Endy's RPG Stuff

Well, here’s another post, 12 hours late. I apologize to those happy few who’ve been following me daily at midnight. Not that there are too many of them.

Today, though, I believe that it would be timely to discuss the effects of a “real life” on gaming. For many of us, this is just another week leading into yet another before the summer starts. Most of us would consider it drastically unremarkable. However, it’s approaching finals for me, and I will be graduating soon enough, living my own life and being in part of the “real world”. Soon, I won’t have the free time I did until this week, and I don’t know what that means about my gaming. I know I will always love it and always want to. But that does not mean anything about my schedule, because that will not be my own any longer. I don’t get to pick when I work like I pick when I go to class.

As such, I apologize.

This blog will be on hiatus for an indefinite period of time, until I have time in the summer.

It pains me to make that choice, but I cannot afford to risk my grades.

Apologies for this.
But this actually gives me an opening to talk about something that hasn’t been talked about very often. Absenteeism at a tabletop game has been an issue since two people ever sat down at a table and talked. But what can you do when it happens? In today’s world we obviously have faster ways of communication, text-messaging and cell phones being the top two.

But what you do has to depend on your group as well as you. My solution tends to be to give them time, then walk. I don’t enjoy having to remind people constantly to do things, it gets on my nerves. It has been my assumption that when you make an appointment, you keep it, right?

Other people suggest more open communication, and an openness to rescheduling. I don’t.

Well, since my first attempt at creating a character sheet went horribly awry, I’d love some advice on that. However, let’s go over some physical ideas for the game itself. Trainers should fit on a standard letter-sized piece of paper. Pokémon should fit on individual 3X5″ index cards. This way, the player can actually carry them in a deck to use them. It’s handy.
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I promised I’d revisit Tucker’s Kobolds eventually, well, now is as good a time as any. I think that the idea is extremely solid, even in a game where the GM isn’t overly sadistic. It’s a great way to create engagement, and turn the faceless horde into a really credible threat, y’know? It works much more effectively in a tactical game, where people actually being outnumbered has an effect. Let’s analyze the strategy though, and see how much of it can be used in other games.
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I’m not going to lie, I’m behind on posts and this one as well as yesterday’s went out in a hurry when I realized I didn’t have enough keyed up. So let’s get started, shall we? This is a followup to my recent revelation in regard to the Pokemon RPG, that for the moment it will primarily make use of the Marvel FASERIP system. I’m sticking to the first special idea I had though, through thick & thin. I’ll tell you later. This makes comparison to game mechanics of a video game difficult, as the original games featured hexadecimal coding, with values ranging from 1-255, rather than 1-100. Therefore, I will change things slightly.

First, let us start with the Pokemon themselves. As I said, the weaknesses from type will be specified, and species-specific stats will come into play as well. However, Character Type will be the species’ element, such as Water, Fire, Grass, etc. That is, instead of Alien. I’ll work up a character sheet soon, I promise.

I’m also going to say this, right now. Players can start from any town or city. That’s the first huge difference. It opens up a whole world of starting Pokémon that had not previously been considered starting.

Another element of differentiation: Each player will be assigned a Rival, an NPC controlled by the Elite 4 Champion (that’s the GM). This person is not necessarily a childhood friend, but certainly can be. Not necessarily a villain, the Rival will be rolled for whenever the player comes to a new town, as to whether the Rival has been there yet, is there, or has already been through and left. Of course, once the two meet, there will be…trouble.

Sometimes a character becomes so powerful that the theme of the game gets broken by their very existence. It’s not the fault of the player or the GM, but simply a choice made too hastily on everyone’s part for the factor of, “This will be so cool.” It’s happened, I’m sure, to everyone. Characters at first seem relatively balanced and then it all goes berserk.
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Every game, regardless of system, needs some kind of a setting. In some cases, like Warhammer 40,000, this setting is an entire universe. In others, it’s a whole world. In some, it’s a city. But during each session, the players need to be exposed to some small part of it as part of the challenge. But how do you honestly give flavor to a location that’s not yours? I’ll tell you, it can be difficult. The first thing I say is, make it yours. That is, write your own blurb and be careful. Use evocative, specific words. Try to be poetic, but without falling into purple prose. But let’s talk about a few of those “legendary” locations.
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I’m going to follow up on my newfound wisdom from earlier in the week and apply it to the Pokémon system that was intended to be the core of this blog. So, what system do I know? Oh, right, Marvel Super Heroes FASERIP. I want to make a note here, by the way – The 4C system as presented is a wonderful system for superhero games, and I could see it applied to many variant settings. Pokémon simply is not applicable, and I’m only using Marvel because I’m most familiar with it. Let’s start with some mods to the system to accomodate the Pokémon world as a setting. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello!

If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know that I walked you through a hypothetical Speed Racer RPG this week, and I’m working on a Pokémon one in my spare time. So let’s sit down and chat. You know it’s possible to write an RPG of your own. You even know that it can be a pretty simplistic process if you take a game that’s “kinda” based on what you want (or you know intimately), and then turn it into something that even the creator of the game would wonder whether that was his game or not. But let’s talk about a few real concerns. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, that is indeed a significant question, if I do say so myself. Having just talked about the concept of creating your own game in the last few days, let’s talk about a few things. Two days ago,The Free RPG Blog updated with a new post. I really don’t know how he pulls it off every week, making sure that everything is in the can and ready. Rob Lang is a great guy and also runs One Thousand Monkeys, One Thousand Typewriters, a free RPG host.
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