Basic and Advanced HiBRiD

As an homage to old school gaming and to make publishing the core rules quick once Gen Con is over, I will be releasing the HiBRiD rules in three volumes.

The first Ara Knochen book currently with the working title of Ara Knochen: Book One will be a rules light version, referred to as "HiBRiD Basic". It will contain:

• Character creation rules that allow the creation of a character in 10 minutes or less.
• A description of both the basic core game mechanic as well as how to direct the action
• A description all the available supernatural and inexplicable standard character powers (referred to in the rules as Aspects)
• An introduction to the campaign setting, including twenty or so character templates that represent the archetypal heroes of the setting.

The second book will contain the more complete HiBRiD rules and will be referred to as HiBRiD Advanced. These rules will be modular such that they may be swapped out with the HiBRiD Basic rules to customize the level of complexity for each gaming group. Some of the additions in this supplement will include:

• A gamut of new playtested aspects as well as a system for designing custom aspects.
• An expansion of the character creation system that allows for more in depth characters. This expansion will not only redefine the original twenty or so templates but add fifteen or twenty more.
• A Director Section for using the HiBRiD rules for other genres or game settings beyond Ara Knochen.

The third book will be the Ara Knochen gazetteer, a book describing the common denizens and hazards of Namenlos Welt as well as more in depth political, historical, technological, and social details.

Once these three books are complete, I don't see much more to do. It'll probably take so long that I should be dead by then however, so it probably won't matter that much. (That is a joke people...laugh!!!)

HiBRiD Character Generator

In true HiBRiD spirit, I have begun another creative project: The HIBRiD character generator program.

It will be written in the Ruby programming language using the Rails framework and allow you to store, update, and print out character sheets for your characters.


The first module has already been written: an aging module. It takes your character's stats and age then creates an "character aging profile" for the Director. This aging profile tells what age and month your character loses each point from his stats until he dies. It then takes the age of your character and applies all the penalties determined by his aging profile to his stats.

Why such an elaborate function? Because in the Advanced HiBRiD Rules, the number of skills a character receives depends on two stats: his age and his INTL attribute. The algorithm prevents everyone from running 122 year old characters just to jack up their character's skill repertoire or action levels.

In any case, the app is sitting on github as we speak, waiting for me to find the time to do some more work on it..

A New Beginning

Well, yet another blog. Yes, they are passe'. Yes, everyone has them...had them. Yes, everyone else is "tweeting" or "facebooking". But nevertheless, this blog is about what is going on with and behind the scenes of the HiBRiD role playing game.

First, HiBRiD, isn't even really the newest or greatest thing since sliced bread. While there are  mechanics, it is, at its core, simply a treatise on how I feel a tabletop role playing game should be played and run.

Second, while finished, remains in pieces. It took forever to write the prose, forever to decide on a color scheme and formatting for the print version, forever to settle on the first feature freeze.

Third, the game represents my odyssey. From failing out of college, to working at McDonalds, to finishing up my bachelor's degree, to powering through pharmacy school, the game has always been with me, a canvas for ideas to be remembered and played with at my own leisure. A way to manifest the "what ifs" that are constantly bouncing about in my mind.