Ach. Another writing-less day. So much I want to do and so little time. I understand now why people want to quit their day job and write. I'm not there, yet. Day job pays too much. Apparently, it's also a day for sentence fragments.
Ok, back to game writing. I actually wrote a role-playing game. I think it ended up being over 300 pages of world background, rules, characters and powers. It was/is a d20 superhero game. I always thought that was a missed marked in the d20 expansions. Some game companies tried to make d20 superhero rules: Silver Age Sentinels, Mutants and Masterminds are a couple of games. Neither quite hit it just right, in my opinion, so I wrote my own rules.
Now that I think on it, maybe my writing drought wasn't as parched as I though. I wrote my RPG back in 2004 or 2005. 300+ MS Word pages... That's a lot of pages.
I haven't done anything with the game, though at one point I was fully intending to publish it, myself if need be. That still might happen. Self-publishing is growing and the Pathfinder games shows that here's still some life in the D20 3.5 OGL (open gaming license).
I liked building the world and the characters most of all. Game mechanics, on the other hand, was more painful. Balancing powers was a tightrope that I didn't perfect, but I did pretty well. Your Brick, Psionic, Blaster and Martial Artist (the four main archtypes of superheroes, as far as I can determine) worked just fine. The problems in design came from the 'corner cases'; powers and character classes that weren't as popular or as likely to be chosen. I have no idea to this day if the Vigilante or the Powered Armor character classes are over powered, under powered or what. No one every played them in playtest sessions.
One thing I did learn was that players like choices. Give people as much freedom as possible and they'll be happy. But give them too much, and they'll be lost. Players need structure. Books provide structure, so can the narrative of a game. With games, however, the challenge is to balance story telling (which requires a pretty rigid narrative) with player choice (which wants to avoid being 'put on rails').
I think designing my d20 game, Rise to Power, gave me good experience in balancing both needs. If I ever get the chance to write for a video game, I think I'll do quite well. But, first things first: Angel Odyssey still needs some polishing. Maybe I can sneak out of bed after the wife and the parents are asleep and sneak some work in.
Ok, back to game writing. I actually wrote a role-playing game. I think it ended up being over 300 pages of world background, rules, characters and powers. It was/is a d20 superhero game. I always thought that was a missed marked in the d20 expansions. Some game companies tried to make d20 superhero rules: Silver Age Sentinels, Mutants and Masterminds are a couple of games. Neither quite hit it just right, in my opinion, so I wrote my own rules.
Now that I think on it, maybe my writing drought wasn't as parched as I though. I wrote my RPG back in 2004 or 2005. 300+ MS Word pages... That's a lot of pages.
I haven't done anything with the game, though at one point I was fully intending to publish it, myself if need be. That still might happen. Self-publishing is growing and the Pathfinder games shows that here's still some life in the D20 3.5 OGL (open gaming license).
I liked building the world and the characters most of all. Game mechanics, on the other hand, was more painful. Balancing powers was a tightrope that I didn't perfect, but I did pretty well. Your Brick, Psionic, Blaster and Martial Artist (the four main archtypes of superheroes, as far as I can determine) worked just fine. The problems in design came from the 'corner cases'; powers and character classes that weren't as popular or as likely to be chosen. I have no idea to this day if the Vigilante or the Powered Armor character classes are over powered, under powered or what. No one every played them in playtest sessions.
One thing I did learn was that players like choices. Give people as much freedom as possible and they'll be happy. But give them too much, and they'll be lost. Players need structure. Books provide structure, so can the narrative of a game. With games, however, the challenge is to balance story telling (which requires a pretty rigid narrative) with player choice (which wants to avoid being 'put on rails').
I think designing my d20 game, Rise to Power, gave me good experience in balancing both needs. If I ever get the chance to write for a video game, I think I'll do quite well. But, first things first: Angel Odyssey still needs some polishing. Maybe I can sneak out of bed after the wife and the parents are asleep and sneak some work in.
RSS Feed