Diary of a Failed Game Designer

I have undertaken the daunting task of combining AAIE in space, and AAIE Fantasy into one tome. The basic structure will be  All the how to play rules Rules options and examples. Character generation for Sci-Fi Characters. Character generation for Fantasy Characters. The rules for player star bases in Sci-Fi. The rules for the  player towns in Fantasy  The Gm section. Setting up a space sector (Sci-Fi) Setting up a "Land" (Fantasy)  All the rest of the GM advice and such from both games. This is going to be a long process involving a ton of editing decisions. Some quick examples form just my surface run through: I have had to unify the  Attributes. Giving Sci-Fi Characters the leadership attribute and the  option to roll Myst and Focus. While applying the Mutation limit to Fantasy characters. Getting the Table of contents to look even half way decent and be usable. Bring Fantasy weapons, skills and Armour in line with the updated AAIE IN Space rules. I curr...

Small AAIE Update: On Saturday Morning I'm running a game off AAIE at " Gaming in the  woods " a new Con just starting up this year in Poughkeepsie NY. I guess this isn't  playtesting anymore, now we're just playing. Editing and such continues. I still haven't done anymore art for the game, so ... that's on me. Also One of the games I wrote back in 2006, which was played quite often between then and 2014 (when fifth ED dropped and we all decided to try it) Can now be downloaded on Drive through RPG for Free. It's Called Phase Abandon. The  document was edited and Laid out by the multi talented Jens D. From the D isoriented Ranger Blog.  The Drive through RPG was set up by the equally talented Neal T. who deserves all the credit for getting this stuff out there. Quick note about Phase abandon: It's very much a "Narrative style" game. While I hate those labels because of the arguments they cause, I had to point out the Phase Abandon is ve...

No AAIE New updates, Editing continues The goal is still to be done by Gen-Con. Some of the new players from the games that happen on saturdays  have been leveling up their characters. So far the level up system  has not received any complaints. I think advancement one of the  stronger or at least more concise sections of the  game so I'm glad it's going smoothly. The series includes: The Anatomy of Weapons. AAIE "The town" The anatomy of Balance. The Anatomy of a Perk. The Anatomy of an Ability The Anatomy of AAIE Magic Weapons in AAIE are separated into four basic categories. Peasant weapons are the weapons a character gets stuck with if that character charter was unlucky enough not to gain a legit weapon skill during initial character generation. Peasant weapons are admittedly pretty silly. A chunk of wood, a dead chicken, a frying pan, are all possibilities. They are distinctive in that most peasant weapons have a secondary mundane use. A pitch fork can be jabbed...

No AAIE updates this post . The series includes: The Anatomy of Weapons. AAIE "The town" The anatomy of Balance. The Anatomy of a Perk. The Anatomy of an Ability The Anatomy of AAIE Magic Over my past few posts I have written about  various aspects of the AAIE game , how I came up with them and what my intentions were when I wrote them. Any long time reader of this blog ( if you are I'm so so sorry ) might have noticed that much of AAIE runs counter to the other designs I have written about.  The most obvious area that AAIE is different is in the area of player control over the creation of their own characters. Having completely random characters can be both freeing  and frustrating. There's no such thing as a lovingly crafted AAIE character. There's no such thing as an AAIE character that completely matches the players vision. In fact the game is set up in a way that some characters are barely even viable adventurers. For me the lack of player control created a g...

AAIE... Update: I have been told character generation is  edited... That's a good half of the job or at least close to it done .. so it's a good sign. We played AAIE on saturday , and let me tell you  it was something: Anyone Who has read this blog for more than a year or so  (bless your heart) will ko that I am not a huge fan of playing online. However with life being what it is gaming online is the  best and perhaps only way I'm getting a session together anytime soon. My biggest trouble with online games is pacing.  At the  table I feel i'm pretty good at keeping a game moving. I like to play with pace speeding up the descriptions when things get frantic, and slowing down  when things are calm. Online I don't think it translates as well.  Online there are  train wrecks that a DM just can't foresee. Some one's mic cuts out. Someone can't hear. Roll 20's voice chat gets sq...

AAIE Update: I hear the two games of AAIE at Dexecon went well, it was one of the rare play-tests after which I did nto get a small "Please add or adjust X,Y, and Z" For the play-testers so I guess that's a good thing...I'm sure there will be more feed back when I get to talk to Neal. I'm running a small online game Saturday morning  with one person who has not played AAIE before. I'm hoping to get more feedback after that game as well. Naturally, when I do I'll post it here. Also: Got to play a game with Charles Akins from " The Dyvers Blog ", Jens D, from " The disoriented Ranger " and Jen's pal Marcus on Saturday Morning. A fun game was had.. The series includes: The Anatomy of Weapons. AAIE "The town" The anatomy of Balance. The Anatomy of a Perk. The Anatomy of an Ability The Anatomy of AAIE Magic I read this post   over on the " Mythlands of Erce " blog. It inspired me to  post about my views on game balan...

Game Update: Neal still editing, Game is being run twice at Dexcon This weekend: July 8tyh and 9th I think, once by Neal and once by one of his friends.. The series includes: The Anatomy of Weapons. AAIE "The town" The anatomy of Balance. The Anatomy of a Perk. The Anatomy of an Ability The Anatomy of AAIE Magic The second part in my "The Anatomy of" posts. This series is about  the parts of AAIE and what the heck I was thinking about when I slapped them together. * The first part about Abilities can be found here . ** Perks, how to get them, and what they do for you: Perks are an in-line reward mechanism. What I mean by "inline" is that the rewards happen during play, not as part of the level up system. When a player rolls They first check to see if the action they are attempting is a success. If the action is successful and the  players effect die is high enough *** the player earns a perk. (or triggers a perk if that's how you want to say it.) Per...

The series includes: The Anatomy of Weapons. AAIE "The town" The anatomy of Balance. The Anatomy of a Perk. The Anatomy of an Ability The Anatomy of AAIE Magic The AAIE update Part: As I promised this is mostly an AAIE blog now Sooooooo....Everything with AAIE is plugging along outside of my direct view. (EEEK) I'm waiting to see what the guys have done. I threw away more than half the drawings I had done for the  game over last weekend in a flurry of self hate. I do that.... I'll start over. The Anatomy of  An AAIE Ability: Abilities in AAIE  are granted each time a charter levels up, are based on the character class, and are just like everything else determined completely at random. Abilities allow characters to perform special actions, create situations and bring changes to the  world around the,. combat abilities generally allow the character access to additional Perks if the player rolls well enough.  Often the use of abilities will cost the character point...