Stuck on Setting

So I've written a pretty decent game about action heroes that's about halfway done when I wanted to put in a setting. I've got two ideas: one where the cold war basically decimated South American society and created an unstable breeding ground for terrorism and drug running, and one where the players are the special forces for the New World Order and assist in black ops against the kinds of people who resist the New World Order, in kind of a shadowy spy vs spy sort of way.

But see, the problem is that my game is explicitly designed for one-shot adventures, and I'm finding that the more time I spend creating an interesting and detailed setting, the more it feels like the game should be more episodic and long-term. The more the setting is treated like a character in its own right, the more you'll naturally want to see players interact with it and make things happen, which means that the players are going to be involved in a long-term game where they make the world a different place.

So I'm stuck between basically creating a game with no setting and creating a setting with a game that doesn't support it, and either way I feel like I'm about going crazy.

Ham Fisted: A Game of Action Heroes

I wrote a quick game after I wrote about that "Spades as Conflict Resolution" thing, and it's almost done. I'm just trying to figure out what in the holy hell I'm missing, which is frustrating, because it's got a bit about Task Resolution, a bit about weapons and items in general, and then some stuff about being injured. Then I have a section about the little wrinkles players can use to their advantage (since they are action heroes, for crying out loud), and then stuff about how to make their characters.

It's all of four pages, and is currently the shortest RPG I've written yet, but I think that's probably ok. I like short systems better than long ones, and if you presented the real basics of D&D you end up with all of four pages too (as the Microlite games show), so maybe I'm spot-on.

I'll snag a couple of public domain shots to spice up the game, pop out a PDF, and then make it happen up in here. Hoping to get some good feedback on the 1KM1KT free rpgs site, they seem like good people with a smallish community, which is pretty much what I'm looking for.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays, everybody. 

Although I'm not exactly a christian, neither is Christmas anymore, so it's all good. I like presents, trees, mistletoes, fat jolly men in absurd suits, the whole nine yards. 

Hope you're having as good a holiday as I am!

Bound to Happen: I Got A Virus

And it happened, ironically, years after I stopped using peer-to-peer services and had almost stopped using torrents entirely.

Luckily, I know my way around a boot disc and I'd had my hard-to-find-again files already backed up on my external, so little of value was lost. I think all I lost were some Pathfinder PDFs, but I don't know why I had them in the first place.

So, that's that. If you own a computer, you owe it yourself to either get a Live CD of something easy like Ubuntu, or a boot recovery disk so that if you ever get a virus, you can save your files and reinstall your OS instead. Not that you should always reinstall your OS when you get a virus, but I digress.

Spartacus!

My girlfriend is back down from Great Lakes for the holidays, and that means I finally get to watch the prequel series Gods of the Arena.

Clearly, I am a happy clam.

If you've never watched Spartacus, it's basically a sword-and-sandal soap opera. Quintus Batiatus and his wife Lucretia are two plotting owners of a ludus, basically a training ground for gladiators. You watch as they maneuver and plot their way around society while the gladiators deal with the consequences of a life without choice and doing what must be done. They know their place in the world is not high, and their rivalries and brotherhoods is interesting to watch.

Oh, and there's a lot of gore and/or sex, often in the same scene. The world of Spartacus is a dirty, grimy world. You won't find bronzed gods of gladiators here, with squeaky clean love lifes and noble aspirations. They're forever talking about their own penises, or of women and wine, or of killing. Their ludus is often covered in dust and filth, the city is crumbling and shitty. Look at that picture below- the people there are dirty, the arena is cracked and makeshift. You can believe in the world of Spartacus. Exquisite care has been taken to make sure that this world of ancient Rome looks like ancient Rome would, in a world without spray cleaners and germ theory.

Honestly, I don't care if it's not high literature, or destined to be a classic, or what. It's just plain good. The plots are thick, the dialogue is quick and snappy while still being in what is recognizeably a foreign dialect, and the action is presented in such a way that while you know it's not real, you can't help but squint every time somebody gets decapitated or beaten up somehow.

It's fantastic, and I love it.

Spades as Conflict Resolution

Something I've been thinking about just now, like a bolt of insanity and inspiration. What about SPADES as a conflict resolution thing?

See, it'd work like this: You're walking about, when suddenly! GUNFIGHT! You and your opponent (probably the GM) deal out a quick hand of standard playing cards. Say, five of them. You both pick out a card, slide it onto the table, and WHAM. Flip 'em. High card wins.

You've got a couple of cards, permanent style that you hold in your hands. Think of 'em like your luck. You get them for doing cool stuff, or acting in character, or for saying something really badass that everybody around you likes. You keep them separate from all your other cards, because they're kind of important. You can use them whenever you want, and even switch out one of the cards you've already played with one of your Luck Cards, because that's kind of what luck is for. If you play out too high of a card, you can swap it out for one of your lower ones, and if you play too low of a card, you can swap it out for a lower one.

What's on your character sheet? I'm thinking about making this game a game about high-stakes modern-day action- picture Die Hard and stuff, where the heroes have plenty of luck until the going gets rough and shit starts getting real, real nasty. So your character sheet's got your character's goal, two of his vices, and three things he's really good at. Maybe some posessions, but since you're playing like an action movie thing, that'll probably boil down to a very few things you've got on your back. At the very most, I could see having a backpack or some sort of duffelbag, but the point of the game isn't the items or whatever, it's the fact that we're playing ACTION MOVIE: THE GAME.




This was a snippet of thought I kept track of about a week ago. I wrote about half of a mini-roleplaying game based on it, so I figured I'd let this caged beast go.

Gelston, city of Wanderers

There is a city that stands in the shadow of mountains, made of tents and broken down wagons. It was once no more than a temporary stopping place for a band of vagabonds, but one day they stopped. Nobody really knows why. Some say it was the wealth of the travelling merchants that compelled them to settle down and make a living. Some say it was the fact that the leader of the travellers grew great with child and, when she gave birth, was too sick to move. She lingered for years, and when she finally died, her people lost the will to wander and settled forevermore. Some even say it was the result of a curse a wizard put on the whole group, punishment for theft and mockery.

Whatever the reason, Gelston remains a ramshackle city built by a people with nearly no knowledge of building. Houses are little more than long-standing tents, large wagons with their wheels removed, or earthen mounds. Low, crooked fences mark the delineation between neighbors, and fires burn randomly. There is but one temple- a broken, dead tree, blasted by lightning, surrounded by a circle of low, round greystone. The villagefolk call Heledis' Grove, after one of the goddesses of their nearly-forgotten homeland. Though they are not a religious people, they have been known to pray for her mercy and make offerings in her honor.