Holidays.....nearly done!

Well, howdy again, folks!

I certainly hope that everyone who may perchance read this had a very good set of gift-exchanging holidays, no matter what flavor you might perhaps enjoy! I certainly did!

Having twenty nice people purchase our very first product in the week it's been up has been a very big boon to my ego, to say the very least! For anyone who didn't know about it, you can find it here! It's just a little quickie, and a means of introducing Mind Games Design Bureau to the gaming world at large. No reviews back yet, but it's early, so we'll see where things go from here!

I'm still plugging away on several other projects, and I hope to have another small title out by the end of January, but I'm not 100% positive on that right now. I'd love to have an actual schedule of releases for you all, but I have so many irons going in so many different fires that it's basically impossible to nail everything down in that manner. My largest current project is the Campaign Cookbook, and that, I hope, will see the light of day by around April!

I will keep everyone informed as to what is happening, and give a heads up when something is about to hit the digital presses! I have also resolved to make it a personal, moral imperative to keep up on the blog here in at least a weekly manner (rather than the weak manner I have been). So, for now, have a good and safe New Year, and don't drink anything near to what I drank on Christmas eve.....you have been warned!

I Am Back!

Sorry about the long hiatus there, ladies and gents. That troublesome little booger called Real Life sort of got in the way of things for me here at the Bureau. Now that all the unpleasantries (and a few pleasantries) have been dealt with and many obstructions moved out of the path, the activity here will begin picking up!

At this very moment, I am very busy penning (well, typing) the first installment of the Campaign Cookbook.... think of it as the GMs little helper; a sourcebook of ideas and springboards and just plain old stuff to help harried GMs come up with ideas, supplement what they already have, or give them new avenues to consider! I should have the writing all done by year's end, and then it's off to layout. I'm hoping to have it all completed and available for purchase by the end of January!

I'm very excited about this product. It will be a continuing and expanding series, as I have far too much to ever fit into a single publication! I'm sure that you all will enjoy it as well!

As ever, thanks!

Let's get cooking!

Okay, so I lied.

I didn't get stuff up by Saturday. That pesky "life" thingy got in the way!

But, I have a quickie preview for you today. I am working on a product line called "The Campaign Cookbook". It is essentially a GM's tool for figuring out all sorts of things for your game. Each entry will be 1, 5, or 10 pages, and each one will focus on a simple item. Perhaps you need an NPC, or a villain to plot your players' doom. Perhaps you need a map of a castle, or an apartment building, or a Quickie Mart. Perhaps an explanation of orbital mechanics might help you out of a sticky spot, or you need to know how a brewery works. Or maybe you just need lists of names of various ethnicity.


The Campaign Cookbook will have all of these. And they will all be system free.

That's right. System free. No rules. Only ideas. These will be tools to help get a campaign or a game moving. It will cross genres; the adversaries might be dragons, or Deputy Marshals, or drug kingpins, gangsters, gang-bangers. sorcerers, televangelists, evil space pirates, angry gods, or nearly anything else!

Organizations from knightly orders to the Starfleet of Regulus will be covered.

There will be items for horror games, sci-fi, modern, fantasy, sword and sorcery,campaign settings, lined adventures, the list goes on and on.

Again, the actual game mechanics will still need to be supplied by your GM, but at least he might have a better idea of what to work on, right?


So, the preview... remember that? It's for one of the Entrees for the Cookbook. It's a setting called "Aeronauts of Jovian Skies". Doesn't that sound cool?

Anyway, it's a Victorian-era Steampunk-ish setting that takes place on another planet. What I present to you here is a short fiction piece that might give you an idea of what to expect! Hope you enjoy!

Aeronauts of Jovian Skies [excerpt]

The sails were full-bellied, the wind strong and clean. The Archimedes sailed on, fast as lightning, smooth as silk..

But not as fast nor as smooth as her pursuer.

“Captain!” came the bosun's voice from the crow's nest. “She's still gaining! Five hundred yards aft and a bit to port. She's losing altitude too, sir! Now only twenty yards above!”

