So I am publishing this post (as I did my last) directly from the google toolbar with the aid of the Blogthis! feature.
And this has prompted me to take this moment to say that the google toolbar might be the best damn thing I ever bought.
And since the price was NOTHING that makes the price-value ratio infinity.
Seriously, it can search from any web page (I do so much research for my modern stuff that google used to be my home page so I could constantly go back to it with one click), it blocks popup ads *and* now I can blog from anywhere.
Here's to google, for being cool as hell and crushing yahoo search like a grape.
Chuck
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Passing the torch
Well, the revolution began today.
As BNG II picks up steam, some big changes were called for.
All the original Blood and Guts products (and its a lot... 3 major source books, 2 Modern Dispatch articles) were deactivated as individual items and placed in a discounted bundle.
In a way this is bittersweet, and in a way I feel like a guy who just said "I do".
In other words... I have officially crossed the rubicon. I can't go back on this whole "second edition" idea.
On a related note, I added some flavor text to the first book of BNG II that is the first step in bringing an idea to light that has been floating around in my head for a year or more: Blood Blizzard, a campaign sourcebook for Blood and Guts. This idea will serve as the unifying theme in all the BNG II flavor text, so I hope you like it.
I pitched the idea quite awhile ago and was told (more or less) that it was "too ambitious".
However, I think the time is right for it, and if I can make my case for it you will get to see more about the worst winter in human history than some flavor text.
Here's to snow and lots of it.
Chuck
As BNG II picks up steam, some big changes were called for.
All the original Blood and Guts products (and its a lot... 3 major source books, 2 Modern Dispatch articles) were deactivated as individual items and placed in a discounted bundle.
In a way this is bittersweet, and in a way I feel like a guy who just said "I do".
In other words... I have officially crossed the rubicon. I can't go back on this whole "second edition" idea.
On a related note, I added some flavor text to the first book of BNG II that is the first step in bringing an idea to light that has been floating around in my head for a year or more: Blood Blizzard, a campaign sourcebook for Blood and Guts. This idea will serve as the unifying theme in all the BNG II flavor text, so I hope you like it.
I pitched the idea quite awhile ago and was told (more or less) that it was "too ambitious".
However, I think the time is right for it, and if I can make my case for it you will get to see more about the worst winter in human history than some flavor text.
Here's to snow and lots of it.
Chuck
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Reinventing the wheel
I love making new rules.
Feats, skills, classes... mmmmm crunchy. Although I have accepted the will of the masses that new skills are bad! Bad game designer! You will always find plenty of the rest in any book with my name on it.
I see the occasional rant online by folks who want less of this sort of thing, or even none. Several popular books have been done advertising themselves as containing NO crunch *shudder*.
Before this turns into a crunch v. cream debate (and before I get hungry), let me say that I would never buy a book that contains no crunch and you can also take that statement as a pledge that I'd never write one (yeah, I'm one of those selfish bastard writers who writes the books he'd like to buy).
I know plenty of people think any monkey can write crunch and the real test of a writer comes in his setting material.
Maybe, but I still don't want it.
I don't GM to live someone ELSE'S vision. Certainly not some game designer. RE Howard maybe. But when I GM I play in my own world.
And for a long time that world has included crunch of my own design. From the klingon-esque High Orcs of my beloved home brew fantasy to junking the alignment and spell slot system for Legends of Excalibur, I have always wanted to open the hood... throw out the parts I don't want, and see if I cant make this baby go any faster.
Chuck
Feats, skills, classes... mmmmm crunchy. Although I have accepted the will of the masses that new skills are bad! Bad game designer! You will always find plenty of the rest in any book with my name on it.
I see the occasional rant online by folks who want less of this sort of thing, or even none. Several popular books have been done advertising themselves as containing NO crunch *shudder*.
Before this turns into a crunch v. cream debate (and before I get hungry), let me say that I would never buy a book that contains no crunch and you can also take that statement as a pledge that I'd never write one (yeah, I'm one of those selfish bastard writers who writes the books he'd like to buy).
I know plenty of people think any monkey can write crunch and the real test of a writer comes in his setting material.
Maybe, but I still don't want it.
I don't GM to live someone ELSE'S vision. Certainly not some game designer. RE Howard maybe. But when I GM I play in my own world.
And for a long time that world has included crunch of my own design. From the klingon-esque High Orcs of my beloved home brew fantasy to junking the alignment and spell slot system for Legends of Excalibur, I have always wanted to open the hood... throw out the parts I don't want, and see if I cant make this baby go any faster.
Chuck
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
You should never go grocery shopping when you're really hungry...
