Frayed Knights Now Available!

FRAYED KNIGHTS PILOT: The Temple of Pokmor Xang

Now Available!

I'm not sure what else to say. You folks who have been following the development of this game - well, half of you have been helping me test, and the other half probably know more about the game than you would if you'd already played it once. But the pilot episode of the indie RPG Frayed Knights is now available for download. This is a short "demo" adventure - a single quest which should probably take anywhere from a half hour to two hours to explore.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Announcements, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:47 AM (Permalink) 14 comments links to this post

 
Drama vs. Fun?
It's kinda funny - when my job makes me work all through the night until nearly sunrise, I get very annoyed. But when I do it to myself - meh, it's just what has to be done. But after this weekend, I hope you can understand if I'm a little on the snarky side. I think I'm averaging four hours of sleep a night, which is pretty low even for ME.

Gareth Fouche, creator of the indie RPG Scars of War, posted recently about trying something similar to Frayed Knights' "drama star" system. The reaction was almost universally negative. Even when the system is presented entirely as a "bonus" on top of the regular saved-game system, it's seen as a detriment.

How dare you even consider NOT saving my entire game state! Well, except the bad stuff. I don't care about you forgetting about that.

And it goes back to the whole story versus gameplay thing. Again. A perfectly well-played game makes for a horribly boring story. Who would like hearing about the hero who always wins, always makes the best decisions, never falls for a trick, has no flaws, and rarely even suffers a setback (and then it's always because of things beyond his control)? A guy who is a lantern-jawed, cool hero who - when the chips are down - becomes a lantern-jawed, cool hero. The home basketball team that suffers win after win, until a caring coach figures out how to bring out their best and teach them about teamwork, so they can start... winning some more.

BOR-ING!

That makes for lousy stories. Yet when we play a game, we're out to win. That desire to win makes us unwilling to accept the intermediate defeats and the ups-and-downs that make a good story. So designers force them down our throats with non-interactive cut-scenes, making it clear to us that no, this twist of events that makes things more interesting is NOT in our control, so it's "safe" to accept it and move on....

Now, in practice --- at least so far, and for the imminent-release of the pilot for Frayed Knights, I can't say that my attempt to recruit the player to the storyteller side of things with the Drama Star system has been an unqualified success. I think it has a subtle effect on the game in that direction, which is good enough for me. It's been a pretty divisive topic in theory, yet in practice I don't know if the testers (hey guys, feel free to speak up to confirm or contradict this...) actually found it to be that big of a deal in either direction. I know the system still needs some tweaking, and it will undoubtedly play a much bigger deal in the full release than in the pilot (in practice, currently, you are likely to face the "boss" encounter with only barely three bronze stars - enough to rescue ONE character from incapacitation, but they will have only one hit point left and be likely to drop in the very next round unless the battle is nearly over...)

Maybe I am wimping out and I need to make the drama stars an even greater influence on the game. But as a gamer who tends to devote only "casual" time levels to playing games these days, I really don't want to use golden handcuffs on players to lock them to the game, or to give players with only 20 or 30 minutes to devote to a game per session a crippling limitation.

I remember - as Gareth points out - how frustrating it got in Diablo II trying to find that stupid portal before I quit for the day. It wasn't like you really lost any significant progress by quitting without finding the thing... all the experience points and treasure you gained was yours to keep, even if you ended up repeating a level or two. In fact, from a purely mechanical perspective, it was really a non-issue. But it exerted a powerful force on players... maddeningly frustrating on one level, but also introducing a level of tension that probably improved the game overall on another level.

But here's the big question: It's really about fun, not drama. Dramatic tension can definitely increase the fun... But there is also a point (well, a fuzzy-gray area) where story interferes with the fun. Where playing-the-game - to win - is far more enjoyable then putting up with all those dramatic peaks and valleys. Where do you draw the line?

Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:30 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
Design A Minimalist RPG!
Jamie Fristrom has an article about an old (but AWESOME) strategy game Slay. If you haven't played it, you should. In "Notes on Slay," he comments about the use of minimalism, depth vs. breadth, and how the simplicity and solid AI make Slay such an excellent game.

Slay is a 'conquer the world' strategy game with no randomness (except for the AI choices), and a handful of very simple but compelling rules, and really nice balance. I was introduced to it by Steve Taylor, a good friend (and former boss) from NinjaBee (hey, now you KNOW where he got his inspiration for the not-quite-so-minimalist Band of Bugs).

But being such an RPG geek, Jamie's article made me think of the computer role-playing game angle. What would a minimalist RPG be like? It's hard to answer, because the definition of RPG is really fuzzy.

One might be tempted to say NetHack or other roguelikes, but the only thing minimalist about NetHack is the graphics. From an underlying gameplay standpoint, Oblivion is minimalist by comparison. Diablo comes even closer to the that description, but it's also pretty far from the mark.

My own candidate might be the freeware Really Really Random RPG - which I personally think of as the "Really Really Abstract RPG." If so, it may underscore a problem with the concept of minimalism in RPG design. The minimalism of Slay is part of its appeal - it strips through all the trappings and accessories to reveal a really solid core of fun game mechanics. But RRRRPG's minimalism reveals pretty uninspiring mechanics. It'd be easy to shift the blame on RRRRPG's designer, but the game mechanics have been abstracted from countless commercially successful RPGs.

Maybe Slay just did a better job at the abstraction. Maybe the designer just pulled out the right mechanics and balanced and polished them to a fine sheen. I definitely feel that's part of the answer. And I also feel that - when you strip away things down to their bare minimum - RPGs themselves are strategy games at their mechanical heart. After all - they began life as wargames.

But I think a big part of the problem is simply that RPGs are very context-sensitive. While I don't believe an RPG really needs much of a "story" to be an RPG (after all, I consider NetHack and most roguelikes to be RPGs), I think it is that story - or at least "context" - that provides much of the entertainment value.

