The Gaming Den

How much would that be, in real world dollars, in all seriousness? Any educated guesses? I mean I've got a lot of "change" in my "couch", what second or third rate media licenses can I buy for shits and giggles? I think I can buy a existing media property as whole at 80% to 100%...

ROUND 2: I have been once again started to build a RPG (that will probably never be published). Game uses Attributes and Skills. There are 10 Attributes, all of which have medium value 0. Negative values vary from -1 to -4 with -4 being extremely poor. Skills are grouped into skill groups (for examp...

It has been a long time since I read anthropology books so this comes from my hazy memory... First, the interaction is between persons so they must trust enough to do it in the first place. -->This raises following dilemma. If A and B are good friends and trust each other, does C who does not know a...

I have been once again started to build a RPG (that will probably never be published). It uses following mechanism: 3D6 + skill effect versus opponent doing same. My idea is that GM does not give out XP. Instead GM gives out every year to every character a fixed number (I have been thinking 6) of sk...

I have written a published adventure and contributed to equipment and general source books as well as published articles about Twilight 2000 and later Heavy Gear in my wild youth.

I am currently teaching computer game making.

Wargames have been played by military forces like forever. Military forces and defense think-tanks have been running role-playing games as long as I can remember. For example AGILE-COIN and VIET-VILLAGE in 1960's but they are not really entertainment. I remember that first commercial entertainment t...

Without doubt the biggest debacle is purchase of SPI by TSR (and subsequent collapse of SPI).

In my view the current CGL mantra is based on touting following: 1) Gamers are buying eagerly from them in conventions and in larger numbers. This is basicly what they are telling now whenever talk is about sales. 2) There is money to be made in selling nostalgia (such as 2050 setting in Shadowrun w...

My own house system uses following: 1) Character test 2D6 + Attribute + skill rating versus target number Attribute number is -3 to +3 with vast majority of characters having their stats between -1 to +1 Skill rating is 0 to 4 with most inexperienced having 0, professional having 2 and veteran with ...

In other words they're shit writers who can't write a plot. Gotcha. I have suspected for at least 2 years and now I firmly believe that they have following system (for both BattleTech and Shadowrun): 1) Write series of ideas out of your mind ... mostly what you think are cool. This usually means th...

I am starting to think that CGL is in a death spiral. BattleTech is their flagship product and much awaited time jump to Dark Ages (to start in late 2012 to mid 2013) and then jump forwards to 3150 timeline (to start in 2013) has just been postponed few years further. This announcement came about 3-...

Primitive societies worked around concept of gifts because they had no money but they had plenty of understanding of value. Typically they would divide things to different value bands: let's call them A, B ,C and so on. When ever you gave item of value A, you expected and received item or service of...

The real world diplomacy (which I do think has relevance to irrational role-playing systems) has number of issues that make its simulation difficult. Lets suppose there are factions A and B. First, relations between factions do matter. The better the relations are the better idea A has what B wants ...

I am bumping this concept, because I want to see it in play. The concept is that you're wrestling in a fantasy world. Like pro wrestling, except it's real and some of the characters are werewolves or something. Characters do all the crazy crap they do in pro-wrestling like give mad speeches and bea...

I believe that the key to having extremely high powerful NPCs interacting with player characters interacting them is manners.

I have to ask why some immortal elf is so badly house trained that she cannot behave in public? Didn't thousands of years of living in a civilization taught her anything?

I asked this a bit around and following suggestion seems to be match yours: "Overlord - Game of ambition" 1) "Overlord" 1.1) Hello to all players 1.2) "This is Overlord Universe", Here I put 1-2 pages of theme and what kind of campaign I'd like players to play (intrigue...

Hmmm ... Actually attributes go between -3 and +3 and vast majority of people being between -1 and +1.

I have managed to get my rpg rules (and new combat rules) into a somewhat coherent pile of handwritten papers. The rules set is nominally set to run my scifi campaign set (borrows heavily from Traveller and BattleTech game universes). I am also playtesting them on roughly weekly basis. I would like ...

oy vey . . seems battletech is the next target they want to ruin . . i just had the displeasure of scrolling through the War of Reavening PDF a buddy of mine sent my way . . I am World's Greatest BattleTech Fanboi(tm) but I have not bought anything after Strategic Operations because I am not satisf...

There are two things that I believe will support each other (and game): 1) Game should employ same die roll mechanism with as many different tests and task resolutions as possible. I like this because it makes it easier to learn mechanism so it becomes a second nature. 2) Game should be fast. I beli...

I managed to have three playtest games in last weekend for my system. Two were non-combat adventures and one was pure combat session. The system now has following features: The target numbers are fixed for both skill test and attribute tests as: 6/8/10/12 with 6 as "easy" and 8 as "av...

I rewrote my combat system to be following: Basis of combat system: Attack of A agaibnst B: A's Attribute modifier + skill rating + 2D6 + other modifiers versus B's Attribute modifier + skill rating + 2D6 + other modifiers Most important other modifier for attack roll is the weapon that has followin...

I finally had time to continue development of my role playing game. I started to ponder the rather thorny issue of combat system. My first draft is following: There are three sides: heroes, hoodlums and civilians. Heroes and hoodlums throw for initiative and civilians always move last. Number of gro...

I think that P500 is a good way to build up interest and reputation of new game system. It is a hard work too. It requires going to consimworlds boards, telling what you are going to do and dealing with lots pf people who ask you questions. It is excellent way of building reputation and interest tow...

From my own questioning of people who have been talking with top CGL people the BattleTech is emotionally strongly coupled with CGL's management. Shadowrun does not seem to have same level of commitment there. BattleTech publishing is also instructive (I've removed all reprints, upgrades, maps, reco...