3. April 2010 by admin.

The silence since last entry is due to me having been abroad. The upcoming blind playtest is still being arranged, since it is, as mentioned, becoming harder and harder to find new players completely inexperienced with GEARS; we are running out of blind testers. But things are moving in the right direction, so it is mainly a matter of time now.

Posted in Playtests | 1 Comment »

10. March 2010 by admin.

Sorry for the silence, but efforts right now are on setting up the first full Fourth Draft playtests, and we are running out of people with no prior experience with GEARS. So that’s what I’ll be dealing with for some time. Expect a period of low posting volume until that gets settled

Posted in Fourth Draft, Playtests | 1 Comment »

9. February 2010 by admin.

Writing is progressing. It’s in the tough parts now, the things that need work and the things that need serious thought. GEARS in its entirety has been the product of intense work, but what is being done now is not just the structure of the game, but all the scaffolding that holds it together; it’s what will take GEARS from a detailed idea and turn it into an actual game. The plan is that, because this takes longer than the previous draft work, parts will be posted before the full Fourth Draft is put together. Changes in wording and outline are making the game mechanics far easier to understand and use, and small pieces are fitting so nicely they are opening up whole new realms of possibilities (I am looking at you, ‘character aspects’!). So even though everything is chaos, layout-wise, there is gold in this mine, if I may be so self-indulgent! And since the second major round of playtest is being put together now, along with the first serious (but still limited) push into public spotlight, things are looking mighty heavy for the coming weeks!

For the time being, here is the cover designed for Fourth Draft. As in the previous two covers (First Draft had no cover), the theme is “Work In Progress”, but the very simplistic logo-and-textlayout is now being transformed into something a little more interesting. Of course, clearly still WIP!

Posted in First Draft, Dice Mechanics, Layout, Fourth Draft, Character creation, Playtests | 1 Comment »

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 »

6. January 2010 by admin.

Writing on Fourth Draft is furious. Much of it is the long promissed ‘design kits’, most of that being streamlining of things transfered from old TAYDS material and notes made from playtests since that was written, methods for creating adventures and running games, for designing worlds and handling players, and of course the question of what kind of Narrator you want to be.

I don’t mind that. I like updating my old work to match new experiences and concepts within RPGs developed since. But I find it difficult to adjust to one aspect of this writing: No rules! The guides are just that, guides. They contain no character trait explanations, no simulation of game world realities, no streamlined dice use, and it just feels… weird.

Now, I grew up with roleplaying games being mostly a book of rules on everything from battlemaps to race bonuses. I love creating adventures and worlds, and I love teaching others how to do so. What actually pains me is that I am currently putting a lot of effort into teaching others how to create, and it is like talking about surfing or painting; it makes you want to actually do it! I have not had the amount of creative urges I have right now in a long time, ideas just swelling up inside me, wanting to be transformed into creative works. It does not matter if those ideas are on how to cleverly represent some twisted aspect of a literary reality, or if it is the invention of a new civilization for a game world, I just feel a lust to create.

For now, I take constant notes while writing the guides. I jot down ideas, questions, stray thoughts and anything else that comes to mind and wants to get out. The guides are doing their job, making me think and create, but they also need to be written themselves. I can only imagine the things ready to burst from my skull when all the guides are done… and that’s just the basic versions for Fourth Draft; there is plenty more in the pipeline for Fifth Draft!

Maybe that’s also why there have been fewer posts on this blog; I want to get the guides done, and writing here is time I could spend on that

Posted in Design kits, Game worlds, Fifth Draft, TAYDS, Races, Narrator, Fourth Draft, Playtests | No Comments »

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 »

15. December 2009 by admin.

I’ve been a little quiet, but there is a reason: Third Draft is just around the corner, now! In fact, I am sitting with a rather complicated document file, and some of the complications are based in something that has not yet been discussed: Layout!

Producing a roleplaying gam, even just a single book thereof, is a very different experience than, say, writing a novel, or even a thesis. Or a novel about a thesis (or vice versa)! Of all things I know, RPG books are the only ones to combine streamlined scientific/mathematical systems, storytelling, description, illustration and creative layout in such an impressive way. Even poorly produced books tend to be an easy match for many scientific textbooks in layout!

The best example of layout I can put forth at this moment is the game that everybody seems to be talking about these days: Eclipse Phase.  It is an impressive mix of vignette flash fiction, explanation / expansion boxes, and pure artistry in not just the illustrations but the text backgrounds etc.! Just flipping through it made me push layout a few nudges up the time schedule for GEARS. There is no intention of copying the EP style, but it is inspiring to see a game made that well, in terms of production value!

The first layout tests are going to be horribly simple, however. Creative page numbers, some simple text background, a pretty and comprehensible setup, that’s about it. But it is the beginning of an aspect of RPG publishing thinking that can now be explored more in GEARS, and with a bit of luck, Fourth Draft will start to show what can be done with a game and its appearance: Ease of use, easy on the eyes!

And now, to get the last pieces in place for Third Draft to be made official!

Posted in Fourth Draft, Third Draft, Playtests | No Comments »

11. December 2009 by admin.

… needed on several accounts, it seems!

The site was down Dec. 10 due to a miscommunication with our new provider. It’s up and running again, though, nothing lost. We do not expect it to happen again.

