House Cleaning In Process

Just a bit to say that the blog is being being cleaned and readied.

I've been stuck for some time because I have tried to make a basic game that flows into a more complex advanced version.

Well, after beating my head against the desk I have decided to build them as separate vehicles that have overlapping areas.

The engine known as MX83 (not certain if I had mentioned that here or elsewhere) will be a rules lite O.S.S. game entitled Fiends & Fireballs.

Forsaken Souls will be aiming to try some new things and probably tend more toward an adult audience and use the FSE 20 system (the original engine and setting) where F&F is aimed at a more general audience.

So I will start updating here as soon as I feel I'm at a resting point with F&F.

I know this is beginning to sound like a Duke Nukem game, but I have no choice but to finish. If I let all the work I have put into this slide I would probably go crazy.

Ok, back to the typing bit...

Hey everybody

Just a brief post to update.

I have re-booted FS:TSS (I know, did this once already) because I thought it needed to be re-focused. There has been a plethora of new system releases over the past year and the mid-summer burn out on system overload really got me thinking.

So to add value to the initial release I have decided to build content alongside the system so it has support right out of the gate. I will be releasing some inexpensive one shots that will include everything you need to play and they will also offer a re-play value once the full system is released because they are all based on the same engine and you will be able to go back with extras and different characters and play through again as a fresh experience.

When I think I have it where it needs to be I am thinking maybe Kickstarter is the way to go. If I could hire even just one person I could produce a massive amount of work in a short amount of time. Add to that an intern (paid in goodies and a flexible schedule-and the natural candidate to fill the shoes of the full-timer if they need to leave) and that dog will hunt.

So enjoy your holidays and here's hoping Santa brings all the great games and great times you desire.

Back soon (no really-I'm parking almost all my sites except this and a few others- I will be posting here shortly).

Yeah Yeah, The Master Of Posting, I Know

And if you think this drives you crazy you should be the man behind the curtain.

So I took a break after the text became gibberish. I decided my best therapy was to work but on something different.

So I developed DEEP DELVE, an intro rpg that can be used at parties and get togethers to play so that folks could drop into and out of without disrupting game play. I read a challenge at someones blog and thought 'hey, I'm sucking at what I'm doing now, how hard could this be?'

Surprisingly it has been quite therapeutic and the alpha is almost finished. I have learned a lot by stepping completely away from my comfort zone and just seeing if I could build something that might get non-gamers interested in rpgs enough to at least sit down and give it a shot for a few minutes and walk away no pressure if it is not for them.

The beast can be found (soon) at:

http://classicrealmsofadventure.blogspot.com/

At least I have the design notes up and that felt good.

I also realized how much I missed James doing the weekly wrap up of OSR news over at Underdark Gazette and have decided to launch a pdf zine.

Now before you start banging your head on the table understand this-I have been doing zines since I was 13, have produced several and other print materials and am an apprentice pressman from BitD, so zines to me are easy. They are like a water pitcher...you pour it in till it's full send it out and start the next one and this scene is so rich that if I can't figure this out I need to quit :)

I just want Forsaken Souls to be something I feel good about and after re-reading some of it today I know it needs work. It has been a mega year for releases and now the news is even DCC has been backed up to a Feb 2012 release date.

I know I have a winner on my hands, I just have to make certain I don't rush it and kill a good thing. The core is fine. I just need to make the Basic Edition, well, Basic. After looking at this intro rpg project I think I know what needs to be done. It's just a matter of going in and doing the heavy lifting before you guys have to sweat bullets over a 'what the hell does that even mean???' page. Trust me, I have bought bad product in the past and it's not funny or nice especially if you know it needs work. Releasing your Beta as a finished product and leaving your players to figure it out is the way of corporations.

I'm not a corporation. I'm a gamer and I say no crap will be released on my watch. You WILL get quality. You WILL get something worthy of your time. I appreciate everyone who has helped me through this process and I don't want to have wasted their time either.

There WILL be a Forsaken Souls completed and it WILL rock. I made a promise. I plan on keeping it.

Till next time, keep thinking positive thoughts...I need all I can get.

July Notes

After what may be called the year closest to hell on earth (these last 6 months have just about done me in) I thought I should drop in and do a bit of an update before the next storm fires through and shuts me down again (did I mention that my life-saving massive UPS backup went down just before all the weather started?).

The Player Handbook for the Basic Edition is almost finished. I have been drying out a red pen this last week after deciding rather than stop working every time the lightning struck I would just go analog and kick it old style.

