Weapon, Armour and Equipment progression and upgrades

 There are two varieties of game that I cannot stand, they make no sense for an RPG, (yet maybe for a board game) and bog down play for both players and GMs. Lets deep dive into

Equipment, Weapons, Armour and your characters progression 

Abstracted Levelling

First, lets clarify, intentions were good, in some old computer games, when players start out at level 1, they need some kind of tiered system to upgrade weapons, before including too much magic. So many games added some kind of 'level' requirement to weapons, wooden dagger? lvl 1, iron dagger? lvl 3, steel dagger? lvl 5, mithril dagger? lvl 7.. etc

This made no 'real' sense, abstracting the 'better metals' behind a level wall, was purely a CRPG tactic to spread out the game, make it simple for players to understand, which item do I buy, steel or iron? Instead of some complex system for the play to go through to ensure they 'could' use the weapon at the right point in the game, they just abstracted it behind levels.

From a board game perspective, this makes more sense, because board games need to be more self contained. You have a restriction of parts cost, shipping costs for weight, shelf space and price point for the consumer. So items were simpler, often in only a plain, silver and gold standard.

Yet even that is slowly changing, as in the last few years (2014-2021) consumers are spending more on board games than ever, paying $400 for a box of cards where the materials to make the weapons have cards too, would have seemed unreasonable in 2008, and outrageous before then, but with over 100 games, all-in, priced at $250+, having a core game for the more elite game at $400 isn't too far of a stretch.

Roleplay games always had the advantage that the equipment list is merely what's written on your character sheet. No need for cards, art, specialty dice (i.e. per weapon) but they also, and often, had a skill set matching it.. 

Locked in Play

This one comes down to how you kind of need to choose what kind of character you're going to be from the start. Some archaic feature from Victorian education and the industrial age, that we have yet to shake off in society.

In real life, we haven't a clue how our lives will turn out in 40 years, what skills we will have gained, used, and be proficient at. Why would we think in the game world our characters are any different.

The idea that as a 'rogue' you've learned all the arts of the dagger, and you are a skilled dagger wielder, and that if you wanted to change weapons, you've be starting from scratch, and forgoing the chance at being a better dagger-smith..

To clarify, lets consider three characters, the Rogue, the Warrior and the multi-class rogue warrior.

at level 4, the rogue has taken 4 levels in dagger, giving a +4 to dagger usage.

at level 4, the Warrior has taken 4 levels in swords, giving them a +4 to sword usage.

The Multi Class has taken 2 level in dagger & sword each. giving a +2 to each.

At lower levels, the difference between a +2 and a +4 isn't game breaking, if its a d20 system, its barely 10% of hits, the advantage the multiclass has is, when a magical weapon comes in the quests treasure, he has 2 chances of getting something useful, instead of one.. IF the GM uses random treasure tables.. and if the GM doesn't, then the multi class is going to get a choice, maybe.

A few levels later, level 8, our pure rogue/warrior has a +8 in the specialty, while the multiclass a +4. this is now rather pronounced, 20% difference for a d20 system. 3 characters, all with similar skills, levels, progressions, but the multi-class character is half the skill of his counterparts.

As a result

Players are limited by, and locked into, specific 'classes' of skills, and items which level up, as they do. taking away players agency, choice and in many ways, fun.

But, how do we benefit players who choose to focus their skill, vs those that choose a broader range? yet not penalize characters?

DD12

Sure, I'm going to, once again explain how, once I saw such a problem, I solved it.

Instead of Abstract levelling;

Players can at 1st level choose any weapon, any style, any material, as long as they've saved up the cash requirements to buy it, the only 'restriction' is based on real life issues, such as weigh of the weapon, or complexity of use. 

as an example, a heavy axe, has an "initiative" cost of 15, this value counts also as a minimal DEX or STR requirement to use, and for each point difference, the character has a -1 to use, where DEX cost is a minus to attack, and STR cost is a minus to damage. Players can, through continued practice, improve their personal skill with the weapon, decrease the INITIATIVE of the weapon, to offset this 'cost' and or, increase their personal ATT or DAM for that weapon, and over time, as they improve their STR or DEX, or through acquisition of better 'heavy axes' with lower I cost, will result in them being even more powerful with the upgraded items. 

As to combat skills for multi class; 

Players have their stats broken up into layers, Their Attack stat at the base of things is their generic ability to attack, if its a melee attack, they add that bonus, then their sword / dagger skill will add to the result, and finally, they can specialise in a specific weapon.

As players progress their characters, they can boost the greater skill, at the cost of the lesser skill, resulting in the same final result, but with a broader range.

The Rogue, Warrior and lets call the multi-class guy a Pirate at 1st level, all have an attack of 10, a melee of 4 and their sword/dagger bonus at 1.

