Day: May 7, 2007

A bunch of people have asked via email, so I figured that I’d go ahead and announce what I’m working on.

It’s a genre mash-up RPG.

Imagine: A fantasy world, but not one based on Medieval/Dark Ages European tropes, but rather one based on the tropes of the spaghetti western and chinese wuxia. Add steampunk elements. Mix well.

It’s The Gunslinger Born meets Storm Riders meets Afro Samurai meets Perdido Street Station meets Firefly meets Django meets Brisco County meets House of Flying Daggers and more.

It’s:

So there you have it. Now, a question. I had considered giving public design notes from time to time. I was going to make a dedicated blog for this, but then I noticed that , in his recent design work, was simply using his regular LJ, with the design journal entries marked with the LJ tag system. For those of you interested: Which would you prefer?

Review of this week’s episode, behind the cut.

I’m working on a new game.

Notice, however, that I didn’t say a new game design.

That’s one of the interesting things about my chosen profession lately. Whereas in the past, I would start from scratch, building the framework of a rules set and then adding the things that I consider the “nifties” to it, today it’s possible to grab a framework of existing rules from the Open Gaming License, and then concentrate on the development of those “nifties.” More often than not, this means releasing a based-on-D&D sort of thing, using the d20 system. However, some folks have released other systems via the License as well. I hadn’t really be paying much attention, to be honest.

I had intended to design this new game from the ground up. However, now that I’ve taken a look at the rules presented in the free System Resource Document for Spirit of the Century, my brain is already jumping with developmental ideas that add to those rules — “nifties” that make the game that I’m developing something different from SOTC, but similar enough to benefit.

It allows me to concentrate on the development of the setting-specific rules systems that are the game’s equivalent of the hooks or riffs you’d find in a song. The bassline and the beat are already layed down, and I can now compose the leads over the top of them.

I have to admit that part of me feels like I’m cheating. The other part, however, is really excited about this project.