Diary of a Failed Game Designer

The kiss of death (1947) I was looking at wizards in my home brew game “Amazing Adventurers and Incredible Exploits” (AIEE from here on.) I did not like what I saw and through our limited play testing wizards did not work at the table very well either.  I once read, (I'm sorry help me I have no idea where,) that once you start wholesale ripping systems apart in a game you might as well start over. With that in my head I found myself on a rainy Sunday ripping the Arcane magic bits out of my current game project.  Is this the kiss of death? If I remove a traditional spell list system and replace it with something more free form does it intrinsically spoil the happy go lucky chaos that is AIEE? Lets take a look, First My Very Scientific game design process: Identify the issues. Get frustrated Rip everything apart Take a shower and Brainstorm ( I have no idea why I get my best ideas in the shower..shrug..) Come up with ideas to fix issues. Start typing. My problems with the system as i

OR: How my hobby was saved. OR: Dr. Peabody and How I  learned to Relax and Love the internet. This is my 100 th blog post! (FIRE-WORKS-&-METAL!) Roll for ... something... I’m not sure if this is a mile stone or simply a distance marker, but in the light of my well known inability to focus on any one thing for more than a few days, one hundred posts is significant. We make trade-offs every day. One way or another we balance our time between family, work, hobbies, sleep, and any number of other things. Online gaming has saved my RPG hobby. I write this with zero sarcasm or exaggeration. Let me explain. If it were not for the online role playing I don’t think that I would have maintained the RPG hobby these past few years. It’s not that I don’t enjoy role playing games, I have and I do.   The issue is one of time, as we all get older and busier the days when we could all gather around the table because fewer and less often. Recently when we would manage to get together there began t

Do we really have to drop Acid in Disney land? Ok I admit that’s kind of fishing for clicks title, this is not about LSD or Disney, but it will make sense in a minute. Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs and looking at what other people are doing and I have to admit, by comparison my campaign is bland as oatmeal. I look at some of the sprawling mega-dudgeons that people have described on the net, the campaigns filled with dark and the nasty, and some downright strangeness, and I wonder am I missing something? I like the aesthetics of some settings, like every fantasy Role playing game by games workshop for example, because huge armies of  every description with  just more spikes, skulls, fire belching war machines and banners a guy can count  are  cool as fuck. I like creeping monsters with dark tentacles that pop out of bento boxes and eat faces, also cool. I think however, for me, too much over the top is too much. For example....Roll For Initiative... Do not get me wrong if yo

Let’s talk about rules in Role playing games. Who uses all of them?  I have heard of rules lawyers but I’m not sure I have ever actually met one. What I mean is I’m not sure I have ever met anyone who wants to use all of the rules found in many role playing games.  More to the point,   I’m not sure someone who wants to play by the letter of the rules manual would enjoy their time at the table when I am running a game.  I skip to much stuff. I am going to assume that I am not alone in this practice of just leaving out things that I find extraneous or just annoying. So while I understand that “system does matter” to what degree does it matter that we hack the hell out of the games we play? I have been running an AD&D 2 nd ed game over roll 20 for a couple of months now. The players made characters; we have them embroiled in a few story lines everything is going swimmingly. First off There have been a few games where they have even rolled more than once or twice in a game. This comes

Those  of you who read this blog.. I’m talking to both of you… may have noticed it has been a kind of slow around here as of late. I have to blame that on end of the winter blahs. I have a very strong desire to suck up some sunlight as soon as I can and get back on track. I am SO pale. With that in mind I want to talk about a change in direction. Over the winter I worked on Shards of Thimbral, and play tested it a couple of times. I really like the game, everyone who played seemed to enjoy it.   Here are some of those posts: Post 1:  Play test 2 Post 2:  Stalled Progress I appreciate all of the fed back from these, if any of you see this, thank you. The feedback and comments, were not all positive, and I don’t think that’s because the people commenting would not enjoy the game if they played it. I think it’s as much if not more because I have had a hard time communicating my design goals. There is also the very real chance that it did suck and was broken, but to be very honest I have n

Recognizing ones influences and giving them due credit is something I think is really important, so you get this post. In a perfect world I would be working more on Shards of Thimbral right now, but alas for me I can't control my own motivation which is in truth why I am not a professional, and why not much is moving on Shards right now. Also in a VERY perfect world I would be able to afford to licence art of Roger Dean for Shards of Thimbral. His work is EXACTLY what I would like the game to look like, not close, not kinda , EXACTLY. I believe I started thinking about Shards of Thimbral when I bought the "Yessongs" album back in Highschool and his art was on the cover, I just didn't know it. I find his work inspiring every time I look at it. My only issue is that as I sketch ideas for Shards I keep hearing in my head, "That was already done, and done MUCH better." Here is an example, his site has a ton more. Image by Roger Dean (I don't know the title