Category: RPG Ideas and Projects (Page 18 of 42)

    I haven't stopped working, but I haven't been able to write much.

The short version is that I am building infrastructure to make it easier for me to fully flesh out ideas and make well-structured PDFs for general consumption.

The long version started with my ideas from over a month ago to make short documents about subsystems for use in games. That led to searching for ways to easily to swap out one subsystem for a different way.

Specifically, if I decide to use playing cards (or UNO cards, or Rook cards) for initiative in The Black Hack, I wanted to swap out the initiative section of TBH for the card-based system. After the switch, I wanted to be able to quickly have my customized TBH in one document, ready to hand out to player and add to my GM screen.

The Black Hack is already available in markdown code, so it's easy to break it up into modules. Since all my TBH stuff began in markdown, I started working out a way to add in classes and magic items, swap out initiative, and replace the monster section. After that, I'd use a tool named pandoc to convert it into files for LibreOffice.

As I began doing that, I picked up a thread in the Basic Fantasy community that helped me finalized my process. I consider BF to be the closest thing to an open-source project. (The only thing missing is github.) I can get the entire source document and modify it. On a dare, I began to convert the entire BF rules into markdown. (I only have Chapter 8 left to convert.)

Not only did pandoc help me speed up the conversion work, but once it's finished, I should be able to convert it back into a LibreOffice file, with a specific template. The resulting file can then be imported into Scribus for layout work.

So I haven't stopped working, but I have come very close to having a process that works quickly and effectively.

    The rotating project that generated the martial arts brainstorm was a modularized version of Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. 

Why them? Frankly because it is run like an open source project. The only thing missing is a github account. 🙂

Since there is a source ODT file for homebrewing, it's possible to incorporate your house rules fairly easily. For people like me, however, it is not so easy to swap out entire subsystems.

So I am breaking up the ODT file into smaller documents. Using a Master Document in LibreOffice or Word, I can replace the smaller pieces and rebuild.

emerge -pU @World

Ultimately, the goal is to develop a workflow to produce games/houserules systematically:

I work up a playing card based magic item system, I fix the pieces describing magic item and rebuild the document.
I work up a martial arts system, add this new subsection, tweak the unarmed combat section, add a monk class, tweak multi-class rules, and then rebuild.

The entire workflow is similar to what I use now. The difference being the use of a master document to rebuild an entire game.

(I still use Typora to generate everything in markdown and pandoc to convert markdown to ODT/DOCX files. I still plan to use Scribus for layout.)

    RL has kicked my butt for the past two weeks.

Today, just jotting down something inspired by a very old D&D-ish idea of treating Thieves' Abilities as that use slots, just like casting spells.

Working on one my rotating projects, I realized that this idea could be modified to make a more workable 1e Martial Arts system.

What I like is the ability to mix and match abilities to build a distinct, flavorful martial art. What I don't like is a bit too long to list here.

So, what if a martial artist chooses a style that determines her base damage and abilities open to her as she masters the style. The usage of these abilities are managed by slots, just like spells.

One thing this allows is the player to describe how they are fighting, avoiding being hit, some-cool-Jackie-Chan-frantic-holy-cow maneuver without checking to see if they can even attempt it. Anything you describe that doesn't use a special ability will be limited to base damage or standard chances of success.

The techniques within a style grant unique abilities like steelcloth (make a piece of cloth into a weapon), fantastic kicks/punches (like kicking two targets in the same round), ki blasts, etc.

Working my way back to normal.