1. February 2010 by admin.

It’s been a long time since there have been really tough decisions on GEARS. Tough work, sure, with all the rules that have to fit snuggly together and make sense! But tough decisions are a different beast altogether, and one essential decision has been showing its teeth these last few days.

It relates to the last post, really. I’ve been a bit psyched about the Intransigent Design setting, especially with some very positive commentary arriving from playtesters. It’s a complex world, with a lot of deep philosophical choices and concerns. It’s provocative and makes you think. But in the end, those are not necessarily good traits for a game world. For an intellectual debate, perhaps, but game worlds are not pensive documentaries.

The main setting for GEARS has always been Alice 2.0. This has not changed. The question is, is GEARS going to be the source of all the game is, or is Alice? Is this about a new kind of game rules, or about a new kind of game world? Which will be on top?

It might seem a bit redundant. After all, if both are made and both are published, who cares what the intented focus is? But the decision is rather serious, simply because it will influence both the publishing model and the later supplement line. As mentioned before, GURPS is a big inspiration for GEARS, but GURPS also had what some would perceive as a problem, namely that it had game worlds made left and right, with little cohession and followup. Its 4th edition put a multi-world setting at the center, but the philosophy still seems unchanged. Is that what’s ahead for GEARS? Or should the game simply stand up and proclaim that the rules are solely there to flesh out Alice 2.0?

Lord knows Alice allows anything to be used, and poses the kind of challenge to the system that GEARS was made to tackle: Diversity, flexibility, coherence, all the goodies. But Intransigent Design was not made in Alice’s image. If everything is about the core setting, that could be considered a problem, or at least a divergence from the bigger plan.

So… What do we want? A set of rules to rule it all, or a settingfor the rules to serve? Divergences are still possible, no matter what the choice, but the exceptions to the rules (no pun intended) cannot be what carries the system.

I am leaning towards making Alice the focus, and creating the best possible rule system to flesh her world(s) out. Intransigent Design is still in my heart, but I can actually see it as ‘the rebel’, the one setting that defies the mischievous mayhem of Alice and Babylon, by being deep, dark, and foreboding. The sinister cousin of the lovable rogue.

Yeah… I can imagine that!

Posted in Game worlds, Intransigent Design, Genre, Fourth Draft, Alice, Playtests | 1 Comment »

27. January 2010 by admin.

Rules are still being crunched, verbalized and streamlined for the upcoming Fourth Draft. On the downside, there is so much that it sometimes seems impossible to ever get done. On the upside, a lot has been done in a short time, and things are looking so good there are whispers Sixth Draft might be the last draft before a true First Edition rolls about! Nothing for certain, but things look better and sturdier than expected, so hopes are high…

What is looking pretty sure now is a line-up of what the first roll-out of GEARS settings will be, and they are looking juicy, very juicy…

Alice 2.0 remains the default ‘core setting’. Using it will be optional, but it binds all other settings together very nicely. As is already in Third Draft, Alice arrived to our world in 2007 in an explosion of the coast of Morocco, and promptly swam, ran and commandeered transportation to get her into the Saharan desert, where she founded Babylon. Now, Babylon is a mysterious city, full of secrets, madness and intrigue, the center of worldwide conspiracies and espionage, and very secretly home to super-scientific Resurrection Machines and portals to other worlds. Nobody knows who this Alice is, what she wants, or how she does what she does and knows what she knows, but the world is watching her, and the Iron Ring barricade the UN tries to keep from imploding at the edge of Babylon. And wouldn’t you know it: The player characters are smack in the middle of it all! Lunacy ensues!

Broken Pattern is a post-apocalyptic world set after technological marvels became humanity’s fall. Society did not explode; it imploded, tearing itself apart when we could no longer govern ourselves. The cities are still there, and our technological remnants are fought over greatly, especially by those who gain their power from applying what can be salvaged. In the desolate and destroyed New World, technology like battered exosuits and fickle AI is not a forgotten artifact, but the key to True Power! Broken Pattern is gritty and harsh, but at the same time shows what kind of hope can be built from knowing your past…

Hybrid Elite, set in a far future, has powerful aliens holding Earth in a military/diplomatic deathgrip as humanity accepts their new overlords, getting in return powers beyond belief. Galactic superhumans maintain the seemingly benevolent alien rule, while rebellious powers try to find their way in to deal a much needed blow against the new ruling class. Combining dark, ultra-powerful superheroic adventure with breathtaking transhumanistic ideas, Hybrid Elite is a setting of tremendous powers, to those willing to fight for their species’ survival in the name of another race entirely.

