Tag Archives: Game Design

Cards

Prepping A Card Game To Order Sample Deck

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For the past couple of weeks I have been working on building the deck for my card game to order play test deck number four.

I have icons that a play tester from Gary Con 11 made for me that I wanted added to the cards to see how they look. I also wanted to add new text to some cards to clarify how they work or to give them additional functions that are still within the card’s scope.

Now that I’ve finally built the 4th play test deck of my card game and ordered it from both GameCrafter and DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link], I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned. I tried doing that via live streaming on Twitch the other night, but I made some minor missteps and it was not as helpful as I intended. I will be making a YouTube video showing all these steps once I get the time to do that. In the meantime, here is a blog post with a companion podcast episode going over my experience and take-aways.

NOTE: I will be sharing a sample Affinity Publisher template on DriveThru RPG [Affiliate Link] for those wanting to create their own card decks and games. I’ll include a PDF with some of my processes.

Ordering The Decks

I’ve used GameCrafter for all the prior play test decks. It is easy to use, you just upload images in either PNG or JPEG format. First you upload the back. If all cards have the same back, then there is only one image needed. If there are multiple backs, then you need to follow the naming convention they suggest for your files so it all makes sense once it is uploaded. Then you upload the images for the fronts. Finally, you specify the number of cards if any should be multiples.

There is a proofing option that requires you to verify each card. Then you finalize the deck and can order it.

GameCrafter also has templates for the card boxes and recommends a size of box based on the number of cards in your deck. I have not built a box, since I’m still play testing. So that will be a topic for another day.

DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] has a similar process of uploading the image for the back(s) and then the fronts. Their naming convention to handle multiple backs is to have a back for each card with back001 to go with front001, etc. While I have multiple backs for my cards that have rules and other explanatory information, I did not do multiple backs for either order to keep it simple.

DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] suggested I buy their large deck box [ Affiliate Link ] that is a flat $1.00. I have one that I use for the 3rd playtest deck from GameCrafter, and I ordered one with the 4th playtest deck I ordered from DriveThru Cards. I like this box, my deck just fits. It is 130 cards and the box is rated for 120 cards. I like this because it means I don’t need to design a box. While DriveThru Cards does print tuck boxes, they are limited to 120 cards. While 130 cards will work in their large plastic deck box, I’m not certain it would fit in the 120 tuck box.

DriveThru Cards has a getting started page [Affiliate Link] that explains what they can do. NOTE: They only offer a PDF of the rules books and don’t offer that as a print option. They suggest putting the rules on a card, such as the front & back.

The big difference with DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] is that once you have all the images validated, the site builds a PDF of your deck in the form it needs to be if you build and upload a PDF according to the specs. Based on how long it took to create the PDF and have it available so I could order it, it may be faster to build the PDF and upload it. NOTE: With the PDF upload, it works the same way as uploading a PDF for a PDF only or POD product. My upload failed, and I’m not sure why. I’ll have to do some checking to figure it out.

I ran into issues with my first attempt to build a PDF to upload into DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] . It was through my ignorance of the process and I will be making a template and a YouTube video to explain what I’ve learned and what works for me.

The biggest differences between GameCrafter and DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] the image sizes are identical 825 pixels x 1125 pixels, but GameCrafter wants the images in RGB and DriveThruCards wants images in CMYK. GameCrafters estimated 3-1/2 weeks for production, but DriveThru Cards is a flat 2 weeks. GameCrafter has an option to expedite production, which is basically doubles the cost. DriveThru Cards does not have that option. Shipping options vary a bit, but one tier up from the cheapest shipping option is about the same. GameCrafter does not appear to have a limit on deck size. DriveThru Cards has a maximum deck size of 130 cards. GameCrafter is more expensive for a single deck and one has to sell a lot to get the deck cost down to the cost it takes me to get a deck to review.

Both have a volume discount. For DriveThru Cards all decks have to be shipped to a single destination.

