Superliga

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

One of the subsets of string theory - M-theory - talks about M-branes, which are esentially paralel universes sliding across each other - quite akin to the various splinters in your game. There isn't really any need to justify the setting by this, its just a neat paralel. (Though talking about magic in terms of vibrating the strings of creation would be that much closer...)

Speaking of theorehtical phyiscs - do the various splinters act as fairly close mirrors of each other - or can the gravity and other constants vary in each?

If you can tell me about what type of technology you want, I can probably provide some assitance with the writing.

Check out this list of - you don't so much need to require timing as an interesting enviroment for the players to exploint.

[Bryndon]

The minority of planes are capable of supporting sentient life. This equates to approximately 'lots' (high thousands) of planes of varying shapes and sizes. The others are empty, poisonous, filled with machine kings or being devoured by cthonic entities. Most planes are aware of at least one other habitable plane but travel is like making an intercontinental flight and you’re frequently responsible for building your own airplane.

I think it would be cool to have one or two planes that are exact mirror images of a few others (because if a guy dies on one plane, there's a chance that he might have a twin somewhere). Zero-gravity splinters and other such splinters would make for fantastic locations, so I'm all for it.

As for the technology level: While it would be cool to have people ‘from the future’ use fusion-powered teethbrush and carry pocket nuclear-missile-launchers around for self-protection justified by the very latest techno-babble, it would be hard to justify why a set of lasers can't just strip a knight down to his component atoms and destroy the balance of power. Thus, I'm thinking it might be easier to move to steampunk with brass/bronze and wooden constructions and batteries that function on the movement of a ‘perpetual motion’ machine. I envision most places with steampunk* technology to be 1890-1920 era culture (with plenty of clockwork and zeppelins as well). I could also see Raygun Gothic** fitting in nicely.

*
**

I've bookmarked the page on fight locations

[Bryndon]

OK, mini-update time. It's been ten days and it turns out that writing semi-original boss fights is the quickest way to end up spending a whole day crying into a bowl of left-over mudcake. After undergoing several trips to the fridge and coming back with ever more ludicrous piles of confectionery, I've decided that the combination of writer's block and a fridge filled with left over party foods is just not where I want to be right now. I'm going to put up what I have on the website and take a break to avoid complete and total burnout. Tomorrow, I'll move my laptop somewhere brighter and sunnier than my carefully laid-out working desk and spend a bit of time looking over other old projects and contemplating my navel.

The two new books that will accompany the minor revisions made to the rulebook are Intrigue and Expertise (now 105% complete because I had a few new ideas) and Compendium of Marvelous Things (not very complete at all. I believe I have about 24 monsters instead of 108 and maybe 30/108 initially promised items. I may complete them someday, but not right now: a complete bestiary/inventory is the thing most likely to cause catastrophic creative shutdown and I don't believe its necessary or advisable to include those two things in what is essentially a labour of love (... because I -hate- having to format each entry and of course I'd eventually have to rely on doing variations on a common theme). The incredibly flavoursome and basically much more fun-to-write The Splinters will come out in maybe two more weeks, after I've gone over a novel and had some time to really communicate the intended awesomeness of samurai mounted on the backs of velociraptors doing battle with Godzilla.

Still to come:
- What's the average damage of a character in melee?
- Ranged?
- Magical?
- What's the average armour of a melee oriented character? What about a wizard?
- Are the magical defense spells overpowered? (Mantle of Flame, Frost Shield, Gaian Shield, Stoneskin, Immovable Shield)
- Wizards vs. Sorcerers: who is the superior one?
- Drawbacks? Too many? Too tantalising? Not enough reward for risk?

[Bryndon]

Post-Easter Update: I've been planning my wedding, so the time spent not-writing has been well-utilised. I should be back into the swing of things soon enough.

Tune in for semi-regular updates.

[Rob Lang]

Bryn, weddings suck up time... best get that out of the way else you might find yourself alone at the altar!

[Bryndon]

Have no fear - I very much doubt my love for you fellows, who I have known since time immemorial, will interfere very much with my intention to get married to my beautiful fiance. ^_^

Rambling:
I did a test run of the game today with two friends who ran though the sample campaign outlined in the main rulebook. My conclusion is this: Fire-bolt is really, really powerful. A starting warrior deals something like 20 damage each turn, an archer deals about 30, and a wizard can deal 200 damage with the right skills*. The wizard vapourised a boss-monster in a single turn... which wasn't cool. I'm thinking of combatting this by making it harder to cast an enhanced spell (like, -1 to cast per enhancement on the spell, so you can still put all your eggs in one basket but you can't vapourise a planet in one turn) and probably increasing the cost of enhanced spells while I'm at it.

The skills were "Arcane Reservoir" and "Arcane Wellspring", which increase your mana pool, allowing you to scale up your spells to ridiculous levels. "Arcane Duellist" also gives you additional spell damage, which I hadn't used but were easily accessible so... yeah. I mean, wow. They vaporised my boss fight. The synergy of these abilities is pretty amazing and I think they'll be fine, but I need to tone down Duellist and maybe move the requirements of all +damage abilities (such as Devotee of the Arrow, Lethal Nonweapon and Weapon Focus) to be on par with each other. I should probably also add a plus damage ability to the mentalist tree, because its going to need some loving.

Fun note: After the wizard finished vapourising my boss (Gormungus the Wight. He even had a name!!!), one of the NPCs attempted to 'ninja' the loot, as was his habit. The wizard promptly fireballed him, which was absorbed by the Immovable Shield placed upon him at the start of the fight. The wizard used up the last of his arcane power to fire-bolt the mentalist responsible for casting the shield over the edge of a bridge (which was meant to form an important part of the boss-fight), leaving him on fire and at 1 Health at the bottom of a river. The water put the fire out and the mentalist passed his panic check by a significant margin, so next turn he started levitating, which got him out of the river and put him in the perfect location for a surprise psychic battle against one of the other players. In the end, the four NPCs the players so casually betrayed turned into a much better boss-fight than the actual boss-fight, so that was nice.