the opportunity for them to go off and play with their friends…

Sunday (evening). I payed a visit to Rob Lang’s Free RPG Blog. I hadn’t been in a while and was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice review of my game Verge. In fact, a VERY nice review, Rob was very flattering of my writing and my setting. I really should pay that guy more. Verge is a funny thing (for me). I really go into the setting but despite numerous opportunities I never ran the game for my group. I don’t know why. I am going to spend this evening taking a look at the game and try and work out what it was about the game that didn’t inspire me enough to run it.

That has been my awesome weekend. So many wonderful gaming insights. I want to write a hundred different games, one for new players like my nephews, one for my current group, Oro, and Verge, and something with a board or cards. Oh, the joys of being a gamer. I think I need a tonic to sooth my restless spirit.

Okay gang, I have pondered, plundered and even gone to the “thinking room” to deliberate. I am here to reveal to you the project I intend to set my mind to over the next twelve months. I give you;

At this point I only have the sketchiest ideas of what this game is about, so here is my five second elevator pitch;

It is like “the Three Musketeers” meets “the Matrix”.

Imagine, if you will, flashing blades, bullet-time stunts, leather corsettes, an ancient mystery, pirates, black-powder and more! I have in my mind’s eye the following scene;

A black-coated adventurer in wide-brimmed hat stands in a ship’s crow nest, watching as pirates swarm from their delapidated ship onto his, swinging on ropes and running across planks. He collapses his spy glass and tucks it into his belt, then leaps from his vantage post at the top of the main mast. He drops to the deck, landing on one knee, one fist, a shockwave splintering the deck and knocking over sailors and pirates alike. Slowly he rises, looking out from under the brim of his hat, and in a single swift motion ducks the blast of a pistol, draws his blade and cuts down three adversaries. Past the battling pirates and sailors he sees a bare chested giant of a man with a brace of pistols – a gold medallion swinging about his neck. The figure shouts at the giant and their eyes meet. Let the battle begin!

I guess it is kind of anime-16th Century. At this stage it is not the real world, but a fantasy world with strong historical influences, similar to AEG’s Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea. All though there are similarities between my Oro and John Wick’s 7th Sea setting, the first point of departure is that Oro is set in the New World, not “Europe”. It is also going to be a little tighter focused. The setting (and characters) have a back story that sets up conflict, intrigue and adventure;

After Cortez (possibly renamed for Oro – Cortega sounds close enough, yet different!) conquered the Aztec empire he captured a priceless treasure of gold medallions – large coins with ornate icons of the Aztec gods. Many coins were given to Cortega’s trusted lieutenants and sent as gifts to friends, nobles and patrons, but the majority were lost when the caravan transporting them back to the coast was ambushed by native warriors. Some time later many of the bearers of these coins manifested strange abilities and powers. Bearers can leap in-human distances, have amazing strength, can dodge bullets or even speak with animals. Some use their new abilities for nefarious purposes, others have pledged themselves to the defense of King, Country, Church or some other cause. Gangs of mercenaries seek out bearers of coins to steal their power, and noblemen look for ways to control this new resource. Untold wealth, power and fame can be had by someone in possession of a fabled coin. Honour, infamy, respect, love and hate await them. Your character possesses one of these coins. What will you do now?

Things are still sketchy and I need to get in my head exactly where in history the story will finally sit (at the moment it is kind of a blend of two hundred years between late 1400’s and late 1600’s). But this is the kernal of my game’s setting. Maybe super hero historical, a bit like that 1602 series by Marvel.

Next time: asking the big three questions…

Okay, I have been tossing around some ideas, going through some old stuff I had written, thumbed through a few back issues of comic Previews, Dragon magazine and my DVD selection. In some ways I want to go back to the roots of my gaming experience, and after D&D the game that had the greatest impact on the young me was Cyberpunk 2020. It has been a long while since a really good cyberpunk game has been done, though I am not sure I am invested in the genre enough to go balls-to-the-wall traditional cyberpunk. I love the attitude of cyberpunk, the worlds described in cyberpunk fiction, the idea of revolutionaries trying to change a world that doesn’t even notice them, of fighting against impossible odds for cash, fame or just one more day on this good earth. What I am not a fan of is the vast lists of gadgets, cybernetics, weapons and tech that many cyberpunk games degenerated into. (You know they did! R Talsorian even tried to escape this through their launch of CyberGeneration – a far better cyberpunk game than the original, I think.). 

