Player's Book, Incoming Updates

PreRelease GM Book 2.0 DONE!

Ok, the Game Master's 2.0 book is now up on DriveThru RPG.  This has been a HUGE improvement to the early GMs book and it no longer appears to be the scattered compilation of notes that it once was.

Returning back to the Player's Book, we still have a bit of work to do. This fits into two categories:

First, are gameplay and 'balance' issues. Second are organization and editing issues.

SoapBox about MMORPG design vs TTRPG design concerns.
Now before I start with balance issues. Let me address that our primary design concern is not how well PCs perform metrically in combat vs one another. Those concerns are very important when developing a video game with rigid mechanics in which the ONLY contributions and player can make are through fight mechanics. That also includes traditional video game tropes of party makeup (tank, damage, healer, etc).

A tabletop RPG offers the players and game master more ways in which to contribute than pure fight mechanics. Even combat can be creatively solved and not all solutions require combat.

For this reason, our focus has been on making each class feel unique and fun and given the ability to contribute. We much prefer that the GM is in a position to be able to easily customize encounters and situations to appropriately challenge any party composition.

Alright, what are the nerfs already?

1. We plan to adjust attack roll bonuses down. Some classes were simply scaling up too rapidly with the bonuses and added advancement points and abilities. 
2. Spell Skills really had little to no difficulty in casting. Because of this, we intend to remove the intellect requirements for some spells and add a difficulty modifier to cast to all spells. Less powerful spells and spells of different types of magic will have different modifiers.
3. Shamans Healing totem will no longer be turn based. The original idea was interesting, but this was simply too strong and recovery times were way too rapid.
4. The experience requirements for advancement are being increased in order to slow progression slightly and give players an opportunity for more adventuring at all levels.

Ok so organizational stuff

1. We're reviewing Chapter 5, character creation. We want to be sure that the instructions are clear and easy to follow.
2. We're moving the Character Advancement section into its own chapter and providing better instructions.
3. Chapter 9, Magic and Spells will have the spell lists reorganized under each magic type alphabetically.  Each spell will have a new listing for it's level and will still appear in the Spell table list under level, however when looking up divine spells for example, they will all be in one alphabetical list.

Moving forward we want to let the Game Master's book stand on its own hopefully until it can be revisited for final publication in 2020.  In the meantime, we're putting everything back into the Player's Book and will do our best to have what we consider an official version by early 2020.

What the heck? Are we even doing stuff?

So what's going on at Lost Relic and why have we been so 'quiet'? So this past year Liz and I have done a short tour of local shops, game conventions and anywhere else we could run Swords and Shaman and try to garner feedback.

We have been making every effort to figure out what does and doesn't work in the game, however this has been a juggling act as we aren't happy yet with the current state of the books. There are a number of gameplay issues that have been addressed and a few remaining that we would like to tackle before release.  Additionally, the books really needed revising for consistency, and grammatical correctness.

So what does this amount to? 

Well, as I type this we have just completed the final edits of v2.0 of the Revised GM book. This is the third review! I did mention we want this stuff to be correct.

Some basic rules such as jumping have been rewritten, and terminology has been made consistent.

Ok, yawwwwn. 

No, there's some good stuff in there too. We have re-evaluated creatures and creature design. The idea was that creatures weren't scaling quite well enough to keep up with the PCs.  Additionally, creature creation was admittedly very poorly done.

As a result we came up with a template system for 5 primary types of creatures. The templates should allow GMs to easily scale a creature's level up or down, scale size up or down and make it generally easier to create a new creature. Ideally, this means that you can spend a few minutes beforehand to increase the level of an encounter so that it better challenges your players! These are templates meant to be used as a starting point, so don't be shy in embellishing your creatures a little.

That's neat, but anything else?

Most of the rest were small, but necessary changes. We did some formatting to make the book easier to read, the Atlas has been corrected in several places and reorganized to make more sense. The sample mini-campaign in Chapter 7 has had numerous errors corrected. As I type this, Liz is in the process of inking an additional map meant to be used as a players handout for the adventure. 