Still, it's an intriguing thought. I took something of a stab at it with Hackenslash once upon a time. So lets say we wanted to design a good (as in, fun) minimalist RPG. What key game mechanics would we have? What simple but powerful story could we weave into it? So what kind of things would you put in a minimalist RPG? You don't have to provide a complete design or anything - just what sorts of things would make a simple-yet-compelling RPG in your mind. And feel free to cite examples.

For convenience and posterity's sake, I've even made it a thread on the forums. Because I just love to give. :)


(Vaguely) related navel-gazing.
* Are Hybrid RPGs Just the Poor Man's RPGs?
* What Makes a Great RPG - The Story
* The Evolution of Computer RPGs
* But Is It An RPG?
.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games, strategy games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:06 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights Pilot: 48 Hours To Go
It's almost 9 AM as I write this. I haven't slept yet. I've been working on the Frayed Knights pilot all night long.

I'm watching the upload bar slowly climb on beta 2... 75%... 76%.... 77%...

Someone's already posted a major bug in Beta 1 this morning that hasn't been fixed... so I guess Beta 2 isn't quite ready for a "release" yet. And some minor issues. I need to get some sleep. Go to church. Hopefully not at the same time. And then get cracking on it some more. I've got approximately 48 hours as of right now. Or less. A magazine in Germany needs it before close of business on Tuesday... what time zone are they in?

Yeesh. My brain is fried.

My private little victory is that I got the compass in. Was it worth the two hours I spent last night working on it? I hope so. It looks cool. I need more help text. Oh, and real documentation - or something resembling real documentation at this point. And I need to get the web survey up.

All in 48 or so hours.

Okay - the uploading is complete, and I'm notifying testers. And then... a short nap. If it's too short, it might be worse for me... less than 3 hours of sleep makes me groggier than I am without sleep at all.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Labels: Frayed Knights

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:54 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights - Pilot Release Hours Away...
More Tales from the development of Frayed Knights, the indie RPG of humor and high fantasy.

There really ain't much to tell. Not that this has ever stopped me before.

My drop-dead date is Tuesday. I need to get the file to a magazine on that date. I'm trying to get another beta out tomorrow-esque for the testers to hammer on. There's so much I wanted to get in for this release, but won't make it. But I think the game is fun, and will do a good job of what it's intended to do - solicit feedback, and gauge the reaction of players.

The automap is back in, and better than before. This was the biggest, most critical task I've been facing, one that I wanted to get in before Beta, but failed to pull off. Aside from that, and implementing a few very minor suggestions, I'm focused entirely on bug-fixes. Doors that don't work right. Scrolling on the party inventory that isn't functioning properly. Etc.

The biggest frustration at this stage of the game is that things are progressing excruciatingly slowly. I'll be very glad when this pilot release is done and we can go crazy again with content. I expect the game WILL metamorphize somewhat in its core code based on player feedback. However, my hope is - now that we have a semi-stable game, it'll be content city. Scripts, dialogs, maps, monsters, treasures, and character progression, baby!

Watch this space for the announcement of the public release.

Labels: Frayed Knights, programming

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:45 PM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Narrative of the Moment
Corvus Elrod begins his "Narrative of the Moment" series on a new game today. This time, it's another of my all-time favorites, "X-Com: UFO Defense" (AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe). His contention is that the game compelled him not because of the strategy, but because of the narrative:

"What about this game provided such a compelling video game experience? So compelling that people playing it for the first time today still heap praise upon it? So compelling that it has been ranked as the #1 game of all time, beating out such such notable titles as Starcraft, Civilization IV and Fallout? So compelling that I, fifteen years after playing it for the first time, still have difficulty maintaining my objectivity when discussing its successes and failings?

"I believe, unsurprisingly I’m sure, that the answer is Story. While not typically approached as a storytelling game, I believe X-COM is exemplary in its creation of story and will spend several posts examining how assembles all of its narrative components into a super satisfactory whole."

You can check out the first part of the series here:

Narrative of the Moment Introduction: X-Com at Man Bytes Blog

And if you haven't read it all, be sure and read his previous Narrative of the Moment series on Ultima Underworld.


(Vaguely) related belaboring of blunted points:
* Game Moment #3: X-Com
* Guest Article - UFO: Extraterrestrials Do Over
* Quick Strategy Games
.
*

Labels: retro, strategy games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:16 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
No Indie Night For Me
Blame it on the testers.

With the time until the public release measurable now in HOURS, I'm trying like crazy to whip Frayed Knights into shape, and the testing team has left me a mountain of jobs to do.

For which I really am grateful. I need all the help I can get.

But with the events of this week, I'm finding myself short on time. The Utah Indie Night is tonight, but I'm having to give it a miss - for the first time ever.

Bummer.

Time to hit the ol' dungeon again. Utah indies, have fun and enjoy the pizza!

Labels: Frayed Knights

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:43 PM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
A Real-Life Spy's Tale
Last night I attended a talk by Mike Ramsdell, author of "A Train to Potevka," and former U.S. intelligence operative stationed in Russia during the height of the cold war. My wife has been reading his book and telling me about it. His talk last night focused less on his experiences as an intelligence agent and more on the experiences leading up to it, and his experiences following the publication of the book. And, considering the venue, it was also a discussion of faith.

He admitted that he decided to get into the intel business after seeing the James Bond movie, "From Russia With Love." He thought it sounded awfully exciting, especially for a small-town farm boy from Bear River, Utah. But he notes in the book, "In reality, intelligence work is extremely serious, tedious, and unglamorous; done by balding, pudgy, middle-aged men - and there are seldom any buxom women."

