Monday, May 18, 2020

Still Working on this Role-Playing Game Because I am an Idiot

The title pretty much sums it up. Don't have much to add here, but with the whole COVID-19 thing I've found myself at home a whole lot more, started a D&D 5E Zoom campaign for a few friends, started working on a short novella based around old-school fantasy gaming tropes, and that kind of dragged me back towards pecking away at the Tankards & Broadswords RPG.

Because Google docs make me happy I haven't lost any of my older material, and I began re-writing some of the material I last worked on in 2013 (!!!). I think I found a better mechanic for bonuses and penalties because I was never really happy with what I'd decided on before. Also brutally streamlining weapon types down to Light, Medium, and Heavy. Same thing with armors. I've cut out almost any form of money mechanics in the game because I've decided that coin-counting is to me antithetical to adventure gameplay.

I also want to focus a lot on what I am loosely referring to as "Tavern Play", which is pretty much how to turn hanging out in Ye Olde Tavern from that boring part in the beginning of the game where you meet the mysterious wizard, into an actual interesting play space where your characters might enjoy hanging out while drinking, flirting, gaming, brawling, gossiping, and in general living the good life.

Fundamentally, I feel like this game isn't so much for me to do a dance and proclaim that I'm now an "indie game designer" so much as it is a platform for me to write my personal gaming manifesto. Pretty sure there isn't much of a market for that, but we'll see. The whole thing is going to be free whenever I get around to putting it someplace because it already beggars belief that I get paid for my fiction writing. I can't imagine anyone paying for my game-related work.

So, we'll see. I'll post more as time goes on.

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