RPG System Design: Hero Point Mechanics

I was reading a little theory on John Kim’s page and came across this article: RPG System Design: Hero Point Mechanics. It is really a great discussion of the topic and covers some really good ground. I mean, we used “Fate Points” in Rolemaster (and other sufficiently random systems) to mitigate “unfortunately random character death”, but we didn’t really think about all the possible ways to implement these buggers way back then….over time, they’ve really come into their own.

 

~AoB

Mash-up RPG

OK, its time to build the PBP I mentioned here. I plan on doing two of these actually. The second, HAGIS: The Mythos Files, will essentially be The X-files meets Call of Cthulhu. I’ll table it for a bit since its a bit more complicated…plus my wife will be involved. She’s not a gamer as of yet, but has expressed an interest in such a game…in fact, I’m not sure if we’ll do that one as a PBP…It might need to be live. The first will be HAGIS: Atlantean Adventures (Aega Mythea?) and will be  set in the Atlantean world (High Swords & Sorcery a la Bard Games Atlantean Trilogy…with my own spin of course).

OK, Here’s the mix:

The Atlantean Trilogy (Bard Games’ The Arcanum, The Lexicon, and The Bestiary…the last two of those were also published as a combined volume called Atlantis: The Lost World). This will serve as the core setting. It is essentially our own Earth or proto-Earth before the Oceans drank Atlantis. It contains all the real-world cultures all mashed up anachronistically. This is my favorite setting of all time.

FUDGE/FATE – I like the aspects provision or Fate (kind of like the Spiritual Attributes of TRoS). We will be making free and frequent use of  metagame elements. In fact, I plan on the players having much more information than their characters do. It will be expected that player and character knowledge will be kept in different buckets…I’m going to think about how much interchange between these two will be permitted/encouraged. I also am looking at the 5by4 Magic system on Steffan O’Sullivan’s page….or maybe the Magical Medly system…hmm, need to think on this.

Castles & Crusades – I really love this game. I’m still not crazy about the Vanican Fire’n’Forget style magic, but its really not that hard to write that out. The point here is that I’m going to be using class-like structures, call them archetypes, whatever. Pretty much pick a class from any source D&D, C&C, The Arcanum, etc. and I’ll adapt it to our Mashup.

the HAGIS TriDie system – as previously discussed, roll three d20’s and use the median result (unless we have some meta-game funk going on and then either the hi or lo result is used….).

True20 – I’m looking at their positive/negative tags and their magic system.

No Kung-Fu is better than swords crap.  So monks and martial artists are pretty much out for this dance.

As I look at this, I realize that my Mash is a mess. That’s OK though; it was only intended as a brainstorming session. I will work on tightening this up and throwing some of it out….I only need *one* magic system for this. I can always try another one later.

~AoB

Play-by-Post RPG

I’m enjoying about Doc Rotwang’s  PBEM game over at his infamous “I waste the Buddha with my crossbow” blog. Traveller…Good. I need to game me some of that online stuff. Although I do get to play 1-2 times a month and a similar amount via skype (for playtesting Shadows of Reality), I don’t get to GM…and I miss it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love face to face play (but I miss like half the sessions the group plays) and the VOIP works well (but I go to bed early most nights)….so its time for something a bit more restricted-time-friendly

My free time is a bit scarce and the people who’d be playing are scattered….so its time for something supportive of remotivity (its a word…honest).  I’ll be following suit with Rotwang and setting something up online. I’m leaning toward a play-by-post setup (with emails generated) probably through YahooGroups. I’d supplement this with voip and/or the occasional face-to-face play.

Now to set it all up. I’m hoping to keep it simple and a little more seat-of-pants than usual due to the nature of post-based games. Hmmmm…I’ll have to think about this during my ride home.

~AoB

Fantasy Artwork – By the Wraith

My good friend and DM for the long-running Imperial Destiny Campaign definitely has artistic talent (if not enough time to pursue it). Please take a look at his favorite pencil drawing and enjoy.

Best,

~Adaen of Bridgewater

Digging Castles & Crusades

I’m really digging Castles & Crusades (C&C). It is an old school (meaning D&D/unmuddled-AD&D) system that cleans up and updates the game going back to the original game rather than dragging it through all the history of D&D/AD&D 1E/Basic D&D/AD&D 2E/ D&D 3E/D&D 3.5/rumors of D&D 4E. It allows for a lot of customization and I like that. This snippet is from “The Trolls Den“, the official Troll Lord Games Blog:

 

…Castles and Crusades was designed to be fooled with. We have long encouraged players to add, subtract and amend rules to fit their needs and desires. What the CKG does, is give them some of the options available to them and should (in an ideal world) teach others how to amend rules to fit their needs.

 

In that regard , we have borrowed ideas from every edition of the game and incorporated them into ‘rules sets’ which can be taken and used. The important aspect of this, is that no optional rule exists in and of itself. An optional rule exists in relation to a choice. The CK and Player must choose which optional rule they are going to use because many are mutually exclusive….

That’s great news. I was drawn to C&C due to its familiarity (based on it being derived from old-school D&D) and the ease with which the core system (The SIEGE Engine) can be modified/tweaked/adjusted/what-have-you. As a long-time dabbler in house-ruling and home brew systems, C&C really resonates with me. My own HAGIS projects should interface well with C&C….much of what we do is designed as “targeted tweaks”. Anyway, I’m greatly looking forward to the “Book that until very recently was known as the Castle Keeper’s Guide”.

I should probably do a review of the C&C Players Handbook….and definitely should do one of the “CKG” since it is so heavy on tweaking. Put that on the To-Do List! Damn, I don’t really even have time to play just now…

~AoB, High Adventure Games