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Yup I grabbed inspiration from that too; it was actually somewhat more useful, since the Violent Planet version is heavily weighted towards gross, blobby psychic aliens, whereas the Nain version is more rooted on "What are the many different ways this thing can hurt me?" But I'm still struggling to figure out what to do with the last Binary Trait.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:59
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Arcana High, Book One, 172 pages and done! First draft complete, now I need to tidy it up with editing and playtesting! This is how I feel right now.
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Apr 16, 2015 06:59
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Just finished the rough draft for my Alpha playtest of Goat Song. Not huge, but a lot of thought. Now to put it in front of players and see what they think.
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Apr 17, 2015 04:05
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By the way, if anyone wants to check it out and give me some feedback, I got the alpha build of Goat Song all ready to go.
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Apr 20, 2015 05:13
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Some of you may remember that I picked around making two-page games when that contest was running, even though I didn't post here at the time. That sparked something, and I've had a soft spot for microgames ever since. As a result, I made a lite-version of one of them. Unfinished is a little storygame about the restless dead. It's 150 words, Creative Commons licensed, and Pay What You Want on Drivethru, in case anyone wants to toss me a buck for effort. It's also the first example (as far as I'm aware) of a full RPG in a tweet.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:19
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I think someone beat you to first game in a tweet, but I can't remember who. As for short rpgs, some guy's running a 200-word rpg contest right now until the 1st of May: http://schirduans.com/david/2015/04/200-word-rpg-challenge.html He said on story-games.com that he's accepting old work too, so you could submit Unfinished.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:38
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UnCO3 posted:I think someone beat you to first game in a tweet, but I can't remember who. I already submitted Unfinished to that contest.
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Apr 22, 2015 11:40
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Much as I hate to follow myself up, BoingBoing just used my game to springboard an article about indie TRPGs.
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Apr 22, 2015 17:46
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UnCO3 posted:I think someone beat you to first game in a tweet, but I can't remember who. I fit a game into a tweet as a quick joke once, but hardly complete. That's a heck of a boost there, DigitalRaven, nicely done.
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Apr 22, 2015 17:51
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So, I finally got off my rear end and got my project started. I'm publishing a setting for Savage Worlds called, "The Thin Blue Line - A Detroit Police Story". It's like Hill Street Blues meets the X-Files set in Detroit. We just started media for it today, here's a link to the intro blog post. The Thin Blue Line
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Apr 28, 2015 13:13
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(Cross-post from the other design thread) So I playtested my game daring skies again last Sunday and came upon a bunch of problems. I'm starting to feel like the game's getting a bit sleeker though. I cut out the fate tokens (the event cards are now used as a had to track them) and made spending money not cost an action. I also changed the hubs to colors instead of letters. The problem is, I tried to get as different colors as possible, but there was some confusion:   The plan is to have some sort of symbols as well (especially to help people who are colorblnd play), but I'd like the colors by themselves not be confusing. One problem too was the events (cards that allow you to play "hazards", such as storms, pirates) on paths was barely ever used. They are each linked to a corner with four hubs (since there are 15 there is some overlap). I think I'm going to expand them so there are either E or W. One suggestion was to get rid of play choice for events completely, just have them randomly happen, but I really don't like that, since the reason I put them in after the first playtest was to get players interacting more (trying to screw with each other in some way) rather than just racing around completing missions.).
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Apr 28, 2015 20:03
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I'm working on my second product. Nothing special, just a book of races for 13th Age. I was writing up the legal page for it today in the draft and I ran into a problem: what should I put under Copyright? I'm a sole proprietorship with one person working freelance so, as such, my company is not a separate legal entity from myself: Do I write "©2015 [Company Name]" or "©2015 [My Name]?" My previous product was a DW playbook so I didn't run into this issue.
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May 7, 2015 00:28
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I'm looking for a good map-drawing program. You goons have any recommendations?
