Wednesday, December 27, 2017

HiBRiD Player's Guide Progress

So I haven't blogged about the game rules for a while and thought I would give a brief update:



Hujraad’s Hacks

One of the things I have struggled with while writing the prose for the rulebook has been making the prose functional and clear while still injecting a bit of my own personality and gaming philosophy into the game. With the help and inspiration of Flippy’s feedback (creator of the Tiny Horsies RPG), I finally settled on how to do so. The main text will explicitly text for the game rules and guidelines, and sections called Hujraad’s Hacks will be sprinkled throughout the text that will be used to present examples and rules clarifications, insight into my thought process for certain rule decisions, and other tidbits to help reflect the style of the game. In this final formatting, to accomplish these goals, a lot of the material has been reorganized so as to keep true to this vision into its final publishing form. The Player’s Spielbook will, in its final form, consist of 3 chapters and 6 appendices: 



Game Mechanics
The second draft of the game mechanics section text is done. This will list, define, and contain of the raw mechanics of the game. It is divided into 3 sections: Dice, Task Rolls, and the Ite’ Gaming Engine. 




Character Creation Rules

The 3rd draft of the character creation rules section text is done, This is divided into 8 sections, one for each step of the character creation process. Each section first describes the step's purpose, then lists the procedure for completing a step, and finally provides an example of the completion of each step. 



Play and Tactics
This section is in process of its first rough draft. It is divided into three sections: Exposition and Action Scenes, Action and Movement, and Combat. 

Appendix 1: Character Sheet is complete. I used the light gray marble background with light greens, blues and grays. It looks so nice that I will be using this color same color scheme for the whole book. 

Appendix 2: Genre Description still needs completion. This was originally going to include the Ara Knochen world from our playtests but I changed it to a modern day action-supernatural genre akin to X-files so as to simplify the character creation examples. I also have the following 7 Genre Descriptions stubbed out and will get those knocked down once the player’s book gets published: 

  • Voudon Sunsets: A wild-west game set in Victorian era America where cryptids and supernatural creatures of lore fight with gunslingers and witch doctors for control over the new frontier. 
  • Ära Knochenn: A steampunk world in which demons and mentalists duke it out for the souls and spirits of humanity, while the United Nations uses advanced technology of the ancients to prevent the destruction of the human race in a world stripped of its natural resources. 
  • And at Twilight…The Aspens Come: A Post-GOP destruction of the United States where sentient plants and fungi make the world a better place.. with guns and mutant powers…
  • At Night…the Llamas Come: Mutant animals take on poachers in Africa and Corporate Proxies in underdeveloped counties…and eat them (or just gore them horribly). 
  • CyBRiD: A classic cyberpunk genre set in our own world 100 years in the future with direct neural interfaces, molecular biology based telekinetic and mentalic abilities set in a future world where regular people struggle to avoid their enlightenment. 
  • Bug World: Play an insect or arachnid in the garden of your worst nightmare 
  • Vitality is Bizarre: A teen-angst filled romp through a Pacific Northwest art school filled with privileged cliques and outcasts with correspondent abilities 

Appendix 3: Character Creation Walkthrough-Not done yet-This was done using the Voudon Sunsets Genre Description initially, but I found it made the examples to complicated; when the Genre Description is complete, I will be editing this to sync up with it. 

Appendix 4: Tables and Charts-Not done yet-This will include masses of objects common to many genres of the game including vehicles, weapons, ammunition, and animals. (Mass is important when determining the outcomes of objects of scales larger than humans). It will also provide damage codes for objects other than weapons such as explosives, spikes, energy attacks, and poisons 

Appendix 5: Glossary-Not done yet-This will include definitions of game-specific terms highlighted throughout the text in blue.

Appendix 6: Index-In Process-This will include an appendix to help find information of certain topics quickly during play. 

Well, that is it for now. Feel free to contact me a hujraadjohaansen@gmail.com if you have any questions…

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Gen Con Indy 2017 Musings

We had a lot of fun this year at the Con. We ran 5 games with an 87% attendance. A thanks goes out to everyone who came to play this year. It was interesting this year, because there were NO tweaks to be made to the game system. None. I can honestly say, the time has come to close this chapter in my life and get the damn game rule book done. 