This is one of those old sayings.
You know, like don't mix beer and wine. EVER.
Maybe I need to make a new maxim for role playing design: "Don't design a game when you're having a nostalgia jones".
See, when I designed Blood and Guts, I was on a serious nostalgia jones. Remember those old Danger International and GURPs special ops campaigns I mentioned? While running those, I always thought about how cool it would be to do it under a class based system.
I thought about what a cool campaign it would be to run a Special Forces unit with each specialty represented by its own class: Special Forces Medical Sergeant, Special Forces Engineering Sergeant, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant and Special Forces Communications Sergeant.
It really had a vibe that I liked, like when you were running D&D out of the old red box and you have a Fighter, a Mage, a Cleric and a Thief.
So when I started work on Blood and Guts, despite the fact that the broad range, infinitely adaptable model of Blood and Fists was being very well received, I decided to do something old school.
It would have a ton of classes. Each of them very specific.
Over time, I started to realize that wasn't as good a model as what I had done in Blood and Fists. But hell, the book was already out, it was selling well, and people seemed to like it.
So screw it.
Except that, as time goes on, your first inclinations of a design problem seem to grow on you. Doing a book about terrorists required its own classes. That was ok from an old school point of view- bad guy specific classes have a certain vibe. They make the players a little uncertain.
However, when I realized each military from around the world would need its own book, and actually assisted Fraser in the making of one (In Her Majesty's Service), I realized that I didn't care for that. I wanted something more flexible.
But again, the book was out. Nothing I could do then.
However, there came a day, a day like no other... oops sorry that's the Avengers isn't it.
I was talking to the boss one day, and he mentioned a Blood and Guts hardcover would be cool, a compilation of all the books we had done, big and small.
And of course a rules revision.
So I asked him... what would you think about an actual, honest to god new edition, done the way I'd do it if I were starting from scratch?
Perhaps not surprisingly, he liked that idea. I was asked to come up with an outline and then we would revisit the topic.
So one outline later, and we had something both Chris and I thought was a winner. A longer product. More ambitious in many ways. Able to handle militaries of various cultures and times with relative ease.
Yet despite the fact that the book was longer, the individual PDFs would be shorter. This would leave me more time to attend to my growing list of responsibilities like the Modern Dispatch adventure ezine and the promised adventures for Legends of the Samurai (mmm I can't wait to get started on those).
So, having just wrapped the first draft, a process of more than a year's worth of thought and playtesting is finally going to come to fruition, Blood and Guts II. Or more appropriately, Blood and Guts 2nd edition.
I really hope you guys *like* what I've come up and look forward to hearing your thoughts on it as you see it, read it and run it.
Chuck
You know, like don't mix beer and wine. EVER.
Maybe I need to make a new maxim for role playing design: "Don't design a game when you're having a nostalgia jones".
See, when I designed Blood and Guts, I was on a serious nostalgia jones. Remember those old Danger International and GURPs special ops campaigns I mentioned? While running those, I always thought about how cool it would be to do it under a class based system.
I thought about what a cool campaign it would be to run a Special Forces unit with each specialty represented by its own class: Special Forces Medical Sergeant, Special Forces Engineering Sergeant, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant and Special Forces Communications Sergeant.
It really had a vibe that I liked, like when you were running D&D out of the old red box and you have a Fighter, a Mage, a Cleric and a Thief.
So when I started work on Blood and Guts, despite the fact that the broad range, infinitely adaptable model of Blood and Fists was being very well received, I decided to do something old school.
It would have a ton of classes. Each of them very specific.
Over time, I started to realize that wasn't as good a model as what I had done in Blood and Fists. But hell, the book was already out, it was selling well, and people seemed to like it.
So screw it.
Except that, as time goes on, your first inclinations of a design problem seem to grow on you. Doing a book about terrorists required its own classes. That was ok from an old school point of view- bad guy specific classes have a certain vibe. They make the players a little uncertain.
However, when I realized each military from around the world would need its own book, and actually assisted Fraser in the making of one (In Her Majesty's Service), I realized that I didn't care for that. I wanted something more flexible.
But again, the book was out. Nothing I could do then.
However, there came a day, a day like no other... oops sorry that's the Avengers isn't it.
I was talking to the boss one day, and he mentioned a Blood and Guts hardcover would be cool, a compilation of all the books we had done, big and small.
And of course a rules revision.
So I asked him... what would you think about an actual, honest to god new edition, done the way I'd do it if I were starting from scratch?
Perhaps not surprisingly, he liked that idea. I was asked to come up with an outline and then we would revisit the topic.
