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A Choice of Game Mechanics

A Choice of Game Mechanics

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As of today, the initial layout of Architect of Worlds is finished – all of the final-draft text has been dropped into InDesign and laid out on the pages. In fact, given that there are a couple more days before the end of October, I’ve gone ahead and dropped the “Fine-Tuning World Climate” material into the book as well. I’m going to try to get that laid out before I produce an end-of-month PDF for my patrons.

This is a really big milestone. My planning message for November will detail the work that remains to be done, but the bulk of the final editorial work is finished. From here to the release version is a short distance, relatively speaking.

So today, I’m taking a break from Architect to consider some of the projects I might take up afterward. In particular, the possibility of producing one or more RPG sourcebooks tied to my personal literary settings. These include:

  • The Human Destiny: Interstellar science fiction, positioned somewhere between moderately hard SF and conservative space opera, essentially a pastiche of Star Trek in a universe where human beings are decidedly not the dominant culture.
  • Fourth Millennium: Alternate-historical fantasy set in and around the ancient Mediterranean, a world in which Hellenistic civilization is dominant and (at least some of) the gods are real and active in human affairs.
  • The Great Lands: Iron-Age fantasy reminiscent of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, in which heroic demigods struggle for glory and the survival of their people.

Of the three, I suspect The Human Destiny and Fourth Millennium are most likely to come to fruition. I do want to do more with The Great Lands, but that setting has been getting a lot less interest from the potential audience, so I’m a bit less motivated to push it forward.

One question that keeps coming up is how these settings might best be translated into tabletop RPG material – in particular, what game system might be the best choice for me to work with and publish under?

My first choice, of course, would be GURPS. I’ve got plenty of experience writing for various editions of GURPS – no fewer than 17 full-length books for which I was sole author, co-author, contributor, or editor would argue for that. To this day I’m fond of the system, and I’m quite convinced that any of my personal settings would translate well into it. Not least because I suspect a lot of GURPS idioms have embedded themselves into my personal world-building style.

The problem is that GURPS doesn’t have any form of open license. It’s certainly possible to write and sell third-party GURPS material. Douglas Cole of Gaming Ballistic, for example, has managed a small but successful product line tied to Dungeon Fantasy. As someone with a long track record of both freelance and on-the-payroll work for SJG, I could probably do the same. The barrier to entry would be steep, though, and probably not something at which a one-man development shop working around the constraints of a day job could succeed.

A few years back, I briefly considered writing my own RPG system. You can probably find a few references to the Eidolon system in old posts here. I eventually set that idea aside, because frankly the market is already absolutely glutted with RPG game systems. Anything I publish along these lines is going to be very marginal to begin with; tying it to an idiosyncratic game system would reduce the audience size from “few” to “none.”

I considered the new Cortex Prime system, and even wrote up a bunch of Human Destiny material for it. I still like that system, but the promised creator-friendly licensing scheme never materialized, so I had to set that aside too.

I thought about publishing Human Destiny under the OGL, possibly by way of Cepheus Engine, but the blowup over the OGL at the beginning of this calendar year kind of scotched that notion. I have absolutely no interest in building a dependency into any of my work that Wizards of the Coast could yank out from under me at any time. There was some talk of placing Cepheus Engine on a different licensing basis, possibly with cooperation from Mongoose Publishing, but I’m not sure how that shook out. I’m still kind of leery. Besides, I’m not entirely convinced that the Traveller-like mechanics of Cepheus Engine would quite fit the Human Destiny setting.

More recently I’ve been looking at Monte Cook’s Cypher, and Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying (BRP), both of which are available under very creator-friendly licensing terms.

Cypher is perhaps a little more streamlined than I like in a tabletop system, but it seems to have a bigger and growing audience. Monte Cook Games has been pushing it hard this year, especially after the OGL debacle. Cypher is available under its own open license, and the System Reference Document (SRD) is pretty extensive.

On the other hand, Basic Role Playing is an established and very solid system, more GURPS-like than most of the others. It’s been applied to a variety of settings over the years, and I think some of its mechanics would fit my settings very nicely. It’s not clear how much of an audience it has outside the very popular Pendragon, Runequest and Call of Cthulhu games. BRP used to be under a fairly restrictive open license – the SRD included almost nothing but the core task-resolution mechanic – but the most recent release of the engine includes more mechanics, and is apparently going to be placed under the much broader ORC license.

