I’m hard at it, shackled to my keyboard, banging out a rough draft of the manual. Not one, but TWO editors eagerly snatch the digital pages from my feverish grasp and pour their red pixels into the mix.

We’re having weekly meetings to discuss publishing avenues, prototyping the Life Wheels, and exploring manufacturing options so that we can deliver quality, sustainable, fair trade, merchandise.

I’m working on a site to support the free online distribution of the system, act as a storefront for people who wish to purchase the book in hardcover, paperback, or PDF format, and eventually play host to the digital conversion of the HoneyComb Engine.

I’ve got a follow-up book planned that will share specific tools and tips for building non-linear plots and provide skill training exercises for sharing the story creation process. It’s quite likely that I will be publish world-books at some point–sharing the world I’ve built that supports multiple play styles, limitless genres, and a participatory storytelling approach.

The Renown game will be revamped to use assets compatible with the Rev03 LifeWheel and together the games will provide a design tool for creating your own games or randomly generating your own plots and story experiences for Rev03.

I don’t expect to become an enormous publishing empire–just a very tiny one. But it is clear to everyone involved–my wife, my testers, myself–that this is it. This is the culmination of my theory and the platform that will support its future growth and development. There’s a near-palpable buzz around the Zakelro Manse these days and it’s exciting.

Over the next month, I’m running public tests of The HoneyComb Engine Rev03 ruleset at a wonderful local gaming shop, Guardian Games. The sessions, if you’re local and interested in checking it out, are:

• Thursday the 9th of July from 6-8p
• Saturday the 18th of July from 6-8p and 8-10p
• Thursday the 23th of July from 6-8p
• Saturday the 1st of August from 6-8p and 8-10p

Each session will support 3-4 players and cover the basics of the system while providing a very simple plot to unravel. I will also be creating a unique storyworld based upon independent player input for each session, just to keep things interesting.

The first BIG unveiling of the system will be at PAX this year. As I said yesterday I’ll be moderating a panel on Sunday, but the rest of the weekend I hope to run numerous public play sessions. If you’re going to be at PAX and want to give it a shot, let me know. If you’re local but won’t be at PAX, I’ll have a hotel room right next to the convention center and will happily set up private showings as well.

And then,

On September 9, 2009,

the HoneyComb Engine website will go live. The system rules and high-quality printable PDFs of the assets needed to run the game will be available, for free, to the public. Shortly thereafter the HoneyComb Engine system manual will be made available for purchase in both PDF and physical book formats. At some point within the following year, Life Wheels will be made available for purchase as well.

This is it–”money where my mouth is” time. I’m excited and can’t wait to see where this is going to lead us over the coming year!

I am moderating a panel titled at PAX this year. Here’s the official blurb:

Murder, Sex, & Drugs
Do video games have a cultural imperative to present serious topics seriously? That is the question the panelists will explore as they invite the audience to a discussion of video games, their focus on violent interaction, and their handling of sex, gender identity, and drug use.

I have five wonderful panelists lined up (alphabetically in this case):

• Nels Anderson, programmer with Hothead Games
• Max Battcher, developer with Enlark
• Damon Brown, journalist and author of Porn & Pong
• N’Gai Croal, consultant with Hit Detection, LLC
• Deirdra Kiai, programmer with Hothead Games

Each panelist will briefly introduce themselves and talk a bit about their perspective on the topic and the rest of the panel will be spent taking questions from the audience. We’re currently scheduled for Sunday afternoon in the Serpent Room (how very apt).

If you’ll be at PAX this year, we hope to see you there!

The interaction mechanic for Rev03 is pretty simple and designed to share the storytelling power. I’m going to use combat terminology to describe how it works, because it most effectively allows me to explain all three elements of the Challenge Track.

The center track is an indicator of time. ‘Tellers place a token on this track on the number that matches the maximum value of their Poise influence. This gives ‘tellers with a higher Poise, a greater initiative. If the narrative dictates a surprise attack, or one ‘teller clearly has an edge, then adjustments should be made for this. The ‘teller prime then calls out Ticks and ‘tellers slide their tokens up the track, one hex per tick. When a ‘teller hits the top hex, numbered 9, they either call out, “Ready,” or, “Hold.” They also move any exerted will that lies on an Influence into the expended will hex, and an amount of expended will (as determined by the value of their Life/Control) back into their Source.

