March Madness!
I’ve not had the chance to blog much recently as I’ve been too busy. It’s crazy at work too!
Currently I’m writing 20,000 words on the Demon/Druid War for the Secret Fire RPG‘s first supplement, Fragment 1: The Way of Tree, Sword & Flame which is due in at the end of April. Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms) is also involved so I’m feeling somewhat chuffed! I reckon I’m about 20% of the way through it.
My Cthulhutech game continues at ORC, and I’ve got to somehow map out the Section 13 HQ, The Basement tonight in time for the game tomorrow! I meant to do it weeks ago, kept putting it off, and now it has sneaked up on me!
I’ve also started writing an article on running spy RPGs, but that’ll have to wait while I get the Fragment 1 done.
Oh, and we’re also looking for another player in the Wednesday night Dresden Files game at my place.
Also I now have a new PC: a very fast Dell XPs 8300; it really does the business, plus the picture is amazing.
My view from the Bridge – Bill Heron – 2011
My view from the Bridge – Bill Heron
It’s been quite a year for me. I’ve blogged far more about RPGs in the last year than anything else. Consequently I’ve trimmed a lot of the dead wood from my blog to make it easier to read, as well as making the site easier to find in both search engines and within the site itself. Hopefully related posts will now show up for some of the blog entries and pages – I’ve removed the BlogGlue plugin I was using as it didn’t really add anything to help find related posts (back to using the revamped YARPP – Yet Another Related Posts Plugin). I’m also intending to use the new featured image of WordPress more often as well as making the site a little easier to read.
I’ve already covered events at the Open Roleplaying Community (ORC Edinburgh) within a previous post, but there’s a few things I’ve not mentioned within as they were more of a personal nature.
As I posted, THE SECRET FIRE RPG (then known as Legend & Labyrinths) was playtested by ORC in May. As a result of this, I helped write much of the flavour text (flavour text being the descriptive text used to describe monsters and magic spells/prayers, etc.) for the game as well as participating as a game developer. I’m also hoping to begin work soon upon the Demons part of the first supplement: FRAGMENT I: THE WAY OF TREE, SHADOW & FLAME, and will likely end up doing some more of the flavour text for THE SECRET FIRE. It feels very weird seeing “Bill Heron” in the credits of a published book!
CLICHÉ: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME OF PREDICTABLE HORROR is another RPG we playtested at ORC, from an Edinburgh RPG design studio, Drunken Badger Games. I’m hoping to hear more from them in the future, as the game I ran at ORC was quite good fun – CLICHÉ lends itself well to having a few friends around for some beers without being too hard on the old brain cells!
I also managed to get my CTHULHUTECH: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS game off the ground at ORC, running on a fortnightly basis, with a decent group of players. I’m also preparing a blog article on how to run a CTHULHUTECH game and campaign - stay tuned!
My Ashes of Freedom D&D game reached the end of its story arc. I’m quite happy with the way it ended, with a doomsday device beginning a countdown and an epic battle in the Hammerfall Pass caverns resolving a number of the story arcs. There’s a definite possibility I’ll be returning to it later in the year, as the setting was popular and we had a great time playing it and running it in my case. The chariot race will go down in legend!
In the personal kudos stakes, my The Art of Winging It article also gained a mention in an article on the Wizards of the Coast website! It’s only a brief mention with a link to the page but it still feels good to see things like this happen!
And finally, work began upon my big project the MANDRAGORA: ASHES OF FREEDOM RPG. I’m trying this as an experiment in self-publishing and will likely be blogging about this a lot in the coming year or so, and hurling some ideas around out there.
So it looks like 2011 was a pretty good year for me RPG-wise. As well as the above I also had the chance to play in a lot more RPGs, including the Dresden Files RPG, 40k Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, and even some Call of Cthulhu and D&D!
Building the Mandragora: Ashes of Freedom RPG pt.3 – Systems & Implementation
The System for the Mandragora: Ashes of Freedom RPG
The release of the D20 license when Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition was created (or spawned depending on your point of view) caused something on renaissance in the gaming world. It allowed companies like Paizo to create their Pathfinder RPG, and other small press publishers to release supplements using an existing system- D&D; at the time, a brand leader.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve mixed feelings about the whole D20 event: on the one hand it revitalised the industry somewhat; on the other, much of the material released was substandard (poor artwork, no editing, and a lot of individuals flooding the market with product). Not to mention the outcry when 3.5 was released. Nonetheless, it encouraged a lot of RPG designers to make their systems “open-source” to use.
I’ve weighed up the pros and cons of creating my own system – experience has taught me that this isn’t the easiest thing to do. For what is essentially a “vanity” project on my part, I don’t think a new system is required. With that in mind I’m considering using an existing system, and one that I don’t have to pay for: and there’s also the fact that these systems have been largely playtested and are more likely to have had some of their rougher edges smoothed down. The downside being that these rules may become out of date when a new version is released, or possible litigation should the OGL be dropped from the system by the creator.
For Mandragora: Ashes of Freedom RPG, I’m thinking that the FATE system (Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment) would be ideal to use. FATE is based on the Fudge RPG, a simple, yet effective system, that is free-to-use under terms of an Open Gaming License (OGL). FATE has been used to create rulesets for The Dresden Files RPG and Spirit of the Century among others, and means that I’ve ready-made rules/mechanics that I can plug and bolt together. All I need to do is provide a page dedicated to OGL (see http://www.faterpg.com/ogl/ for more details).
I like the way that Fate works, reducing much of the mechanics to a simple roll and description. It also lends itself well to the design criteria I had in mind: quick and easy rules that allow a fast pickup for new players, without generic (and stereotypical!) characters – each will have their own abilities.
There’s a few other things I need to consider as I begin work on the Mandragora: Ashes of Freedom RPG (M:AoF it’s much easier to type!)
Things to consider: Page count
This can be a bit tricky. The average published novel has 250 words a page, and runs about 100,000 words (i.e. 400 pages). RPGs are different – they are a different size, and the number of pages do matter! 300 -400 pages is average for a big meaty rulebook (with lots of illustrations and background), such as the Dresden Files RPG or Deathwatch, although others may have more or less. The number of pages can also have some bearing on what you can use to print the book as hard copy, from either a commercial printer or via a print-on-demand service like Lulu. If you intend to write an adventure, 64 pages is generally good to go with.
Also, you need to figure out how big your page size if going to be and how you intend to lay it out: the words per page for A5 page size and single column text is very different from, say, US Letter. The standard for RPGs is apparently US Letter (8.5″ x 11″) with a paper weight is 80gsm (US: 60 lb) – A4 doesn’t size well for the US market (it’s too tall). If you’re planning to use a fancy format, do your homework with the Printing house.
It’s generally accepted (according to the Game Publishers Association and elsewhere) that the minimum (note that I said minimum!) amount of artwork is 1/4 page art for every 4 pages of text – and that’ll still give you a fairly text heavy book.
There comes a point when you or your editor will need to edit it anyway and possibly cut out some sections. I’ve going to set myself a provisional limit of 300 pages for M:AoF, and stick with the US letter size, with two columns of text on each page.
So that’s me off to a bare bones start anyway. I suspect the next blog on this subject is a long way off 
