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2024 – It finally happened. An Afour game release.

It took a long time, and as the designer I’m still not 100% happy with what I have… but… it is a final released version of my game, what started as an untitled scribbled sheet of notes, becoming ‘B.A.N.G’ and then retitled to ‘Tigger Happy’ and finally the true form titled: In-Action.

A logo for the game 'In Action'

Even if I’m not pleased with the version I released, it is a release, and that’s something, we all have to put the brush down and take a look at the picture sometime, this is my time. It’s not perfect, but what is?

It’s playable, and it has in it the core idea’s that I so long ago penned hurriedly into existence. I may now consider that ‘Tigger Happy’ what I see to be the fully fleshed version of the game might also get to see the light of day.

If you are a table top gaming enthusiast, if you are curious just what I consider to be a game I wanted to play, why not buy a copy, I’ve priced it to shift at just £3, which in honesty wont even cover to cost of running the page you are now reading…

check it out now on my lacklustre ‘shop’ page:
Afour games shop

Redirected With An Aim

So, once again I find myself floundering in a world of half-baked ideas, half-written home-rules and a glut of anxiety over my ability to actually do something with my ‘passion’. That is to say, I really enjoy Tabletop gaming, I really enjoy tweaking about with rules, but the world is big and scary and I never seem to really get to the end of any thread I begin to follow.

Such is my current predicament. I’ve been working on my pirate-themed tabletop board game/role-playing game under the working title ‘Castaway’ for about 3 maybe 4 years… It’s been through about 5 major revisions and was just starting to feel right… But then while enjoying a board gaming evening with some chums, one recommended we play a game he’d been recently enjoying; To my surprise, this game, with which I had no prior knowledge, was nearly, in every discernible way, exactly like the game I had been thinking up.

The game box that never will come to exist

And so, that project is now all but thrown to the bin as apparently someone – Other than me… Had already made the game I was dreaming up. So shockingly close were the mechanics I genuinely have to wonder If my ideas were somehow stolen. It is uncannily similar.

Instead of outright binning the work though, I shall amalgamate it into the work I’d long since passed over on my 5HIT roleplaying system. And now, I am determined to self-publish 5HIT as a digital good (maybe even as an NFT with some kind of after-sales benefit for those that have a valid NFT…) Whatever happens, I am going to have a game with my name on it, for sale… somewhere, and if just one person buys a copy, I’ll consider it a total win.

While suffering my great existential executive disfunction and drifting awkwardly between about 4 various hobbies, I have out of some erratic part of my brain, spawned a new project, a new game style for me to look into; Deck Builders. I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with several Deck Builder games recently. Dominion is fun, but honestly, the ‘meta’ of the game makes me dizzy, there’s too much going on for me to enjoy it. Star Realms has some good stuff, but I find the game unbalanced. Shards of Infinity improves on Star Realms a little, but playing the basic set gets very samey samey.

So, I thought, can I do better? I want Dominion, but a little lighter… And so, that’s what I’m doing, along with the other hobbies I’m floating between, I now have this new tinker toy – So far, I have a theme, a working title, and some core mechanics all scrawled into meaningless unintelligible notes. It’s going quite well. I shall add “F**k This Place” to my projects page, and update the status of Castaway.

In some happy, unrelated news: One of my 3d models has had a slow amount but tricklingly continued sales. nearly enough that I started another 3d model. If something out of the many hundreds of things I do each day might bring a little money to me for my effort I need to grab a hold of that. So, here’s to me, almost being a person that makes money from what they do.

2023, You, me and an RPG

I’ve found recently my time has been spent both playing in and running multiple role-playing games. I’ve been continuing with my Vampire character in what is now a multi-year spanning campaign (kudos to my GM for maintaining the game!) but I’ve also now found myself privileged to find a new group willing to submit themselves to my own desires to run some RP games.

It’s been an interesting few months, I’ve re-run my modern adaptation of the classic D&D ‘Dragon Quest’ Box set, one of the very first RPG sets I ever got, and more recently I’ve become the proud owner of a gold-foil cover edition of the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules book. Fifth edition D&D is good, but it doesn’t scratch a certain itch.

