Posts tagged with keywords "0.19"
I’m making a series of big chunky mistakes. Currently this draft of rules I’m writing up is very very wordy (about 35,000 words in fact) and I can’t seem to get out of that mode. But but but… I need to finish it. It’s like a block, I need to finish writing up the rules so I can put it aside to move onto the next thing, be it playtesting or working on something else.
I’ve heard the mantra “fail early, fail often” bandied about and while I know it applies to products more than hobbies, I can related to what it means emotionally. It’s better to try lots of small things and fail, then get hung up on one big thing and never finish it or waste all your time on it.
In essence I’ve written two or even three throwaway sourcebooks to get this point and I’m now thinking that to get to a final product, I’d need to start again and split it into smaller chunks of work. That’s daunting. A core book with individual supplements for each of the four major pantheons (Angelic/Demon, Tuatha De Dannan/Formori, Olympian, Aesir) and also separate supplements for Valiant Mortals and Magic Practitioners. This insight come out of first writing a setting doc and now attempting to write a rules doc.
Partly it’s the sunk cost fallacy at work, but partly also doubt. I think I’ve been here before, not once but several times. Doubt is rather evil. It gets into the back of your mind, it preys on your guilt about not being able to work on it enough, it clouds you’re perspective where seeing “similar” projects pop up, questions how you value your project, makes you think that you’re simply not good enough to pull it off.
My plan to try and offset this was to focus on character creation. Get that settled and put it online. Get some folk to try and create characters and see what happens, see what people like or don’t like. Right now the “process” is complete, but I have to detail the different pantheons, gifts/faults and magic/supernatural powers. All the fun setting-specific stuff.
Ah, but as I said doubt is evil. For example, I’ve seen a number of blog posts and tweets about “Mythender” characters. As it turns out, someone had a similar idea (get people to use the character creation as a way of playtesting/feedback), did it before me, with a similar concept (it appears to be an RPG about gods and heroes), they are much further along in terms of progress (and looks better thought out) and written by someone with experience (while I have… well none). You can see how doubt is twisting my perspective, turning it in on itself.
I haven’t looked at it the Mythender character creation yet, so it is quite unfair of me to moan like this. I’m sure it’s very good judging from the amount of folks talking about it and putting characters online. And if I can put aside my own concerns about Lost Heroes, I’ll probably give it a good look over soon.
Okay, that’s it. I’ll stop moaning now. Therapeutic rant over. On to writing that section on Gifts and Faults that I’ve been putting off for the last week. 
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Okay, taking a breather. 9500 words. I honestly don’t know if that’s a lot or not as I normally don’t track it as a measure of anything. I could write a 1000 words one night, only to cut half out the next day when I re-read it. But I’ve been spending the last few evenings since mid-January writing up a system for Lost Heroes and I’m really in the midst of it now.
I was procrastinating a lot but now I understand why, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by the task I’ve set myself. I had thought it’d be a matter of writing up a few notes about character creation, going through Book of the Gods and listing Gifts and Faults but I’ve been collecting ideas for Lost Heroes for years and I’m trying to bring it together as a cohesive whole. And it’s daunting. Not even that but I’m not including the combat system I had devised, as I want to get all the other elements like powers and character creation settled first.
And I’m not helping myself as I seem to be distilling everything I’ve learned about running and using Fudge into the text. But I think this piece of work will be much more accessible to players than Book of the Gods.
Daunting is the right word. I always viewed 0.19 as an iteration, not the final product. I’m still looking to a next version where I merge setting and rules in one (and possible across 5 “books”, one core book and four pantheon supplements). What am I setting myself up for?
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What we need right now is the sound of Angels or the bellowing of Giants, maybe some bewitching music of the Gentry or the battle cries of Valkyries. You’ll have to use you’re imagination I’m afraid.
I’m please to announce that I’ve put the first public release of Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods online. You can download it from here.
“Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods” is the setting of Lost Heroes. I made the decision a long time back to split up the writing of the setting from the design and implementation of the rules (have a gander over past blog entries for more info). Though once the two are done to some satisfactory level I’ll probably bring back together in one. This version, v0.19, is not as good as it could be, but I’m hoping by putting it online, I can kick myself to up the game.
Lost Heroes RPG is a free roleplaying game. It’s set in the modern day but the players take on the characters of the Chosen who are the champions, lovers and children of the Gods. Book of the Gods, contains six unique pantheons of Gods which include Angels and Demons, Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorii, the Greek Olympian Gods and the Norse Aesir Gods.
Your comments and criticisms are welcome.
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I’ve been working my way through the current draft of the setting. I had hoped this would only take a week or two, but it’s taken much longer for various IRL reasons (including a car crash and its subsequent fallout), mostly because the only time I can work on it, is the few hours spare I get after the kids are in bed and I’m not always as mentally focused at that time. (I’m getting old, I fall asleep in the sofa at 10.30 in the evening!)
The first half of the text required a lot more re-work than later pieces, yet it was the later pieces I struggled with the most first time round. It seems as a general rule, depending on the length of the chapter, the more I struggled with it the less re-working it requires. With that in mind I started working on the Pantheon chapters in reverse order, hoping to populate the better changes and feel from the later chapters back to the previous chapters.
It was only when I got to the chapter on Demons that something started to worry me. Not the writing, but something I had put to the back of my mind since starting this run. Demons are nasty things. Not nasty as in anti-hero way (like Vampires are sorta cool yet there still “monsters”) but the worst of mankind, supernaturally empowered. Rapists, murderers, abusers, molesters and so on. While it’s possible to create “good” Demons (Fallen Demons or Demonic Bloodlines that avoided the influence of Hell for example), the vast majority of character types are bad, real bad.
Lets get this out of the way now, Lost Heroes is based on old mythologies. These old religions contain stuff that modern readers may find tasteless or even offensive. I can already think of several bits and pieces that might offend some. I’m aware of them but I didn’t want to PC-ify these old stories, just for the sake of writing an RPG. So instead I tried to emphasis some over others. I don’t know if this works or if I should be more cautious in how I treat these themes in the setting. In part, this is the purpose of trying to make this “Book of the Gods” so that I can present something to others and get a real feel for the reader’s reactions. To put it another way, when does editing become censorship? I can’t tell because I’m buried in the forest, checking the bark on each of the trees.
And here I am, reading through the Demons chapter, realising there is very little balance to this chapter. It is dark and it remains dark. There is, preceding this chapter, an chapter on Angels who battle constantly with Hell to prevent Demons destroying everything. While some parts of Angels are dark, there is much light. When I was writing it, I tried to get my head into what might be the motivations of these Demons and their masters. It did haunt my dreams for a while, imaging the horrific nature of Hell, but I felt it was important to get it down on paper. A starting point.
One thing, from the beginning, of Lost Heroes is that I didn’t want to restrict your choice of characters. Of course a GM may apply their own restrictions for the sake of the game, but I wanted there to be a choice. Even if that option was only really available to allow the GM to create antagonistic NPCs, it should be there. Choice is also an incredible important theme in the setting. Everything is about choice. A True Chosen Demon… is a human who accepted to become a Demon. The evils of Demon are the evils of humans, amplified by the supernatural. Do you chose to be the monster or the hero? And so the gamer is already making a choice.
Reading about the monstrous Demons of Lilith, wife of Satan, I started to have doubts. I posted this on twitter:
Just re-read the Demons chap. in Lost Heroes. Am a bit worried that u can create evil and disturbing demons as PCs. Should I take chap. out?
Which it later got imported into Google Buzz where some discussion occurred.
I have no conclusions so far. I’m going to keep tapping away at this drop, hoping in the end that the bits will fall together. What do you think?
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A week into 2010, and I’ve finished the first draft of “Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods”. I just wrote and wrote until I finished and that journey was 13,000+ words long! My. Hopefully parts of are actually decent.