If they hold, each subsequent tick allows them to repeat the preparatory actions of hitting the ready hex, meaning they can reclaim more Will with each hold. They may also use holds to time their actions to correspond with the other ‘tellers. If they call out, “Ready,” they take an action.

First, the ‘teller declares which Influence they intend to use–Mastery, Persistence, Design, Poise, Sleight, or Charm. The Body Mind and Spirit Influences are special-case interpretations of the six core influences and come into play with the specialties wheels (which is new take on the handling of Professional specialties since I Iast posted and includes a Body Wheel, as well as a Mind (Psionics) and Spirit (Magic) wheel).

Next the ‘teller determines, with the help of the ‘teller prime if need be, what the difficulty level of the action is. This uses the left-most table of the Challenge Track, which presents the four challenge levels in descending order from safest (yellow) to most dangerous (red) and numbered 0 through 3–Uncontested Mundane, Contested Mundane, Uncontested Extra-Normal, Contested Extra-normal. Mundane actions are anything we can picture a human doing. Extra-normal is other than that, whether it’s casting a fireball, probing a mind, or picking up a van. The challenge level number, the small number on the left, is the amount of will you must exert to meet the challenge level before rolling a d10 to determine your success. The larger number is the amount of will you must exert if you want to buy an automatic success (a 6 on the result table). The d6 and d10 indicators are there to show what sort of die they’ll be rolling against if applicable.

Uncontested actions are any actions that don’t involve another character potentially working against you. Contested actions are any actions taken against another character, even if they aren’t in a position to immediately defend themselves.

It should be noted that uncontested actions aren’t without difficulty. Picking a lock is a mundane contested action, but the lock will have a difficulty rating of 1 through 6 (which might be set by the ‘teller prime, or just determined by the roll of a d6). It should also be noted that buying a success on a contested action (such as in combat) won’t always guarantee you a success if your opponent is able to defend and rolls a natural 7, 8, or 9. They can even buys their own automatic success, and force a standard resolution (keep reading).

This makes the automatic-success buyout a powerful but unwieldy tool. Will, once spent, is regained at a rate determined by the Life element, which has a maximum value of three. This makes it pretty easy to overextend yourself, which is quite dangerous because without available Will, you’re not able to do much other than run and hide. I have found that ‘tellers are eager to use those automatic successes at first, but quickly discover that it’s often better to trust the results of their favorite die.

The ‘teller moves the number of needed Will tokens from their source to the chosen influence, referred to as exerting their influence, and if they haven’t decided to automatically succeed, rolls a d10–allowing Fate to have an effect on their action. They compare the result of their die roll to the result table on the right side of the track. This gives the ‘tellers a suggestion as to how many hits (damage or effect) their action might have, and how it might effect movement–either of their own character or their opponent. Movement modifiers are applied to the tokens of the participating characters on their respective movement tracks. Red results are bad for the ‘teller’s character. Yellow results have some effect, but don’t modify movements rates and green results are very good for the ‘teller–having a greater potential for effect and allowing them to position themselves well for their next action. Taking this into account, the ‘teller describes their action and the effect it has on their opponent.

If the ‘teller receiving the action is also Ready, they may decide to defend, completing the same process, up to the die roll. Then the ‘teller with the highest roll gets to control the action, describing the success or failure of it and declaring any damages or movement penalties based on the difference between the die rolls. This is the case, even if they fail their defense by only rolling 1, 2, or 3 higher than their attacker.

It is fully expected that the ‘teller in charge of the action will try and give themselves the advantage in some way, setting up their next planned move. And while the ‘teller prime should help them come up with descriptions that are in keeping with the style of the narrative and guide them in setting appropriate damage levels and move bonuses/hindrances, they should also encourage them to find creative ways of turning failures to their advantage.

Both a natural 9 and a natural 0 are considered automatic criticals. 9 is a critical success. 0 is a critical failure. Both have a firm movement value of 6, meaning one of the combatants will move their token to 0, or the other will be placed on 6 and get an action the very next Tick. If your token is on 0, you must wait for every other character in combat to either hit ready, or land on 0 themselves before you can begin moving your token up the track again.

Once the ‘teller has finished describing their action, and the appropriate damage has been assessed, they reset their counter on the challenge track to the maximum possible value of the influence they just used, as modified by any movement penalties or bonuses. The will they exerted remains on the influence until they next hit the final hex on the track.