Canon Advancement

The game moved the story arc along very smoothly this year, and the endings were pretty consistent, across the various events, making the canon very easily written (Except for the cybernetic sharks, of course. That was just crazy!) The players killed several large Creatures from the Deep, saved the Transoceanic Rail from their menace in the future, and shut down/destroyed the META plants and distribution centers that were poisoning the world. Both “The Frenchman” and food chemist Paul Vanallman, sadly, met their demise while Dieter Kaufmann once again managed to slip away from the PCs. Ronin Johaansen was forced to file for an insurance claim to rebuild his “Shark Whisperer” attraction while Gene Simmons’ reopening of the KISS Coffee House was a wild success. A new chain of “Burger Yurt” restaurants was launched in Canyonside and the Backgammon Queen clothing store chain seems to be catching on across the nation. Dry Lavender Soda has also continued to rise but without its META additives brainwashing the American public, its popularity has stabilized (It is still the number one sold soda across the nation).

A Question of Genre for 2019

With the canon defined, the story arc and skeleton for the 2019 game is complete and development has already begun. With that being said and everything stabilized, I have begun toe get "that itch" to once again fiddle with the tried and true formula that has led to our GenCon success.

Over the past year, I obtained a membership to the Morton Arboretum. Visiting the Arboretum multiple times as well as having had the opportunity to visit the Coastal Maine Botancial Gardens while in the face of our country’s national resources being destroyed by our Federal Government inspired me to begin a new project: A post-apocalyptic setting featuring sentient plants and fungi saving America from itself. The Setting, entitled “And at Twilight, The Aspens Come”, takes place a scant 30 years from now in an America with no fresh water to drink, the collapse of the heathcare and educational infrastructure, massive decimation of the human and animal populations due to rampant biological vectors and human destruction of natural habitats, and a complete dismantling of the middle class. Racists, Antivaxxers, Alt-Right-Wing Christians and the GOP are now in control of a United States government that does nothing but try to maintain the hegemony while living their sheltered lives within arcologies surrounded by large concrete walls, barbed wire, and drone guns. The player characters are plants and fungi with telekinetic and psychic powers struggling to either help the humans save themselves from themselves or help the humans speed up their demise so they can take over and make things right.

Having played one game session, it seems fun and I am looking forward to playing a few more over the next few years to develop the world a bit more. The question I have is, is anyone interested in playing this rather than the standard 80s/90s action Canyonside events of years past? I have elicited input in the Facebookz and will make my decision accordingly. My plan is to offer 4 sessions of Canyonside Events and one session of the “Twilight” event if enough people are interested.

Will GenCon 2019 Be the Last GenCon Canyonside Event?  

I took my oldest son to GenCon this year, as I have promised to do since he was very young and have promised to all my children to take them some day. But this year sucked BIG TIME. Statistically, GenCon has been growing every year since its move to Indy, and The 50th Year Anniversary may have been the reason it was so horrible or it may just have brought the real problem in sharp relief. The things that once simply annoyed me have become significantly more than just annoyances and have been getting worse every year I go. I do not see things getting better. While I have promised all my children I would take them, and I love my return players, I have to think of my spirit and goals as well, so, unless things get better, 2019 will be my last GenCon. My few West Coast and multiple East Coast friends and my obligations to my children are all that drive me to go to the back to the GenCon Indy hellhole in 2019; but, once I have said my good-byes to my many friends and players and fulfill my obligations to my family, my current plan is to move on to (a) different venue(s). My reasons:

Housing: 
Attempting to get housing is getting worse and has been getting worse EVERY YEAR. Getting housing is a nightmare. I am SO sick of it. If you cannot house your attendees, you should not hold a convention that big. It is inefficient and flawed on so many levels, and the hotels (I am pointing at YOU Westin! And not just for GenCon) all lie to everyone’s faces whether you book online or through the convention, giving you disrespectful attitude when you try to hold them accountable for screwing you. Being a Platinum member of a chain makes no difference. I saw MANY frustrated people besides me who were lied to online and many more at the check-in desks. It is a horrible situation. Horrible. What makes it worse is the thought of taking my whole family and not getting housing. I can just see it-I shell out 5 4-day passes and have nowhere to stay. FORGET YOU GENCON!

