Monday, August 22, 2011

Gaining Momentum

Or as I like to say, "Going into Overburn."

Just a quick note. I've recently procured the aid of a couple of friends to assist me with the Overburn RPG. I am hoping with the new infusion of Blood Burners, we can make some headway into The Burn. I would like to take this time to welcome these two to The Burn and I hope their addition bears fruit.

To expound on what I'm doing here I want to set some goals I have for the project. This is inspired by Rob Lang's article on designer notes for the Icar RPG, of which I have bee a long time fan.
As a designer, the author is often asked why Icar was designed in a certain way. This page attempts to outline what decisions were made and how this affects the style of the game. A set of Designer's Notes, you could say.

Lang, Rob. "Designer's Notes." Icar Free Sci Fi RPG - Home. Web. 22 Aug. 2011. .
If you read through the article, you will find a list of goals for creating a high quality RPG. I would like to take a moment to state my on ideas for my game.

  1. Produce a High Quality Game.
  2. Simplistic in Design
  3. Easy to Grasp
  4. Unique in Scope
  5. Intriguing in Setting
  6. Entertaining to Play

I plan to revisit this and see how my idea evolves as the game does. Hopefully the end result will be something that surprises my friends.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Runner's Toolkit for Shadowrun

As I was out and about yesterday, I purchased the Runner's Toolkit for Shadowrun. This fulfills my quarterly support for the local gaming shop. Although I paid 50% more than purchasing it on-line, the thrill of buying something on a spur of the moment could not be denied. Normally, I would not of have bought something like this as most of the items are just re-hashed material from the other books. Here is a list of what comes in the Runner's Toolkit:

  • On the Run, one of Shadowrun’s most popular introductory adventures
  • Contacts, Adventures and Sprawl Sites, a booklet that gives you the who, the what, and the where to launch runners on new missions
  • The Pre-generated Auxiliary Character and Kit System, a modular system that makes character and NPC generation simple while keeping characters highly customizable
  • Anatomy of a Shadowrun, a two-column book; one column tells the story of a high-stakes run, while the other details the tests and rules that players involved in the run would encounter, giving gamesters insight into how a Shadowrun game flows
  • Six double-sided quick-reference sheets that, with the gamemaster’s screen, greatly reduces the time spent flipping through books to find a particular rule
  • A book compiling tables from Arsenal, Street Magic, Augmentation and Unwired—it’s the ultimate shopping list for runners
It was this last book that caught my attention. I have always been agitated on how the powers that be chose to break-up the equipment list. In SR4, not only did you have the annoying task of looking up multiple books, but you had to flip through the book to find a stat you forgot, say the AP rating of your pistol. I think that this booklet here makes the set worth it. But I also got a cool Shadowrun sticker to put on my netbook. This was the icing on the cake.

Monday, August 1, 2011

An Auspicious August

So today starts a new month, and to that end, I endeavore to get back into the swing of things. I am back in my house, inventoring my gaming collection. I still have a lot of boxes and unpacking, but at least now, I can see the torch light glinting off the dragon's hoard at the end of the tunnel. Although my internet connection does not appear to be working (yet), I plan to continue to work on what I can, as time provides. There is alot that I have on my plate this month, so here's an overview.

Overburn - I am currently behind on this. August was suppose to be the month that I worked on Psionics for the game, but I am behind for July. Hopefully I can put the hornes to the grindstone and get back on track.

Omega Rising - an old sci-fi gamesite that I'm trying to get my old content back up on.

Seer's Sight - My general gaming blog. No real work to have to do here, just keep people updated with ideas.

Earthdawn Publishing Trust - Eartdawn site that I need to catch up on a lot of work on.

General Server Administration - I have recently changed servers and I need to move the rest of my files so that I can close down the extra server.

There is probaby more that I need to do and I'll add it to the list as it comes to me.