I just added yet another blog to my growing collection of personal blogs. I have been toying with the rules for a German old school roleplaying system that I want to publish via Lulu.com at some point in Spring (as soon as I am done). In order to provide a focussed coverage of that topic I have added my Hexer & Helden blog. Enjoy!
For my latest RPG design I already have decided to use a level based system as explained in another post. I also love skill-based systems because of the variety they IMHO add to characters. One issue I find myself toying with again and again is how (and if) to reward skill checks with experience points.
I love dice… have been loving them since I started roleplaying. I love different sizes and shapes and I love the thrill of excitement that random die rolls bring with them. While I’m also enchanted by diceless systems, none have ever worked for me because the lack of randomness makes me feel like once more reading a story… it’s no longer a game. And I want to game. So dice it must be. But dice mechanics and choices shape a game more than any other aspect I can think of - for many reasons. Here is the dice system I will be using for my latest RPG design outlined in my recent blog post.
Tommi Brander asked in a response to my last RPG design post what the goals of my latest RPG design project where. A very reasonable and important question. And it occurred to me that I never really had thought about my goals above and beyond an instinctive and very intuitive level. So I would like to take the opportunity to elaborate a bit more about this - it seems somewhat important…
I am playing roleplaying games since about 1983 or 1984 (I started with the german red box version of D&D). Thus I was very early on introduced to the notion of level-based character advancement systems. Later on I also tried quite a few different paradigms, from point-based systems like GURPS, HERO and Mutants & Masterminds in more recent times to more storytelling like approaches like FUDGE, Storyteller or Castle Falkenstein. When designing my own rule systems I also tried all these approaches and at different points in my life preferred different styles. Nonetheless I keep coming back to a certain style and finally seem to have settled on my “perfect” style.
I’m really interested in design. Sadly I’m neither very talented (as you can see from the way I modified this blog theme) nor did I ever happen to enjoy any formal design education. Nonetheless I once more noticed how much I enjoy toying around with colors, fonts and more. I usually feel very inspired to start writing while playing with fonts… there are so many fonts out there that just ooze feelings… and provide ideas for stories, games and more.
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