Dungeons & Dragons, Dragon Quest Box Art

I’ve been trying my best to paint the models for Wild West Exodus, but I’m finding it very hard to get the motivation to do so, and when I do sit down find the actual painting to be difficult as my eyes clearly aren’t what they once were. I end up giving myself a headache trying to visually focus on the models, this is quite a sad realisation for me as I loved painting miniatures when I was younger, but I’ve not really painted anything for a decade or more

On a slightly more positive note, I had the fun of running a Sea of Thieves RP game and would like to share here the ‘retelling’ of our one-shot game session, and so I present “The tale of Hakkars debt”


The morning broke shedding new light on to the shores of Wanderer’s Refuge, The encampment set within the Old Ruins may have been makeshift, but it was as good a place as any other to be waking from a night of drunken debauchery, and three sailors, of the many of these scattered isles, find themselves bleary-eyed, a taste of stale grog and the wisps of a roaring fire nearby long since extinguished, only one other person present a cheery barkeep, gathering in what few bottles aren’t shattered and preparing themselves to leave the island welcomes the awakening few…

After collecting their thoughts and realizing their whereabouts the sailors; Ed, Bill and the enigmatic ‘sparrow’ begin trying to piece together what the new day brings them… They soon realise, their pockets are empty and on a broken table, a note has been stabbed into the wood with a short dagger. Ed, ever the leader takes a moment to read the note “Thanks for the game, you owe me two thousand gold – Hakkar”. In confusion the group, discuss who the heck Hakkar might be, and just how is it they claim to be owed 2000 gold! The barkeep, all but finished with their tidying and looking to get going offers only that the night before was quite a scene, and while they know little about ‘Hakkar’ – whom they claim to be a local menace of a pirate, they offer that the group should perhaps look for him at either Chicken Isle, a dead-end recommendation if ever there was one… Or at Dagger Tooth Outpost, which to the group, sounded much more promising a lead.

In the immediate moment of learning this, a noise catches them, the archway that acts as a natural door to this little haven has a scrawny figure standing in it… And in a scratchy voice, the new-come man boldly announces questioningly- “ah you’re awake at last! D’ya have the capp’ns pay?” the scrawny pirate apparently having stayed to remind them of their debt, in a moment of inspiration, Bill comes up with a tale to shake them of this man, telling him they don’t yet, they’d only just awoken! but they already knew of a voyage to set sail on worthy of collecting enough gold to please Hakkar. The ill-dressed scrawny man seems pleased at this, leaving and announcing he’ll tell Hakkar to expect payment.

Returning to their ship, and taking with them the mornings catch of a fisherman they pass. The group board and make ready to sail, Ed being the better at navigation, charts a flawless course to the nearby chicken isle. While they may not find Hakkar there… Their rumbling stomachs would be pleased with a little fresh chicken. The journey is short, and the hunt that follows yields enough to quench their hunger. In a stroke of misplaced good fortune, Bill stumbles across a small old sealed box. Finding inside a skull, but not just any sun-bleached skull, clearly of some importance due to its careful preservation. Thinking it valuable, he takes it back to the ship where the others are already cooking up their chicken. Sadly, their vessel has a food safety rating of 1, and the lacklustre mishandling and preparation of their food finds Sparrow taking to the bushes to feed the local flora with some vigour.

The day isn’t waiting for them, however, and they once again set sail, this time… To Dagger Tooth Outpost. Thankfully the weather holds out, a wonderful day for sailing the high seas, and aside from the small issue of Bill tangling himself in the rigging briefly – which he quickly sets right lest Ed finds out! They arrive at the imposing semi-mountainous island that is Dagger Tooth, the lowering sun casting the island in a cloak of jagged shadows. Taking the evening to quiz the many merchants and the innkeeper of the island, the party learns that Captain Hakkar and his crew had indeed docked here earlier, collecting supplies and quickly leaving again, sailing north. Bill makes some deals among the merchants selling the stolen fish and the skull he found for a couple of hundred gold pieces, Sparrow spending his time interrogating the innkeeper and Ed keeping the boat ready to sail asking the dock hands if they knew of Hakkar’s movements.

