The Character Sheet Is Up

Joe the Lawyer asked for a Character Sheet, and the link is now up on the right hand system links column/sidebar.

Hopefully it will be spruced up soon.

Wounds and Fight Dice

I'm steamlining the Wounds v. Fight Dice mechanism.  I think this will be easier on the Players, too.  With those changes, the Healing process has also undergone a slight revision.  It makes the Medic ability more interactive than before.

Urutsk Update

I've handed over the bulk of the Urutsk material to my friend and editor, Brian Penn, who has the difficult job of interpolating the rules sets and mounds of pages into something linear and coherent.  He has been pushing me to release the setting as a system-free supplement and I'm leaning in that direction, but I still want my rules-vision to be known through the RPG version, as well.

Now that it is in Brian's hands, it is more likely to be released in my lifetime.

Best,
-K

No NTRPGCon For Me This Year

Due to an emergency, I was unable to attend the Con this year.
--I hope everyone attending/attended has/had loads of fun.

The art for PORPHYRY: World of The Burn wasn't completed, anyway, so that is yet to be released.
--Jez Gordon's map and illustrations are simply stunning, and the layout is beautiful as well.  Well worth the wait, I am certain.

Work on URUTSK is progressing apace, and this build features all ten of the major Human Ethnicities, as well as ten Non-Human PC options.  These are presented in packages (needing only a name and a few other tidbits) ready to start play.

I'm trying to help out on the Google+ Tabletop Forge front, and I owe another friend a thorough proof-read on one of his many outstanding products.

Even though I'm not at the Con, I'm finding myself busier than ever.



Best to you all,

Where has she gone? SALT?

I'm over at Google+ most of the time.  I'm running five nights a week, or more.  I'm in friends' games, including Reed Decker's Boot Hill, Ghost orbit, Carousel Delta, and likely soon, Full Clock.

Porphyry is still in the art/layout phase, and three passes of proofreading/editing later, there are sections I'm still [not] thrilled with, but had to let it go.  I'm anxious about it being in print in my hand before the North Texas RPG Con aeroplane trip, but I intend on having something printed up, even if it is an 'ashcan' edition, as it were.

After Rob Kuntz and Reed both urged me to push Vanguard back to rear-burner priority, I've once again picked up the Urutsk RPG development gauntlet, and am honestly feeling a bit daunted.  No one really seems to want innovation, they want familiarity.  I'm seemingly stuck catering to folks who want LabLord or whatever as the basis of the game engine, and everything operating as extensions of the four (three!) original classes, etc. Frankly, that really deflates my interest.

So, instead, I've been playing a lot of games that have zer0 to do with the D&Ds, and loving every minute of it.

So, anyway, there's this SALT system Jeffrey Osthoff, Duke Barclay, Michael Henry, Reed, and I have used to run games as diverse as a Car Wars-type game to outre Supers style, to mythic China, far future, etc.  It has a super small initial footprint, but its extensibility is profound, allowing any degree of customisation off the main trunk.

It operates on a bell-curve (which I prefer), has no maximum or minimum scores, and could easily accommodate polyhedrals instead of only d6.  One of my favourite sessions was running an infiltration of a remote jungle base in search of the mcguffin, and ran really smoothly in both abstracted operations and in action-by-action modes.

Osthoff liked it enough to propose using it as the basis of his ALLTERRA Multi-setting/Multi-GM collective.  It seems easy enough to translate characters into from virtually any game, and really calls to attention the over reliance upon rolling that many systems seem to operate on to define how they differ from each other.  Since the rolls in SALT are all the same sort, with the possible exception of adding in another stat to the result, the ubiquity of rolling quickly becomes droll.  This could be seen as a failing, but I've instead seen it as a great success.  It truly illustrates how much more GM/Player exchange does, in fact, drive all of our RPGs, and not just the New School talk-it-ups.

Simply gauging the numbers and the averages, a GM could easily eliminate 50% or more of the sorts of mundane rolls that clutter up any given hour of any sort of session.  Now, I hear OSRites grumbling that they enjoy the chaos of falling through weak floors, picks getting stuck in locks, etc.  I hear you, believe me, that's why the rolls can still be made.  GMs may still roll to all get out and screw the PCs over as much as they please, but the curve is so regular that it really is only the Doubles Add a Die (DAD), Snake-Eyes & Box-Cars rules that make much of a difference.

Anyway, I'm likely to release it to the public, free and clear, and then all'y'all can do with it what you want, or not, as it suits you.  Stay tuned.

Artwork: Porphyry and Other Bits-

A well-fed (unlike certain Feierlandish fiends) character as rendered by the able hand of Jez 'Stanicore' Gordon for my PORPHYRY: World of The Burn supplement for T&T5 and MSPE.

I've got a rough .pdf of the document, but have found a few tweaks that need to be made to the text, omissions to be remitted, and other li'l bits of error to be expunged.  Then...off to LuLu for PoD copies before the North Texas RPG Con.

SALT is a light system I've been writing and gaming with for pickup/one-off games, and there is some talk of using it as the main system for Jeffrey Osthoff's ALLTERRA game.  One application I've put it to is for Natalie Bennett's desire to have a racing RPG, and am working on that in my spare time.

For those that read last post, I've settled on the Chart Look-up method for URUTSK: Space Age, and have recently run a game using it again (, after having taken a year off from it), with great speed and success.  VANGUARD, using a d6 die-pool, is still humming along nicely, especially after a major simplification, and I may be able to have a few copies available by time of departure for Dal/Ft.Worth area, this June.

Okay, see you on Google+.  :D

Development Question: U:SA-

URUTSK: Space Age-


In returning to the 2d12 task resolution system I have used for years with Urutsk (from the d6 Die Pool of Vanguard), I find that I want a bit more peculiarity in the results, and have been toying with a Doubles Add, Roll-Over (DARO), ported straight over from Tunnels & Trolls.  No doubt this is from my work on Porphyry, and seeing how much joy the occasional DARO brings to the beleaguered Players.  However, 2-24 expanded to an open-ended range presents new design considerations, namely, what are the implications of over achieving on a T# on the output of a Effect Roll?


In Porphyry, I've added the effect of half the difference of Ranged Combat adding to damage.  This seemed to work well in T&T, even with Ranged Combat modifiers included in the already high ranged weapon damages (firearms, and even arrows, kill in Porphyry).  Would this work as well in U:SA, and on technical Task Resolution, such as repairing a starship drive?  Reducing Time, finding Work Arounds/reducing the number of steps, and Improved Quality are all clear possibilities for use with the one-half Overachieve mechanism.


My Spectral Index mechanism is a feature that GMs and Players either enjoy, or hate, and I've come to learn that many find chart look-up a deal-breaker, even if only the GM ever needs to do so.  I'm certain that Overachievement can be substituted for the SI, but it also increases the maths needed to perform Task Resolution, possibly an even swap in look-up v. calculations.


Which do you prefer?  A GM chart, or Player maths?
--Why?


Lookining forward to your input.  :D