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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

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