As the evening closes, the weather turns. At first a fine rain, but soon whipping into a gusting storm, turning the calm sea into a turbulent maelstrom. The crew decide that while docked in the small port, they would keep the safety of the harbour and await the new day. In the morning they would set sail to fulfil a contract set with the merchants to deliver some crates for a rather nice sum of gold. Surely this would go a long way to appeasing their supposed debt. With the intention to then resume their search to find and repay or confront Hakkar. It was a morning that would never come…

As the storm blows its fury over the ghoulish heights of Dagger Tooth Isle, the worst of it having passed after the crew set themselves to sleep. A low dewy fog chases the storm in to the darkness of the night lit only by dimly by the distant the lanterns of the inn on the island behind them. In that fog, out in the silence of the night a bell tolls, distant and quiet, but approaching. The soft sonorous ‘dang-dang’ closing as it approaches the docks. Sparrow, being the one to rouse first hearing this, blearily climbs to the deck, looking to the fog. ‘Dang -dang’ the bell tolls – unseen. Perhaps driven by a sixth sense, Sparrow returns below and shakes the others awake “there’s a bell approaching, a boat I think” he hushedly reports. In a gruff tone, bill growls back “So what, it’s a dock, of course, there are boats coming this way!” rolling over to get back to sleep. Unnerved and still on edge, Sparrow returns to the deck, grabbing a looking glass and studying the misted horizon. As he watches, a boat of similar berth to their own, cascades into view from out of the fog, merely a silhouette, but something sets Sparrow’s heckles on edge. ‘Dang-dang’ the muffled echo of the approaching ships bell tolls…

Sparrow begins sounding an alarm of his own ships bell, the ruckus rousing Ed and Bill from their slumber, and likely the locals too… The other vessel now adjusting its course slightly, no longer heading to dock, but turning… Through the looking glass Sparrow see’s that the deep turquoise sails are pulled to, allowing the vessel to slow, and on the castle, a few people mill about, a glint in the darkness betraying that they too are looking at him, but more importantly, the shadow of the boat now showing the clear and ominous sign that they’ve pushed their cannons ready to fire. Rushing from below, Bill and Ed annoyedly yelling; “what’s the fuss? Why you waking everyone up?!” sparrow doing his best to explain what he’s seen, but Bill, in no mood for such idiocy this early in the day, and without hesitation, sends Sparrow spiralling over the rails and into the water below. Ed yelling down after him to “shut up!” if it wasn’t already apparent of their shared displeasure.

In the moments in between sending Sparrow for early morning swim, and now seeing the vessel stood broadside to them, Ed and Bill share a glance. Perhaps Sparrow wasn’t making noise just for the sake of it. No ship sets broadside without meaning something of it… Adrenaline sets in and the two quickly and carelessly set the ship ready to sail, Bill once again making a mess of the rigging, and between them, in a hurry they split the capstan, but as they are doing so they look to the water where Sparrow should be, but instead see that he’d swam to the other boat yelling of treachery and pleading for mercy. Indeed, the other vessel lowers a rope and Sparrow hauls himself aboard.

Met atop the rope Sparrow, dashing the cold water from his clothes, the flickering lantern light illuminating several dark figures about him “Ah, so… rescuing is what you need ey? Do ya not recall my face lad?…” the broad scarred face now illuminated by fire, Sparrow confused shaking his head… “Tell me, rescue… Is that before or after I get the gold I’m owed” the imposing figure of Hakkar stood in the darkness, he bellows to his crew to ready the guns and orders Sparrow be taken below.