The other kind of organization is Organizations, large structured groups that characters in a game may be involved with somehow. They may be allies, enemies, bystanders, victims, interests, power factions, or anything else one might imagine them for. And I want creation tools for them, just like we have for characters, equipment and exotic powers! Why? Because with such a system in place, it becomes possible to distribute fully designed Organizations for game worlds and adventures, or modular ones that can be assembled for any campaign. Like a collection of monsters or a set of premade characters for use in adventures (as people encountered by player characters, presumably), such Organization collections would allow immensely detailed game worlds to be set up in minutes.

But also, because proper structure allows quicker and more versatile use in adventures! If an Organization is described well, and there are meaningful rules and guidelines in place, the Narrator can quickly assess what it means when the characters blow up a secret lab, recruits a key expert, affects a vital operation, etc. It makes the Organization a vibrant, dynamic part of the adventure, instead of some nebulous background explanation for where the ninjas come from!

Sadly, the Organiation rules that were ready were made for the Relations rules that were voted out as ‘bland’ during playtest. The new Relation rules are much, much better, thanks to extensive player feedback, but they do not fit into the old Organization rules. So they need rewriting! When they are done, players can deliberately assess how to cripple giant Organizations by cutting out vital operations, they can build and recruit their own, they can join up, infiltrate, sabotage, have dramatic stand-offs with and generally have fun with Organizations, from the local mercenary outfit to the intergalactic alien religion or the secret conspiracy of the Elves! I have an old character, made for a different game, in which house rules were used to design an agent who could call in orbital strikes, if and when he could explain why the act would be absolutely vital to his Organization. Of course, they more or less owned him in return, but tense situations are where adventures are born! I want characters like that to be modelled with the basic rules in GEARS; the advanced rules will take it much, much further…

Posted in Aliens, Relations, Design kits, Game worlds, Dammit!, Monsters, Equipment/Gear, Narrator, Superpowers, Character creation, Playtests | No Comments »

7. December 2009 by admin.

Though it is still in very early testing, there seems to be a solution to the problem sorrounding Relations. If it works, characters will be able to have friends and enemies, connections and rivals, pets and stalkers, and all sorts of people, creatures and more exotic beings surrounding them, as part of who the character is at the very first character creation! The goal is not just to make a quick rule for attaching others to the character, but to make a core concept, sleak, streamlined and versatile, that can make characters a part of a vibrant world instead of forcing them into the role of ‘lone stranger’ again and again.

It has not yet been expanded into a platform for the Organizations rules, which are meant to provide complex organizations (duh) in the game world, created as richky as characters and acting as actual, integrated parts of a campaign, should the Narrator want it. Once the new Relations rules grow to that point, players can create corporate representatives with access to their employer’s trillions worth of resources (on company jobs, that is!), or infiltrator agents able to call down orbital strikes on picked targets in the fight for freedom or oppression. They can even take down monolithic enemies facility by facility, and their encounters with that enemy will bear the mark ofevery little victory… or failure!

It should be clear by now that I am very excited about this. The toss of the old Relations rules was probably the best thing to come from playtesting, because the new ones make better sense, offer more options and customization, and are generally just cool. You can have powerful allies who will trust you with advanced technology and sniper support, but who will abandon you the minute they see significant consequences of their involvement. Or you can have die-hard friends, who will fight to the death for you, even if all they have is a gun and a prayer. You can base a Relation on fear, or you can hire your muscle for cash alone. And those nasty people looking for you, well, it’s called Determination, and for a simple game stat, it will mean the world for you when your ancient nemesis stands on the other side of certain destruction and has to decide if you’re worth the risk…

I’m getting all giddy

Posted in Character creation, Pets, Relations, Game worlds, Narrator, Wealth, Weapons, Vehicles, Teams, Cash, Playtests | No Comments »

3. December 2009 by admin.

Progress has slowed a bit. Both the Creatures and the Equipment chapters are coming along nicely, and now it is a matter of getting the material written in a meaningful form. The big problem, as things stand, is Relations.

A Relation is someone that a character has some kind of connection with, for better or worse: A contact, an old friend, a boss, an enemy, an annoyance, basically any kind of other character that is somehow connected. Incorporating Relations into a character means creating social circumstances, someone who thecharacter has a history with. The idea being that they can help or harass the character in many myriad ways.

During playtests, a fairly clear message was given about the rules surrounding Relations: Bland and unclear. The system used built on that presented briefly in the old TAYDS, which was basically to turn a Relation into another form of Ability, with a Difficulty based on what a friend was called in to do (or, as a Disability, what the character him/herself could be called upon to do, or might experience an enemy doing to him or her). This is clearly not enough, and other venues are now being examined. But the concept is proving hard to emulate without going into a lot of needless detail, or ending up with something highly unbalanced (mighty friends doing everything for almost no point cost to the character).

To make matters worse, the Relations rules (which also include group relations, like having rank or reputation) play a role in the creature chapter, too, in that a variant of them was planned to be used for animal companions. So right now, there is a hole in the rules that needs to be plugged. Hopes are that it will, soon, and that Third Draft will not be delayed notably by it. But failing that, Relations may be put on the backburner until Fourth Draft, even if that was meant to be for structural work only… Time will tell…

Posted in Pets, Relations, TAYDS, Fourth Draft, Third Draft, Reputations, Disabilities, Playtests | No Comments »