By 4th level, they have had the choice, but would similarly have gained 2 points in attack, 2 in melee, and likely 1 more in their chosen weapon, yet the Pirate, wanting to be as good in both weapons, may have only taken 1 in melee, to have an extra point in the 2nd weapon, again, like our d20 counterpart, maybe a 5-10% difference.

But, by 8th level, the major difference is, As the rogue gains levels, instead of getting more and more +1's, it would be in their advantage to specialise in their weapon, dropping the disadvantage roll, gaining an advantage attack, maybe a specialty bonus, the Warrior, might have gone for a sword & shield combat, unlocking some bonus maneuvers, while our pirate, trying to match the base combat scores, has not had the points to unlock any specialties.

The result being, All three characters have an attack of 14, a melee of 8 and their respective weapons at +4, giving them a very nice combat attack of 26, yet the pirate, having spent their extra 4 points in the 2nd weapon, the Rogue and Warrior have 4 specialized bonuses.

So, while they'll never be as good with any given weapon, the Pirate can unlock multi weapon specialty bonuses, using the sword as a dagger, or the dagger like a sword, distracting their opponent with a -2 defence.. or using some of their own clever specialties for dual weapons.

To be Clear

Players might see or hear this rule set and understand the system to be complex, but instead, its just a matter of doing minor calculation at the time of purchase, dropping their 'familiarity' stat bonus, writing their new stats on their charactersheet, and they are ready to go. players should not be calculating or changing any values, mid combat.  

[Story] The Shipment

 Told from the perspective of a 'passenger' as they slowly realise whats going on.

Interstellar travel ship, full of passengers, Alien technology has been used to create and resource recycle waste & water in the ship into viable food. The lives of the people onboard is relaxed, they are encouraged to work out, become fit, muscular, but also eat, large ammounts.

The ship builders are paid vast quantities of metals, gold, titanium, etc, to build the ship, but they also charge a small fee to the 'volunteers' to board the ship

Travel will take 40years apparently, and a return message 40 more, so, kiss your loved ones goodbye, they will unlikely live long enough to ever hear from you.

the Passengers arrive, and are promptly slaughtered for meat. 

didn't say it was a nice story. just a story idea. 

[Story] Planetary Paradise, Story Premise

 As per any story in this blog, its just the idea, not fleshed out, and a title, that could be better.

02/06/2021 Planetary Paradise

The stars have been discovered, a planet has been discovered, the price of a ticket? $100,000. You'll live in a rocket ship for 50 years, with 1,000 other people, the rocket costs $930,000,000 to build, says the flyer, outfit with all the mod cons, if you are in your 20s or 30s, family of 4? cheaper than a house, and your kids will be the first people on the new planet, guarenteed a major spot in the heirachy of the new city, owners of all the land for miles around, your grandchildren will be the planets first land barons, the planet can house over a billion, better than staying on earth

Why? Because Earth costs so much now, 100sqm house is more than a million, IF you live on the outskirts of the rough neighbourhoods, low internet speeds, little to no police, with income averages of 100k, interest rates averaging 7%, you need four to five incomes to even apply for a loan, yes, thats right, mum, dad, and two grandpas, still working into their late 70s. 

Life is just not worth living, if you're not born into the middle row. Children in the skids barely make it past 12, medicine is all owned by corporations, who made deals with insurance companies years ago, if you don't have both a personal, and work insurance, you'll be refused entry, and the price for a nights treatment, is 2-4 years salary for a grinder or shift worker. may as well lump it, or jump.

Population controls help, licences to have kids, IQ tests, job security tests, the middle class don't have much of an option..

except space.. only 100k tickets? 4 tickets, for half the price of a home? no credit given for this though, can't ensure your loan will come back if your creditor is in space for 50 years.. no, cash only.

cept, the workers on the ships.. they're always shift workers.. new crew for each part of the ship, and no proper health and safety, too expensive, says the company man, couldn't build a ship at this price with certified workers.. and for what? installing the chairs? no, the certified workers are for the engines, the control systems, the air systems, this needs 100% certified safety seals.. 

except.. theres no proof that they use certified workers for that.. cutting costs, etc..

Spend a billion on a ship? almost a billion, for what? a 700k profit? oh, there are govt donations and tax incentives and all that jazz, surely they make another half a billion in endorsements, but.. those companies are racking in the money.. 

Messages are sent from the ships, up to a year out.. longer than that, due to the way space bends.. takes much long.. even the year messages are dated 4 months from send date.. there were messages 2 years out, back in the first few ships, but the date was 6 months.. then the 3 years messages, were 8 months.. 

