Diary of a Failed Game Designer

No RPG stuff ... This is a sarcastic post about sarcasm, a thing I am becoming less and less a fan of. This has a point skip to the bottom if you like. I was in a cafe about a month ago, admittedly it was a vegetarian cafe that hosts an acoustic open mike night so I was setting myself up in allot of ways. The place also happens to have a good beer selection and killer burritos. A very  trendy and I'm sure quite nice couple are sitting near to us. I'm not jugging, I'm just not trendy so the concept skinny pants is completely lost on me, as is the desire to drink Pabst Blue ribbon even though the last ribbon it won was in 1893. (Even that's debatable.) Enough Digressing  while eating my Burrito I hear this: (please read this with a kind of drawn out  disinterested tone) Guy: "My friend and I went to this  really ironic Mad Men Party the other day where every one brought something made form a 1950's cook book." Girl: "That sounds ... kind of awful....

No that is the smell of  a gooey RPG mess. This is a straight post, a un-thought out post about what I'm doing and where my head is at. You can go here and download an RPG for free . My issue with this game is that I don't think the joke is very clear unless I'm at the table running it. Which  means I did something wrong. Which is OK. Also  the character creation  is 100% random, which is part of the  joke, however it takes a bit to long  if a character happens to die which  in all likelihood they will (also part of the fun). My friend Neal was nice enough to create a one button character generator (which I honestly have to update with some skill changes.) The one button generator is super cool in that it takes less than a second to pop out characters, but it takes something away from the experience. It's a bit to tempting to keep clicking until you get a good character which runs counter to the spirit of the game. Its a conundrum I need to solve if I...

Here is a quick background for the  d&D 5th edition game called the archaeologist. An explorer of ancient ruins and a keeper of ancient lore, as you might expect this is more  Indiana Jones than Zahi Hawass. This inspiration for this  was two fold one , my Dungeon world game is going into the  hulking ruins of a city  and a character like this might be handy  in such a situation. Second and more directly the archaeologist Kit provided on page 20 of  Dragon magazine #241 (Written by Steve Berman,) is one of my favorite kits from that time period.  The article provides a great outline about how to get a relic obsessed scholar into your group.  some interesting  spells and  proficiencies to go along with the package, all in all a great piece. The story hook factory known as  "The Archivist Guild" from this piece is conceptual lifted directly from Mr. Berman's original piece. (including the idea to use a broken hourglass as the...

Chillin at a table playing games/ Neal and I  drove down to WGGCon 2014 at Croton Point Park, it only took about an hour and a half to get there and we stayed for about five hours or so, I'm the wrong guy to ask about time and distance. The con was very laid back, and run by very nice people. I have no complaints about the experience. I'm not Normally a con goer, I don't have years of Gen-Con under my belt and  I don't make a huge habit of  seeking out gaming conferences. Here are my thoughts: Board games are cool , but I like RPGS more. If I was going to run an RPG, which I could have at WGGCon there was no reason not to , I would want to stat early or plan on staying the night.  Prepping for a con game would need to be more extensive than my normal prep, but I think that's kind of given. As a GM I don't know if I could deal with the noise. I'm not used to it, and back ground noise just kills me. I got to game with some cool people. I played a beta from D...

This is a very short post on the  subject of feats in D&D 5th edition. What I like.  We NEVER have to use them. There are only a hand full of them. What I don't like I read them  there's noting special going on there. I might do a breakdown of them sometime, but as a player they don't really grab me.  Any way when My fighter hit level four, I  added two attribute points to Constitution to get me to a score of  twenty which makes my character feel like a total bad ass. * My thought is this could all of those feats be rolled in as options as part of the  various Class "kits?" such as fighter martial types?  The whole 5th ed "feat" dynamic just feels very tacked on to me. I might just need to read the PHB more closely. Any thoughts? * I rolled 4d6 drop the lowest in order, which  resulted in a better character than I usually get. My scores as rolled ranged from 11 at the lowest to 17 at the best. Also being human give me a +1 to every t...

In the vast inky black of the under dark the sound can be heard for miles.  Clink...Klink... Hammer and spike biting stone. To our people it is music, for our people it is poetry, a story,  battle-cry.  Klank...Clink...klink.. Never rest these halls from us, we are these halls. Clink...Clink.. Klack...Klick... In the unknowable black of the under dark the sounds can be heard for miles.  The Duergar are coming to Dyverscampaighnblog's Under Dark Wars. Pull up a seat and enjoy. Thanks for reading  -Mark.

When I start working on a game one I think about very early on is, "How will the dice marry with the desired flavor of the game?" It's an important question. Personally I filter every decision I make If the game is a game with  lots of fighting and strategy it's OK to have good number of modifiers and several roles to  complete a round of combat. If the game is more in the realm of descriptive action then a tighter faster die mechanic might be a better choice. By way of example look at D&D 4th ed. In a typical round of combat there is allot to know about your character, what the character can do, what skill are available how they modify the hit roll, and how their position in the fight  might  modify any of that. It all effects the result of that humble twenty sided die. Am I bloodied? Is this attack an area of effect?Does it do something even if I miss? Does it trigger an attack of opportunity, or a shift? These are all valid questions round to round during comb...