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I asked Brent his opinion on which project I labor to finish if indeed I ought at all. Naturally, this is a loaded question, because lately I've been filled with a lot of mental energy in a way I haven't for literally years and my intention is to cross them off the list one-at-a-time. I'm looking at at least four projects that I have either started and gotten credible results on or had on the drawing board forever. Feeling that my queue is rather full, I have really been wanting to slap a 'finished' label on some or all of these things.
I feel that leaving so many unfinished projects is a bad omen for creating new ones. What's to say that they will not end consigned to the same dusty bin of half-creation?
Brent seemed to experience some trepidation regarding another d20 project, which Ehlon ostantaniously has been. Ehlon is basically a campaign setting. It's 'let me tell you about my game' writ large, and has subsumed many reams of paper - literal and digital. I created carefully balanced classes for 3.5 and I detailed long lists of equipment for True20, but it's Another Fantasy World, even if I delight in its sinister, claustrophobic nature (or, alternetly, the harrowing agrophobic nature of its endless plains, but whatever).
While I have a number of fiction series to be completed - one of them being a 10-year anniversary fan fiction for Serial Experiments: Lain, of all things, writing fills a different niche then design, and I will see how I progress doing both at once. Regardless, though, I have decided on the Dream RPG*, which is somewhere around 80% finished anyhow.
The big issue with Dream is that it's vague. Like, it's the trappings of a system wrapped around a bullshit session, basically. You can break the mechanics, and that's something I really don't feel like I ought to be concerned about, because anyone trying to break the mechanics of a system where metaphors are your characters chief abilities is Doing It Wrong. The premise was always that you've got a list of skills that you make up - they're more like definitions or descriptions, really. You assign a few dice to them, and whenever you're put into a situation, you're encouraged to figure out which one of those descriptions is applicable and describe yourself trying to use that skill to deal with the issue at hand.
When put into practice, this ended up having one player use Militant Feminist as a combat skill and Steel-Toed Boots as a running and toughness skill while another used Zero-Sum Game to get out of a flagrent DUI and underage drinking charge in the game. What was initially to be a straight horror game turned into a morbid comedy that felt more like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas then The Ring.
The issue with rules light systems is that they typically do similar things. My inertia really fell apart when I realized that my game did very little that Fudge or Fate did, but the test plays went pretty smoothly, so I guess I'll finish it up just for completions sake.
*It's a working title that I've never found a better name for or been entirely fond of. But when the idea is to use dream-like logic in your IC actions and one developed it while asleep, then it's hard to find a much more on-target name. >_>
I feel that leaving so many unfinished projects is a bad omen for creating new ones. What's to say that they will not end consigned to the same dusty bin of half-creation?
Brent seemed to experience some trepidation regarding another d20 project, which Ehlon ostantaniously has been. Ehlon is basically a campaign setting. It's 'let me tell you about my game' writ large, and has subsumed many reams of paper - literal and digital. I created carefully balanced classes for 3.5 and I detailed long lists of equipment for True20, but it's Another Fantasy World, even if I delight in its sinister, claustrophobic nature (or, alternetly, the harrowing agrophobic nature of its endless plains, but whatever).
While I have a number of fiction series to be completed - one of them being a 10-year anniversary fan fiction for Serial Experiments: Lain, of all things, writing fills a different niche then design, and I will see how I progress doing both at once. Regardless, though, I have decided on the Dream RPG*, which is somewhere around 80% finished anyhow.
The big issue with Dream is that it's vague. Like, it's the trappings of a system wrapped around a bullshit session, basically. You can break the mechanics, and that's something I really don't feel like I ought to be concerned about, because anyone trying to break the mechanics of a system where metaphors are your characters chief abilities is Doing It Wrong. The premise was always that you've got a list of skills that you make up - they're more like definitions or descriptions, really. You assign a few dice to them, and whenever you're put into a situation, you're encouraged to figure out which one of those descriptions is applicable and describe yourself trying to use that skill to deal with the issue at hand.
When put into practice, this ended up having one player use Militant Feminist as a combat skill and Steel-Toed Boots as a running and toughness skill while another used Zero-Sum Game to get out of a flagrent DUI and underage drinking charge in the game. What was initially to be a straight horror game turned into a morbid comedy that felt more like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas then The Ring.
The issue with rules light systems is that they typically do similar things. My inertia really fell apart when I realized that my game did very little that Fudge or Fate did, but the test plays went pretty smoothly, so I guess I'll finish it up just for completions sake.
*It's a working title that I've never found a better name for or been entirely fond of. But when the idea is to use dream-like logic in your IC actions and one developed it while asleep, then it's hard to find a much more on-target name. >_>
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