Work and My Inspirations

Hey gang!

Wow, has it been a long time or what?  Sorry about the lack of posts, I have been rotating between being busy and a total lack of creative energy so I have been erratic in getting on here.

I have been fortunate to find a couple here in town that are also gamers and this has really gotten me going again, even through the bouts of frustration.  After a couple fun, but short sessions of Rifts we decided to shift directions to playing my homebrew!  I am excited and a little nervous about finally using it but it will be worth it in the end...

This, and some conversations with some other gamer friends has got me thinking about inspiration and games.  It is a topic that I have ran through my mind several times and would be willing to bet that many of you have as well.  As a writer I will easily admit that there are many games and books that have inspired me over the years and I am positive there will be many more to come.

Of late some of my biggest influences have come from people I have learned to look up to.  Jay Libby and Joshua Kubli, both fellow game writers, have done wonders for me and my work.  They have helped me fight through anxiety attacks that have hindered my writing and given me ideas on how to evolve.  There are others, who are not writers at all, that have helped me as well.  There is of course my family but there is also my friend Rick and my new gaming group.  It is good to have a way to get ideas out..

It's funny, I know that my personal writing has been affected by countless sources... Books, Movies, Video and Roleplaying Games... hell even the Bible to a tiny point.  The thing that I think about sometimes is where does inspiration stop and copying begin?  At first my newest version of my system was little more than a knock-off of the Palladium system but it has evolved (thankfully).

Now there are still comparisons to be made to other things.  The base mechanic is similar to the 3.x rules, my magic system is reminiscent of Palladium's, and well, there are others.  I do understand that there is nothing totally new, especially in this field.  But I like to think that I am doing at least a few things differently.

Ah well, I suppose the important thing is having fun.  I enjoy my work and think that others will as well once I post it up here.  Well, hopefully anyways lol

So, what are you all up too?

The return to M&M

Hello my friends!

I hope that everything is going great for you of late and that this upcoming day of feasting is a fun one for all.

After many moons away I have made my return to the fun little OSR offshoot of Monsters & Magic.  Don't get me wrong, I never stopped like it rather I simply got involved in other things for a while.  Those of you who have read a few of my posts understand that I am a bit erratic in my projects and train of thought so me changing gears again isn't a surprise.

I have been working on writing up more of my many ideas for M&M and will be adding more posts in this vein over the next few days.

Todays offering is another of the Deities of my Espeth setting.  This god, Barag'gi, is one of the many evil gods that interfere with the lives of all the people of Espeth.  For centuries his manipulations have left an indelible mark on the work of those practicing the arcane arts.  Whenever one delves into the mystical they must wonder if they will become the tool Barag'gi.

Barag’gi: Corrupt Lord of Knowledge

Other Titles: The Silent Word, Master of Forbidden Lore

Temple Traits: Gather knowledge at all costs, Revel in using knowledge for personal gain

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Temple Weapon: Scourge

Spheres of Activity: Artifacts, Madness, Magic, Secrets,

Power: Steal Spell: Once per day the character is able steal the spell of another person and use it themselves.  The target spell must be of a level that the character can normally cast although they do not have to be able to prepare it normally.  This can be used to steal both clerical and arcane spells.

Description: A slim, pale skinned man with shining black eyes.  In his hands is a massive silver rune covered in black runes that crawl constantly across its covers.

Holy Days: Barag’gi followers celebrate the seventeenth of each year as the day when their master betrayed Xepheles and struck out on his own.

Holy Symbols: A closed tome surrounded by black thorns

Major Centers of Worship: Trepia, the Frontier, and Pythios

Worshipers: Anyone seeking forbidden information and lost secrets hold Barag’gi sacred.  The majority of his followers do so in secret due to their position as scribes and sages for important families.

Barag’gi is known as the first follower of Xepheles and the being whose influence brought about the rise of the Demon Lords.  From the earliest moment of his discovery of Espeth, Barag’gi has sought to procure, through any means necessary, all the continents hidden secrets.  It is his followers actions that have led to the led to the inherent distrust the masses have towards the arcane.

There are countless tales attributed to this god of long-lost artifacts appearing in a followers hand only to vanish again at a vital point in their schemes.  Although most folks would avoid this aspect of his worship those that are truly faithful to Barag’gi understand that the blessings of their Lord are fickle and short-termed.  For them it is enough to receive his blessing even if it will be removed at an inopportune time.  In this vein it is all too common for the devout to supply their followers with special equipment only to demand its return at the worst possible time. 

Today Barag’gi is treated with an unusual amount of trepidation and awe.  His accumulation of lost knowledge is astounding which draws followers of the arcane to him in droves, but is mercurial nature often drives away young acolytes soon after they join his ranks.  The masses fear him for his constant scheming that inevitably causes all manner of chaos across the face of Espeth.