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May 7, 2015 20:58
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SirPhoebos posted:I'm looking for a good map-drawing program. You goons have any recommendations? I did the maps in Plague of Storms by sketching them by hand, scanning them in, then drawing over the top of them in Inkscape. Pros: It's free. Cons: It takes ages and I'm a terrible artist. I don't know of any good software specifically for maps, though, sorry. Covok posted:I'm working on my second product. Nothing special, just a book of races for 13th Age. I was writing up the legal page for it today in the draft and I ran into a problem: what should I put under Copyright? I'm a sole proprietorship with one person working freelance so, as such, my company is not a separate legal entity from myself: Do I write "©2015 [Company Name]" or "©2015 [My Name]?" My previous product was a DW playbook so I didn't run into this issue. I ANAL and all, but this is my understanding of copyright: Copyright resides with the author unless and until they sign it over to someone else. So everything you've written is © Your Name. You could do © Company Name instead - effectively handing your copyright to the legal entity that is your company - but since you and your company are the same legal entity it's not a big deal. There may be some odd repercussions down the line later on if your company makes it big and you sell it, since anything which is still © Your Name wouldn't necessarily go with the sale, but that's a bridge you can cross when you come to it.
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May 7, 2015 22:55
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Strange Matter posted:I'm at a loss for my #10 trait. Any suggestions based on what I've put together already? I'd go with something that lets the creature "play dead". Perhaps it can go into a dormant state to withstand vacuum (or even atmospheric reentry) or survive without food for thousands of years. The explorers find it, find that it isn't moving, assume that it's dead, and go on. And then it wakes up.
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May 7, 2015 23:14
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potatocubed posted:
From what I understand, if you haven't filed all the paperwork and have the appropriate "doing business as" stuff done, then you can only retain the copyright yourself so you should put © Your Name. If you've done the paperwork for your company then you can use either, but I would recommend being consistent and using one or the other for everything.
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May 8, 2015 00:50
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Update on Arcana High. I rounded up three folks I know to see if they're interested in helping me playtest this thing. They are, and now we just need to find a weekday which works for us all. Wish me luck.
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May 12, 2015 03:00
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Goat Song is progressing at a good rate. I'm planning on using public domain stuff for the interior art, pulling from actual works from antiquity. Assuming I can find sufficient stuff without full frontal nudity. However, I'm a bit stumped on where to start looking for a cover artist. Does anyone have any suggestions on good places to look for folks for that sort of thing?
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May 18, 2015 07:08
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At some point in the near future I'm going to write a bunch about commissioning art, but for now here's some suggestions. If you've got money to burn you can get a concept art house to do anything you want in a short period of time. I used Conceptopolis for the cover of Spirit of 77, they were awesome (fast, professional, responsive), but expensive. I've also worked with Massive Black in the past and gotten mostly good results very quickly. RPG.net has a freelancer forum, and a lot of artists post their portfolios and availability for commission work there. See if any of them fit the look you want and then contact them directly. Tell them what you want and what your deadline is and ask for a price quote. If you're looking to save some money and are not in a hurry to get what you want, you can post on the job offers board on the Deviant art forums. Some suggestions for using DA:
No matter what you do, make a contract between you and the artist. You can find some contract templates here: https://www.artpact.com/
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May 18, 2015 07:45
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So I've learned a hard lesson. Never, ever delegate any semi-important writing responsibilities to your friends. No matter how many times they ask to help out. No matter how many assurances they give you about getting X done in Y time frame. I foolishly did so with two of my friends for rather small but important sections of my game, and they're literally months late for what I was expecting to take a few weeks, tops. I've prodded and poked them to no avail, so now I'm faced with the prospect of "firing" my friends, and trying to work out a fair rate to pay them for the rather bad first drafts they passed in.
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May 18, 2015 17:32
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Bucnasti posted:At some point in the near future I'm going to write a bunch about commissioning art, but for now here's some suggestions. Sweet, thank you very much for this.
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May 18, 2015 18:13
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Falstaff posted:So I've learned a hard lesson. Never, ever delegate any semi-important writing responsibilities to your friends. Ouch. It's always hard when that happens with someone freelancing for you; it's worse when they're friends. Sadly, this is why I always put contracts in place, even — especially — when working with friends. I wouldn't go higher than 5% as a kill fee if you still haven't got final drafts; if you can't use the first drafts I wouldn't go that high.
