Chaosmeister.Games

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Playtests and updates

Hello fine people. Remember the last time I said I was working on Wyrdlands? Yea can't use the name and need to find another. Coming up with names is hard. On a more positive note, I had my first playtest, which was invaluable. I learned a lot by seeing how the dice work and how it comes together at the table and what I, as the GM, did and what the players did. Several areas have had a rewrite since then, mostly for clarity. A few sections I have changed completely, and others are gone. I realized the mechanic I used for Assisting was worse than what I wrote for Supporting Actions for the same effect. So that section got a rewrite. I also had to define the boundaries of penalties for Unlucky rolls more clearly. Overall, the progress is great. I finished the rough for the Bestiary and Relic sections. Still a bunch of Spark Tables and example Creatures to write. I want to keep it simple, there are 4 types of enemies in the game. GRUNT Creatures, or NPC of this type, can only take 1

Working on Wyrdland

I have been working on my submission to the Open Gaming Jam for a while. It is shaping up nicely, though, as always lots to do. This evening I have the opportunity to run the playtest to see if the mechanics work at the table. It is a fantasy game where I mash together some of my favourite things from various TTRPGs. It started as a hack for my WARDENS game that uses the 24XX rules. You can still see it in parts, but this game is vastly different. The hardest part for me in any game is writing the GM section, as I am constantly stuck on that. Will have to consider what I want to include. Action Based Monster design is a big one I want to tinker with. And I sadly have that not done for today's test. The current draft can be found here if anyone wants to look at what I have so far.

Taking a quick break for something I feel is important

The Open Gaming Jam has just started on Itch! I would love to see some fine creative folks participate and share your open-license games. I have one system I have been tinkering with off and on for a year that I will polish as much as I can and submit. Open-license games have always been my favourite kind of game, and that SWADE doesn't have one is always a sore spot for me. You don’t know what a Jam is? Essentially various creators come together to make something for a specific theme/topic/system and share it on Itch.io. It can be free or can be sold. They usually run for a month, so you need to get cracking. However, there is no need for the game to be finished by the end of the Jam. Many participants in other Jams developed their submissions further, even into Kickstarters.Hopefully see you there? https://itch.io/jam/open-gaming-jam

Differences of Pathfinder and Savage Worlds Combat and how they relate to Savage Design

Hello again folks. While reacquainting myself with Savage Worlds, I read an Interview from 2021, given around the Savage Pathfinder Kickstarter. In it I think Mike Barbeau said the following: "If you boil Pathfinder combat down to its barest essence, you're making a bunch of decisions managing your most important resource: hit points. You can still see the influence of grandaddy Chainmail in Pathfinder's design. You have so many tools to shift the flow of hit points in battle that you’re constantly discovering new strategies and tactics as you play. It's still a wargame at heart, which makes the decisions in combat feel so vital and fun. While Savage Worlds still has tactical combat that follows the same generalized principles as Pathfinder, when you take a hit, we want to scare the player. Taking a Wound is a big deal, especially since you can only take three before you're taken out. That said, Wounds modify your ability to succeed at rolls and negatively impact y

The joy of old files or sometimes hoarding is good.

After deciding to finally tackle the Savage Space update, I went looking for the files. I wrote it over 10 years ago. At first, I could not find any and started to worry I would have to pull everything out of PDF. But clutter old me found the old external HDD with the word docs on it. What a relief! Off into the cloud they go. Now on to actually working through them. Since I was surprisingly smart enough to save them as separate chapters instead of the single word document they where done in initially, I can go through chapter by chapter. I may do some live streams of this. Would that be interesting?

Revisiting Savage Worlds

It has been a few years. When the SWADE Crowdfunding launched, I participated but never really got into it. I was burned out and wanted to avoid learning the changes to the system. Was a grumpy Grognard. Over the holidays, I finally had the muse to read SWADE. I am glad I did. The people I played with and followed had very negative opinions about SWADE, and I let it also colour my perception. But after finally digging in and reading it, it is an excellent system, and I look forward to playing it. I got deep into Savage Pathfinder for Christmas. Hopefully, I will run Rise of the Runelords this year with my online group. As a side effect, I looked at Savage Space again and will finally update it for SWADE and turn it into a SWAG product. Probably a bit too late now that the Sci-Fi Companion is at the door, but it's one of the most downloaded RPG supplements I have ever done and will hopefully find its place in some Savage Libraries once it's done. I plan to do regular posts here

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