I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
Yes, I totally am. I've got three different things cooking. All of them so close, yet so far.
Of course! Gamers secrete mechanics, it's like snail slime.
Yep! One lost a lot of steam because of the controversy around the Strange and cultural appropriation. I went back to the drawing board and scrubbed out any mention of Polynesian cultures from it. It was a depressing task.
I have a system and setting for a game called the Meddlers (basically about brownies). I've been working on it slowly as a side project with the artist. Pretty much work at the pace of the art.
Also have an OSR setting that I've been building but haven't run it (it is a kind of back up sandbox campaign). Don't know I will ever publish that).
Quote from: Necrozius;898823Yep! One lost a lot of steam because of the controversy around the Strange and cultural appropriation. I went back to the drawing board and scrubbed out any mention of Polynesian cultures from it. It was a depressing task.
Was that a main thing in this setting?
Quote from: Trond;898816I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
Almost, but not quite.
I have a setting that I was going to publish with TAS, but with the contract changes that came with it, I am taking a step back and punting instead. To publish SF OGL, I have to scrub away any references to the Official Traveller Universe and in many cases replace them with something else that makes sense.
I am so damn trying to finish something. I am pushing myself this summer to cut a project down into a 100 page very focused OSR inspired RPG. My goal is for the game to do "its thing" really well and not try to be an "everything" RPG. Unfortunately, I'm a crack head jumping around chasing squirrels.
Yeah, I'm currently looking for playtesters for my game.
It's one of those games that the Pundit and most of the people here would hate though, so no point recruiting here. :(
Would not hurt to try Cave Bear.
I am slowly working on two ideas. Black Powder which is d20 system similar to 3rd edition, but very streamlined. If you love Godbound's fact and word system you love my asset system.
The Long War follows the same system, but that is getting ready. The pre made characters are being made and the adventure is next. The monsters should be rare, but deadly. Think Castlevania, but with deadly traps along the way.
yes i have for far to long in the R&D opart of the process mostly do to how ever time i sit down to work on it some thing in my life gos to hell
its meant to try and run jrpg style games ala the tales series or final fantasy to use some thing more public
Quote from: Necrozius;898823Yep! One lost a lot of steam because of the controversy around the Strange and cultural appropriation. I went back to the drawing board and scrubbed out any mention of Polynesian cultures from it. It was a depressing task.
sounds interesting please do tell
Quote from: Cave Bear;898831Yeah, I'm currently looking for playtesters for my game.
It's one of those games that the Pundit and most of the people here would hate though, so no point recruiting here. :(
ill listen and try to give feed back for what its worth
Quote from: Cave Bear;898831Yeah, I'm currently looking for playtesters for my game.
It's one of those games that the Pundit and most of the people here would hate though, so no point recruiting here. :(
This is my issue as well. I hesitated to describe it on RPG.net because outrage. I hesitate here because this place is very old school, and my game is nothing like old school.
I have... something... that started out as my attempt to do "new school fantasy" justice. Influences include Iron Kingdoms, World of Warcraft, Unhallowed Metropolis and Girl Genius. I started statting it out as a Savage Worlds, then switched to RQ6, then got sidetracked and never touched the damn thing again, so I'm not sure it qualifies as "in the works" but there you go.
Quote from: kosmos1214;898835ill listen and try to give feed back for what its worth
Quote from: Trond;898837This is my issue as well. I hesitated to describe it on RPG.net because outrage. I hesitate here because this place is very old school, and my game is nothing like old school.
I could send you guys a copy of my pdf in its current state if you would like.
It's already gone through multiple rewrites, but it's still really rough. There's so much I want to fix and change around right now, but I'm going to hold off until I playtest it.
Quote from: Cave Bear;898839I could send you guys a copy of my pdf in its current state if you would like.
It's already gone through multiple rewrites, but it's still really rough. There's so much I want to fix and change around right now, but I'm going to hold off until I playtest it.
Sure. I'll PDF-ify my thing as well.
Quote from: Trond;898837This is my issue as well. I hesitated to describe it on RPG.net because outrage. I hesitate here because this place is very old school, and my game is nothing like old school.
hey im new school so ill help mif i can havent played any thing in a number of years though
Quote from: Cave Bear;898839I could send you guys a copy of my pdf in its current state if you would like.
It's already gone through multiple rewrites, but it's still really rough. There's so much I want to fix and change around right now, but I'm going to hold off until I playtest it.
hey sounds good to me ill pm you my e mail we new guys need to help each other if we can
For my own purposes? Yes.
With the intent of ever publishing? I'm sort of past that stage. I don't think game design would be a good career choice in my current stage of life, and I find the ROI to write my own stuff by scratch isn't there compared to just hammering other people's stuff into a shape that pleases me.
Quote from: Trond;898841Sure. I'll PDF-ify my thing as well.
Quote from: kosmos1214;898842hey sounds good to me ill pm you my e mail we new guys need to help each other if we can
Cool! Messages with pdf link sent. I'm looking forward to seeing your work as well. :)
Quote from: Trond;898837This is my issue as well. I hesitated to describe it on RPG.net because outrage. I hesitate here because this place is very old school, and my game is nothing like old school.
I would encourage you to post it anyways. There is a lot of old school here but we've also had posters who were into other things. I think we're better off when we get a broader range of preferences.
Quote from: Trond;898816I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
So much indeed here, been working on several projects, for more than five years, and the origins for several started in the 90's.
It is a full-blown WoD-, Palladium Books- and Boardgame-inspired System and Setting which is supposed to include several "titles", including one with Anthropomorphic Animals, one with "Monster Kids", and one with Masked Heroes, among other things.
I have yet to complete one of them, though, due to indecisions and other problems.
I have a hard sci-fi game I have been working on, slowly, 3D star map, and all that.
I got a cover at least. I am running my first campaign with it using a customized Fantasy AGE then port it over to a system similar to White Star when I polish it up for publication.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]67[/ATTACH]
Quote from: Trond;898816I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
Yes. Several. I just keep working steadily, and hope someday to finish.
Quote from: Necrozius;898823Yep! One lost a lot of steam because of the controversy around the Strange and cultural appropriation. I went back to the drawing board and scrubbed out any mention of Polynesian cultures from it. It was a depressing task.
Why? People don't like it, screw 'em. Sell to the people who aren't assholes.
One that's "almost" done, yet since I'm constantly reinventing the most important parts (classes and magic system) it won't be finished anywhere soon.
