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 »

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 »