All happy they report, like a holiday in a way.. but, everyone learns, they're all doing courses on soil cultivation, repairs, maintenance, building a new civilisations.. like going back to school they say.. all fun,

Its been 8 years since the first mission.. they sometimes get an message back.. but again.. time distortion from distance, it was sent 1 year after the mission.. people kinda forget about it..

the 2nd mission, didn't get any messages for 4 years, then they got the 3 month message.. scientists say, if thats the case, the 6 month message could take 12 more years..

Still.. the company building them is making a decent packet somehow.. one ship a month.. don't know how they do it.

They recently started a 'cheaper' craft.. takes twice as many people, half the price.. they're getting used parts they say.. seats are 2nd hand.. what from I wonder..

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my seat, been asked to record my 1 week message. My seat has definitely been used before.. but.. $50k tickets,, can't really complain.. better than some of my furniture at my grandparents place. We were asked not to shave for messages, show how life is luxurious, show off how laid back it is, they say.. I look like I've been here a month already LOL..    

Data Storage of the Human Mind

 Kind of a think piece, that was prompted by the Black Mirror Episode :‘The Entire History of You’ (S1, E3) where you upload your entire memory to a computer, and how we don't think its likely to do that based on several factors. Bandwidth and Memory Storage being the main one.. lets deep dive:

Can we, Should we, store all memories?

The premise here is based on the idea that we upload a complete copy of all memories, from each person, top some huge database, to be accessible by your online "Avatar" which continues to live in the virtual space. Its a huge chunk of memory, and the passing back and forth of information, would require huge quantum computers, for each person! 

Consider your life, consider a sliver of your life, your classroom at school, what can you remember of that classroom? the desk? the chair? maybe the blackboard? mostly our conscious access to memories are limited. BUT when we look at a photo, we recall so many interesting points about that classroom, based on the triggers of the photo.

How could we store this? If we stored a 3D representational version of that classroom, and when our 'uploaded' Avatar of ourself wants to access that memory, how do we classify which part of that 3D 'memory' should be accessed? the desk? the chair? the blackboard?

What about the scratch in the desk? if you had a vague memory of creating a scratch or not, you recall grinding your pen into the desk to draw a line, not straight because the wood of the desk caused your pen to go another way. Then when you realised the blue line the pen made, incriminates you as the perpetrator of this crime, you use your rulers edge to scratch out the blue, but now the scratch is huge.

What if you did this, so often, you cannot recall a specific incident of doing this? just the vague idea that you did? what if my description, called up a memory, but its not YOU doing it, it was something you pieced together from TV shows, other memories, and seeing the results.. but its so long ago, you can't remember if it was a memory or not. 

How does this Avatar, access specifically the information which is true, and also what is false, and blur the line? arbitrarily? randomly? our personalities are made up of what we believe to be true about ourselves. obviously it can't be random all the time, but if its random the first time, then it becomes coded in as 'truth' for all future references, our Avatar would remember that he/she was a destructive little child, and as an adult would have less reserve when a situation comes up to be destructive to solve a problem.

This is how human brains already work. We are, what we think we are, not the truth, the perception of truth. and interestingly, we can reprogram it all if we have the willpower. but that's another subject.

Lets go back to this classroom.

What about the rest of the class? If the 3D space of that classroom is being stored, not just once, but for each second of the day that the student is IN the classroom, pre table scratch, and post table scratch, summer, winter, spring, autumn, cold, hot, windy, air-con on, or off, the cold of the metal, the warmth of wood.. all these points are stored for each person.. times 20 students in the class?

Wouldn't that be redundant? what about each year of students? the room doesn't change THAT much, so in 20 years, we'd have 400 'memories' of that classroom alone. 8 hours x 5 days x 40 weeks of '3D footage'

My brother asked me a question, where if you stored all the physics in a machine, a record of all matter, if each 'byte' of info was physically the size of 1mm (its much smaller, but for this argument) the size of the computer would need to be bigger than each, for each second.

the storage of data of that 1mm of information, stored on a harddrive that was itself 1mm, would be the size of earth, to store a 'copy' of the size of earth. 

You would have to 'cheat' somewhere, for the sake of storage.

The classroom in memory, can't be an exact replica, lets take a guess, if 1m x 1m wall, could be stored in a 1mm or smaller sized in information, it would only allow for 11 days storage of its information.. 20 years? needs a Harddrive the size of Australia!

And we need 400 copies of it?

Why store it at all? surely you could 'create' the classroom object when it is first created (by the builders memories) and apply a time modifier to it over 20 years, and then when each 'avatar' access's that memory, they access that instance x modifier. once.. not 400x, and, you don't need to store the whole thing, just the 'surface' of each part, with time stamp modifiers for changes.. Timmy chipped off some paint when he was standing in the corner, grab Timmy's memory, stamp it, store results, now when Jane is in the corner, she has access to that 'chipped' version as her memory.