A couple of thoughts I had that might be applicable here:

First of all, his book was a big success, now in its eighth printing, and is now in the process of being made into a movie. As far as he's concerned, he's living the dream. But he quit working on the book for four months after being convinced by his brothers that nobody would be interested in reading his story. They convinced him it was a waste of time, and that he'd only embarrass himself. Fortunately, his wife forced him to get cracking on it some more, and get it done. His first printing was from a fly-by-night printer in Tennessee who was willing to print 100 copies for $1000. He figured they had 50 relatives and 50 friends they could send the book to as Christmas and birthday presents, so they finished it and got it done.

And the change it brought about in his life is nothing less than phenomenal. So maybe this is a lesson for frustrated indie game developers out there. No, the movie isn't being made by a major motion picture studio, and no, I don't think he's gotten rich off his book. But that wasn't the point. The guy was just thrilled at how his life turned out. He said if you'd shown him a crystal ball in his youth - as a Utah farm-boy - which showed how his life would turn out: from being a secret agent in Russia to a book author to scouting out locations in Eastern Europe with movie producers for film based on his life - he'd have bet anything against it.

Another point I considered, as the RPG fan: Why don't we have any "secret agent" computer RPGs? Not realistic ones, though there are some fun elements to be drawn from that, too. But we've got plenty of ripe territory for drama, action, and excitement in the post-cold-war era. For example, Alias is a hit show, in spite of its volatile quality, and even mixes some fantasy and science fiction elements with modern-era action and intrigue. The Bourne movie series have been big hits, and the most recent James Bond movie (Casino Royale) cleverly rebooted the entire series and ditched the lamer elements of the formula - to great success.

And in these shows, there is plenty of action and ... yes... combat! Apparently fighting terrorist cells and evil overlords-to-be allows agents the luxury to rack up a body count unthinkable in any other "modern era" genre outside of a straight-up war story. Which would allow less imaginative game designers plenty of combat to make players happy. And it's been addressed in pen & paper RPGs, from the elderly "Top Secret" RPG from TSR back in the glory days to the more recent Spycraft RPG.

Could this hit a nerve and be successful?

(UPDATE: Apparently, I missed Alpha Protocol's announcement last month. Last month was a blur of 80+ hour work-weeks anyway, I wasn't even sure what DAY it was half the time. But it sounds like I get my wish fulfilled this year. Sign me up! And for the PC version, thankyouverymuch, unless it's got that awful psychotic DRM issues...)


Vaguely related thinking too hard:
* Innovation in RPGs?
* RPG Design Seed Challenge
* The 16 Essential RPGs
.

Labels: productivity, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:22 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Bruce Everiss On Piracy
I rant about software piracy (and it's equally evil opposite, DRM) a bit. But Bruce Everiss is even more passionate about the subject, having seen a company go from highly successful to failure all attributed to the rise of piracy.

Bruce On Piracy

According to him, the fading of non-MMO PC games in favor of consoles can be directly attributed to the ease of piracy in recent years. And his conclusion is even more grim, from my perspective: In the future, all PC games will be MMOs. Although he also note EA's foray into purely ad-based revenue.

Me? I personally hate these alternatives. I mean, yeah, I like some MMOs, and I play some Flash games that are subsidized by advertising. But if that's all there's going to be, in the future, I'm gonna hang up my mouse. Which is going to really suck, because a lot of my favorite genres are ones that only work well on the PC. And I still greatly prefer FPS titles on the PC over their console counterparts.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't watch a TV series until it's been out a year so I can watch it on DVD sans commercial interruptions. It saves me 20 minutes per hour-long episode (which is really only 40 minutes), and I'm happy to pay for that privilege of NOT dealing with commercials. I'm also the kind of guy who likes watching old movies and shows (including old black & white films), and enjoys playing older games. I don't want to be stuck playing nothing but the current dreck because the great games of yesteryear are no longer supported by their respective companies and don't have an MMO-style server up and running.

There has got to be a better solution than this!


(Vaguely) related dreck of my own manufacture:
* A Pirate Story
* The Real Cost of Piracy
* PC Game Publishers: Please Hurt Me Some More!
.

Labels: Biz, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:27 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
D&D 4th Edition "Open" - But Only If You Close 3.5E
Apparently, Wizards of the Coast has come to a conclusion regarding whether or not there will be anything resembling the much-celebrated "Open Gaming License" for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.

The response is still a little hazy, as nobody commenting on it has seen the actual contracts, but the key aspect that has a lot of nerd rage going on at the ENWorld forums is a requirement for anyone to use the new license that they forever forswear creating any content for the previous system (or any other "open gaming" system). In other words, you marry yourself to 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, or you aren't invited to the party at all.

I guess that's one way of putting the genie back in the bottle. As reported by Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games (one of the attendees of the conference call), "I was told that specifically by Wizards of the Coast. In direct response to that direct question. The answer was, 'we dont want fence sitters. Companies have to choose.'" So unless there's a change at the last minute, there will be no dual-statted modules for both Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. As restrictive as it sounds, for a few weeks third parties were worried that Wizards was going to revoke any sort of "open" third-party support, returning to the ol' 2nd edition days where third parties were cut off completely (AFAIK).

It's a pretty bold move, one that could only be made by Wizards throwing its considerable weight and best-known brand around within the admittedly small "industry." Wizards of the Coast is committed to doing away with the legacy game system (and competitive products that piggybacked on the OGL, like Castles & Crusades and Pathfinder). But I also see signs that they are not just trying to put a bullet in the head of an older system - they are actually trying to reinvent the entire industry.

Face it - the pen & paper roleplaying game industry is almost identical to its 1974 roots. Books are durable goods, and players only need so many books to play the game. Seriously - I have much-beloved copies of the 1st edition Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and Dungeon Master's Guide, and I could very easily continue to play the game for years with nothing more than that. There are, in fact, a bunch of holdouts who are doing exactly that right now. Every book makes the players more and more independent of the company.