None of this is urgent yet; it’s going to be a while yet before Architect is finally out the door and I can turn to the next big project. Still, that seems to be the current state of play. I need a tabletop game system that will be a good fit for the settings I want to write, which has at least some established audience, and which exists under a licensing scheme for which I won’t have to be a full-time developer and marketer to succeed. It’s encouraging that the intersection of those three sets doesn’t appear to be quite empty . . .

Thoughts on Fourth Millennium

Thoughts on Fourth Millennium

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“Battle of Pydna 168 BCE,” by Peter Connolly

While I continue to make incremental progress on Architect of Worlds and Twice-Crowned, I also keep thinking about what’s likely to be my next big tabletop RPG project, beginning later this year. That’s a full-fledged historical-fantasy game, probably published under the Cypher System, with the working title of Fourth Millennium.

The premise is that this is the ancient Western world, centered around the Mediterranean basin, but it’s not exactly the world we see in our history books. There are fantastic elements: spirits that can be bargained with, gods who may or may not be kindly disposed toward mortals, magic that works more often than not, strange creatures that lurk in the wilderness beyond the borders of civilization. It’s also an alternate history, with several points of divergence: a survival of Minoan civilization, a Hellenic world that didn’t commit suicide in the fifth century BCE with quite so much short-sighted enthusiasm, an Alexandrian οἰκουμένη that managed to survive its founder’s death. The setting is divided between two incipient world-empires and a whole host of minor kingdoms and barbarian peoples, each with their own distinctive flavor.

One thing I’ve been thinking about is the “canonical adventure” for the setting. My past experience with RPG design tells me that this is really important. Potential players and game-masters need to be clear as to what they can expect to do in a setting. Dungeons & Dragons centers around the dungeon crawl. Traveller centers around doing odd jobs to survive on the fringes of interstellar society. Transhuman Space, when we first developed it, was a lovely rich setting that didn’t have a clear answer for “what do the characters do?” and that handicapped it for a long time.

So what will player characters in Fourth Millennium be doing? I think that boils down to the motto for the setting – something that may end up being the core book’s subtitle:

The future is in your hands.

The idea is that player characters will be thoroughly involved in history as it unfolds in this alternative world. They’ll start out as agents for powerful people – an ambitious Roman senator, a powerful post-Minoan priestess-queen, a provincial governor in the Alexandrian empire, that sort of setup. At first they’ll be carrying out missions for their patron – accumulating rewards of wealth and treasure, sure, but also gathering social standing and authority. Eventually they’ll become more independent, becoming movers and shakers in their own right. They’ll feel as if they’re making a mark on the future of the world – although, to be sure, Fate and the gods will have their own say.

So yeah, fighting monsters, but more often human foes: cutpurses and assassins, pirates, brigands, barbarian raiders. Exploring the uncivilized wilderness, traveling in strange foreign lands. Solving mysteries, making scientific discoveries, writing books that everyone wants to read. Making brilliant speeches, intriguing to discredit or eliminate political rivals, persuading people to vote one way or another. Making a fortune in trade or loot, or just collecting the revenue from big land-holdings. Fighting in wars, even commanding armies. Winning elections, holding political office, governing whole provinces. Eventually reaching the top of the social pyramid in whatever republic, kingdom, or empire you call your own. The end-point of a successful long-term campaign might be to gather such fame and glory that people will still be talking about you at the end of the Fourth Millennium.

One major inspiration here might be games like Pendragon or Paladin – games that aren’t just richly imagined settings, but structured campaigns that encourage play across years and even generations.

I know, I know. Ambitious as all hell, especially for a one-person development shop. Well, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. And you never know, maybe the Muses are thinking kindly of me.

Fourth Millennium

Fourth Millennium

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Alexandros III of Makedon, called “The Great,” first Great King of the Argead dynasty (2702-2735 EK) (Image by Arienne King, original found here)

By the reckoning of years used in the Danassan Hegemony, the date is 3000 Ἔτος Κόσμου, the three thousandth year since the creation of the world. A new millennium is at hand, an age of prosperous cities and growing empires, new gods and ancient mysteries, science and darkest magic. It seems likely to be an age of conflict as well. Ambitious generals and kings struggle for power, and barbarian peoples look with envy on the wealth and sophistication of civilized lands. What history will reveal next, not even the gods can know for sure.

Fourth Millennium has been conceived as a game setting, derived from some of my own fiction: short stories set in the Greek “Heroic Age” as well as the novel-in-progress Twice-Crowned and its eventual sequels. It’s grown past its literary beginnings, though, taking on shape as a rich alternate-historical fantasy world.

