Gno Schitt

I intend to create a portfol..  oh fuck it, read the About This Blog page on RPG Dreamscapes if you want to know what the fuck the new blog is about.

So, I was jawin' with selbonaut recently about what to spend my lunch hour doing for the next couple months and the conversation bounced randomly between movies, reading, audio books and anime.  Not all of that was on topic obviously as my lunch hour consists of the same time restrictions as most lunch hours do. I'm making the point to say how happy I am to have people with my likes and interests with whom I can bounce this stuff off of and get quality feedback from people I trust.  Mostly. Ish ok?

This is a call to stop hiding your secret geek joys.  Yes, this request is completely self serving, as my session of "share your favorite geek culture" with selbonaut has given me a much reveled in first hit.  I know after a few short weeks, I'm going to be jonesin'.  And while I respect your opinions, I want to make it clear that a list of favorites won't stand up.  I ain't no sheep.  And I doubt that you, yourself, are willing to use up your quality free time without a good reason.  So, with that in mind, I'm hoping people will share recent experiences they have had with tech, shows, anime, comics, books etc and explain to me that my life will be worse without sharing in them.

This post also serves a secondary purpose of attempting to revive this blog, with an additional tertiary purpose of giving me another access point to the life of my good friend djaii.  Anyone with similar interests and purpose, please apply.

So I was cruising GameTrailers over my lunch hour and with about 5 minutes left I wanted to point out something and was hoping for some feedback.  http://www.gametrailers.com/next-gen-showdown/specs

Now, maybe I'm an idiot and/or a year and a half without following computer components makes me completely out of touch, or the PS4 has better hardware and zero need for a paid subscription to its online service for 100 dollars less.  Does this not make zero sense to everyone?

Anyway, the point is moot at the moment for me as I know at least two of my people have already pre-ordered/own a Xbone and I have no moniez that I can invest in my entertainment at this time.  But still, I find myself needing to know what the reason behind this is.  Can anyone assist me?  And also, damn I wish I hadn't watched Assassin's Creed 4's review.  Now, and extremely unexpectedly, I want to do AC again. Ah well.  Anyways, side note; kinda interested to see Metal Gear on Xbox.  When did that happen?

Also found a fun little 5 episode series called I Love Last Gen.  The first episode was great at putting the new gen stuff into perspective and covers some of the best highlights (good and bad) of last gen.

Alas, I can 100 percent no longer...

After Iron Man was released in 2008, I was super impressed with the look and feel of the suits heads up display when Tony was wearing the armor. It was even nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Achievement in Visual Effects although it did not win. I kept thinking through the film (and its sequel in 2010) now this production technique has got it right.

That same level of 'completely nailed it' is exactly how the animated television series (herein called A:EMH) feels. What I find really intriguing is that A:EMH was released before Joss Whedon's smash hit feature film for the Avengers and even though it does not follow the same chronology or universe (which is fine, I like that they each stand alone) there are very similar stylistic elements shared between the two (the most obvious being the previously mentioned HUD for Tony when in the armor, but the touches are numerous).

A:EMH currently has two seasons and they are both fantastic. The show excels at bringing the entire cast to life without dwelling for too long on one specific character (a problem with the Ultimate Avenger's films released in 2006). Those films are okay, but pale in comparison to this new serial. In A:EMH you get to see a ton of classic characters through both seasons and see some really interesting stuff not attempted in prior incarnations.


I'm particularly fond of the appearances by Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Fantastic Four (and Doctor Doom along with, of course) and Beta Ray Bill. There are also some great villain appearances but I won't spoil those for you.

If any two of the following are true for you:
* I like the Avengers
* I like high quality animation
* I like super-hero themes
* I like Iron Man
* I'm secretly a super villain and have plans to rule the world

... then you should definitely check this show out. Both seasons are available through NetFlix (even the paltry Canadian one, which is what I use). You won't have a single Ant-Man sized iota of regret.

An interesting problem has emerged for me recently with the ongoing nerd-raging controversy over D&D Next. Last year I made a commitment to myself to finish writing some formal gaming materials and look to getting them published (or at least made electronically available through DriveThru). Over the winter I tried to keep up with the D&D Next playtest packs, running a few sessions, thinking that the obvious choice would be to write my game materials for the upcoming release of WotC's new version, but feedback from several players and commentary across the Internet makes me feel like that isn't as automatic a choice as it first seemed.

To throw fuel on the flame of my confusion, I started running a 1st edition AD&D game this April (mostly due to the immense sense of nostalgia the arrival of my reprints from Amazon evoked from me), and I was shocked to discover the large community of support that still exists around the original juggernaut. OSRIC, Lamentations of the Flame Princess (which loftily claims old-school games are: "vibrant and alive and continue to provide true gaming excitement") and many others that reach even further back to "basic" D&D such as Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, etc... are still widely played with supplements and settings still seeing release and moderate success in the market.

So, while preparing to draft a manuscript with an eye for release, a terrible question about what version would provide the most traction crept into my mind, took hold and would not let go. In today's market and diverse gaming landscape, I see two factors which must be carefully weighed to determine the correct system to draft a manuscript against:
1) Which game system best captures the specific flavour that I'm after?
2) Which community would be most receptive to the world/concept to ensure it's success?

Focusing too much on system/version will yield a well written properly impedance matched game + world that no community is interested in. By placing too much concern on the search for the right community to release for, I will certainly face mechanical headaches and low acceptance of new rules/design during writing and increased work to make the concept match the system.