What's next for the Game Masters Book?

After this round of changes, we plan to let the book stand on its own for awhile. We really want to go back and finish the Players Book so that it can be ready for release by 2020.  

Manotaurs?

Future additions to the GM Book will include optional exotic playable races. I'm not ready to give anything away yet, but they are pretty cool.  Ok, we're adding manotaurs. A creature with the body of a human, but with the legs and head of a human.  Just kidding, we are not going to have manotaurs. Seriously, the exotic races we do add are going to be hella cool.

In the mean time, we are going to focus on the upcoming changes & additions to the player's book to make it ready for prime time.  We'll cover that in the next post!

Swords & Shaman of Sonnegard Project (also it has been awhile)

I'm reopening this blog after many many years because at last, something is happening.  I stopped blogging here because I was moving into a new position at GameStop Corporate at the time, where I thought I might be moving closer into the game community.

It was a wonderful experience, but during my time there, my friends reawakened my first love of gaming, the table top role playing game. I found that more than computer games, my passion lay in the table top rpg experience.

As time went on, I was asked to DM for the group and eventually I had a rather exhaustive stack of game world information and a couple of house rules to our campaign.  This never felt like enough though.  I felt that we would get bogged down in rules at times, or other times I had to explain why not everything published was allowed. In other words, why our game was different.

A very good friend of mine suggested that I write a new rpg. I was dismissive of the idea at first, but as time went on, it seemed inevitable. We wanted a game that had very light rules mechanics to keep focus on the gameplay, but very robust and crunchy characters to keep players invested. We also wanted something that showcased what the game world was really like, rather than attempting to bolt rules onto someone else's very nice system.

So one weekend, I sat down and compiled all of my notes and tried to carve out something that might be playable. On Sunday, September 17th of 2017 I showed the 187 page doc file to my wife Liz who was eager to play.

Liz was impressed but right away informed me of how badly written and confusing it all was. You see, she is a former publishing assistant. So we both went right to work on hammering things out. Liz has been the best partner one could ask for, and the game simply could not exist without her. She's a writer, designer, editor and layout and pretty much everything else that needs doing.

That was almost exactly two years ago, and we have come a long way.  We have since released an early test version of the game. Our test game, 'Swords & Shaman of Sonnegard' is available for download on drive thru rpg now! We have also demo'd the game for several conventions and the feedback has been very positive. We are so grateful to everyone who came to the table

At present, we are in the process of finalizing a massive edit of the entire Game Master's book now and very soon should have a much improved version of this online. We have been working closely with Juan Ochoa https://www.juanochoa.co/ , who is doing an amazing job of illustrating the Player's Book which we hope to have finalized for kickstarter in early 2020.

In the meantime, it is my intention to continue posting updates here as well as anything else that might be relevant.

Regards,
Brian

Wooo finals week!

Been crazy busy, and midterms due friday here's the damage so far. I think I could've done better if we were allowed to go for higher poly counts. These are both under 300k. The first was based on a photoshop piece by Wejun Lin named 'Lost Deer' the second character is from a digital drawing called 'Tranquil Waters' by Malachi Maloney. But the 3d below was all me.

Pirates and Zombies and the end of the world

Well I made it to 2011. For some reason the Mayans think this is the last year of everything. But I think the whole Mayan calendar thing is overrated.

For one thing, they wrote in the end of the world several times and kept having to move the date back when it didn't happen. If anything can be learned from the Mayan's about the end of things, its that when they fought wars they would poison each others wells with the bodies of the dead. Thus leaving that well and that city uninhabitable.

It seems they had already discovered the results of war in which the escalation never ends long before the nuclear age.

But enough of that particular ramble. I'm publishing here largely for myself because I'm unsure what 2011 holds. I'm feeling the near end of my corporate subsistence as more and more work is downsized, rightsized, exported, offshored or whatever you want to call it.

Admittedly this makes my other pursuits difficult to focus on. I do what I like because I like it, but survival tends to change things.