So as bookshelves get filled, purchases drop off. Players have more game books than they know what to do with, and aren't really interested in more. Wizards of the Coast has already solved - to a point - this problem for their collectible games, like Magic: The Gathering and D&D Miniatures. It sounds like they are applying a similar approach to D&D, making it a constantly-evolving game... and a game players must keep paying for, as new "core" books become an annual expense. And that's not even including their online initiative, which I expect to be a key element of their marketing and sales strategy.

Will it work? Does Wizards have the clout to hit the reset button this time? Does this strategy provide enough benefit to customers that they'll put up with greater dependence on the company under the new plan (assuming there is a new plan and I'm not just tilting at windmills)? And will third parties hitch their wagons to 4E, or will they throw their collective weight behind competing products, fracturing the small industry even further?


(Vaguely) related musings
* Pathfinder: The New Dungeons & Dragons 3.5?
* Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Announced
* Disappointment In the Demonweb Pits
* Original Dungeons & Dragons Trivia
* Spring and... D&D?
.

Labels: Biz, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
RIP Bob Bledsaw
We lost Gary Gygax only a few weeks ago, and now another pioneer of roleplaying games has passed. Bob Bledsaw, founder of Judge's Guild, passed away this weekend.

Judge's Guild was the first "official" third-party RPG publisher. They received official sanction from TSR - for a while - to create a campaign world and numerous modules for D&D. Because, as Gygax and the others at TSR assumed, there was no money to be made in it. And - yeah, well, define "money." But still, it was a major part of the formative years of the hobby.

Bummer.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:58 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights: A Beta Odyssey
Sitting on the sidewalk, watching water pour out from under the sidewalk and the lobby of one's place of business is (hopefully) one of those weird, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that really makes you wonder.

Like wondering, "Crap, am I gonna have a job to come back to?"

The answer is apparently yes, as it's back to business as usual this week (with perhaps a weekend or two of extra work thrown in for good measure). However, it almost gave me an extra day and a half to work on Frayed Knights. It would have, if I hadn't lost yet another video card one night. A few hours of the following day were devoted to discovering the problem, acquiring a new card, and installing it.

Total gain in dev time: About the same amount of time I lost the previous weekend due to the mandatory overtime.

Well, either way, I managed to get the beta out. We've got about a week to get cracking on it. There are a ton of additional features and improvements I want to make in the pilot already. And maybe I will. But our first concern is making sure it is fully playable and stable, and accomplishes the goals of a pilot episode - which is to solicit feedback.

Some changes that have gone in over the last week or so:
-----------------------------------------------------------
* Bug: Zone exit to Ardin only works once (or doesn't work after load?)
* Fireball - Incindiary Crackleball added
* Fixed bug: Silas ignored party after Benjamin's confession
* Fixed Interactive Object dialog title width
* Fixed missing portrait for Benjamin when targeted after incapacitation
* Fireball wand for Chloe
* Fixed getting stuck inside door bug.
* Fixed autonomous dialogs
* Fixed load game at game-over
* Added Angry Flower spell
* Changed Silas and Hoss skins & portraits
* Added Fireball Wand Dialogs
* Added potion of recapacitation + recapacitation effects
* Added Frayed Knights website jump at end of game
* Enter Key and ESC key in all dialogs
* Prevented player from hopping the railing to talk to Silas and avoid talking to Florentine (although I'm really conflicted on that one... I may put it back in once I come up with some alternative dialogs with Florentine and Silas).

Times they are excitin'.

Expect a public release in 1 week.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:19 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
The Lost Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Revealed!
I know there's a few of us who fondly remember Infocom's text adventure, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, co-written by Douglas Adams himself. Andy Baio found himself with access to a treasure trove of information in the form of a a copy of Infocom's backup shared network drive from the time they were bought out.

Some of the information contained included a great deal about a sequel (originally, two sequels) to the classic and best-selling Hitchhiker's. Andy's blog also includes a (barely) playable copy of the prototype - which obviously never got very far. Unfortunately, more than information about the game, the documentation reveals a bit about the state of what was once the darling of the game business that had now gone past its prime, and was now struggling.

What's more interesting is that several of the people involved have now posted comments on the article, helping to clarify or give perspective to it. Some other influential folks (like Emily Short) from the current IF scene have also popped in. Controversy rages, particularly concerning the ethics of posting decades-old emails to the public.

But if you are curious, head on over and take a look:

Milliways: Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hat tip to good ol' Rock, Paper, Shotgun for the link!

Labels: Adventure Games, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:39 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights - Pus Golem for D20
And now for this week's update on Frayed Knights, the humorous independent RPG from Rampant Games. Here's one for the dice & paper gamers! Actually, at some point I'd like to turn the entire Temple of Pokmor Xang into a paper module, but for now, here's the Pus Golem!

Pus Golem Small Construct
Hit Dice: 2D10 +10 (21 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft (4 squares)
Armor Class: 12 (+1 Dex, +1 Size)
Base Attack / Grapple: +3 / +1
Attack: Slam +3 melee (1d3+2 plus Festering Wound) or club +3 melee (1d6+2)
Full Attack: Slam +3 melee (1d3+2 plus Festering Wound) or club +3 melee (1d6+2)
Space / Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Festering Wound
Special Qualities: Construct Traits
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +2, Will + 0
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 12, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Skills: ---
Feats: ---
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitairy or Gang (2-6)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 3-4 HD (Small), 5-8 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: ---

This disgusting, vaguely humanoid mass stands about four feet tall, possesses the color and oder of a festering, oozing wound, and has skin the consistency of congealed blood and pus. Its jaw hangs loosely from it's distorted skull-shaped head, and vein-like streaks of blood flow slowly in a sparse webwork around its quivering, misshapen body.