Damn! Captain Eustace Delacroix did some rapid fire thinking. “Get down here!” he bellowed up to his bosun. As the older man scurried down the ladders, rat-lines, and shroud lines, Delacroix checked his handlebar mustache to make sure nothing was out of place, adjusted his flight helmet and goggles, and threw his white silk scarf over his shoulder. The mush shorter, and much less dashing, bosun Mackey came to a huffing stop before his debonaire captain.

“Orders, sir?” Mackey gasped, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Delacroix spoke quickly and quietly

“I want a couple of the lads to sling below and attach the sprayers on the water valves. While they are doing that, run up the oil temperature and give the old gas bag a good bit of heat. I want the forward sails opened another four notches, but have the men ready to furl all sails on my command.” Mackey nodded, used to the rapid fire manner Delacroix  issued orders in a crisis. “You go below, but stay near the horn. When I give the word, I want you to dump half the ballast. Don't give me that look! I know that's money down the clouds, but that can't be helped! We can't spend money if we're dead or our cargo's stolen, right?” Mackey nodded.

“That's a good chap! When you get below decks, inform the gunnery crews to stand by the arc-cannon, as well as the scatter-guns! Make sure that everything is ready on my command! Go,” he said, patting Mackey hard on the shoulder. “You've got three minutes! Oh, and for goodness sake, make sure the condensers are running on full before we hit the clouds, man! We'll need to replenish the ballast sooner rather than later.”

“Aye, sir!” And with that, Mackey saluted, turned and started yelling out the captain's orders.

If everything went as Delacroix planned it, they might just get out of this with their ship, cargo, and skins intact.

The captain looked aft again, keeping an eye on the trailing ship. It was the Blackhawk again. The Black Scourge of the Skies she was called around here. Her captain, the beautiful but highly dangerous Red Kat, was renowned for her daring raids and attacks throughout more than four hundred thousand cubic leagues. Delacroix had no wish to be her latest conquest... although she had been his.

Perhaps she was still angry with him for leaving her in that delicate situation, what with her clothes missing and all...

Delacroix checked his pocket watch, and once again checked the Hawk's course and position. Right on queue, the captain could feel the vibrations in the deck as the boiler below started simmering a bit more harshly. The ship lurched forward and upward as the for'sails were opened wider and the balloon above their heads began to lift them higher.

Looking behind, he saw the Blackhawk's crew scrambling to respond to his sudden maneuver. With a laugh, he lifted the horn tube mounted next to the steering column, put it to his lips and blew hard. He could almost hear the shrill tweet from below as the whistle sounded. Holding the tube to his ear, Delacroix heard Mackey call back up to him.

“Now, Mackey! Drop the ballast!”

A sudden spray of water jetted from the bottom of the airship's hull as the precious water ballast was vented. The Archimedes lurched quickly into the sky, putting more distance between them and the pirates. The cloud layer above was close; it was storm season here on Jupiter and the clouds hung low.

The sudden boom of a cannon report broke the air as Red Kat vented a bit of her frustration via gunpowder. The shot fell several yards short and the ball sailed far below Archimedes' keel. That woman!

It didn't matter though, not now. In a flash the ship was surrounded by a think envelope of water vapor cloud. With a quick bellow, Delacroix gave his men their orders. All the sails were quick- furled or dropped, ready to be raised as soon as the men were able. Pushing and pulling on the throttle, the captain told his engine crew to throw the engines into a full reverse.

The Archimedes came to a rapid halt, both in altitude and forward momentum. The captain quickly silenced the engines, and hushed his crew. He tweeted the horn tube twice to signal for the gunnery deck, his gunner's mate swiftly answering the call. The whole of the ship went silent, every eye peering through the enshrouding mist trying to catch a glimpse of their erstwhile pursuer.

Delacroix's eye was the sharpest today, as he caught a glimpse of the Blackhawk rising slowly directly abeam, right in perfect broadside position. With a very quiet word into the horn tube, he gave the order to fire.

Lightning shot forth from the arc-cannon, and round after round of bullets were let loose in a fusillade of shot from the Gatling guns in their fire ports. Canister shot from the eight-pound guns tore holes in the Blackhawk's sails and gasbag, while men on deck fell to the repeaters. Several large chunks of hull were blasted away, to fall into the deep sky ablaze as the aelictrical guns poured raw lighting into her.