Fourth Millennium echoes the Mediterranean world of our own history, in the first century before the Common Era . . . but fate has taken its own turns here. An offshoot of Minoan civilization survived, creating a neo-Hellenic culture in which women hold religious and political power. The Peloponnesian War may have taken place, but its outcome was less viciously harmful to the Hellenic civilization at its peak. Alexander the Great may have died young, but his son survived and came out on top of the civil wars that followed his death. The Roman Republic is on the rise, but it faces tough competition in the East, in the form of an Hellenistic world that is stronger and more unified.

Adventurers can come from a variety of origins: Greeks of several varieties, Romans and other Latins, Celts, Germans, Berbers, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Judeans, Persians, and many more. They may be warriors and soldiers, oracles and seers, legates and senators, or philosophers and scientists. There will be a variety of possible campaign structures: military stories, politics and intrigue, high-stakes commercial ventures, mysteries, exploration, possibly all of these at once.

The concept in my head is for a Cypher System game, published under the Monte Cook Games open license. I can already see the broad outlines of the game, and a lot of details that will fit the setting. I’m still debating whether to write one book or two here – there may be so much setting detail, so much to suggest a variety of structures for campaigns and adventures, that it won’t all fit in one volume.

Best guess is that I’ll be pulling together notes for Fourth Millennium while I work on getting Architect of Worlds out the door in the first half of this year. I might post a few fragments and notes here, or push them to my patrons as small freebies. Once Architect is finished, assuming my muse is still engaged by then, serious work on this project is likely to get under way.

Have to say, the more I think about this project the more excited I am for it. The ancient Mediterranean world has been a personal fascination for over half my life; it will be nice to get back to it as a game designer. Not to mention I’ve learned a lot since I wrote GURPS Greece, coming up on thirty years ago . . .

Four Heroes for The One Ring

Four Heroes for The One Ring

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I’ve been rather badly under the weather for the past few days, and not inclined to work too hard. Today, to take a break from outstanding projects, I decided to sit down and tinker with a recent purchase: the second edition of The One Ring, possibly the best tabletop RPG ever published set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

The four starting heroes I drew up this afternoon are based on characters I ran in the Lord of the Rings Online MMO years ago. Leonore and Morlindiel are taken almost directly from the online game, Reinald is a looser adaptation of another online character, whereas Náli is more or less original to today’s effort. In any case, I think this group would make a pretty decent starting party for the tabletop game.

I don’t know what, if anything, I’m going to do with these characters. I’ve been known to write some Tolkien fan-fiction in the past, but in recent years I’ve been trying to get away from fan-fic in favor of original work. Still, the new edition of The One Ring has certainly attracted my interest. I may even go looking for a group to play the new game with . . . in my copious free time.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s a small band of adventurers, ready to set out into the wilds of Eriador in the decades leading up to the War of the Ring.

Leonore Rushlight

Leonore is the daughter and only child of an alderman of Bree. Her parents took the unusual step of educating her as best they could, even acquiring books for her to read. She grew up rather quiet and thoughtful, and the other Bree-folk think her a bit strange, but she has already learned as much about the true history of Middle-earth as any of her people. Recently she met Gandalf the Grey at the Prancing Pony. Her long conversations with the wizard have encouraged her to seek out knowledge wherever she can find it, even if it means leaving the safety of Bree far behind.

Culture – Men of Bree

Blessing – Bree-blood (+1 Fellowship Rating)

Calling – Scholar

Standard of Living – Common

Distinctive Features – Fair-spoken, Subtle, and Rhymes of Lore

Shadow Path – Lure of Secrets

Flaws –

Rewards – Cunning Make (Leather Corslet)

Virtues – Confidence

Strength 3 (TN 17)Endurance 23Valour 1
Heart 4 (TN 16)Hope 16Wisdom 1
Wits 7 (TN 13)Parry 17

Skills

Awe 0Enhearten 2Persuade 2
Athletics 1Travel 1Stealth 1
Awareness 1Insight 2Scan 1
Hunting 1Healing 2Explore 1
Song 1Courtesy 3Riddle 2 (Favored)
Craft 2 (Favored)Battle 1Lore 3 (Favored)

Combat Proficiencies

  • Axes 2
  • Bows 1
  • Spears 0
  • Swords 0

Gear

  • Treasure – 30
  • Axe (Damage 5, Injury 18, 2 Load)
  • Bow (Damage 3, Injury 14, 2 Load)
  • Leather Corslet (Protection 2d, 4 Load, Cunning Make)
  • Travelling Gear, balm to soothe pain (Healing), book of history (Lore)
  • Pony (Vigour 1)

Morlindiel

Morlindiel is a latter-day Elf, descended from Sindar who survived the fall of Thingol’s kingdom in the Elder Days. She has many years of experience as a ranger in the wilderness, protecting the Grey Havens and the borders of the dwindling Elf-realm of Lindon. In recent years she has taken to wandering far and wide across the lands of Eriador, sensing that great events are stirring and there may yet be a part for Elves to play. She has just arrived in Bree, only to meet Gandalf the Grey and a young woman named Leonore, soon becoming snarled in an adventure.

