Flaming Monkey

As recently announced in this thread on Story Games, and explained in greater detail in this thread on his own blog, Troy Costisick is trying out a new way of selling his RPGs:

I am going to offer customers the opportunity to purchase a subscription to my games rather than purchase each new game as it comes out. A subscription would include four books that would come out quarterly (every three months) and be complete, self-contained games. This is not a model where I create one “Core Rules” and release supplements every quarter. Each game is a unique individual and very fun to play.

He’s calling it DL-Quarterly, and you can find out more (and get a subscription) on the official product page.

Here’s something worth posting about.

Game designer Matt Snyder (Dust Devils, Nine Worlds) has come up with an alternate experience system for D20 games that he calls Wyrd (though it’s now been dubbed WyrD20 in this Story Games thread).

This is an alternative experience system for D20. Players must create and complete goals for their characters to advance levels. Each goal is called a Wyrd. It is a specific fictional goal (or “in-game” goal) that the player will try to fulfill for his player character. Completing a Wyrd earns the player experience points.

Basically, it replaces racking up levels simply based on what a character manages to hack and slash with a system that rewards creating and achieving character goals. Pretty neat, if still a work in progress.

The RPG forums I visit (which mainly means Story Games) have seemed pretty quiet lately, except for discussions about defining (or redefining) jargon and who’s picking on whom.

And I haven’t bought (or played) any new games for a while.

Which doesn’t leave me with much that I’m inspired to post about.

Which is why I haven’t been posting lately.

Hopefully this will change at some point.

Since this seems to have now migrated from LJ into the rest of the blogosphere, I guess I’ll give it a shot.

Name 12 characters you have played in RPGs, before looking at the questions that follow. List your characters numbered 1 to 12, with the name of the RPG you played them in. Once you’ve picked your 12 characters, look at the questions and answer accordingly. (No peeking until you’ve picked your characters!) Put your answers behind a cut.

1. Jerrym (Amber Diceless RPG)
2. Captain Wesley Hobart (ADRPG variant)
3. Alishish “The Damned” Rajish (fantasy heartbreaker)
4. Alexander Kovalev (GURPS Fatherland)
5. Greunthard (GURPS Discworld)
6. Marcellus Hamlin (D&D 3.5)
7. Brother Virgil (Dogs in the Vineyard)
8. Amir bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim bin Nasir bin Safwan Al-Majid (aka The Mad Arab) (ADRPG variant)
9. Alvaro Lopez (ADRPG variant)
10. Tony Chen (aka Fat Chen) (ADRPG variant)
11. Garrinton (Timemaster/GURPS hybrid)
12. Benedict Pons (ADRPG variant)

(more…)

If you’ve attended Ambercon North in Toronto in the past, and would like to have the chance to maybe do so again in the future, go by Tymen’s livejournal and offer your opinion on one possible hotel choice.

I’m sure he’d also appreciate any other help you might be willing to offer.