While the creation of a golem is more usually in the province of powerful arcane spellcasters, often constructed of hard, inorganic materials – clay, stone, and metals. However, certain sorcerers and priests have learned that shortcuts can be taken. Golems made of weaker, more flexible materials are easier to create, but correspondingly weaker and less useful. Golems made of materials formerly part of – or manufactured by – living bodies require even less magical effort to animate, as the remaining life energy within them can help power the spell. However, few but the most demented or vile spellcasters of society would stoop to such levels. Examples include flesh golems, constructed of several fresh corpses sewn together, and bone golems, constructed of the skeletal remnants of animals or even humans.

Then there are some less common but equally vile varieties of organic-matter golems, such as pus golems, snot golems, and the dreaded dung golem (of which only one has ever been reported in an apocryphal adventure account, but that one occurrence has haunted the nightmares of adventurers for decades).

The pus golems are particularly favored among priests of Pokmor Xang for a number of reasons. For one, few of such priests ever reach levels of divine power where they'd be capable of creating anything else. As servants of the god of boils, blisters, and pimples, they tend to have an ample supply of pus required for the creation of these monstrosities. And third, they are used to the smell.

Combat
Pus golems are more frequently employed as servants rather than combatants, but in combat they are fearful opponents, primarily due to the level of revulsion they cause in their opponents. Veterans of battle against these creatures claim the smell takes days to go away, though this has no in-game effect.

Festering Wound (Ex)
Wounds caused by the pus golem's slam attack become infected with a low-grade cocktail of whetever infections and diseases were the source of its raw material. As a result, all damage caused by the creature's slam attacks take twice as long to heal, or require 2 hit points of healing to cure 1 point of damage. Remove Disease eliminates all Festering Wound effects, though the damage remains and can be healed normally. A Heal spell instantly removes all Festering Wound effects and heals damage normally.


Oh, and while I think I'm violating the D20 license by not including the full license here as part of this post, Pokmor Xang and Frayed Knights are designated Product Identity and property of Rampant Games. Licenses and copyright notices for the D20 License and OGL license can be found here.

Frayed Knights Development Update:
Well, things have gotten really weird. The day job mandated some pretty hard-core hours last week, which cut into dev time a little bit - but then a water line broke yesterday and flooded the building, so I find myself with a couple days off to spend finishing the beta for Frayed Knights. I intend to get the beta out tomorrow (instead of today), and the public release will probably be out next weekend at some point. The game is getting a lot cleaner, but the testers are identifying a bunch of issues - many of them design and interface issues - which have taken up a lot of time to correct.

A lot of time this week was also spent cleaning up Ardin village and making it look nicer. This involved fixing a lot of models that were, for some reason, not reacting well to the fog. But here's how the village looks now:


In addition, some of the NPCs have gotten a facelift - particularly Ol' Hoss (who actually looks older now), and Silas. I'm throwing in new sound effects today, so the chests don't sound like opening doors. Wands are working, and I think I can get some scrolls working before the end of the day. Because I want to treat the beta as if it is a release candidate, I'm going to try and add nothing new to the beta between its release and the public release.

And once again - the final version of Frayed Knights may differ quite a bit from the pilot. This is my chance to get some major feedback on the game.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:15 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Black House in D20
I have been reading "Black House" by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Well, listening to it on tape while driving. I recently finished chapter 19. Beezer and the Thunder Five against the hell hound.

With all of the RPG development and writing I have been doing, I guess it was inevitable. With the voice of the narrator going through each action of each member of the motorcycle game in sequence, I couldn't help myself. I immediately realized that he could have been going (almost) round-by-round combat in a D&D game. Well, a D20 modern game. It was step by step... you could almost hear the "players" of the five bikers rolling their will saves (only Sonny made his save... it sounded like Mouse and Kaiser Bill totally failed, and Doc and Beezer were only partially affected).

I figure the bikers probably hit the hellhound with at least 2 shots from a .357 and another from ... I can't remember now... the .38? So that's 3 hits for 2d6 damage each... or about 21 points of damage on the average. The average hellhound in D20 has 22 hit points of damage, so I can see why it ran off. Of course, this was no simple D20 Hell Hound, so it was probably a bit beefier with a very nasty disease / madness combo area affect attack (I don't know for sure, since I'm not done with the book). So it probably took over half damage before it fled. And maybe had damage resistance...

Woah. What am I saying?

It's funny that I haven't thought about a book in game terms since I was a kid. But I couldn't help but wonder if Peter Straub (or Stephen King) had been playing a little bit of D&D or something when they wrote that scene. It just fit too perfectly. Or at least, in my warped brain it did. Should I sign up for therapy or something, or has anything like this happened to you?

Oh, and incidentally, I really like the book so far...

Labels: Geek Life, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:22 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Indie RPG News Roundup, March 16th
News and rumors from the indie side of computer role-playing games:

Depths of Peril
My favorite RPG of 2007, Depths of Peril won the Best Overall Game 2008 Award from Bytten. Bytten writes:

"This is one of those rare gaming experiences that only come up once in a blue moon for me. Although the appeal of Depths may not have been as universal as some of the other games I have reviewed this year, I must say that it's just about everything that I need in an action/RPG.

"The jewel in the crown is the persistent and dynamic game world where every action has a consequence. But intelligent randomisation, huge boss fights, massive amounts of loot and collectibles, ease of modding, customisation of just about everything in the game, awesome in-game fiction - the list just goes on and on. Pure geek mana from heaven."

Besides this, Soldak has another short story up entitled, "Frozen Crystal."

Scars of War
The Blog of War is now going in full force, and includes some concept art for an Imarathi Mask and General Rheygar. But of particular interest to me is a discussion of the magic system in Scars of War. Gareth writes:

"So I looked at what I’d done with magic and felt shame. I’d done exactly the same thing as those lazy designers. I’d simply gone ahead and made a slightly more polished version of the what has come before. You distribute skill points into schools of magic which lets you buy spells from that school which you can then use to accomplish quests. Bog standard."