Bill, still angry by the early morning call, had rushed to get their own cannon ready, and doing so with great efficacy, only to realize that there were no shot or powder. Clearly, the day before, Hakkar had cleared their boat of such things and they’d not had time or inclination to check. Bill rushes to the deck finding Ed about to make way under sail… “We’ve no shot! but blast it, if they’ve got us under sight already, we’ll not make it clear of the harbour… RAM THEM!”. Ed grins and then nods, it’s the only hope they have. With the wind already in the sails, he spins the rudder to steer the ship directly toward the other. The cannons of Hakkar’s ship crack in the darkness, their thunder sounding the arrival of the first light of the sun on the horizon. The shots are wide, and Ed, feeling the warp and weft of the boat beneath him keeps the bow true. The sail above him tears as a cannon rips a hole. Close, but the ship is already at speed… And it’s too late now, the bowsprit and boom a spear, the wind his ally. The two ships become a mass of tangled shattered wood, Bill lunging forward with the momentum of the impact, slashing with his cutlass as he leaps to the other vessel.

Ed immediately knows that the impact was too great and surely the boat beneath him would be taking water, he rushes below to attempt to close up what he can. In the melee above, Bill takes as good as he gets and is forced to flee a retreat, clutching a bleeding wound in his side. Aboard Hakkar’s boat, in the now locked brig, sparrow desperately attempts to free himself as water begins to seep ever further up his legs.

Hakkar and his crew now rush to assault Ed and Bill. Aware of the impending assault, Bill grabs a blunderbuss, getting back to the deck in time to see several of Hakkar’s men rushing toward him, but the crack of his gun sends one of them spiralling in the gloom – a scream and a splash. he’ll not be a bother now. Seeing no way to get clear of the onslaught bill grabs some of the ruined rigging line and swings to the other vessel, in doing so the pirates turn back to follow him, grappling to get over the ruins of the entwined boats. Having finished the rushed repairs, Ed makes his way back above deck to see this unfolding.

Sparrow, in the near pitch black of the brig, the cold waters rising up his legs, the sound of more water rushing in, bursts all of his energy into the already weakened cage, and with the strength only given to those in mortal danger he crashes through the bar, pulling himself free and rushing out of the filling hull. In the crackling orange-red lights of the deck of Hakkar’s sinking ship, Sparrow watches as Bill swings across to grab at the side of the castle. On that castle though stands Hakkar. For a moment he smiles at Bill, and then with callous fury lands his cutlass on Bills grasping hand cutting it clean away… As Bill falls to the dark tide below, Hakkar laughs, a laugh ripped with glee, triumph and malice. In that moment, a pistol shot rings out. Ed having seen that there are still pirates on what used to be the Boom of his ship fells one of them, a pistol shot clean in the centre of his back, and in the darkness hears the scream of Bill falling to Davey Jones…

Hakkar spins about, with his bloodied cutlass pointed at Sparrow “And where d’ya thing you’re going, keep him down boys. He’s mine” before he gets a chance to react Sparrow is pinned by the remnants of Hakkar’s crew. Unseen in the darkness Ed cuts free the rowboat, and diving down to it sets about rowing as quickly and quietly as possible. It’s very clear now, that even after his efforts of saving the ship, there is no victory to be had here. Better to live another day he thinks to himself. The last thought he ever has… The pellet of a long rifle finds his head in the eerie first light of the day. Aboard Hakkar’s ship, the scrawny pirate that had been the messenger holding a smoking rifle, beside him Hakkar with a looking glass smiles a crooked smile that creases his scarred face… “Well, I see the debt is nearly repaid… But what shall we do with you” menacingly Hakkar turns to face Sparrow…

Whatever is to come, will not be pleasant.

Hammerhead Mech [3d printable]

Some time ago, I saw a post on Reddit about someone looking for a model for a particular mech, which, at the time they’d posted, had no easily findable or official model. I stupidly volunteered to make one…

In the time from I started work on a model which took me an estimated 50 hours of time in Blender to finalise (and not even to an A+ standard, but finished nonetheless..) An official model was released, and several people had posted in the thread where they had seen the model available.