Now.. take that one step further.. store a virtual version of the planet, all the desks, windows, scratches, chips, etc, as it happened. time stamped, and all the Virtual Avatars will access that single 'source' when they need to access memories..

Now.. when we upload everyone that currently lives.. from birth to death, we have a record of all events, and after we die, our Avatar lives on, but we can access the whole life, have a 'judge' determine if we were good or not, and adjust the Avatars existence based on that life.

Maybe a 2nd and 3rd world exists in the Harddrive in the next room, one called Heaven, one called Hell?

Just a random thought, while I was on the bus this morning. 

      

[GAME] Relationship Dice

 This is a little game I Invented when I was travelling Russia in 2010, I had broken up with a girl and was feeling depressed about the baggage we both brought to the relationship and how it broke us up, and I was thinking about this.. like.. imagine we could "see" this baggage and somehow mitigate it.. and it lead me down this path to invent

Relationship Dice:

What you need are several pairs of dice, but it is possible with only 2 dice and paper & pen(cil)s instead.

Its multiplayer and its roleplay, you should describe the results to the other players, get them engaged in your story.

The Idea of the game, is to get married before your friends, but be warned, if your friends get married in the same turn, and their relationship score is above yours, they might win, and further more, you might actually lose the game by getting married too early. Its a risk-reward game of dice and numbers, but if you roleplay your numbers, well, it can be so much more.

START

First, you roll your "looks" score on d6. If you are a girl you add 1 straight away.

Second roll your "baggage" on d6. If you are a boy you minus 1 straight away.

Your personality is 10, minus looks and baggage, +d6.

TIME LINE:

Timeline is approx 1 year of life, starting from 16. 

For the first 3 turns, you can add d6-1 to your looks, if you roll a 1 or a 6 , you can add 1 to baggage.

Each turn you are single, add 1 to baggage, and 1 to happiness if at least one other friend is single too.

If you are single, you can roll for a new relationship, and if you are in a relationship, you can roll on the relationship chart.

If two people are single, and 'team up' they both reroll 1s and 6s for their relationship roll.

NEW RELATIONSHIP:

When you 'meet' you roll 2d6, this is the 'score' of your partner when you meet them. If their score is within 3 points of your "looks" you can choose to gain them as a 'partner' and are dating. Caveat: If you want to, you can 'pursue' them for a 2nd turn, and add your happiness to your looks, to win them over.

IN a RELATIONSHIP:

If at any time you want to end the relationship, you may choose to do so with a -1 happiness and +1 baggage. also, lose all love, gain half the love score as 'sadness' and +1 baggage if your love was above 10.

If at any time, your baggage is above your love, your relationship will fail, lose 2 happiness, gain 2 sadness, you are now single.

In the first turn, you roll 2d6 and add it to your love score and halve any sadness you have. If you are not happy with this score, you can end the relationship and roll again for a new relationship, with a -1 happiness and +1 baggage. Else you can end your turn and be single.

2nd turn: roll 2d6 for love, d6 for baggage and +2 happiness.

3rd turn: roll 2d6-2 for love, d6 for baggage and +2 happiness.

4th, 5th and 6th turn, roll 1d6-1 for love, d6 for baggage and +1 happiness IF your love is at least double your baggage.

7th+ turn, +1 to baggage and +1 to happiness IF your love is at least above baggage.

AT any point you decide to get married. First is the Pre wedding jitters turn, roll 2d6 add it to baggage(you found out about an ex- that is still in the picture), -1 from looks, (you saw them on the toilet?) check your scores against the rules.

Then on the wedding day, you get to add 2d6 (for how great they look in their wedding dress) to your love score. and 2d6 to the baggage score for all the ways they disappoint you in the year following, minus 1 for each year you were in the relationship prior (i.e. 7 years of relationship = -7 to the love and baggage rolls) and add a bonus +1 to happiness.

On the turn anyone declared they are getting married, all players get to complete that turn, and everyone plays one final turn. The First Married couple minus 2 from the love score (post honeymoon jitters)

Once the final turn plays out. Add up your happiness scores. All players who got married get 1 "game" score, The player with the highest happiness scores 1 "game" score. the player with the highest love score gets 1 "game" score, the player with the least baggage gets 1 "game" score, The Player with the most relationships gets 1 "game" score, and the Player who said this is a dumb game gets 1 "game" score. 

Score up your game scores, and compare it to your own lives.. we're all winners and losers. 

To Extend the game, you can add in, Children Dice, Job Dice and Health dice. Fun for all ages!