Oh, it's OSR-ish fantasy with a twist. ;)
The Savage Worlds edition of Terracide is sadly on indefinite hiatus.
Since I changed jobs (hell, I changed careers) there just isn't time for it any more.
Finishing an OSR-ish oriental adventures game. It should look good at least (http://livresdelours.blogspot.fr/search/label/Dojos%20et%20Dragons).
In the coming month I should release A Society of Unlikely Gentlemen:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]69[/ATTACH]
This is the year 1895. Five years ago, the city of Atlantis rose again from the depths of the ocean. At the same time, several portals appeared on Earth and allowed safe passage to Venus and Mars. [...] Scientific marvels pop-up everywhere, four-armed martian ambassadors walk the streets of London while Venusian amazons guide big game hunters through the jungles of their planet. Empires still scheme and fight among themselves.
Bottom line, no fantasy, no magic, but it is a bit over the top, you can play a steam cyborg, a thawed-out viking warrior from the past, Jekyll's heir or, basically, whatever crosses your mind. One of my players described it as "The adventures of Captain Future in the 19th century".
Another project has its roots in this forum. One of the members, Just Another Snake Cult posted this :
«this new kid brought with him from far-off Seattle a new game, Top Secret. He ran a game of it at lunch in the English room. The incredibly tasteless premise of his campaign [...] was that our characters were all actual real-world killers and terrorists whose captures or deaths had been faked by the government so the CIA could use us as a kill squad. [...] Anyway, we lived under Berlin in a secret underground City of Assassins. This city was basically a giant dungeon: It had miles of labyrinthine tunnels, traps, and when we got bored we could just wander the tunnels looking for trouble. [...] By any standards of morality, genre, good taste, game balance, storytelling, or common sense it was "Problematic" and Doing It All Totally Wrong. Needless to say, we had a complete blast.*»
So now, ladies and gentlemen, I will give you Dark Leningrad.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]68[/ATTACH]
The TL;DR version of the setting :
Imagine that John Carpenter was born in the USSR. There he directed cult movies*: Escape from Leningrad, Red Star, Assault on Gulag 13, They live in the Kremlin*! or Big Trouble in Little Odessa. This is the RPG inpired by those movies that never were. Welcome to the Sovietploitation.
And of course, too many projects on the back burner (MJOLNIR MASSACRE : Vikings meet Resident Evil, GUN DOGS : a sci-fi dungeoncrawl...).
Better finish all this before I get a new job...
Of course I do, I mean, who doesn't:D?
Currently ironing out the combat system for my demigods and heroes game set in Classic Greece. Unfortunately, working 50 to 60 hours a week and raising two kids means free time is lacking. Well, that and my YouTube channel I recently started.
My setting was going to be a wholly archipelago world set in the Cambrian age in terms of fauna, and most if not all of the cultures based on Pacific Island or Pacific Northwest peoples. I got the idea while imagining Haida art of prehistoric creatures, especially trilobites.
Each Island has its own spirit creature (Tupua of Kupua)that could be bargained with for a variety of reasons. Lots of ruins too. Lots of random generators for these lesser deities and places to explore (a deity coild be a white tree with red feathers instead of leaves and it represented deception and storytelling).
The whole thing was to be called Koru (a Maori symbol). I did a lot of reseaech but when that debacle about cultural appropriation came up I had second thoughts. Then I spoke to someone living out in British Columbia about the idea and she said to be careful (and she's not aware of a lot of Internet gaming controversies). So I'm scrubbing out all cultural names from real peoples and keeping it imaginary.
Once I have any of the three settings I'm working on done, I'm hoping to publish material for them on my blog - but work, life, etc. have conspired to put all of these projects on the back burner. Also I found brainstorming, for me, went better when I put pen to paper rather than fingers to keyboard, so once I'm ready to actually share the info, there's a large data entry stage to go through as well.
Quote from: Necrozius;898918My setting was going to be a wholly archipelago world set in the Cambrian age in terms of fauna, and most if not all of the cultures based on Pacific Island or Pacific Northwest peoples. I got the idea while imagining Haida art of prehistoric creatures, especially trilobites.
Each Island has its own spirit creature (Tupua of Kupua)that could be bargained with for a variety of reasons. Lots of ruins too. Lots of random generators for these lesser deities and places to explore (a deity coild be a white tree with red feathers instead of leaves and it represented deception and storytelling).
The whole thing was to be called Koru (a Maori symbol). I did a lot of reseaech but when that debacle about cultural appropriation came up I had second thoughts. Then I spoke to someone living out in British Columbia about the idea and she said to be careful (and she's not aware of a lot of Internet gaming controversies). So I'm scrubbing out all cultural names from real peoples and keeping it imaginary.
To be honest, I don't see a single reason why you should have to self edit. The ideas you've presented sound interesting.
Quote from: kobayashi;898906Imagine that John Carpenter (...)
I'm sold!
Where, how, when to get it?
Thanks ! The free, ugly, almost artless version, late 2016. If enough people like it I'll get someone to illustrate it.
Quote from: kobayashi;898941Thanks ! The free, ugly, almost artless version, late 2016. If enough people like it I'll get someone to illustrate it.
I can speak only for myself, but as long as it's gonna resemble "Shellshock" in design, I'd be perfectly happy with artless/minimalistic version.
Duly noted !
My Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay retroclone, called ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com), is sooooo close to being finished! Once the second draft is finished, we are planning to take it to Kickstarter in late June/early July. We released a first draft last year to the public called GRIMDARK Beta 2 (http://grimandperilous.com/?page_id=95) if you want to check it out!
I am also working on a casual adult drinking/dungeon board game right now. I plan to to release more info about it once we are nearing the Kickstarter window, but you can watch a video of one of the dungeon tiles being made here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBW3uJTeayyUlZ5TmlfZ3I3NUE/view?usp=sharing).
Quote from: Trond;898816I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
What with this internet doohickey, I've thought about self-publishing on rpg.now. Hell, there's so much junk on there, I figure one more goony amateur rpg product couldn't hurt.
I have a Transformers rpg that I've been tinkering with since the 80's. I wouldn't publish that because of the rights issues, and I have no interest in generic-ifying it.
I have a Rifts clone that I've been working on for the past few years. Off and on. I actually bought some stock art and made an attempt at making a decent-looking PDF out of it. This one I'd actually be interested in publishing, but I'd want to make sure it doesn't rip off Rifts too closely.
