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Two Dice and a Deck of Cards

May 8, 2015 / Bear

Carl Sandburg mentioned iron thoughts in one of his poems. Mine come when the insomnia wears out the part of me that second guesses my ideas.

About ten days ago, I flushed out an idea for a general purpose RPG that used two regular six-sided die and a standard deck of cards. For those that do not have tsu.co accounts, I repeated it again on Google Plus. The idea can be summarized as follows:

Spread ten points across three attributes, Brawn, Finesse, Acumen. If you are a Wizard, set your Magic stat as 1.

The secondary stats are Health and Mana. Health is calculated by (2*Highest Stat)+2nd Highest Stat+Magic. Mana is calculated by your Magic stat + 2.

Draw a card from the deck and mark it on your character sheet. This is your chi or whatever you wish to call it.

For non-magic actions, roll 2d6+associated stat. If the result is 10 or more, the character succeeds! If not, mark a tally under the associated stat. Once the tally marks equal 4 + stat, increase the stat by 1 and erase the tally marks.

For Magic, draw a card and add your magic stat to the rank of the card. Then consult the table below. The first item that applies is your result.

If you draw your chi card, the spell is a success.
If you draw a card that equals your chi card's rank, the spell is a success, but deduct the spell's Magic Rating from your Mana.
If you draw a card that matches your chi card's suit, the spell is a failure, but do not deduct Mana.
If you the drawn card's rank + Magic stat is 10 or more, the spell is a success.
If you draw a face card, the spell is a success.
All other results, the spell fails and deduct the spell's magic rating from your Mana.

That was a week ago. Since then, I realized that I could add other special abilities with a fourth stat and a resource pool to manage it. The ideas started flowing.

Yesterday, Eric Nieudan happens upon this post and decides to build his own dungeon generator with 2d6 plus a deck of cards.

I read over it and instantly love it. So, I did what any self-respecting geek would do, I made a spreadsheet of it for testing. After testing it, I offered some suggestions that tested out well. I'll post a link to the corrected system when it comes available.

The iron thought that will not escape me is that I need to finish this game somehow. In addition to the Wizard character that uses magic, I have a psionic character, a priest character, a thief character, a martial character, and a few more. With Jens D and Eric Nieudan to start the idea, I have something for the referee's section of the game.

This needs to be made and I can't sleep for thinking about it.

Maybe supers would work on this system...

More to come on this and other game stuff in progress.

I Get to Work with James Shields

May 6, 2015 / Bear

Recently, JEShields put out a call for writers. I'm happy to say that I am one of the writers chosen.

The deal is that I have great creative freedom to write pretty much what I want for the RPG system(s) of my choice. James and I still have to agree on the projects and set timelines, but so far that has not been an issue at all. Honestly, the biggest limitation was me.

I'm really excited. It has been about six years since I got to work together with an artist to make cool stuff. I'm also excited because James works with a lot of indie game folks, including Evil Hat. So when I submitted my resume, I wasn't expecting to get picked.

I want to write a lot of things, so it felt difficult to pick a place to start. Once I looked at artwork James has already done, it didn't take long to make a pitch for creating a Swords & Wizardry monster book along with a three module series. Everyone needs more creatures, especially me. I've got a bi-weekly group to challenge. 🙂 There will be more about this once contracts are signed and the project is named.

I also want to make material for White Star. I bought it yesterday and I love it. I don't want to overlap anything James Spahn has coming down the pike, but there's a lot of room to work with. One idea I had is to create the Eye of the Needle setting as a sandbox using the White Star rules. I've also thought of making a mecha/tank game inspired by all the FASA games I played in the 80s.

Beyond that, I've been working on a generic RPG that uses two six-sided dice and a standard deck of cards. It's something straightforward for casual gamers, but open enough for more dedicated gamers.

That's the big news. Like I said, more details on projects as they are finalized.