Culture – Elves of Lindon

Blessing – Elven-skill (Spend 1 Hope to gain a Magical success on a skill roll)

Calling – Champion

Standard of Living – Frugal

Distinctive Features – Keen-eyed, Swift, and Orc-lore

Shadow Path – Curse of Vengeance

Flaws – The Long Defeat (Lose maximum 1 Shadow during Fellowship Phase)

Rewards – Close-fitting (Leather Corslet)

Virtues – Mastery

Strength 5 (TN 15)Endurance 25Valour 1
Heart 4 (TN 16)Hope 12Wisdom 1
Wits 5 (TN 15)Parry 17

Skills

Awe 2Enhearten 1Persuade 0
Athletics 2 (Favored)Travel 2 (Favored)Stealth 3
Awareness 2Insight 0Scan 0
Hunting 3 (Favored)Healing 1Explore 1 (Favored)
Song 2 (Favored)Courtesy 0Riddle 0
Craft 2Battle 0Lore 3

Combat Proficiencies

  • Axes 0
  • Bows 2
  • Spears 0
  • Swords 1

Gear

  • Treasure – 0
  • Sword (Damage 4, Injury 16, 2 Load)
  • Great Bow (Damage 4, Injury 16, 4 Load)
  • Leather Corslet (Protection 2d+2, 6 Load, Close-fitting)
  • Travelling Gear, knife for skinning and cleaning game (Hunting)

Náli Silvertongue

Náli was born in the Iron Hills, moving to the renewed kingdom of Erebor after the death of the Dragon. There he has prospered, serving as an envoy and trade representative for King Dáin Ironfoot. Náli left Erebor early this year, traveling with a company of Dwarves on their way to the old mines in the Blue Mountains. On the journey, he met and befriended Reinald of Dale. Now that the Dwarf-caravan has reached Bree safely, Náli seems prepared to join Reinald on any adventures he might find.

Culture – Dwarves of Durin’s Folk

Blessing – Redoubtable (Halve the Load of any armor or helm, rounded up)

Calling – Messenger

Standard of Living – Prosperous

Distinctive Features – Fierce, Proud, and Folk-lore

Shadow Path – Wandering-madness

Flaws – Naugrim (Cannot use great bow, great spear, or great shield)

Rewards – Grievous (Great Axe)

Virtues – Hardiness

Strength 7 (TN 13)Endurance 31Valour 1
Heart 3 (TN 17)Hope 11Wisdom 1
Wits 4 (TN 16)Parry 14

Skills

Awe 2Enhearten 1Persuade 1
Athletics 1Travel 3 (Favored)Stealth 1
Awareness 0Insight 0Scan 3
Hunting 0Healing 0Explore 2
Song 1 (Favored)Courtesy 3 (Favored)Riddle 2
Craft 2Battle 2Lore 1

Combat Proficiencies

  • Axes 2
  • Bows 0
  • Spears 1
  • Swords 0

Gear

  • Treasure – 90
  • Great Axe (Damage 8, Injury 20, 4 Load, Grievous)
  • Short Spear (Damage 3, Injury 14, 2 Load, can be thrown)
  • Coat of Mail (Protection 4d, 6 Load)
  • Helm (Protection +1d, 2 Load)
  • Travelling Gear, fiddle (Song), fine tools for personal grooming (Courtesy), magnifying glass (Scan)
  • Pony (Vigour 2)

Reinald of Dale

Reinald comes from a prosperous trading family in Dale. As a younger son, he was never likely to inherit a big share in the family trade, so he sought out a position as one of King Bard’s huscarls instead. He served the king for several years, earning experience as a warrior and war-captain. Early this year, he (apparently) left the king’s service to join a band of Dwarves traveling to their old dwellings in the far-off Blue Mountains. During the journey, he met and befriended Náli Silvertongue. Now that the Dwarves have arrived safely in Bree, Reinald has left their company, and intends to seek adventure in the lands of Eriador.

