Furnace 2007 pt1: Monkey Furnace Edition

This is the first in a series of reports coming out of chats/actual play that happened at Furnace 2007.

Furnace 2007 in short was mindblowingly good. My mind has been a happy mess ever since the con ended, and I’ve spent the last couple of days reflecting on ideas that came out of the con. If Furnace 2006 relit my d101games aspirations, Furnace 2008 put a rocket up my arse!!!

So how did the Five ashcan versions of Monkey do at Furnace?

The nice chaps on the Collective Endeavour stall sold three out of the five ashcans I took to Furnace. Two were to people who had played in the morning game, and another seems to have gone to an interested passer by. The money I earnt from this got plowed back into buying various CE games. I sold an ashcan, I bought a game. Hence I picked up Mob Justice, Questers of the Middle Realms and Dead of the Night using this logic.

I grabbed a copy for a potential artist, to whom I must get a bundle of scanned Chinese artwork in the near future, and I kept a copy for myself.

Overall a raging success in my book and it was a worth while exercise in raising my confidence and me pulling my shit together to put something out after talking about the game for the last ten years.

MONKEY FURNACE EDITION DONE!!!!!!!

So I’ve bundled up the first five chapters of Monkey, (Introduction, Character creation, Action System, Developing the Story, and a scenario “Bag of Wind”) into a rough ashcan.  There’s more than enough to play the game, but its not the complete thing with full setting info, nice illustrations (interested artists please contact me) and it still needs vigorous playtesting. But I’m over the moon, its another milestone reached.

This is what I’ve previously called the ‘Coaster edition’, and copies of it have already gone off to the Mighty Monkey Army for comments and playtesting. I’m hoping to have a couple of wirebound printed copies ready by Furnace, to sell at cost, but I fear I might be running out of time.

If you are interested in joining the MMA and helping review and playtest this, please let me know (either by a comment below or a quick email to mrnewt@gmail.com)

Website

Seeing as the advert that is going in the Furnace Con Book has a website address I thought it was time to take the bull by the horns and create a website for D101 Games.

www.d101games.com

Its got previews of one sort of another for all the upcoming releases, so there is stuff that will be new to even the most ardent reader of this LJ .

Warning though, its very purple.

Any comments appreciated.

All roads lead to Furnace

Update on all things d101games

SimpleQuest version 1 has gone to peer review. I’m fighting the urge to tweak/add to the basic SRD that I’ve produced. Deadline for comments Mid-nov. If I’ve not invited to to give the document a once over and you would like to be part of the peer review, comment below.

Monkey – all next week is Monkey week!  I finally bash the ‘coaster’ edition into shape. When its done I’ll jump for joy. Not 100% sure if I’ll have time to actually produce 70 CDs, with inlay, in time for Furnace. If not I feel a spiral bound ‘Ashcan’ on the cards. Expect joyous news on Friday.

Shattered Lands – The intro/first 10 pages of the RQ version is going in the Furnace con book. I’ve also made good progress on an introductory adventure called “Dead Pot Country’, which will get finished before Furnace (plans are to have it as a standby adventure). Then all I have to do is write up Aztar, a fantasy city ruled by Merchants which is the adventurers starting base, and then its done. Very happy about this.

Website – just registered d101.co.uk this morning, so it will go live sometime over then next couple of weeks just before Furnace (no surprise there). Good thing about wittering on here about the games I’m doing is that its given me a good idea for copy for the pages which describe the games. Also I’ve got previews for all the stuff I’m writing.

After Furnace I work with artists, finish off the writing and play test like no tomorrow.

Release schedule

The Shattered Lands
What?
A complete ready to play setting for MRQ in about 60pages. Background, character gen, cults, monsters, starting city , starting scenario.

When?
Winter 2008

SimpleQuest
What?
A intro level Fantasy game. A simplified version of MRQ/BRP using MRQ SRD as a base, + The Shattered Lands (i.e. A SQ version of the above as a sample campaign setting/starter adventure).

When?
Winter 2008

Life and Death
What?
A 60+ page adventure/sourcebook for MRQ/SQ

When?
Spring 2008

Monkey
What
100+ page storytelling game, with adventures, setting info, characters set in the Chinese epic of the same name.

When
Summer 2008 (but a preview/ashcan version should be available via website in Oct)

The plan is to publish these via pdf  and make hardcopy available via Lulu.com. SimpleQuest will also have an OGL SRD available via the website when it comes out.
Now all I have to do is finish writing them, get some art done and set up the website!!

I have an advert

Created for the Furnace Con Book, a mighty A4 tome which is going to all attendees which will also contain a preview version of the Shattered Lands.

