Diary of a Failed Game Designer

I think I need to go see somebody. I'm not sure this is what the designers attended. Shrug Thanks for stopping in!

Another quick map considering  folks seemed to like the last one. My original idea is a large standing rune-stone on top of a lonely hill. If one knows how they stone can be opened revealing a tunnel down to a moderately sized temple complex. The complex was once used for worship and also for  blood trials in a  sunken sandy bottomed "arena" style room. Those were my thoughts What are yours? Again use as you wish, please leave a message down below to let me know what you came up with. The original resolution is much larger but  Blogger has a problem with that . If any one has any need of a 10200 by 14027 version let me know and we can figure something out. Also if anyone knows anyone has any tips on  best practices for scanning  watercolors let me know, the colors in these scans came out washed out looking, and when I try to adjust them in Gimp it makes things worse rather than better. Enjoy Thank you for reading! leave questions and comments in the gaping maw of the slor bel

Ever see something you wish you had thought of? A simple idea that's just great? For me Pulp Covers Blog is one of those ideas. It's just covers of pulp adventure books, without much editorializing, just  great images. I wish I had thought of it I love it. IT's  Here Also Thank you to every one who said nice things abut the  map I uploaded yesterday. I'll upload a few more ASAP. Thanks for reading this  quickly Leave any comments in the Altoids box below. (for kicks) Reaction Check of ad&d 5th Roll 1d6 add or subtract charisma bonus. Results 9. The person falls madly in love with you 8. you have a new BFF or it may just be lust. 7. You impress the person, and they like you very much. 6. A friendly goodhearted reaction. 5. You're "all-iet" 4. Give or take your company 3. They will do business with you, but that's it. 2. They  will act like they like you but when you leave they are going to talk shit about you. and charge you more just because you ar

So here is a map. I was thinking of doing an example adventure for  my home brew game "Amazing Adventurers and Exciting Exploits" so I sketched up a map water-colored in some bits then  though, "well I would rather go another direction." Here is the map I started. It became kind of a quick sketch of  something I might  expand upon latter. The real reason I never used it s that I need to leave more white space for what I want to do for AAIE. That and I made a mistake on the entrance  structure which frankly irks me. Have at it, Enjoy it. Note the two thought bubble things at the top, that's something I do to sketch in my own notes. So if you take it and use it drop me a line in the comments section to let me know how you used  it and how it went. Cause that would be pretty cool. As always thank you for reading. Please leave comments , questions and  map stories in the  ink well below. Mark

Twenty  athletic  Orc youths stand in a row. With them standing out  like sore thumbs are two humans.... The  king has been clear about  the mission. Locate the Scarmaw Orcs, negotiate a treaty of trade and nonaggression with the green skinned bastards, and if possible see if we could turn the tribal chiefs attention towards the dwarves in Iron Pass. Simple? No not simple. So here we are the chief has refused to speak to us unless we pass the orc warrior trial, what ever the blazes that is, and  now this big brute Thagnar and his smashed up smelly tooth is shouting in my face. From the  other side: Thagnar One Tusk looked over the new recruits. Not a single one of them would survive a battle, not one worm ridden one. He marched up and down the ranks of young orcs, only a few would meet his gaze the rest of these sad sacks of yak shit turn down their eyes, like yearling wogs. Humans sent by the chief?  This must be some play at humor towards Thagnar; Thagnar hates humor. Thagnar will

Nothing brings people out like a math problem. this stems from this post earlier today. I was musing  about the Warrior fight style "great weapon fighting." the fight style allows the warrior  using a 2 handed weapon to re-roll 1's and 2's for damage and  keep the second result. I said I would rather just roll two dice every attack and  pick the higher because it feels more thematic, to heck with the math, I'm to lazy. Well. A reader from G+ Mr.Ian Borchardt is not too lazy. In fact he is the antithesis of lazy so he did this: If you want the actual numbers for your glaive, here is 1d10. First column is highest of 2d10; second column rerolls 1 or 2. Damage 2D pick the highest Re roll 1 &2's take result 10 19% 12% 9 17% 12% 8 15% 12% 7 13% 12% 6 11% 12% 5 9% 12% 4 7% 12% 3 5% 12% 2 3% 2% 1 1% 2% Using your method the average result is 7. Using the default method the average res

I was just making a Character for  our  D&D 5th ed game tonight. Jay is running the module from the starter set and I am playing a  (GHASP) fighter... (I generally always play fighters.) Looking over the fighters Fight styles I noticed "great weapon fighting." Re-roll damage rolls of 1 or 2 keep the result of the re-roll. Sounds fine, I'm taking it. Given the systems focus on advantage disadvantage wouldn't make more sense to handle great weapon fighting in a similar way and always roll 2 damage dice then keep the higher, avoiding having to take the time to re-roll?  Mathematically it's different, but I'm not taking the time to figure out the exact differences, I think rolling 2 dice would be aesthetically more pleasing. Regardless. Here is the character by the way . For those about to die we salute you. My D un D guy. Name: Orin Holzknecht Race Human +1 all stats Class : Fighter Level : 1 AC: 16 Hit Points: 14 Method 4d6 drop the lowest straight up and

