August 24, 2012 · 6:39 pm

Kickstarter Delays

Almost everything is ready for the Kickstarter to go live. The video is done, the reward levels are set, the text is . . . ok I have a small amount of editing to do there. The vital part that hasn’t happened yet is the handshake between Amazon and the bank. I was thinking that would be done by now but it looks like it’s going to take a day or two more.

Boooooo! Oh well, not a big deal in the long run. It’ll just be next week.

As far as the 3rd edition goes, things are humming along. I just did another couple tweaks to Infantry rules that makes them more interesting to use. I’m still working on making computer hacking work under the tech challenges rules, it’s not a difficult process just one that needs me to focus on it for a little bit. Other than that, I’m still editing and checking the text. I may be ordering an updated draft book soon. The rough draft book is written all over and things have changed quite significantly. The nice thing is I’m much faster at this than I used to be. I’m not sure why that is other than I have a few simple mental tricks I use when proofreading and re-writing.

Kickstarter soon!

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August 18, 2012 · 8:48 pm

Please Pardon Our Kickstarter Preparations

In another week, Store32 will be launching its first Kickstarter ever. I’m excited and I’m terrified to try and put a video together. I’ve been working on a video for the Kickstarter so I missed yesterday’s post. Sorry about that if it ruined your day. So why are we doing this?

A big reason is to bring fresh artwork to the game. A number of artists have committed to working on more art for the 3rd edition. With a successful KS we will be commissioning twenty new pieces from some talented artists including cover art. This will be a great way to really amp up the look of the game. I also want to bring in a graphic artist to work on the layouts and make the game look really nice.

A lot of the game is already written but each time we playtest I’m tweaking more and more to hone in on the right feel, build on things that are fun and cut out things that seemed like a good idea but never get used.

The starting goal is $5,000. A lot of that will go to filling the rewards but to me that’s not a bad thing because that means more people playing the game.

The planned reward levels are. . .

$10 Production releases of PDFs, communication with the designer (me) about the game and a listing as a backer to the interstellar teleporters that make it possible to travel to The Artifact on the back cover as a private citizen. Your donation will be listed in the millions of dollars or kept private.

$25 Softcover book and all $10 level rewards

$45 Color softcover and all $10 level rewards

$80 Limited edition color hardcover book signed by the designer and all $10 level rewards

$100 Brick n’ Mortar tier for stores gets 6 copies of the softcover.

$100 Same as $80 level and a T-Shirt with your choice of artwork on it from the pages of the book. Listed as a corporate donor to the teleporters. Get to pick the corporation’s name (pending approval).

$150 Same as $100 and a custom dice bag with all the dice you’ll need to play with four players. Get to create a famous NPC for the game book. Listed as a megacorp donor. Get to pick the corporation’s name (pending approval).

$250 Same as $150 level with a personal gaming session over Skype

So please pardon the dust, that’s just me running around trying to make sure I’ve got things covered.

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August 13, 2012 · 10:24 pm

Music For The Chezbah

Joachim has produced another track for The Artifact. He asked if I would be interested in any more music and I could only reply “Absolutely!” We talked about the Chezbah and what music for them would feel like. After what I can only imagine is a ton of work, he’s produced a haunting piece that carries the menace of the technocracy.

The Chezbah

This song weighs in at over 34 minutes and nearly 80 Megs so the file may take a moment to download.

I want to thank Joachim for his great work and ask you dear reader to check out his other works at http://soundcloud.com/rpgambience and his blog, rubbermancer.wordpress.com.

Like the other tracks Joachim has produced, the length of the tracks are to facilitate game play and not having to constantly monitor the music. Great for setting the mood and less hassle! What more could a GM ask for?

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August 12, 2012 · 10:17 pm

Lego Kerdi

My son wanted to make a Lego play set of our recent game. I’m not entirely sure we have enough Legos to make two of these. He finished this black and grey one and a white and grey one is under construction.

I have to say, he did a great job!

An overhead view.

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· 12:10 pm

Technobabble Challenges

From the survival games concept of turning the environment into a monster to be defeated, I built the technobabble monster. Now for The Artifact it’s being refined into Tech Challenges. I’ve used it as the main challenge in two games now and the results have been quite positive.

The idea is to emulate the technobabble obstacles in shows like Star Trek or Stargate. There’s no way to reason through these challenges because there’s no real world analogue for the players to use. The process had become very story driven which is a bit out of place for The Artifact which is traditionally more tactical. In a strange way it’s making a schism that divides play into players that want something crunchy and tactical make fighters, and ones that want something story driven make tech characters.

The system is working so well that I just had a player that in the past has made engineers and not really had much fun with them is now playing one again and enjoying it.