Stone Sky Kingdoms is GEARS’ contribution to the fantasy genre. But it is not fantasy as you may know it; it’s both darker and grander, as powerful sorcerers try to make the stars fall to the ground and build mighty cities around them, draining the power of these fallen pieces of the ’stone sky’. A power so great that few dare go too close, and the lands around the fallen stars warps with magic only tapped by the most insane. Stone Sky Kingdoms explores fantasy as a large and bewildering tapestry of magics, faith, arcane torment, chaos, and immense beauty and heroic values that may be the last defense against those who want the sky to truly fall!

Ectopia, “the outer place”, is a cyberpunk world of the near future. But something is wrong. There is something lurking in the artificial realms our technologies have created. ‘Ghosts’ seen only through bionic eyes and in data archives, entities wanting to reach out to us, for reason we cannot, perhaps dare not, understand. And as material greed and carnage claw at society, in a world that has not come to terms with the power it has attained over such a brief age of progress, something new is being born in its blind angles…

These five will all get a treatment in GEARS Fourth Draft, and presumably in the final First Edition. The following two, however, are slated as the first settings to get separate treatment as supplement:

Intransigent Design, where our world is rocked to its very core in a not so distant future. As humanity looks on, God returns, bringing with Him the armies of Heaven, a civilization of unimaginable power, loyal to a Plan so far beyond the understanding of humanity that we have, inadvertedly, strayed from it. The loyal and devout will submit, the rebellious will fall. But God has adversaries, both human and other, and as the realms of Heaven and Hell and the intricacies of the human soul becomes the stage of the greatest battle faced by either of those fighting, the world is changed forever.

Reich X is picked as perhaps the truest of Evils, a world in which Hitler claimed victory and subdued the world… by magic, alien saucer technology, mythical creatures and advanced inventions. Inside Neuropa, brains in jars plan the war of a Third Reich armed with sorcerers and cyborgs, ravaging unconquered lands with vampires and werewolves, and hunting Qabbalist rebels with saucers before the spirits of the slain Hebrew people can give the Underground a foothold in the glorious Nazi empire.

Posted in Intransigent Design, First Edition, Hybrid Elite, Broken Pattern, Ectopia, Stone Sky Kingdoms, Sixth Draft, Game worlds, Reich X, Magic, Superpowers, Fourth Draft, Races, Aliens, Alice | 1 Comment »

27. December 2009 by admin.

With Christmas behind us, a bit of care is put into the work even during the holidays. After a short fight with technical issues on the site (sorry if it was down for a few hours over the holiday), I for one am turning my eyes back to the writing of the game.

Excepting some work still to be done to fine tune the layout of the color version of Third Draft, focus is on Fourth Draft now. New layout tools are being set up (Third Draft (color) pushed the old tools to their limits, it seems), but the big deal right now is in the presentation of Fourth Draft, and not the graphical one! Even with the new and improved wording of the rules being put together for Fourth, there is a distinct lack of feel in the text, making it look almost academic. The problem is that GEARS can be used in any way seen fit. So what is its basic mood?

The answer is not decisive yet, but the Alice 2.0 setting included might endup playing a wider role than originally expected. GEARS is about doing anything, yes, but it is built by people having fun with it, and much of that in a rather free-spirite way, from guns blazing to entertainment by overacting. Cliches, schticks and wacky cleverness has dominated playtests a bit more than has been let on, and the reason for not putting much focus on it has been to preserve GEARS’ universal attitude; portraying a style tends to color the system that style, and that is not the intention. But now, that policy is being reconsidered.