Last year had quite abit of disappointment. The agency rejected our Board Game. Interestingly I took that time to take it back to the drawing board and I just need to bring myself to finish the last tweaks of the rules. So my friends at least may soon be able to play 'Pirates of Port Royal' in its final (and coolest!) form.

Additionally, I keep getting prodded to take the concept of 'Super Poke Corpse' to the next level. This started as just a logo assignment in my flash class. But the concept seems a little fun so hopefully here in the next few weeks I can add some more animations to him and share.

On top of having 2 not quite completely cooked projects, my advanced zBrush class starts in 2 weeks and I'm trying to learn the UDE. I really enjoyed working in Hammer in my classes but I just felt like I was missing something and I think UDE might have more of it.

Ok deep breath.. I think I can, I think I can.

Carthage Proposal

CARTHAGE

Proposal for Game Design

High Concept: Historic Espionage of 'Assassins Creed'
meets the brutal world of 'Gladiator'.

Premise: A slave in Ancient Carthage,
your fate seems a certain death. That is until you are paid visit by a mysterious benefactor who buys your freedom. However, your benefactor has plans for you and freedom proves more perilous than the fighter's pit as you must sneak, steal, slash and vault your way through Carthage to uncover her secrets.

Synopsis: Our heroes consist of lower members of Carthaginian society. One, a Carthaginian pauper and convicted thief. A Celtic warrior, a last survivor sold for his(her) ferocious martial
valor. Lastly, a Berber mystic born into debt and servitude.

Our Heroes find their freedom bought by an unknown master. However, in return this master expects something which requires their special talents. They are to intercept something of value believed to be in the hands of pirates in a smaller nearby town. Furthermore, if they succeed they are promised enough wealth to begin a new life.

It isn't long before our heroes are approached by familiar people's who seek to guide them and outfit them with their traditional items and training but with the training comes warning to be mistrustful of the Aristocracy and foreign ways.

Eventually they find themselves embroiled in a web of political deceit pitting the two great superpowers of Carthage and Rome at odds. But not everyone is playing on the side they appear and the players must be careful for the consequences may well be the destruction of an empire.

CARTHAGE

USPS:

·
Unique Cooperative Action Playstyle

·
Historical Setting

Features:

·
Detailed Character
Customization

·
Fluid Real time Action Based combat

·
Beautiful Hi-def graphics

·
Multiple Fighting Styles

·
Player choice driven plot

·
Multiplayer

Genre: Action-Adventure

Target Platform: Playstation,
PC, other consoles secondarily

Target Customer: Male 18+, some female enthusiasts. Primarily interests 'action' console gamers as well as potential historical game and RPG buffs. Characters will be available in both genders and their roles as such are historically accurate and appropriate to the story.

Competitive Analysis: Contemporaries: Assassin's Creed II, God of War II

THE X = 'COOPERATIVE physical action challenges in a fantastic setting' (c) Brian McIntosh 2010

Game Design Concept for 'Carthage'

So I haven't posted much here in awhile, I've been pretty busy with work and school and frankly, what little time I have for gaming I've played some SC2 (great game btw, although I felt WC3 showed more innovation in gameplay).

I thought I'd share some concept documents I wrote in a previous semester for my game design class. I suppose most people would be concerned that the idea would be stolen. In my case, I don't have the possibility for producing this game in the near future and frankly I have so many ideas for games that having one 'stolen' really doesn't concern me that much.

The concept is centered around Carthage. Why Carthage? Well I love history, and I think to make a fun game you need to choose something you are absolutely passionate about. History has such amazing stories to tell and I think the thing I like about it the most is that once you read enough you begin to realize that everyone is from somewhere else that we all share history. That all of these cultures and people are somehow related, its really the best argument against the ignorance of racism.

What's significant about Carthage is that it represents a place and time that can only exist in that one place and time, things were uncertain for their multi-cultural city. They existed on the 'edge' so to speak. This huge hub of trade and communication that must eventually come to terms with the rise of an expanding Roman Republic.