Submission: HAVEN

[Spacemouse]

Greetings, all. I've just submitted my first 24-hour RPG effort, an oldskool SF work called Haven. It can be found on the . I had a blast designing it, but being an insecure amateur game designer, I'm hungry for any and all comments, criticisms and, especially, improvement suggestions. I grossly misjudged the time I had and the game, as it stands, is far from finished. But I intend to change that. ^__^

I'm going to sit on my fingers here and stay quiet about all the things I've thought of that need adding or changing. I'd like to hear what other people think, first.

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Spacemouse

[Rob Lang]

Spacemouse, welcome and thanks for the submission! How did you manage a game in 24 hours? Is it playable? How many hours of the 24 did you use?

[Spacemouse]

Thanks Rob! How did I manage? In a word, badly! In hindsight, I could've benefitted from better planning. I spent entirely too much time on the mechanics, and the setting (the part that I really wanted to explore) was left sketchy. On the other hand, it was an interesting effort. I used the 24 hours pretty fully (i.e. didn't sleep much) - MS Word says the document's total editing time is nearly 16 hours. It was exhausting, but fun. I was pleased to find I could do it.

Haven is playable - just. The basic mechanics are there, character creation, skill use and combat all work. The equipment lists are sketchy and the setting is, umm, hinted at. Basically, it doesn't do everything I wanted it to, but it lays the groundwork.

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Spacemouse

[Rob Lang]

16 hours straight is an incredible achievement! Not to mention any extra time spent scribbling and the like.

I think the best thing you can do for your game at the start is try to run it with a player group. As is, without modification. A good group of players will ask questions and point things out that don't make sense.

While you're waiting for that to happen, keep us up to date (here or in the other RPG forums, you might get more response there) with development, ideas and so on.

[Dyson Logos]

The position mechanic is interesting, but I find it awkward when dealing with melee combat - there is no mechanic to provide greater separation between yourself and an opponent who rolls a similar position to yours. You can roll for position again, but assuming you already had a position about as high as you could roll, the new roll won't provide the positioning gap you need to escape the combat - effectively you would be better off in a worse position than you currently have.

I'm going to stop dissecting the mechanic now, as I'll probably try to use something like it in my own 24 hour RPG when I get a chance to sit down later this week.

I like the coin toss mechanic and have ever since I picked up Prince Valiant, even though I'm a dice-lover.

LOVE that the attribute pairs are a throw-back to Star Frontiers.

I'd like to see where you go with this, especially with the addition of the hinted-at setting material.

[kumakami]

I just have to give you props for being another person to try the coin based mechanics...still working on my game but its NOT a 24 hour attempt.



Dyson: you get +4 points for knowing/owning prince valiant. I too own it..thought I was the only one

[Dyson Logos]

[tadk]

Crazy Egor still exists.
Someone link me please?


Off to find Haven to check it out.

hmmm a while since I took the plunge.

[Dyson Logos]

[kumakami]

Dyson... You live near Rochester, ny?