By admin, on March 17th, 2011% I just put the finishing touches on a short D&D setting hack that I’ve been working on for the past week. I play D&D biweekly with some local friends, and we have a deal where we swap off between two GMs (and campaigns) every three sessions or so. We’ve just shifted around to a different pair with Nelson running his first campaign with us. That started me thinking about planning ahead so I can take over for Joe when his campaign ends, assuming Mark doesn’t have something to run. I’ve had an idea for how to kick off the campaign for a little while now, but not much else.
So I started thinking about overall plot. Now, I suck at the looking-three-moves-ahead thing, and developing a plot is my Achilles heel. So, when the barest thought struck me for a hack to the standard setting, I dove into it with gusto. See, that sort of stuff I can obsess over. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about for days. I thought, why not explore a world where magic comes easily to everyone? Rather than having your standard spellcasting classes, anyone can learn to cast spells through feats. I ran with it from there, and now I have three new classes (which are probably overpowered, because, hey, it’s me, right?) and a nifty way of handling spells and psionics.
So, now I have to get back to considering plot and long-term structure. Which never survives the first encounter with the players anyway.
Once we start playing around with these rules and new classes and see how they balance out, I plan to share them with the world at large.
Slàinte,
Q
Tags: d20, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic, Setting, Spellcasting, spells
By admin, on June 14th, 2010% I’ve been working with artist Liz Radtke again on concepts for the Kalens of Star Lost. Can I just say that she so frickin rocks! Her first attempt (the golden retriever) was too dog-like and too butch. That stemmed from my inadequate description. The next iteration (the other four pix) was awesome. I don’t claim that she reached into my brain and pulled out the perfect image. I can’t because I didn’t have a fully formed image in mind, just pieces of what I knew should be there:
Kalens are a tall, svelte, furry species, most closely related to terrestrial marsupials. They are, however, asexual and androgynous…Their facial features offer an interesting mix of familiar terrestrial animals. Their ears are tall, pointy, and tufted, like a lynx‘s. Their eyes are large like those of a lemur. And their snouts are slightly extended, but short, like an affenpinscher‘s, with a wide mouth full of small, sharp front teeth, and a surfeit of wide molars in back…
From that, and a short critique on the first draft, she has managed to create a fully formed creature that looks like the best stuff you see in the special features menu of a scifi movie. Sweet!
Tags: Concept Art, Kalens
By admin, on June 9th, 2010%  My latest supplement, Playing the Market, has just gone live at DriveThruRPG, and before I could even post this, it has a five-star review (from featured reviewer Devon Kelly):
Playing the market is a handy little supplement. At 15 pages, it’s a breeze to read. The text is well written and easy to understand.
At first, the mechanic to determine availability and price of items seems very simple and not very special. But once it begins to get into determining the scarcity of an item, that’s when it really shines! The system for Modern/Future is understandably more complex, but it also determines how much time will be needed to obtain an item.
I downloaded both PDF versions that were available and was pleased to see that one is formatted to read on a computer screen and the other is formatted for printing. That’s a very nice plus.
This is well worth the price and is a wonderful supplement for those gamers who want to add in a little more uncertainty to the in-game shopping experience!
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!]
Life is sweet.
Tags: Playing the Market
By admin, on May 7th, 2010%  My second DriveThruRPG offering, Morgenstern’s Spellbook is going live as I type.
Morgenstern’s Spellbook is a collection of 60 new and original spells. It’s designed to be used whole, as a treasure item, or as a new source of spells for your campaign. It was originally conceived during a spate of productivity while guest-DMing for Joe Levy’s recent D&D campaign.
As with all my RPG work, the pdf is available through DriveThruRPG. I’m also setting this one up for print on demand, since it’s around 26 pages.
Slaintè,
Q
Tags: fantasy, RPG, spell books, spells
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