1. January 2010 by admin.

Christmas and New Years behind us, it looks like the time to get back in the saddle. Not that things have been all that quiet; writing on Fourth Draft has been quite active, much of it being structure and phrasing. The wording of rules from Third Draft are becoming more streamlined, making them easier to read and understand, and also setting them up for a better layout. And on layout matters, a lot of decisions are being made on graphics and text setup. Fourth Draft is going to push GEARS into a more respectable look, hopefully the beginning of making it look visually professional. Content is still the One True Focus, but we are far enough along that looks are beginning to count, if nothing else then because that includes how content is arranged, visually.

But that’s all still abstract ideas and nitpicking, respectively. What has taken center stage for the last week has been the Background trait. Of all the material in existence for GEARS, Background has become one of the more controversial topics, starting out as one of the foremost innovations of the rules and then abruptly slipping into the background (no pun intended), overshadowed by such things as Specifics and Learning Abilities in terms of innovation.

What Background originally did was guide character creation along what is known as ‘life paths’ in most RPG theory. In other words, characters were created by describing the paths they had taken in life, and defining Abilities and such from that. If your character had been a mercenary mechanics, that would produce some Abilities etc., and if a character had been orphaned at age 12, that would define certain character traits. Characters were not so much items picked as lives lived.

The rules now support a ‘pick your skills’ character creation more, but the old Background material is being revised and updated. The point now is to make game worlds the vessel for life paths, allowing some choices to be only available along certain paths. This might be learning mystical martial arts, possible only with enough Background from hard travels; without a heroic journey behind it, your character cannot be taught the Ancient Arts by secluded monks. Whether due to lack of insight, not having proven oneself worthy, or in other ways failing to have done something with his or her life, a character might be barred from certain options. Even advanced military training can require the character to have a certain amount of Background in the right fields!

And issues of Background are starting to show beautiful levels of sybergy with things like races, giving a character of one race opportunities other races lack. If you are not a dwarf, there are paths in life blocked to you. Those paths may hold otherwise forbidden knowledge, or they may simply be advantageous or plain interesting in other ways. Careers, challenges, experiences, associations, connections, they can all be made to tap into Background, with astoudingly easy game mechanics. This is what Background was made for, but the way it fits into the overall flexible GEARS game system is turning out pretty impressive.

Posted in Game worlds, Layout, Background, Human Template, Races, Third Draft, Fourth Draft, Genre, Character creation | 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 »

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 »

4. December 2009 by admin.

Writing is now dealing with Technologies, for designing a game world in such detail that the advancement of individual categories of items can be felt. Maybe laser rifles are a new invention, still clunky and imprecise. Or maybe they are refined, not just horrifically precise and terribly lethal, but light enough to be snapped into pocketsized concealment modules. But none of that will happen unless non-lethal, scientific lasers (and the kind for light shows) are first invented! Pick your Technologies, pick their individual Progress, and the system does the rest.

This is just another piece in the puzzle that is the, still fairly new,  “creation kit” philosophy of GEARS! I have noted on the concept before, but I feel it is essential enough to repeat: In so far as it is at all possible, the GEARS core rulebook will contain the materials needed to construct anything. Most games have core books that deal in detail with character creation, some of them even only characters of a certain, low level. The GEARS character creation rules have proven far more compact and streamlined than originally expected, so now other aspects of the game are following. Equipment is just one example, another being the creatures mentioned in earlier entries (based on the character creation system used slightly differently), vehicles as an extension of equipment, super powers as an addition to standard Abilities, and so on. And game worlds are now getting the first kick into action. Fourth Draft might actually end up having not just a better structure, but also some design kits for campaigns and adventures!

One design kit that is still a bit up in the air (other than Relations, which, as mentioned yesterday, have run into a few problems) is races. The character creation system, supported by the still-to-be-pinned-down Human Template, will allow some strange creations, but the feel of an entire and at least somewhat unique race is still a bit murky. The exact elements of fantasy and alien races will need some examining and testing before something truly worthwhile can be included. It might end up in Fourth Draft. But it will be made.

Posted in Relations, Races, Human Template, Design kits, Game worlds, Aliens, Fourth Draft, Equipment/Gear, Superpowers, Character creation, Third Draft, Vehicles | 1 Comment »

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 »

2. December 2009 by admin.

The equipment chapter is coming along nicely, so it was time to branch out a little. Just to toy with childhood fears, I thought putting some resources into the monster section of the Creatures chapter would be a good idea. I thought it would be an easy ride; a few combat thingies, some stuff on realistic ecology. Was I ever wrong!