Now I’m thinking of replacing all my repair and modification rules with this system, maybe even hacking, although that it would take a bit to make that work. Barrier Points would become the Story Points for the Tech Challenge but would have to be reduced, possibly by a factor of ten to make it possible to overcome in a game.

I’m thinking about the role of tools in this system and how they might be used. If you have a toolkit, what effect should it have? If you’re a hacker and you use a virus what effect should it have? I have some ideas on how to do that. Tools like a virus may be  a way to store Fractional Successes. When the player wants to make more progress hacking, they can call on the virus as an expendable resource. That doesn’t work for a toolbox though because the tools usefulness doesn’t go away with use. In that case a toolkit might give a character an “Advantage” to their roll when using specific skills. In this way, there may be certain barriers that develop that would require two or three Fractional Successes to proceed. In that way tools might be called on to solve a challenge and to make the challenges go faster.

Ugh, this will end up being a lot of work to pin down but it should be worth it, the system is more flexible and interesting than the current systems. It will require a big overhaul of the Comm Officer’s guide, and I shudder to think what it would do to the Engineer’s Sourcebook but it seems like it would be worth it.

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August 11, 2012 · 3:27 pm

Actual Play Report; Tech Challenge Play Test

I apologize for missing two Friday posts, it was vacation time and we were away for a while. Yesterday we got back and were all cleaned up so we had some time so I ran a game with the kids. If you want to start at the beginning you can find the first game here. Otherwise this game was intended to fix my mess up last time.

This time the kids would face the same challenge with their character’s skill instead of their own. To do this, I used a new tool that I originally called the Technobabble Monster but is renamed and refined for 3rd edition as Tech Challenges. With these rules, players get to test and see if a skill their character has will help solve the challenge that they could not solve themselves. It was intended to model unknowable problems like a stardrive needing repair but in this case we were going to use it for something a little different. This was a logic puzzle that the players were unable to solve. I thought, what’s the difference between an unknowable task and one the players are unable to solve? So for it’s maiden voyage, Tech Challenges was applied to a task it was never intended for.

The first task was to explain that we were rebooting the last challenge the character’s faced. They weren’t super happy about that but I explained that this time it would at least be different. They would not be trying to solve the logic puzzle, their characters would be. Each time they wanted to try a skill, they could describe how they would use that skill to come to a solution for the puzzle. If they couldn’t describe how it would be used they can still try it anyway but it made it less likely that the skill would apply. They roll to test the skill, this is called a skill probe, it does nothing if you fail, it’s a safe roll, most of the time. This was important to the kid’s enjoyment of the process because they had a way of reducing any risks. What this is simulating is the character thinking about what they know, how it applies to the problem and formulating a plan.

Then they would roll for that skill to see if they pass it. If they pass, there are a series of more benign effects that can happen called successful story transforms where each fix alters the nature of the problem. This was the first thing that happened, Enedger used his computer programming skill to try and hack the robots they were facing and have them tell which one was the truthful robot and would let them pass. He made his skill roll which reduced the number of Story Points the problem had and gave a transform that said the problem appeared to be fixed but had only moved. Really all the players need to do at this point is to keep rolling for skills. We could leave play that way and it would work, but that’s just dice rolling and not very interesting so the idea is to describe the results of the rolls.

I described that the Kerdi both agreed the one on the left was the one that would let them pass because of the program he had written. Because of the transform, the problem moved, I secretly decided that the Kerdi switch roles when they have revealed which one will let you pass. Because they recognize that they were forced to give an answer, they switched immediately the Kerdi that would let them pass was now the one on the right.

Kagami decided to try Surveillance to watch the Kerdi. She probed the skill and was told it would work. There is a one in ten chance that a skill can be a red herring and actually sets the character’s back. I decided to give them a bunch of observations that basically lead them no where and then explained the red herring. This added 3 SP to the challenge. I may change that to 2 as it greatly increased the length of the game.

Enedger then tried programming again. This time he failed the roll and got a failure transform which said that something important is destroyed. I described this as his Comm/Comp getting erased by the Kerdi. This is not something Kerdi normally do, hacking a Kerdi is also not usually so easy according to regular rules, so I was stretching things all over here.

This basically describes how the process worked. At certain points, skills no longer become effective and this became a problem for the characters because the system was designed to be used by technical characters like scientists and engineers with a number of tech skills.

All in all, the system worked reasonably well. I have a tweak that I want to make, but I’m actually thinking about making vehicle and equipment repair follow these rules. I’m even thinking of making these rules apply to hacking. I’m not sure about that yet though. There’s a lot of detail in how hacking is done that I like, but this might just be easier and therefore better.

 

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July 30, 2012 · 10:11 pm

Actual Play Report; Game Master’s Behaving Badly

We had our third game, if you want to start at the beginning, the first session is here. The second is here.

