In which I take a long hard look at what I'm doing here.

So, I've not posted here in a while now. I've been focusing a lot more of my mental energies on my food related writing and experimentation, and even my gaming thoughts have been leaning more towards just wanting to play.

The truth is, I just don't have that much patience for the nitty gritty of game design. I've got here what I still think is a great idea, a dream of mine for the last decade has been finally seeing this concept in print, but the truth is I don't think I have all the skills and resources necessary to pull it off.

So, I've recruited some help. Any of you who're still reading, give a warm welcome to Kasdaye, one of the #rpgnet regulars who in a fit of boredom has agreed to take a look at this stunted growth of a project, and maybe see about helping get this thing at least to something one can play around the table with some friends.

Since I don't know when or if I'm going to use them, I thought I might describe some of the ideas I've still got stewing, defining mechanics and concepts that I've hit on that I like, but haven't yet put to page yet.

First off, well, is the Dark itself. I've done a lot of thinking along the way, about the idea that the wild, the Dark itself, changes a person. It's like the call of the wild or the sea, but twisted into a much darker urge. The inky blackness that surrounds the Earth seems to pull at the basest and most barbaric and animalistic urges. As the mind twists and becomes darker, the body becomes similarly twisted, a bizarre manifested image of the dementia that consumes the mind in the blacker places. In game terms, I'm thinking something of a fusion of Star Wars' Dark Side Points, Vampire's Humanity, and the Chaos mutations I've heard so much about from WFRP. The GM can tempt the player with the power of the Dark, handing over a temporary burst of instinct and power, in exchange for a farther slide towards the inhuman.

The combat system I have in mind is sort of like a half-way point between full on map and tactical combat, and the usual vague abstractions. The idea is that we keep track of combat in a set of concentric circles, with the players in the center. From there we step outwards essentially be state of detection by the party, starting at close quarters, stepping out to visual spotting range, and then to audio detection range, and finally simply being unspotted, which would be effectively outside the circles. The idea is that monsters and NPCs can make stealth checks, to try and get into close range without getting spotted before hand and thus being open to attack. The rolls would be modified by the light sources carried by the party, and the amount of cover available in the combat area. Range is not a contributing factor, as it's assumed to take place at close enough range to render it a moot point.

I've also got some thoughts about how the monster and NPC systems should look. I'm thinking that to save GM prep time, we go old school D&D style or like the NPC advice given in GURPS 3rd, boiling down the baddies into only the basic stats we need to run a fight with them, plus base attribute check values to allow for any non-combat tasks needed.

I've got some more ideas still yet to be penned regarding the structure of Aralia society and government, which I hope to get down myself soon.

Stay tuned, hopefully things will finalyl get interesting again.

Behind the scenes work.

I've revised a few things in the previous entries, changed some skills around, added some new ones, in part in preperation for some system ideas I'm planning.

The biggest issue I'm having right now is just slogging through the equipment section, as it's exactly the sort of list work I've never been great at or liked doing much.

But also giving some serious thought to what the combat system will look like, as I'm somewhat torn between a number of poles, as well as on how to implement the most important factor of the whole game in a mechanical way: Light and darkness.

The trouble of trying to design a combat system in which it's assumed to be pitch black most of the time, is something I'm still wrapping my head around.

The idea so far is actually to drop the tactical, hexmap and counter approach I'd originally considered, in keeping with my love of minatures play in D&D as well as the Fallout system which inspired a lot of my early conceptiosn of the game.

Instead, I'm thinking more of an abstract system based around acquiring and keeping targets in the darkness. The biggest difficulty in combat on post-Nightfall Earth is in actually being able to see your target, and various light sources will actually find themselves sharing a somewhat similar level of mechanical complexity as swords or guns.

The main decision is in what the base assumption is as to target acquisition. If I assume that the players cannot by default see the enemies, then I need rolls to see if they can spot them, and to factor in the quality of the light source when it comes to covering a given area easily. If I asusme they can see them by default, then instead it becomes a contest of source, with the target perhaps having maneuvers to try and evade being spotted, and thus making the light source a modifier to such a maneuver, as well as perhaps a modifier based on how much cover is present in the combat environment.

So far my thoughts have been leaning towards the latter solution, and I'm thinking I may know some ways to do it within the mechanics I already have arranged so far. The end result will be much, much more abstract that I had originally anticipated the combat system being, but dealing with this issues within the confines of the hexgrid just seems like it would be far too crunchy and slow in play.

I'm also moving away from the concept of hexgrid combat simply because my present rural living arrangement means that any playtesting will almost certainly occur online, likely via IRC, which means that a hex and counter approach would be even more cumbersome than usual, requiring a setup with something like OpenRPG or similar, which is potentially too much work, work that would distract from play preparation and design work.

It is possible that a future supplement composed of variant rules might introduce a more Fallout-y combat system, but for now, it will have to wait, sadly.

I'm still here

I apologize to any who are still reading this for my lack of updates. A combination of writer's block, and health issues have been slowing my work a bit.

I see this blog as sort of a "first draft" for the work, and lately I've not had much to work with that was even first draft material.

I'm still in a bit of brainlock with the Aralia. I want to dig in deeper and explore their society and family structure, I'm just having some trouble figuring out just what that structure is, and winding up with something that fits the themes and image of them I want. there's a lot of conflicting ideas in my head right now.

I also had some thoughts on a village design system that wound up going nowhere.

So I'm still working on things, still thinking about it, I just haven't had anything good enough yet to show to the public. There's a number of unfinished pieces sitting in my drafts folder right now, it's just a matter of finishing them.

New Home!

So, after some difficulties with theRPGsite's blog system, as well as seeing Dr. Rotwang's fine blog in action, I decided I needed a better home on the old Interwebs.

So, I've set up shop here, and provided I can make sense of this somewhat glitchy Blogger editor, hopefully more content will follow.

I've also copied the two short entries from my RPGsite blog over here, so as to keep everything all nice and in one place.