On a personal level I’m quite happy with it, in a happy amateur sort of way. I’ll be improving my Graphic Design skills and I’m attending a short one day course of GD and DTP for newsletters/leaflets at work which will help me on the way.  Its also nailed down my release scedule (which I’ll whitter on in a following post)

Progress update

Monkey the Coaster edition – its so nearly done it hurts. As I keep on saying “need to get my head down”. Actually half way through the introductory adventure, which now has basic setting material and quick narrators advice (both will get full chapters in the complete game). Need to sort out an artist for this pronto, for a basic cover image if nothing else.  Final realise Summer 2008 (probably a big party at Continuum 2008).

Life and Death – The writings about 60% done and I’m occasionally picking it up and adding bits. Another project that I need to stick my head down and do. It will be coming out in two flavours. A Mongoose RQ version that you only need the main rulebook to play with and a SimpleQuest version. I playtested it a couple of weekends ago at NewtCon and it played smoothly, with a couple of tweaks. This playtest which only got through one third of the material (yet was still a satifying adventure) has inspired me to do more. Fortunatly my group enjoyed it:) Also running this at Furnace. Would be nice to also have this one done for then, but I’m not putting money on it.

SimpleQuest– Well I’ve let the cat out of the bag on this one in the previous post. First basic draft end of this week. Hoping to have it done early 2008.

So what is SimpleQuest?

Well SQ started as an itch I had to scratch. For years I’ve played RuneQuest, its pretty much my favorite game and I have a rabid attachment in the same sense that some people do to D&D. Suffice to say I went through the whole excitement-disappointment cycle several times when Mongoose Runequest came out. Rather than whinge about what I didn’t like about the game, I started to tweak the SRD (System Resource Document – the rules of the game without any examples, setting or flavour text available free to download off Mongoose’s web site),to suit the way that I play RQ. It was one of those ‘fiddling’ projects I do from time to time – which inevitably turn into something bigger.

Then I realised I wasn’t ‘fixing’ or ‘improving’ MRQ but rather altering it into the game that evolved out of a five year long game that me and my home group played back at the height of our RQ fanaticism. In this game  we gradually simplified and streamlined the rules, since none us were big number crunchers. At the time I didn’t take it any further than a mass of house rules, that existed mainly in my head, but  the release of the MRQ SRD under the OGL (Open Gaming License) gives me the opportunity to release it. So SimpleQuest was born over a couple of lunch hours.

My current plan

  • Finish off tweaking the MRQ SRD, playtest it, then put together a book for release via Lulu/RPGnow etc hopefully early 2008.
  • All the additional/tweaked rules will be released as Open Game Content in the SQ SRD, so other RQ/BRP fanatics can use it, since I’m a great believer in giving back and anyway none of this is original anyways. 
  • The ‘full’ version of the game will have examples, explanation, flavour text and be designed as a simple introductory RPG. It will also have a simple setting The Shattered Lands, which I’ve already written up as part of my Life and Death scenario, and a simple introductory scenario.
  • As well as being a stand alone system it will form the basis of at least one other RPG, my game of Ancient period City States; Blood and Sand, which was another important consideration when I started work on it.

Progress so far
I’ve currently SQed the main RQ_SRD and I’m currently doing the same for the chapters from the companion that I am going to use (Sorcery, Divine, Spirit World, Temples, Enchantment). This first pass is SQ v1.

Using SQ v1, I’ve play tested Life and Death with it was pleasantly surprised. It was exactly the fast paced game that I intended and everyone had a good time.

Once I’ve finished off SQ v1 by the end of this week I intend to pass it around various RQ/BRP grognards. If you are interested in being included on this ‘peer review/play test’ please leave a comment below.

I’m also running it at Furnace 2007, playing the SQ version of Life and Death.

Main changes

Character gen

Gone are backgrounds and occupations, and in with a simple point buy system for basic/advanced skills. Occupation templates with equipment available for players who want inspiration or to pick something off the self. Characteristics are a basic random dice roll or point buy.

Combat

Gone are hit points per location replaced with Total Hit points (Siz + CON). Gone are all the twiddly combat options (dives, free attacks etc) and confusing combat tables. Gone are strike ranks and combat actions. Order of combat now Cthulhu style, ie highest Dex first, combatants get one attack and one parry or dodge. The rules assume characters are wearing full sets of armour (eg. a full set of plate or chain) with a single AP for all locations.  Serious and Major Wounds, quarter and half hp in one blow respectively, are optional rules for GMs who want to add more detail and roughly approximate what happens when a location is reduced to 0 and beyond in standard RQ.