I have two ideas… before I started writing this post I had one sound idea, but I have just had another spark. Damn. Damn this imagination of mine! I am going to scribble some notes and see which really plucks at my heart-strings. Both are inspired by cyberpunk fiction, but neither are cyberpunk. Neither are steampunk either – I think that might be too easy, besides there are a lot of games in that genre these days. Anyway, more soon.

So here I am, committed to writing, developing, playtesting and publishing a game over the course of the next twelve months. And I have no idea what I am going to do. That is not to say I don’t have an idea for a game, it’s just that I don’t have an idea for THE game – the one I want to write for this project. I have some fairly firm ideas about the kind of game I want to write, just not what it will be about. Let me lay out what I have;

1. Crunchy. I have done a bunch of fairly “rules light” games that involve plenty of hand waving, references to common sense, generic modifiers, that kind of thing. I want to have a go at somthing that has a bit bore grunt to it. Something with a bit more mechanical detail. This isn’t because I dislike “rules light” or anything like that – I just want to see if I can do something more crunchy. I would love some tactical combat options (manouvres, that kind of thing).  

2. Character driven. I absolutely love the way Keys work in Lady Blackbird (and presumably Shadow of Yesterday, though I have not played it). I love the fact that they are one of the most important things on the sheet and everytime I have played the game (about 5 times now) they drive the players to act like the character. It is fantastic. I want to do somthing similar.

3. Polyhedrals. So, at GenCon Oz I picked up a couple of new sets of polyhedral dice. Really basic, plain colour (one set red, one set purple if you must know) dice sets. They have brought back a wave of nostalgia and I want to use them in my game design. This might be tough for me, because I really love the simplicity of single die-type mechanics. But I keep opening my draw and peeking at the simple plastic shapes with their clear numbers and remember fondly opening the red box D&D for the first time… maybe I will make a game meant to go in a box.

4. Genre-mashing. Perhaps still caught up on the wave of nostalgia, I would love to do a classic fantasy game, but not only is that genre already pretty heavily contested, there are a couple of new games about to burst onto the scenes too (Dragon Age from Green Ronin and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay from Fantasy Flight). So I am looking for a niche, something a little left of centre. Something that mixes a couple of unexpected genres in an interesting way, or that hasn’t been done before… or in a while… or well.

So, to summarise, my game is; a crunchy, tactical combat, character driven game, using polyhedral dice to resolve conflict in a setting that may or may not be a successful mixture of a variety of genres. It is beginning to sound like I want to design D&D… oh dear.

I feel that this description successfully fails (?) to demonstrate any real design goals. As a consequence I am going to go back to watching commercial television (obviously where all good ideas come from) while warming up my fingers to post about the “Big Three” questions, over at the Stockade.

Okay, I have just returned from GenCon Oz where Andrew Smith and I launched a truly outlandish project – The Stockade. The plan is to gather a group of keen Australian game designers (published or not) and work together to create complete games ready for play at GenCon Oz 2010.

I am reviving this blog as the place to talk about my game, design process and anything else that comes to mind along the way. I am not going to promise that I will blog regularly, because I am terrible at keeping up with my blogs. I will commit to keeping you informed of all the big things.

So. Now I need to come up with a game. And you should go check out the Stockade website.

Only one week after our last episode we provide you with more exciting content. It turns out, recording two episodes at the one time comes with its hazards, like forgetting to introduce ourselves at the start of the episode – if you’re new to the show we are Marty and Nathan! This episode is a catch up with our emails and a free RPG review.
The point of this weekly episode “exercise” was to see whether people wanted more regular, short episodes or longer fortnightly episodes. It wasn’t done very well, if we say so ourselves as these “short” episodes have turned into hour-long epics anyway! Still, we want your feedback!
Also, we are looking at changing our webpage setup and hosting. This will not affect anyone that uses iTunes or another podcatcher, but will hopefully make things easier for anyone that visits the site to download each episode or leave comments. We have set up a “test” blog at

http://www.perilplanet.com/blog

for you to look at and test drive. Once again, feedback is important!

Correspondence (TIME 4.20)
Star ORE – for star wars
http://www.arcdream.com/pdf/starore.pdf
http://www.arcdream.com/wildtalents/downloads.html

The Eighth Sea
http://www.vulpinoid.com/vs_8s.html

Damnatus
http://www.damnatus.com/

Free RPG Blog
http://thefreerpgblog.blogspot.com/

Free RPG (TIME 24.50)
Danger Patrol
http://mightyatom.blogspot.com
http://www.dangerpatrol.com/
http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=9908

HBG Xtra (TIME 24.50)
RPGnow
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63393

DriveThruRPG
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=63393

 

 Episode 12 [50:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download