Dungeon Delvers Twelve Core Concept

Have I actually Addressed this, as a Blog? No? Well, lets address it.

What is the point of DD12 as a system, why publish it?

At its core, I wanted more control as a gamesmaster, and that meant not being controlled by the rules and in turn rules layers.

Players can bring up their knowledge of a troll, fire, acid, don't hack it up, it'll just regenerate. But a Rock troll? Its made of rock, fire and acid do next to nothing, for that matter neither does a sword. Yet if this was written down in a book, that players can access, then session two or three, when the rock troll makes its first appearance, the rules lawyer lets everyone know what's up, and how to defeat it.

So, I figured, creatures that every common peasant knows, would be in the rules, but behind that would be a set of basic mechanics to allow a gamesmaster to build his own saturday night special.

Players wouldn't know, until they knew, and even if they 'knew' it in someone elses game, they wouldn't know it in yours, so it all became "new" again

It became some of the most basic concepts, broken down into lego blocks so any gamesmaster can pick up the blocks, and put them together in their own way.

Not just world lore, but rules as well.

If you talked to 10 different roleplay groups about why they love the system they love, they'll talk about how they all like and or hate different things. How Warhammers careers system is great or how DnDs completeness exists, or how clean it is to run Fate.

When I've run my game for some players, the magic was too complex, and no-one wanted to be a mage anyway, or the health system was over the top or the skills system was too involved.

Thats why I took DungeonWorld and simplified it into DD12. Yet I felt for my core audience I went too far. Introducing the DD12 rules to some people was too complex, for others, too simple. So I gauged my audience, asked questions and those who were both new to all forms of roleplay, I go with pure DD12. if they have some RP background, I use the DW combat and maybe stealth. At a later point, when players start to get into their characters more, I introduce the other mechanics, IF they want them.

So its not just a custom world build of lego blocks, its custom rules too.

It's not there yet, but my 3rd part, is to allow 2 players at the same table, the ability to use both sets of rules. lets see how that pans out.

[Board Games] A Different way to classify.

I have a half decent collection of board games, I'm also a Kickstarter super backer of board games, I like to vote on my games on BBG, but something recently sprung to mind, that the out of 10 system does not really help me with.

How could we classify Board games better

1. Price? 

Board games come and go, you might like a board game the first time you play, but never play it again, if you paid $100 for such a game, was it worth it? Often the person who buys the board game, invites his/her friends to come play it, at their house even, so often the owner of the game puts out a bit more cost than the players. Be it drinks, snacks, cleaning time before and after, and house products consumed by guests. How does this compare?

If I invite my friends to the movies, I want to go see terminator, so I say, Who wants to come watch Terminator with me, they all buy their own tickets, parking fees, drinks, popcorn, and the ticket price includes the cleaning of the theatre and toilets.. so we each pay $20 (or so), yet for the same 2-3 hour experience, I pay $100 + extra expenses?

The Argument could be, I choose the movie, I pay for my friends, $20 each it'd be $100 for my 4 other friends and me to either A) play a board game or B) go to the movies, and next time, my friends would choose the movie (or buy a board game) and they'd pay..

Well, that might be true for people who buy many board games...

For now, the only argument I have close to this, is, I get to play it more often, because I'm the one that owns it, so I get better at it.. I'm not playing WITH friends.. I'm playing AGAINST friends, so I can attain some skills that I want, in this genre of board games.. maybe.. 

I chart my board games with Price / Times Played, and I record its potential sale price -5% per play in a spreadsheet, and it gives me a fair idea of how "much" each play through cost me.. also, gives me an idea of what game I should play next.. so I get more worth from my costs.

2. Time?

All games have a time value on the side(or back) of the box.. usually its like 1.5 hours, or 2hrs, some games say 30mins per player, which is often closer to the truth, the bugger problem is, they don't list set up and pack up time.. 

People who play games often, know that the first time you play a game, with new players, you double the play time listed.. this gives you a fair feel of how long its going to take. 

My house rule is.. Evening Games: No more than 1 hour listed time, this allows for rules clarification (since we might forget how to play since last time) average setup/pack up and distractions from kids not sleeping well, going down late, being tired from the end of the day, etc.

Lunch Games, With kids: 1-2 hours, not that I'm talking playing with the kids.. that's different, I mean that the kids are a distraction, so while you thought you were going to play in 2 hours.. it takes 3, because of said distractions..

Lunch Games, without kids.. My preferred games, because I like a good meaty 3 hour game. Which often takes 6. as long as the distractions are at a minimum, I'm good.