Keep these coming!
I had a diceless story driven rpg system I was working on a few years ago- still thinking of working on it some more. There wasn't even a randomizer- you chose your level of success from a list that got ever smaller the further you went on.
Quote from: Necrozius;898918My setting was going to be a wholly archipelago world set in the Cambrian age in terms of fauna, and most if not all of the cultures based on Pacific Island or Pacific Northwest peoples. I got the idea while imagining Haida art of prehistoric creatures, especially trilobites.
Each Island has its own spirit creature (Tupua of Kupua)that could be bargained with for a variety of reasons. Lots of ruins too. Lots of random generators for these lesser deities and places to explore (a deity coild be a white tree with red feathers instead of leaves and it represented deception and storytelling).
The whole thing was to be called Koru (a Maori symbol). I did a lot of reseaech but when that debacle about cultural appropriation came up I had second thoughts. Then I spoke to someone living out in British Columbia about the idea and she said to be careful (and she's not aware of a lot of Internet gaming controversies). So I'm scrubbing out all cultural names from real peoples and keeping it imaginary.
I like your original idea. It's too bad you're going to scrub it.
Quote from: Trond;898837This is my issue as well. I hesitated to describe it on RPG.net because outrage. I hesitate here because this place is very old school, and my game is nothing like old school.
Good to know. I'll keep quiet about my own projects then.
Maybe there's people who grouse about new school games- I know I have from time to time, but don't let my dipshittiness or others scare you off. This is RPGnet- discussion without the fear! Seriously, I'd love to hear what folks here are creating.
Quote from: RunningLaser;898961I had a diceless story driven rpg system I was working on a few years ago
Entirely your own creation, or based on some mechanics like AMBER, Active Exploits...?
Quote from: Necrozius;898918My setting was going to be a wholly archipelago world set in the Cambrian age in terms of fauna, and most if not all of the cultures based on Pacific Island or Pacific Northwest peoples. I got the idea while imagining Haida art of prehistoric creatures, especially trilobites.
Each Island has its own spirit creature (Tupua of Kupua)that could be bargained with for a variety of reasons. Lots of ruins too. Lots of random generators for these lesser deities and places to explore (a deity coild be a white tree with red feathers instead of leaves and it represented deception and storytelling).
The whole thing was to be called Koru (a Maori symbol). I did a lot of reseaech but when that debacle about cultural appropriation came up I had second thoughts. Then I spoke to someone living out in British Columbia about the idea and she said to be careful (and she's not aware of a lot of Internet gaming controversies). So I'm scrubbing out all cultural names from real peoples and keeping it imaginary.
My game has some of this ("cultural appropriation" or whatever), but the names are partially made up, and partially drawn from several cultures. Not sure if anybody would make a big deal of it. Sometimes people are just glad to be remembered.
All of these game ideas are either in Alpha or "eternal tinkering phase" and are ideas swirling around in my head I just need to get out of my system; the names are all working titles (which I need for the creative process).
Fistful of Dice = a cinematic RPG (a quick dice-step system in the vein of Cortex or SW)
Mithril D&D = an OD&D/Whitebox Hack with a hefty dose of Palladium Fantasy, the genre veering towards Epic- and Science- more than Pulp Fantasy
Thunderclad = "Classic Neobritish Fantasy Roleplay" (an experiment in creating an 80s British-style RPG, even though I'm not British and was born in the latter half of the 80s)
Crusaders of the Polymyth = a faux 70s RPG (influenced by hex-and-counter-wargames, utilising the "strangers in a strange world"-trope á la Barsoom, Three Hearts/Three Lions, Callisto, etc.)
Quote from: Necrozius;898823Yep! One lost a lot of steam because of the controversy around the Strange and cultural appropriation. I went back to the drawing board and scrubbed out any mention of Polynesian cultures from it. It was a depressing task.
Unless its license related I'd have told my critics to fuck off. Using parts of other peoples cultures is part of the creative tradition and while its best to do so respectfully, its not required.
Quote from: Trond;898983My game has some of this ("cultural appropriation" or whatever), but the names are partially made up, and partially drawn from several cultures. Not sure if anybody would make a big deal of it. Sometimes people are just glad to be remembered.
Your game seems to be fairly well researched though.
The root of the problem with cultural appropriation is ignorance and disrespect. When white college-age hipsters take photos of themselves wearing Indian head dresses to look cool they are demonstrating a lack of understanding and a lack of respect towards a symbol that others hold a great deal of respect for.
La Vendetta doesn't look all that insulting to me though. My grandfather and grandmother are from Sicily, and I don't see anything in your pdf that upsets me at all or that my grandparents might think insulting.
Quote from: Trond;898983My game has some of this ("cultural appropriation" or whatever), but the names are partially made up, and partially drawn from several cultures. Not sure if anybody would make a big deal of it. Sometimes people are just glad to be remembered.
Yeah. My settings are basically "mostly Europe" but that is because its what I know and love best of all but I have no use for Internet whingers who shit a brick over some Polynesian themed ideas or whatever. Hell I've borrowed from Nation of Islam /Black Supremacy for a highly capable separatist culture, Africa and modern China for a future Afro-Chinese culture and Islamic thought for another, I have no issues with it any more than I care about say Japan borrowing European culture for some manga or anime
I have not yet published my 24 hour RPG system, one I literally dreamed up one night and while I have technically published a couple of articles in a now defunct d20 magazine from my game world, I've never published the world itself.
Quote from: JesterRaiin;898980Entirely your own creation, or based on some mechanics like AMBER, Active Exploits...?
Mostly my own, the results were heavily inspired by FU rpg- the whole "yes, yes and..., yes but..., no, no and...., no but...." It was a wafer thin rules light story game thing.
In a nutshell, you had a list of possible results- some good, some bad, some that just led to things. If there was any sort of test to be made in the game, you chose what level of success (or failure) you wanted, and crossed it off the list. Whatever you had remaining on that list were the only choices you could make for the next time. So yeah, eventually you would only be left with choosing failure. It was completely breakable, open to abuse, but I had fun with it.
Quote from: Necrozius;898918My setting was going to be a wholly archipelago world set in the Cambrian age in terms of fauna, and most if not all of the cultures based on Pacific Island or Pacific Northwest peoples. I got the idea while imagining Haida art of prehistoric creatures, especially trilobites.