Culture – Bardings

Blessing – Stout-hearted (Valour rolls are Favored)

Calling – Captain

Standard of Living – Prosperous

Distinctive Features – Bold, Generous, and Leadership

Shadow Path – Lure of Power

Flaws –

Rewards – Fell (Sword)

Virtues – Dour-handed (+1 damage on a Heavy Blow)

Strength 6 (TN 14)Endurance 26Valour 1
Heart 6 (TN 14)Hope 14Wisdom 1
Wits 2 (TN 18)Parry 14

Skills

Awe 1Enhearten 2 (Favored)Persuade 3
Athletics 1 (Favored)Travel 1Stealth 0
Awareness 1Insight 2Scan 1
Hunting 2Healing 0Explore 1
Song 1Courtesy 2Riddle 0
Craft 1Battle 3 (Favored)Lore 1

Combat Proficiencies

  • Axes 0
  • Bows 1
  • Spears 0
  • Swords 3

Gear

  • Treasure – 90
  • Sword (Damage 4, Injury 18, 2 Load, Fell)
  • Bow (Damage 3, Injury 14, 2 Load)
  • Mail-shirt (Protection 3d, 9 Load)
  • Shield (Parry +2, 4 Load)
  • Travelling Gear, coil of rope for climbing (Athletics), lodestone (Travel), fine pipe for relaxation (Insight)
  • Pony (Vigour 2)
Status Report (23 January 2022)

Status Report (23 January 2022)

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A quick post to update things, as we’re moving into the last week of the month. My day job has been insanely busy so far this month, with two major projects coming to a conclusion more or less at the same time. Still, I’ve survived the critical few days and still gotten some creative work done. Fingers crossed that I’ll hit my major milestones by next Monday.

I’ve just finished putting together a new partial draft of the Human Destiny setting bible and game sourcebook. This is the first draft under the assumption that the eventual product will be published as a Cepheus Engine book – the main block of new material is a complete draft of the character design rules, including all the lifepath tables. A PDF of the draft just went out to all of my patrons as a free update.

I’ve also finished polishing up the existing partial draft of a Human Destiny novelette, with the working title of “Remnants.” This is actually the first Human Destiny story I ever started writing, seven or eight years back, and I’m hoping to finish it over the next few days. If I can get that whipped into shape before the end of the month, it will be a charged release for my patrons.

In other news, I have an opportunity to write an article for the Cepheus Journal, the foremost fanzine for the Cepheus Engine family of games. The article will probably be a summary of the Human Destiny setting, with some designer’s notes about ways in which the eventual game book will be distinctive. Cepheus Journal isn’t a paying market, but that’s okay – I’ll bring in more attention for that particular project that way.

Meanwhile, I still need to finish reading a novel or two for review by the end of the month. I’ve got a couple of promising candidates, but we’ll see how that goes.

Eight days to go, and I think I’m ahead of the usual monthly curve. Hopefully nothing unexpected will get in the way.

Human Destiny: The Careers List

Human Destiny: The Careers List

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Here’s another teaser for the Cepheus Engine hack I’m putting together, for the new version of the Human Destiny sourcebook. This is part of the character design rules – the draft list of available “careers” for characters to indulge in during the lifepath generation process.

Again, this list is kind of atypical for a Cepheus Engine game. A few of the careers here are somewhat analogous to the ones you’ll find in the classic space-opera RPG that the engine emulates. Others are not – again, Human Destiny stories are likely to be heavily social-interaction-oriented, in a context of post-scarcity economics and a strong interstellar state. That sets different parameters (and constraints) on the kind of “adventures” that are likely to happen.

