Vacation to the End of the World.

So I tried writing a few entries on my Steampunk world, and it got eaten by the browser.

More will be forthcoming once I'm back from my Ragnarok vacation.

Information on Ragnarok here...

Getting some armor this year, and I'll hopefully have the time to put together some more arrows before I have to leave.

Rockets: The Secret to Airship Dominance

I was having some brainstorming today, and I hit upon an idea.

I knew I didn't want my airships to carry cannon; the idea of that much recoil in a lighter-than-air vessel strains credulity a bit. Machine guns would be a possibility, but rare, cumbersome, and not terribly effective against other airships. Maybe for a ground-assault airship, to 'sweep the deck' prior to debarking troops, but again, a very expensive, specialized device (Clockwork repeaters, or else primitive water-cooled weapons) not suitable for extensive dissemination.

What, then, could be used in airship-to-airship combat? Something recoilless, with the firepower needed to scuttle an enemy armored airship?

Rockets. Specifically, the Congreve and Hale models. The Congreve style will probably be launched from racks, and can't be reloaded in flight. They will lack accuracy, but are easier to load and use, and more can be fired faster. The Hale will be fired from interior tubes, venting fore and aft, similar to torpedoes. Thus, a Hale salvo is far more accurate, but requires a larger vessel, and can't fire as many torpedoes as a Congreve-equipped airship.

*punk begins!

Going to get started on my *punk module (steam and clock), and I'm facing my first decision.

Do I want to use standard fantasy races?
Do I want anything nonhuman at all?
Or do I want to make my own races?

After that, I have to decide on system. (Unless I try to do a systemless modular type of system, but I don't think I work well that way. I need some kind of framework.)

Do I write a whole new system? That sort of thing makes me twitch, wondering how imbalanced my outcome is...
My options (as far as my present knowledge of the free-for-use RPG community allows) are Risus, 3.5 OGL, and Myriad.

Risus is tremendously simple, and allows me to focus more on setting than on mechanics. Unfortunately, the mechanically lite nature of Risus might prevent some of the things I'd like to codify in the system as they come up. But I can't think of any examples offhand, so it likely wouldn't be a problem.

3.5 OGL requires a lot more crunchwork from me, particularly in terms of classes and their features. Not sure I'd look forward to that. Risus allows for much simpler characters and mechanics. Even if I import the Arcadomai class system, or the Dao Sheng combat mechanics, Risus is still far and away a simpler writing experience than 3.5. My last 3.5 project (the Oculus Dei and Ehud prestige classes for 3.5 Modern) is still languishing somewhere on my external.
Probably not using 3.5 for this project.

Myriad.... The middle ground, I think. I need to sit down and spend some time reading through it again, but from what I remember, it will require some extra work for making SFX's, but less than making whole classes. Almost like making feats.

And as I pondered this and watched The Pretender, I found this. That might be another option that bears investigation. I'll print it out Monday and look over it.

Anyone (I know, the only person who follows this right now is Rob Lang, but hopefully I'll eventually drag in some more people who know more about this sort of thing than I do) with any ideas on the systems I list, or any better suggestions, is welcome to leave me a comment.

RPG Blogs, oh my!

There are so many out there I can't possibly keep up with them...
If I knew which part of things I was most interested, I'd probably have an easier time narrowing it down, but as it is...

Well, free RPG's was an easy one. For now I'm just trawling around, Campaign Mastery seems good, and Gnome Stew has a place in my bookmarks for the Modular Campaign Settings article.

Any suggestions on things to watch?

List of things I want to do...

Something Steampunk (This is the most nebulous.... I could just do a Steampunk Risus addon and be happy, I think. Steampunk doesn't require as much crunch, for me, as some other concepts like....)....
Something Mech-based (With a Mechwarrior feel rather than a Gundam feel... I like my mechs to look/function like military equipment, not mythical creatures)...
Something Western (Started with Fistful of Frenchmen, hopefully to be revised)....

Something for simple, modular combat, in the vein of Animalball: Melee.

Up on 1km1kt!

Here it is, in all its barely-finished glory.

Feedback is welcome, as I start pondering improvements for the beta.

Done!

A Fistful of Frenchmen can be downloaded here.

I can definitely improve. Not just this in particular, but my writing in general. It came out fairly well, about a page an hour. There's things I wish I had the time/clarity of thought to include, and issues that I'm sure will come up in playtesting and judging, but I think this isn't bad for a first-ever finished product.

Example Character Preview

The final character looks like this…

Charles Keeton

Guts 2: Reflexes 3: Intuition 2: Tact 1:

Wounds [] [] [] [] [] Defense 11

[] [] [] [] []

Skill Rank Quality Misc Total

Perception 3 2 0 +5

Ranged (Revolver) 2 3 0 +5

Riding 3 2 0 +5

Stealth 2 2 0 +4

Tracking 1 2 0 +3

Talents: Slap Leather (+2 during a quickdraw contest)

Oh, dear...

Home from work, and less than four hours until my 24-hour period is up. I'll only have nine hours of work altogether on the project in that time.... (should've done it on the weekend...)

Having never done this before, I also don't have much idea on the limits time places on your design, and what corners I should be cutting to get out a finished product. Oh, well.

Off to type as fast as I can.

Attributes

Came up with something good for this, I think.

Qualities
Guts - Health, Melee, Carrying
Reflexes - Defense, Ranged, Initiative
Intuition - Defense, more Skill points, affects the most skills
Tact - Mostly just affects skills, haven't come up with any derivations for Tact yet.

GRIT. Do you have it?
8 points to buy, max of 3 at first level, 1 point per rank (Or else 15 points to buy, cost goes up each rank [1 point, 2 points, 3 points, etc]).

Great. Now I've got another decision to make. I'll probably just go with the simplest option and look it over again in the aftermath of the contest. Maybe even start writing version 1.1 while I'm waiting for it to end.

If anyone can reference me to a resource for compare/contrast of point buy systems, that would be amazing, since I'm pondering a similar choice for Skills and Talents.

24-hour RPG Contest

Taking part in this little contest here, and I'm about five hours into the process. I'll keep track of how much time it actually takes, but I'm stopping work around 11 tomorrow night, which is when I started tonight. I don't know if the 24 hours refers to 24 hours actual work, or 24 hour time period, so we'll see what I get done.

Balance is a real bugbear for me. I try to make sure there's no obvious best build, and that draws out the process... Sometimes I have to look past mechanics and just get things done.

On that note, I think I've settled on 2d6+stat+skill+bonus, with the Holy Trinity of Resolution (Opposed, Single-Contest, Target Number).

Working on putting my notes into solid format now, then going to bed.