Book Layout

As I continue to edit and play test, I've been doing some more book layout for my solo realm-making RPG. I've finalized a trim size of 4x6 inches. I was originally shooting for Moleskin Sketchbook size of 3.5x5.5 inches, the goal being to make this product a pocket book, but couldn't find a POD printer that offers it. I finally found a print-on-demand printer that offers 4x6. I like the idea of a portable, discreet game that can be played anywhere: lunch breaks, coffee shops, the train, etc. 4x6 fits the bill.

I have also been wrestling with book layout software, or lack thereof. I wanted to use Apple Pages, which would have worked fine if they had not removed the ability to layout facing pages in version 5. What good is a book layout app that can't even do facing pages? It also rejects a page size to three decimal places, like 4.125 inches for example. It truncates the dimension to 4.12. I guess Apple doesn't want you have a page size on an 1/8th inch increment, which my printer requires. So then I looked into InDesign. Looks great, but Adobe's subscription model is absurd. So I landed with using good old Adobe Photoshop, bought and paid for before they switched to the subscription model.

Photoshop is not the ideal book layout software, but frankly it does everything I need it to. And I've been using the app for 15 years so there's zero earning curve. I would never use it for a big book, but I'm only dealing with 24 pages or so. It looks like I'll be able to export all the files into a PDF with embedded fonts. So...we'll see...so far so good.

Here's a sneak peek at a home printer proof of some of my newer layout stuff. I have some of the illustrations for the book already done, but have a dozen or so left to do: 4 or 5 full page images, and a hand full of smaller diagrams.

Ruleset Draft Complete

Been playtesting and writing and editing rules a lot this week. Right now the book is weighing in at about 24 pages give or take. I've reserved some space for art, tables, and instructional diagrams. It could grow. I could go ape shit with optional and advanced rules. But I think for this first "pocket" edition, I'll try to keep it as light weight as possible. Maybe, if anything, I'll add one sample playthrough. But I'm even on the fence about that.

 Rough first drafts of the Table of Contents and the intro page:

My goal next week is to pound on this ruleset, play test a dozen sessions, do one more ruleset edit based how those play tests go, then work on some rough art and layout. Then, run a private beta test.

Editing Rules & Actual Play Testing

I finally have a first draft of all the rules of chapter one (realm creation mode) and have been play testing.  Even with a limited ruleset and no real game loop yet, the emergent relationships and interactions between the civilizations, features and creatures are quite entertaining.

Five Kingdoms and a Crater

In my first play test, most of the dice landed along the edges of the hex grid, so I ended up with a large doughnut shaped realm populated with 5 coastal kingdoms and a Dwarven civilization. I in-filled the doughnut hole with a wasteland, which resulted in me rolling three wasteland features: A Black Monolith, Scorched Earth, and (in a stroke of luck) I rolled a Meteor Crater on the same hex as the Scorched Earth. Clearly the main conflict in this story was about the Meteor, and the blight it created, the sickness it spread, and the wizards trying to harness its power, which explained the Lunatics I rolled near that site.

An Elven War
In my second test, I rolled what appeared to be an underwhelming map: no mountains, only two human kingdoms, both already consumed by the same darkness. Was this story over before it even began? Then I noticed something. I rolled two healthy sized Elven Civilizations…in the same forest. Their territories overlapped, so they were in conflict with each other. One of their territories contained a mushroom forest and a witch! The other contained wolves and a petrified forest! The story of this realm quickly became one of my favorite play tests. It was about two very different Elven Kingdoms on the brink of war. One was led by an elven witch and mind controlled by an enchanted mushroom forest, and the other was comprised of wolf riders trying to save their forest from petrification. And just for good measure, there was a new Dark Power creeping into the contested woods from the north… 

Here are more detailed descriptions of the outcome of each play through:

Maps Of Solace

Play Test 1: 10/24/16

Five Kingdoms And a Crater

Five Human Castles dot the coastline of an island Realm. Four are active Sea Ports. The fifth hosts and protects a bustling Village just beyond it’s north wall.

A Road connects Southport and Shadowdawn, traversing the Southern Bluffs around the Shadowhorn Mountains. 

Veins of gold run through the Shadowhorns, discovered and mined by an industrious unnamed Dwarven Civilization that rarely mingles with humankind. Few men explore these mountains, for an Abominable Snow Monster feeds upon those who stray too high into the snow zone.

East Port and Northdon have built their own trading Road through the relatively benign Northern Woods, save for a Sentient Fog lingering off the coast. East Port is on the receiving end of the realm’s Tradewinds, which would be great for sea trade, but for the Sea Serpent which feeds along the route. Legends are also told of a Lost Civilization sitting at the bottom of the sea, a mere two days off the coast from East Port, but separated by a thousand vertical feet of water.

