Friday, March 18, 2011

Self Indulgence: More on The Metal Earth Book

Today, I was thinking about buying a copy of a forthcoming retroclone, but in the end I decided against it, because I would not get much use out of it.
This led to more thoughts on the eventual Metal Earth book; looking at all my material, some of which is up on the blog, some of which is not, I came to realize that I have made significant changes to virtually every aspect of the game. Therefore I have decided that the Metal Earth booklet will be formatted in such a way so that it can be used as either a supplement or as a game. With some very minor exceptions, everything in the Metal Earth book will be compatible with the older versions of the world's most popular rpg. However, although the Metal Earth game will use the same basic building blocks as that game, it will be its own thing. To give you a slightly better idea if where I am coming from here is the first draft of the introduction:

This book is broken in to two separate parts. The first part is a generic set of rules intended to facilitate Science fantasy role-play in any setting. A referee can adjust these rules to fit a specific setting of his own design, a commercially published setting, or a setting derived from inspirational material (e.g. novels, comics or cinema). These rules are presented in a modular way in order to facilitate referee modification, further they are largely compatible with the older editions of the world’s most popular role-playing game.

The second section of the book is an example of a specific setting designed to work with these rules: The Metal Earth. However, this section will also include material that can easily be used in other settings.

To add to the confusion, some setting specific material, most of which is directly involved in character generation, will be included in the first section. Furthermore, there will be naughty pictures and bad language throughout the book.

Note: the guiding principle of design in regards to this game is brevity; four words are never used in a situation where two will do the job. It is my intention, with the exception of the aforementioned naughty pictures, to give the referee and his bitches exactly what they need to run a science fantasy role playing game, nothing more and nothing less.


The good news is- it might not take me too long, because I just finished grad school and I have yet to find a job. So I'm going to work on this while I'm not applying for work or slacking.

6 comments:

  1. I am stoked to see the final product! I love the look and flavor of the stuff being developed -- like a Saturday morning cartoon show from 1985 that dropped serious acid. It's a setting that I could definitely see myself using, which doesn't happen much.

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  2. Great intro. Sounds like it will be an awesome game/supplement.

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  3. Naughty pictures and bad language...hmmmmm

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  4. I may release a special toned down "editorial swimwear" edition as well.

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  5. Sounds cool - very much looking forward to this; and thinking it might be perfect for a chatroom game on Dragonsfoot when I'm not GMing a tabletop game.

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