All Day Games.. sigh.. I've almost forgotten what they feel like.. friends arrive at 8:30am, game was set up the night before, everyone is in, notes are taken, game play is full of thought and discussion and each turn takes a lifetime, and before you realize it, its midnight and you've been holding your bladder the whole time.. such fun.. Haven't done that since I was a teenager/early twenties.. sigh.

3. Complexity?

Another one that's so wrong. 1) because the designers can't list 8yrs old anymore without going through rigorous testing, getting certified, all to avoid potential legal costs. Parents.. why can't you judge for yourself. If the game says 2 hours.. surely your kid won't have the attention span at 6yrs to play for 2 hours. 

I have played games that say 13+ that needed a PHD to understand, and others that my 3yr old grasped the concept of in minutes. The "age" classification is just wrong on all counts. Maybe like Movies have those PG & M rated values (D)rug use, (V)iolence, board games should have (M)aths, (P)hysics, (WP) worker-placement, (2T) 2 turn forward thinking strategy (R)andom events.. people will quickly learn that (R) games can be over quickly, while a (3T)(P) game will require some thinking.

4. Players

This one is likely an issue with Kickstarter games more than most, In order to get the most backers, you need to make sure your game can cope with the demographic of as many people as possible. so often a 2 player game, that can be 2vs2 gets some kind of halfway mixed up rules to make a 1v1v1 or 2v2v1 game. What works great for 5 players gets balanced poorly for 3 players, but they're not going to tell you.. no.. you need to find out for yourself..

Also, the Solo Player. A byproduct of computer games in the 80s & 90s has left several 20 somethings without a lot of friends, let alone board game playing ones. Its hard enough to meet new people as it is, finding board game playing ones is daunting. So they buy board games that have a Solo variant.

Sure, the game will more likely see the table, if you'd alone, bored on .. any night of the week and you decide to break out Solo Star Wars battles, or Kingdom Death.. Personally, I only have fun, when I see other people playing the game that I love.. I guess that's what I'm paying for.. the enjoyment of watching the enjoyment of others.

Still, I'd like to see a "best" number on the board.. like 1-6(2).. meaning, we gave you all the components to play between one and six players, but originally, we designed it for 2, so most of the theme and mechanics are for 2 players, or 2vs2, so if you're a couple, that likes to play board games together, then this game will likely suit you. 

FOMO and Board Games... the rabbit hole

The excitement for, the new game, the new KS campaign, the new things the campaign will have, the game funding, then the lull in between you start that WHOLE excitement again.. and its months if not years til the game arrives and you've either been lucky enough to not return, or instead you crave that excitement again.. and again and then a year later the 1st game arrives, but you've backed 12 other games in between.

Then it arrives, you unbox it, you maybe get to play it straight away, and it reinforces the whole chemistry, on par with a new friends a new partner a new job.

Then the 2nd game arrives.. and they compete for your time.. a 3rd and you can't give the love to the 1st like you used to. do you make more time to play games? or do you gauge which one has more fun and sell off the excess.

The interesting part is when you sell the excess, often with KS games, you can still break even with a 2nd hand, this feedback loop, justifies your purchases.. you played the game, you had your fun and you sold it back for what it cost you, or close enough that the price diff is negligible.. you've not spent any money going out this month, because you're home playing games, your bank account is looking healthier.. strangely, so you increase your game budget.

Then, you go a little overboard.. you back a game that you.. maybe, might be interested in.. it looks ok, maybe it'll be up your alley, but hey, who cares if its not, you can sell it and break even.

now you'e getting a new game every fortnight, you crave the high of the next KS campaign.. Oh so high, stretch goals, unlocks, new expansions.. ALL-Ins.. your shelves strain under the weight, you start buying Kallax shelves and maybe even inserts to bling out your game boxes.. you forget that the resale of the game will unlikely include those costs..

You now have enough games, to play twice a day 7 days a week, campaign after campaign for 4 years.. and still your KS account says 20 more games are due to arrive.

you're spending more than you're selling, you've forgotten about life outside of board gaming..

What do you do?

you start a You Tube channel....

Historical Reference to Dungeon World Maps #2

 Facebook, is apparently deleting all the stories.. their attempt at allowing facebook users blog. I honestly don't see why this is an issue. Its a single image and a wall of text. Its a great place to store a blog, that you are comfortable people in your life reading about you, or from you. 

So, in the interests of saving that page, I post it here, and hope that google doesn't ever kill blogger. 

From Facebook, with Love

How this Kickstarter Worked

DUNGEON WORLD MAPS·FRIDAY, 1 MARCH 2019·

Last Year I saw the Make 100 project on Kickstarter,

Lets step back a bit.. Are you a Kickstarter Backer? Or Are you new to the whole Process?

Kickstarter is a platform for people to help fund projects. When it first started it was a fun little website, ask a few hundred people to give you a $1 each so you could so something like, making an album at a studio or buy the paints to draw some art, or print up some books.

