Skip to main content

FLOODED (with ideas)

Had a storm two weeks ago. Basement attempted to turn into a pool. We won this battle...

The up side is that I got inspired to get off of my butt and begin REALLY working on a RPG rule set for the whole Greenshore book series. It's something I've been kicking around for the past year or so, but I've been putting all my writing energy into the first three books, plotting the series, and filling in an offline wiki with all my Greenshore musings and such. In late August, I gave myself a week to get the framework for the RPG down, if only to have something to play around with in my spare time.

With the flood came a desire to simply step out of the normal routine and fully embrace something game-like!

The weird thing is, I was also inspired to begin keeping an electronic journal of the day to day along with the writing. Below is the first week of said journal...

Design Notes:
 Aug 21: Day 3 of creating the Game! After looking over the plans for the book series and all of that, I’m beginning to hammer out the character creation process. Still working on the balancing act as far as where this game falls in the “Crunchy” category.I’m also going with fave elements from various game systems. The core magic system is my own, with the whole C.E. thing, but the spellcasting mechanic will be akin to Ars Magica. Combat is more cinematic and will follow the general structure of Feng Shui. Character creation is inspired via a point-buy mechanic that is a little influence by Traveller (with emphasis on a character’s history forming the basis of the skills / stats).I’m sticking to the 2d6 dice mechanic for base rolls, only because I prefer the bell-curve percentage! Aug 22:Putting ideas together for PC generation, looking into how PC’s crunch ties into the big elements of the game:·         Long-term R&D stuff·         Combat·         Adventure skillsCombat day. Time to work out some concepts… Aug 23:Never really delved into Adventure Skills yesterday.Two more elements reared up yesterday: the concepts of Powers and Psychic / Chi abilities. Although these elements play secondary roles in my Greenshore book series (usually as part of an antagonists schtick), they are in the book series, and therefore should get some rules built around them. For both elements, I’m going to use an ‘energy point pool’ to draw from, with each of the two concepts being different ‘pool types’. The reason for the two types of pools is that Powers fall across the gambit of “Mystical ßà Mundane ßà Psychic”, where Psychic (and Chi) are woven deeply within the realm of the Mundane and counter / overpower Mystical elements fairly easily… Aug 24:Well, the Chi and Psychic rules are set down in a generalized kind of way. Slowly building the Strengths and Weaknesses section as I write. Lots of back-and-forth right now. Better to have too much on the core book buffet than not enough. Raze and burn later.Thinking about REALLY delving into the magic mechanics (with an eye towards combat and the Chi / Psy thing). Of course, that means looking into forging the good ‘ole character sheet.I’m at the point where I gird up the loins of my mind, take a deep breath, and push my way into the writing… Aug 25:First version of the character sheet is done. Starting to scribble notes all over it. I can already see that I’m going to watch the Chi and psychic powers (don’t over-focus on them! The books underlying theme is magic / radical / artistic thinking facing off against the sterility of science / ‘established ideas’!!!!!). A couple of goals over the next few days is throwing together some spells / magic items, and to start copying the magic notes over from my wiki page… Aug 26:Another day in the world of combat rules! Might give a few minutes to expanding the magic list as well…


Aug 27:Still at it. Specifics of combat and setting up unique templates for the physical, mystical, psychic, and chi elements…


Aug 28:Basement flooded yesterday. 9+ inches of rain hit the area in the wee hours of the a.m.That was fun.Back to the therapy of writing. Today's plan: write stuff. Probably combat…

I'll put in more stuff next week. Thanks for stopping by!
-Dave

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Well... It's got "Green" in the title...

Hi all. Well, today I shot out another book to a contest Blockgarten: Gaam's Green Valley This little ditty is a very weird fiction work. It was kicked off back in 2015 during a particularly nasty oil change. Yah, you read that correctly. Okay, story time: It was early Spring, after the thaws. Probably around the month of March. It was overcast, cold, wet, and my sinuses were closed for business. It was early and there had been very little coffee (like, NONE) in my life at that time, due to fasting for a blood draw. I had settled into a nasty mood for a nasty day. So I'm sitting in the waiting room with my iPad in hand. To further embrace the moment, I decided to go full-on gloom and doom: I began browsing through Lovecraft works. The browsing took me into the history of the Lovecraft properties (apparently there are three broad definitions of them: those works that H.P. wanted to give to the world to inspire other authors via family, later works own...
Post a Comment
Read more

Things Happening in the In-between

Good day, all! Soooooo, I'm working on this second book in the Greenshore Series. Being an RPG gamer who enjoys sagas over one-shots, I'm used to the tandem thinking that goes into a personal development arc within a larger story arc. Unlike RPGs, there is no threat of player characters going rogue and taking off with the plot (or worse, leaving the game story arc behind and deciding to make the game something else). However, it's ALL on the writer. When an RPG saga is 'working' and the player characters are into it, a wonderful synergy occurs that breathes life into the story and the meta-elements of the team. Unique ideas, unexpected sub-plots, each character with its own voice, and the rest of the laundry list of traits each player brings to the table. I have a deeply rooted fear that my characters either (1) all sound the same, or (2) are simple caricatures of the personality I am attempting to convey. The best fix for this fear ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kicking off the Writing Season!

Greenshore is coming back online after the Summer break. We have a new NaNoWriMo coming up in a couple of months. I'm happy to report that book 1 has been submitted to DAW and that book 4 is under development for November's NaNoWriMo writing burst. This past Spring and Summer has been a busy one at my end. With the new position of Head of Circulation down at the WJN and the learning curve of being a part of 33 interconnected libraries spread across four counties, things have been busy! I'm happy to report that work-life balance has been restored! My writing group is starting up Sept 9th. My tabletop group is also starting up on Sept 21st. I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting some new folks! -Dave
Post a Comment
Read more