Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Why?

Why am I doing this?
Why don't I just write a novel?
Why not just make a supplement for an open system?
Why?

I have been to some sites and discussed the project with people, and get told that I should write a novel or a setting, but that's the easy way out. I may one day write a novel in the setting of TaleMix Fantasy, and I would consider working a dual system version in the future, but I kind of like the system I have been toiling with for so long. It is starting to feel like a hard boss on a video game, you have fought it so many times that you believe you have found the secret to finally ending the fight.

I love the fantasy or mythical genre, and I have gotten to learn a lot about the different characters and creatures found in myth around the world. Some creatures may be different than they have been portrayed over the decades because of my mythological starting point. Kobolds will not be the barking mad lizard men from one of the largest RPG's around, but much more like Dobby from the Harry Potter series. For most systems that I could write a supplement for of the setting, I would have to break them just to portray the peoples as I want to.

My magic system is different from most I have seen, and I would have to spend days weeding through the spell lists just to figure out where to put them all. Elemental magic will feel much like Avatar the Last Airbender, which I only found out because a friend got me hooked on that show. However with the spellcrafter advantage, most people would call a Feat, you can churn the water and fire together for steam blasts, or fire and earth for a lava flow. There are 25 magic types that can be mixed and matched this way to some cool effects. While there will be spell lists, they are more of a guideline for what levels of power in a magic should be able to perform.

Combat in most systems is a number crunching game, and I want to see how I can make the flow of a fight more smooth, and more brutal. You shouldn't have to spend 3 hours fighting minions, and your entire experience pool shouldn't be how many things you killed in what level relation to you. I like the way most point buy games dole out the experience and what it is used for in this respect. Combat should also be more cinematic, and so I have added in some combat tricks to the rules to spice things up. One example is tentatively called "Around The World", and it is for the move used most frequently with a staff or polearm to clear the area around themselves by spinning their weapon in a wide arch. There is also "I Got My Own Back" which is an active defense move used as a block, the visual is seen in every swordplay movie ever where the hero is going to be attacked from behind and points their sword under the arm to kill the random minion.

There are just so many more things I can build in to my own system instead of having to break someone else's. To briefly touch on stats, which will be a subject of another blog, I have a separation of the normal Dexterity stat by making Coordination and Agility their own thing. Coordination basically being eye-hand, and Agility basically being whole body or most directly feet. My biggest example given for that choice is that an expert watchmaker is not exactly going to normally do a triple summersault and a backflip.

So I am going through all the hard work to make things the way I feel they should to fit the setting offered. As for why it is not just going to be an overly researched novel though is because I want to let others enjoy the world through the eyes of their own characters and have their own stories. Afterall, how many more books are needed about the fantasy genre where a prophesy says some nobody is going to pull off something awesome to stop the most epic of epic evils.

Until next time, and sorry for the lack of pictures this go around.

2 comments:

  1. You don't want to make a novel, because "that's the easy way out," so you may as well make something even more impressive. Seriously, though, I think it is harder to make a good story and flesh out the characters than it is to design a tabletop game system, and I also think novels are fun to read if they're in a genre I like.

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    1. I started writing a scenario for an illustration for this project... I am now on Chapter 4 of writing a novel.

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