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May 18, 2015 20:04
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I think I mentioned before my idea of a casual minis game based on the Kiersey types. I want to design 4 types, each with 4 classes(For a total of 16 classes) loosely based on the types, probably with lots of renaming, (healer heals, architect moves blocks around). I want to also sort of base some of the attributes on the types. (Introvert=back row, Extrovert=front row) and have some sort of deck element with powers that tie to the common elements. But a possible problem is, no matter how much I change things around I'm probably going to get sued, aren't I?.
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May 18, 2015 22:01
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CLASSES. I'm really torn on whether to use "classes" in the usual sense in a game I'm writing. I think it could work well as a classless game, but I also think that having character classes could help cement the setting and its feeling better. What are people's thoughts on character classes? What are, in your minds examples of classes done well or done poorly, and why? I really like the *World approach to classes, especially Apoc world's relatively "light" classes (in terms of mechanical differences) with great fictional differences.
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May 29, 2015 04:53
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Apoc World really nails the raison d'etre of classes - presenting a strong, codified archetypes for players. I like the Action variant of Cortex+, which sort of skims the line between class and classless. Basically, the list of roles replaces skill list (so you e.g. roll Thief d8 when sneaking or d8 Grifter when bluffing), with the highest-rated role being considered your "class" which gives you some niche protection in regards to taking perks on level-ups. Motobushido has classes that also mostly set an archetype and throw out a few perks for niche protection. There, however, their main role is to set up reliationships in the highly hierarchical gang players lead. I personally really like it when games have very distinct schools of magic (7th Sea, Reign, Unknown Armies) which in practice form little pseudo-classes. Basically, unless you're doing a straight D&D retroclone heartbreaker, think whether instituting a set of strong, flavorful archetypes is conductive for the genre you're tackling, or is it just "whatever, a group of adventurers".
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May 29, 2015 10:47
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I started with three-posts-a-week for Thin Blue Line this week. We're on track to kickstart beginning of July. Art and layout is coming together and it's all going surprisingly well.
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Jun 2, 2015 17:55
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So, er, the ant thing I posted about way back at the start of the thread? Having now got the free time to work on stuff again, I finally published it on Drivethru  http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150281/Percent-in-Lair-Ants-giant And people given me money for it too I was going to to dual retro and pathfinder stats, but I found the Pathfinder licensing and OGL and trying to work out what I had to put in the book to be vaguely terrifying, so just went for retro-D&D Next things to ponder, possibly in order of ambitiousness - I have a good idea for a blue dragon lair. want to see if I can do something for each of colours in Basic D&D (Chromatics + Gold; the idea would be to present the lairs as an evolution over time, so the same lair for each size of dragon) - I have a completed adventure featuring gnolls that was originally stated for Pathfinder, but going to redo for retro-D&D - Random cave and forest generation systems, mainly for solo play. The cave system is mainly done, just have some tables to fill in then move on to arting it up. - Borderland Keeps; retropandering I suppose; mini-sandboxes featuring a keep and some borderlands. I have a desert one outlined. - Speak to the Atomic Highway guy about writing up my Atomic M25 as a proper Atomic Highway book; will require a lot of work and getting permission from the people who also contributed to the rpg.net thread to use their suggestions Ideally I'd like to do 5th edition stuff, but I don't think there's been any noise about 3rd party licenses yet, and I'm not sure about the whole '5th edition of the worlds most popular fantasy RPG' thing that publishers already doing 5th edition are doing; it seems somewhat cheeky to be pulling that sort of thing when the game is actively in print unlike the OSR stuff Angrymog fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jun 3, 2015 |
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Jun 3, 2015 00:17
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SirPhoebos posted:I'm looking for a good map-drawing program. You goons have any recommendations? Campaign Cartographer is basically a CAD program pre-configured for drawing RPG maps, with an out of the box bias towards fantasy, but there's add-on packs and the annuals that include different mapping styles. https://secure.profantasy.com/default.asp the program and most of its addons are priced at £30 each, though some addons are cheaper. It takes some getting used to, but is capable of doing very nice maps just out of the box. I've only really just started with it despite owning for years, so these are pretty amateurish compared to what can be achieved by someone who's really gotten to grips with it.  Out of the box B&W vector symbol set  Made my own tools to do the outline, chambers and corridors. Needed to be rendered in three different batches and composisted in photoshop as I couldn't quite get everything to layer properly. Also did some filter effects in photoshop to make the mushrooms and eggs look better.  Colour vector set from the base program  WIP using the Mercator symbol set from their first Annual.