The Convention Floor: 
I made 2 attempts to get onto the convention floor. Both were failures. The first time was with my son and my co-Director on Thursday after our first game. It was wall to wall people in the aisles. I literally could not move. I was 10-12 meters in when my son and I entered a fart cloud. Being trapped we could not even move out of it! My son said “Dad, this is too noisy and I am getting sick” so we left. We tried again Friday and were STILL not able to move around that day either. We were unable to mosey about and stumble upon game demos to try and play as a result of the crowds. We could not move to the booths we could find easily, as we were jostled around so badly as we tried to get to the various booths. When we got to the booths, they would be filled. I have been going to GenCon since 2001 and it has NEVER been that bad. Ever. The fun of going to the Con isn’t just the games we play and run, but wandering about the Convention and Demo areas and trying new things. That was impossible. I tried again one more time Friday night alone and it was STILL too crowded. I tried to play the demo of the Big Trouble in Little China game, the only one I was interested in prior to the convention, and the line was down the aisle, indiscernible from the crowds it meandered into. I wanted to preregister for it but it was $100. For a board game. They don’t have. With only 1 demo running. And nothing to buy. WTF? It was a horrible experience.

Cosplayers: 
This may be an extension of the reason above, but it deserves mention. There used to be a costume day with a contest and it was fun. Now it is a costume Con. They were many and many were rude. And many smelled. Hey, cosplayers, it is a public space. If you don’t want me to take your picture, don’t be disrespectful to me when I do so or even if I said “please” and asked for a picture-A simple "please don't" will suffice. If you don’t want to be in the background of my picture, don’t get irritated with me-simply move. If you don’t want me to ask who you are supposed to be because I am unfamiliar with your genre, don’t dress up and march around in public in a general thoroughfare, and then be rude to me when I ask out of curiosity. A simple, polite response would be just fine. Being rude once, maybe twice, I understand. There were a LOT of people mulling about.  But three cosplayers with disrespectful rude and inappropriate responses within 15 minutes? Really?  Really? Learn some manners people. Or, go to your own Con. I am sure this has added to the congestion as well; though I have no statistics, just their strategic “look at me” chosen locations and showboating in the way of large numbers of people trying to move just has TO F**KING STOP!

Alternatives:
So then what are the other options? It comes down to accomplishing my goals:

1. Promote the HiBRiD Style of Play

2. Play with my veteran players, whom I consider family, in a way (My East-coasters 
would be the hardest ones to accommodate by not going to GenCon).
3. Share my love of trying new games with my family

With these goals in mind, I considered the following:

Option 1: Quit
Yeah, this is NOT going to happen; I won’t be doing this. I may stop going to GenCon, but game development, Canyonside events, and all of my other projects will continue to advance; only my choice of venue for sharing them will change!

Option 2: Keep Going
Yeah, this is not likely to happen either if things do not get better after 2019. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, isn’t it?

Option 3: Go to a single alternate convention
I would most certainly choose Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio. (I like Columbus and have been wanting to attend this Convention for four 4 years or so). But it would make Goal #2 above difficult, so I am not completely committed to this option.

Option 4: Attend multiple smaller conventions
Instead of hitting one convention, I have been thinking about hitting several smaller local conventions instead. Specifically, I am targeting one of the many conventions in Milwaukee (Nexus, GaryCon, Midwinter, GameholeCon), a second convention in Indiana (Though I am unfamiliar with any-feel free to email me with suggestions), one somewhere on the East Coast, and finally one in Grand Rapids Michigan. I would be able to do 2 conventions a year, as most would within driving distance to my house and much less expensive to attend. I could then just fly out to whatever Con on the east coast for a day or two and cut down on expenses that way!

Currently, I am leaning towards Options 3 and 4, depending on the feedback I get. But one thing is for certain: GenCon 2019 will most likely be my last, but not HiBRiD's last convention.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Sharks: HiBRiD Stats

In honor of the coming Discovery Channel Shark Week, among other reasons, here are the stats for sharks in HiBRiD.  







Image result for great white shark

Shark, Badass (4-5m, 320kg-1500 kg) (Scale 2)

Badass sharks are those extremely large or aggressive man-eaters that have gotten a bad rap either in cinema or TV documentary series. Specific species that exemplify badass sharks include include mako, tiger, great white and bull sharks. Of note here are bull sharks, which have a mass on the low end for "badass" sharks that would normally place them on a mass scale equivalent to normal sharks. When describing these sharks, the Director should use the 320 kg and 4m dimensions listed above, but use the game stats listed below for resolving actions and combat during action scenes due to their overall power and ferocity which classifies them as being "badass".