The Premise is, to get just enough of the project ready, to show off, to get interest, to see if people would buy your product or project, to invest in you. Some fail because they didn’t put enough time into their kickstarter project, Some, even after funding fail, because they didn’t put in enough time to structure their project and funds, so they fell short in funding.. Some, fail because they succeeded too well, the overwhelming response meant they needed to quit jobs or take holidays to fulfill the demands, often spending more money than they raised.

But, Once a Kickstarter works, the creator, kick-starts his new life, creating that product, getting it out to the backers, and setting up their new business.. they’ve raised awareness of their brand, money for their project and advertising for the next one.

If they did it well, they might not need kickstarter for a 2nd time, but, kickstarter, the site, is a place where people are searching for interesting projects to invest in. just because one project garnered 1,000 backers, doesn’t mean they’ll all back your next one, nor should you deny your next project to the millions of backers on KS that might be interested in your next.

So What About me? What About THIS project

I’m a slow burning wildfire, I gather the knowledge and resources, then go full force with overwhelming odds, to guarantee success. So while I have several projects in the forge, I want to ensure that the timing is right and I have the right tools to make it not just a little successful, but a lot.

So I needed a project to learn kickstarter, understand its buttons, its systems and how to run a campaign. but I didn’t want a runaway success, or excessive costs such as shipping and printing, so it needed to be digital, or very small.

So, When I saw the Make 100 last year, I started thinking about some potential ideas.

Make 100 is a way for kickstarter to get back to its roots, small projects for small numbers of people, like they did when they first started. not this mega million dollar deals, which dwarfs the new project creators and makes kickstarter feel like its not possible..

Make 100 is only for January, Start a new project in the Start of the year

So, I had a think about it.. a deck of cards, 100 cards, or 100 characters, 100 something.

I backed a project in the year, about Taverns. Everyone got to write up their Tavern and add it to a book. It suffered several problems, but eventually got made, but the response of people interested to add ‘their tavern’ to a potential set of taverns in other peoples roleplay worlds is what sparked this mapping idea.

Taverns are words.. and so you have to take the time to read them. But Images are instant..

I have drawn now 30 large maps. like 50cm x 30cm sized or bigger. I have maybe a few hundred smaller maps scattered through several notebooks for my roleplay world, some zoomed in to 1cm:1m, others scaled out to 1cm:1000km (and its still a A3 sized page). I started Commissioning maps 3 years ago, with the website called Simbi, Swamp goods or services that can be done electronically for Simbi and buy with Simbi.. no cash, no tax.

Games-masters and Authors wanted maps, so I drew them. Post Apocalyptic Idaho, A few Game Worlds, some game Cities, a continent or two, and a world for bugs, in a gem of a game where you roleplay as bug adventurers.

So it was obvious.. I’d draw 100 maps!

What? No.. impossible.. I have 2 kids, professionally games-master 2 nights a week and a full time job.. 100 maps would take 50 years..

I’d draw maps, with 100 “Things” in it.

So, Jan rolls around and I created a Kickstarter Page, draw up some headings and sketches of what I intend to do, and tell all my friends.

What I didn’t expect was to be as successful as I was.

I set the goal for $250, because I figured getting halfway was enough to draw a map, just a little smaller. My expectation was 50 people at $4 for a ‘location’ and 25 people who just want a copy of the map for $2.. I did it for 15 days, thinking I’d probably hit 25% in day 1, 50% more over 10 days, then push for the last 25% and maybe even 50% more for stretch goals in the last 48 hours.. which seemed reasonable.

Getting to 100% in 16 hours was.. surprising.. that’s for sure..

By the end of day 1, over 70 ‘locations’ were snapped up.. the last 30 would go in the next 24 hours, I hadn’t even started to exhaust my list.

Kickstarter is built on a computer, with algorithms, that look at certain factors, such as popularity, new to KS backers and the like, and they ‘promote’ your page if you meet criteria. One of which is regular visits and backings from new people.

I had figured that I’d tell 50% of people I knew day 1, and then 10% of people day 2, day 3, etc etc, so I’d maintain a regular flow of inbound traffic.

Now, I had more traffic to come, but no product to sell.. ack.. what to do.

So, I asked the current backers, asked friends, other kickstarter groups I participate in, would it be such a horrible idea to add a “mini” location after the fact. Its not as expensive as the full location, but its not a full location either. just some fun Easter eggs to be included.

The Bulk of people said this was a great idea.. So I went ahead and added it.

Day 2 we ran out of the 100 ‘locations’, and backers were starting to take on the ‘Easter eggs’ and just maps, but If I did this over, I think I’d have included it from the start and made the initial 100 a tad more expensive, like $5!