So I have to admit I was a bad GM this game. I didn’t adapt properly to my players actions. I also didn’t have a backup plan. This game I tried to do type of game that I love when it goes right but only occasionally get to go right.

The game went really well until the second half when I failed.

We left off with the PCs in a dome gallery in a cave. A large, ornately carved rock stood slightly off center of the room. The tracks of the scout they were following named Habibe, went up to the rock and then to the center of the room with no trace of where he had gone to.

Enedger walked to the spot Habibe’s footprints ended and stood there waiting for something to happen. When nothing happened, he looked around the room to see if he could notice anything from this perspective. He looked at the large stone and got the impression that if it fell toward him it would land at his feet, right where Habibe had disappeared.

He walked over to the stone and tried to push it over but it wouldn’t budge. He started to look at the stone and found a section that looked like ten raised bumps in an upward facing triangle were actually little disks floating a hairsbreadth away from the stone. A downward facing set of ten bumps directly above it were actually carved into the rock.

I brought out a paper plate with ten pennies in formation and a drawing of the opposing bumps above it. One penny on top then a row of two then a row of three then a row of four forming a triangle pointing up.

Being a boy, his first instinct was to try and kick the disks away. A few of the disks would move and then slide back into their formation. He then tried a rock and a bigger rock. The disks would move and then pull back to formation supposedly with a powerful magnetic field.

That’s when Kagami decided to start investigating and discovered that the disks could be moved three at a time and would move up to several inches away but then snapped back into place. Any three could be moved, but only three at a time.

Enedger then looked at the downward facing formation and flipped the arrow of ten disks by only moving three of them. (Can you do that? I’ll have to try this out on my older gaming group. An eleven year old figured out the rules and a nine year old figured out the moves.)

The side of the rock facing the center of the room then opened and the door hinged down like a drawbridge to form a platform that ended at the center of the room. Inside were a set of stairs going down.

Enedger went down with his pistol drawn and Kagami followed. Laying on the stairs was Habibe. Weakly he said, “Oh good, you made it here. One guard will always lie and one will always tell the truth. The one that lies will kill you if you ask him to let you pass. The one that tells the truth will let you pass. I guessed wrong.” Then he handed them his notes and died. He had been shot by a plasma blast on the right side.

Kagami looked at the notes. They were all in Arabic which neither of them could read.

The drawbridge started to close. Both the PCs made a reflex roll that allowed them to escape before it closed but they debated what to do so long that it closed and they were trapped inside.

Enedger examined Habibe trying to see from which direction he was shot and determined that he must have tried to run away when hit. This meant he couldn’t be sure from which direction he was hit.

Both very carefully walked the rest of the way down the stairs and into a hallway (3m tall 5m wide). Thirty meters down the hallway was darkness that Kagami’s night vision goggles couldn’t see through and Enedger’s sonic imager wouldn’t form an image on. They moved forward very slowly.

At ten meters the darkness slowly dissipated and the PCs could see the guards were Kerdi. (The darkness is a side effect of their shields absorbing energy.)

This is where things went wrong. I hadn’t given enough conditions and hadn’t done enough prep work to be thoroughly versed in how the guards should respond although I knew the conditions existed. The second thing I did wrong was pick a puzzle that was too hard. I figured my eleven year old might be able to figure it out, we read all the Sherlock Holmes books together and likes mysteries, she’s also a prolific reader so I thought she may have heard of this riddle before.

In any event, I didn’t have a back up plan and the players were getting frustrated. Bad GM.

Experimental Ideas For Fixing This
I’m thinking that this kind of log jam could be handled by the technobable monster but I’d like to keep some element of player challenge.

My son and I talked about this and one of the problems is that you don’t want the players to just hit a puzzle and each time say “I take an IQ roll”. That’s boring. Past that is if they fail, they just take another roll. One of the things my son suggested is that you only get one roll to try and get help solving a puzzle. If you want to roll again, you have to take a mental stress point. That’s not a bad start.

Then I thought of something else that would work quite well with the Fraction Column system. If a player passes their IQ roll, the GM has to make it a multiple choice question. Start with eight or so choices, each one close to the real answer. The more fractional successes the PCs get, the more wrong choices are removed. If the player rolls their eighth four choices are removed. They can roll as many times as they like, they just take stress when they roll over.

I explained how the logic problem worked so that they would be less mad at me, they still liked the game, they just thought the guards were annoying. So I can’t do the multiple choice option for this one but I’ll keep it under my hat for future games. It also would be less practical for large groups. I’m going to try the technobable monster on this and see if they have fun with it. If it’s fun then it’s still good. If it’s boring I might be able to improve on the method but I’ll let you know either way.