STR:         +5 +1/m of body length                  
RFLX        +5           
RSIL         +5
INTL         +1
WILL        +5
PERC       +5

Action Load: Scale 2
Action Move:  30m
Action Range: 100m (Sight, Smell, Sound, Bioelectric, Pressure)

PHYS:     1500 (320 for bull sharks) 
ARMV:    6 against Blunt attacks

Attacks/Skills:
Jump       +7           
Strike       +8          3d6+5 (14) Counts as a head butt or tail slap, Multiply by the  # of Moves for charges
Bite         +9          3d6 x 10 (90); May hold and thrash next round    
Thrash     N/A        3d6 X 10 (90); Automatic if held           



Saturday, May 27, 2017

Gen Con Announcements and HiBRiD Progress: A Long Overdue Status Update Before GenCon

Hey all:

First, I understand it has been over a month since I have added anything here. Please rest assured that this page has not gone defunct, nor has HiBRiD development stopped, nor will it ever stop so long as I push air past my teeth. I am making this promise now: So long as I am alive, this project will ALWAYS be active. I may take breaks from Da Interwebz, but those breaks will be because I am living my life with my family and friends or working on the game. The game's progress NEVER stops. If I ever quit, I will be transparent and specifically say so. 

But that is not going to happen any time soon!

Instead, a LOT has happened. Let me give you all rundown.

GenCon Preparations


Gen Con 2017 preparations are in full swing! 

The scenario has had 3 play-tests with one or two more pending. The main action scenes have been chosen. A few schematics remain to be scanned in, the character sheets remain to be updated, and the new pregen has to be completed. 

New Pregen for 2017: Fred "Remo" Bassett 

We will be running Big Showdown in Little Canyonside: Tremors Redux this year, and as such we will be only introducing one new pregen based on Fred Ward. His movie repertoire is somewhat obscure, so let me point you all in the way of several of his iconic moves (other than the Tremors series:
  • Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins: Fred plays a New York cop recruited by a racist Korean martial arts master to train in the arts of assasination.
  • Sweet Home Alabama: Fred plays a supporting character-a simple, gruff, older southern, down-home country dad who actively participates in his local Civil War re-enactments and has a soft spot for his daughter.
  • Uncommon Valor: Fred plays a Vietnam Vet tunnel rat named Wilkes. Great character.
  • The Right Stuff: Fred plays Gus Grissom with an edgy attitude that he brings to all his roles!


Any Other Pregenerated Characters for 2017?

I also have been debating a Kevin Bacon pregenerated character, but there are so many movies from him, I am a bit intimidated at the prospect! I am thinking he would be a lot like the Samuel L Jackson pregenerated character, with whom I had a similar problem. 

Finally, as always, I am taking requests for and offering to build any characters you are thinking might be fun to play or fit within the genre. Again, please remember that the Dwayne Johnson is not going to be an option, as the HiBRiD franchise does not yet need saving...

New vs.  Traditional Character Sheet Format

In the past two years since GenCon 2015, the Default character creation rules have been finalized (see below for details). One of the interesting developments coming out of this is the realization that a unique situation has arisen. 

A newer, simpler Skill system has been chosen as the Default Method for the game rules rather than the historically-used age-based method from the past, which resulted in characters possessing dozens of skills. The pregenerated characters can be rebuilt using the Default Methods rather than the more detailed age-based method used in our past games. This will allow for faster understanding of the character concepts but may be less inviting to those who prefer the details of the traditional age-based skill system. Any input will be appreciated. The current plan is to update the existing character sheets for 2017, then slowly see how many I can get rebuilt using the new simpler Default Method before GenCon so that players have a choice. Playtesting has ALWAYS been my preferred methodology for making decisions rather than personal fiat, and my priority for converting characters over will depend on any feedback I receive from past players. 
   

Typesetting/Layout/Formatting Decisions Are Finalized


As many of you may or may not know, for the longest time, I have struggled with how I want the book to look. After several tests and a lot of feedback (Thank you everyone, it is very much appreciated!), those decisions have been finalized. 

Light grey textured pages, softened colors in the banners at the tops and bottoms of the pages, and an overall look of clean, transparent aquas and spring greens will be used throughout the book. The harsher blacks seen in previous mock-ups that I have been sharing over the years will be used much more sparingly for emphasis or create specific feelings e. g. wide-screen cinematic movie screen aspects, section divisions, et cetera. 