A Multitude of Possibilbiites

Hello all,

I hope all of you are having an excellent time in your endeavors!  I am doing quite well despite a multitude of health issues going on at the moment.  I have had the chance of late to expand some of my writing horizons as well as get in some much needed gaming time here and there.

I have been doing a good job of late of keeping myself motivated and working.  Progress is always good and it has only strengthened my resolve to get my projects finished.  The work on my homebrew system/setting is moving along at a relatively steady pace.  New ides are constantly forming and there always seems to be something to add here and there.

Originally I was planning on doing several settings for this system but at the moment I am concentrating solely on a fantasy one.  Surprisingly enough I have been working on a full Game-Master 'book' of sorts for it.  I didn't think I would be including something like that but I have realized that there is a lot of info I can put into such that will aid me in fleshing out the setting and adding optional rules here and there.  Fun stuff indeed.

My Cosmology Engine project is almost done writing-wise and I have started working on some sketches for the artwork portion of the project.  The game is my homage in sense to the Palladium meta-setting Rifts although it has enough difference to be my own thing.  I imagine there are only a few more things to write down for the project then comes editing and art.  So while things are not entirely done it is creeping closer.

I am also delving into another supers-related project that I won't go into a lot of detail about until there is more hammered out behind the scenes.  This one promises to be a metric crap-load of work but is really exciting for me.  There will be more info about this coming soon!

So, on the playing tip I got to try out Fate (CORE) for the first time.  I have been interested in seeing how this game works for quite the long time.  I love narrative concepts and enjoy simple dice mechanics so this is a great combination of the two.  I have much to learn still, but for those who enjoy fast actions and create-your-own possibilities this is a natural.  The best part is that I am a player in this and I only need to have a bit of background in the game to enjoy it!  I give it a hearty thumbs up!  I am thinking about doing a full-fledged review of Fate soon, we will just have to see.

Homebrew's and Existing IP's

Hey gang!

I hope this post finds all of you in good spirits and life is treating you well!  Things here at the world headquarters for Hard Luck Ink (ie. my desk) are going well.  I have been plugging away at a number of personal projects of late and although some are slower than others there is still progress.

The main push for me at the moment is to finish the very basic 'core rules'.  My hope is that by getting a firm handle on the center of everything it will allow me to expand in a more logical manner from here on out.  The plan at the moment is to have a somewhat bare-bones starter set of mechanics to allow people to get the feel of the game.  Then, shortly after this release some small setting packets.  This has been done for a long time with existing games such as Pathfinder, the various D&D editions, and various others.

Unlike the bigger companies my plan is to go small.  Basically instead of releasing a single massive fantasy setting I will begin with one region (the frontier) and detail it.  This 'plug-in' will consist of regional species, special rules for that area (if any) and general information about what is going on in that area.  In the meantime I will also be working on some of the overall information needed elsewhere.  I feel that by trying to concentrate on one region at a time, rather than the entire book, I can get more done at once and not have to try to force myself to do everything in a hurry.

My overall plan for my system, to be named the Crusade System, is to have it be as universal as possible.  Do I mean that it will work for every single setting out there?  No, not really. What I mean is that it will be universal enough to fit all of my needs.  Thus far it seems to be working.

The first release once the core-rules are done (soon I hope) will be Crusade: Blades of Espeth; The Frontier (my fantasy setting), then I will do a primer for Crusade: Into the Darkness (my horror/monster-slaying setting)  after that there will be more for each.

I currently have copies of my base mechanics out to a couple people.  Thank you David and Nathan.  If there are any others among you who would like to help me out I would greatly appreciate it.  Just hit me up on here or via email and we can work something out!

In the interim I still have some great projects for other companies coming as well.  My world-ravaging supers-setting using the Cosmology Engine is almost done writing wise as is my Bulletproof  Blues post-apocalyptic book.  I also have a project in the works for another G-Core project.  One bit of warning those, all three of these are super-related and I am having some issues with the current state of the comic book industry and that is numbing my interest in that genre at the moment.... no worries though these WILL be finished.

Thanks as always and keep on Gaming!

Just thinking...

Hey all!

One of the things I have always tried to do with my writing is stay open to new ideas.  Over the years I have dabbled in countless different systems and those that I made myself.  What I have been wondering about is what can I do to make things easier?

Sticking to one Setting: This is a great idea but unfortunately I have concentration issues and to compound that I am constantly having new ideas for different things.

Sticking to one Genre: I have had multiple conversations with my mentors like Jay, Nathan, and Joshua about this and it is still up in the air.  I love my supers, that is a given, but I am somewhat obsessed with making a different spin on that.  Is this a bad thing?  I don't know.