The only thing I don’t know is quality differences. I might get the DriveThru Cards deck prior to GaryCon. I know that GameCrafters has a good quality card. If DriveThru Cards are a good quality I will use them to fulfill my Kickstarter. DriveThru Cards should have printers in other countries like they do for DriveThru RPG [Affiliate Link], so it should make shipping affordable and save on that headache. NOTE: Someone, not staff, answered my query on the DriveThruDiscord that cards are currently only printed in the U.S. I’m waiting for a link to a page that says this explicitly, as it’s not in the FAQ and so far I haven’t found it. I’ll post a link to that if such exists. That’s a major bummer, as I was hoping it would solve that issue.

I Found It (Not The Answer I Wanted)

Q: Who prints my cards?

We have partnered with On Demand Technologies, Inc. (ODT), an industry leader in digital printing and a premier print-on-demand company. When customers order print titles on our site, we transmit the order electronically to ODT’s print facility in Kansas City, where the order is printed, packed, and shipped.

https://onebookshelfpublisherservice.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/227867647-Card-Printing-The-Basics

I grew up near Kansas City, Missouri, so I googled and ODT is based in Shawnee, Kansas. That’s southeast of Kansas City. One major problem that I thought I had solved. This answer really ought to be on the FAQ page on DriveThruCards and NOT on a separate OBS (OneBookShelf page).

My Experience So Far

The biggest things I’ve learned is that one should plan out some things for their deck that one may not think about – I know I didn’t – before diving in and making a deck for Print On Demand (POD).

My Hard Won Checklist

  • Figure out how many unique card faces you need.
  • Figure out how many backs you need.
    • For example, a rules card with the rules on both sides to avoid micro print.
  • Determine the card order in the (freshly) printed deck.
    • For example a standard poker deck is Ace, the number cards in ascending order, jack, queen, king for each of the four suits in suit order: spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts. The Ace of Spades it the first card.
  • Make a list of all of this stuff in a spreadsheet with a column to track the BACK, Count, and FACE of each card.
    • This is useful in verifying that you have the correct number of each card. My first attempt to order the 3rd play test deck from GameCrafters was short, because I put in the wrong count for several cards and had to order another deck with the right count.
  • If your game involves text on the cards, have a spreadsheet or worksheet in a common spreadsheet with the name of each card and the text on each card.
  • Use a graphics program like Gimp (free) to prepare images. If using Public Domain art, clean it up and get it in the right ratio of dimensions. If buying art, have the artist(s) create it in the right ratios to fit. The final “safe” space is 2.5″ x 3.5″ 2.5 / 3.5 = so the width should be 71.429% of the height so that it will scale properly.
    • While the card template calls for 2.75″ x 3.75″ 1/8″ (0.125″) is the bleed. Another 1/8″ (0.125″) on all sides are the margins.
    • All critical text and images have to be inside the margins
    • Trimming 1/8″ on all sides reduces the card by 1/4″ to 2.5″ x 3.75″.
    • If using free art, be sure to lock the aspect ratio to avoid skewing the image, unless that’s what you want.
    • Put a border around it that covers the bleed and the margin so you know how much space you have.
    • I used Gimp to make the images for the front & backs of cards in my third play test deck.
  • Use Inkscape (free) to make vector graphics for icons you may use on your cards, like spades, diamonds, clubs, & hearts, and the Numbers. Save them in SVG format so that they are legible when resizing.
  • Use Affinity Publisher (c. $50.00) to make the deck. This allows you to make a master page with the card layout you need. You can use one for the most common back and use it as the master page for all the odd pages. Duplicate the master page for the backs before you add the image for the backs to it. This assumes you have created two pages for each card, the odd number page is the back and the even numbered are the front. Plan the layout on each master page where any icons will go, where numbers, text and other elements will go. Set the Font for the document.
    • I found if you don’t create a page for all the cards in the deck first, it is a pain to add them in later.
    • Understand how the layers and other features work to get the main image to the back and the text and icons over the image. There are lots of video tutorials on the Affinity site.
  • Use the list of the card order to put the art and assets on each card.
  • Copy & paste the text for each card from the spreadsheet. Set the spreadsheet to use the desired font for the cards and it will save any possible fiddling with fonts in Affinity Publisher.
  • Once each card has a back (odd pages) and a front (even pages) save it as a PDF with the specs from DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] . Review the PDF vs. the spreadsheet with the order and count of each card.
    • What I like most about Affinity Publisher is that one simple change on the master page updates all the pages based on that master page.