This is obviously a hasty overview of the system, which will receive a much more in-depth treatment in the manual. For example, there are ways to stack actions, modifying the effect or movement rates for subsequent actions. There are also combat effects that wear off, represented by tokens of course, and ways of calculating weapon damage maximums, movement maximums related to using complicated weapons, etc.

But the power to change this lies in our hands. The Indie SIG is rebooting and looking for people to help lead initiatives and forge exactly the sort of community many of us have been saying we want to be a part of. There’s talk of forming an Indie Forum along the lines of the Leadership Forum which has been so popular. There’s talk of approaching Autodesk (who is a huge supporter of the IGDA) about cheaper indie licensing for their 3d product, Max and Maya. There’s talk of–well, you can go see for yourself: Initiative Sign Up List.

I know it is easy to be cynical about organizations like the IGDA and I have to confess I’m feeling a bit let down by them myself at the moment. But the only effective means to effect change is through involvement in the community. And the Indie SIG reboot is a great opportunity to become involved in a meaningful way and make a positive impact. Even if the current leadership should flag again at some point, having enough of us actively supporting it will keep it alive, flourishing, and providing us with the community contacts and support that we long for.

Additionally, Darius Kazemi is already running for the IGDA board next year. He’s going to need our support and knowing Darius, I feel pretty safe guaranteeing that if he gets elected that support will be returned in spades. But more importantly than just electing Darius, we need to insist that the election process be more involved, demand an open debate on important issues such as QOL, and learn much more about the people we elect to represent us to the community at large and the world. And we can’t do that if we remain on the outside casting accusatory glances and hostile comments at the people who are, by and large, doing their absolute best with limited resources.

The board recently appointed a new executive director, Joshua Caulfield*, who brings considerable experiencing running professional organization to his role at the IGDA. Let’s show him that Indies are not only consummate professionals that are invested in the health and future of the industry, but the very spirit of what makes this such a great industry in the first place.

*It’s now been officially announced and I’m already hearing great things about Josh from people that have interacted with him directly.

Dear Corvus,

It’s great that you’re all excited about Rev 03, but I seem to recall another game you designed some time ago–namely, a card game called Renown. You claimed to have an aggressive publishing schedule for that, even going to the expense of sending out beta decks for people to test it. But then, after a few months of testing–nothing. No word, no promised manual revisions, just silence on the line.

So what’s up with Renown and why should we thing Rev 03 will come to any different fate?

Sincerely,
Suspicious in Salem

I have no idea if these kinds of thoughts go through any of your heads, but they obviously go through mine. So here’s the scoop.

The primary factor in the long silence has been Renown’s reception among the beta testers. It wasn’t bad, exactly, it was just clear that the game wasn’t quite leading to the style of play I intended. Initially I blamed this on the manual, as the sessions I ran for people played out exactly as I imagined. However, after considerable thought on the matter, I have come to believe there are some critical flaws in the design.

The second factor is why I have not spent more time actively analyzing and fixing those design issues–I moved across the country from Philadelphia to Portland. And once I got here, I found myself running two gaming groups and hungry to start a third. Since I now had an active and eager group of storytellers, with a wide range of RPG experience, it was only natural that I would find myself actively developing my system to meet their needs.

And as I’ve been making changes, particularly the massive change I refer to as Rev 03, thoughts of how this might impact Renown’s mechanics have been always in the back of my mind.

Today, as I washed out the French press, I was thinking about the Challenge Track component I just created and tested for Rev 03 [1], I found myself wondering how it could be incorporated into Renown.

And the lightning bolt of inspiration struck, just like that.

And just as hastily, I bottled it up so I can unleash it again at a later date. Right now, at this very moment, I have a firm deadline to meet with the Rev 03 manual and I have two editors working alongside me every step of the way, so there’s no room for wiggle.

And as far as my fears about hitting my mark go… well, Rev 03 is working and the tweaks I need to do are minor. I also don’t need to generate 54 cards worth of highly symbolic artwork for this manual. And who knows, if Rev 03 and the HoneyComb Engine go as I hope they will–I’ll be able to hire an artist to illustrate the Renown deck for me as I incorporate Rev 03’s Challenge Track, Life Wheel, and 10-sided die into the new and improved game mechanics I glimpsed as I sealed away the inspiration in it’s very own lightning jar.

So, after Rev 03 is published, I’ll be starting back up on Renown and that date is not so far away as you might think.