I have of course narrowed it down to two genre; supers and fantasy.  I have even thought about combining the two somehow but eh... I don't know.  I have several supers ideas as is and don't want to confuse myself by creating another.

I have two sets of notes for post-apoc supers, a horror/super melange, and a dark Iron-Age setting.  I really want to finish at least two of these but sheesh is it ever taking me a long time.  I think it is good that i keep coming back to these.  It shows that I haven't stopped thinking about them but man is it frustrating at times...

So, I know I won't get many, if any, answers to this but what do you think?

A: Post Apoc supers where the world is being torn apart by the intrusion of different realities

B: A supers world tryign to survive in the face of an alien invasion

C: A dark Iron Age setting where life is cheap and the need for true heroes is on the rise

Hopefully some of you can take the time and toss me an answer or two.  I love the input of others and value your thoughts!

Thanks as always and keep on Gaming!

Espeth Update

Hey fellow gamers!

It has been a while since I have posted anything concerning my fantasy world of Espeth.  Of late I have been working on several other projects which has left me scant time for my fantasy escapades.  That changed a few days ago when I began a more concerted effort to expand both the Espeth setting as well as the home-brew system I am writing.

I have decided to make some rather drastic changes to the original setting to make it more dynamic.  The way it stands now it is rather bland so I am hoping to shake that up some.  The first place I am working on is the region known as the Frontier... You may remember its description from an earlier post but here is the beginning (only a few paragraphs mind you) of the new Frontier.

I hope you enjoy it and if you have any input by all means, let me know!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4f7m7ez0n71p3cp/Frontier%20redo.pdf

Man-Made Mythology RPG Review

Hello all.

Here we go with a new review of a new super-hero RPG...

Man-Made Mythology: A Comic Book RPG is the first offering from Critical Strike Publishing.  Designed off the venerable 3.x engine this game was made to allow the group to combine the flexibility of the OGL with the over-the-top action of the super-hero genre.  Although this idea is not entirely new it is something that this company approaches in a different manner than their colleagues.

The book begins off simply enough with the almost mandatory description of the hobby, a lexicon, and the methods for determining the characters starting Attributes.  It is in Chapter 2 that the company begins to illustrate their take on the comic-book world.  Chapter 2 begins with the racial descriptions and modifiers inherent to each of the four core races of Man-Made Mythology.

The first race presented is, of course, Humans.  After that we come to Reptiods, an alien lizard species that came to Earth millennia ago.  After that come the Synthetics which are mankind’s success at creating artificial life and finally there is the matriarchal race of warrior-women the Valkyries.  There isn’t anything especially noteworthy about the starting racial choices but they fill their roles well and give the Players several options to choose from without over-doing it.

Chapter 3 begins with detailing the procedure to generate the characters Alter-Ego.  Each Alter-Ego lists any sort of requirements that must be fulfilled as well as the Skills, Bonus Feats, and any Resource modifiers that come with that choice.  The options here range from the bookish Academic, to Emergency Services characters, to Soldiers.  The nice thing is that the choices also include things such as a Rural upbringing to flesh out the section.

In Chapter 4 the games Classes are presented.  There are 10 Classes available in the core-rules and these include enough options to make a variety of iconic characters.  This chapter also begins with the Advancement guidelines and the rules for multi-classing.  The individual Classes are presented in the familiar format found in most 3.x games so one who is familiar with them will have no problem understanding them. 

The same holds true for the next two chapters which go into detail about the games Skills and Feats.  Although there are some new ideas presented here there is nothing truly unique to those familiar with the genre or overall 3.x games.  There are some new feats presented, but these are mostly variations of existing ones that amplify the characters power usage and help further define their abilities.

It isn’t until Chapter 12 after the mandatory rules on equipment, combat, magic usage and the like that the games super-powers, known as Mythic Abilities, are explained.  There are 50 powers fleshed out in Man-Made Mythology and each comes with 10-levels of modifiers to that power.  The first mythic ability is Body Armor and while it provides basic protection it can also increase other attributes, mitigate critical hits, and provide damage reduction to the Character as they advance it.  In my opinion there could have been many more powers given here and although the ones that do exist are detailed nicely I just like my supers games to have a-lot of options when it comes to powers.

All in all I give Man-Made Mythology a 3 out of 5 rating.  Is it anything entirely new and spectacular?  No, but I feel it does a better job of emulating the genre than most of its predecessors using the 3.x engine.  I am interested in seeing what other offerings the company provides as time passes as I feel there is are a lot of options available for expansion.  Man-Made Mythology could become a very well rounded game but only time will tell.