Playtesting the Forge Engine

Tonight was our first playtest of a new game system I'm working on called the Forge Engine, which is an Abilities and Skills based d10 system:

•   Ability and skill based system (classless)
•   Give players freedom to craft their own characters
•   Increased power through larger dice pools (d10 dice)
•   Opposed rolls for combat to keep participants engaged
•   Skill challenges against static difficulty numbers for simplicity
•   Dice pools give degrees of success (or multiple hits for combat)
•  Combat rolls combine abilities, skill, weapon, and armor into one resolution step
•   Energy depletion system reflects fatigue from exertion
•   Meaningful decisions for players during critical situations
•   Variable Energy economy replaces discrete action economy

Luckily, we had a pre-game run-through yesterday that ironed out a lot of kinks, so tonight's game went surprisingly well (apart from almost getting killed by a pack of mutant rats).

And as an interesting experiment, I'm a player in the playtest, not the GM.   This gives me a much better perspective on how the system is working, and gives me more time to help the GM and the other players.

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No, I'm not dead.   I've just been working on Hero Kids and its adventures, which are available at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Review: Heroes Against Darkness Gets 4E Right (Allegedly)

Looks like the release of the print version of Heroes Against Darkness has shaken out some new fans.

+John Bell - The Retired Adventurer - has posted a review of Heroes Against Darkness on his blog:

Heroes Against Darkness Gets 4e Right

"I mention all of this because Heroes Against Darkness is a 4e heartbreaker, and a really good one." 

"There are lots of little tweaks like this that I really like. The GM advice chapter is also pretty meaty, and I'd feel fairly comfortable giving Heroes Against Darkness to a new roleplayer as their first adventure game."

"Heroes Against Darkness in general has the feel of 4e done right. I don't say that as someone who hated 4e and wanted it to be fundamentally different, but as someone who played it and felt that the game didn't live up to its own promise. If that sounds like the kind of thing you'd be interested in, go check it out."

It's not all flowers and holding hands though, 'cos John has a couple of criticisms:

"The not particularly serious one is that there's some extraneous swearing in a couple of chapters. I'm not a prude, but it kind of comes out of nowhere and doesn't serve much purpose."

Now I'm a fairly conversational writer, so sometimes more colorful turns of phrase slip into my works.   As far as I can tell, in reading Heroes Against Darkness you'll get one 'shit' and one 'crap'. You've been warned!

The second criticism is more serious:

"The more serious one is the underdeveloped skill system. Skills are mentioned in a couple of places: Each class has some suggested skills they should have, and there's a big list of possible skills, but the actual rules for skills are totally missing, from how many skills characters should have, to how and when they select those skills, to what skills do or how one uses them, to how one gets more. As a quick set of house rules, I'd imitate 4e somewhat: Having a skill would grant a +5 on any checks related to that skill. Character would select say, four at the start and could add another every other level."

I deliberately left the skill system out of Heroes Against Darkness, but its absence has been noted.   But all is not lost, and we've had a few discussions about it over at RPGnet:

RPGnet thread: [Heroes Against Darkness] This is my kind of D&D clone

Thanks for John for taking the time to review Heroes Against Darkness.

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Head over to DriveThruRPG to pick up a print edition of Heroes Against Darkness:
DriveThruRPG - Heroes Against Darkness

Heroes Against Darkness in Print Now!

After what seemed like an eternity (considering the speed of the POD process for Hero Kids), I finally took delivery of the proofs of Heroes Against Darkness hardcover and softcover books today from DriveThruRPG!

I won't bore you with any more of the trials and tribulations of the process, suffice to say that right now you can buy the hardcover and softcover books of Heroes Against Darkness from DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games Products at DriveThruRPG

Everyone loves pictures, so here are a bunch of shots of the proof copies that arrived today.

POD Update

So I got in touch with Scott over at DriveThruRPG to find out whether I'd messed up the files for the hardcover of Heroes Against Darkness, and I got this quick response:

"No, that isn't normal at all. It should take about a week at the outside.  I'll send along an inquiry to our client rep over at LSI and see if she can track this down for you."

And like magic, today the print files are approved!   I've ordered proofs of the softcover and hardcovers, which I hope will arrive before Christmas.   Once I've checked them out I'll make them available on DriveThruRPG.

POD Progress - Not So Much...

So I'd love to have good news, but DriveThruRPG are going super-slow on processing the files for the hardcover POD edition of Heroes Against Darkness.

If I'd known it was going to be this long, I'd have ordered proofs of the softcovers, which have been approved for over a week now...

Anyway, I'm waiting for both to get approved, then I'll get the proofs.   At this stage it's clear the books won't be ready before Christmas.   :-(

Heroes Against Darkness POD Progress

In other news, I just uploaded the PDF assets for the softcover and hardcover print verions of Heroes Against Darkness to DriveThruRPG. :-)

Now for some waiting...

Heroes Against Darkness Print Version

Dear loyal reader(s),

I've been neglecting Heroes Against Darkness lately, but now that Hero Kids is out (go buy it) it's time for work to continue on HAD.   Today we're looking at the immediate future of Heroes Against Darkness, and the next post will be about plans for the future.

Heroes Against Darkness Print Version

First, I've had multiple requests (and not just from my mum) for a print version of Heroes Against Darkness.   I actually did a bunch of work on preparing a print version before I started work on Hero Kids, using Amazon's CreateSpace service.   The advantage of CreateSpace is that it can do interior color printing from my source (MS Word), while with OneBookShelf (DriveThruRPG) I can only get black and white interior without the background parchment texture (because they can't do full bleed with B&W).

I also got held up because I don't have a horizontal version of the logo for the spine or appropriate artwork for a wrap-around cover, like this:

However, the advantage of OneBookShelf is that it's way more discoverable than Amazon, and having the print version there will help my customers and I stay connected.   By the way, having customers is weird...

So screw those lame excuses.   I'll do a B&W interior version (without parchment), sort out the cover, and massage the logo into a more horizontal arrangement.

Anyway, it's coming next.