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Jun 3, 2015 01:25
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Angrymog posted:So, er, the ant thing I posted about way back at the start of the thread? Having now got the free time to work on stuff again, I finally published it on Drivethru Very cool; congratulations! I haven't bought it to check if it's true, but the product page lists it as watermarked. (Watermarks are on by default, and sometimes indicated even if they're off.) I advise you to turn that off. It's not a meaningful deterrent to piracy, but it can be a meaningful turn-off to customers.
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Jun 3, 2015 02:01
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Plague of Hats posted:Very cool; congratulations! I thought that people were generally cool with the DTRPG watermarks, but if it does affect people's decisions to pick products up, I'm happy to turn it off.
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Jun 3, 2015 02:23
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Tell me about names in your elfgames! If you have multiple cultures in the setting, how do you come up with the "sound" of names for one culture vs another? I find I need names for NPCs, places, and sample name lists for character generation and I have no idea how to sanely go about it. I need some sort of system or else I end up with "Bob and Fred and Doris and Balin the dwarf", but even if I wanted to go all Tolkien and come up with multiple languages, I'm not actually any good at that part of it either.
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Jun 3, 2015 04:54
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inklesspen posted:Tell me about names in your elfgames! If you have multiple cultures in the setting, how do you come up with the "sound" of names for one culture vs another? I find I need names for NPCs, places, and sample name lists for character generation and I have no idea how to sanely go about it. I need some sort of system or else I end up with "Bob and Fred and Doris and Balin the dwarf", but even if I wanted to go all Tolkien and come up with multiple languages, I'm not actually any good at that part of it either. For me the big ones are Sounds and Structure. Sounds are what phonemes and sound combinations are common in that culture. Tolkien's elves have a lot of liquid consonants - particularly Ls. And they're usually three syllables. Demons (and prescription medications) get a lot of hard sounds - X, Q, K, that kind of thing. Structure is how your names are built. Syllable count, emphasis, how the first and last name flow together. My favorite way to come up with names is to make a face and strike a pose and say whatever comes to mind. Maybe I'm crazy but they seem to flow better that way and I end up with a lot of usable stuff. If I need dwarf names I strike a dwarfy pose and scowl and babble for a moment. Basically take on the character and then make noises you think they'd make. Also, take words that you like the sound of and corrupt them a little with new consonants or vowels.
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Jun 3, 2015 17:24
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inklesspen posted:Tell me about names in your elfgames! If you have multiple cultures in the setting, how do you come up with the "sound" of names for one culture vs another? I find I need names for NPCs, places, and sample name lists for character generation and I have no idea how to sanely go about it. I need some sort of system or else I end up with "Bob and Fred and Doris and Balin the dwarf", but even if I wanted to go all Tolkien and come up with multiple languages, I'm not actually any good at that part of it either. Once the book is out, this could be a pretty great help (by the guy who makes Dothraki and High Valyrian for the Game of Thrones show).
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Jun 5, 2015 20:22
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How many people here are versed in the ins and outs of the Savage World system? I've got an idea that I'm guessing needs a lot of critiquing.
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Jun 6, 2015 01:58
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I am. What do you need?
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Jun 6, 2015 04:03
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Over the last few days, I started writing a book of races for the 13th Age Roleplaying system. It's going to be 13-14 (still deciding whether or not to cut one) race book with a focus on monsterous races. It's written like a narrative for flavor and it's supposed to give multiple interpretations on the races so you can choose your favorite and such. It's also supposed to give them some depth and story hooks. I also decided to use it as a chance to see how much I remembered from my athropology electives. The thing is that I've never written fluff before for a professional product and I'm worried it isn't good. It's not even close to done, but I'm wondering if anyone could take a peak. Just a quick look, if anything. Any critiques would really help. Here it is.
