The first step in any project is to identify what you’re trying to achieve. “I want to make a game” is not sufficient, since almost anything could satisfy that. “I want to make an RPGMaker game” is a little better, but even then it’s not very specific. Let’s see what …
I’ve always liked the idea behind RPGMaker MV (current version, initially released October 2015; there have been previous versions, and ‘RPGMaker MZ’ is scheduled for release later this week). It’s a tool specifically for making JRPG-style games, in the vein of Dragon Quest and (certain) Zelda games and Ys and …
As part of learning RPGMaker MV, I have watched many YouTube videos to see how people do things. Driftwood Gaming is one of my go-to posters on this. Drifty explains well what he is doing and why, and presents many useful tricks that come from working with the tool, things …
Normally when I do the A-Z Blog Challenge, I wrap up with a ‘Z-A Index’ of the posts that month. I’m tired, and it’s an easy title and basically mechanical post. This year I could have used the post title ‘Zounds! Almost 40,000 Words!’ In fact, that was the working …
Yesterday I examined existing drawbacks in Ultimate Spheres of Power, and one of them really stood out to me. Twenty-four of the twenty-five drawbacks I examined could be modeled in Hero System as Limitations. Almost all would be considered -1/2 Limitations and some were worth twice as much (and would …
As usual, cheating a little on ‘X’… but I’m being more or less alliterative so it’s all good! I am not a purist, nor am I proud. Yesterday I went through Mutants & Masterminds and Hero System core books to look for new drawbacks for use with Ultimate Spheres of …
A couple days ago I starting applying Ultimate Spheres of Power to build variant casting traditions. It was a start, but I’m going to dig into a couple of my favorite design resources to see if I can get some more options. Mutants & Masterminds I’m going to tackle Mutants …
On further reading, it becomes evident to me that Ultimate Spheres of Power will indeed meet my needs, with a bit of mechanical refitting. The spheres and talents fit my plans quite well, but tonight I’m looking at the drawbacks and boons, and how they are used to build magical …
Here I was, brainstorming ideas for a ‘U Day’ post, and I see a book holding my night table down, Ultimate Spheres of Power from Drop Dead Studios. Two days after I come up with a scheme for spell casting, and here I’m looking at a book with all the …
Long ago, while working on the Echelon Reference Series, I decided that I really wanted to separate ability definitions from the game elements that granted them. For instance, I didn’t like to see ‘evasion’ defined in the rogue class, and then other classes (monk and ranger) saying “gain evasion, as …