ORGANIZE!

  • Have art assets in one folder. You might have subfolders for different categories to minimize traversing the directory structure. For example, one director for icons & another for face images.
  • Have a consistent naming convention for each file so you know what it is from the file name, or change the display of the file to medium or large so you can make out the image.
  • Have all art for faces in the proper size ratio to avoid fiddling with it in Affinity Publisher when placing it.
    • Figure out your layout in Affinity Publisher for things that are common to all cards, groups of cards, or unique cards.
    • Save your Affinity file as an Affinity Template.
    • Save your file often.
    • Export to PDF often to check how it looks.
    • Get someone else to look at it and catch the simple things you missed, like leaving off a number or a typo. Copy & pasting from a spellchecked and proofread spreadsheet helps avoid this. Always copy paste, don’t re-type. [I hate having to re-type something that I know exists in electronic format. copy & paste avoids so many errors. Paste it into Notepad or other plain test editor removes fancy formatting to get the raw text so you don’t have to fight with formatting it.]
    • Order a preview and go over it with a fine toothed comb to spot any layout or other issues. Get others to review it too.
    • Take your time and know that EVERY SINGLE STEP of getting to the point of clicking confirm on the purchase of a deck will take longer than you think.
  • Don’t be afraid to start from scratch with a new layout if you are having speed issues or other problems. Sometimes starting over is the quickest and easiest way forward. That is what I have found. I get faster every time I start a new file in Affinity Publisher from scratch.

What I did for the current play test decks I ordered.

What I don’t yet know:

  • I don’t know if the speed issues I found in my first file from which I created all the images used to order the test decks will be resolved by full layout in a new file. However, I suspect that it will.
  • That is something I plan to do AFTER I determine if the PDF I made in the format DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] wants will upload without issues. If it does, I will definitely be working on a new Affinity Publisher file with all the layout.
Cards

Play Testing Commences

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Today was an awesome day of gaming!

I usually either play or run on Roll20 noon to 4. The GM for today had to call off due to illness.

I wasn’t worried. I had an offer to play test my new card game idea at the FLGS, Fanfare. A new game I wrote about a couple weeks ago. I just got the play test deck I ordered yesterday.

It is a game that I thought would work for 2-6 players. I two person game is obviously different with the card flow, etc. It took about 90 minutes with figuring out a couple workarounds for things that were unclear in the initial rules.

I ended up with valuable feedback, and a real basis to evaluate my game idea. It amazed me that the game played almost exactly the way I imagined it. I can see the play of this game in my mind’s eye. I very rarely have such clarity with an idea, and even more rarely manage to execute it in the real world. Talk about happy. Thanks to Joel, Playtester #1!

Running Metamorphosis Alpha

MA-Red Shirt Metamorphosis At One Well Brewery
MA-Red Shirt Metamorphosis At One Well Brewery

Since my chance to play on Roll20 got cancelled, my first play tester’s friends were free after 5:00 PM, so I went to a game friendly brewpub, One Well Brewing. I ran my Metamorphosis Alpha [Affiliate Link] scenario, Red Shirt Metamorphosis, that I have ran online a couple times, and at UCon a couple years ago. I’ll next run it at Marmalade Dog at the end of March. Four players new to Metamorphosis Alpha [Affiliate Link] and several new to old style play or seeking old school simplicity.

They were not used to player knowledge and common sense questions being the way to approach the situation. I gave them “hot stove moments” where they had missed obvious questions to ask. There were too used to GMs spoon feeding them everything. Once they realized the initial conditions I set was not 100% of the available environment, they got into it. They “beat” the scenario by achieving the goal of a four hour convention setting in 3 hours. They had more gear in spite of having worse rolls to set the initial conditions of the scenario. We exchanged contact information and will work on setting up a game.

Play Test Number 2

Play Test #2
Play Test #2

After the game, I mentioned my card game and they were eager to try it. So I had 4 players, and Joel, play tester number 1, was one of them. With me, we had 5 players. This made the game take about 45 minutes and we did a lot of talking and figuring out a few of the situations that arose to either adjudicate, or consider a rules revision.