Careers List

  • Activist – Individual who pursues a cause, agitating for social or political change.
  • Artist – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by producing and selling works of art or handicraft.
  • Athlete – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by taking part in one or more competitive sports.
  • Bureaucrat – Official in an organized bureaucracy, either under the Hegemony or in an éthnos, charged with following the details of administrative process.
  • Citizen – Individual who subsists almost entirely on the Citizen’s Allowance, and who spends most of their time on entertainment or socializing.
  • Colonist – Individual who has settled on a more-or-less Earthlike (or terraformed) world and works to support the human community there.
  • Counselor – Individual who provides psychological care or social services.
  • Dissident – Individual who has rejected Hegemony society, but still uses some technology and lives in a Free Zone.
  • Ecological Reclamation Service –Member of the Hegemony’s scientific corps, overseeing wilderness reserves to support and protect the natural ecology.
  • Entertainer – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by performing before an audience.
  • Feral – Individual who has escaped the Hegemony entirely, by rejecting all technology and living in the deep wilderness.
  • Guard Service – Member of the Hegemony’s paramilitary force, enforcing the Praxis on planetary surfaces, also (rarely) carrying out annexation against pre-stellar civilizations.
  • Influencer – Individual who advocates for ideas, products, or services, primarily on the global information grid.
  • Interstellar Service – Member of the Hegemony’s interstellar paramilitary force, carrying out missions involving peacekeeping, enforcement of the Praxis, and exploration of deep space.
  • Mediator – Individual who provides negotiation or conflict-resolution services.
  • Physician – Individual who provides medical care.
  • Rogue – Individual who frequently engages in deception and subterfuge, whether in violation of the Praxis or not.
  • Scholar – Individual who is engaged in and has expert knowledge of a science, or some similar formal body of organized knowledge. Also, anyone attending or teaching at an institution of higher learning.
  • Service Specialist – Individual who provides personal service to others, most often in the hospitality or leisure industries.
  • Spacer – Individual who works aboard a deep-space outpost or colony, usually on an asteroid or moon.
  • Technician – Individual who is skilled in designing, building, maintaining, or repairing complex technological systems.

Now that I’ve blocked this out, the rest of the character generation rules should follow without much trouble. We’ll see how much progress I’m able to make over the next week or two.

Human Destiny: the Skill List

Human Destiny: the Skill List

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I’ve been working on a Cepheus Engine kitbash for my Human Destiny setting bible and game.

One thing that became obvious fairly quickly is that the usual skill sets for Cepheus Engine, as derived from Traveller, may not work well in this setting. The typical premise in the older games is a band of misfit characters trying to make a living through some combination of troubleshooting, mercenary work, or tramp-freighter trade. Those are a lot less likely in Human Destiny stories, which are more likely to be heavily social-interaction-oriented in the context of post-scarcity economics and a fairly strong interstellar state. Think Star Trek or the Culture, rather than Firefly or The Expanse.

So here’s the tentative skill set for the new game. I anticipate task and conflict mechanics to work in a standard manner for Cepheus Engine, but this is distinct enough from the SRD that the game will certainly be presented as “An Alternate Cepheus Engine Universe.”

Incidentally, I spent a lot of time reviewing other science-fiction games in my library to remind myself how this was done elsewhere. It’s actually rather amusing how many games, published across four decades of time, have taken very similar approaches to this problem . . .

Tentative Skill List

Artistic Skills

  • Fine Arts (Specializes to Architecture, Body Art, Calligraphy, Drawing, Interior Decorating, Musical Composition, Photography, Poetry, Pottery, Sculpting, Video Production, Virtual Production, Woodworking, or Writing)
  • Handicrafts (Specializes to Basket Weaving, Brewing, Blacksmith, Bookbinding, Carpentry, Cooking, Gardening, Glassblowing, Jeweler, Leatherworking, Masonry, Needlework, Sewing, Winemaking, or Woodworking)
  • Performing Arts (Specializes to Acting, Dancing, Singing, or a specific musical instrument)

Athletic Skills

  • Athletics
  • Free Fall
  • Observation
  • Riding
  • Sports (Specializes to a specific sport)
  • Stealth
  • Unarmed Combat

Interpersonal Skills

  • Carousing
  • Debate
  • Deception
  • Diplomacy
  • Games (Specializes to Gambler, Virtual Gamer, or a specific game)
  • Instruction
  • Interrogation
  • Leadership
  • Negotiation
  • Personal Service
  • Persuasion
  • Public Speaking

Operations Skills

  • Battle Dress
  • Demolitions
  • System Operations (Specializes to Comms, Computers, Security, Sensors, or Telepresence)
  • Vacc Suit

Outdoor Skills

  • Animal Handling
  • Navigation
  • Survival
  • Tracking

Professional Skills

  • Admin
  • Broker
  • Forensics
  • Law
  • Medicine
  • Memetics
  • Politics
  • Profession (Specializes to a specific career)
  • Protocol
  • Strategy
  • Streetwise
  • Tactics

Scientific Skills

  • Research
  • Science (Specializes to Anthropology, Archaeology, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Ecology, Economics, Geology, History, Linguistics, Literature, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Meteorology, Paleontology, Philosophy, Physics, Physiology, Planetology, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Theology, or Xenology)