There is no way of telling how that line of discussion is going to turn out. GEARS remains a universal system, and that will be emphasized. But the wacky fun of current Alice 2.0 storylines in playtest look more and more likely to color the end result, and it looks like it might actually be a good thing…

Posted in Game worlds, Layout, Genre, Fourth Draft, Alice, Third Draft, Playtests | No Comments »

19. December 2009 by admin.

With the release (and subsequent adjustments and rerelease) of GEARS Third Draft, I feel I may have left the blog to drift a little. Third Draft took a greater effort than expected, mostly because of the first attempts to do a serious layout (the part that got the most adjustments, actually!).

So with that work pretty much done, there is only one logical thing for me to ramble about today: Fourth Draft!

And there is a schism here, a change of process from the first three drafts to this next one. It is probably not easy to see from the outside, but there is a massive difference between writing rules and writing games! Rules are about making sure as much of the gorund you want is covered as possible, making sure things fit together, make sense, and has a degree of balance (we are still working on the balance thing). Games are about writing something that otherscan easily understand, use and enjoy. That means that Fourth Draft will need better language,better organization, and better layout. Just saying “we need more/better rules” will not cut it!

So the writing procedure has been turned upside down, for one. The first three drafts were written as rules were needed and became possible; first the dice mechanic, then character creation, then all the other things characters might have, and onwards from there. Fourth Draft is about structure. Therefore, the first thing written for it is a complete and detailed layout of all the contents planned for it, set up in a way that seems logical and user friendly. Not surprisingly, the bulk of what is not only in Third Draft, but also what is mentioned but not finished in Third Draft, will all only be part of one section: The Rules

Originally, the core book being written was meant to have three major sections: The Game Engine and The Rules System, hence the name, GEARS: Game Engine And Rules System, and of course the Alice 2.0 setting. As things look now, a more detailed structure will benefit everyone much better, leading to five majorsections:

• The Game, describing how games can be played, how to organize sessions, what the roles and tools are for Narrators, how players tend to think, etc. Half of it is for beginners learning to handle roleplaying games without too many bad experiences, half of it is for skilled Narrators/GMs from other games wanting to get a better game going with less work. The section is about people, real people, playing roleplaying games; how they think, what they want, what they may need, etc.
• The Engine is a toolbox for the Narrator. It describes how to easily produce things from ideas, and how to get ideas when you run out. Methods, tricks and tools are delivered to quickly turn a general idea of a world, an adventure, or anything else pertaining to the game into something tangible and usable. It even goes into how these things can be set up to be shared between Narrators, to the point of how one might professionally publish them. The idea with this section is A) to ease the task of creating breathtaking campaigns, B) to kickstart a creative GEARS community, and C) to actually sow the seeds for writers who will come to write for the game! Most professional writers will already know the information in the section, and much more, but a lot of it will be news to those without publishing credits.
• The Rules, basically what is already in Third Draft, with many of the blank spots filled in. A serious rewrite is going to be done on many parts, for better phrasing.
•  The System, meanwhile is an extension of what is in The Engine and The Rules, providing a lot of different, creative uses of it all to create concepts for the game that have the complexity of ideas from The Engine, but are fully compliant with The Rules, using what already exists to create things like detailed poisons, hacking rules, character ethics/value systems, magic and divinities, and so on. This is both a collection of premade material that goes beyond the basic rules, and examples for how more can easily be made. Focus is on explaining ideas so that creative concepts can be reused and expanded on by others.
• The Settings contains both Alice 2.0 and multiple short world writeups, to get genre games going. Rules are going to be integrated into this, rather than the ruleless description of the Alice 2.0 setting included in Second Draft and Third Draft. The other, non-Alice settings will be picked to demonstrate genre and style creation and modification, giving the new Narrator a wide scope from the start, and an ample toolbox.

I will refrain from going into details about each section’s structure and subsections; that is what writing Fourth Draft is about, after all. But expect to see something much more like an actual game than a carefully crafted set of house rules next time!