Once again, I did not win, but I didn’t care. People were playing my game! Not only that, they liked it! Each of them said if this was a Kickstarter, they would back it! I suspected it was good enough for Kickstarter. By that I mean, a solid idea that can have the rough edges worked out through more play testing. If I do my job right and iron out all the details, a Kickstarter to fund art should easily fund, and could do better than I expect.

More valuable feedback was given. The two best, or my favorite comments:

From Jake from the second play test game, when I asked what he liked the best about it. “Playability – You can pick it up and be playing quickly.”

Joel, the most experienced player next to me, after two games said, “The light learning curve.”

Jake was really excited, and knows a lot of student artists who might be interested in doing art for the cards. I’m glad to consider new artists, if their art style is what I’m looking for. If my efforts can get them exposure and regular work, even better.

I’m bringing my play test deck to Gary Con, and if you’re around when I’m not running or playing, we can definitely play. I’ll be there sometime Wednesday, which reminds me I need to figure out travel plans with my roommate for the weekend. We have yet to set a time to leave.

This is so cool!

Cards

Card Game Idea Strikes

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Last year at Gary Con IX, I had an idea for a couple of card games. I’m not a big card game player, mostly because I don’t have a regular in-person gaming group. I have some rough outlines for those, but I need to polish them a lot so they are coherent and explainable to another person. Towards the end of this post, I mentioned I had a card game idea.

Creative lightning strikes come unexpected and this happened to me last night. A much simpler variation of one of the ideas from the last Gary Con came to me. It was one of those, clear and almost fully formed ideas.

I hurriedly typed up the basics that came to mind. This morning, I was filled with the ideas to round out the game, and typed out most of the rest of the rules. I think it’s a playable game, and there are some twists and turns in it so it will be different each time.

My level of excitement and inspiration may not translate to others, but I think I can polish what I have for clarity, and mock up a deck in time to take it to Gary Con X. There are so many creative gamers there, and the low-key atmosphere is a great place to hone game ideas. If my game has merit, it will be evident from how others receive it. A good elevator pitch will help.

I ordered 500 blank playing cards from Amazon [Affiliate Link ]last year, and started trying to mock up my original idea, but it bogged down. Scribbling out the card faces and leaving the backs blank will work for a rough play test, but it would be cool to have a mockup with a printed back and public domain art to take with me. I am very torn right now.

I REALLY want to work on this NOW, but I still have game prep to go for some of my games I’m running at Gary Con. This sort of thing happens to me all the time. I am in the groove with something, and some new idea/thing comes to my attention, and I have to be all about that new thing. I may not be overly ambitious/optimistic about this, and I might actually be able to do a decent job for a professionally printed play test deck in time to have it for Gary Con. The voice saying, “Do Eeet!” is very loud at the moment. It’s almost as loud as it was last night. I’d hoped typing this up to share my excitement, while I alternated with tweaking my rough rules, would dampen that desire. I’m sure it would cost a lot to rush a print job, but part of me doesn’t care.

If I totally suck at manipulating art to make a single card image, that would greatly reduce my enthusiasm. I’m going to have to try to make some cards, and if I’m lousy at it, then I can set this aside. However, I know there are tools that make it fairly easy (I’ve done a lot of research.), and I printed a deck I bought online that I had to manipulate to work with the printer I chose. So I may have something worthy of a rough deck that looks decent by this evening.

RPGs

The Map Is Not The World

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I posted a review about two different published books of hex paper the other day. I shared the post on the RPG Blog Alliance Community, and had this comment: “But then those hexes put an artificial constraint on mapping. First map, then grid.”
I started a reply, and it just got longer and longer, so I decided it made more sense to make a post out of it.
I’ve had the title for this post for several weeks, and was gong to write about it anyway, this just seems to fit.
Each DM must do what works best for them, when it comes to mapping. If making a map and then adding hexes, squares, or whatever it is you use, works for you, great!

There are two kinds of maps – those for the player and those for the DM.

As DM I need the hexes as I plot where things are to gauge accurate distances, etc. I already have maps, the one drawn by my brother, the artist, after he saw my original map 25+ years ago, and was like, “Just, no….:. He drew it on hex paper. He chose not to see the hexes when he drew it.