Skills

Pretty much as is, with the exception that modifiers for difficulty are now either half (Hard), quarter (Very Hard) or ten per cent (Near impossible) of original unmodified skill to make the maths easier and the effect more noticeable.

Character development.

Removed the ‘randomness’ of Character Improvement rolls. Now pc’s get a base 3 ‘improvement’ automatically of 1d6+1 (rather than the stingy 1d4+1 raise),for skills they have used in the adventure. If there is downtime between adventures, the pcs can spend their treasure for training at the Guilds that teach the skills they want to learn. Characteristics rather than being paid for by three improvement rolls, increase when under certain circumstances. eg. Pow may increase when the character has successfully resisted magic and Constitution may increase when a character has successfully resisted poison.

Mastery

Rules for characters with over 100% score. In combat over 100% attack/dodge can split attacks/dodges. All skills have appropriate ‘Techniques’ that can be learnt from another Master or ancient tome. For example Acrobatics has ‘Infinite Back-flip’ . Each Technique has a magic point cost and a chance of success equal to the skill over 100% (ie. 125% acrobatics gives a 25% chance of performing an ‘Infinite Back-flip’, if the master fails he still does an impressive single back-flip though). Also rules for opposed tests involving masters.

Rune Magic

Removed casting time (which complicates and kills usefulness in combat), having separate casting skills, and the rules for integrating runes themselves. Gone back to the old RQ2 name of Battlemagic, even though allot of these spells now work for personal conflict.  

Divine Magic

Gone back to the good sacrifice POW permanently style that we know and love from previous editions.

Sorcery

I actually quite like the Sorcery rules as written in MRQ. As with the rest of the rules all mention of hit locations, combat actions and casting times have been removed.

Spirit

Spirit combat – back to match mp vs mp for spirit combat. Also rules for learning spells from spirits and Shaman rules.

Enchantment

Simplify to have Spell Matrixes (items that hold spells), Power reservoirs (items that hold MP) and items that are both Matrixes and Reservoirs. Rules for binding Spirits and other magical creatures. Optional rules for ‘always on’ type magic items.

OtherWorlds

Rules for adventuring in the lands of mythology and the gods. The magical effects, the risks and the rewards of venturing into these highly magical lands. NB this will not be my attempt to make a set of Generic Hero Questing rules, but a much straight forward set of rules for what happens when adventurers travel to other planes ofexistence more magical than their own.

Skype Playtesting

I’d like to set up a semi-regular playtesting group via Skype.

First up is off course Monkey (my own game set around the famous Chinese Epic). Then if interest holds I propose to run other games that I have in development, such as Blood and Sand – Ancient period fantasy using a modified Mongoose RuneQuest SRD.

For more details on Monkey see the preview http://www.newtus.co.uk/Monkey-Preview.pdf

I’m in the UK and propose to hold short sessions of about 2 hours weekday evenings (either 7-9pm or 8-10pm GMT). These will be organised well in advance, a good five days.

If you are interested please get in touch via email, mrnewt@gmail.

Oh and if anyone is interested in contacting me via Skype, my username is mrnewt. Paradoxically I’m not on much at the moment due to time demands made by small child, so don’t be surprised if I don’t respond straight away.

UPDATE: Apart from the lovely Mr

 no one took me up on this one 🙁  Also I’ve come to realise I actually have more Face to Face time with my home group than pc time!! So one off playtesting sessions at my house are more likely!!

Bickering

I’m off work today, hurrah, and work continues on Monkey. I’m going to focus on it exclusively for the next couple of weeks to get it done. Here’s a quick fun rule, that sits outside the main skill resolution mechanic.

Bickering Contests.
Bickering is a special type of action.

The during the Journey to the West, Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy continuously bicker with one another. They endlessly argue about who should carry the master’s baggage, which way to go next, the best way to deal with the demon that blocks their way….

Because bickering is such as major part of the novel, here is a quick game mechanic that players may use to resolve such arguments between the player immortals in a way that brings a clear in game advantage for the winner.

1. Each player involved in the bickering draw a card from their fortune deck.
2. The player with the highest card wins the exchange.
3. Play out three such exchanges.

The player who has won the most exchanges, wins the argument. The other immortals, even if they don’t agree with the winner must go along with the winner. The winner bolstered with success gains an extra card on his next action draw.
If the result of the three exchanges is a draw there is no winner, the Narrator quickly moves the action along to the next scene.

Note: Players may not transfer cards into or out of their fortune hands during a Bickering Contest.