Well, even though I finished a now redundant project, I’m happy with the outcome and uploaded it for people to have for free. The link below to CGTrader will take you to the model download page:

https://www.cgtrader.com/-/-/hammerhead-battletech-mech

I’ve had to spend time learning a lot of features I’d never previously used in Blender, I had to restart twice due to errors I’d made which were inescapable due to my workflow (lesson to be learned there…)

But the model is finished, and I’m happy enough with the result, there are one or two minor irksome things – but I’m all out of fucks to give, it’s taken long enough now…

battltetech hammerhead mech 3d render

If anyone would care to support me for the time and effort I spent on this project, I’m accepting donations, please find several options below;

Plenty of options if you want to donate, I really do appreciate it if you can give me anything, time and skill are my only resources, but I can’t pay my bills in seconds or neural activity… so money is helpful.

Blending In With The Crowd

A lot of my time over the last few months has been spent using Blender to model Battletech mechs, usually at a whim based on some random Reddit post about a ‘mech. It’s been slow going, but I’ve expanded my Blender capabilities from “total amateur” to “a little competent”. I’m no longer pushing simple primitives about, I’m using modifiers and nodes and all sorts of good stuff.

It came in handy when my wife, tasked with getting a grant for the NHS trust she currently helps at, needed a ‘render’ of a room that was [part of the proposal for the grant. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but she’d been having trouble for weeks getting the grant moving, I put my little render together and the grant was awarded within the next 24 hours! I hope my effort was instrumental, my work might at least be somewhat instrumental in advancing a greater benefit of the local NHS services!

I’d love to show it off here, but I’m not sure I have the authority to do so as it’s now the property of the NHS per-sé. But what I can post Is the ‘mech that’s been about 35 hours in the making, not quite 100% complete, totally untextured, but good enough for a quick screen capture.

Mech 3d Model

I’ve been playing in a friends Vampire The Masquerade role-playing game, ongoing now for nearly a year, with a few breaks but it’s been quite a different experience from my usual go-to gaming in D&D, Set in an alternate history Steampunk London, my Character ‘Benzoheth Gioffre’ A sociopathic capitalist of the Giovanni clan, workhouse master, preying upon the unwanted that London would churn and throw aside has set about a path of self-aggrandizing dominance in London, already partly responsible for the diablerie of one ‘Jack The Ripper’ and now ingratiating himself to the Primogene of the Malkavian clan for his own benefit, sadly having stomped on the toes of the Nosferatu and the Tremere. It’s proving to be an in-depth story, with political intrigue and Victoriana-Vampiric goodness for all.

Aside from indulging in my computer gaming and roleplaying, I’ve not really been stretching my creative muscles with my games development. I have due to some problems faced with licencing, been reworking one of my games from scratch (project title Board Gamer Lands), and now I’m creating a pirate exploration and adventure TTRPG style game.

And, because I keep telling myself I WILL publish a game finally and in full, I’ve been looking back at one of the very first games I ever made. Perhaps by the end of the year I shall release my tactical skirmish game rules, currently under the project name Trigger Happy – But I need to get a different name for it, while I confess a great selection of my tabletop gaming has been wargame focused, and I understand that wargaming is a pastime and hobby for millions, I think the name is somewhat gratuitous and glorifies confrontation too much.

Mod Making Madness

Aside from my endeavours in trying to make fun tabletop stuff, I’m what some folk might call an enthusiast gamer. Currently enjoying a game called “7 Days To Die”. It’s little more than a reskinned Minecraft clone, but it’s entertaining enough that I’ve sunk a couple of hundred hours into it.

And with all of that time, I’ve come to notice several small annoying QOL things that bug me about the game. And so, with my terrible and limited knowledge of modding, I set about producing a mod for it!

The mod can be found over on the Mod Nexus at this link >> https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1499

In un-related updates, I’m once again re-working the Island survival game. I’m trying to trim the fat so that It can be played in an hour or two rather than its current bloated multi-hour cumbersome incarnation. More on that in future updates.

Into 2021 with a whimper.