The isolated Bogmoor Keep stands alone on the northwest shore of the island, at the edge of Dim Bog. Bogmoor began building a road to Northdon years ago, but the road was never completed…

The center of the island is a vast Wasteland. On the western edge of the Great Waste, at the foot of the the Tallest Summit in the kingdom—Mt. Apex—is a blight of Scorched Earth, the center of which is marked by a deep Meteor Crater containing shards of glowing rock. All who approach it have become sick and died, but Wizards have been working to harness the power of the rock. It’s no wonder that Lunatics have been seen running in the hills northwest of the crater.

On the western edge of the Great Waste is a Black Monolith, taller than any castle, and blacker than total darkness. It’s material and purpose are unknown. It not only casts a dark shadow across the wastelands, but also a dark shadow through the minds of those who gaze upon it.

Lastly, no one thinks much about the Lost Forest beyond the Farmlands of Shadowdawn, or the caves hidden within…

Maps Of Solace

Play Test 2: 10/24/16

An Elven War

Only two functioning Human Castles occupy this remote realm, and both have been compromised by a Dark Power emanating from Scorched Earth. A third castle has fallen into Ruins to the east. Beyond the ruins lies a Sea of Bones, and beyond that, Two Elven Empires are just beginning to collide. 

The Northern Forest is home to the oldest of the two elven kingdoms, the Enchanted Fungus Eaters. This Elven Kingdom is ruled by an ancient Elven Witch responsible for beginning to turn the opposing Elven kingdom’s forest to Stone. 

Along with the Magic Fungus that drives their entire civilization, and the ruling witch that petrifies entire swaths of enemy territory, there is also a Dark Power emerging from the Wastelands to the north and infiltrating their forest.

The younger Elven Kingdom, The Wolf Riders, are gearing up for an epic Elven war that could destroy all Elvenkind.

Pocket Version

I stumbled onto the Lone Wolf Roleplaying group on Google+ the other day while doing some research for my project. Lots of great ideas floating around there. One thread was about using only a small pocket sized Moleskin sketchbook or notebook and pencil as a solo RPG toolbox. I like the idea a lot. In the realm of design, constraints often foster simplification, streamlining, and fresh thinking on weathered ideas.

So I started thinking a bit about what this project would look like if I applied the 3.5 x 5.5 Moleskin constraint. Then I started mocking up some hex grids and die roll lookup tables in Photoshop, but that was extremely time consuming, so then I dusted off my coding knowledge and wrote a little app that lets me build and save any sized hex grid with any sized labeled hexes, D6 lookup tables, etc.

Even if I don't end up using the Moleskin size constraint for my final product, I can definitely use the app I built to make maps and tables for any size format I go with.

3.5 X 5.5 inch two-page spreads

11x17 hex grid spread at 3.5 x 5.5 inches

D6 lookup table. Need to roll 3D6? Just plop 3 fingers down on the spread.

Here's a random hex cell lookup table for my 11x17 hex grid. It's basically just a D187 table.

Here's what a digit-based D6 lookup table would look like. I can change it to work with any kind of die: D4, D8, D20, d53, etc....

If you are as big of a geek as I am and have any use for these grids or lookup tables, feel free to snag them: right-click>open image in new tab>save as. The images are all 3.5x5.5 inches at 300DPI for printing.

Anyways, it's time to get back to finishing the first draft of my game ruleset, but this was an interesting and productive diversion/thought experiment which produced an asset creation tool that I can use moving forward....

Realm Building

It's been a while since I've posted, not because I haven't been working on this game design, but because I've been iterating so much that I wanted to let the dust settle before I logged an actual milestone. 

I've struggled to decide whether this game is more of a "board game" with a purely mechanistic ruleset and physical assets, or simply an RPG ruleset for "theater-of-the-mind" gameplay. As a solitaire game, both directions have their pros and cons. A purely mechanistic approach (board game) would produce a "roll to move, roll to fight" sort of experience with limited, predictable outcomes. A dice-light RPG approach would be a little too hand wavy and abstract for my tastes. 

This game needs to facilitate story-crafting, but with visual-spacial mapping of people, places and conflicts over time, ranging from minutes to centuries. My ruleset (in-progress) includes:

1) Terrain Mapping

2) Civilization Mapping

3) Relationship Mapping

4) Special Feature and Creature Mapping (Conflict Mapping?)

5) Time Mapping  (the "game loop"): World Mode and Adventure Mode

Below are the results of some play tests (roughly 15 minute duration each) including Terrain, Civ, and Feature/Creature mapping. I've moved from tile-based assets to player-drawn hex maps. The game doesn't require manufactured assets at this point, and I may keep it that way. 

It's not really a game yet. So far it's just a procedural (not random) world creator. It won't really become a game until I've got Conflict Mapping and Time Mapping. But even in its early stages, just rolling maps, placing kingdoms, and adding features is quite fun and engaging. For me. Which is my only metric. Since I'm probably the only one who will play it.