The other(s) are a collection of maps I put together from zooming in, and I changed my interpretation of the original map. I goofed and need to get one consolidated map to fix stuff I was just dealing with mentally during play. That only works with the player’s in my in-person game. For my start up of an online version of the game with the same starting point as the original players, I need to fix it.

For players, I can draw it however I want, and scale and accuracy don’t matter. (Unless it’s a science fiction or modern setting where technology and accurate maps are easily available.) The players just need an idea of how things relate to each other.

For games, there are two styles of maps, accurate and properly scaled and artful maps. Some have the talent to do both at the same time on the same piece of paper/computer interface.

I don’t want to do the map in Hexographer, for example, and then give it to players, they can guess where the hexes are, and learn things before they encounter them.

My chicken scratches on hex paper is so that I know at a glance what is where. It is a tool for use in play. For hex crawl style play, this is needed. I have always played the hex crawl style, we just didn’t call it that back then. We just called it play.
The player’s won’t see this map.

My player’s will only have maps that are available to the people of my world. They also have to be able to find the maps, and try to get a peek, or beg, borrow, or steal them. I am thinking of maps in the style of ancient and medieval maps.

Maps of large scale with close to the accuracy of modern maps did not happen until accurate clocks allowed tracking and plotting position. If you have seen maps that exaggerate how big Florida is, you will get my point. It changed size drastically as more accurate measurement of time and distance occurred.

Such maps give one an impression of the world that can have interesting repercussions if you follow them literally.

Even modern maps, such as flat projections of the entire planet skew the size of Greenland, and other places, to a ridiculous degree. One has to use a very creative representation on a flat surface to get size, coastline, and distances accurate. The best way to represent a planet is with a globe. Even then, the kind with relief that indicates mountains and valleys does not have an accurate representation. I have heard people say, and read it somewhere, that if the Earth were the size of a bowling ball it would be smoother than a bowling ball. Also a bowling ball scaled up to the size of Earth would have ridiculously high mountains and deep valleys.

No matter how we try to map, we don’t have a way, that I know of, to allow a person to see a representation of the whole planet, that is accurate in all aspects and allows one to see the entire surface as with a flat map.

Unless our fantasy world is flat, we can’t make an accurate map.

We have two choices, spend a lot of time doing the math and adjustments necessary to account for distances as one moves North or South, or just fudge it.

I tend to be a detail oriented guy, but the level of calculation needed to do that and make it perfect takes a lot of time that I could be putting into more maps or other game preparation.

Even a science fiction or modern setting for an RPG with accurate map making technology and easily available copies, it is easier to hand wave certain things. If a planet hopping science fiction RPG, I won’t map every inch of a globe, if there is a known location the players are seeking. If they do a different planet for each adventure, I’m not mapping a planet and placing all the cities and towns, and then not using them again. I may not make a map to share with the players, but just have a description of the atmosphere, continents, climate zones, and tech level. If I couldn’t find an online generator, I would build a script(s) to quickly spit this out for me, or just roll like a madman, like it was back in the day.

Some people can spit out maps a lot quicker than I can. For me, it is a challenge to make them not all look alike, especially dungeons. I explain some sameness as a cultural thing of the builders. Does anyone design a dungeon and then add the grid? I don’t know of anyone back in the day who did it that way. We all grabbed the graph paper we could find, whether 4 or 5 hexes to the inch. My group favored 5 squares to the inch. I use both sizes now. My aging eyes have  a preference for the slightly larger 4 squares to the inch.

No matter what form of map we use to represent a solar system, planet, continent, country, city, village, dungeon, tomb, etc. It is not an accurate representation. Using the grid of squares or hexes to make an accurate plot, it only a two dimensional representation, height it missing. With no grid and whether hand drawn and scanned and further manipulated or drawn directly to computer via mouse or stylus and tablet, and made into a thing of beauty, neither is an accurate representation. Each only gives some of the information that is further conveyed by our descriptions of what our players see.

With theater of the mind, we can use a few apt descriptions and make those of us with less than fantastic map skills allow each player to construct the world in their own mind.