Notes and outline have been underway for the GM Guide and I'm settling on just what pieces to include to help the beginning GM while at the same time not bogging down an experienced one with unnecessary explanations and mechanics. I think I have found a fairly good balance and just want to invest the time in it to get it right the first time. Since my plan of getting something to GenCon fell through I feel that the extra time will give me a chance to assemble a full bundle that will include everything one needs to not only get started but continue on for some time. Add to that free material that will be available here at the blog from day one and it looks like missing GenCon may be a blessing in disguise.

I know I have said this before but the next time I decide to design an entire system from scratch I have given written permission to my wife to kick me square in the crotch and bring me back to my senses :)

I just want to get to the fun stuff ( I have always hated dealing with math and with some of the mechanics I have developed I have had to triple check myself more than once and felt like poking my eyes out with before mentioned red pen).

Learning Hexographer has been a pain and I decided the first person I hire back will be skilled at map making and I'll hire the illustrator second. :)

Sorry for any negativity flowing in this update but it has just been a frustrating year and I just hope that fall gets here soon and some relief from storms, heat and all the madness associated with them will flow away. I think everyone knows where I'm coming from.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled natural disaster...

Update

So here we are again. Due to unforeseen forces of nature (like micro-bursts) things have proceeded slowly but the play test material is almost ready.

If I have not been forthcoming with more details I apologize to the readers who keep waiting for that, but having been part of the scene for awhile now and noting the amount of 'borrowing' that goes on I wanted to at least be able to bring a few new things to the table that folks would know came from me.

Even now, two ideas that I thought were a fresh take have surfaced in other projects. I guess great minds think alike. We will see how these concepts are received. My hope is to bring to you the spirit of the style that made me fall in love with RPGs so many years ago.

It even seems like the time is right. A recent article talked about a resurgence in table top gaming due to the value it has during hard economic times. Not only do you get to escape for a few hours from an uncertain world and be a hero, but you can keep playing for little to no cost compared to other forms of entertainment.

This is how it was back in the early '80s. Times sucked. Money was hard to come by. The video arcades ruled the world for young people, but you could blast through a roll of quarters in an hour or two. we learned with table top gaming, however, that the money you spent could provide weeks worth of entertainment, not just hours. Coupled with imagination and a select handful of magazines, we built whole worlds that exploded with light and action, that kept you up far past your bed time, that made you late for work and people wondering why you weren't answering your phone.

It was the game.

And I hope that when this is finished that you can, for a little while, forget the clock and your phone and explore the worlds of fantasy the way a bunch of young people did once upon a time when things weren't quite so complicated.

It's coming guys and I promise-I will try my best to make it worth the wait.

Till next time...

April Update

Work proceeds at a steady pace.

I am working on all editions simultaneously (except for the Junior edition) so I hope to be ready to have the Starter ready for GenCon and the Basic (and possibly Advanced) ready for the holidays.

Tomorrow is an errands day but I will be working through the weekend on editing the first 8 chapters of the Player Handbook Basic Edition and finishing off the Arcane and Divine sections. Then editing on the Gate Master Handbook can begin. I'm looking forward to less math and more theory :) .

Now if the weather would just give me a break I could finish this beast. :)

Update For March

I wish I could get better at keeping these updates going, but after a day of working on the system and the rest of the blog world I often forget.

Today was Combat Day. The section is going well, just formatting and examples to go.

I have decided to lighten the Starter to make it a faster entry by including pre-generated characters to get players started faster. It will cover 3 levels of advancement (built on a custom concept to simplify GM book keeping and clarify what level advancement means to the Players) and include 3 Adventure Kits with an additional 3 to be found here at the blog shortly after the Starter release. Additional characters will also be available here as well.

The Starter will take place on the Isle of Tarnaan and be expanded as time and resources permit.

In addition to publishing supplements I will also be introducing a gazetteer that will introduce new classes, items and other elements to flesh out campaigns and add to The Worlds of Aracta setting.

The Basic edition should follow fairly quickly after.

Now if I could just finish this damned WinXP installation I can get back to this.

More (hopefully sooner than) later :)

It Begins

A hello and hope you had a good holiday season wherever you are. I have been working on the 'grunt' part of the project-or as an old friend put it once "Back up the Back up of the Back up...and then Back that up". I have suffered the consequences of not heeding that advice in the past and since the holidays put 3 tb of new storage in my hands it was time to sit down and get it done.

Now the printing begins. With fresh toner cart installed I can get an analog copy in my hand to work through what may be an impending ice storm in the next 48 hours. I plan on working by the gray light of the sliding deck doors if necessary and sleeping when there is not enough light.