It’s fair to say that 2020 put a BIG stop to my gaming activities, the continuous lockdown curtailed all RPG and table-top gaming. Nonetheless, I continued to develop several things I’ve been working over using the online Tabletop Simulator. The Battletech game for which I had developed the rather complex 3d map for, happened, but sadly ground to a halt. I fear the project was too grand in scale. But, I learned a lot about 3d modelling, and even managed to tutor my pals as they too started modelling the mech’s for our game. Role-Playing games have become a mainstay of my lockdown life, and I’ve been keen to expand my homebrewed GURPS concepts. I’m now running a Fallout style game which you can listen to the podcasts for on YouTube and Twitch. Again, a custom character sheet was an essential part of the game for me.. so here is my take on a Fallout character sheet for table top RPG. Fallout character sheet A shame I do all this essentially for ‘nothing’ really, with the “official” fallout game in the works, sigh… This game has done one very important thing for my ‘game development’ interests, ever since the Gangster era game, and then again in my Cyberpunk game, and now in my current Fallout game, I’ve used a damage system which has been refined over time, and I think, if I can make it fluid and faultless- I’ll be publishing as possibly the first actual AFour Games “release”. The core of the idea is that damage can only ever be a ‘maximum’ within known parameters. That is to say, a character in a game can only be so  dead, before any additional numbers and calculations become pointless… With this little bit of concepting going on I’ve otherwise been busy enjoying playing games rather than coming up with complex nonsense. The Fallout game has essentially been a mutated version of the Cyberpunk game, change a few names and details and it’s all quite the same, but I’m ever more reliant on the core rules of GURPS even if there are still parts I choose to avoid and ignore. And so, for the rest of 2021, I look forward to getting back into the swing of things.

In the works currently:

  • A mutation of the game ‘mini-rogue’ aimed at a more classic RPG style game.
  • My Fallout RP game, custom RP sheets, lots of Random generator work.

My Contemplations of GURPS Character Advancement

This post, rather than a project, concept or game format that I’m working on, is entirely for my own benefit and the further discussion amongst the players of the Afour gaming group. And I’ll be grinding over the rather mundane and geek-rules-lawyer driven concept of role-play character advancement, more specifically – within GURPS.

Why Is This Important?

Well, as a gamer, and – more importantly; as a games master, I have a requirement that my games make sense, so that all involved can better enjoy the game, not only should the system of rules in play make sense, but they should not obfuscate the game-play and of course be fun or rewarding to those involved. Let me first come to the point of ‘reward’. Fire up the dopamine machine, we all want a sense of achievement, congratulatory celebration or elation it helps us, the players, feel good. And to that end, I believe that a game should offer a rewarding experience. And here’s the kicker, for this to happen, their should ideally be some scale of risk, challenge or adversity against which this reward can be played. To put it more simply; “The party is ambushed by orks!” – a challenge. “one of the orks lands a heavy blow on your character, your wounds so grave you are at deaths door!” – a risk. “with your final burst of strength you slay the ork and you fall exhausted but victorious… everyone can have 60 experience points!” – the reward. The third part is made better because of the previous building points and wa-bam, dopamine delivered, sign here.

So? What Does That Have To Do With Anything?

Yup, you caught me I’m rambling… Well, in GURPS, after some research and talking among more veteran players of the system I found an odd part of the rules that I currently disagree with entirely… and as such, will be ignoring/overriding (as is recommended when using GURPS). My current understanding of the advancement system as per RAW (rules as written) is that it takes 4 points to improve a skill. And, in most cases, it’s 4 points regardless if that skill is denoted as Easy or if it is denoted as Very Hard. And more over, it’s 4 points if the character is marginally average, and it’s 4 points if the character is already at a nearly a peak of their ability. Instantly; I disagree that a character should advance a ‘Very Hard’ Skill with the same scope of effort (reward) as they would an ‘Easy’ skill. This, to me, makes no sense at all. There is some caveat to this effect; the levels of skill have a decreasing ‘value’ as they are accrued. Nontheless, I firmly believe that to achieve a higher capability a character should face a harder challenge.