If we could generate directly from the mind what each of us “sees” for a certain world, I suspect that there would be very few parts of them match up exactly.

There is also another aspect to mapping. Use at the table for one’s own group, and publishing a product, be it a module, or a setting. For just a playable item, I can easily do it myself. For a map in a published product, I would either spend the time to get really good at making maps, or I would hire someone to do it.

The audience for the map tells a lot about the requirements for the map. I can have a few scribbles on paper, and I can run a game. If I want to take that idea and attempt to market it, I have to put a LOT more into it.

For me to take my world, or one of the adventures of my players, and make a publishable product out of it that stands a chance of selling, will take a lot of development to make happen. The few notes one can use to DM with quickly grows if one starts writing out what must be known to let someone else DM the same scenario. Even all that extra work to let others into my world, in  whole, or in part, cannot begin to capture the way I see it in my mind. There was an infamous Kickstarter for a megadungeon that, from what I have read online, illustrates this point. What works for the creator to run his creation, is often insufficient for another to pick up and do the same.

RPGs

Review – Star Temple of Saturgalia

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The first(?) available third party adventure for White Star, Star Temple of Saturgalia is a six page PDF, that after the cover and OGL leave four pages for the adventure.

This was billed as an introductory adventure. Nowhere in the PDF does it indicate that is is for low level characters. It is obvious from a reading of the text that it is for a group of low level characters.

The method of handling encounters almost guarantees that there will be three space encounters en route to the planet. Instead of a 1 in 6 chance of there being an encounter, there is a 1 in six chance of no encounter. The odds of the encounter ignoring the players or being friendly combined are 50% or greater. So even if there is an encounter, it does not guarantee a chase or fight. The intent of the designer is to have tension. If one is playing up to the tropes of the genre, this is understandable. However, the GM is free to handle this his or her own way.

Once on the planet, there are two encounters, potentially competition from an NPC party, or natives are the greatest possibility. A natural disaster or a creature encounter are also likely. The use of bumble dogs, or a new creature, the gindo, introduced at the end of the module.

This is a very basic outline of an adventure. With the near guarantee of one or two ship encounters, plus two encounters on the way to the temple, it will stretch out the adventure. If you go by the roll of the dice, and there are no space encounters, and the planet side encounters are neutral or friendly, this could be a quick one maybe two hour one shot.

It is an interesting idea, and has enough meat on it that an experience GM could make an evening of it. If you don’t have a list of natural disasters, you will need to make your own table, as the author only gives a couple of suggestions.

The temple itself is a basic dungeon crawl, and it an interesting twist. The map is he standard square rooms and passages, which server to get the point across. The fonts used for the room numbers are not clear, so that some numbers look like each other. I assume that the rooms and areas are numbered in a clockwise fashion, so it is easy to make sense of it, but it still takes a moment to be sure of this. There are also a few grammatical errors, indicating that the text needed a quick review by a new set of eyes or to sit for a few days before finalizing. A suggested description of the natives of the planet, if not a new race, would be interesting.

At one dollar, the items, tables, new creature, and other ideas presented can make an interesting one-shot introduction of the rules to new players, and a skilled GM can easily expand it to be something more substantial in their own campaign.

If you need some help for prepping last minute, this module only needs a few things to be ready to play on short notice.

RPGs

Review – DayTrippers Planet Generator

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DayTrippers Planet Generator, is a section pulled from the DayTrippers GM Guide.  DayTrippers is an RPG game by Tod Foley of As If Productions. I had not heard of this game, but this is one piece that many complain is not in the White Star framework. It is a nice piece to have if you don’t have another ruleset to borrow from, or don’t wish to create your own tables. It is a system agnostic method for generating star systems from the size and type of star, to the number and size of planets.

This six page document is 4 pages of tables for system generation and half a page of converting character abilities, skills, and difficulty levels to other systems. The first page being the cover and last half page being split between more information on Day Trippers and blank space.

It is reminiscent of what I recall from other science fiction games back in the day, most likely Traveller, but perhaps also Star Frontiers. At 50 cents, it is hard to say no to this.

If you need something to get your juices flowing with ideas so that every system is not the same, this can do the trick. If you don’t want to invest in a complete rules system just for these tables, it is a great value.

