Velocimancer Games

Hey, it’s been a minute, how about a TTRPG Tuesday? I’ve got updates to make before I turn in a final draft of a project, so I’m in the headspace.  Today I figured I’d return to the old “How would I gameify an IP well”, with Blue Lock! I’ve been getting into sports anime - not surprising considering my proclivity for battle shonen and access to someone else’s CrunchyR*ll subscription, and the fact that in real life I’ve been going FULL jock over the last year or so.  Blue Lock I’ve been watching every Saturday, and when I’ve done cardio in the basement I’ll watch Haikyu! Oh, and I watched all of Pride of Orange, because hockey.  These are all fun, with highs that land especially well with someone who’s finding an escape in sports, while also relying on tropes at certain points, or a humour that still isn’t always my cup of tea, or just elongated pacing. But I’m having a good time, and there’s certainly some lessons to be learned in how to structure conflict, int...

Hey, what’s up, it’s Mechanic M- It’s TTRPG T - Fuck it, it’s Whatever I Want Wednesday.  Even if I am starting to draft this on Tuesday. My thoughts today are all about what’s in the subject line.  I’m at a peculiar place in my artistic/craft space, maybe I have been for a long while, but it’s crystallizing for me lately as a confluence of a number of factors: chief among them, the pretty damn dire state of my theatre company, and the Chicago storefront theatre scene it belongs to.  Weirdly, this low point in my chief artistic practice coincides with unexpected success at my dayjob, and some recent wins on the writing side: I’ll be performing a piece for a sold-out storytelling podcast recording next week, and I’m getting some paid writing work for a supplement of a TTRPG I admire - my second time being able to say that. But beyond individual bright spots, I’m trying to look at the big picture: What’s all this for? What am I working towards? Have I been honest with mysel...

Happy 2023 and welcome back to Mechanic Monday! Wow, how long has it been since I did a post that wasn’t RPG-based? No one knows. Will this year be a return to 2020 form? No one cares. This week, I’ve been thinking about aUction games, especially on the heels of Dan Thurot’s recent interview with Amabel Holland about Watch Out! That’s a Dracula. I’ve always liked auction games (Medici was the first Knizia I put real time into) and I’ve had a lot of auction mechanics on this blog ( a roundup of them , even), and I thought I should try and see if I can string some of them together into one game, weird and wild but at least playable. I specifically want this to be a bit hodgepodge and messy, as I think that auction games already tend towards clean and I’d like to fight against that both with complexity and accompanying theme. I’m thinking hidden identities of the bidders, and innate as well as acquired player powers, which led me to think that themewise we could do a cyber...

Well well well if it isn’t TTRPG Tuesday.  No time for the diary entry that precedes the recipe, let’s get right into the peas and carrots and patty-pan squash of the thing: expanding one of my Spectres of Brocken World Seeds to fit the new format template that Aaron’s laid out for the published version.  And maybe after I do one, I’ll do some more, or look at the ways in which this would differ from my Bulb system.  Here we go! HEADLAMPS IN THE FOG The City and its bridges shine in the night, reflected by the inky water of the bay.  When the wind blows from the North, a thick fog covers the waterfront and rain runs together with motor oil.  The city is home to millions, the lofty towers built and occupied by the unthinkably wealthy, the destitute unhomed and out of sight in the cavernous tunnels and sewers beneath the Earth.  Law and Order are maintained by the righteous Millennions, a mechanized peacekeeping force piloted by the bravest, most just and tru...

Damn, August feels like a long time ago.  Maybe because it is! Welcome back to the Velocimancer blog for another TTRPG Tuesday! Since last time I have done absolutely nothing further with Cold Iron Company, just absolutely stopped dead in its tracks.  lol and/or lmao - fortunately I’ve made peace with letting projects be on the shelf, as none of them need to be The One that’s going to launch me into a spotlight I’ve stopped craving, and I can just focus on the project that I want to at any given time.  As evidenced by the fact that I sat down this evening to work on a play and opened this tab instead hahahahahahaha.  Anyway, let’s get down to it, shall we? I’m kicking around this concept, and some title options are: Coming True; The Wyrds; You, the Myth, the Legend.  It started with the idea of specific quests that players could undertake, which upon completion would result in a specific level.  Yes this is framed for D&D and yes, this is kind of inspir...

It’s TTRPG Tuesday! Late last week I saw a call for a system that would work for an alt history WWII wargame style experience with minis.  Naturally I started throwing together some ideas .  I’ve fleshed out how characters are constructed and played, and some general bones for play, but I figured I’d dive a little deeper into some specifics, so here we go! Alright so what does combat physically look like? The brief that I wasn’t given but am running with, is minis on a grid - squares not hexes, for what it’s worth.  Let’s talk about the assumed default (D&D) and how this combat differentiates.  I’m using an action point system instead of the standard>move>minor>free action hierarchy because of what it models; D&D historically stated that a round lasted six seconds, and each entity’s actions went in initiative order, but all that happened quickly enough that no matter how many entities acted it all happened in six seconds (that generally takes ten min...

Hello hello hello, it’s time for another TTR- wait, what day is it? It’s Monday? Not Tuesday? But that would make this… dear God… a Mechanic Monday? In this economy? In truth, I don’t have a fun new game mechanic I wanted to noodle out today (a few in the hopper though, I should get on those)(holy shit my last Mechanic Monday was like 14 months ago), as I’ve spent the last few hours tinkering about and learning nanDECK , and my brain’s a bit fried but I wanted to get my thoughts together. First off, it’s a cool tool.  Free, runs on my work computer, or off a USB drive, some great tutorials (shout out to Ryan Langewisch of Ludo Lodge ), and boyyyyy does templating cut down on the repetitive work.  I’ve been using Fantasy GM Squared as my test, as I want to completely change layouts/formats from the one that’s in my existing prototypes, and this seems the perfect chance to try out some new ones without having to painstakingly redo every card.  I spent the day taking the old...