On the first day...

Today marks the day that I begin turning notes into brilliance. I'm officially beginning my manuscript for my own RPG system. Beyond that announcement, there seems to be very little to talk about, so lets go into a couple of concepts I've been bouncing arround in my head for this game?

Feats:

Why feats? Why every three levels? What does the idea of limiting yourself to a certain few things every couple of levels round out the game? How does killing a bunch of kobolds teach you to get +3 to Profession: cook? Did you sautee the things and serve them to the party? How does disarming a couple of traps make you learn how to cast your spells without verbal components? Gaining feats with levels seems like a bad way to progress a character.

My ideal solution:

Why not have them gained through actual in game actions and progression? Your character wants a feat to be able to climb a wall with a +2 bonus? Well, why doesn't he use his climb skill more often? Perhaps even doing some strength training? Hitting kobolds wouldn't help much in itself right? Well that sword is mighty heavy and that must be able to tone his muscles and relate to climbing in some way, however sweet talking the bar wench would have absolutely nothing to do with climbing therefore the "XP" gained from that should have nothing to do with the other.

Individual progression:

What if there were different progression charts for spacific skills, feats, powers etcetera? If I use my strength to fight a monster or climb a wall, my strength would improve, but not neccisarily my charm.

Would this lead to alot of bookkeeping? Perhaps, but... how simple could one make a system like that? Mutants and Masterminds (www.greenronin.com) has a system of purchasing feats and stats, and powers and skills with XP, with levels bundled in packages of 15 xp. But my game isn't about Superheroes... or is it?

So, I’ve officially started two projects. I’m working on designing my own RPG from the ground up. Its slowly building up into Alpha stage and will soon be play tested for the first time by a select group of close friends and players. My guess is that the first write up will be done by the end of January.

Also I have taken on the project of creating a E6 based RPG rulebook (which will be accompanied by its own website... or a page on my future website). That shouldn’t take too much time either, because it essentially is just a bunch of editing and layout.

My web design learning have come along quickly, I still haven’t quite memorized each and every code, but I know exactly what to reference and look up when I want to do something specific, and can re-write it to do what I need it to. My website will be coming up in the very near future, pending money issues.
My plans include maybe writing a couple free websites for people so I can increase my portfolio, and eventually get paid for doing this sort of thing professionally.

That’s my update for this week, thanks for reading it.

Well, here it is. My computer is back up and running. I no longer have to live my life off of my laptop and this is a good thing!
I’ve been working on web-design lately and am trying to build professional websites now. Hopefully by the time I know what I’m doing there’s still a market for that sort of thing.
I still don’t have a job or any kind of income and am growing further and further in debt as time goes on. Hell, I can’t even get a job at McDonalds… I have no idea what’s so bad about my resume that I can’t land a job. I even got it professionally looked at and modified and still got nothing.
I’ve been working on creating a new and exciting Role Playing system when my brain is on fire from learning web coding. It’s coming along fantastically! I have a character generation system, an advancement system, a weapon and armor system, but no money system or combat system yet. Nor do I have a good way to assess challenges and award XPs.
I’m hoping to be able to launch my RPG with my first website available for free, and then hold monthly ransoms for adventures geared toward it. My fingers are crossed that this takes off and makes me a little bit of money… hopefully enough to sustain myself and the website. I’m hoping the launch date will be early in the New Year, if I can get it up by Jan 1, all the better (but I doubt that will happen).
If none of this works though, I might have to hunt down a red paperclip and pray that people will trade me a house for it.

Today marks the launch of my podcasting career… It took way too long to set this up, but thankfully it has gotten off the ground. Some of the participants are from the Nerdbound podcast group. NBNeil, Ian M, and Ian B have been confirmed. Also a couple of my real life players have joined, and a completely new guy I found randomly on ENworld.

The 2 week celebration of my birthday starts tomorrow, The Calgary Stampede! I haven’t gone in several years… the last time was when I was 15 or 16, so more than 10 years ago. As I get older, my birthday means less and less, but I claim it gets longer and longer.

I finished reading the rules for Monsters and other childish things. It was a really entertaining read and it seems like an awesome system. I recommend checking it out.

As far as RPGs go, I’m working on a Star Wars Saga Edition game at the moment. It’s going to take place in a different dimension than the star wars universe, so no Darth Vader, no Luke Skywalker, and NO JAR JAR BINKS! Gun-Guns will still exist though, because the race isn’t that bad, just the one character.

I’ve been trying to come up with something to write professionally about. I’m good with fantasy, but it seems almost like there’s too much of that out already, and I might not be able to write anything new at all. I thought about trying my hand at script writing. I know I can write a better script than anything that’s coming out right now, it’s just difficult to come up with something fresh and new that nobody has seen before.

Well, that’s all I got for now, thank you for taking the time to read!

Lord Xtheth