Diary of a Failed Game Designer

"Phase Ball as told by by Sid Hoofnaggler, former Phase ball conference commissioner:  First ye need to know yer field. It's grass, usually  low cut and tightly gown, so the ball can move about.  Tis called the field, or the  sand box, depending on how rural you are. Some dwarves play on  gravel or stone, but  they are as a rule, crazy.  To start each team takes a ball and  bowls it from the bonus ring. Whichever team bowls closest, starts with the ball. Players can run whit the  ball. but they can also get tackled. when a player with the ball is brought down play stops, all players stand where they are. A tackled player may pass the ball but only to a player behind the  bonus ring and the ball my not cross the restricted zone. In effect once a tackled player stands up he may  only throw the ball behind or to his left or right, not forward. If the tackled player can not pass the  ball he must had it over to his tackler who may ...

Your party is in a town. Who do they run into first. Whats that NPC's deal anyway? Make one of these charts for  any  town the players may stay in for a while. The interconnections of the  towns folk will lead to things happening. Roll D20: Kyle O'Tooligan: Former sportsman, played the  realms version of Rugby at a high level, until he broke his knee. Now Kyle owns a small bar on the edge of town near the  sports pitch. He will give out free drinks if you are willing to sit and listen to his stories about the glory days. Tessa VonEtten:  Midwife in town. Has a tremendously bad habit of vocally encouraging  young couples to have babies at inopportune times. Slayer Roberts: real name Mathias, Refuses to answer to anything but "slayer" Claims to any one who will listen  to have once killed a basilisk, there are no witnesses or proof to back up his claim. Kanna Vassil: A woman in her early 40's with a taste for  younger men. Kanna likes to han...

This is an unfinished image that was going to be  an interior scene in my AAIE game. It had a strange beginning as a doodle (Minataur) I made while sitting around with friends playing Munchkin. I never win at munchkin, it's a known fact, so I usually kind of zone out and enjoy everyone's company when we play it. Things like this happen. As a drawing it is pooched in a lot of places (the  background is shit, which is what I get for using a shit pencil that dulled out) but  I thought I would share it anyway, I think it's funny. Pencil on run of the mill sketch paper Thanks for looking -Mark.

This despite how it reads at first is post about respect. Respect for my  hobby, myself, and my ideas. Most of all respect for the  three of four people I have played RPG's with for many years and who constantly put up with my ideas. If I don't they'll put a stop to it quick enough. Sometimes in my enthusiasm I will jump into a project with both feet. I Run around in the project and dance like a like a cat with water on it's paws for a week or so before I finally slow down and look at what I'm doing. Kind of a bad way to get anything productive done. So I have been working on a game explicitly to run my campaign. Something that finally encapsulates what I want to  do with my  game, and how I want to present things.  Just reading that last paragraph seems so fucking pretentious and stupid to me right now.. That is the  definition of "A heart breaker" or a darling of a game. The game is a good idea, and it may contain great ideas, but in the end it is co...

Phryne at the Festival of Poseidon in Eleusin Looking  back at ancient cultures is an excellent way to find inspiration for your  D&D campaign. I can't think of a better time to talk about festivals in a game world than the day before The United States Thanksgiving. Slipping a few festivals into a campaign worlds calendar can add a touch of realism and flavor to  a setting without allot of  Game master overhead. All a GM needs is a date on the calendar a name for a festival, observances, and a reason for the festival. Lets look at the  " Apaturia " Celebrated in Athens and most of  the  Ionian towns, perhaps even as far back as 1100 BC. It involved the " phratry " which were social divisions in the Greek tribes, the  best description I can find is "clans."  The festival was to enroll new phratry members, who could then become citizens * The festival was three days, during what to us would be  Late October Early November. The ...

About a month ago I read this book, "Color A natural History of the Pallet" by Victoria Finlay It was quite interesting. And very applicable to RPG games. This is definitely not a scholarly work, and I don't mean it as one. I'm just a guy who games. This is a huge wide ranging subject as such this blog will just scratch the surface of the possibilities but lets look at some quick ones. Things to know and use: Tyrian purple was thought to have been discovered by Hercules, but in fact it came from shellfish left to rot in vats. Form the  juice inside the   Hypobranchial gland of said shellfish , to be exact. It took about  10000 molusks to make one gram of purple dye. Not to mention the  process stunk, literally. In fact It stunk to high heaven. If characters are coming up to a dye making town that made Tyrian purple chances are they woudl smell it long before they saw it. In fact garments dyed with a purple made from the Murex were said to hold a "fishy smell...

Altitude and adventures: (Not the name of some crappy fantasy game I'm writing.) yet I have a second Blog, I started it last week and on it I dump work I am doing for my campaign that I want to share with the players.  Part of that has been hex mapping the players current surroundings. Right now they are near a ruined city in  what is basically frontier wilderness. A no-mans land that was basically depopulated during a war some  200 years ago. So for now it's pretty easy, the area is populated, but not heavily, there are a few notable villages and one actual town. The rest is overgrown ghosts of an agrarian past. but to the south , the  south contains mountains. So mountains: I am thinking eventually the party is going to head south and hit the mountains. I might be wrong but I have a hunch. I have one major mountain range to contend with. The kind of range where there  are only a few safe passes. Think  the  Rockies.  Think Donner party. Accordi...

This post was inspired by this post  from the "Disoriented Ranger" blog. Go read that post it's interesting So your  players are working their way through some caverns and you feel they are not yet at one with the inherent danger of life below ground. It's time to throw a random natural hazard their way. Natural hazards are defined by being non-fantastic. A field of giant sentient mushrooms that puff out rainbow colored rot spores are cool. They are not a natural hazard. The entries on this chart are things that could be in any hallway of any cave and don't necessarily require their own map entries. I will include notes about equipment that may be needed to  traverse the obstacle, however I will not include details like die checks, saves, or, damage values as they are system dependent. I will try to word these details in ways that are system agnostic. I will place equipment that might be used up or needed and  possible threats in (brackets) at the end of the entri...

Setting Notes Setting / Game name Shards of Thimbral. Holy cow I actualy have name for this thing! Yes the game is now known as “Shards Of Thimbral” I hope that is evocative enough to hang my hat on as I move forward. My last post was all admittedly dry, mechanics and chance this and reward that ~!BAHHHHH!~ That side of game design is only a small percent of what makes a game fun. Today we get to put the meet in the proverbial sandwich . Setting is difficult, Time consuming and risky. A good setting can capture an audience's imagination and make people want to play a game. An uninspiring setting will turn players off and kill even the best designed game system. What I am offering up here is the original setting design document, the frame on which I'm going to hang the Shards of Thimbral game and fiction on. I have three goals: I want to make the setting evocative and fun, with a range of narrative possibilities to satisfy a range of players and play styles. Secondly, (Though th...