The Blackhawk quickly lost altitude, and Delacroix released some of his heated gas to do the same. He was skillful enough to keep Red Kat's ship in view for some time. He did not order a second volley.

Pulling out his spy-glass, Delacroix ascertained that while damaged, the Blackhawk was not crippled and doomed to plummet into the fiery depths of Jupiter's lower atmosphere. He espied the Red Kat herself standing on the command deck issuing orders to her crew and personally tending to the wounded. Crew men were already busy with patchkits for the punctured balloons, and the fires were already extinguished.

Pulling aelictrical loud-hailer from its cabinet, he called to his recent lover.

“Better luck next time, my dear! Do be careful, won't you? I do hear that the air-whales around here don't take too kindly to the smell of burning wood!” Kat stood and stared at Delacroix for a moment before making the most atrocious rude gesture and yelling up at him. The captain laughed and issued his own orders to make way.

Mackey, who was on deck once the action was over and had heard his captain's words spoke up.

“Are there really air-whales around here, cap'n?” He looked very nervous.

“No, Mackey, there aren't. At least... I don't think so. Take us home, my lad. I'm off to my quarters for a quick wash. Tell Singh to have supper ready in three quarter's of an hour, would you?” The captain turned and headed below to his sumptuous cabin. He smiled as he went over the battle in his mind. The plan had worked. By rising so quickly and then halting forward momentum, he had fooled Kat into coming too far forward. The sprayers made it look like more ballast had been dropped, and so she thought he had been at a higher altitude and so his own gun crews had been able to hit her ship hard.

He knew his own crew wondered why he hadn't blown her from the sky or at least raided her vessel. It simply wouldn't have been the gentlemanly thing to do. Besides, even if Kat was not a gentlewoman, she was certainly fun to have around. And even if she threw horrible curses and foul language at him after the battle, she was still smiling that beautiful smile he so adored while she did it.....

Jupiter does force the most strange combinations of people. That it did.

Delays and whatnot...

Hey, I know. It's been dead around here. I must apologize for that. It's not that I haven't been working on material, I just haven't had time for any of my normally witty repartee. So, I hereby promise to have another post up by the end of the week. Not this week, since it already Saturday in most of the world. No, by the end of the upcoming week.



Promise.

No! Really! I mean it!

Extended Rant #1, Part III

In my previous posts, I talked about taking dice out of character creation. Now, I'm going to go into a few other systems here in this blog. These games are the intellectual property of the various companies that have produced them, and my discussing them should in no way present a challenge to those copyrights.

This time, let's talk about Call of Cthulhu, shall we? This is a horror RPG based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and his fellows from the early 20th century. The game is produced by Chaosium Inc.

Now, the creators of the game followed D&D's basic example and has the players rolling a number of d6's for each stat. In the latest edition I have seen, five stats get 3d6, while two others get 2d6+6 and another one gets 3d6+3. The most important stat in the game (Sanity) is a derived stat based on the results in another normally rolled.

So, in all we figure that there are 22 d6's involved with a potential total of 132 points. Now, unlike the Palladium system, I would recommend applying our multiplier of .65 to this total rather than including the modifiers first. This is because of the nature of CoC games. The modified attributes are so to emphasize their importance and use in the game.

So, with the multiplier, players would get 86 points. I would round that up to 90, but others might instead round it down to 85. I prefer the former since, after all, it's a Call of Cthulhu game; the PCs need every possible advantage they can get to fight off the otherworldly nasties that inhabit that particular universe.

In this case, I wouldn't impose any maximums on any stats (well, in retrospect perhaps Size should have some sort of upper limit...), but I would insist on the base minimums. For the three stats that have modifiers I would then apply them after spending points.

I was also going to cover GURPS and In Nomine in this series of articles, but these already use point-based systems for character creation, so it would be pointless to do so. Never fear, I am looking at Fantasy Flight Games Dark Heresy setting for my next such rambling, it and all the other Warhammer 40,000 inspired settings they put out, as well as Cyberpunk (which I have never played).


If my readers can think of yet another RPG system that could use treatment like this let me know, and I will see what I can do for you.

Look for more soon! I realize this has been a short one this time, and I have not been as prolific as I had hoped, but there will be more coming soon!