Starship Skills

  • Astrogation
  • Engineering (Specializes to Drive, Life Support, or Power Plant)
  • Gunnery (Specializes to Bay Weapon, Orbital Bombardment, Spinal Mount Weapon, or Turret Weapon)
  • Pilot

Technical Skills

  • Civil Engineering
  • Construction
  • Cybernetics
  • Electronics
  • Gravitics
  • Mechanics

Vehicle Skills

  • Air Vehicles (Specializes to Airship, Grav Aircraft, Rotor Aircraft, or Winged Aircraft)
  • Ground Vehicles (Specializes to Cycle, Hovercraft, Tracked Vehicle, or Wheeled Vehicle)
  • Water Vehicles (Specializes to Motor Ship, Sailing Ship, Small Craft, or Submarine)

Weapon Skills

  • Guns (Specializes to Archaic Guns, Energy Guns, Gravitic Guns, and Stun Guns)
  • Heavy Weapons
  • Melee Weapons (Specializes to Fencing Weapons, Impact Weapons, Knives, Staves, or Swords)
  • Missile Weapons (Specializes to Bows or Crossbows)

Current status of the project: I had vaguely hoped to have a new partial rough draft for my patrons by the end of December, with the character rules more or less finished, but designing this list took a lot longer than I expected.

I’ll have my formal “planning for January” blog post in a few days, but I suspect my main efforts for next month will involve finishing this game-design task so I can push a version 0.4 draft to my patrons, and possibly writing a new Human Destiny novelette. A murder mystery, oddly enough, although murders are vanishingly rare in the Human Destiny setting . . .

Rethinking the Human Destiny Setting Bible

Rethinking the Human Destiny Setting Bible

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One of my ongoing projects is to create a combination “setting bible” and tabletop RPG sourcebook for the Human Destiny setting. The idea is to codify the setting for myself, and also to make a little money while cross-marketing it to gamers.

The problem all along has been to find the right vehicle – that is, the right game system – for the RPG side of the project. There’s a continuum of potential options here.

At one end of the spectrum, I could design my own game system from scratch. I’ve done a little work in this direction, producing the fragmentary EIDOLON game system. The advantage there is that I would have creative freedom, and could avoid infringing on anyone else’s intellectual property. The drawback is that yet another original game system, one that doesn’t have any external support, acts as a barrier to potential players.

At the other end of the spectrum, I could license an existing and well-known game system and produce an independently published sourcebook for that. GURPS would be an obvious choice, given my publication history, but I’ve also considered a few other systems. For most of the past year, I’ve leaned toward Cortex Prime as a good choice, on the assumption that Fandom’s eventual licensing schemes would be congenial. In general, the advantage of working with an existing game system is that the finished product would be familiar to many potential players, and would have significant ancillary support.

The drawback of using an existing system – and this is a big one – is that most of the best choices have fairly restrictive licensing schemes. I’m a one-man creative operation with a fairly low tolerance for risk. I’m just not interested in a plan that would require me to hire a development staff and try to crowd-fund with a budget of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s why I’ve never seriously considered trying to get a GURPS license, for example. I know people have made a good go of that, but it’s not within my reach.

Recently the folks at Fandom announced their upcoming non-commercial and commercial licenses for Cortex Prime. I can’t speak to how other Cortex fans have reacted to that announcement. From my own perspective only, it looks as if what I would want to do with the system falls between two stools. Non-commercial license means no money at all. Commercial license looks as if it would informally require the development-staff-and-crowdfunding avenue.

Back to the drawing board. Fortunately, there’s another “sweet spot” on that continuum I mentioned earlier. That involves working with a system that’s covered under the Open Game License (OGL).

The OGL is a legal framework which was first established by Wizards of the Coast back in 2000, originally covering the “3.5 edition” of Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, a lot of indie publishers have produced material for a variety of game systems under the OGL.

Working under the OGL, you can use any game mechanics that a publisher has placed under the “Open Content” category, adding your own tweaks to the mechanics and your own new rules systems, and publish the result. There are some legal requirements – you have to include a copy of the OGL in your book, and you can’t expressly claim that your product is associated with the original game. Those aren’t onerous requirements, and they don’t push a project into the staff-and-crowdfunding zone. Plenty of one-man or small-team projects have succeeded under the OGL.

Meanwhile, under the OGL you can also designate your own intellectual property – information about a setting, most often – as “Product Identity” which is still protected by copyright. Which is exactly what I would want to do for game material based on any of my created settings or published fiction.