Each Island has its own spirit creature (Tupua of Kupua)that could be bargained with for a variety of reasons. Lots of ruins too. Lots of random generators for these lesser deities and places to explore (a deity coild be a white tree with red feathers instead of leaves and it represented deception and storytelling).
The whole thing was to be called Koru (a Maori symbol). I did a lot of reseaech but when that debacle about cultural appropriation came up I had second thoughts. Then I spoke to someone living out in British Columbia about the idea and she said to be careful (and she's not aware of a lot of Internet gaming controversies). So I'm scrubbing out all cultural names from real peoples and keeping it imaginary.
You should finish it, it sounds great.
To contrast with The Strange's issue (speaking as a white male dude with a background in archaeology) the stuff the Strange did was less accurate, poorly researched, and aimed at stereotypes/tropes with no effort at interesting or accurate detail derived from the source (plains indian cultures), in a setting that apparently has a type of entity in other dimensions that is really just a construct, theby implying all of the pseudo-plains indians in the setting were soullness (or something, I am not entirely clear). Your three paragraphs above already blow away the entire write up in The Strange that got them on the hot seat. I would be really shocked if you got hit with a cultural appropriation attack (well, not at rpg.net where its all the rage and even vegepygmies are subject to social justice rage) so long as you keep up what is a clearly effort at good research and representation.
Quote from: Catelf;898855So much indeed here, been working on several projects, for more than five years, and the origins for several started in the 90's.
It is a full-blown WoD-, Palladium Books- and Boardgame-inspired System and Setting which is supposed to include several "titles", including one with Anthropomorphic Animals, one with "Monster Kids", and one with Masked Heroes, among other things.
I have yet to complete one of them, though, due to indecisions and other problems.
Monster Kids? You've gotten my curiosity up. Tell more please.
Well, maybe I should talk a little bit about my own project, [Dragon Forest]. I've mostly been sharing my progress with the kind gentlemen of /tg/, where I go by 四.
[Dragon Forest] is a fantasy roleplaying game where you play as supernatural heroes and liminal beings protecting the last surviving remnants of the human race in a world caught halfway between death and rebirth during a stalemate between warring cosmic forces of Chaos and Law.
It's basically another D&D clone, but the major difference is that I'm subverting the game's reward mechanisms. You aren't playing to accumulate XP and treasure.
Instead of starting with 0XP and gaining levels as you kill monsters, you start with a pool of Doom points determined by how many Dark Gifts you select at character creation. The GM spends your doom points to add monsters to scenes, to activate the special abilities of monsters, or to activate the curse effects tied to your dark gifts*. You can also burn off your own doom points by roleplaying Redemptions. When all your doom points are spent, you can refresh your pool of doom points to gain a level.
Instead of adventuring to loot gold and magic items, characters in [Dragon Forest] instead struggle with their burdens in a world where gold is worthless (no economy to speak of, since the only human beings in the world are the small handful following the heroes) and any magic items you might find are weaker than the dark gifts you start out with at character creation. Items in the equipment section have no GP value listed, but they do have weight. Players start off with one horse each and they are allowed to start off with as much equipment of any type as they want (regardless of the items' past monetary value) as long as they can carry it on horseback. Heroes and their followers have Need and Sadness scores that accumulate, however, so players will have to make room for rations in order to deal with that problem. In addition to encumbrance, I'm also considering adding an attunement limit; in addition to physical weight, some items may have a kind of magical weight called 'memory'.
The purpose of subverting D&D's reward mechanisms like that is to shift the game's tone from that of bloody conquest and a quest for power to that of endurance and an effort to ease one's burdens.
The game's fail state is subverted as well. When your hero dies, their spirit passes on but their power remains; you can have one of the survivors elect to inherit the hero's skills and abilities along with their equipment. However, each survivor has their own hopes and dreams, and the magic that allows them to inherit a hero's power rewrites reality so that the survivor's dreams then become impossible to attain.
The trouble is that this is not an OSR clone; I'm basing my game off of 4E as it makes for the strongest contrast.
*It is important to note that doom points are not a meta-game currency that players have to take control of the narrative. Players have doom points, but they can't spend them. Only the GM can spend doom points. Doom points basically amount to a pool of "Fuck this character in particular" points that each character has. The only thing players can sort of control is when the GM spends their doom points, as the GM is only really supposed to spend doom when certain triggering conditions are met (when a hero enters dangerous territory, when a hero provokes violence, when a hero activates a dark gift, when a hero breaks the restrictions of a redemption, etc.)
Quote from: Cave Bear;899005Your game seems to be fairly well researched though.
The root of the problem with cultural appropriation is ignorance and disrespect. When white college-age hipsters take photos of themselves wearing Indian head dresses to look cool they are demonstrating a lack of understanding and a lack of respect towards a symbol that others hold a great deal of respect for.
La Vendetta doesn't look all that insulting to me though. My grandfather and grandmother are from Sicily, and I don't see anything in your pdf that upsets me at all or that my grandparents might think insulting.
Well, that's very interesting to hear! Thanks! :)
I have yet to get into the meat of your PDF, but it struck me as somewhere in tone between D&D and John Wick (who sometimes has been called "anti-D&D" though I don't think he dislikes D&D). An interesting blend, and an interesting blend of East/West in the artwork as well. I almost get the feeling that there is some sort of setting lurking here, although as far as I can see it is meant to be a more or less generic fantasy system, right? In this case the art can simply serve as an inspiration of course. The sections that are finished also seem to be REALLY finished. As in, some of these pages could go to press tomorrow, with nice layout and all (compared to my own tendency to work on everything at once, so virtually nothing is finished). Also: your point systems; love it. Good stuff.
EDIT: oops, didn't see your info above.
Quote from: Trond;899017Well, that's very interesting to hear! Thanks! :)
I have yet to get into the meat of your PDF, but it struck me as somewhere in tone between D&D and John Wick (who sometimes has been called "anti-D&D" though I don't think he dislikes D&D). An interesting blend, and an interesting blend of East/West in the artwork as well. I almost get the feeling that there is some sort of setting lurking here, although as far as I can see it is meant to be a more or less generic fantasy system, right? In this case the art can simply serve as an inspiration of course. The sections that are finished also seem to be REALLY finished. As in, some of these pages could go to press tomorrow, with nice layout and all (compared to my own tendency to work on everything at once, so virtually nothing is finished). Also: your point systems; love it. Good stuff.
EDIT: oops, didn't see your info above.
Thanks!
