I’ve recently been reading the Fantasy AGE system (Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook, Fantasy AGE Companion, and Fantasy AGE Bestiary), and while I don’t know it well enough to say I love it, I definitely like what I see so far. Character Creation Character creation, once you get past the organization of the …
ANYWAY, over time my document workflow has changed a few times. Here’s the latest iteration, for those who wish a look into the mind of someone not quite right (and so I have a copy to remind myself how I’m doing this). Not three weeks after I wrote that, I …
It astonishes me sometimes how long I’ve been working on Echelon, and even just on the Echelon Reference Series (I spent a year working toward the first release in September 2014). The Echelon Reference Series has been a five-year project just gathering information for the game I’m actually working toward. …
As usual, here is my ‘Z-A Index’ roundup of my blog challenge. I feel like I’ve done better in previous years. This time around I was late many of the days, and I did not actually reach the target (by subject completion, not word count) I was aiming for. The …
[It appears the ‘related content’ plugin works pretty well… the post linked below about adversarial DMs is the same story… but it still makes me laugh, so I’m keeping both posts — kjd] Long, long ago we ran into some trolls and cut them in half, and the DM ruled …
Echelon’s Advantage Dice System started as a straight roll-with-advantage system and has grown dice pool elements (mostly for measuring critical success). You get a ‘tier die’ (based on your level) for any check you can try, then various talents can add more dice based on the tier of the talent. …
I probably usually cheat on ‘X day’; outside of writing about xorn and Xavier (Professor X) and xylophones, fitting this ‘X day’ is a challenge on its own. Sometimes an NPC grows beyond the intended use. An NPC intended for a single encounter can end up being used in multiple …
Several years ago I bought Rafael Chandler’s Teratic Tome. Today I realized — prompted by a post at Against the Wicked City — that I should keep teratic design considerations in mind when I create monsters for Echelon. Possibly not for the quickstart adventure, since I want the focus to …
I like maps. I like automated tools. I find automated tools for creating maps fascinating. One of my favorite engines for creating random maps uses Voronoi diagram methods as a starting point, then expands on them. The engine first creates a Voronoi diagram, then runs a smoothing filter of sorts …
We recently had a season finale in our Low Fantasy Gaming campaign, and I mentioned the Dark & Dangerous checks. Certain creatures (undead for sure, and probably demons) trigger Dark & Dangerous checks under certain circumstances. So to most spell casters (every time they cast a spell). The Dark & …