The Hill Dugger or the  Old Dugger as its sometimes known is located on the old trade road about two days walk outside of Dairhouse proper and west of the small town of Cliffmedow. The Dugger is built into the side of a hill, much in the way that Halflings prefer to dwell it was however built by man and is to their larger size. Its small blue door is easy to  pass buy on a  summer day while traveling the trade road, the Dugger hangs no sign, only the smell of cooking  invite in the weary. No one remembers who originally created the Dugger in or if it was always an in at all. The current owner Brewer Thomas inherited it from his grandfather who in an unsubstantiated story was said to have won the  inn during a game of dice. The fair at the Dugger is hardy peasant food such as Bulgar, barbacoa of goat, root vegetables roasted over coals, and mutton are all common dishes. Thomas's Haggis is known locally as being particularly good. As a brewer Thomas is known as a experimenter who wil

The hollow tree. Three boys from town were walking in the forest hunting for mushrooms and fiddle-heads. As the shadows began to get long they rounded a thicket and hopped over an oxbow in the stream they were confronted by a massive tree trunk. Round as Old Milfords Grain house, taller than a hog shed and broken at the top into jagged woody teeth that looked like a vast hoary crown.  It looked as if the grand old tee had bee sicken by lighting recently, the trunk had fallen and a deep crack was rent down the side of the remaining trunk. The boys could see that the lightning had also exposed a deep hollow inside the mighty stump. At the Drum-kettle Inn an old man tells what the boys say they had seen, and why they promised each other never to return. They quietly crept up to the darkness of he Hollow stump, carefully peered in  and saw. Three children growing out of the old trunk. The children looked exactly like them. A swirling swirling vortex that looked like the night sky and

Out with one in with another: So last night after a quick game on roll 20 the group I game with decided that it would be fun to convert their characters from my long standing campaign over to Dungeon World. So what does this mean for my relationship with AD&D 2nd edition? I think it's pretty much over. Breaking up is hard I know.. It's not you it's me... I'll pay for a cab. Over course of time my campaign has been run in, BX D&D (red box) Rules compendium D&D Advanced D&D Second edition AD&D Third edition D&D Phase Abandon (home brew) I might be forgetting something , but lets face it one more game system wont make a difference. I have nothing against the various flavors of D&D. I still have this pipe dream to return to basic D&D at some point. I would love taking the Basic D&D rules compendium that's slowly turning yellow in my attic for one final spin. Though I think the chance of that happening is shrinking fast at this

So we have arrived at the final episode of the  4 part AAIE pod cast. I think the four casts they give a pretty good feel for AAIE and  how it flows, even if you just listen to parts and pieces there is allot to be learned about the game from these clips. Here is episode 4: Battle of the Furnace Ape The  party has journeyed into a mysterious crypt and  ind that they are being watched by an intimidating  monster called "the Furnace Ape." Here it is embedded if that's how you like to roll. Past episodes: Episode 1: Character Gen : Episode 2:  Into the Woods: Episode 3: Into the crypt: Check out this post for a more info and the stats from "The Furnace Ape" Keep an eye out on the  blog, Amazing Adventures and Exciting Exploits (the game featured in these pod-casts) is going be a free PDF download very soon! As always thank you for reading Comments welcome in the large stone coffin bellow.

An experiment in image association. take the image below. Roll 2d20  and sum them up. find the part of the  doodle that's near your number,  figure out what you think that is. Do it again. Combine the results That's the new cretinous god of your Pantheon. I rolled 37 then 20 and  called it  "CUa-tal The Sheltering Parasite." As always thank you for reading Please leave a comment in the shuddering void below.

A conversation broke out. Here is why I don't always approach the gaming experience or what it takes to run or play a game exactly like other people do. Sometimes it is not about the game. Last night, We talked about  food, allot. including this: Pulled pork with slaw and  home made pretzel  buns that I made for Quariz  and Mike a weekend ago. Then we talked about Billy Bob's Barbecue in Pogheepsie New York, Which for my money is the best BBQ joint in the area. (I know,  anyone  who lives in the south would know better.) We talked about a hole in the wall main street place where Jay gets Dope Cheese burgers for lunch. We talked about playing basketball this summer. We talked about Rusty's, Jay's and my work. We talked about how  an RPG love fest through G+ into convulsions and landed us in many peoples circles (I think that's AWESOME by the way.) We talked about the Zoo in Millbrook. WE talked about Shards of Thimbral  My last doomed "serious" Rpg Projec