I am going for more of an implied setting, rather than something spelled out explicitly in fluff-blurbs and whatnot. But I also want everything to be easily reskinnable and adaptable.
I do intend on adding fluff-blurbs, but these will be more general things where I talk about the inspiration behind things. For example, I'm currently reading about Greco-Buddhism, and the Western origins of the Misshaku and Naraen temple guardians (from depictions of Herakles that traveled eastward toward India where they were conflated with a Hindu deity, then traveled further eventually making their way to Japan.) My notes will be used to write a flavorful blurb for the Pankrator class.
Quote from: SionEwig;899010Monster Kids? You've gotten my curiosity up. Tell more please.
Well, perhaps not all are kids, but it is where a big deal of the inspiration comes from.
Humans, often teenagers, somehow given abilities and frequently some of the looks of vampires, ghosts, zombies, demons, and perhaps even skeletons ....
Some try to keep up a normal façade, and continue going to school and such, while others drops out, some even from "normal" human society.
Some searches for ways to get normal, some for ways to get more monster-like, and some are "happy" as they are.
They often find themselves inbetween self-proclaimed monster hunters on one side, and true vampires and demons on the other side, and trying to run damage control when some real monsters causes havoc, or are about to do so.
Other times, they end up just running errands.
Their main allies are usually others like themselves, and enigmatic angel-like beings referred to as "The Sephira", and/or some mythological gods and goddesses.
I've got a fairly tight-match alt-history game set in the Ming China of 1555 is something I've got penciled in for 2019/2020, to go along with the Tudor England 1555 game I've got marked out for 2017/2018. In both cases, it's building the GM tools for actually leveraging the culture as something more than a paintjob that is apt to be the hard part.
I'm working on Lejends of Yveria, a campaign-centric clone of the Lejendary Adventure system.
My intentions here aren't to reinvent the wheel. I'm not out to make up some new wacky game mechanic or gimmicky setting. My emphasis is mainly on a) clear presentation of the rules, with the goal of being even clearer than the original, b) creating some rule expansion into areas in which are important to the flavor and feel of the campaign, but the main priority is c) just creating some fucking awesome content.
You could call it "generic fantasy" but that would be a misnomer. I despise generic, thus the emphasis on the content.
I'm currently working on an adventure wherein the party scours the nether realms in search of a relic, a sword of legendary status (think Excalibur), after the deathbed confession of a royal assassin reveals that the king wields a forgery and his rule has been based on fraud. This is unbeknownst to the king's best knights who are pursuing the heroes, convinced they've stolen the sword. To complete the quest, the heroes must follow in the footsteps of the same quest undertaken by the Paladin-God over a century ago on his path to immortality. Being that his powers never manifest themselves in his Earthly followers, it is believed by some that he actually perished rather than achieved godhood. And according to the assassin, the path must lead to the final resting place of his relic sword--in the bowels of hell itself. The quest requires players engage in thinking, combat, and role-play to be successful as they face their personal demons as well as literal ones.
Aside from being a thrilling ride, the purpose of the adventure is sort of an expose of the cosmology of Yveria and some of the political forces at work as well as important NPCs.
Okay I'll give this a go.
My game is called Hachi:Blue, which is loosely based on a cheesy manga styled web comic (http://hachiblue.thecomicseries.com/comics/first/) I did a few years ago. I ran a couple of games of it on Mythweavers first using Mutants and Masterminds 3e, but later using a hack of Marvel Heroic which worked really really well. As I was running play by post, I needed a system that was optimized for that kind of play and hacking Cortex Plus Heroic had the best results.
So for the moment, my system of choice for Hachi:Blue is Cortex Plus, particularly since MWP released the guidelines for releasing custom content for their system. A while back I wrote up a bunch of conversion stuff for Jadepunk, which runs in Fate. I think Ryan is still working on stretch goals so it might be some time before he gets to the Cortex Plus version. I'll ask him about it sometime. Anyhow, I have most of the conversion written up with some expanded mechanics to make it more Jadepunky and because I like stuff and I want my games to account for people having stuff. There's a lot of reasons I like that system, and I'd happily go into them in a Cortex Plus related thread. However, there is a thing called Ultramodern5 coming out, by Deus Ex Machina. It's essentially modern rules for D&D 5e. I love 5e. I loved d20 Modern. So I might just go with that. Or if one of my doctors finds some magical cure for chronic fatigue I might do both. Most likely the game will be a bunch of unformatted text files. :D
Anyhow, the setting of Hachi:Blue is Post Cyberpunk (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostCyberPunk) urban fantasy. Fantasy in the sense that some stuff has pseudoscientific explanations that I made up because it sounds cool. For instance, one of the driving metaplots is the supposed War Amongst the Angels which has gone on longer than humanity has been a species. These "angels" are not physical beings like D&D Celestials, but are beings living in an overlapping world comprised of non-baryonic matter (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/N/non-baryonic_matter.html) which may or may not be dark matter. Told you, BS made up to sound cool. :P
So there's two factions of these angelic beings, though they are essentially the same species. One factions are the ones identified as Angels have been around shaping civilization for centuries through the use of religion to gain followers. The church in the setting is totally fictitious. Certainly it borrows from judeo-christian themes and there might be some implications that two of the highest ranking entities are in fact the same beings as Enlil and Enki from the flood story in Gilgamesh. For the most part, I'll leave it vague and cultish. The main attraction of this church, I had some pretentious name like the Instrumentality of The Immortal One, is that they offer something that no other religion can offer. They can in some cases bring the dead back to life. By bring the dead to life I mean if the body is fresh enough one of these non-baryonic dark matter aliens can inhabit it. The other faction are referred to as the Demons. They are exactly identical to Angels except the Angels don't like them and they also have better lobbyists. The "Demons" differ from the Angels in that they do not take possession of the freshly dead, they make pacts with willing humans and live in the same body symbiotically.
So they have this war but most people don't know about it. I guess I should talk about the location. Hachi:Blue is set in the City State of Mirai. Mirai is a sizeable island as well as active volcano in the Pacific in the same location where the Midway Atoll is in our world. It looks like this (http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp233/KrimsonGray/MiraiIsland_001_zpsbd89fcad.png). One day I will finish that map. :D I'm still learning Campaign Cartographer. :D In this world, the island has been inhabited since the 60s after it formed from an immense volcanic eruption in the 50s. The main settlers were from Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. Blah blah a bunch of stuff happened, Mirai is a technological haven. The caldera of the volcano is over a mile wide itself and completely enveloped by the base of an immense Arcology in the middle of the island. The Arcology houses most of Mirai's population, some food production on the upper levels, as well as a massive supercomputer which houses an Artificial Intelligence named Maitreya.