Right now I’m specifically looking at the fact that the popular SF game Traveller has at least one edition published under the OGL. There’s also a Traveller emulation under its own OGL structure, published as the Cepheus Engine RPG. There’s a whole cottage industry of indie publishers producing material under the Cepheus Engine banner, and some of that material is moving out into a variety of genres. There are Cepheus Engine-based games for hard-SF, swords & sorcery, Old West, and other settings.

The Human Destiny setting isn’t all that Traveller-like in some respects, but I suspect it wouldn’t be all that difficult to produce a Cepheus Engine hack that would do a good job of it. I might even be able to bring in some mechanics from EIDOLON – the two systems aren’t radically different and might hybridize well.

So that’s the current plan for the Human Destiny sourcebook: to rework it as a Cepheus Engine hack and start moving toward independent publication under the OGL. First step in the plan is to start working on the character design rules. I hope to have at least a partial draft of those available as a free release for my patrons by the end of December.

Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller

Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller

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I’ve finished designing the first draft of an abbreviated Architect of Worlds design sequence specifically for the roleplaying game Traveller. It should be compatible with any version of Traveller that uses the standard UWP codes, including GURPS Traveller. It’s available at the following link:

Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller (27 April 2021)

It’s also available on the main Architect of Worlds page.

Unlike most of my work, this document is not entirely covered by my copyright, and I freely grant permission to share or redistribute it, so long as the attribution is not altered. I’d be interested in hearing from any Traveller referees or players who experiment with it!

Looking Backward: Game of Empire

Looking Backward: Game of Empire

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One of the more interesting phases of my creative career was my involvement with the Traveller tabletop roleplaying game. Between 1999 and 2005, I wrote, co-authored, or edited at least seven books for the GURPS Traveller product line. In fact, for much of that time, I was effectively the backup Line Editor, assisting Loren K. Wiseman in that capacity, and even taking over entirely for a few months at one point. It was a neat experience; I kind of miss it even today.

In 2000, I was writing the Solomani Rim sector book for GURPS Traveller. I was also helping Loren to produce an online edition of Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society (JTAS), the venerable Traveller fan magazine. One thing I did in that period was to help Loren wrangle Traveller News Service (TNS) entries, little scraps of “current events” from the Third Imperium setting that were meant to maintain the game’s meta-plot and suggest interesting adventures.

There was a side project I undertook, relevant to all of that activity: a set of rules with the working title of Game of Empire. This was a set of Traveller meta-rules, designed to allow “movers and shakers” roleplaying across a region of space. Instead of playing ordinary Imperial citizens, players could take on the role of very senior nobles, megacorporate executives, planetary political leaders, rebel-faction commanders, and so on. The actions and decisions they carried out would affect whole worlds. There was some resemblance to other Traveller products such as Pocket Empires or Dynasties, although the scale and emphasis were a bit different.

As part of the project, I wrote up a scenario, titled The Alderamin Scramble. The premise was that an Imperial duke’s title had fallen vacant in the Solomani Rim sector, and a number of notables were in a position to compete for an appointment to that seat. There were a lot of other events in the scenario – at least two local wars, a visit from Empress Iolanthe to the Rim, and so on.

I recruited 20 players from the JTAS message boards, and we spent several months “playtesting” the ruleset and the Alderamin Scramble scenario. It was a lot of fun – and along the way, we generated dozens of potential TNS items. I think most of the TNS entries from the in-game years 1119 through 1122 came out of that one game.

I often thought about building Game of Empire into something that could be published. I did write a second edition of the ruleset, based on our experience with the playtest, and thought about running more games with that. Unfortunately, with one thing and another, further development never happened before GURPS Traveller started dying on the vine a few years later.

In fact, I somehow misplaced my copy of the game’s files at some point. Fortunately, in 2017, I happened to be talking with Keith Alan Johnson when he mentioned he had a complete copy of both versions of the rules, the Alderamin Scramble scenario, and a bunch of his notes from the playtest. He was generous enough to bundle the whole package up and send it to me.

At the time, I still didn’t have any place to publish the game, but that may be changing. There’s an “open source” version of Traveller in existence now (a game called Cepheus Engine) and several independent publishers have released material through that venue. I’m already exploring ways to release other game material, as for example through DriveThruRPG. So a few days ago I got the notion of reviving this old project.

Yesterday I made a post on the Traveller Facebook group, describing the project and its history, and asking whether the audience would be interested. The response was a pretty resounding yes – so this certainly looks like something that would be worth moving to the front burner. I already have a lot on my plate for the rest of this month, but I may be spending odd moments looking at the old material and letting my subconscious mull over ways to improve and add to it.