Posted in Genre, Fourth Draft, Style, Design kits, Game worlds, Third Draft, Character creation, Alice, Second Draft, Magic, Narrator, Hacking, Conflict | No Comments »

9. December 2009 by admin.

Things are coming along fine, Relations are being expanded, and the rest is being filled in nicely. Nothing really to report there. So what do I use this entry for. Hmm….

Just kidding, I never really run out of things to ponder loudly on

What I want to have a go at today is a bit off the usual wagon, though. GEARS is, at its root, a roleplaying game. But in today’s world, you have to grow beyond your own little bubble, and that is the intention for GEARS, as well! Observant visitors to the (still WIP) website will already have noticed that there is a link, still inactive, that says “Software”, and even one that says “Merchandise”. These are some indications of plans for after the releases start coming! Software refers to the plans to builddigital tools for the game. The basic ones aretools for creating beautiful (or just easily assembled) sheets for characters, complex items/vehicles, game worlds and even adventures & campaigns. The point is to make the whole effort behind a game move smoother and give results that will be cheerished even outside the game. Who wouldn’t want their favorite GEARS character turned from a worn collection of scribbled papers into a neat and stylish personal file? And the opportunity to create a string of adventures easily and in nice format is not only a comfort for many Narrators, it also makes it much easier to hand the adventure to another Narrator for using! Digital assistants and easily accessed lists of, well, whatever you want, it all makes for a sweeter, cooler game…

But there is no plan to stop there, really. Today, things like Instant Messaging and forum games have become a strong force in roleplaying, and the world is apparently holding its breath in wait for Google Wave to be released, so no doubt it will be a new digital platform for traditional roleplaying games to evolve on. Games should embrace that. In fact, they should promote it and push for the exploration of it. The world is changing, and roleplaying games should be at the forefront of that change. Face it, we’re the original geeks, and we’re proud of it. No way technology gets a say without us aboard!

Merchandising is a time-honored tradition that might well be older than roleplaying games themselves! Today, there is a million and one options to take your favorite game, character or the like out of the game and into your home, your wardrobe, or your life in other ways. T-shirts and posters are the simple stuff, already in the works; figurines for painting, or even tailored outfits inspired by game worlds, now that is a challenge worth a game for the new millenium!

Of course, all this is for the game, but it is not the game itself. The rules are coming along, and soon, Alice will grow and worlds will rise up around her, and around GEARS. Digital toys and beautiful (or terifying. Or hilarious!) merchandise will follow logically from that. This is the time we have to revolutionize roleplaying, and around here, the ideas are flying, and we are always out there looking for more

Posted in Game worlds, Character creation, Narrator, Alice | No Comments »

27. November 2009 by admin.

Suddenly just writing, with no playtesters constantly responding to you and nobody to tell you you’re doing things weird, wrong, great, or too slow (common response, and positive; it means people want more!), it just seems strange. But things are moving along at a fairly impressive pace, and a lot of material on custom Abilities has been put together in record time. True, the main reason is that playtesters and -readers have bombarded me with good ideas, but I am still a bit surprised that things have not crashed around me yet (that one computer crash excepted).

I am pretty satisfied with the rules on constructing Special Powers (superpowers, magic, etc.). With a pretty streamlined system, it is now possible to design pretty much anything. The text includes three examples: A Fireball spell (two variants, and suggested insane expansions), flight, and a superpower that lets a character absorb other people for later release (yes, into his or her own body. Ick-factor not included). A Core Book Companion has already been suggested, which would include examples of this and more (both realistic and exotic Disabilities, like weird phobias or outright insanity, can already be constructed with the written Third Draft rules). Social Relations for characters has had a bit of a rough ride, and needs some consideration (it was deemed too loose, too unfocused by playtests). Gear and pets are still in very early stages, but some things from playtest show hints of a core philosophy. Monster creation is also a bit improvised, but it exists, it just needs to be more concrete and yet flexible.

What is really pushing to take the stage is the heavy-duty detail stuff. The carpet has been rolled out for it, everything is ready to do combat systems, magic, technology (I still love the Stardrive Ability example…) and more. Sketches for the systems are even done, and just waiting for detail to be filled in. Preliminary tests, it’s all there. I can’t wait to get everything in order so the full goals of immersive yet streamlined detail can be pursued full speed!