"Some people might be thinking `But that is mage gameplay, isn’t it?'. No. In the same way that being able to backstab enemies in combat is not the heart of what the thief experience is/should be about, neither is simply blowing crap up what playing a mage should be about. "

His solution goes pretty far out there, involving - among other things - visiting mystical realms. If this is pulled off, I'm going to personally be very excited.

Age of Decadence
RPGWatch continues the "Let's Play" series, continuing a visual walkthrough of the upcoming RPG Age of Decadence. If you want to get a good feel for how this game will play out, read this article and its predecessor.

Dream Diary (Yume Nikki)
I'm gonna have to refer you to the TIGSource and the Indie Games the Weblog post about this bizarre-but-cool-sounding freeware RPGMaker game. You play a young girl living in a small apartment with little to do but to sleep and explore the dream world.

Avernum V
There's a new version of Avernum V now available for both Mac and Windows. There is also a great interview up at RPG Vault discussing the game's development process and goals - a good read for aspiring indie RPG developers!

And that's all I have for now, folks! As always, please help keep me up-to-date with what's going on in the world of indie RPGs. I'm still hoping for a crazy-busy year like last year!

Labels: Indie RPG News

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:14 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Moral Decisions and RPGs
Last week, Rock Paper Shotgun had an outstanding piece on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines entitled "Educating Heather." It's a very neat slice of the game - specifically, dealing with the optional subplot involving the ghoul, Heather. And even more specifically - the psychology and emotional reaction to this aspect of the game.

This was something I really, really liked about Bloodlines. They captured the setting, the "feel" of the license, perfectly. The setting and situation was just so immersive that you couldn't just "play yourself." You were thrust into a world of shades of dark gray, and you were made a blood-sucking creature of the night. Almost every character in the game "has it coming" in one way or another. And there were far nastier things out there that went bump in the night than you. It yanked you out of your comfort zone. And they filled it with disturbing and non-trivial moral decisions.

And they also filled it with lame first-person-shooter filler material, which sucked. But at least it let you beat a man to death with a severed arm. That's always a plus in a game.

You have the option of getting rid of Heather during the game. If you don't - she comes to a bad end. This was, in its way, more emotionally charged than the death of Alagnar in Ultima VII, or Aeris's death in Final FantasyVII, because you realize (too late) that it was preventable. Either way, she's out of the picture at a certain point in the game - so from a mechanics perspective it is a non-issue.

But the context is compelling. There's way more story there than "kill ten rats and bring me their tails for 1 gold piece."

Ultimately, it works because the game is about people. Very scary, often undead people, but still people. The puzzles and challenges aren't just about manipulating the environment, but manipulating people. And they did a good enough job on the characters and voice-acting that many players came to really care about them. Theresa and Jeanette, encountered early in the game as both play you against each other, stand out as two of the most interesting NPCs I've ever seen in a computer RPG. The ending of that particular plotline was not a big surprise to me, but it was still unforgettable.

Freakin' Malks.

We get used to thinking of RPGs in the oldest-old-school sense - the straightforward dungeon-crawling and nameless monster bashing. When you hear modern designers talking about evolution in RPGs, they usually talk about more realistic graphics and streamlining the interface and getting rid of all those "boring" numbers.

Bloodlines is perhaps not the best example to use as a counterpoint to convince the industry to change. After all, it was seriously flawed, and didn't sell well enough to save its creators from going under. But it seems to me that there is a ton of mileage you can get out of a single, compelling NPC - even if they don't speak of word of dialog. I mean, look at the Companion Cube!


(Vaguely) related jumbled thoughts:
* What Makes a Great RPG? The World
* What Makes a Great RPG? The Story
* Who Are the Best Game Villains?
.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:11 AM (Permalink) 7 comments links to this post

 
Game Moments: Dogfighting With Death
As long-time readers (all four of 'em) know, aside from adventure games and RPGs, one of my favorite genres is combat flight sims. Once upon a time I even pursued a career in the Air Force (hey, it helped pay for college!) with hopes of being a fighter pilot. That wasn't to be - but I've been a fan of virtual combat flying ever since.

One of the first 'realistic' air combat sims for personal computers was "Jet," by SubLogic (the guys that did the original Flight Simulator that eventually became Microsoft Flight Simulator). There were a couple others I enjoyed - including a World War I mode in the aforementioned Flight Simulator, and games like F-15 Strike Eagle by Microprose. Jet's air combat mode kept score - and allowed me to compare my score against those of my friends at school. And so competitive air combat began.

Later, I managed to hook up two computers to play Falcon 3.0 with a friend. The game took several minutes to synchronize information between two machines even over a null-modem connection, so we borrowed rules of engagement I'd heard about on USENET (this was still before the World Wide Web had hit mainstream) - the planes pass each other first, wings level, before the fight was on. This was to help insure a fair fight, and to prolong the fights (to help make that ten-minute-long synchronization phase worthwhile).

While I played some combat sims from other eras, but for modern air combat my drug of choice went to the Jane's series (specifically ATF Gold), and then to Falcon 4.0. By the time ATF Gold came out, competing over the Internet had come of age. There were online squadrons. And online tournament ladders. Now was the time to really show what I was made of!

My discovery was that it might have been a good thing I'd never become a fighter pilot in the real world.

Now, I wasn't bad - years of reading, playing sims, and competing against AI opponents definitely helped land me in the middle of the pack. But if the bullets and missiles had been real, I'd have been dead. But when I was competing regularly, I often found myself in the top 20, and I think I cracked the top 10 once or twice. And every once in a while, I got to compete against the guys in the top three positions.

There were about four or five virtual pilots who took turns in these slots, depending on the week. Flying against them taught me that I still had much to learn. I could score the occasional victory against them, but never the requisite two-out-of-three match points to move my own position. It was clear they belonged in a different league from me.