So one outline later, and we had something both Chris and I thought was a winner. A longer product. More ambitious in many ways. Able to handle militaries of various cultures and times with relative ease.
Yet despite the fact that the book was longer, the individual PDFs would be shorter. This would leave me more time to attend to my growing list of responsibilities like the Modern Dispatch adventure ezine and the promised adventures for Legends of the Samurai (mmm I can't wait to get started on those).
So, having just wrapped the first draft, a process of more than a year's worth of thought and playtesting is finally going to come to fruition, Blood and Guts II. Or more appropriately, Blood and Guts 2nd edition.
I really hope you guys *like* what I've come up and look forward to hearing your thoughts on it as you see it, read it and run it.
Chuck
Quick Hits
Ever wonder what games designers run when they're sick of playtesting their own stuff?
Glad you asked!
Looking to my near-left (bigass gaming pile #1) I see:
M&M
I reallllllllly wanted to hate this game. Hell I wrote a game that directly competes with it (I use that term very loosely in this instance).
I wanted to be the guy who noticed that fatal flaw and could stand and shout to the world that CHRIS PRAMAS HAS NO CLOTHES.
But alas, it turns out the game is actually good. And I am currently running the occasional pick up game using it.
It actually has most of the virtues of Hero's character creation system with none of the mind numbing complexity of its combat system.
The Marvel Universe Game
Even simpler than M&M. Unfortunately its also not quite as good. Plus, I prefer my games with dice. Call me old fashioned.
Also, something about the way they told me 200 times how "revolutionary" the game was grated.
However, it is pretty as hell, and since my M&M game is set in the Marvel U (sort of) it rides shotgun at #2 in the pile.
Medieval Player's Manual
Nice book. Crunchy and full of historical goodness (which you know I love). Plus it works pretty well with Legends of Excalibur. Another plus. This book just reeks with options, something I love about Unearthed Arcana.
GURPs Magic, Magic Items I, Fantasy
Man... I just love GURPs. I love running it sure. But you know what? I also love reading them. GURPs books are plain well crafted, and they, along with the collected works of Aaron Allston, taught me most of what I know and feel about how game design should be done.
Conan
Ahh... here's a sentimental favorite. I love Conan and I love this game.
I hear a lot of whining about the typos, but honestly, I never noticed them.
If you don't like this book, well I just don't understand.
It's one of the best RPG books I've ever read, and I'd consider it an honor to have my name on this book as a PLAYTESTER.
Ok?
Ok.
That's it for now. Next time I think I'll bore you with what I'm reading.
Chuck
Glad you asked!
Looking to my near-left (bigass gaming pile #1) I see:
M&M
I reallllllllly wanted to hate this game. Hell I wrote a game that directly competes with it (I use that term very loosely in this instance).
I wanted to be the guy who noticed that fatal flaw and could stand and shout to the world that CHRIS PRAMAS HAS NO CLOTHES.
But alas, it turns out the game is actually good. And I am currently running the occasional pick up game using it.
It actually has most of the virtues of Hero's character creation system with none of the mind numbing complexity of its combat system.
The Marvel Universe Game
Even simpler than M&M. Unfortunately its also not quite as good. Plus, I prefer my games with dice. Call me old fashioned.
Also, something about the way they told me 200 times how "revolutionary" the game was grated.
However, it is pretty as hell, and since my M&M game is set in the Marvel U (sort of) it rides shotgun at #2 in the pile.
Medieval Player's Manual
Nice book. Crunchy and full of historical goodness (which you know I love). Plus it works pretty well with Legends of Excalibur. Another plus. This book just reeks with options, something I love about Unearthed Arcana.
GURPs Magic, Magic Items I, Fantasy
Man... I just love GURPs. I love running it sure. But you know what? I also love reading them. GURPs books are plain well crafted, and they, along with the collected works of Aaron Allston, taught me most of what I know and feel about how game design should be done.
Conan
Ahh... here's a sentimental favorite. I love Conan and I love this game.
I hear a lot of whining about the typos, but honestly, I never noticed them.
If you don't like this book, well I just don't understand.
It's one of the best RPG books I've ever read, and I'd consider it an honor to have my name on this book as a PLAYTESTER.
Ok?
Ok.
That's it for now. Next time I think I'll bore you with what I'm reading.
Chuck
Monday, February 28, 2005
Blood and Guts II: origins of a fascination
So I just finished the first draft of Blood and Guts II. Its funny the books you return to and the subjects that draw you back.
I wish I could blame it on the news, that I turn on the news and see the War on Terror and am influenced by the power of the media into writing these books.
But that would be bullshit.