Freebie #1 The Police - Part II

In my last post, we discussed figuring out how good the local constabulary is at doing its job. Now, we will go over how they can do their job.

So, you have determined the basic skills of the police, their Investigate and their Gather information skills. Now, you must figure out how hard their job is on this case.

Firstly, the base Difficulty Class of any investigation is 20. What this means (for those unfamiliar with d20 system games) is that the police must roll a d20 and add their appropriate skill, and if the total is greater than the DC then they have succeeded. However, the DC of 20 is simply the base; you must see what modifiers are out there that can and will alter the final DC.

Character Opposition

If the PCs are worth their salt, they would have done something to cover up their dastardly deeds. In the example I gave from my own game, the PCs set fire to the building after killing four goon-type guards. To represent the PCs attempts at covering up, I allowed one character (the one who used to be a professional thief) to make a roll to see how well she covered up the evidence. The character's roll was a total of a 23.

For every 5 on the characters' skill checks to avoid detection add +1 to the DC and a further d6 weeks to the duration of the investigation.

In this case, the roll adds +4 to the DC and 4d6 to the length of the investigation.

Other Modifiers

There are a plethora of other situations and environmental factors that can effect the final DC of an investigation. I will list several here, but GM's should feel free to add more depending on the setting, locale, and style of play.

Shots Fired - The number of volleys of gun fire is the modifier. If the PCs exchanged fire in two separate instances, then the modifier is +2

Population Density - Higher population densities means more potential witnesses.

Population Density Table
Empty         +3
Low           +1
Average       0
High           -1
Dense        +3

Environmental - This is sort of a catchall category, one that covers all sorts of environmental factors not covered elsewhere. From loud trains to thunderstorms, to billowing clouds of sand or seeping silica, factors within the crime scene's locale that can affect the subsequent investigation. The modifier is left to the GMs discretion, but should rarely exceed +3, unless of very large proportions.

Early - Not many people are early risers; +1

Broad Daylight - Many people out and about who can easily see what's happening; -2

Night - Too dark to see clearly; +1

No Lighting - No artificial illumination; +2

Poor Lighting - Insufficient illumination; +1

Well Lit - Duh; -1

Low Traffic - Not too many people walking/driving/flying through the area; +1

High Traffic - Lots of people walking/driving/flying through the area; -1

Security Recordings - Available from onsite or through an offsite recording agency; -3

Proximate Security - Available from nearby recording devices (security cameras, ATM's, etc.); -1

Lucky Breaks

The final modifier to the base DC is the Lucky Break roll. Even if no other modifiers are applied, this one always is. This is just simple luck that benefits either the constabulary or the PCs. Roll a d10, treating rolls of 10 as 0. Then, roll a second d10 using the same rule. Subtract the second roll from the first roll, even if that would give you a negative number. You will get a number between -9 and +9. This is applied to the base DC, and serves as the ultimate modifier.

Investigation Checks

The constabulary now get their turn to roll dice. You have determined their skills and the DC of the checks that they must make. Calculate how many weeks the investigation will go on based on their skills and PC interference. The constabulary get to make one roll per week for either Investigate or for Gather Information

For the police to figure out what happened and who did what to whom, they must pass both checks within the allotted time frame. Natural 20's are never an automatic success in these rolls. If the modifiers to the DC have made it impossible for one of the skills to ever be successful, the police will have an idea, perhaps even know who was responsible, but be unable to prove it. If neither roll is possible, the case will run its course, and unless the PCs do something else to bring attention to themselves or their actions, it will quietly be put into the cold case files.

If, however, both rolls are successful, the police will be able to apprehend and prosecute the PCs. On a successful check for either skill, for every 5 that the constabulary exceed the required DC, reduce the length of the investigation by 3 weeks. If they beat it by 10 or more, they may decide to bring the PCs in for questioning by the half point of the investigation. If they beat the DC by 15 or more, they may decide that they have enough evidence to arrest the characters.

Please note that these rules are currently geared toward the more modern end of the time line; no contingencies are in place to cover magic or psionics either. This is sort of rough-and-tumble for now. I'll look into these other factors at a later date and see if I can fit them into the paradigm. If so, look forward to a printed product some time in the future!