Games today cannot get away with the same monster-methods use din days of old. Twenty years ago, a monster was something that waited in a room or closet or chest to jump out and do damage. Rookies can get away with that today, but veterans will laugh their heads off. Monsters need unique traits, believability where it is hard to find, natural interactions with their habitats, and even relations to other monsters around! Researching monster design methods is like taking a college class on biological ecosystems, and then adding the whole magic/alien/hypertech ecologies aspect into the mix! What are the natural predators of a semi-sentien, wriggling thing the size of a human foot that feeds on fusion core radiation and breeds by dropping regrowable bodyparts? It most certainly is not a large, steam-breathing, violently defensive herbivore that uses its chameleon-like abilities to hide in shallow caves…

Ironically, this sudden overflow of information is turning out to be a force, not a problem. GEARS goes for detail, and a whole field of detail just dropped into our laps, somewhat unexpectedly. Some work needs doing, but it is worth it, and will hopefully make it not only possible to create some of the most amazing monsters ever with the system, but to create them easily. And spliced with the flexible Ability system used for characters, the tricks that a creature uses can be incorporated into sentient race concepts with laughable ease, and vice versa.

Now if you would excuse me, the fusion-feeder has nested under my sink, and I need to get the alien-repellant…!

Posted in Aliens, Races, Pets, Genre, Monsters, Combat, Third Draft, Playtests | 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 »

26. November 2009 by admin.

Still sifting through playtest feedback. It’s incredible how much players have to say about a fairly simple run through a game/adventure. Most of it is suggestions and wild ideas, thank God, and quite a lot of it looks pretty good. With yesterday’s crash almost mended (still a few Medical Abilities that are not back to their yesterday sizes), it looks like the advanced phase is ahead.

I really should explain that a bit better: The current GEARS is the core system. It is set up to provide a fully playable game, but it does not, by itself, fulfill many of the goals put forth on the main site. Most of all, it lacks the level of detail truly desired; yes, the use of Specifics makes its Abilities more nuanced than most similar skill systems, but it is a small push. The combat system does not even live up to the main comparison, GURPS, at all. The current book sets the core of the game, butthere is a whole other level of detail that is still waiting in the wing to be constructed and/or implemented.

Some of it has been put together, however. Detached tests (only scenes, not entire adventures) have been run with a vastly more detailed combat system, for one. Hacking is being researched, another of my main-interest conflict types, and magic is being given a lot of thought and several designs already. The problem is two-fold, at the moment: The advanced detail systems are not very systematic yet (you cannot easily apply the ideas of combat to other things), and the ties back to the standard core are fuzzy. The goal is to integrate the advanced detail systems so well into the game that, say, a big fight could contain characters fighting according to one system, and others fighting according to the other. After all, real fighters are the ones who need the detail, not combat rookies! And when a fight has both types in it..

The stuff already in the works deals with a broader view of damage, both in form (did the character get cut and start bleeding, break a rib, get the wind knocked out, or what?) and placement (ever wanted your character to have arms even tougher than his/her legs, or a thick skull?, armor (my favorite remains using rivet-studded armor to provide something light, flexible and cheap that can still keep the edge of a blade from cutting the flesh, even if the blunt impact of a sword still hits its mark), weapons (design and maintenance of blades, the mechanics of tips meant to shred upon removal, etc.), combat techniques (splitting a blow between opponents, aggressive defenses, etc.), monster physiologies as applied to battle, and so on. With the options for advanced Ability structures being written into Third Draft, there should already be a tentative foundation for it!

Anyway, a good system is forming, but the full goal is going to loom ahead for a little while longer. Third Draft will still be focused on the standard rules, and how much of the advanced detail rules are going to actually be put in it, as opposed to in separate books, has yet to be determined. But the core of the advanced detail systems is being constructed already, including guides and rules to producing new content material independently. Hopefully, Fourth Draft will show the first clear signs of this/these system(s) in use.

Posted in Hacking, Shopping, Third Draft, Monsters, Fourth Draft, Armor, Swords, Weapons, Combat, Conflict, Magic, Playtests | 1 Comment »

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 »