Maitreya controls Mirai. Absolutely and without question, though most of the population is unaware that she exists except as some Siri/Cortana like personal assistant that is present everywhere and knows everything. :D Mirai, being a superintelligence, also knows about the Angels and the Demons. She doesn't like them. Moreover, they insult her by dismissing her as a harmless toy made by hairless monkeys. So Maitreya came up with a new hobby. She makes dolls. Androids. If an Angel or a Demon becomes troublesome, sometimes she has her dolls deal with them.
However, Maitreya also cares for humans and wishes to protect them. As such, she made an interesting discovery. If you genetically mutate a human in a certain way then neither Angels or Demons can inhabit the body. The side effect of these altered humans, called Espers, is that they gain paranormal abilities. The most gifted of these Maitreya attempts to recruit. This doesn't always work out. Same goes for her dolls.
So I could go on but that would be boring. Basically there are a few factions. Corporations can be powerful and there are two I'll detail to a certain degree. Something to keep in mind that Mirai has an openly Corporate Oligarchy as a form of government. Corporations control everything. Well except the Instrumentality of course (if I call it that). The two I'll be detailing are the ones that are aware of Maitreya and deal with her directly, bypassing the puppet regime that's there to make the humans happy.
There is one more major species that can be found in Mirai, though their numbers are far less than either the Espers or the Angels, who aren't all that numerous themselves. These are the Youkai. In my world, Youkai are kind of analogous to Fae folk. Sort of. The Youkai are creatures (mostly) that were the result of "Angelic" interactions with other species, mostly animals. In Hachi:Blue these are mostly Kitsune and the Bakeneko/Nekomata. The Kitsune are almost extinct due to an incident where Maitreya had to take drastic measures to deal with a particularly troublesome Demonic cell. She had indefinitely borrowed a US orbital laser platform that they couldn't complain about because it didn't officially exist and erased many angels. At the same time, she opened vents from the volcano into the storm drain system to deal with the ones in hiding. What Maitreya did not know was that the Kitsune "Goddess" Inari and most of her clan lived underground in the drain system. They were mostly wiped out and Inari survived though with bad burns over most of her body. The Bakeneko fared better, many of them being Henge (shape changes, where the term Hengeyokai came from in the AD&D 1e Oriental Adventures) and as such able to live among the humans. After the incident, many of the Bakeneko have mostly turned away from the old ways and try to live among the humans without drawing attention to themselves.
There are a few factions. For one, I realize not everyone is going to want to play the big Metaplot, at least not all the time. There are some street gangs, some of whom have Espers among their numbers. There is a presence from the Russian Maffia and Japanese Yakuza who often do not see eye to eye. The corporations Olletech and Toragon are the big players. Olletech maintains the Arcology and supercomputer, and is the company responsible for the creation of Maitreya. Toragon creates robotic technology including androids as well as mechs for Mirai Security (MirSec). For all intents and purposes, Toragon IS Mirai Security. Crime inside the Arcology is practically zero. Outside though... Well, mechs have operational costs so the outlying areas aren't as well patrolled.
Anyhow I've gone on enough. Originally this was an anime themed game. I think in the iteration I'd like to make of Hachi:Blue, I'd like to drop the anime tropes and just develop the setting as a setting. With the mish mash of cultures (don't get me started on languages or how Japanese speakers have adopted Russian honorifics. Cause you gotta have Cityspeak, especially in the suburbian sprawl.) so there should be potential for characters that are heroic, villainous or somewhere in between. I probably left out crucial details, my apologies in advance.
Oh boy, so much interesting stuff!
Quote from: kobayashi;898906Finishing an OSR-ish oriental adventures game. It should look good at least (http://livresdelours.blogspot.fr/search/label/Dojos%20et%20Dragons).
(...)
So now, ladies and gentlemen, I will give you Dark Leningrad.
(...) Welcome to the Sovietploitation.
Dojos & Dragons will be a
Tranchons & Traquons variant? Great! I really like the minimalistic take on "life path" character generation.
And
Dark Leningrad cries out for John Grümph art. (Though he seems to be busy with his own Chibi line of games?)
Quote from: Nerzenjäger;898992Thunderclad = "Classic Neobritish Fantasy Roleplay"
Crusaders of the Polymyth = a faux 70s RPG
In have no idea what "Classic Neobritish Fantasy Roleplay" and "hex-and-counter-wargame influenced" means
for you but I am already in love...
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;899353Oh boy, so much interesting stuff!
Dojos & Dragons will be a Tranchons & Traquons variant? Great! I really like the minimalistic take on "life path" character generation.
And Dark Leningrad cries out for John Grümph art. (Though he seems to be busy with his own Chibi line of games?)
Dojos & Dragons will have its own system, better suited for long-term play (but still something simple)
For
Dark Leningrad I'm looking for art with a more "underground comic" style (Stefan Poag...)
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;899353In have no idea what "Classic Neobritish Fantasy Roleplay" and "hex-and-counter-wargame influenced" means for you but I am already in love...
We since know that some of our aesthetical preferences align when it comes to RPGs, Dirk, so I'm not surprised.
In regards to
Thunderclad, I am just gathering my thoughts and ideas into a semi-coherent mess: think DIY/Punk-attitude, lots of Heavy Metal, rules inspired by the original WarhammerQuest and Fighting Fantasy, an abundance of b/w art, 'The' Law vs. Anarchy Alignment-Axis (basically Dredd vs. Punk), Örks=
actual fascist pigs, Wizard-PCs are old, because they devoted most of their lives to learn magic, while Warlock-PCs are young, because they took the darker, more dangerous shortcut, etc.
Crusaders of the Polymyth I entered with the mindset of somebody who was in a Wargaming Club in the 70s and got a copy of Empire of the Petal Throne (and idea I stole from real-life Magira/Armageddon). How would they have made a game that better fit their playstyle? It has a simple system, but it utilises combat charts, because "realism" (also, the fake authors have connections to the SCA), you have an overworld map of a fantastic medieval environment you can travel, characters are your actual selves transported into this magical milieu, etc. In a sense, it is my answer to Encounter Critical, even though it has almost nothing to do with it.
