For anyone who noticed, I didn’t get a chance to do Monday Memories this week. I didn’t really have any ideas to talk about, anyways. Though today I thought of something, so I’ll probably take it back up next week.
I’m still chipping away at the Mutants & Marvels game. It’s coming along nicely. The rules all make sense on paper (to me), and I have edited out some inconsistencies. Most of my focus right now is on the setting I am including. I have all of the “iconic” characters made (because every RPG needs those, right?), and all I need to do now is a 1-2 paragraph origin for each.
I made some changes to the line-up of my characters as well. I have a tendency to create characters with ties to mythology. One of my favorite characters I ever got to play was Magni, son of Thor (see next week’s post). And since half of my team was turning out to be from that kind of origin, I decided to make that the theme of the whole team. So, now each character has a tie to myths from various cultures.
One of my recent rules additions is a simple Experience system. As originally presented, this game is meant to be pretty static. You build your character, and you play them. Throughout their careers, comic book characters tend not to change much. They don’t often improve their abilities, or gain new powers. I mean, sometimes they do, but it’s usually the result of specific story elements. So I framed the whole idea of Experience in that light.
But, what if that’s not enough? What if the players want some kind of progression, as represented in more traditional RPG’s? Well, I came up with a simple, level-based system that I think would work. I’ll be interested to see if anyone else likes it.
Other than that, I am still struggling with artwork. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know this is a pretty typical problem for me. I’m a decent artist, but I don’t think I’m good enough for publication. Yet, I can’t afford to pay a good artist to do some drawings. So, I either have to figure out some kind of barter or commission system, or man up and do the art myself. Of course, if I did it all myself, it would probably give the whole thing a good “OSR” feel.
Once I work up the character designs, we’ll see. I have a couple of friends who said they’d be willing to donate some drawings, if I like. In the meantime, I used to do a lot of stuff using templates made from the drawings of Bruce Timm (Batman TAS) and Steven Gordon (X-Men: Evolution), so I will probably use those as models for character and costume designs. I’ll be sure to post some of those for your opinions.
I have been gaming, off and on, since I was 12 years old. Now that I'm...well, MUCH older, I don't get to play quite as often as I like, but I still like to keep my hand in the game, as it were. This blog is about the role-playing games I write, the games I play, and the games I wish I could play.
Sometimes the best way to present an OSR feel is to avoid becoming too polished. I've noticed over the past few months that people tend to like art that isn't that well done, yet has a realness to it, as opposed to the more polished and formal works of say Larry Elmore.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should just put it out and see what the reaction is?