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Jun 23, 2015 22:48
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You definitely some copyediting; there's plenty of spelling and grammatical errors. The fluff also has some awkward phrasings. However, you also need to be more expressive about how these people look. I believe Chinides are supposed to be something like driders, but from the description they could also be more like the giant spiders that live in the forest at Hogwarts. Have Acreok tell us about his experiences, using sensory words to describe what it's like to see a Chinides for the first time, to hear their chants about the Dark Widow. (Since the "Camel Riders"' name is translated into common by the author, and not the name they actually gave themselves, it's very odd that it's a name that doesn't correspond to what they actually do.) I'd recommend you read Quinn Murphey's article "Culture From The Outside In", from Issue 2 of the Fate Codex
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Jun 24, 2015 00:34
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Covok posted:Over the last few days, I started writing a book of races for the 13th Age Roleplaying system. It's going to be 13-14 (still deciding whether or not to cut one) race book with a focus on monsterous races. It's written like a narrative for flavor and it's supposed to give multiple interpretations on the races so you can choose your favorite and such. It's also supposed to give them some depth and story hooks. I also decided to use it as a chance to see how much I remembered from my athropology electives. You absolutely need an editor, and if you can't get one, a proofreader; I picked a few pages at random and found things that need changing -- like, actual errors of grammar, syntax, or word choice -- on every page. In terms of the ideas for the "in-world" fluff, they look fine to me and there were bits just on the pages chosen at random that sparkled, so that was fun. I actually thought "Camel Riders" was one of the sparkly bits. Consider English "gun" -- you use a hand gun in your hand, but don't use an elephant gun in your elephant, and don't use a shotgun in your shot or to hunt shot, and don't use a machine gun in your machine, to hunt machines, or to fire machine projectiles.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:06
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inklesspen posted:You definitely some copyediting; there's plenty of spelling and grammatical errors. The fluff also has some awkward phrasings. For reference, they are giant spiders like in the forests of Hogwarts. It's just how I imagined them. That has to be more explicit, I suppose. As for the suggested reading, I do happen to own that issue so I can give it a look. In hindsight, the appearance part does seem too dry as far as flavor is concerned. As for the name, it was meant to be evocative and a reference to the sub-species, as the names were. Personally, I feel it still works as one can take it as a subtle hint they have reverence for the beasts, as it is their only mentioned source of food. Is it their only? That's up for the reader and his group to come to consensus on as is whether or not the name implies they have reverence for the creatures. I like to leave things open to interpretation homullus posted:You absolutely need an editor, and if you can't get one, a proofreader; I picked a few pages at random and found things that need changing -- like, actual errors of grammar, syntax, or word choice -- on every page. In terms of the ideas for the "in-world" fluff, they look fine to me and there were bits just on the pages chosen at random that sparkled, so that was fun. A big commonality I've gotten so far is a need for proofreading. In fairness, this is completely unedited and unproofread draft. Like, I literally went "is this any good," stopped writing, and uploaded it for critique. However, the fact I didn't realize how sloppy it is, makes me consider that I should have my layout guy -- who is big into proper English -- or my friend -- who is an English major and wants to be an editor -- take a look (and pay them, of course). May I ask what sparkled so I could focus on those kinds of ideas? One other group said they really liked the chinides overall and liked the Deinon's main schism being brought about by their possible extinction.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:24
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Covok posted:For reference, they are giant spiders like in the forests of Hogwarts. It's just how I imagined them. That has to be more explicit, I suppose. As for the suggested reading, I do happen to own that issue so I can give it a look. In hindsight, the appearance part does seem too dry as far as flavor is concerned. As for the name, it was meant to be evocative and a reference to the sub-species, as the names were. Personally, I feel it still works as one can take it as a subtle hint they have reverence for the beasts, as it is their only mentioned source of food. Is it their only? That's up for the reader and his group to come to consensus on as is whether or not the name implies they have reverence for the creatures. I like to leave things open to interpretation I will have to take another look, since I no longer remember what I liked aside from the fact that "Camel Riders" was contrary to expectation, but in general the adventure hooks felt like they were in keeping with the sort of adventure hooks I see in other professional products. If your friend wants to be an editor or proofreader for games, he or she should keep in mind this. There is a test, and most people don't even bother to complete it, and of those that do, most don't pass, and of those that pass, most don't get invited back for a second shot (so take it pretty seriously!). I had some (non-game) editing experience going in, which helped a lot.
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Jun 24, 2015 18:09
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