Quote from: Krimson;899150Okay I'll give this a go.
snip for size
sound like a super cool seting to me
I have a couple ideas for games, very system-centric.
for Brave New World, there is GeneCo. (yes, GeneCo is the name of the company from Repo the Genetic Opera) a new setting. GeneCo was working on a new wonder drug, an artificial stem cell formula that you could inject using a one use, 2 step hypodermic needle (or air hypo). Step 1) put the nozzle against your skin and push the green button, this takes a small DNA sample. Step 2) Shake the device, press the nozzle back against your skin, and push the red button.
Shaking the device "helps" mix your DNA with the formula (not really but marketing says that this gives the consumer the illusion that it does, and that will help with sales). In lab tests the formula successfully repaired damaged hearts, livers, kidneys, sped the healing of broken bones, etc. Multiple applications were required to regrow Subject #42089's (not his real name) right hand. Human trials were under way going with volunteers who had nothing to lose. In at least one case inoperable cancers were cured. And then it happened.
One of the test subjects, a single mother of two, was in a car accident. Her children, who were in the car, were trapped in the sinking vehicle when it went off the bridge into the river. After she freed herself, kicking out the engine compartment of the car from the driver's seat, she carried the back 2/3rds of the car up onto shore. After determining that her children were safe, and except for coughing up a little water, unharmed, she passed out. Medical scans showed she had developed an odd new organ in place of her appendix. When she returned to GeneCo for further testing it was discovered that she had developed super human strength, and that this was a result of the experimental treatment.
The rest of the test subjects were brought back for testing, and roughly 23% had developed this new organ as well, and when exposed to various stimuli also exhibited super human abilities. Further refining determined what exactly was the cause of the development of super abilities (an unintended side effect) and what was "normal" healing. Then GeneCo went public.
They moved their company headquarters to international territory, and gave away the formula for the artificial stem cell formula (the one that didn't cause super powers) as a sign of good faith. Then they went into the business of selling super powers. With a few conditions. First off you have to sign an ethics agreement. (no using your powers to rob banks, or perform terrorist activities, etc). The price is steep, but those with powers are able to use their abilities to be hired for unusual jobs, (Pyrokenetic as a one man firefighter, someone who can create duplicates of himself as a stunt man, a flyer as a high speed courier, etc.) and with a payment plan, GeneCo is willing to let you work off your debt.
Break your contract however, and they send in the Repo team. (that's where the PCs com in. their job is to track down people who have broken their contract with GeneCo, and retrieve the organ that supplies the super power. (After the organ is removed the patient is given an injection of the stem formula to speed healing from the removal)
The Organ is then placed in storage in a GeneCo facility. Each organ is coded to a specific patient. Once an organ is removed the human body will not generate a second such organ with a new injection, nor will it accept the implantation of the original (or different) organ. Each organ only causes the development of 1 super ability (so no flight if you can shoot energy blasts).
I'll post the others later if anyone is interested, as it is 7AM, and I have been up since 9AM
Quote from: Trond;898816I have this game called "La Vendetta" that I have been tinkering with for two years. I'm just too busy or lacking in confidence in it to actually publish I suppose, but maybe I will "publish" it here.
Anybody else in this situation?
I have a couple games I'm working on. And by "working on" I mean that I have not touched my google docs pertaining to them in about a year.
'Bloodlines' is about noble bloodlines living in a Chaos vs Entropy universe. Very traditional in style (attributes, skills, etc), has a bunch of awesome stuff that I'm really happy with (inherited items that get better as they get used/attuned) and a very cool magic system inspired by the video game 'Eternal Darkness'. It is pretty much done and probably just needs a good editing /playtesting before publishing. I would say it's at about 90% completion.
Then there is 'Dungeon Crunch', which is my retro-clone-inspired system which is meant to be simple, with added layers of complexity to make it crunchy. Maybe at 15% completion.
Thanks for the thread, though: makes me want to finish those.
Quote from: kosmos1214;899719sound like a super cool seting to me
Thanks. I did have a chat with Ryan Danks about the Jadepunk conversion and right now it's a wait and see thing. The conversion is a stretch goal so at the very least I'd like to pen streamlined rules. So this helps motivate me to work on Hachi:Blue some more and hash out some of the mechanics. Reading some of the other threads in this forum, I am determined to make the fluff useful and relevant to the setting. I promise no embedded fan fiction since I don't even like it. At the most I might give little in character blurbs to summarize NPCs. Meh even if I never finish it the experience is good. I think the hard part will be play testing. I mostly run Play by Post though if I can work out how to run it on Fantasy Grounds or maybe even Tabletop Simulator which has dice that use physics and might be the best format to use.
Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;900016I have a couple games I'm working on. And by "working on" I mean that I have not touched my google docs pertaining to them in about a year.
'Bloodlines' is about noble bloodlines living in a Chaos vs Entropy universe. Very traditional in style (attributes, skills, etc), has a bunch of awesome stuff that I'm really happy with (inherited items that get better as they get used/attuned) and a very cool magic system inspired by the video game 'Eternal Darkness'. It is pretty much done and probably just needs a good editing /playtesting before publishing. I would say it's at about 90% completion.
Then there is 'Dungeon Crunch', which is my retro-clone-inspired system which is meant to be simple, with added layers of complexity to make it crunchy. Maybe at 15% completion.
Thanks for the thread, though: makes me want to finish those.
You're welcome. And me too! As for official publishing, I am not sure how to handle that. I don't even know if I want to make any money on it (it would probably be very little anyway). I do think some people might have fun with it, so maybe I'll just throw the PDF into the Internet and see what happens :D
Quote from: Trond;900067You're welcome. And me too! As for official publishing, I am not sure how to handle that. I don't even know if I want to make any money on it (it would probably be very little anyway). I do think some people might have fun with it, so maybe I'll just throw the PDF into the Internet and see what happens :D
I know that feeling. If anything I'd probably spend money getting my game done. It's like my music. I've put money into it, have it on various sites, but have no intention on trying to monetize it. What I might do when I am ready to put it together is rent InDesign by Adobe, cross my fingers that it at least superficially resembles Page Maker (I just dated myself :D) and then piece the PDF together with whatever copyleft templates I can find before I bite the bullet and commission artwork.
So, here's something I want to ask you degenerate fuckers (and that's a term of endearment)....
What if I had a notebook of ideas, and let me be honest- I've used a handful of these ideas before only to find out someone had taken them and claimed them as their own? How would I be able to safeguard what I have?