Also, the first actual considerations for reaching out beyond the immediate testers and contributors are being made. This is a big step; a friend in computer games design once told me that “there is no such thing as a real beta version, because even the test of a game has to be perfect, or people will shun it”. That scares me. Those who are testing now accept that it is an incomplete system, and even enjoy that aspect of it. To throw it to a crowd of skeptics and demanding consumers is like handing in the thesis you worked on for years to someone who looks at you and wrinkles their nose. Why did they wrinkle that nose? That is no doubt a question that will tear at me at some point in the increasingly near future…

Oh, and three settings have been established, beyond the core Alice setting: One twisted fantasy, one post-apocalyptic, one high-power deep space sci-fi. The actual details are still in the wind, but background stories and unique game world traits are looking good on the ‘drawing board’. Things to come, things to come….

Posted in Superpowers, Character creation, Third Draft, Narrator, Magic, Combat, Alice, Playtests | No Comments »

25. November 2009 by admin.

The first real round of playtesting has ended. Five different groups, three different countries. My gratitudes to you all, and looking forward to the next round, hopefully soon.

With that one adventure (a CoC/X-files-style monster rump) played by little over twenty fantastic people, under five equally fantastic Narrators (for those new to GEARS, that’s the term for GM or DM or Referee or whathaveyou being used), there is enough feedback to put me to work for the next year or so. Not that I will let it take that long, of course; there are problems needing my immediate attention, and suggestions (a lot!) that need digesting quickly, to include them before the next tests! And since the next tests will be re-blind (in that it will be roughly the same groups (hence re-) but without any influence from me at all (hence blind)), I need to get this stuff down, hard and good!

A lot of the feedback has been on suggested tools for creating content. Many games either provide little but premade content (monsters, especially), while others provide demanding systems for creating even simple content (vehicles and monsters, especially!). GEARS needs to provide a flexible system that is easy to use and can provide any content imaginable. It is a big goal to have, but with a pile of suggested ways to do it that is about knee height, there is not a lack of options

Thought has also been given a lot to the goal of ‘assisted learning’. Not to removing it; the games of today need an easy way in! But a lot of the things that were simplified during Second Draft seem to have been too much so. The rules that were considerd ‘not simple’ are apparently easier to handle than originally thought. So the GEARS Quick line will not be simplified as much as originally intended, but will simply streamline many choices, Specifics will not be included, nor will Automatic Growth, and some of the more advanced options will be toned down or removed, as well. And on the subject, the matter of Automatic Growth and low-life characters still needs attention.

In any case, there are already 6000 added words (circa 8 pages) in the Third Draft rules section. The Alice setting is still unchanged, but what is to be written there is pretty well known, since it has been used before, long before the now finished playtests. Also, Third Draft will be available as both free PDF and low-cost (circa US$6) paperback, probably at around 50 pages.

Things look good. Things look real good.

Posted in Third Draft, Monsters, GEARS Quick, Character creation, Narrator, Second Draft, Alice, Playtests | No Comments »

22. November 2009 by admin.

Caught up with a bad flu that keeps socializing to a minimum, I thought today might be a good day to finally start drawing public attention to the new GEARS website. The main page is looking fairly functional, and several pieces are fitting together nicely. It’s not a full site yet; a lot of information is missing, and some features are still a bit… wonky. But it is working and looking rather good, if I may say so!

Of course, the real reason this looks like the time to open up for the public is that GEARS Second Draft is out! 36 pages long, this draft has most of the fundamental rules included, and it even has the first look at the core/demo setting of the system, Alice 2.0, a twisted version of our own world that revolves heavily around a small girl and the city she built. Not to mention her secret ressurection facilities and the even more secret portals she launches operatives into other worlds with! GEARS Second Draftgives the first collected look under the hood of the system, even though a lot is still missing, like Disabilities, Sample Characters, advanced options, shopping lists and the whole non-rule part of the book for developing and running campaigns.