*       *       *       *

GMs are, as always, free to modify the rules for duration of case. In some instances, it would seem counter intuitive to decrease or increase the investigation time, and so if the GM feels it necessary, he should alter it.

I'll be working on a PDF sheet for download to help folk figure this one out. It might be a good idea to laminate the sheet so you can reuse the sheet over and over again. Another hint, if the PCs are going to be running around the same town for some time, than it might not be a bad idea to roughly map out the town for Crime Rates and Police Reputation, and perhaps even for more than one policing agency if more than one has jurisdiction within the area.

That's all for now. This is the first of many Freebies that I will try to put out at least every two months. I hope it helps! (As if there was any doubt.)

Enjoy!

Freebie #1 The Police

In many games, especially in those with a more modern flavor, the characters may often partake in activities that are, shall we say, unsavory. Less than legal would be another way of putting it. Indictable yet another way.

So what happens when they do these things and the local constabulary get involved? The cops investigate, that's what! This happened to my group recently; let me explain.

Modern day game, and they are all investigators for a particular agency. They have tracked down their quarry to a Quonset hut, and are attempting a rescue. One of them breaks into the building. I have been a nice GM (for once) and a very large freight train has begun moving down the tracks that run right behind the building, so when she trips the motion sensors that sets the alarm bell ringing, no one hears it... except for the four goons left behind as guards.

In the ensuing conflict, all four of the guards are made dead, two with coup de grace bullet holes in their craniums. The characters are not spies, they do not have a license to kill or any such nonsense; they are PI's! They take their rescued targets, set the building on fire, and run like hell.

Now I gotta figure out how the cops are gonna react! So I sat down and devised the following little system. Then I figured I should share it! And so I am. Enjoy!

Constabulary Investigation System

This system is geared for the d20 system, but with simple changes in nomenclature alone, it would be sufficient for nearly any system out there (the easiest fix would be to change Difficulty Class (DC) into Target Number).

Quality

The constabulary in whose jurisdiction the crime has been committed have two major tasks to accomplish before an arrest can be made; they must examine the evidence and then piece together who did what to whom. And so, they have two skill checks they will need to make; Investigate and Gather Information. The number of ranks they have in these skills is dependent upon how good of a police department they are, and can be shown on the chart below.

Constabulary Quality
                          Skill Ranks    Base Investigation Duration
Incompetent        1 rank           3d10 weeks
Poor                   5 ranks          2d10 weeks
Average              10 ranks        1d10 weeks   
Good                  15 ranks        1d6 weeks
Excellent             20 ranks        1d4 weeks

The two skills may have different qualities; the investigating officers may be really on the ball (thus giving them a Good rating for Gather Information), but their forensics team may be troubled by internal politics or budget issues (thus giving them a Poor rating). This is up to the GM to determine.

The qualities of a particular constabulary also determine how long it will take them to reach a conclusion with their investigation. On the chart is a listing for Base Investigation Duration. Each quality has a listing, and the durations for both qualities are added together.

Size

Larger metropolitan police forces will often have large departments dedicated to certain types of crimes; on the other hand, small towns may have only a sheriff and three or four deputies. Because of this disparity, there is a Unit Size modifier. This acts as a modifier for the Constabulary's Gather Information skill.

Unit Size
Podunk                 -3
Small                    -2
Average                 0
Above average     +3
Large                   +5
Unwieldy         (-6 to +6)

The listing for Unwieldy is for those organizations that are so huge that they can often become a hindrance to their own investigations due to combined inertia. These organizations can, conversely, be so large that they, in fact, work better and cover more ground. The modifier then ranges from -6 to +6. The actual determination is up to the GM.

Efficiency

Some police and crime lab / forensics units are models of efficiency, while others are slovenly and accident prone. The Unit Efficiency modifier reflects this. These modifiers are applied to the Constabulary's Investigate skill.

Unit Efficiency
Slovenly         -1
Poor                0
Low              +1
Average        +3
High              +5
Excellent       +7
"Grissom"     +10

Corruption

Some police departments are nigh-on uncorruptable (i.e. Elliot Ness during the American Prohibition Era), while some are so dirty that nothing ever gets done (i.e. Gotham in the Dark Knight movies). The Corruption Modifier acts as a modifier for both the Investigate and Gather Information skills.

