Velocimancer Games

Well well, it’s been quite a minute hasn’t it? But we’re back this week, with another TTRPG Tuesday.  I missed the deadline for the 18-card TTRPG Design Contest, but I have so many failed entries that got to 60-80% of the way to a complete v1.0, and this time I wanted to get to 100%, even if just to break my habit of abandoning designs.  I got a first draft of the rules, the character sheet, and the cards, and I’ve printed, cut, and sleeved the cards.  Tomorrow I’ll film a little video (the last requirement of the contest) and put up a tweet with some pictures and links to the rules, and see if there’s any interest in playtesting or providing feedback.  Honestly it’ll also be fine if it just goes on the shelf, and I turn my focus over to The Envy of Ajax.  First though, I wanted to post-mortem my process a little and evaluate what there is. First off, the game feels tough, but I kind of like that.  I think that in 1.0, there might be too much Trait loss and...

Bonjour, and welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday.     I’m running out of time to get a design in for the ButtonShy contest, and I don’t know if this last week of the month will have enough free time for me to finish it.     So just as an exercise, let’s lay out a plan for what it would take to finish this Riders design to the point where I could get a submission in by the 30th. Get the rules down.    I’ve got a limit of 3 pages, so just getting the bones down is a good start.    A lot of it is already in my general notes, and my notes on the setup.    The usual format: Title copy, Components, Synopsis, Setup, Gameplay, End of Game Finalize and either Wordify or just scan the character sheet Do a spreadsheet of cards.    Start with doing one side, worry about making cards double-sided only after hitting the first goal Instead of the usual card template, make a blown up single card template, and build the cards in that If I can plotz o...

Welcome back! To TTRPG Tuesday! We’re going to pick up exactly where we left off, with an experience first approach for the Riders RPG.  I’m already yawning for my bed so let’s crack on! It should be like the first time I encountered tokusatsu - what is this? Is this power rangers? What does this word mean? Oh my God it’s Power Rangers.  Wait Power Rangers isn’t a straight translation? The original series is its own thing? Its own decades-long franchise? And Masked Rider has its own franchise? But they’re related and cross-over? (Shit… I should make Rangers as a companion version) The players are toku fans who go No fucking way, I can’t believe this is an RPG (even though there are other toku-inspired RPGs) or weeby Western superhero fans looking for that capes and cowls feel but with a parallel aesthetic. The players sit down, they see the character sheet, they go okay, this is familiar enough but has things to set it apart.  I like the bars for tracking stats.  The...

Well well well, if it isn’t a late night Mechanic Monday! As I’m winding down for the quarter and hit my goal of ten Out of Mana posts, I figured it was fine for me to trot out this non-OOM idea that’s been sitting in drafts forever.  Take a looksie! Determining Suit Desirability in a Trick Taking Game In GREEM, the deck is shuffled and twelve cards are dealt facedown into a pile to form the Scoring Deck.  The remaining forty cards are dealt facedown to form a hand of ten cards per player.  Two cards are revealed from the Scoring Deck, each placed in a row corresponding with its suit.  The player to the left of the dealer then starts the game by playing a card to begin the trick, and all players must follow suit if able.  The player who plays the highest-valued card of the leading suit takes the trick.  At the end of a trick, the top card of the Scoring Deck is revealed, and placed in a row corresponding with its suit.  The winner of the trick then lea...

Hello there and welcome back to the blog! Things got away from me this week - by which I mean, I spent all of last week churning out pages of my most recent play, and finished the first draft on Monday, and have needed til now to get my writing feet back under me.  Plus the short week was full of absolutely stupid issues at the dayjob so that didn’t bloody well help.  But here we are, on either a Saturday, when I’m starting this, or a Sunday, if I don’t finish this tonight.  Since it’s an off-day, maybe I’ll just do another checkin about… … … damn.  I just checked, and it’s been almost three months since my Q1 checkin.  And you know what’s wild? I did in fact hit 10 Out of Mana posts, and weirdly enough, with my two TTRPG Tuesday focuses, I have actually begun prototyping again.  And hey, I finished one of the two first drafts of plays that I mentioned not having completed in that update.  Wild! Well then - let’s talk a plan for the rest of the quarter...

Hello hello.  We’re back this week with another TTRPG Tuesday.  This week I figured I’d think out the Experience I want to create with my two WIPs - The Riders 18-card RPG, and the Company scenario The Envy of Ajax.  It’s going to be a bit freeformy - quelle surprise, eh? The Envy of Ajax: Someone who likes The Company and has played it before sees that there’s a short standalone scenario, and picks it up.  The simplicity of the pamphlet gels with the accessibility of the zine, and adds to the small but eye-catching pile. The person wants to get some friends into the Company - perhaps friends with similar taste in films, but not especially versed in RPGs.  The first zine allows them to build everyone full characters, but for first timers with just one evening at their disposal, the Eurydice Incident seems to be too much of a commitment.  Instead of trying to pick one of the scenarios from the second zine, the GM decides that the pamphlet will be loose enoug...

Welcome back to another TTRPG Tuesday! Although I’m still chugging along in MtG and therefore have all sorts of Out of Mana-ish neurons firing, I’m in an RPG state of mind in terms of what I want to noodle out, so that’s what we’re doing.  Still disorganized though, so have some more stream of consciousness bullets: For The Envy of Ajax, my analysis of the pamphlet situation yields these data points: 3 columns each for the GM and the Players, and the columns can each fit: 1 dense table 2 manageable tables 3 small tables 5 paragraphs totaling >1000 characters. Mixing and matching those fundamentals will get me where I need to go, and maybe I start with layout to determine my actual design constraints, particularly since I tend to go raw unbroken up text before sorting, which might hurt me in this case. I’ve never played a DM/GM-less RPG myself.  I’ve read some, sure, but to be honest that constraint is the most challenging part of the Button Shy challenge.  For that rea...