Hello, and how about...?

[apness]

Hi, lurked for ages, finally got round to registering I think I was around 13 when I wrote my first homebrew RPG, Dragonsword, a blatant rip off of D&D with the distinction of around 50 classes to choose from (many of which were the same aside from the name ). Anyway, my gaming group played it for ages until the next shiny new thing (AD&D, MERP, various supers games like Marvel, DC) came along in the early 80s and took its place in their affections.

Don't know about anyone else, but I always have the best of intentions with writing a game, get so far, then abandon it when I hit a wall composed of the purest 'can't be arsed any more'. It may have already been mentioned/suggested (not sure, haven't dredged that far back in the forum posts) but how about an 'adopt a game' system? Hand over your half finished efforts for the geniuses on the forum to finish up so it can be unleashed on the world? Just a thought. I'm on my third revision of my never finished 'Shameless Ripoff Homebrew' (or 'SRH' system) game, comprising all the best mechanics I can use from various games (though strangely enough, it kind of morphed into one I've not seen used in any single game, but bits of it can be recognised from a whole host of games). It'll probably never be finished, or played, but I enjoy getting so far before trailing off and doing something else.

I'll bet there are some real gems out there that will never be finished due to dwindling time/motivation...

Also want to do an X-Com style game some day, and revisit my medieval Knights RPG (I think that game stretched to a full 10 pages, whereas Dragonsword started at 3 or 4 pages and grew to 'a thick stack of loosely bundled, crumpled, stained with tea and coke pages with barely legible scribble'. Wish I still had it, if only for the comedy value.)

Other than that, hi all

Paul

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[apness]

Thanks for the welcome

Yeah, there seems to be a stage when writing a game/story/adventure where you know what you want to write, but look at it as an unassailable whole, like a big cliff in front of you that makes you think "Think I'll go watch the telly" *

Might go into the depths of the loft and see what I've got in there that needs finishing. I love writing games, it's finishing the rascals that eludes me Good idea about the playtest thing though. Might put that to my play by post group, see if we can't get something up n running (unfortunately, play by post is all I can manage these days. My 'holy grail' would be a play by post specific RPG that doesn't bog down with combat and waiting for players to post. For the most part I run a supers game using the Golden Heroes Rules, where levelling isn't an issue either.)

Hmmm, playing the game, even half finished. That might work. Thanks for the idea. By the way your horror survival game sounds good, very 'Dawn of the Dead'. Maybe introduce some kind of terror rating that overcomes Intelligence eventually, makes the character bab their pants and start running round uncontrollably.

Naming the game would be critical though. Calling it something like "No one gets out of here, alive, ever..." might put most players off. Even then, there are probably players who'll see that as a challenge and be attracted to it. We're an odd lot, us geeks....

*or go and do something less boring instead. I recall 'Why Don't You?' from my yoof.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I've got a degree in writing, so if you've got something mostly done, you can send it in my way and I can give it a bit of review and editing. Just use a forum private message to ask for my e-mail.

If your really interested in that zombie game I was talking about, an old draft is available on 1km1kt - . A newer one is posted on rpglaboratory.com (you can read the stories, but need to register to download) along with a that establishes the background. More stuff will be available soon, but I've got a bit of work to do before then.

[apness]

Just downloaded it, will take a look

I think for me, the 'holy grail' RPG system would be one that plays fast over play by post, which is the main way I play these days. So it needs to be rules lite, the combat system can't get too boggy (Tunnels and Trolls is my favoured system to glean ideas from at the moment where *someone* usually hits/does damage every round) and I need an experience system that allows character growth at a speed which isn't too quick but keeps players interested. I could house rule DnD but prefer a ground up approach, nicking good bits from the OGL and using mechanics from various games. Only have that problem with level grind type games. The supers games I've run never had the issue of characters needing to advance as they already start powerful.

As for reviewing and editing, I'll keep plugging away and see if I can get to a stage where I feel comfortable presenting a game for others to look at. My main obstacle is I take a look at what I've done, decide to prune stuff to make it faster/easier to understand, then step back take a look and find there's not much there, scrap it, start again. Never had this problem when I wrote games out by hand. The disposable nature of a word document makes it all too tempting to start over

Maybe I'm just a weirdo *shrug*