Year Two

Another year, time to reassess where the blog is going (or not going, at the case may be).

When I started Alien Shores last year, I had three stated goals for the blog.  One was to get back into gaming on a regular basis, the second was to have a rough version of Trollslayers ready by year's end, and the third was to average at least three posts a week.  The first one was a bust (not counting playing a couple of one-shots at DragonCon), and the second one is a long way from being completed (still need to buckle down at start working on the magic system).  I did succeed on the third one - not even counting fluff posts (like Music Monday and Photodump Friday), I averaged over 3 1/2 posts a week, although those numbers did dip downward near the end of the year.

Besides still looking toward finding a gaming group, and finishing Trollslayers in at least a rough format by the end of 2012, a few secondary goals are also now on the table: get back into occasionally posting some more V&V characters, as well as posting some more reviews of Rush albums.  Also, while I'm not going to attempt trying to post any more comic book reviews on anything remotely resembling a weekly basis, I will try to sneak one in occasionally here and there.  Finally, I'd like to at least double the site's overall traffic I had last year (shouldn't be too difficult - nowhere to go but up, after all).

Finally, just so that this post isn't just a boring list of resolutions, I present you with what just may be the finest piece of television dialogue of all time:

A to Z Blog Challenge

And now for something a little different...


I haven't been entirely happy with my output for the blog as of late.  Granted, that's a self-imposed standard as to how much I should be writing, but it bugs me nonetheless if I feel I'm 'slacking off' in terms of posting.  However, instead of simply whining about it (which I've been called on, and therefore will endeavor not to do), I want to take a different approach.

And so, I'm joining the A to Z April blog challenge.  The idea is simple:  For every day in April (not counting Sundays), I will post something following a certain theme, starting with something based around the letter A on April 1, and work my way up to Z at the end of the month.

This will be in addition to the normal stuff I try to write here (the Trollslayers stuff, the Rush reviews, the comic book reviews,etc).  Hopefully, I will still be able to get that sort of thing out at a reasonable pace.

Because it's been something that's been drawing my attention of late, my personal theme will be based around the Villains & Vigilantes superhero RPG.  Specifically, I'll be posting a total of 26 NPC characters, ranging from A to Z.

Let's see if I can do this...

Trollslayers

Shortly after Dungeons & Dragons was released back in 1974, a man named Ken St. Andre flipped through the rules, liked the idea, but disliked the actual implementation. He would go on to write Tunnels & Trolls, the second published RPG. For a while there, T&T was the #2 RPG out there, primarily on the strength of its simple rules, as well as a large number of solo adventures available for the game. Over the years, it's relative strength in the RPG market has diminished, but T&T has refused to disappear, thanks in part to a small-but-dedicated fan base.

I have been on the periphery of T&T fandom for several years, as the game is one that has simultaneously intrigued and frustrated me. I like the simple rules, the unabashed old-school feel it has, and the DIY attitude it seems to encourage. That said, there were also several elements present that didn't appeal to me. Some of these were fairly easy to house-rule, but others were more problematic; re-writing them to my liking would effectively mean re-writing the game from the ground up, instead of merely having some house-rules in effect.

In the past, I've always stopped short of making that extra step; too much work, and it's not like there were any lack of other games to vie for my interest. But recently, the kernel of an idea on how to rework T&T more to my personal tastes began to take hold, and wouldn't go away. Very little is on paper (or computer) as of yet, but the ideas are swimming around in my head; altering the basic attributes, scaling them so that increases are more linear that geometric, using the 'saving throw' roll as a universal action mechanic, deleting the need for a separate damage roll, re-writing magic from the ground up, adding some simple rules for professions and talents, and a few other changes here and there.

The tentative name for this new set of rules would be Trollslayers; I want to be honest and acknowledge the game's heritage, and having 'troll' somewhere in the title seems to be a good step in that direction. It would be very much 'old-school' in feel, with rules for things like hiring henchmen, morale checks, an emphasis on exploration, not shying away from player-character mortality, rules for building castles and ruling domains, etc. It would not be a 'retro-clone', but rather more of a 'heartbreaker' (albeit a self-aware one). It would have bits and pieces of several other games (D&D, Runequest, TFT, among others) mixed in, hopefully hitting that sweet spot between simplicity and detail that I like. It probably won't appeal to anyone else – if it does, great, but that's not the primary goal – but if it keeps me happy while running it, and my players happy while playing it, then I will have accomplished my goal.

So that's the mission statement, I guess. Future posts will break down and detail different aspects of the rule system as I work on them. Hopefully, by year's end I'll have enough to knock out a basic playtest document, and then see what happens from there.

“What the world needs now is another geeky blog...”

“...like I need a hole in my head.”

That said, it's hardly a perfect world, and hey, no one's forcing you to read this, right?

Like most people, I usually make one or more New Year's resolutions at the beginning of the year. Like many people, I often fail to carry through on those resolutions. However, last year I made one that I actually followed through on, paying off all of my credit card debt, and starting 2011 debt-free (of course, I still have to work with my wife to help her to become debt-free in the years to come, but that's another story).

Actually having followed through for once, I figured I would see if I could manage that once again. One of my resolutions is to lost some weight (specifically, to lose 30 pounds by Labor Day), but that's not the point of this blog. My other two resolutions are to start gaming again in 2011, and to work up a playtest document of a RPG that I want to write (tentatively titled Trollslayers), having at least a beta version available to give to others no later than the year's end.

I've been gaming since I was thirteen, ever since one of my older brothers gave me a copy of the D&D box set (the one with the Holmes 'blue book' in it) back in the summer of '81. RPG gaming has been one of those things that has permeated my life, in ways large and small. However, for various reasons, 2010 was the year I didn't get to do any gaming, for various and sundry real-life reasons (no face-to-face gaming, at least; I have been doing some online gaming, which has helped me from going into total withdrawal). So the simpler of my two gaming-resolutions should be fairly easy to accomplish; get the dice rolling again, either to finish up my Castles & Crusades campaign that I had been running, to start up an Unknown Armies campaign, or to at least play in someone else's game.

The other resolution will no doubt be more difficult to follow through on; I am by nature a rather lazy person. That said, I believe that most gamers are tempted at one point or another to try to create their own ruleset; not for publication, necessarily, but simply to see if they can do it. It's pretty much a natural extension of the creative drive that gamers feel, to try to devise the 'perfect' rule-system (perfect for them, of course... it's when one assumes that their system would be perfect for others that the tears start). In this, I am not so different from all the other gamers who have put their thoughts down on paper, trying to come up with something new, or failing that, something workable and usable in a manner that other games for whatever reasons fail to satisfy. My attempts to do so will (hopefully) form no small amount of the content for this blog.

I have also been an avid comic book reader for as long as I can remember; I truly believe that reading comics helped my reading skills as a child when learning to read prose, fiction or otherwise (it may not have helped my ability to write, but if you choose to suffer through my wretched prose, it's nobody's fault but your own). My tastes have changed a lot over the years, but I still like to pick up a few new comics every Wednesday or so, and what I like (and dislike) will also be fodder for the blog.

Of course, anything else geek-related that strikes my fancy may also find it's way here. I'm going to try to post at least three times a week, all told. I suppose that's another resolution to try to follow through on.

Will I actually make good on these promises to myself? I guess the only way for you to find out is to keep reading...