Diary of a Failed Game Designer

No AAIE Update this week... Nothing new going on, at least not that I know of . I love fantasy RPG's. I also really dig Sci fi games, even though I haven't had the chance to play all that many of them over the years. The one thing I see repeatedly game after game is a similar theme of blowing shit up. D&D devotes a large portion of it's 5th edition hand book to combat. Not so much In a rules way, the  combat rules in the players hand book only range from page 189 to page 198. I mean more in theme. The idea of adventuring is couched in the  idea that there will be fighting. The  idea that there is magic is  tied to in the idea that many of the  spells are going to be dedicated to  damage dealing. The equipment pages contain  many mundane items, but the weapons get the awesome illustrations. The  New Starfinder book takes this even a bit further. It's Sci-fantasy  setting is  presented as a place where pretty much every one is armed to...

Source: Eve Online There is an old saying that "If you haven't touched it in a year, it's probably safe to get rid of it." Ok I'm not sure how old of a saying it is but I have definitely heard it before. For the  people (person?) who read this blog that would probably  mean throwing away a painstakingly curated, thirty year old, attic full of gaming material. With that in mind I'm not going to suggest applying this concept to real life. However in Playtesting it holds a bit more water. We playtested (albeit super briefly) my shoot and loot style game Loot Box A-Go-Go last night. The game is an unapologetic homage to Star Frontiers, Borderlands, and perhaps even Halo / Doom. As you might expect there should be a fair amount of combat so for the  playtest we had one small encounter. Our heroes vs a small security bot. In the course of the fight I noticed a few things. Just like in Star Frontiers, a percentage system with combat modifiers leads to the game slowi...

Meet Tot, He's Dead, Tots been Dead a long time. If Anyone who ever gets their hands on my Loot Box a-go-go game has even passing knowledge of Star Frontiers, that person will see the obvious influence the former had on my game. I don't deny it. In fact the whole thing could almost be looked at as a hack of Star frontiers. (Hak is more trendy right?) I have basically  taken the  old star frontiers game and trimmed the character generation down and  moved that complexity over to  the concept of Burn Chains. I touched on those in the last post. Some things like the d100, roll under a target, and good things happen if you roll doubles resolution system, just work. It is simple to use. Can cover many situation without a lot of tinkering. Has enough  numeric"space" to  allow for a myriad of modifiers. Basicly I want a die system that is simple enough that I can just run the game and make this happen. Clyde Caldwell( source )  Because that level of Crazy ki...

My experience with Science fiction is  limited, but not completely  nonexistent. I'm familiar with the big two, Star Trek and  Star Wars. On the Star Trek side I am mostly familiar via osmosis and playing Star fleet battles back in J.r. high. Star Wars on the other hand I have seen the movies and simply don't care that much about them, just not to my taste. Other than that, I was a huge fan of Robotech and Battletech when I was younger. Battletech in particular has had a grip on me over the years. I still harbor a glimmering fantasy that someday I will run a game where the players pilot giant robots and  beat up aliens.  Lately we have been playing a Sci - Fi Rpg of "Stars Without Number" which truth be told I haven't  read up on the rules beyond making my character Luckily  the GM has been kind enough to say things like "Just roll and add 5, tell me what you get" and nursed me along a bit. I have been having fun with the  game even if my mastery ...