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A New Year Is Upon Us Again
It’s 2009. A new year is upon us and this is the time that people start talking about all the things they are going to do differently this year. There are all sorts of resolutions flying all over the place. Promised actions of change. How many of these do you think the makers will actually keep?
As such, I am not going to make any resolutions this year. I am just going to put forth a couple hopes for it. Things I wish will happen and that I will be able to do. No promises to break and no pressure on anyone.
First off I hope that I can be more active in my writing and creations, both for this site and my other gaming projects. I want to see them grow and become something more tangible, or better yet, finished works. There are a few of these I am most focused on, which I am sure any regular readers of this blog already know about. Hopefully you will see a lot more in the near future.
The Land of Karn: This game is still being worked on, as it will continue to be for yeas I am sure. It is not, however, my main focus right now. I love the game and the setting, but it’s not something I feel driven to push for completion on at the moment. My friends and I play the game and nurse its growth, but it’s still far from publication ready.
Lootin’ Wizards: I still have the next (and most likely final) regular expansion for this game completely written and about halfway produced. I still have to finish the art and then it will be put out there. I really hope to have this done in the next few months and up on RPGNow.
National Wrestling Game (N.W.G.): This game looks like it’s going to be going through a major revision soon. I like the game, but the focus I am going for with it is forcing a change in how it runs. I always wanted it to be less about the combat and more about the “show” of the fights. It’s a game of showing off skills and playing for the crowd. I want to keep working on this one and will update the blog on the status of this as I go.
Whispering Bluff: This is the game I am most actively working on right now. I love this game concept and where it’s going, but it’s growing and changing (as any concept should). There are some shifts coming in the way it work, driving it further into the scene framing format than before. I have an idea of how I want to handle the future progress of this, but it’s a bit more complicated than will fit in this paragraph.
I really want to keep progress on Whispering Bluff moving, so I am going to attempt to keep this process open and shared, which is something I haven’t really done before. I am usually the kind of person who keeps his work close and closed, only teasing with friends and others about what’s inside, but I really want to try something else this time. So I am going to open things up and hopefully get a dialog going.
I am going to do this through this blog, Dragavan’s Den, at least at firsts. I am going to try to do regular posts to discuss what I am working on and share aspects of the game as they currently look. Feel free to join in the discussion and comment on it. Join the forums and talk there. I may even ask some to come into private discussions or playtest groups once it reaches that point.
As for the current state of the game, it’s going through a change. I am thinking about removing even more of the numbers and working the same effects back into the game in a more social way. I want to make each scene stronger with the idea of setting risks and countering them with possible rewards. I want to see each scene play out with some set scenario that then changes with the roll of the conflict, where everyone might have some small stake in it, which is then closed out by the winner of narration.
I am not exactly sure how I am going to rework the current form of the game to better do this, but I do know I want to keep the Darkness Pool concept intact and I think the 4 tier level system for flaws works great. I do think I will be making Guilt the central core focusing problem for all characters, with all other flaws tied to it. That means that every character should have Guilt, or they wouldn’t be sucked into the world, and it’s this Guilt level that keeps the power over them while in it.
I will be going into all these idea and concepts more as I development them, and figure out in my head how to better describe what I am thinking. Right now they are all kind of jumbled together in there. I know what I mean and want, but now how to put these concepts into words.
I hope you are all enjoying your New Years so far and I hope the rest of your year continues to be as good. I hope you come back and see how mine progresses, and feel free to comment with any ideas and notes you have about it.
If all goes well, we’ll be meeting here again soon. Laters all.
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