There is a lot to do before I release it publically. I’d love to just put it online in it’s current form, warts and all, and let people tell me what’s wrong with it. This being a first draft however it’ll be unreadable. (Just read my blog for an example on how bad my grammar and readability can get!). It’ll be plagued with unnecessary “junk” words (“actually” is one of my particularly overused favourites), mixing up “their” and “there” (I drive my wife mad with this one), past and present tense and “effect” versus “affect”. And with such a big load of words to read through, everyone who read it would be just telling me what I already know, but not what I need to hear. At this stage I’d rather hear about if the ideas work, as a whole is it good, do the character concepts grab you, encouragement and so on, not the pedantic grammar and readability issues. (Though if there is anyone out there who wants to read it and willing to ignore the grammar and readability stuff, I’d be more than happy to share it).
I don’t have an editor and I don’t have the funds to hire one, I’m going to have do it myself. Even if I consider this version to be a “beta”, I still need it feeling professional when I share with people. So my plan is to do a read-through and fix up anything I find. Then put it aside for a week and start reading it again. I found this trick really useful, it’s like you’re reading someone else’s work (whose writing style is very familiar).
And once I get through that, I’ll read it backwards. Well when I say, read backwards, I mean read the chapters in reverse order. I know that during writing it, some concepts took shape later in those 13,000 and got a name, but apply across the board. This way I can make sure concepts and ideas are consistent throughout the setting.
*phew*
And then I get to lay it out. Again I don’t have an art director or a graphic layout guy on hand. So again, I’ll be attempting this myself. I’m going to keep it simple however. Rob Lang’s guide seems like a very good starting point for me. Plus I have some artistic ability.
So hold on to your britches, Book of the Gods may be out soon… ish.
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This week we look at ‘The Chosen’. The Chosen are the main type of characters available for players in Lost Heroes.
The Chosen
The Chosen are humans (or animals) that have been chosen or touched by a God and divinely transformed.
There are five types of Chosen characters: “True Chosen”, “Bloodlines”, “Soulless”, “Fallen” and “Renegades”. Every type of Chosen has a “Patron”, which is normally a God or some other powerful supernatural entity or force. There are a number of groups of Patrons (called “Pantheons”) described within this setting but they are certainly not the only ones. Each Patron offers different types of advantages and disadvantages. A Patron may not be a conscious or intelligent entity, but a powerful mystical force such as the Dreamlands or the randomly forming stuff of the deepest Void. The relationship between the Patron and the Chosen depends on the type of Chosen however there is always a relationship. The Chosen can send mental messages as “Prayers” to their Patron. They can also sense what things or events are important to their Patron and can always sense when one of their Patron’s Avatar is in play.
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The Dark Gods: the Mad Ones of the Outer Darkness
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The Fair Folk: Fairies, Nightmares, Wardens and other Chosen of the Dreamlands
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Tuatha Dé Danann: People of the Goddess
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The Fomorii: Servants of the Deep Ones
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The Angelic Choirs: Children of Fire
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The Legions of Hell: Demons and Devils
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The Olympians, the Underworld and other Gods
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The Aesir: the Warrior Gods of Asgard
The Patrons of the Chosen are discussed in detail later.
All Chosen undergo a “Transformation” from their mundane Mortal selves to their new Chosen forms. This can also be referred to as the “Change” (the “Soul Rape” is a more derogatory description). The extent of the Transformation depends on the type of Chosen.
After the Transformation the Chosen suffer an emotional drain each day while under the Veil (i.e. in the mundane world). This is called Passion Bleed and it saps at their ability to use their divine powers and abilities. Also, as their divine powers increase over time, so does the Passion Bleed and can get to the point where a Chosen can no longer live permanently under the Veil. The Chosen also do not age normally after the Transformation. Age occurs as a matter of experience, the more they experience (and harder) the more they will age. They could live ten years without any ageing if there is no struggle or worry but could age decades in a matter of a few short years under constant harsh struggle. But Chosen can live much longer than Mortals. Rather than die from old age too, they fall into a deep sleep that they can barely be roused from. Sometimes such aged Chosen are carried from the mundane world into the Dreamlands where they slumber forever in peace. In the case of Bloodlines this slowed ageing only kicks in once they have reached the physical peak of their adulthood, around 25 to 28 years of age.