But there was one pilot who never rotated out of the top three positions, and was almost never bumped even to second place, week after week. His callsign was "Death." On the forums, he was soft-spoken, unassuming, supportive, and terse. In the virtual skies, he became his callsign. I never beat him even once. I am not sure I even managed to hit his aircraft with a desperate snapshot ever. He was in a class by himself, as far as I was concerned.

Now, hardcore simmers are a different breed of gamer, probably closer to the hardcore "roleplayers" than either group would like to admit. They derive satisfaction by immersing themselves in the world and in the role of a pilot from whatever era they are simulating. They don't want the details abstracted away - they want to deal with all the factors a real pilot would have had to go through. Even the tedium. They usually want as much realism as can be crammed through the restriction of a 17" monitor, the more merit their recreation holds. It's not about the gaming - it's about the experience, and the mastering of real-world skills - no matter how useless or obsolete said real-world skills might be. And they thrive on details - because the better you get, the more important those details become.

And if, for some bizarre reason, those arcane real-world skills became a matter of survival, Death would have been the last man standing. And I only assume he was a man - I never flew with him with voice chat enabled, but he never contradicted the assumption of his masculinity. So I continue to use that gender when referencing him. He was simply flawless in every move he made. He had the details down. At least, he had them down far better than me.

The old rules adopted by the Internet simmers for Falcon 3.0 still applied, as they led to more exciting dogfights. While BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile shots may rule the day in real-world combats, virtual combat pilots like their competition to be tests of flying prowess, not the luck of the draw for spoofing missiles at long range. Mind you - the top pilots are also very, very good at dodging missiles, too. But beyond a certain point, too much of the missile fight comes down to luck. For these kinds of competitions, it was all about the knife fight.

Pilots would fly at each other almost head-on, at the same altitude. The rules dictated that you had to have your wings perfectly level until they crossed the "9-3" position (9 o'clock / 3 o'clock). Many of the less skilled pilots would fudge this part of the game. They'd begin their roll just a little bit early, or come in just a little bit more altitude. A tiny bit of this was unavoidable - at a combined closure rate of something like 800 knots, small inconsistencies are unavoidable. Too egregious of a violation, and the competitor might call the fight off, demanding a second pass. For those combatants who tried to get an edge in the combat by cutting their fuel levels (and thus their aircraft weight) down to the bone, this was a dangerous call.

Death (and the other top-scoring pilots) tended to forgive all but the most blatant violations of the fight-entry protocol, and they always made perfect, by-the-book passes themselves. Nobody would be able to taint their claims of victory with suspicion of wrongdoing. And if their competitors felt they had to fudge the rules a little - well, that probably meant the offending pilot's skill was actually below that of their current ranking, because they'd relied heavily on fudging the opening game to win. And those little tricks wouldn't help them one bit.

My few dogfights against Death were eye-openers. There were no tricks to his flying. At least none that I could detect. But high-level play in games like Falcon were rarely about tricks or surprise moves. These guys knew 'em, and they would pull them off if the opportunity presented itself. And they knew to anticipate them in their opponents. No, at this level of play it was all about perfection in flying. Making the perfect turn in the viper in Falcon 4.0 was both art and science. It's about finding the perfect balance between turn radius, turn speed, maintaining altitude, and maintaining airspeed for whatever tactical situation you find yourself in. Its about like patting your head, rubbing your tummy, reciting poetry, and walking a tightrope at the same time.

Beginning pilots who just try to yank-and-bank to turn as hard as they can soon find themselves believing that their opponent is flying a totally different aircraft from heir own - one that isn't bucking, refusing to turn, and trying hard to fall out of the sky. But for the top competitors, it was all about who made the fewest mistakes in their flying. Turn too aggressively, turn too little, apply too much or too little throttle, fail to bring your nose up or down just enough to make the exact trade of altitude for airspeed, and your mistakes would compound. It was a race to see who'd build up the most tiny mistakes the fastest, with the winner earning himself a "silk landing" (meaning a landing with a silk parachute) or worse.

Death didn't make mistakes. Or rather, I'm sure he did - but his mistakes were so tiny as to be imperceptable to me. My measure of success became how long I could keep him away from making a shot. But each pass, each turn, brought him a little closer to my six (6:00 position - right behind me). I'd pull every trick I knew. I once even tried to dive down into the weeds, forcing a different fight from one he was used to - one where loss of altitude was not an option.

It didn't help. Every turn I made, he'd make a fraction better. Although combats really felt like one long, changing, evolving turn. Either way - he did it better. He made fewer mistakes. When I was flying what seemed to me to be perfectly, I'd note it only by seeing him not gain as much on my six.

But inevitably, inexorably, he'd get closer and closer to that six-o'clock position, and I'd eventually hear the metallic ping-clank of bullets ripping through the airframe, accompanied by flashing lights and the warning siren. If the damage wasn't enough to stop me from flying, it didn't matter. Another burst would follow up shortly. Ejecting was optional.

Death would type "GG, thanks" at my second defeat."Good Game, thanks." Whether this was literally an acknowledgment that I'd given him something resembling a run for his money, or simply the politeness that combat simmers give each other as a matter of course ( a far cry from the trash-talking of many online games), I'll never know. I'd return the acknowledgment, which usually doubled as a goodbye. We'd log out, he'd no doubt forget the fight he was just in, and I'd spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, and go back into the sim to practice what I'd learned. I never got to the point where I could defeat Death, but I noticed my own scores improving both online and against the AI.

Good Game, indeed!

Labels: Game Moments

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:30 AM (Permalink) 8 comments links to this post

 
LOLGRUES
If you are familiar with LOLCats pictures, and the old Infocom adventure games (okay, yeah, I imagine that's probably a pretty slender intersection, but the Internet is all about niche!), you will get a kick out of this one:

LOLGrues

("TIP HAT AT WHINER FOR LINK")

Labels: Adventure Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:50 AM (Permalink) 1 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights: The Oncoming Dragon
More development diary stuff for Frayed Knights, the comedy-based indie RPG.

