Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Underground temple. 

Everything has a course For me this Blog has run it's course. It's time to close the door. I have a few thoughts about why  now is the right time to shutter this blog but to write a 5000 word eulogy about why I'm not going to blog anymore seems a bit strange. It's not important anyway. Not blogging doesn't equal not  playing, talking about, or writing games. Thanks you to everyone who read, commented on, or shared the things I posted over the past 4 and a half years. Of course special thanks to the two actual friends I have gained from the blogging experience. Charles Akins and Jens D. They have been constantly supportive of this blog. I appreciate that. I would gladly share a drink with either of them given the opportunity. I have to also thank Neal Tanner who has done more for my games than I have, and  honestly believes my designs are better than I think they are. We will continue to work together to finish projects and put material on the website and to distribu...

Of villages and Names: Roll 1d30 for the name of the  town then 1d6 for why the town is named in such a manner, or some other  tidbit about the place. Black Wash A silty flood brings black soil to the area every  year. They grow excellent crops. All of the houses are stained a chalky black each spring with a mixture of  melted snow and the winter's ashes, The river runs black once a year and that is the only time a certain breed of  immature eel can be harvested. This  town is known for it's fine ink produced as a bi-product of the ell harvest mentioned in entry 3. There is a legend that this town is where a raven first bathed the darkness out of it's feathers to become a dove. There is still a ceremony held on the spring solstice in which  a raven is caged overnight and when the sun come up the  next day  the village children emerge from their homes to find a white dove in it's place. Gifts are then exchanged.  It is said that a demon w...

I had a few days off last week and I spent a good amount that time writing. I started working on an idea I had concerning the genre of 1970's Kung-Fu movies. These films are dear to my heart because I grew up watching them every Saturday on local broadcast television. Some people have Star wars nostalgia, I have have godzilla, Kung-fu theater, and WCCW wrestling out of texas. So I  came up with a setting brief. I thought about what I wanted the game to achieve. What I wanted the dice to do, the kinds of decisions I wanted the mechanics to support. I started typing. Ten thousand three hundred thirty six words later I realized I forgot to think about one thing. How will I play this game? I play mostly online via roll 20 these days. Roll 20 to me is the unfortunate artifact of being an adult  with  responsibilities beyond the gaming table. Our group as it is can't get together once a month, or even once a quarter during 2017. We can however usually get a weekday evening wher...

W arning, this post doesn't contain any usable gaming content. For that I'm sorry. Not sorry enough to stop typing, but just sorry enough to realize someone might  be looking for usable content, why waste their time. Honestly though, no one is going to read this, so who fuckign cares anyway. This  will stray a bit far afield,...Fair warning. There is a mountain of GM /DM ing advice on the internet. Some of the advice is practical. Things like "Here is how I used index cards to organize my notes", or "here is the shorthand I used to  write monster descriptions for quick reference." These are useful things that can help a new Gm. I'm all for that. There are people who have been playing for a very long time they're bound to have picked up a few tricks that make running games smoother. I'm all for that. Some internet DMing advice is personal opinion cloaked as useful tips. Even all that opinion can still be useful. Insightful opinions about how to ru...

Just boosting the signal of an interesting product. Seven years of Fantasy Weather  Volume 1 Medieval England (by Written Oakes Spalding) has been bouncing around my G+ and social media Feed this week.  The  pitch from Drive through is as follows: Each twelve-hour day or evening entry includes information on temperature (in Celcius and Fahrenheit) weather events - fog, thunderstorm, blizzard, etc. - amount of rainfall/snowfall, occurrence or possibility of lightning, wind speed, wind direction, phases of the moon, effect on movement rates and chance of getting lost. It's an almanac for the fantasy gamer. No more annoying die rolling or consulting an app or online program to generate a random or patternless result. With FANTASY WEATHER you can see all of it at a glance This is one of those things I never knew I needed. An Idea which out of the blue that makes me think, "Damn, I wish I thought of that." As such I wanted to  to pass it along, with a thumbs up. Furthermo...

Check out the rest of the  AAIE "Anatomy Of" series: 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 Posting this to answer some questions that have come up lately , specifically about  what are the "standard" difficulties in AAIE, which was asked at Metatopia this year of our lord 2017. I figured the best way to answer that question would be to  disgorge the die system in all it's fetid glory. Try not to fall asleep this isn't the most exciting game stuff post ever.. AAIE is built around a concept of Bell Curves vs A straight distribution. When I started this game I ripped the die mechanic form my table top skirmish game lovingly known as "The Block Game." Way back when I wrote the Block Game I decided that I didn't want a straight distribution of 5% per vlue that 1D20 provides. I wanted something that offered more options....