Memory Motel

Another update?!?  

*Insert Princess Bride Inconceivable gif here*

I don't want to jinx anything, so I'll leave it at that. ;)

I've come across a bit of a block recently, concerning time management.  It wasn't an issue in the past, because I was able to access my working documents on Google Drive.  Unfortunately, that avenue has been closed, and my access has been restricted.  As a result, I have a small window of time that I can work during weekdays, and thus, productivity has suffered.

Although this is a hindrance, I haven't let it trip me up completely.  I've been taking notes and writing up what I can on a few notepads, and then transferring those notes into my docs on Google Drive.  It's a little more work, but I'm kind of enjoying it; call me Old School, but I like writing stuff out with pen and paper.  It gives me the opportunity to really think about what I want to put down, and flipping through pages of notes is cathartic (at least to me).

So what have I been coming up with?  

Setting specific mechanics is one thing.  This includes Races of a sort, but it's based more on location.  There are four species total, which includes human; the others will be revealed here as teasers.

Another item I wanted to focus on was more dice mechanics, and I think I've come up with a neat little addition.  I'm calling it Elements, and they enhance your roll in very specific ways.  Each Element has a positive and negative quality, which is activated by the type of roll you make.  Players have the option to purchase an Element at character creation, or ignore them completely.

Finally, I wrote up some more planetary history, and a few culture specific details.  The world(s) are really starting to take shape, like they have a life of their own.  It's pretty exciting!  Ya, I'm kind of geeking out on this, but it's cool watching something take a life of its own.

One last thing I need to address is the actual game mechanics.  Would you like me to talk about the core mechanic, and give more details?  If there's enough interest, I'll go into more detail for the next post.  Let me know!

High and Dry

Hi there.

It's been a while since I've posted; sorry about that.  I could go on a long tear about work, life, and whatnot, but I'm sure you'd be bored to tears.  The short of it is, I've been busy and totally neglected this poor little blog.  I'm hoping to rectify that over the next few weeks, with more updates and activity.

Even though I haven't been active here, I have been doing a lot of developing and playtesting.  After receiving some feedback, I've made some changes to the mechanic in an effort to streamline gameplay.  It's yielded positive results thus far, and players seem pretty happy with the change.
Another theme I've been revisiting is the emphasis on dice.  The mechanic uses six-sided dice, but not target numbers, per se.  Numeric value of each side has a different meaning, and each die has a purpose.  You're always doing something, even if you fail at a task.

While we're on this subject, let's talk about the core mechanic.  First and foremost, everything is represented as dice (or more accurately, d6).  Whatever number you have in an Ability, Skill, or Health is the number of d6 you have in said trait.  The same goes for task difficulty; picking a lock would be represented as a 5 die difficulty.  While this may seem similar to a target number, the action and resolution is very different.  The player's dice roll not only determines success, but how the dice effect the target difficulty as well.

Confused yet?  Don't worry, more on the core mechanic later on.  Hopefully this piques your interest, even if just a little.  I'll post some more details next week, maybe even a sample encounter.  Until then, thanks for checking in, and I'll be more diligent with staying up to date.