"The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon."

I saw that on a button once, as a kid. As a sci-fi / fantasy / RPG geek, I nearly bought it. It was a pretty lame word substitution for a more common pessimist joke, and I was broke, so in the end I opted not to buy this little bit of geek flair.

But it feels appropriate now. I just made the last "alpha" available to the testers (hey, testers, it's up, check the testing forum!). I call it an "alpha" because I'm still adding some new stuff to it, though with the help of the testers the bugs are getting pounded into some level of submission resembling a mid-beta (I think). But the testers are getting weary of testing the same game week after week. I expected this, Which is why I staggered out the testing groups.

The saved games from the last alpha were by far the largest source of bugs so far. I expected as much, but it has still been a pain hammering them out. As of this morning, I think I have all the save-game related issues resolved, but there could easily be more.

The next release - next week - will be our beta. Hopefully the one and only, but if any major bugs are found, I'll do a quick revision within 48 hours. Otherwise, my expectation is that the release of the pilot will be on or around the 25th. The short beta will hopefully be offset by the long alpha.

And then the oncoming dragon hits me.

There is a lot that isn't there that I hoped would be. There are a few things that I'm afraid will draw most of the attention from players, instead of other areas I'd like people to provide me with feedback. There are features I wanted to get in, and suggestions from testers I really want to implement, but I'm just out of time. That's how it always goes, though. Games are never truly finished, only released. I could keep working on this for a decade, and it would still not be "quite ready yet."

The effort I get to put in now is as much to support the release as to actually work on the game. stuff like updating the Frayed Knights website. Adding a feedback form. Getting the installer working. Finishing up the documentation. I really want to be moving on, implementing more of the requested features so far and adding the new content for the full release... but this milestone is my master right now.

For those who might be curious, here's most of the stuff that went into alpha 4, not including some minor tweaks and bug-fixes that I failed to record:

* Player now moves a little bit faster
* Fixed Bug: Front-End Music was... Whacked
* Switching between full-screen and windowed fixed res changes
* Resolution forced to 1024 x 768
* Forces full-screen if desktop size is 1024x768
* Fixed some Dialog typos
* Fixed non-container loot awards
* AI can now cast spells
* New Monster: The Pokmor Xang Priest (priest-class enemy)
* Fixed Crash on reloading saved game multiple times.
* Implemented "Curses!" spell
* Fizzles now end a character's turn
* Monster names should reflect targeting name.
* Reset drama point level on reload
* Monsters no longer attack in the middle of trap / lock dialog
* Cleaned up component connections between trap screens
* Added some minor loot to the front entry area to reward exploration
* Cancelled Drama Effect no longer consumes drama stars
* Cancel button on character selection menu no longer cut off.
* No longer force combat completion after phase 200 (old test code)
* Added Hotkeys!
* Traps: Game now chooses best default disarming character.
* Empty Bag in front hall was removed.
* Fixed disappearing item bug
* Improved drama point award for more difficult combats
* Certain events (like reaching the statue) now have an XP award
* Added Liquid Nap potions
* Fixed Pokmor Statue bug not appearing on saved games
* Escape and Enter Keys now have default actions across in-game dialogs
* Major clean-ups to world reset on load
* Fixed crash when changing zones after a load

There is a lot of work that needs to be done for the beta. I still have a list of bugs to get squashed, and there are a few features that I'd like to get into the game but which I'm not sure will make it. Things like buying and selling equipment; the leveling-up screen; improved UI art for submenus; a compass; the automap overhaul; new items (including Chloe's fireball wand); a couple of new spells; some additional hotkey commands to speed gameplay; lots of TLC for Ardin Village; additional interactives in the temple of Pokmor Xang; better combat balancing; sound volume corruption in the Torque engine; lighting optimization in the Torque engine; dropped loot for certain bad guys (that's half-implemented); and a lot more. As you can see, with only two weeks left to release, not all of that's gonna be in there.

But even so, I'm not unhappy with where it is right now. And I have to admit - as exhausting as this is, as crazy as it makes me... I really am having a good time making it.

Hopefully you'll like it.

Labels: Frayed Knights, programming, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:01 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People
Coming soon from Telltale Games (Bone, Sam & Max) for the PC and Wii:

Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People

It sounds vaguely... uh... adventure-game-ish, doesn't it?

I don't know about you guys, but from my perspective, Telltale and Hothead are two up-and-coming game studios to keep an eye on. I'm sure SOMEBODY told them that graphic adventure games are dead, and you can't make money on RPGs if your name doesn't begin with Bioware, Bethesda, or Square. But these guys keep ignoring the "facts" of the industry and seem to be kicking butt. Telltale got into a partnership with GameTap, and Hothead is in a sweet arrangement with Penny Arcade.

And they are pulling it off by espousing the indie attitude, and they seem to be largely bypassing the mainstream publishing and distribution system.

Cool. Also: "Gimme!"

Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People Information at Gamasutra

Labels: Adventure Games, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:07 PM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Forget Web 2.0 - How About Internet 2.0?
Here I was thinking my DSL connection was slow... The Grid may soon render the entire Internet backbone obsolete:

Coming Soon: Superfast Internet

I've sometimes joked that physical media sales won't go anyway anytime soon because a trunk full of DVDs at 60 miles per hour is far better bandwidth than a T1. But this kinda thing might change the equation.

Granted, this isn't anything that will be available at the consumer level for a while yet (I know way too many people still stuck on dial-up!). And there's no knowing how robust it will be. But - this is promising. And I could see major ISPs linking in pretty quickly, delivering some speed / bandwidth benefit to consumers within just a few years.

But time moves on. Two decades ago 2400 baud was pretty close to state-of-the-art for consumer-level telecommunications, and there was no such thing as the World Wide Web. Two decades from now - all bets are off.

Labels: Geek Life

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:35 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post