Thursday, May 14, 2015

New DCC/RPG Projects

A one trick pony am I:  I announce another DCC Solo Gamebook in the works right now.  I know, I know.

The other thing (probably first) is a multiplayer follow-up to HHSOLO 1, with some satirical Black Humor for good measure.  Political commentary.  Since it seems the way of things, I think my layout will go easier if going forward I just shoot for 6x9 format for everything - this presents both freedoms and constraints, but at least I won't need to retrofit a book down from 8.5x11, again.  I think since the demand was high, everything going forward will be paper first, and digital as a bonus or freebie.

The second thing is HHSOLO2, a solo DCC book just for Thieves.  Of course, now I know what works and what don't, I won't necessarily limit it to just Thieves, but thieving may be the focus of it.  Sure, there'll be a little bit for everybody but you'll not get deep down to the Heart of the Thing unless you're a Thief.

ominous foreshadowing?
This isn't going to be just hard in the way that HHSOLO1 is, it'll also TEST your Thieving Skills, and similar to a couple of other old-timey gamebooks there'll be a system of memory (maybe just a check-list) and I'm saying I don't mind bragging about stealing liberally from some of the concepts laid out in Mad Monks of Kwantoom by +Kabuki Kaiser.  Which, really, is maybe the most curry-filled and exotic thing I think I've ever played around with in bits and snippets.  And, I point out, I haven't looked at a single Secret without being directed to do so directly.

I will work on my 40K table and the Genestealer Cult here and there, as I am able.  And I'm running a Purple Planet game biweekly starting a month ago or so, and it appears to be taking of (at least on paper).

Friday, May 8, 2015

After the Mower, Larval Stage

I finished a thing for WayneCon next week, but maybe I think even the folks that don't get to go there might roll this around in the spirit in which it's conceived.  WayneCon will be one of those times when pictures will be insufficient to communicate the awesomeness of the brain waves engendered, so I offer the wavelength I'm at at the moment.  Payment to the community for just being fun people to interact with, bat things around with, create and explore with.  Like a mystical journey, dig?

For my part, I was in contact with some of the folks that will be at WayneCon when I had this game fall out of the sky into my head while I was mowing/thrashing the patches of weeds and roots that symbolized a lawn outside the trailer in the woods in which I lived with my wife and Very Tiny Baby.  Doug K.'s taken an interest an' this may suffice to whet our appetites, for a spell.  It's late - late means many prepositions and nested ones

That particular mowing, I turned about half way through and I noticed that the Bees were all hovering there, looking at me, as if to say ARE YOU GOING TO MOW THIS PATCH OF GROUND, MAN?  And I was struck by their patience and simple Stoicism and my time there was somewhat trying but almost always interesting in that way.  The game tumbled out of those bees into my ear and I laughed and I fleshed it out later, and it was better at one point but this is what I have, now.

The fox that attacked me, we had come across each other a couple of times in broad daylight when I was jogging in the woods - I didn't know then that each time we crossed paths it was getting more ominous and unsafe, and I was struck by wonder that an animal like that could be so flagrantly fearless.  Not a good sign.  And rabbits!  So many rabbits.  I learned that the woods kind of depends on large numbers of rabbits NOT making it, or else there would simply be too many rabbits, and hungry, ill, and desperate foxes.  Like after the tenth dying baby rabbit, it's not that your heart hardens, but Ants and Buzzards gotta eat same as Rabbits.

Here you go. Simple target numbers, modified maybe by 1 or 2 tops in either direction, 2d6 - you only need one die to signify a success.  2 1's is a critical success, etc. etc.  I think doubles of any kind ought to have some magic in it, so there.

Let me know what you think, or not.  A premise of the game is that Death comes for critters the same as anybody, and it's okay.  Life in the woods goes and goes and they don't tend to complain too much.

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