So, for 5 days or so, I rode the excitement of being a successful kickstarter project creator. There were ups and downs, 3 people decided to back out, 3! I was mortified.. but those coveted spots were snapped up in seconds.

I was adding stretch goals, people were increasing their pledges to push for the stretch goals, I began to exhaust my lists, facebook, google+, MeWe, etc. but then I realised.. The more we did, the more work I had to do.. I was at 1 main map and two digital maps, we were about to hit the goal for me to draw a 2nd map, then a 3rd map, people on the forums were encouraging each other to pledge for more map items, pushing towards the elusive $1500 goal for a colour map.. then just as I announced the next stretch goal, someone bought the map.

Maps of this size are expensive if you commission them, thousands of dollars if your going to publish, and the Original? who knows.. so selling them wasn’t likely to be part of my strategy. Yet I felt, if someone saw all the enthusiasm and thought that the actual map would be so awesome to own it. I wasn’t going to deny them. This would mean I’d need to use better materials, wrap it in protective layers each time I put it away and shipping costs would be somewhere around $100 or so. So I put in a price which was high enough to cover costs, but reasonable enough that I’d let it go.

One Backer loved the idea, so he took the map. That meant we hit out goal for a 4th map. I was so shocked, I just chucked up a stretch goal for a darker grittier map, based on the Kingdom Death Monster board game, and within minutes, another map was taken!

5 Full Maps. Original, Redrawn with Voter Theme, Sepia Toned, Colour and KDM versions.

1020% funded!

What a ride. It was exciting, for me, and those backers on the forums chatting with me.

So this Facebook page was made, and now, I’m using my spare time to get everything into the system.

To Save time, I’ve created a program, which takes the data, sorts it and puts it together with some physics (for world building). I’ll leave that for another blog post, but you can see the posts on the topic throughout this page.

But that’s my story.

Hope you enjoyed it. Its only the first step in the adventure of this project, and will consumer most of my 2019.

Welcome to Dungeon World Maps

The Historical Reference of Dungeon Worlds Map #1

Welcome to my blog, you're likely here to read about the first Kickstarter, how it came about, how it grew and the results.

Make-100: Fantasy Locations.

For the Make 100 Challenge I was thinking: I could ask you, as backer, for your ideas to turn into locations, medieval buildings (or.. see below). These I could turn into a map... a massive collaborative city map (and more).

Like I did in 2019..

After a phenomenal 1000%+ success of the First Make 100 Fantasy Locations, I was asked repeatedly to go again, this time we've decided on a city map (maybe with sewers!)

I've been drawing fantasy maps for roleplay games for years now, not just my own. For authors, artists, role-players and games-masters.

For the 2019 Make 100 Challenge I thought If I could get you, the backer, and your ideas to turn into locations. These I could turn into a map... a massive collaborative map.

With 300+ backers and 150+ locations on the first map, It was an awesome project, lots of fun to do, and most importantly, Kickstarter Experience.

It took a little under a year, what with life events and world events along the way, to get the planning done to achieve this:
Lots of little tiles, placed, moved, tweaked, moved again, resulting in this 'plan' map.


On to Drawing, pencil in where it all goes, then draw it in


Almost done, just checking over various backers notes to make sure its all exact

Then, using the plan, I drew out the first Map. I am still a little surprised I drew it, to me the maps are awesome, fantastic, a little over the top, but just right for many styles of roleplay.
Sitting on my largest table, 912mm x 1479mm, the green area is of the picture below


Zoomed into the bottom left corner of the map, almost to scale

For scale,
And in the Image below, that red box


An interesting place, with some very interesting quests.. where will your adventurers go next?

Not only that, but I was able to flex my artistic skills to include some varieties we unlocked from stretch goals, While not 100% complete (awaiting an owner, to draw in their character) I have a Sepia toned copy, a Colour copy, a Redrawn from 100 years on, after a war with undead, and a Cataclystic/Post Apoc/Caveman version based on the popular game Kingdom Death Monster, Set in my own KDM world "Cataclyzm", for my own roleplay system Dungeon-Delvers-Twelve




Well, I was considering doing another of these, for another 100+ people, but, I got thinking.. Hmm, maybe it might get too big (again)? So, first up, I'm going to try something different.. a City Map.

Inspired by city maps such as this:


A map of Moscow, from the 16th century, I've been working on a roleplay map for it.

and this:


This Map is one of many that inspired me.

I thought it would be fun to draw a range of buildings this time.

At the same time, I'm working towards a pet project, my own roleplay system, I have a campaign, set in this town, so its going to add a major theme to the whole city. So I'm going to include the campaign along with the city map.