Updates, 200-word RPGs, and Other Fun Stuff

May 2, 2015 / Bear

My last post was about Warrior, Rouge, & Mage. I have a draft I plan to finish about my bi-weekly Dungeon World group.

All in good time. RL first, then game stuff. Feel free to skip down to the game stuff.

For those that know, my son's surgery will be May 11th. Thanks to so many that have been so generous, especially Spes Magna Games that bought my 1e DMG and gave it back to me under the condition that I never sell it. Mark has also posted about my son's creations including the starfish dragon. Many many thanks.

Yes, he and I went down to our friendly comic book store for Free Comic Day. Good father-son bonding time. 🙂

We have gotten a lot of offline donations to help us out. The fundraiser doesn't reflect it yet, but we are only $300 short at this point. I can deal with that. Most of all, I am glad that neither my or my wife's family had to contribute any money at all. They bought my son's hearing aid many years ago and they have given so much to support us through the years. Okay, on to the game stuff.

Two Hundred Words Can Say So Much

You must have heard about the 200 word RPG challenge by now. At the link, David Schirduan has the entrants. My favorite is The Raver and the Bear. I will play this with my friends complete with making the appropriate noises (as the raver or the bear). The whole premise is delightful. I want to make cool stuff like this.

The Fantasy Heartbreaker

My entry turned into something larger. If you follow me on G+ or tsu (no longer available), you've probably seen my latest idea for an rpg ruleset. I wanted to use items that non-gamers who likely have around their houses like regular d6s and a deck of cards.

Since that idea, I find myself writing in notebooks like I did in my 20s. Will it play? We'll see. My DW group is going to test it for me, I'm sure of it. The basic idea is that you have four stats. Three are determined by 1d6 or distributing 10 points. The fourth stat is determined by drawing a card, called your Chi card. Health represents how much punishment you can take. Mana represents your ability to use magic. Rolling 2d6 + Stat greater than or equal to 10 is a success. To use your special ability, draw a card from a deck. There are six rules to follow to determine success. It sounds more complicated than it is. My kids got it pretty quickly.

If you draw your chi card, the spell is a success.
If you draw a card that equals your chi card's rank, the spell is a success, but deduct the spell's Magic Rating from your Mana.
If you draw a card that matches your chi card's suit, the spell is a failure, but do not deduct Mana.
If you the drawn card's rank + Magic stat is 10 or more, the spell is a success.
If you draw a face card, the spell is a success.
All other results, the spell fails and deduct the spell's magic rating from your Mana.

I have since discovered that this fourth stat, special ability, and resource pool need not be related to wizardry magic. A priest could have faith instead of Mana. A rogue would have Confidence. An alchemist could have Lore and a warrior could have Courage. There are lots of possibilities that I am exploring and hope to write about soon.

Dungeon World for the 18 to 24 Group

As always, there is Dungeon World afoot. I am running my group through the venerable Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. I have enjoyed my DW version of the troll (one of his moves is to regenerate the last wound he received).

"I rolled a NINE! Awesome! I hit him for 17 damage! I'm ready to take my lumps behind my armor."
"The troll's wound begins to close up before your eyes. Just like that, the wound is gone!"
"Crap!"

Wait until they get to the entrance of the caves. Bwa ha ha. (Yes, they are having a lot of fun. No one has died yet, although one character came close.)

Didn't you used to be an old-school guy?

Why yes, I am still that guy. Swords&Wizardry stuff is coming down the pike soon as well. I hope to provide more details about what this stuff is and how it will come about, but I think it will be fun for everyone.

I am convinced that I will get the DW group into an OSR game if it kills me. If not, maybe I'll run a game at a local store.

I am still trying to get a game to work on my Kindle Paperwhite. I have decided, however, that I'm just going to have to get EPUB formatted modules to work first, because that is easier.

That's all for now. Next post should be more polished rules about my heartbreaker.

Sycarion Diversions

Page 84 of 213

Two Dice and a Deck of Cards

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I Get to Work with James Shields

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