Pages will have two columns, with left-side justification. There will only be 1, non-serif font used in the headings, with a single, clean, 10-pt serif font for the main text. Colored and greyscale transparent bands will be used judiciously to emphasize section changes. A good feel for how these will look can be seen in the character sheet below, that will, incidentally, be included in the default Player's Guidebook:



Finally, there will be very few text boxes in the final text. Instead, a new feature resulting from the most recent edit will be the inclusion of slightly lighter green text sections peppered through referred to as Hujraad's Hacks. Using these sections, I intend to provide examples, tips, author's insights, and the "spirit of the rules' without disrupting the book's main functionality as a reference guide. Readers will know exactly what is fluff and what is fact and can quickly scan the book for rules accordingly. In essence, I can subtly capture the concept of breaking the "fourth wall" (seen in movies like Deadpool or Ferris Beuller's Day Off) in text form, also befitting the cinematic style the game is attempting to capture. Only time will tell if it succeeds, but it definitely makes it a much smoother read!

Default Character Creation Rules Have Been Defined and Text Completed


As I stated above, I have completed the final character creation text, pending one more round of editing by my daughter and my friend Flippy. Each section is tied to one of 8 distinct but highly flexible steps that can be easily adjusted, customized, or even omitted based on the level of complexity and the genre of the game being played. 

Hujraad's Hack: Thank you, Flippy!
A real quick shout out to my friend FlippydaMan is warranted here, who has helped me so much with the most recent edit! It is his amiable brutality and honest guidance that made me take the final leap and forced me to redesign the presentation of the manuscript for less technical readers with a very Asimovian sensibility! Oh, wait, that reminds, me, check out his Tiny Horsies roleplaying game. He has released a new version that corrected the few little downsides I had in my initial review of his wonderful game! He even liked the character sheet I made for him!

The character creation script has been rewritten with an eye toward efficiency and speed of character creation. The first step describes the role of the Genre Description which now figures prominently in the rules, and the next two steps simply define the Character Concept and History to tie the character into the campaign. This means that in convention games and very simple one-shot games where these things are already designed into the pregenerated characters or in very well defined genres, these 3 steps can actually be omitted and only 5 character creation rules are necessary to build characters ready for play. In addition, the character possessions step has been extremely simplified and streamlined with the standardization of our well-play-tested Default Knickknack/Clutter system. In timing trials, character creation for skilled players between the ages of 9 and 13 takes less than 10 minutes (8 minutes 54 seconds on average), with the majority of the time spent (6 minutes 47 seconds on average) being on Aspect selection (N=9).

Finally, I added two complete examples of character creation to the rules. One of these examples is split up into eight segments, with each segment presented at the end of each section to provide a clean simple example of how to complete the step explained in that section. The other example is a complete walkthough of the process. Also, because character creation is dependent on a Genre Description, a brief one modeled on the original HiBRID playtest world from 1994 has provided.

Well, that is about it! Feel free to email, tweet me,or hit me up on the Facebookz, and we will see you at the Con! Go out, live life as if you had Ite', and make things happen!

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Inspirations: Moana HiBRiD Stats


Image result for moana


Moana (Minimal Heroic Level: 4)

Origin Stats

STR +1
RFLX +2
RSIL +0
INTL +3
PERC +4
WILL +5

Height: 165 cm
Mass (Weight): 70kg

PHYS: 11
STUN: 50

Move:
20 m
Load: 11 kg
Range: 14 m

Skills

Common Skills
Academic +4
Athletic +6
Combat +2
Fringe +4
Social +7
Tech +7



Concept Skills
Parkour +12
Sailing +10
Leadership +12

Aspects

Chosen By The Sea: This aspect has several modes:
  • Friend of the Sea (8): Moana can talk to the sea, who will from a flexible finger-like structure and do little favors for her. 
  • Ocean Foot (8): So long as she is on a mission for The Ocean, Moana can never be thrown overboard in calm water, and if The Winds cause a storm, The Ocean will have her wash up on the nearest piece of land closest to her intended destination. 
  • Ancestral Counsel (8): Once per game session, if on the ocean and seeking wisdom, inspiration, or encouragement (though not information), Moana need only speak to her Ancient Grandmother and she will appear as a glowing beautiful manta ray. 
Presence: Respect for Life (7):Whenever people encounter Moana, they instinctively know she has respect for all life and will take this into account when they interact with her

Aspected Skill: Parkour (7)-Once per game session, Moana receives a point of Ite' to spend on a crazy parkour action.

STUN (2): Add +1 to the Heroic Factor when calculating STUN



Podcast Complete. Game Complete. Art In Progress. Platform Change once agian.

Well, I finished the podcast. While I got a few listens, the amount of effort required to produce did not equate to either enjoyment or incr...