RPGs

Review – Outer Space Raiders Volume I

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+Chuck Thorin of Magic Pig Media has produced Outer Space Raiders, Vol. 1, an interesting set of 6 new classes compatible with White Star. At $1.49 it is very affordable.

In 20 pages are packed 16 pages of information. Unlike many small PDF’s, this one includes clickable links in the table of contents. While not necessarily needed in so few pages, it is much appreciated!

The classes presented are alien, astromancer, engineer, lost worlder, scoundrel, and warp ninja.

Aliens are a generic class to cover any kind of alien you can imaging. 8 abilities are suggested, from which the player picks one. There is also an option to convince the GM to let you make up an ability. These would also make good generic NPC aliens.

Astromancers remind me a bit of illusionists, but have some very interesting “Quantum Formulae” that they can use. Many of the names of these re-worked spells give a science fiction flair to otherwise standard and well known spells. There are a few new “spells” here, along with some interesting abilities.

Engineers read like a cross between MacGiver and Mr. Scott. With abilities that allow them to do various kinds of “save the day” things. I really love the techno-babble chart for generating random terms, such as “quantum radiation capacitor”.

The lost worlder is a “barbarian in spaaaace!” The don’t use high tech gear, but have a chance to randomly push buttons to make something work, with an equal chance of catastrophic failure. One of the abilities is extra resistance to disease and poison, with a bonus on such saving throws. I am reminded of Leela from Dr. Who, and similar such characters.

Warp Ninjas are an interesting idea. It takes ninjas and crosses them with a dash of science fiction, and uses a black hole to power their abilities. Two of their abilities are dangerous and actually cause damage if used. They are powerful, but a bad roll could mean it’s time to roll up a new character.

Scoundrels are an obvious homage to Han Solo, and other stereotypical characters in all manner of fiction. One of their skills is “know a guy”, giving them a chance to know someone, not necessarily friendly. This single page sums up what most of us envisage a scoundrel to be.

Finally, the last page of game material is a set of charts for Random Humanoid Species Appearance Charts, for skin color, hair, ears, eyes, and miscellaneous features. These charts use a d6, three of them use a d8, and a d20, so 5 dice, if the d8’s are specified, can roll a random creature quickly.

The simplicity of each class fits right in with the overall theme of White Star.

If you want more classes, or ideas for modding or making your own classes for White Star, or Swords & Wizardry White Box, this is a good start!

RPGs

White Star Ripe For Modification To Cover All Ranges of Science Fiction

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There is an interesting discussion on White Star over on the G+ Community.

White Star is a basic framework. I agree that its presentation with a strong homage to Star Wars helps to understand how it works.

I also see that as a basic framework, it supports any variation on anything that can be considered Science Fiction. From the hardest of science fiction, to the softest and vaguest hint of SF.

I think it is the simplicity of White Star that opens up so many possibilities. With such a simple tool box, different GM’s can go in different directions and each come up with something cool, that others can also use. There is no limit.

If you are comfortable with that simplicity and like to fill in the “gaps” that you see, it is perfect.

One could easily add in comic book heroes, it would take some tweaks to abilities and more tech, but it could be done. Any book, short story, old radio serial, TV show, or movie setting can be done using White Star. Some may take more work by the GM to make it happen, barring a supplement, but it can be done. However, it won’t be long and you will have lots of material, based on the rate at which new classes and ships have hit the community.

RPG’s that try to define “everything” end up being more about the rules and having the right book or supplement, than about doing what you came to do – play.

RPGs

2015 A to Z Challenge Reflections.

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I planned to write a follow up on my A to Z experience this year, and a survey that arrive just before midnight alerted me to a Reflections Post, that needed to be done by May 8th. I am doing catch up on articles and clearing a backlog of things to review, on this rainy, thunderstorm laden weekend.

This was the second year that I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge to write a post every day, except Sundays, in April. As with last year, 26 blog posts is not difficult for me. I had most of them done and scheduled before April. Also, like last year, I only had time to keep up with the blogs in the (GA) category. This year, I read most of the posts.