You could tell what I wanted to do with d20 Modern by the books that I tripped over myself to write, and that would give you way more information than you probably wanted to know about my misspent youth.
The fact is, I have always been fascinated with superheroes, gothic horror, the martial arts, and, of course the military.
As a bookish lad, tough guys always held a certain appeal. Conan. The Avengers. Captain America. Iron Fist. And Mack Bolan.
Yes that's right, I read Mack Bolan books. Ok, maybe devoured would be a better word. The male Harlequin Romance (and that's literally what they are- the company that makes Mack Bolan books has been a Harlequin subsidiary for some time now) occupied hours of my high school time that probably would have been better spent being a good student.
The early books, were the War Against the Mafia. Hard hitting, crime busting Mack Bolan. The government was after him for being a vigilante just as much as the mob was (sound familiar? it should to the comics fans out there- Punisher is a rip-off errrrrrrrrrr homage to the early Mack Bolan, right down to both being snipers in Viet Nam).
Eventually, however, the government decided to make its peace with Mack, because they had a bigger war for him to fight: global terrorism.
This must be yesterday right? Well actually it was the 80's and to me the idea that America might need a covert war against terrorism was something of a novel idea, but one that I loved immediately.
While the old Mack went from city to city, always one step ahead of Murder Inc in his war on the Mafia, the new Mack had government resources and could strike from no where, then sink back into the night. The whole world was his killing ground, and there was a lot of scum to wipe clean from the windshield.
When d20 Modern first came out... this was one of the three key areas I saw for adventure.
It was a purely personal, purely selfish decision, and is, for better or worse, the way I design. Looking around, I saw that the big companies already modern games had their own ideas of what would sell.
AEG had Spycraft, a great game for mission impossible/James Bond genre, and Wizards seemed to be trying to leverage the Forgotten Realms into the 2oth century.
Both choices made a lot of sense. Mission Impossible is an almost perfect role playing group dynamic. Plus they are incontrovertibly good guys, almost rarely killing. I enjoyed the show when I was kid (though it was too formulaic for me to become a huge fan), and it had a current high profile movie franchise to remind millions of gamers what a cool game it would make.
Urban Arcana/Shadow Chasers had the Buffy factor on its side... and besides, if I owned the Forgotten Realms Id leverage the hell out of it too. Easily one of the most popular styles of gaming (high fantasy, high magic, high action, high romance... hell high everything). Why not?
But I had a darker vision floating through my head. Indiana Jones rescuing enslaved young children in Ankara... Iron Fist dueling an immortal dragon on a snowswept hill, risking his life to return to civilization and hunt down the man who killed his father... and Mack Bolan kicking in doors in Lebanon looking for terrorist masterminds.
In all honestly it seemed a little crazy to me at the time. I wasn't even sure that the game system was a good match to the kind of gritty modern adventures I had always enjoyed running.
I had become aware of the need for a good rules system for gritty modern games back in the aforementioned 80's when I made my first foray into modern gaming, with the Hero supplements Danger International and Justice Inc.
I love the Hero system. And yes I know its complex. But still, this is the 80's. It was better than 2nd edition D&D by a light year or two. However, it wasnt a very good fit for the type of modern game I wanted to run. Although it is possible to make Hero deadly-ER it is not possible to make it deadly.
So I gradually gravitated towards GURPs... a game that I would put in the holy trinity of the best designed games of all time (that's d20, GURPS and Hero). Now GURPs has the opposite "problem" that Hero does. Just as I would not prefer to run Hero for a gritty modern vigilante game, I would not prefer to run GURPs for supers.
Sure you can compensate for the systems tendencies, but since I own both books why bother.
However, I also like classes. And the opportunity to take d20 Modern into the unknown territory of a gritty special ops game was irresistable.
In some ways, the early days of d20 Modern, when the product section on RPGNow was pretty much just some of RPGObjects books and the awesome game mechanics stuff, will always be the best days as a designer (so far) I've ever had.
As for how I did... well more on that next time...
Chuck
I wish I could blame it on the news, that I turn on the news and see the War on Terror and am influenced by the power of the media into writing these books.
But that would be bullshit.
You could tell what I wanted to do with d20 Modern by the books that I tripped over myself to write, and that would give you way more information than you probably wanted to know about my misspent youth.
The fact is, I have always been fascinated with superheroes, gothic horror, the martial arts, and, of course the military.
As a bookish lad, tough guys always held a certain appeal. Conan. The Avengers. Captain America. Iron Fist. And Mack Bolan.