Also, the term ‘Game Master’ or ‘GM’ has been exchanged with ‘Narrator’. It’s not a new idea, it’s something that has been standard behind the scenes of the system work for years. Game Master, other ‘Masters’, Referee, and the like simply have too much of a “I am in charge, I (can) control everything, and I must control how the game progresses” sound to it. The basic function of Narrator is no different from a GM, but GEARS is meant to restrict the notion of anyone being ‘in charge’ of the game; it’s collaborative storytelling, people! The term ‘Storyteller’ went out for similar reasons, in that the person is not ‘telling a story’, but rather is narrating the world around the characters that are the main characters of a story they help writing. ‘Collaborative’, it’s a big word around here…

That about covers it. The first round of official announcements will be fairly discreet, mainly a matter of forum signatures and posting in appropriate subforums that the site is now running. Anyone wishing to spread the word is welcome to, of course. Making a big deal out of it just seems a bit premature, as a lot of folks would no doubt be disappointed to find the game only in draft stages after any kind of hype. A mor erelaxed approach will (hopefully) attract people who come out of curiousity and possible long+term interest, not people who just want a quick RPG fix. It’s a theory

And now, I will see if I can get some of these many functions of the new site working. Especially getting this blog to show a highlighted or at least very central link back to the main GEARS website… If anyone knows WordPress, I am all ears!

Posted in Narrator, Shopping, Old blog, Alice, Second Draft | 1 Comment »

21. November 2009 by admin.

Things are still slowly falling into place. Five different variants of the core rules remain in playtest, but they are constantly being adjusted in ways that make them more and more similar, so it looks like it won’t be long before the core is fully assembled. The Second Draft looks to be about 40 pages long, including various sections that make up the most important rules. Game philosophy is not included in the draft, and whether this one will have sample characters is not yet sure; the final selection of Talent Abilities is not yet in, and without them, sample characters may become too confusing (because they will change wildly between the second and third draft). Phrasing also needs attentiononce the Second Draft is finished. Currently, the text reads like an academic text trying to speak normal English, i.e. dry and with some odd expressions. It is not really reader friendly yet, nor will it be before Second Draft launches.

Beyond the core that is being carved into Second Draft, there are some interesting things floating about in test. A very advanced expansion on the combat (and by extension, conflict) system is showing good results in playability, even if it is still horribly unbalanced. It allows very unusual choices in combat, from shifting weapons and targets to outwitting opponents by observation or constant feints. It even lends itself to magical and other esoteric combat in a way not originally imagined. Yes, that means magical combat moves! The details are still rough, as magic systems are in mid-test, but there seems to be some power in the system. Adding even more yum is the fact that the advanced weapons and armor rules are turning out rather nicely. They are only barely in early playtest, but the system holds and seems fairly light, despite incredible detail. What kind of detail? Well, let’s just say that if you want cheap armor against sharp blades, metal rivets in leather provide an option. Go for the round ones, though, unless you need very light and cheap armor; the crossed rivets break easy. And remember that jagged-edge swords of the right composition can outmaneuver rivets, as can anything thrusted and pointy. And you do not wantthose jagged blades thrusted into you, either! Full design system for composition armor and custom melee weapons is in the pipeline, too.

And then there is Alice. The center setting is being outlined for a shorter-than-full version, and it is nearly done. The full setting already has a lot of material to it, but the shorter version will be packed with Second Draft, to show off some ideas. Later drafts will have textboxes with addition setting seeds, and ways to connect them to Alice, but that’s a whole different ball game right now.

Things look good. On the more distant horizon, settings are forming, and a core design book for machines(vehicles, heavy tools, doomsday devices, etc.) is on the drawing board. The first pieces of an advanced gun design system are being drawn up. And an old favorite of mine, “Reich X”, is being looked at as a very dark, insane, and possibly silly setting. Also, ideas for merchandise keep popping up, but those are still mostly for fun.

Oh yeah, and Second Draft will have an actual cover illustration. Simple, but a cover illustration nonetheless!

See ya!

Posted in Magic, Vehicles, Guns, Swords, Reich X, Armor, Machines, Alice, Combat, Weapons, Conflict, Sample characters, Second Draft, Playtests | 1 Comment »