My Adjustments In The Format Of Advancement Costs For GURPS

With all that in mind, I shall be using the following ‘home ruling’ as it both makes sense, and ‘feels’ right to me.
For a character to advance one level in a skill, the player must spend points value as costed from that skills base attribute. Each subsequent additional level is to be calculated individually.
Be aware, the following will only make sense to GURPS players!
An example;
Bob, is a builder. He has an IQ of 10, he has a skill level of 11 in architecture, an IQ Average skill. Bob wishes to become a better builder, he could of course go away, study at college and gain IQ, raising his relevant IQ skills as well… or he can focus on developing just his architectural skill. Bob get’s paid in skill points (an odd currency and a terrible exchange rate to the Zimbabwean dollar…) he’s saved up 16 points. Good for Bob. As his skill is IQ Average and is already at +1 compared to his base attribute the new skill to be bought will be at +2, the cost of this will be 8 points. (reference p.170 Basic Set for “Buying Skills”) Were Bob to decide he wants to become a master builder and aim to improve his skill to be +3 against his base attribute, he would then spend an additional 12 points. And so, to get from a skill level of 11, to a skill level of 13 would cost, in total; 20 points.

Wrapping Up

“But wait!” I hear literally nobody cry, “that would cost the same as if he chose to improve his IQ”. Well, Yes.. yes indeed it would, but in my format above, I hope that ‘opportunity cost’ becomes more relevant… A character with 12 points saved can choose to wait, and save for enough to improve an attribute, but they do so risking NOT having skills in play which may be essential to the characters in-game effectiveness. And more importantly, the concept of sunk cost will be, I’d hope, more pertinent. If a player is pouring points into a skill they deem essential, the ‘value’ of that skill is a paramount detail… And in due time, the scale at which a skill can be improved begins to become punishingly diminished by how many points it would require; enforcing that no character can heavily min-max, and further reinforcing the idea that a player should perhaps look at other relevant skills to buy/improve to create a more rounded character. There are pro’s and cons of this method, but until I can see otherwise, I believe that this will offer a challenging and rewarding system of character improvement. -Rich

January 2020

For the month of January, I’ve been focused on playing games more than development, but I’ve spent a lot of time finishing putting together two home-brew variant games of GURPS.

The Worlds Playground

One game focused in the prohibition era of 1920 America, centred in the locale of Atlantic City, the game style focuses on resource management and collaborative player interaction. To this end, along with a lot of GURPS focused home-ruling I’d developed a character sheet specifically for the theme and detail of the game, an example of which can be seen below. (click the image to zoom) Custom Character Sheet   For this game I went to great lengths creating a huge play map from historical maps I could find and some photo editing magic I came up with one of my most precious creations to date, a poster sized print of Atlantic City circa 1924… with a few artistic liberties taken for the same of the game-world. While I’m not prepared to share a high-resolution image of my work here I’ll share this much lower quality version, believe me, this thing shocked everyone that has seen it in person. Very proud of this! To somewhat protect my effort and work on this, the map is resized here to less than a quarter of the actual size and quality of the final piece I’ve had printed!

Origami Unicorns

Another game I’d done similar home-brew development for was a game set in a Cyberpunk/Shadowrun world for a Roleplay game with a little mystery and adventure, along with a scenario I’ve written myself featuring plot-twists and visions of a dystopian future-hell with some frenetic action thrown in to keep players on their toes! Again, along with a lot of home-brew GURPS focused rules I’d come up with to fit the game, I spent time developing a custom character sheet specific to the game needs for the players. Once more, an example of the sheet is shown below. Cyberpunk GURPS character sheet  

Free “D”

Along side these not too diminutive efforts, I’ve spent a copious amount of time 3D modelling a lot of assets for Tabletop Simulator. Most specifically my efforts have been aimed at assets for Battletech. Nearly two weeks of February have been sucked away by an intensive Blender-Render session. I’ve even been giving some mild tutoring to a couple of friends that had decided to help me get some things done. The greatest project I’d completed in my Blender efforts was a scaled map of Antietam, with the ground broken into 30 meter scaled hexes and 5 meter height details. Antietam 3d map