I'm back!

After a few years of quietly playing, running, and (as always) tinkering with games, I have something to add to the conversation again. Instead of focusing on tweaks to existing games, I find myself diving deep into design. Like many people involved in the RPG community I'm always messing around with some idea for a game, adventure, or scenario, but this time it feels different.

No limits! Yeah!

I have a few design projects on the go. Some of it grew out of regular play and some addresses problems I see. I still favour the rules-light systems based in the old school tradition, but love how games have grown and changed. There are so many options and tools we have now to mix and match and get exactly what we want out of the experience at our table or online game-space! I also find my professional life crossing over into RPGs as new game-based therapies develop. It's all exciting!

Most of the RPGs I'm working on are somewhere in the middle of the write, test, rewrite cycle. I tend to follow the muse as it jumps around so they all move forward at a glacial pace. I'll talk about each as they come up but the project that caught fire for me right now is my take on the Hardy Boys adventures. Originally the Mid Century Mysteries, the core of the game was in the works long before I decided to take advantage of the original Hardy Boys Books entering the public domain. My connection to this material is strange and deserves its own post, so I'll expand on that later.

Source material for the Hardy Boys Adventure RPG!

With my brain hyper-focused on the Hardy Boys Adventures RPG, everything else is still taking up space in my brain, but more in the background. There will be more about them in the future, but it may be a while.

My home game that grew out of playing the original Black Hack continues to develop. It was something all its own by the time the second edition of the Black Hack came out. I'll get it all in order at some point. It would be nice to put a book together for my own use and to have a better reference for my players. The reactions to the bits of it I posted before also make me think there's room for it as an option in the RPG market. Based on my experience, it could be a good game to use to introduce new folks to the RPG hobby in a way that is more accessible. For it to be accessible, it needs to be more than a pile of Google documents and hand-written notes. I want people to have a great experience then have something they could take away to try out on their own. There's more to it than that, but I can expand on the story of that game later. My big lesson from that one is kids can be the best playtesters! 

I'm working on a sci-fi game that came out of play-testing an original system I had planned to use for sword and sorcery. At that stage of the testing I wasn't certain what I would do with magic, so I ran the test using the system for a sci-fi scenario so I could have fantastic elements without magic. The system performed well, and turned out to be adaptable. After using it for sci-fi though, I realised the system supported one of the best science fiction RPG experiences I ever had. I tossed out the whole sword and sorcery thing and dove into creating a sci-fi game that made use of the core game mechanics. Then there was a lot more work to do! I'll go into the details, hopes, and motivations for that one in a later post too. 

Obligatory dice photo! These dice come from the Threshold Diceworks Holmes Retro Collection

The other project comes from people asking me to run "D&D" for them and while I doubt I'll ever publish it, organizing all the changes into a handbook would make my life easier when I run it. I used to run fifth edition D&D for a few years after it first came out, as scrolling back on the blog will show, and I enjoyed it. I find D&D's grown into a monster of supplemental rules, new options, and there is too much to keep track of when running. I still like to play it, but I don't run it anymore.  The same bloat eventually weighed down second edition D&D so much the game almost disappeared! The bloat brought me back to B/X D&D and Old School Essentials. As much fun as I have with it, I started smoothing things out. I mixed in some new approaches while keeping the core rules, benefits, and play style of B/X. I know there are people who think B/X D&D is some kind of sacred text that is eternal. I have no problems with that view, and enjoy playing at their tables. After speaking with folks that look to the old school for a set of rules that can be modified without breaking, I know there people who would like to take a look at the changes I made as inspiration for their own changes. I'll post pieces of that as it comes together as well. The last time I ran it was a great experience!

I'm not sure writing a post about posts I will write later is a good idea, but I'm back, and I'm doing different things these days. We'll see how it goes.