I believe these are the options, with their respective strengths and weaknesses:

D&D Next (5.0)
Stick with designing for D&D Next. This means that I'll have the easiest mechanical implementation using a new, slick, version of D&D that advertises that it will be modular enough to accommodate a number of different campaign styles. There is also something very attractive about being on the leading edge of THE premier gaming system. The problem, is that the initial community response is pretty mixed which might mean that my milieu will not reach the right target audience. I'm also not certain that the current generation of gamers who are going to be buying all of the 'next stuff are going to be looking for the slightly more serious, horror inspired elements of my world concept. Also, since I'm not running anymore playtests for this edition (mainly because my players didn't really dig it, also a bad sign) I'm not super confident in creating something with this set of rules as its foundation.

SRD (3.915)
Using the OGL v 1.0a, draft the entire game as a standalone gaming product, much like Iron Heroes (which formed a large part of the basis for the setting, which would make re-writing easier). For better or worse 3rd edition games are still the most prolific out there, mainly because of Paizo's Pathfinder, but also because many smaller (or entirely independent) shops continue to use the system to create great games. From a mechanical standpoint I think this would be a good option but the OGL has created a very crowded market and getting my game seen and/or heard in this space may be next to impossible even though there are probably many players and DMs who know the general mechanics and would enjoy it.

AD&D / OSRIC (1.5)
The last good option is to go back to AD&D as Gary wrote it, take the best parts of it and move it forward using my world-concept and release it as an adaptation for AD&D 1st edition (which would also make it compatible with all OSRIC materials). The community of players still using this game system are typically the mature type who I think would find my horror-fantasy world most enjoyable. The problems here would be purely mechanical, as so much would have to be tweaked to get the gritty emerging magic flavour correct. This presents another potential problem: many (some?) OSRIC gamers do NOT like the appearance of more modern game concepts in a tweaked version of their sacred cow. I witnessed this first hand with my Revised 1st Edition Fighter write up (and the only response I received).

I haven't quite come to a conclusion yet about system support but it may not be a pressing concern since there is so much other material to assemble when writing a game-world. I'm currently just putting finishing touches on maps and major (human) societies of the world and adding the rich details to the world's backstory for why things are so horrific. That will keep me busy for a while yet while I continue to weigh the options here. I would happily receive any input or thoughts you might have about this predicament or how you have approached this in your own designs.

What's in a name?

As my Iron Heroes game continued to expand into a long running full fledged campaign (3 years now) I was occasionally inclined to invent new areas fairly spontaneously. I would sometimes scan my library of resources and pull something off the shelf and tweak it a little or inclusion. Also I would be influenced by cool things that had recently crossed my path. This created a problem - names of things, people and places in this world I had created were drawn from other game designers source material.

It started with my decision to have magic reborn into the world, and I selected Arcana Unearthed for this. Inside it had a few non-human races which I thought I would modify slightly and implement, thus my world had Sibeccai (and later Mojh, although mine work slightly differently). I've also subsequently imported the various kinds of Faen, although they are simply called faeries in Anthemios.

This continued... I have a city called Port Melnibone and an island nation called Pan Tang. Also a Witch King named Zhengyi, which I now recall comes from an old AD&D module series called The Bloodstone Wars. It's been 20+ years since I played that module series and it still stuck with me and got re-used.

As I continue to formalize the setting - and look at what system to implement the game with - I'm forced to decide how to proceed here. Should I start renaming places, race and people to remove these references or should I leave them in place for the most part? I'm not sure how seriously I want to pursue publishing yet, but if I did want to I would almost certainly have to remove these references.. or would I?

I recently decided that I would formalize my d20 FRPG setting with an eye toward using the up and coming D&D Next (5th edition) rule set. I had always thought that the first steps would involve codification of the races, classes or organization of skills and feats. Instead I found myself interested in reviewing what I had written for cultural notes, languages and race histories.

My setting currently consists of a main continent area with some interesting areas to the west and an Australia like continent to the south. There is a dominant Human strain on the main continent and two smaller sub-groups. One of those sub-groups, a culture in the north east has a separate faction that split away from them centuries ago, and relocated to the mountainous island chain along the west edge of my Australia-like land mass.

This created some great opportunities to have similar languages that had evolved separately with different pressures and influences. As I sprinkled ruins throughout both land masses, I also realized what ancient languages would exist and as I developed the arcane back story it became obvious what mystic languages would have to exist. From here, I was able to extrapolate what supernatural creatures and alternative (aka "demi" human) races might exist in the world using bits from the source books I had selected during the campaigns nascent stages for inspiration.

About those sources of inspiration; an interesting problem has emerged... As I said, I'm committed to making an attempt to formalize the setting, maybe in preparation for presentation to a game shop or an independent publishing run. Unfortunately I've used some tropes, races, magic styles and other articles of interest from many different source books: Iron Heroes, Arcana Unearthed, d20 Call of Cthulhu, the Conan Role-Playing Game, Oriental Adventures and of course the d20 3.5 SRD which is freely available online. All of this has been mixed, stirred and kneaded into something of my own, but the inspirations are plainly visible.

How to approach getting permission to use the ideas and frankly, the names of those things that I added to my world? I guess the first step is to finish the outline and then fire off a few emails to the right people at Malhavoc Press ;) So, I'll keep poking away at my campaign setting, called "Anthemios" and it's main city-state: Akkadar.

Stay tuned.

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