Also, I'm no real expert- I've just jotted down a few ideas here and there. I don't know where and how to begin turning anything I have into a functional 'game'. But there are some things I have been working with, based on experiences with other games. These are just some examples.
-A weapon/armor system based on materials, weight, construction, etc. to determine the effectiveness of a weapon. I never liked the idea of a proper 'hero' using a mass-produced weapon or suit of armor. I always figured that they'd work to construct their own or commission this. Swordsman A might use a 'broadsword' type weapon, but his would be much different from Swordsman B's 'broadsword'. I'd want to get really deep into how weapons are used, how they're built for a purpose and the advantages of say, a heavier short sword vs. a lighter long sword. (Not just limited to swords, but that's just an example).
-A firearms system that's actually able to use the data from real-world firearms and incorporate it into gameplay, even different ammunition types. I'd like for you to say, "I want Commando Joe to use an HCAR"- then pull the stats for that real-world weapon, and convert it over to a weapon you could use in the game with a simple formula.
-I want to explore the multiverse theory, and in doing so give the players the options to be a wide variety of different types of heroes and encounter a wider variety of adventures and challenges. Instead of giving the players a setting and expecting them to shoehorn in a character to it... I want to give players a tool to say, "All right, you fuckers. You wanna do some Wizards and Wusses, have at it. Or you can do GI Jerkoff. Or Space Opera Dickery. Whatever, here's some basic ideas, use as little or as much as you want, don't pee the bed."
-Instead of 'classes', I'd like for the players to do a 'point buy' system similar to White Wolf's games. Except, you know, not completely neutered. I really, really believe in 'being the hero you want to be'. I think it'd be cool to start the game as someone significant if you want- and still be challenged... rather than starting as a putz with a training sword and a leather vest.
Quote from: Crüesader;900136What if I had a notebook of ideas, and let me be honest- I've used a handful of these ideas before only to find out someone had taken them and claimed them as their own? How would I be able to safeguard what I have?
Publish them, and make them OGL, Open Source, etc. Then anyone can use your ideas, but they have to credit you.
OR
Publish them, then send attack lawyers at anyone who uses your ideas.
Quote from: Spinachcat;900141Publish them, and make them OGL, Open Source, etc. Then anyone can use your ideas, but they have to credit you.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]89[/ATTACH]
But for real, though. How do I OGL?
Even- what is it like doing this, what would you recommend doing to start with, what would be the safest way to troubleshoot ideas, etc.
Quote from: Spinachcat;900141Publish them, then send attack lawyers at anyone who uses your ideas.
I'm not going to lie, I pictured a doberman in a tie sitting next to a briefcase.
Quote from: Crüesader;900142But for real, though. How do I OGL?
First off anything original you write, you automatically have copyright in. There is nothing further you need to do. In the United States, if you want to be able to sue for damages then you will need to register your original work with the copyright office. Otherwise the best you can hope for is a court judgment for the violate to cease distributing your work, turn over/destroy all copies (if physical).
So now have a work that you write and you have the copyright in it. What that means? The more important right is that you have control over how it is copied. Any copy of the work can only be with your permission under the conditions you imposed.
The Open Game License is a set of permissions expressed in a formal document. The basic gist, is that in exchange for the right to copy the open content of my work, you must a) not cite compatibility unless you have a separate license, b) declare whatever you use from my work as open content in your work, c) modify Section 15 to include a citation to my work.
To let people know you have granted this permission you take text of this copy.
https://www.wizards.com/d20/files/OGLv1.0a.rtf
If you are making something based off of the d20 SRD then add your work to the bottom of section 15. If it has nothing to do with the d20 SRD or any other work under the OGL, then just replace it with a citation to your work in the same format as the Wizard entry. If you are using content from another OGL work then copy their ENTIRE Section 15 and then put the reference to your work at the end.
Then in a separate paragraph outside of the license text clearly state what part of your work is open content. It could be as simple as all text in this book is open content. Or you can designate specific chapters or even marked paragraphs. Personally I think it is a dick move if the author doesn' t make simple to see what open content or not. Some say something like "All content devired from the d20 SRD is open content." Yeah OK like that helpful.
Then have another paragraph declaring what is Product Identity which is the stuff that can't be copies. Even products that have their entire text under the OGL declare that their company name, trademark, and art are product identity.
That how you OGL a work.
Quote from: Crüesader;900142Even- what is it like doing this, what would you recommend doing to start with, what would be the safest way to troubleshoot ideas, etc.
All you really have to do is make clear the terms on which you are allowing people to copy your text. If you post a document and at the end say "This document can only be copied for personal use by members of the therpgsite for the purposes of playtesting and commentary." The thing about the OGL is that a lot of people know what it means so once you get comfortable with it and designating what is product identity and what is open content, then you have less questions to answer.
Again the OGL is about clearly communicating to the reader what portion of the text can and can't be copied. It is a formal permission by you.
Quote from: Crüesader;900136What if I had a notebook of ideas, and let me be honest- I've used a handful of these ideas before only to find out someone had taken them and claimed them as their own? How would I be able to safeguard what I have?
Once you write something original, you have copyright. That your protection. However that give you to right to use the court to stop somebody from distributing your work. Even then the infringement has to be over a certain values. Which is why you see the ludicrous numbers in those cases involving people downloading songs. The plaintiff is trying to boost the value over the minimum so they can file it. Downloading cases are ideal, because you can assign a nominally "low" Number to each download and then multiply it by a lot of downloads. I believe you can recover any actual damages, but then that not the situation you are asking about.
If you register the copyright then you have more options in what you can claim for monetary compensation.
Remember there is no small claims for copyright. However if the copying is found on-line then you can use the DMCA to take down the content.
Like I said earlier the point of copyright is that you have sole control over how the work is duplicated. The driving principle in all of this is making clear what permission you give to people for copying your stuff. It not some black art. Just think of what you will say to me, spinachcat, or pundit if we were in person you just handed me a bunch of papers with your stuff written out. "Please don't copy this." "You can copy it but don't make a product out of it." "Only copy this for people who in theRPGsite" etc, etc.
The worse screw up that could happen is that a copyright holder loses his ability to recover PAST damage. You can't lose copyright unless you explicitly sold it or gave it away.
Thank you, degenerates. In 5 months- who would like a playtest?
Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos will be coming out any time now. It's almost done.