Chosen can have family like any human. There is a very small chance that the offspring of a Chosen will be a Bloodline, but most of the time the children are completely human. Most Chosen who do have children, do their best to raise the child in a mundane environment, but it is a near-impossible task. The Chosen by their nature cannot prevent the supernatural (such as their Patron) coming into their lives.
The True Chosen
You’ll have to wait till Book of the Gods is available to find out more…
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Happy Halloween everyone! In the spirit of the creepy and dark, here is a new extract from what I’m currently working on. It is a description of the magical properties of the “Void”, the great darkness surround everything. Enjoy!
Read More…
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I’ve been letting this blog languish for what feel like months while I’ve been busy writing “Book of the Gods”. So I’ve decided to post some extracts from the current work in progress, a way to wet appetites and to get over my own procrastination.
I’ll probably try to do this once a week if I can. So the first extract I’m going to post is from the “Other Worlds” chapter and specifically the intro to the “Dreamlands”.
The great Dreamlands, home of the Gods, the fantastical and the afterlife exists beyond the thin layer of the Spirit World. You know when you’re in the Dreamlands because everything appears or feels more real. The truth of everything is vividly more apparent and this leads to a sense of “hyper-realism”; colours are more startling, feelings are more passionate, sounds more stunning and so on. To humans, things take on personality because there are more true; flowers are more alluring and delicate, storms more violent and malignant, architecture belies more of the personality of the creator or designs of its architect, the way clothes hang on someone tell more about them then the choice of clothes and so on. The hidden meaning of things is less hidden and more explicit and it leads to an over-saturation of senses and meaning to humans. When people return from the Dreamlands, their memories and experiences there don’t seem real within the pressure of the Veil in the Mundane World, they take on a dream-like quality and many people forget them, just like night-time dreams.
Read More…
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I finally managed to do a symbol for the “Aesir: Warrior Gods of Asgard” pantheon.
Aesir (Norse) Gods Symbol
I also created this image as well:
Lost Heroes Old Satyr Warrior
You can read more about this particular one on my personal blog.
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As I mentioned I just finished writing up the section/chapter on Olympians for v0.19 and I decided to take a short break before starting the next section (whatever that’ll be).
Oddly I realised an unexpected theme in my choice of mythos I’ve developing for Lost Heroes. I’ve chosen four mythos over the additional two “core” pantheons of Gods. These are split into six pantheons of Gods (which can contain multiple “races” of Gods).
- The Celtic mythos is split into Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorii.
- The Angelic mythos is split into Angels and Demons.
- The Greek mythos is one big unhappy family of Olympians, Titans and monsters.
- Likewise I will not be splitting up the Norse mythos. There will only be the Aesir and kin.
Each of these mythos cover the whole range of mythology, from world creation, the sea, afterlife to love and war. However when I finished the Olympians, I realised that the Olympians could be associated, albeit tenously, to the classical element of Air: rational, intellect, sky, etc. Zeus the rule of the Olympians is the God of lightening and thunder. The Hall of Mount Olympus high on a lofty mountain.
The Norse Aesir have always felt, well, “earthy” to me. With Thor and his hammer, frost giants, dwarfs in mountains and Loki buried underground. Which would associate them with the classic element of Earth, sort of.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
The Angels are called the Children of Fire and, well, Hell is associated with fire and lava. They are active, can bring great might to their battle and flaming radiance.
Which puts the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomori in the Water element, which fits as the Fomori are foul sea demons who live under the sea and the Tuatha Dé Danann have a very fluid relationship with the human world that flows like waves across the world.
It’s not something I’m going to make much of in the writing of Lost Heroes as each mythos is more than the individual element. Nearly every mythos has a God associated with Sea and another with Death for example. But I found the concept striking when I realised it. If I ever get a professional artist to do a “cover” for Lost Heroes, this could be quite useful as a visual conceptual symbolism.
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