Yes that's right, I read Mack Bolan books. Ok, maybe devoured would be a better word. The male Harlequin Romance (and that's literally what they are- the company that makes Mack Bolan books has been a Harlequin subsidiary for some time now) occupied hours of my high school time that probably would have been better spent being a good student.
The early books, were the War Against the Mafia. Hard hitting, crime busting Mack Bolan. The government was after him for being a vigilante just as much as the mob was (sound familiar? it should to the comics fans out there- Punisher is a rip-off errrrrrrrrrr homage to the early Mack Bolan, right down to both being snipers in Viet Nam).
Eventually, however, the government decided to make its peace with Mack, because they had a bigger war for him to fight: global terrorism.
This must be yesterday right? Well actually it was the 80's and to me the idea that America might need a covert war against terrorism was something of a novel idea, but one that I loved immediately.
While the old Mack went from city to city, always one step ahead of Murder Inc in his war on the Mafia, the new Mack had government resources and could strike from no where, then sink back into the night. The whole world was his killing ground, and there was a lot of scum to wipe clean from the windshield.
When d20 Modern first came out... this was one of the three key areas I saw for adventure.
It was a purely personal, purely selfish decision, and is, for better or worse, the way I design. Looking around, I saw that the big companies already modern games had their own ideas of what would sell.
AEG had Spycraft, a great game for mission impossible/James Bond genre, and Wizards seemed to be trying to leverage the Forgotten Realms into the 2oth century.
Both choices made a lot of sense. Mission Impossible is an almost perfect role playing group dynamic. Plus they are incontrovertibly good guys, almost rarely killing. I enjoyed the show when I was kid (though it was too formulaic for me to become a huge fan), and it had a current high profile movie franchise to remind millions of gamers what a cool game it would make.
Urban Arcana/Shadow Chasers had the Buffy factor on its side... and besides, if I owned the Forgotten Realms Id leverage the hell out of it too. Easily one of the most popular styles of gaming (high fantasy, high magic, high action, high romance... hell high everything). Why not?
But I had a darker vision floating through my head. Indiana Jones rescuing enslaved young children in Ankara... Iron Fist dueling an immortal dragon on a snowswept hill, risking his life to return to civilization and hunt down the man who killed his father... and Mack Bolan kicking in doors in Lebanon looking for terrorist masterminds.
In all honestly it seemed a little crazy to me at the time. I wasn't even sure that the game system was a good match to the kind of gritty modern adventures I had always enjoyed running.
I had become aware of the need for a good rules system for gritty modern games back in the aforementioned 80's when I made my first foray into modern gaming, with the Hero supplements Danger International and Justice Inc.
I love the Hero system. And yes I know its complex. But still, this is the 80's. It was better than 2nd edition D&D by a light year or two. However, it wasnt a very good fit for the type of modern game I wanted to run. Although it is possible to make Hero deadly-ER it is not possible to make it deadly.
So I gradually gravitated towards GURPs... a game that I would put in the holy trinity of the best designed games of all time (that's d20, GURPS and Hero). Now GURPs has the opposite "problem" that Hero does. Just as I would not prefer to run Hero for a gritty modern vigilante game, I would not prefer to run GURPs for supers.
Sure you can compensate for the systems tendencies, but since I own both books why bother.
However, I also like classes. And the opportunity to take d20 Modern into the unknown territory of a gritty special ops game was irresistable.
In some ways, the early days of d20 Modern, when the product section on RPGNow was pretty much just some of RPGObjects books and the awesome game mechanics stuff, will always be the best days as a designer (so far) I've ever had.
As for how I did... well more on that next time...
Chuck
A man and a dog walk into a blogsite...
A long time ago (several years- my how time flies) when I was first starting to web publish, and trying to make a go of being a professional writer, I would tell people what type of site I wanted, one where I could easily post daily updates and thoughts with little technical skill, and get a totally blank look.
But now it seems, that technology has caught up with my abivalance for it, and here we are.
In this blog, I'll be sharing my thoughts on design and discussing the problems that creep up when designing a project. If you ever read a book and said to yourself "what the hell was he thinking?!?!" well you might see the answer here.
I'll also probably end up talking some about my life (such as it is) but mostly this will be a place to discuss work and the design process, in a hopefully entertaining way.
Chuck
But now it seems, that technology has caught up with my abivalance for it, and here we are.
In this blog, I'll be sharing my thoughts on design and discussing the problems that creep up when designing a project. If you ever read a book and said to yourself "what the hell was he thinking?!?!" well you might see the answer here.
I'll also probably end up talking some about my life (such as it is) but mostly this will be a place to discuss work and the design process, in a hopefully entertaining way.
Chuck
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