Shaun and I sat down with the Dresden Files playtest material last night. It’s good. The fans of Dresden will be pleased for sure. It seems like every supernatural goodie ever mentioned in the books is present, in some way, in the RPG. Even if it’s just a couple paragraphs, it’s in there. Shit, even the Jade Court gets a plug.

The game has a variable power level, which is one of the things I dig about Fate. And, it’s not that fake sort of variation present in other generic systems. The power scale is inherent to the system. Almost every variable exists on the same “ladder.”

Desert Swords is finished and edited. I will finish formatting this week and post a link in the new store page.

Arcology is a big project, and I can’t commit the time it needs. I am considering whether to include extensive setting information, like Don’t Rest Your Head, or have setting creation be part of the game. I am leaning toward detailed setting. I like setting.

March of the Blood Ogres is a new science fiction game about an alien invasion. I had an urge to run Dogs in 9/12, then decided that I want to create a whole new system. There isn’t enough good science fiction out there, and Blood Ogres will be one step toward remedy.

Before the Crash, the Arcology was populated by the socioeconomic elite. Only the richest people in the nation could afford to live there. They were elitist and literally looked down on the people outside. Then the Crash came. The world outside the Arcology saw massive environmental, economic and political failure. Millions died. The survivors appealed to Arcology administration to provide them refuge. The administration caved. They allowed the outsiders to enter the Arcology and stay indefinitely. The Arcology citizens were outraged, but didn’t have the experience or knowledge to undo the administration’s decision. They sent letters of complaint and wore anti-refugee badges. Violence erupted occasionally at first, but the frequency increased over time. The administration formed a bi-partisan peacekeeping organization composed of citizens and refugees. They acted as police, detectives and emergency personnel.

The player-characters are members of the peacekeeping organization. Each player identifies her character with either the citizens or the refugees. The characters must reconcile their personal alignment with their peacekeeper’s code.

I made the switch. I no longer have Windows, in any variation, on any of my computers. I am running Hardy Heron on both my desktop and my notebook, and it looks like I am keeping that way. However, I will be installing Office 07. That program is the one thing Microsoft has done right in the past 5 years. It’s as if the people working on Office should have told the Vista people “ur doin it wrong.”

Before Office 07 was released, Open Office Writer was my word processor of choice. Writer looked like and behaved like Word. 07 upped the game. Aside from the live design and gorgeous new typefaces, 07 doesn’t functionally do anything that it’s previous versions didn’t. The UI gives the user easy access to the programs features. It doesn’t bury it all in layers of menus.

Installing Ubuntu was painless. Headache-free. Windows installs are long, laborious tasks. I spend most of the time reinstalling basic utility programs; like a media player that actually plays media, winrar, and firefox (with all the add-ons I need). Not to mention searching for up-to-date drivers. Ubuntu pretty much does everything on its own. I still have a sound problem, though. For some reason, it’s not recognizing my notebook’s front audio jacks.

Everything is coming together nicely. All the pieces of my computer are basically getting along with each other. The star-up was painless, and any trouble can easily be remidied with a quick check of the Ubuntu forums.

These are virtues I want in TROUTRAIN games. Easy to pick up and run. All the rules are on the page, ready to be played. A forum for players to share their game experience.

they just should

The first draft of Desert Swords is with the playtest group right now. So far, so good. When I get their feedback, I will write a new draft (with careful attention to copy editing). I imagine a PDF will run 5 USD. I don’t know yet where I will be selling it. Might just throw up a paypal link on the Desert Swords page. (When the Desert Swords pages is finished and up…haven’t gotten that far yet.)

I thought I might have Desert Swords finished by the end of this week, but it’s looking shakey. I can’t stop the flow of ideas! Must learn to edit. But whatevs, it’s a draft specifically for a playtest group that responded well to birdknife.

I’m seven pages deep into the first draft of Desert Swords. It used to be a setting in birdknife, but now it’s its own game. It runs on an engine similar to birdknife, but with a few changes based on feedback.

From the World of Darkness rulebook:

The triumphs and tragedies of your character as they try to survive and even thrive in the World of Darkness are the main focus, not dice rolls or lists of traits.

The next 200 pages of the book are devoted to traits and dice mechanics. Earlier in that same paragraph:

In this type of game, the traditional elements of a story—theme, mood, plot and character—are more important than the rules themselves.

Reading the World of Darkness rulebook reminds me of marketing doubletalk. The marketer uses what are essentially lies to sell a product to its target audience. WoD purports to be a game of stylish horror, in which telling the story is more important than the rules. Yet, 90 percent of the book is devoted to non-story dice mechanics.

White Wolf, you have delicious intellectual properties and gorgeous books. Just stop trying to be something you are not.

Ninja were not supernatural, just unorthodox. The samurai couldn’t wrap their heads around ninja fighting techniques. The samurai got owned so hard, they had to make up fantastic excuses.