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The RPG EBook of the Future

To follow up on the Next Gen RPGs post I’d like to toss up a sample interface:
This is probably a Flash application. You can resize, minimize or dismiss each pane in the interface above. The book screen is actually the second screen you’d get after opening up the game, after going to your library from [...]

RPG Sketch (Old): Fab Force!

Note: This is an old sketch from my personal journal.
It occurred to me a while ago that those lifestyle shows really are one of the closest, non-nerd analogs to superheroics around. Thus, Fab Force: The RPG of Style!
What You Need
At least two Fab Force experts, one person to play the client and one for the [...]

RPG Sketch: Dungeon War!

Here’s a quick idea for a heroic dungeon crawling game. It’s not intended to be innovative — just to play with this:
The Main Idea: We all know that in a balanced level-based RPG, advancement is kind of illusory. So why not ditch it?
Step 0: Get Dice and Writing Stuff
We use d10s in this game.
Step 1: [...]

Guardian Heroes, Pt. 2

The second session of Quick20 supers was a lot of fun. To be brief:
The game takes place in a fast and loose version of the Marvel Universe. The PCs are Team Discord: Aerobot (an robot mascot-hero that escaped from Microsoft, with the ability to shoot missiles, fly and change size), Switch (a magical teleporter [...]

Guardian Heroes

I released Quick20 not too long ago and it’s been doing pretty well. On top of that, I’ve started a second gaming group, so that I’m running Vampire/Mage on Tuesdays and . . . well, I was running a Ready 2 Run cyberpunk genre game, but as I’d already run one of those my heart [...]

Screwtopia: A Singular Farce

This is a quick idea for a game. It even comes with text you’re supposed to read aloud! To start:
You wake up in the body you hand in your early 20s (unless you died younger, in which case you’re that age), healthy and whole. A voice booms out of the white mist:
WELCOME. YOU ARE IN [...]

More Home Are the Heroes

Building off of the last post, I’ve thought of the start of a resolution system for the game. Thinking of card-based concepts like Swords to Swords helped. So did getting out a Tarot deck at a D&D game.
Now using Tarot in an RPG is pretty cliched by now, but Home are the Heroes (or whatever [...]

Game Sketch: Home Are the Heroes

I had a brief thought about a fantasy RPG set after the destruction of Ye Olde Dark Lord. The characters would be heroes at the peak of their power — in fact, you could make them as mighty as you liked. But there would be a catch: The more powerful you are as a hero [...]

More Swords to Swords

To explore yesterday’s idea further, let’s come up with a hypothetical character sheet and some other expansions. We’ll use a typical fantasy game setting.
So what we need are trait listings equal to hand sizes:
Physical

Close Combat
Ranged Combat
Agility
Strength

Mental

Knowledge
Deduction
Additive Magic
Creative Magic

(Note: The additive/creative split in magic comes from one thing I noticed designing stuff [...]

System Sketch: Swords to Swords

Grabbing a copy of Apples to Apples inspired me to think about a similar sort of system for RPGs. Let’s fool with combat.
Each side in a combat gets 3-8 cards — more if they’re skilled. Each card narrates a type of attack and a type of defense. The narration includes a zone (high, low, [stage] [...]