I am one lazy S.O.B. sometimes. when I GM my prep is often laughable. It's better with my AD&D game. With that I tend to look at the story and ask what's going on in the long term? I'll answer the big questions ahead of time: What are the PC's involved in?  Is it winter yet?  What are the villains up to?  Where are they going?  What are the  characters chasing, and why have they chosen to chase it When it comes to the minutiae of the game however I get lazy.  Usually I forget to answer questions like the ones below. How many Hp does each orc have? Where do the guards stand at exactly midnight? When does the caravan show up? Whats in that chest the  Jarl  rests his feet on? Do I have a map of this town. How much gold is the innkeeper carrying. Does a paper boy even have HPs?  I just read a rambunctious discussion about hit points where one hit die monsters are concerned.* I read the post and the comments that followed and thought to myself. "Wow I never even thi

This is the  most under-produced Video you will ever see. It's really just a pod cast of use playing 5th ed for the first time. II reserve my opinions on the game. There are hundreds of bloggers who are going to be more complete and concise about that than I  can be. I have also said in the past I'm not doing big 5th ed pieces on this blog because  it's not a "D&D blog" it's a "Shit I made in my  brain parts Page" I can however say we have given the Basic PDF an honest shot. So listen to this on your ride to work. It's 2 hours and 7 minutes long so ... I don't know background noise wile you paint the bathroom? That screen is not going to change so don't bother staring at it. I Think it bears repeating , this  video was made for speed of delivery not so much for  aesthetic impact. I wanted to have it up by Sunday but  we did not play on Friday as planned etc..etc..We played on Sunday and here it is. However you do get to marvel at my i

Sort of  a big deal: Over this long weekend I created what I called Amazing Adventures and Exciting Exploits “Final” PDF. Which is the first time I have used the term Final concerning this project. As any of you  who work on  "Do it your self"  game design already know "Final" is a tricky concept. I spent the  weekend tightening up the index and  adding  bits and pieces here and there, finding things to clarify and tweak. It's about 95 pages as is, It will likely bloat to 100 when I add in a few more play examples and that sort of thing  I have to be honest from the art, to the writing,  to the lay out, it's all incredibly unprofessional I have no allusions otherwise, but  it is playable and fun so at least I have that on my side. So we come to this, next after another week or so of tweaking and  reading and letting  my friends pour over the damn thing I plan on offering up the PDF to any takers. My question to you fine folks is whats the  best easiest way t

For those of you reading who are American, Happy Fourth of July. The newest episode of my actual play V-log is up for your listening pleasure. Its called "Exploring the Furnace Ape Crypt" and can be found  over HERE   on you tube. This episode picks up where the gang left off last week in episode 2, and continues deeper into the cave they fell into. And if you like your Furnace Apes Embedded you can listen here: My hopes with these V logs is that some folks will check them out and get interested in or curious about "Amazing Adventurers and Exciting Exploits." To be honest that hasn't seemed to happen yet, but that's alright. The V-Logs were fun to make, and just sharing  the guys and myself sitting around the table have a game is worth it to me.  There will be one more next week which will conclude the Fire ape Crypt series, then we'll move on to other things. OTHER THINGS. As any one who is any one who knows anyone who games knows the 5th edition Dungeo

Too many posts for two days I get that. Something I love ..and have always been more than a bit obsessed with  is procedurally generated animation. I would love nothing more than to be talented, patient, techie, or  savvy enough to dabble in this sort of thing, but I'm not, so I live vicariously though others. But this , using  procedures and Sound to  create 3D animations (as I understand it) is just for my simple brain, Simple brain blowing. I'm not even upset that it's around three years old, I'm behind on this one, but glad I caught up. Originally linked to off of the  Fantastic Blog "False Machine" From the RESONANCE Vimeo site" "Resonance is a collaborative project with over 30 independent visual and audio designers/studios. The aim was to explore the relationship between geometry and audio in unique ways. resonance-film.com for more details and opportunities to get one of the limited edition Blu-Ray and DVD versions of the full film." Ch

Troll bait title right ? right ? OK maybe it is , but I mean it. As a caveat though I need to add that does to mean I don't love dungeons, I do! Like I might love a kitten with a lazy eye, I love the holy hell out of them. I run dungeons, I have mapped dungeons. I just think that the concept is kinda dated and  well...stupid. Another Caveat: Before someone jumps my shit and says, "I used such and such a mega dungeon and my  group loves it and  I'm certainly not stupid ~!RAWR OLD SCHOOL! RAWR!~" I agree. You are not stupid and  Dungeons are fun, old school is awesome, and  lets calm down and here have a drink. Let me spell out thoughts on dungeons, as I think of them. Many of them are ungodly huge and full of stuff. I mean who digs these things? Who stashes their shit in them? Designers go to great length to explain how these things came to be and I think real world examples of truly mega and old underground areas are pretty sparse. Sure the New York subway system is u