For me, the hardest part of the challenge is a theme that I feel good about. This year, I wrote about different aspects of planning a city, whether it is a living city or an abandoned/lost city. Once I had a topic, I came up with 26 topics. I then scheduled each topic for the appropriate day and wrote on the topics that interested me.

I had most of my topics written with at least a few paragraphs or notes of things to be sure to mention. I dug in and wrote several posts in a marathon session, so that I only had to let them sit to do cleanup before they posted. A few topics seemed a bit harder to write, and I got a bit repetitive when some topics had overlap.

I did not come up with as many tables and generators as I had hoped. I did get some ideas for building them. Once those ideas have sat for awhile, I will gather them and see about making a more coherent PDF to share.

My goal of a system to randomly generate parts of a city did not materialize. I think because of the all the dice table in Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad #1, that +Adam Muszkiewicz showed me. It touched on most of what I was after. I don’t really need all the details I think I do, I just WANT them.

Since I scheduled each post, I had no problem posting on the correct day.

I am currently on the fence as to whether or not I will participate next year. I like that I used it to help me clarify and flesh out ideas for my own use. If I participate again, I will have to use it to do something helpful to my own needs and desires as a GM; whether it be a module, series of new creatures, a collection of maps, or NPC’s, it will have to be something that serves a dual purpose.

This year, there were twelve blogs with the (GA) tag for games. Of those, one was geared towards game books and not directly RPG related, that I could tell. Perhaps it was just not my thing.

Nemo’s Lounge gave up doing custom NPCs with a drawing after 16 posts. Both the drawings and NPC’s were great!

Wampus Country was doing a town a day and got up to E when it stopped. He had some interesting ideas, that I enjoyed while it lasted.

Others missed a beat here and there, but most of us managed all 26 postings for the month.

Tower of the Archmage had a great series of vignettes of a party of adventurers. He often included a map. He hiked the Appalachian trail and was gone for the whole challenge, so he wrote and scheduled all of his postings before he left. This series would make a neat short story and/or a module/dungeon.

Tim Brannon at The Other Side did vampires, as he promised he would last year, after doing witches. Who knew there were so many vampires in different cultures. He began with A for Aswang, which I not too long before learned about from watching Grimm. When White Star came out, he even did an A to Z special with a Space Vampire, modeled on the one from the 80’s Buck Rogers TV Show.

Mark Craddock of Cross Plains reviewed his favorite things about D&D.

Keith Davies of In My Campaign built several mythologies/pantheons and had a system to help him build them.

Sea of Stars had a series of NPC;s.

Spes Magna Games did a series on the “Boogie Knights Of the Round Table”. I have not seen the movie, Boogie Nights, but I got the reference. What if King Arthur and his knights where in the age of disco? He kept it going until the last few days, but did all 26 posts.

Another Caffeinated Day did a series of NPC’s,

The Dwarven Stronghold did NPC’s and magic items.

If you need NPC’s, items, maps, images, vampires, or city planning suggestions, there is a lot of good stuff collected in these posts, check them out.

RPGs

Labyrinth of Egypt

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I saw this article online about a 3000 room labyrinth in Egypt and the claim in the video is that they supposedly found it basically intact. If that were true, you’d think one could find an article about it on a major news site, and not just websites the specialize in outrageous claims.

I’d like it to be true.

Writers of the ancient world described it, so the question is, how much of what the ancients wrote about it is accurate? The size of the site seems to be accurate, but if the canal cut through it revealed the labyrinth, why don’t we know about it?

Still it is an interesting idea. It would be a pain to do a map with 3,000 rooms. Then you have to figure out how to populate them with information, decoration, emptiness, treasure, monsters, etc. Even if only a single level, 3,000 rooms is a megadungeon. How many rooms do the recently published megadungeons of he OSR have?

They have an FB page.

Robert Schoch the geologist who claims the Sphinx is 10,000 years old, or some such, has weighed in on it. The episode on the History Channel about a decade ago on this idea seemed somewhat reasonable that the Sphynx was a natural stone outcropping that had perhaps been worked prior to the rise of Egypt. (As I recall, that was the gist of his argument.) I don’t see why prehistoric humans couldn’t have done that.

The name of the site is Hawara.

The Labyrinth of Egypt website has a page on previous expeditions.