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!

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...