Dec 27
The 'tension' factor of the various re-roll mechanics out there has been something that I've been considering off and on ever since reading an article by someone, the details of which escape me. To sum it up, if a player has the ability to re-roll then any given roll loses it's immediacy/tension/pucker factor, whatever you …
Dec 19
The Red Queen Mechanic – In the upcoming zompoc play test I’m going to be running it’s possible that some of the heroes may be immune to the Z virus. I’m going with ‘rage’ zombies, at least at first… Anyway, I’m going to pull out 8 misc cards and then add the two red queens …
Dec 13
Don’t you hate having ideas about your game mechanics/designs when you dont’ have any easy way to record them? And hours later when you can get to a computer all you can remember is you had this really great idea on how to fix…. something about your design. Too much aluminum or something because I …
Dec 08
The Snap Shot – In LCA! each character has X spaces of movement that they can scatter at will during their turn. They can move three spaces, shoot a gun, taunt a bad guy, open a door etc. And then move 1 more space and shoot their other gun. I want movement to be fluid …
Dec 07
I’ve been going through and working on the penalties and bonuses or handicaps and boosts as I’m calling them and trying to balance the checkbook so to speak and make them useful, meaningful but not onerous. Right now they range from +/- 1 to 10 but typically they run out as a 1, 2, 3, …
Nov 28
Obviously not a lot of awesome updates to post the last couple of weeks. It’s all been minor cleanup on LCA! and working on the sample scripts. I’ll be using the included Zombie Apocalypse script that will be included with LCA! as a general play test that I’ll podcast in the upcoming weeks. Getting the …
Nov 15
This is the Noise Rule which is a setting specific rule for the zombie apocalypse sample script that will be in LCA. Firearms / Loud Noises – At the start of any scene set aside 0 to 10 d6 dice or note the number down somewhere. These are the scene’s Infected dice. The exact …
Nov 01
In between working on LCA! and planning a DRYH sesson I’ve been toying with a light mechanic system taking inspiration from DRYH’s dice pool mechanics and twisting it to my own needs for a slightly more tactical optioned system. For lack of a better term it’s called the H.E.R.O. system in my head Hero, Exhaustion, …
Oct 03
Okay I’ve switched to rolling 2d20 for skill mechanics. It’s an odd choice I know but it makes the math pretty on the back end and I like pretty math. It also lets me fall back to a unified “Any skill roll on your turn takes a standard action” rather than “All skill rolls …
Sep 30
The last few days I’ve been trying to come up with an elegant percentile dice mechanic system for RPG’s. By elegant I mean it works for everything, general, combat, opposed, attribute tests. There were some bullet points about percentiles I liked looking at the idea casually. a) it’s obvious what your chances to succeed are (or is …
Sep 23
First draft of the Traps chapter in the adventuring section. As always excuse the formatting due to the pasting in from google docs. In a side note these are traps that I’ve used in the past. In the case of the vertical spear trap the bars were also electrified and ended up impaling and killing …
Sep 20
The rough draft of the Drives and Motivations chapter for LCA!. The purpose of the chapter is to assist those players who are new to the game/hobby or those for whom typically their character is just the equivalent of a nail in the wall to hang their guns and swords on. Hopefully by including these kinds …
Sep 16
Just added the Simple Chase mechanic to LCA! as I needed a quick way to improv chase scenes like those below rather than using the full blown Extended Challenge system which is much more involved, includes stunt systems and the like but requires prepwork to work at its best. The Simple Chase is more narrative …
Aug 27
This is a continuation from the first DS playtest and the queen mum of the scarabs changed into a Gaj to allow for a more complex encounter… Actors: Gerao an escaped pit fighter slave, Areen a disenchanted noble, Jaina a spy for the Veiled Alliance and a practitioner of defiler magic. Scene: Exterior shot of …
Aug 26
Lots more internal changes and changes to various mechanics although not massively drastic. I’m now working on Section 3, Chapter 3 – Damage and trying to make it as least confusing as I can get it. To sum up every character has three areas of damage they can take, Physical, Mental and Vitality. Physical …
Aug 19
[Just an FYI: After discussing this with my wife who will be using this system I'm leaning heavily on a single attack roll at +2 bonuses to attack and damage. A character dual wielding the same type of weapon i.e. two melee or two ranged can make a single attack roll at +2 attack and …
Aug 17
This playtest is going to be using the Dark Sun setting. Granted I only have an old 2nd Edition version so I’m not sure how much might have changed but I would imagine that the Sorcerer Kings are still running things and the Templars are still doing their dirty work and the Veiled Society is …
Jul 31
Just thought I’d share the current character sheet. I’m a huge fan of function over form. I like my character sheets easily readable and without a lot of cramped tiny lettering. Given LCA!’s simplicity it supports such a simple character sheet. I suppose at some point one might find a more ub3r character sheet with …
Jul 31
This playtest is set in 1945 just after the war when everyone is high on victory, well except for the losers but there are still dark things out there, unleashed by the people meddling where they shouldn’t have been. It’s a world with a bit of Steampunk. Our cast of characters on the player …
Jul 31
I’ve always coded little apps and utilities for the purposes of gaming. I’ve been doing it far back on the TRS-80 Model III that I owned (I spent $500 to put two floppy drives in it back in the day and $150 to boost the memory up to 16k) in junior high, or middle school …