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July 25, 2012 · 3:40 pm

3e Rough Draft Book

I just got this in the mail.

I often order a test book just to get a paper representation of what I’m working on. It helps to have an actual book to flip through instead of working off a PDF during play. I’ll also mark this book up with any changes to be made.

This print is almost always black and white and it helps to test to make sure my layouts are sane.

And here’s the back. The text is a clipping of the 3e announcement blog post. The little picture was one of the original concept drawings of a Delta.

Oh, and sorry about the pics being mirrored. Being dyslexic I could tell something was slightly off about them but couldn’t put my finger on it. I guess Apple’s photobooth mirrors the pictures.

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July 24, 2012 · 8:27 am

Actual Play Report; A Short Game

We had another session with the kids the other day, it was getting late so we just did a quick session. The first session is here.

Our two intrepid adventurers had found the person they were looking for but he apparently didn’t want to be found. Enedger figured out where they were in relation to where he had left his E-Suit. They were in a bowl like landform and he had to climb out. Enedger is quite good at climbing and so even though there was a ten meter cliff in between him and his E-Suit he scaled it in only two turns.

Kagami tried hiding as she approached Habibe’s location, failing her rolls horribly. This in fact was not a very bad thing as Habibe was not interested in hurting them, he just doesn’t want to be followed. Having Kagami close on his position made him rush and drop a few items that would serve as clues. Of course Kagami didn’t notice them because she failed her rolls again.

Habibe ran into a cave, but on investigating there were really three caves that he could have run into and he had gone in and out of the caves for some time so Kagami was not able to track and figure out which one he had just went into (ie failed her roll for tracking).

Enedger came back in his E-Suit and rolled his 1/8th and got his advantage for sensors so he was able to pick up that Habibe had camped here because there was the remnants of a fire that was cooling. He was also able to pick up a small object near the fire and because he had rolled so ridiculously well, also could pick up the faint heat and sound of Habibe and which cave he had gone down.

The two investigated the camp and found several papers and a metal disk about 5cm in diameter. The papers were in Arabic which neither could read but there were some maps that Habibe had drawn that gave the rough layout of the three caves and one had a point marked out in the valley of the Kerdi.

The map of the cave Habibe went down did not show an outlet anywhere. They debated what to do about not letting him double back on them and escape. They thought about making a trap where a rock would fall on him, but Kagami decided that wasn’t a good idea because they didn’t want to kill him. Eventually Enedger decided he would have his E-Suit sit on the mouth of the cave. He could tell it to get up if they needed to get out.

They entered the cave and did some climbing down into deep pits, Kagami had to rest occasionally one because of more bad rolls and she’s not quite as strong as Enedger.

Finnally they came to a large underground gallery (room). Just off center was a large stone and when they investigated it found it was full of Kelrath carvings. Again, neither can read Kelrath so they have no idea what it all means. Kagami looked for tracks and found that Habibe had walked up to this stone and then walked directly to the center of the gallery where his footprints mysteriously end.

Thats where we left off. Next game will be interesting because I’m going to be throwing in a few classic logic puzzles.

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July 20, 2012 · 9:02 pm

Why We’re Not Just Whining

Really what should any product submitted to the Ennies be judged by? In my humble opinion, it should be what the product offers that advances the reach of RPGs or offers something novel or innovative to the community. Although the Ennies official criteria is “Excellence” that’s a pretty murky definition. I will concede that it gives them flexibility but not much focus.

The free RPG community is upset about the Ennies this year. There were several free RPGs submitted but they were passed over in favor of a few quickstarts and modules from some of the largest RPG publishers. These free products are fine and all, there’s a lot of decent work put into these products.

Now by my suggestion, the quickstarts do offer something for the reach of RPGs since they improve the accessibility of RPGs. At the moment though, we have “Excellence”. So let’s go with that.

I can’t rightly say if the artwork that went into them is original art or not. If it isn’t, I’d urge the Ennies judges to look at these entries as having no artwork in them at all. My reasoning is this, if the products are borrowing art from their paid counterparts, they’re the same as a free game using stock art that’s available to them.

Now let’s think about the quick starts. Really, the system already existed so is there any real quality that these products embody? Yes, there is. It takes skill to pare down a set of rules into a quickstart. Again, I would encourage the Ennies judges to consider this as the main platform to judge these products.

Why Free RPGs Deserve Special Consideration

A free RPG made by anyone, even a big publisher is something special. It gives a new option to existing RPG players and an easier entry point to new players. They are also an expression of love of the hobby by a special breed of dedicated role players. Many dedicate years and even decades to producing something that they give to the rest of the community. Is that not excellence? Is dedication to role playing something to be celebrated? If the Ennies’ answer is yes, they will consider that free RPGs are something special.

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