The work continues. Time for coffee. :)

The New

As the old year comes to a holiday filled explosive end I patiently wait to get the first part of the program completed.

Always remember, I work analog style. Just because we go without a lot of details or even posts here on the design blog know that I have been filling 3 and 4 inch binders with notes. I've always worked that way and have tried to convert to all digital, but I always seem to get ideas at the worst possible time and must rely on trusty pen and paper to record them before they evaporate into the mist of memory.

With spell use being the single biggest hold up I can say that 70% of the grunt work has been done and as soon as I figure out how I want to organize the spell caster section we should see a starter out soon after.

Thanks for keeping up with me during the turmoil of this year and for reading the posts, even though sometimes far apart. They will continue as long as I have breath and I hope that the beast I am building will meet with your gaming satisfaction.

Ok, 2011, let's get going :)

Update

Just a quick post to let all know that I'm alive well and kicking...and so is Forsaken Souls.

This time of year always goes into overload and I have to let some things rest.

Work is proceeding on the Starter Edition of Forsaken Souls that will be a self contained start to the exploration of the StoneGate Saga and serve as the starting point for all future releases. The Starter is being released free of charge under the OGL.

The Advanced Player Guide is in 2nd draft and nearly complete. Lot's of fine tuning and formatting to go but I feel good about the structure so far.

The Game Master Strategy Guide is in outline form but should come together fairly quickly along with the Bestiary Codex which is in parallel development.

I have also decided to release other editions (including a Junior version set in the past on the Isle of Tarnaan) and they benefit from a unified structure of the core rule set, so they should be well underway soon.

As DEVO has stated recently with their new album, there will be Something For Everybody. :)

The Literary Side

It's late. My eyes HURT. My brain has done enough math to put a colony on Pluto (still a planet as far as I'm concerned). I'm tired and want to break something.

And then I start looking over some creatures that would occupy a stretch of open countryside during an adventure. Then I remember...I remember why I love this. The ideas that start popping when you read the elements of gaming.

I realized that it is the literary side that has always kept me in rpgs. I love reading the material, seeing in the minds eye how players would fall back from the table with an 'OH ****'!

The look when you begin to describe something that looks like a massive ash forest and then they realize as they grow closer that it's not trees towering over their heads at all, but bone. Miles and miles of bones sticking hundreds of feet into the sky. That maybe they aren't the baddest thing in the valley. What kills something that big? The feeling is palpable...

It's late and I know why I do this.

Update

Hi all. Just a brief update. I have been buried in rules hell trying to put together something that will work for this campaign setting and I waffled more than a short order cook.

I thought hey, no problem, then realized that the very thing that imparts the unique flavor to this thing and make it worth playing is a major reworking of any rule set.

So I think I finally have the spine worked out, now to attach the rest of the skeleton and see if it will hold flesh.

This is subject to change, but I'm looking at putting out a starter set that includes everything needed to play a basic set up and learn the world I'm creating without having to bite off the whole chunk at once. Then I can issue the Advanced Player Guide and the Game Master Strategy Guide. These will increase the classes and pave the way for the entire series.

I'm hoping for a first draft this week then a break to look at the introductory adventure and play material to include.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Pre-Draft Design Update

Just a brief update. Have been in a pre-draft stage, chatting with other designers and gamers alike about layout and trying new things to see if I can make this the best vessel yet.

I am lucky to find that many people seem to like the same layout ideas as myself. Clean, clear fonts, low artwork overkill, larger font sizes or the ability to increase the font size (which shouldn't be a problem as I'm printing to PDF and keeping the design so that the 'reflow' feature in reader will work properly and not make a mess of the layout).

Above all the layout must be transparent. You only seem to notice it when it is bad :)

New Promotional Art

Just a quick piece to test out the software and shake off the rust. Now back to the editing. :)

First Update

Hi all. Just a quick note for those curious about the blog. I started the FORSAKEN SOULS campaign setting a decade ago and it has languished unfinished until now.

I was inspired by the various OSR rules lite systems, First Edition and the recent slate of SRD sets along with my own house rules and variations added to create a custom engine that is both rules-light and grognard friendly while not abandoning the core mechanic or basic concepts of play known to most current players.

This will be a commercial project and I will use this blog to announce releases of the campaign source books and for errata, updates and free web enhancements for the setting.

Not only will the books cover a campaign story of epic proportions but will also provide source material for role-playing within the world of FORSAKEN SOULS in general and creating your own adventures as well.

I look forward to bringing this labor of love to gamers everywhere and hope that it provides you as much entertainment and thrills in play as it has me in its creation.

I will be posting a non-spoiler general description soon so check back often or sign up for the feed.