Corruption Modifier
Controlled               -5
Not all bad              -4
Some good left        -3
Could be worse       -2
A few bad apples    -1
Arrow straight           0

Crime Rate

Cities and towns all have their good spots and their bad ones. The worse off an area is where crime is concerned, the harder it becomes for law enforcement to do their job. A higher crime rate in a particular area means less cooperation from the locals and an increase in workload for those officers dedicated to patrolling it. This is combine with the greater risk of crime scene contamination and the stresses of a higher workload. The Locale Crime Rate Modifier is applied to the constabulary's Investigate skill.

Locale Crime Rate Modifier
"Crime Alley"              -10
Gang Land                  -6
High                            -5
Higher then Average    -3
Average                        0
Below Average           +3
None                          +5
Inconceivable             +6

Reputation

The local police will often have a reputation throughout it's jurisdiction, one that may be deserved or not. This reputation can change from place to place within that jurisdiction, and this can effect the constabulary's ability to investigate a crime that occurred within a particular locale. The Locale Police Reputation modifier reflects this, and is applied to the constabulary's Gather Information skill

Locale Police Reputation Modifier
"@!#@$^&$ PIGS!"    -10
Low                              -5
Bad                               -3
Not Good                     -1
Meh...                            0
Good                           +1
Repected                     +3
High                             +5

And now, by adding up all of the pertinent modifiers, you can calculate the final skill levels for the police department working on this case. You determine their total Investigate and Gather Information skills, and these skills are used by the police to solve the crime that the PCs have perpetrated.

Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you how these skills are used to catch a PC!

Extended Rant #1, Part II

In my previous post, I talked about taking dice out of character creation. Now I've only talked about d20 games and their derivatives so far. This is mainly because of two reasons: 1) most role-players are familiar with that venerable system; 2) it's the only one that is open-sourced.

Now, in subsequent posts I'm going to go into a few other systems here. These games and systems are the intellectual property of the various companies that have produced them, and my discussing them should in no way present a challenge to those copyrights.

<Whew> Glad I got that out of the way!

Let's start with the Palladium system as used by Palladium Books throughout their Megaverse of settings.

Now the Palladium system gives characters eight instead of six attributes. Mathematically, to give a Palladium character the same averages as a d20 character, you'd need to give them 107 points to spend. Just round it to 110, since that gives a nice, easily remembered number. Also note that the Palladium system has a sort of balancing factor for characters with some low scores; if a rolled  character ends up with two attributes below 7, he gets some big time bonuses to other stats to make up for it. If you're using a point buy, I would not recommend using that little rule.

Now unfortunately, this only works for human characters or non-human characters whose species still roll 3d6 for each attribute. The Palladium system, however, allows for a vast range of species as PCs, and many of these roll many extra dice for certain attributes. This makes the math a little more fuzzy. I'll do my best to sort it out for you.

Take, for example, the Phoenixi, a race available from one of the many source books. As is fairly typical for Palladium, the number of dice rolled for each stat is different than for a human, and several of them have modifiers to the die rolls. Still, the attributes are still rolled with d6's so it's not too hard to figure it out. A regular human gets 24d6 total for stats, and using a point buy he gets 110 points. You could calculate that each die made available for rolling stats should give you roughly 4.583 points, and so this little birdie guy (who would get 28d6 total) should get 128 points. But there's a problem.

Not all stats for non-human characters are rolled using d6's. And then, there are often some very big bonuses to add (or even multiply!) to the attributes. Don't worry though. I've got it covered.... but first another example.

This example is the Killer Beetle, from yet another source book. This guy uses d4's for rolling several of his attributes. And so these lovelies have a total of 21d6 and 6d4 for their stats. "How do you figure that out?" I hear you cry. What we have to do is a bit of math.

If a normal human gets 24d6 towards attributes, that is a potential of 168 attribute points, out of which he gets 110; meaning he gets only 65% of the maximum points available. On average, he'd only get 84 points, or 50% (if you want the math I can get it to you, but it's not important right now), so using this system he's obviously at an advantage. And so, with math we have devised a multiplier of .65.