[1] There’s a full Rev 03 post on the Challenge Track coming, but for now I’ll let my post-testing tweet whet your tastebuds, “In nearly 20 years of running RPGs I have never enjoyed running combat. Until tonight. The Challenge Track ,if I may say so, is incredible.” [return]

It occurs to me that the more I push Rev03 away from [traditional] RPG structures in order to empower the [participatory story]tellers, the more it feels like an actual game that people [i.e. non-gamers] can play and enjoy.

The point of the previous comment is that [I contend] RPG systems that focus on simulation lose both game [i.e. bounded spaces defined by a community and intended primarily for play] and story [i.e. shared exploration of a relationship over time] qualities.

What do you make of that?

*That one’s for Thomas!
** And so was that one. (-_0)

This latter discovery caused some problems for the special training program, as three potential slayers had been assigned to the training program, overriding Paula’s wishes. Keeping the true nature of the Hopefuls seems important to her, and Marcus’ transformation is rather obvious, so the training gets shut down for the summer while Paula returns to HQ and tries to make new arrangements.

And then there was a crazy, campaign-spanning, dream that encompassed two sessions.

This episode opens with the trio’s plane touching down on the tarmac, followed by family reunions. Tirrah’s mother warns her of the sinister plans of a group from their home country called The Sisterhood. They have, she believes, designs on Tirrah and would not be above kidnapping to achieve them. “Be prepared to do whatever you need to in order to stay free of them,” she told Tirrah, “I will handle the legal repercussions. You are, after all, a diplomat’s daughter.”

Lucy’s parents, both highly placed civil servants, seem quite nervous at their daughter’s sudden and unexpected return. Lucy is able to assuage their fears and it isn’t long before her mother is commenting on how grown up she looks and her father suggesting she find a part time job for the summer.

Marcus’s is met by Aiden, his second dad. Aiden tells him that his birth-father, Patrick, is out of the country on business, but later, over a private dinner in a restaurant he asked the owner to close for the evening, he tells Marcus that Patrick is laying low and explains the family business–they import illegal demonic artifacts. He invites Marcus to work for them over the summer, as they are a bit short handed with some recent personnel issues and Patrick out of the country.

Both Lucy and Tirrah’s secret instructors have followed them home to continue their training. Tirrah and Lucy discover that the City Hall looks very different when viewed from the Vae Realm, and all three start getting an idea of their individual, and disparate, economic realities.

And with the stage set for the summer, it was time to introduce their new instructor–Traz. Traz is one of the oldest NPCs I continue to use on a regular basis. She is enigmatic, and more than a little dangerous. She once was a vampire, became an arch angel for a time, and now works at mysterious purpose for being,or beings, unknown. For the purposes of this campaign, she is filling the role of a female Spike. She has volunteered to help the hopefuls fight less like they, “learned to fight a the Arthur Murray school of getting your arse handed to you.” She also showed them the prophecy they feature in, stealing a copy of her “boss’s” desk at Canid, Capra, and Cervid.

This was our first attempt at trying out the new Rev03 combat system, which does away with measures and three-counts, stacked actions, and pre-calling actions, etc. The system is meant to both be more fluid and to give more control over the combat to all the storytellers.

Several issues came to light as we had our first combat at the end of a looong session. We were all a bit brain-fried going into it, but it turned out to be a really good test with some great things coming out of it.

The main issue is that while I felt the timings of the combat system worked as I intended [1], it was a completely opaque, and more than a little baffling, process to the rest of the table. The second issue is that the storytellers weren’t sure of how much control over the combat they could really take [2] and had varying levels of ability to picture the combat in the first place. The third issue is that the practical combat-potential of psionics and Vae magic hasn’t been well explored within the story so far.

After the episode concluded, we talked at length about the system, tossing ideas back and forth that would solve he big issue–transparency, clarity, and storyteller involvement. We came up with a solution that subtly refines the rules and aligns its implementation with the tokenized approach of the rest of the system. Each storyteller will now have a Challenge Track which allows them to quickly assess combat timings and work together better during combat.

Then, while playing with the design of the challenge track, I decided to add some quantification of die results so that storytellers have some clear guidance when describing the effects the effects of their actions.

The solution to the final issue is quite simple and each session will now begin with a sparring session and I’ll likely do more inter-session talking about the use of psionics and magic with the appropriate players as well.

[1] I’ll be writing up the next two Rev03 posts and discussing the system in more depth after I do a further testing later this week.[return]
[2] My intent is to have each storyteller describe, not only their action, but the effect their action has on their opponent, thereby setting the stage for their next move. In other words–all the storytellers choreograph the combat together. [return]

What it boils down to is this–even though I based this on my own personal favorite of the logos (A1), your votes were very instrumental in informing how I ultimately approached it.

