Category Archives: Downloads

The Intrigue Engine – A First Draft

Posted on by

Hey all,

Sorry about the delays in getting the latest version of Spark out the door, but that should be ready in about a week or so. Until then, I bring you a free little mini game called the Intrigue Engine.  It’s a little thought experiment inspired by Rob Donoghue’s Mighty Brain.

Feel free to take a look, to comment and to pilfer any clever bits.  It’s mostly Amber and Durance smashed together with a light sprinkling of Polaris in there.

The Intrigue Engine First Draft

Cheers!

P.s. The GenCon seminars, including the “Intro to Indie RPG’s” one, will be up very soon.

Dungeon World Alignment Moves

Posted on by

I am a fan of Dungeon World as a member of the Adventurer’s Guild.  When I heard about the idea of “Alignment Moves”,  I was fascinated. D&D was the perfect game for alignments to have mechanical effects and moves seem ideal for this.  Since I couldn’t find any of these in the text of v 2.2 of the Beta, I wanted to post them here as a hack.  Dungeon World is by Sage Kobold productions and the following text is public domain.

 

Alignment Moves

When you are faced with a complex ethical or moral problem that impacts bystanders or society on a whole, Roll+ Wis. When acting on the solution provided, take +1 Forward.  Each alignment has it’s own move with different lists of items to choose from. On a 10+ choose two from your list. On a 7-9, choose one.

Lawful Good 

  • You uphold the greater good
  • You uphold the law
  • Give one of your allies +1 XP

Neutral Good

  • You uphold the greater good
  • You uphold the status quo
  • Give one of your allies +1 XP

Chaotic Good

  • You uphold the greater good
  • You uphold freedom
  • Give one of your allies +1 XP

Lawful Neutral

  • You uphold the balance of power.
  • You uphold the law
  • You gain a personal benefit

True Neutral 

  • You uphold the balance of power.
  • You are confident in your alignment.
  • You gain a personal benefit

Chaotic Neutral

  • You uphold the balance of power.
  • You uphold freedom
  • You gain a personal benefit

Lawful Evil

  • You increase your personal power
  • You uphold the law
  • You hurt an enemy indirectly

Neutral Evil 

  • You increase your personal power
  • You uphold the status quo
  • You hurt an enemy indirectly

Chaotic Evil

  • You increase your personal power
  • You cause anarchy
  • You hurt an enemy indirectly

 

 

Lantern’s Legacy

Posted on by

 It has been a great pleasure to participate in GameChef 2012, where I completed a game titled “Lantern’s Legacy”  Here is the intro blurb.

Our world is ending, as it has countless times before. Our mortal worshipers are passing into the void as this apocalypse claims their lives. We hope to maintain our divine mandates with the ancient Lantern Rites handed down since the dawn of time. We can speak with the few mortals who remain and petition them to take our cause. Their final moments will give us the light we need to find a new world in the void. In exchange, we will remember them and provide them a legacy in our new home. 

Which of us will each Lantern choose? How will they spend their last moments? What legacies shall we pass along into our new world? Those are divine mysteries we hope to explore.

I have enjoyed the process of designing this game and I think it’s a great deal more playable than my 2010 entry. My take away from this process was that I need to seriously consider purchasing a copy of Adobe InDesign. Scribus was not doing the job and the errors were slowing me down significantly.

Here is the game for your enjoyment; I would love to hear any questions you might have.

Lantern’s Legacy

Introduction to Independent RPG’s – A GenCon Seminar

Posted on by

I will be on a panel at Gencon on Thursday morning, providing an introduction to independent RPG’s.  I hope to see you there.

 

Introduction to Independent RPG’s

A panel of independent game designers are here to help! Hear about the major schools of rpg design. Learn some GM techniques from indie designers. Discover new games that match your interests!

This seminar is here to help you learn about the philosophical underpinnings of traditional games, Story Games and the Old School Renaissance. Our goal is to provide context about different types of games so that people can explore a variety of different games.

We will share some handy techniques and tricks, either invented or discovered by independent designers, that you can use in your games. Indie games tend to be a hotbed of innovation and we want to help you take advantage.

We will be happy to play matchmaker, finding just the game that would meet your particular interests. What sorts of things do you want to see in play? We can help you expand that to include things you didn’t even think of, and then try to hook you up with games that do that.

Let’s explore Indie Games.