So, back to our Killer Beetle. Adding up the maximum points he would get for his dice, we see that he would get 150 points if he rolled the best he possibly could. If we apply the multiplier we calulated above we get (150 x .65) for a total of 97.5 points (rounded to 98). It's lower, yes, than a normal human, but he still gets a few modifiers to his stats... to the tune of an additional 20 points. And so the bug here gets a total of 118 points to spend on his attributes, when on average he would have rolled up around 109.

So, to put it in simpler terms: When figuring out the number of points to give a character in a Palladium system game, add up the maximum total of attribute points available to the character's species; this includes maximum die rolls and any modifiers (including multipliers!). To this total, apply a multiplier of .65. This will give you a reasonable amount of points to spend to tailor your character to your liking. I would round all fractions normally (.5 and up goes up, .4 and down goes down), but that's just me.


A further note: I would recommend following the listed maximums and minimums for attributes. The system can already get fairly silly, and I don't see the need for it to get any sillier.

A further further note: Some species have multiple means of locomotion and so have different rolls for each. Just add these to the max total and apply the multiplier. Then distribute the points like normal to the various movement types as you see fit.

More to come on this subject!

Extended Rant #1

Things I Greatly Dislike About Most RPGs

It's simple; character creation.

There are far too many dice being rolled during character creation in most game systems. I understand that it's "tradition" going back to the glory days of guys with too many G's and X's in their name, but come on. That really is relying far too heavily on old Lady Luck, and as any gamer worth his dice-bag will tell you, Lady Luck can be a fickle wench.

In days of yore, this led, of course, to the "dump-stat"; the one that you never really used and could really live without. I've played with far too many folks with characters who looked like the wrong end of a hemorrhoidal dragon to ever be happy with that situation!

Now, the arrival of the d20 System changed some of that (particularly ugly characters finally found some form of punishment for killing their charisma scores), but still, far too much dice rolling. And for this I have a cure!

Don't roll dice.

It's simple. Don't do it. "How?" I hear you cry. Buy them.

That's right, buy your attributes. At the simplest, each player has a certain number of points to spend on his character's attribute scores. Different systems would need different totals. For any game I run that uses the d20 system, I hand out 80 points for players to buy PC attributes. Each stat starts at 0, and the points are spent on a 1:1 ratio. To make things even more interesting, I establish a minimum score of 3 and NO MAXIMUM score. That's right, no maximum.

If you want to set all your stats but one to 3's and dump the rest into, say, Strength, then you will die very early on, with no hit points, no saving throws, no skills, and no conversational capability worth mentioning. Sure, STR of 65 sounds great. You could wrestle with a dragon. But you're still gonna die. And it won't take much either, you silly person you.

Yeah, there's ways to abuse this idea (slightly more viable than the above example would be a 40 in one stat and 8's in the rest), and some would scream about "balance" and "fairness", but let me ask you this: What's so fair about rolling all 9's and 10's while someone else manages four 18's? Not a gosh-darned thing.

At least with a points buy system you have a character that you can tailor into what you want to play, instead of being subject to the whim of some form of polyhedral random number generators. The balance comes into it when you try to arrange for all the other game-factors that are dependant on the attribute scores you have purchased. You could have those three 18's, but the rest of your stats are gonna suck, just a bit. The idea still retains a form of balance, but that balance is more predictable and more trustworthy than using dice.

More to come on this subject.

Greetings, Gamers!

Well, this is the first post on the blog for Mind Games. Hopefully many more will follow!

My name is Mark Thyme, and I am The Man here at Mind Games. I know a good many people in the gaming industry and community, and I have always heard the same thing; "This was such a good idea, why didn't someone write it / finish it / publish it?" And so to stop these lamentations, I have gathered up a whole host of incomplete projects from publishers and players, and over the next year or so I will be writing / finishing / publishing all those lovely ideas that others seem to have dropped the ball on.

I will also be taking time now and again to discuss certain aspects or ideas here in the blog. These topics are open to all, and I appreciate any and all conversations that are engendered herein. I am The Man, but I am the only man. I wear all the hats around here, and while I may have a prodigious mind (and the modesty that goes with it) even I can't think of everything!

So, I'll take any help, or thoughts, feelings, ideas, critiques, comments, or croutons anybody wants to throw my way. I hope that you all enjoy the blog, and I look forward to presenting products that help you in your various games.


Thanks so much,
Mark