So without further ado, here it is:

The six hexes represent the six influences on the Life Wheel. The fact that the figure in the center is represented only by negative space has two meanings. The first is an allusion to the system itself. Characters can be thought of as channels for Source energy, which they in turn exert upon the influences to alter their world.

They are also non-existent, or at best–empty shells, until a storyteller breathes life into them, through them, and explores their relationship to the storyworld.

Secondly, the HoneyComb Engine, from Rev 03 up, is being designed with a single idea in mind–leave room for the audience to tell their stories. My goals for the HoneyComb Engine, Rev 03, and the participatory storytelling experiences they provide, are to present tools that represent relationships within a bounded space, so that the community, the storytellers, can play.

And I feel this logo expresses that pretty darn well. Thanks for providing me with the feedback that helped me reach this point!

Magic in Rev03, like the character system, is elemental. Storytellers may choose to focus on Life, Earth, Water, Energy, Air, or Fire magic as one of their professions. I personally restrict storytellers from choosing secondary or tertiary elemental foci that are the balance of the first elemental focus they chose. That means–if the storyteller first choses to align their character with Fire, they may never chose water. If they first chose Life, they may never chose Energy. That’s due mostly to how I portray the use of magic within my primary storyworld, where characters literally absorb elementally charged crystals into their being–thus intimately attuning themselves with the element of their choosing.

I also have storytellers roll an uncontested extra-normal action to determine how powerful the crystal is, once absorbed. This determines the maximum possible effect any given spell they cast may have. Alternately, the potential can be determined by the character’s spirit influence. I’ll cover how this works in more detail over the next two posts.

Once the character has chosen an elemental focus, they may exert their will into shaping the Source of that element in the world, as well as affecting the elemental conduits of other characters. I commented in an earlier post that Spirit, Mind, and Body are the elemental spheres through which Will can be channeled. You can think of them as layers of influence through which Will can flow.

• Spirit, the innermost sphere, allows you to directly exert your Will upon the Will of another person or object.
• Mind, the central sphere, allows you to exert your Will upon another’s (or your own) perceptions.
• Body, the outermost sphere, allows you to exert your will upon the physical world.

So exerting your will on the spirit influence in order to craft magic effects actually affects other characters (whether sentient or non) at the core of their being–at their source.

Rather than having tiers of spells to memorize, the Magecrafter’s Wheel contains nine words that correspond to the nine Influences on the Life Wheel. These words can be used individually, or strung together to produce more complex effects. If the character has multiple elemental foci, they may be combined to produce even more powerful and elaborate manipulations of reality.

In my primary storyworld, the positions of the words on the Magecrafter’s Wheel correspond to points in their bodies. Characters must focus the absorbed energy at the correct locations in order to activate that crafting word. I encourage storytellers to represent this, moving their hands as if performing a kata, so they can feel the flow of energy moving from point to point. There is no reason that other expressions of the system could not be used. The important thing is to keep the magecrafting thematically consistent with the storyworld you’ve created.

The nine crafting words and their corresponding influences are: Observe (Mind), Attune (Body), Embody/Reject (Spirit), Summon/Banish (Mastery), Deflect (Persistence), Focus (Design), Stagnate/Translate (Poise), Strike (Sleight), and Project (Charm). You’ll notice that three of the crafting positions contain two opposing words. This is because they are aligned with either a pure spirit influence (Embody/Reject), or because they align with the first ego and will influences.

The exact effect of each word depends on the element being used and the imagination of the storyteller crafting the effect. A character with an energy focus, for example, would cast Translate in order to enter the Vae Realm, which is a non-corporeal view of the world (and where such nasties as haunts and wraiths dwell). A fire crafter may Focus on a bonfire on the other side of a battlefield and then Observe the actions of their enemies around it.

Psionics works very much the same way as magic, with storytellers choosing psionics as one of their professions. Rather than exerting will on the spirit influence they exert it on the mind influence and rather than affecting source and actually crafting reality, they affect perceptions of reality and self.

The nine words of psionics also correspond to the nine influences. I haven’t used psionics much in the past, but one of my current storytellers and I are busily exploring how they work in the world and experimenting with various naming schemes for the Psionic Wheels. Like magical foci, there will eventually be tools that increase the potential of a psionic’s power beyond what their own mind influence allows.