Its been a long while since I've done any RPG work. This year already seems pretty busy, but I'm hoping to get some stuff finally finished.

First things first, I took a trip to Israel in January (1/12/-1/22) and now I'm working on a book of essays. Its a nonfiction tome about my thoughts about Iran, what I saw in the middle east, ad reconciling my initial fixation on strategy with meeting the people. The expected title is "Friends in Chai Places".

Once I'm finished with that, there are a few older games that must be completed.

Dead and Back is due for further rules revision. Most of these are fairly minor things about rewording and including more examples. However, just the other day, I noticed a slight error in the way combat works - one rifle shot will instantly kill humans. Realistic in some cases, but that should still be tuned down a little for the health of the PCs. Any suggestions on that or other aspects of the D&B system you feel need work would be appreciated.

Hello.

First, let me apologize for being less than helpful for the last few months.

Then, I would like to confirm that I do contiune to exist, at least according to a few of the less esoteric branches of philosophy.

I hope you don't mind me starting a new thread - the old one had a lot of miscellaneous posts, so I figured this would be a better way to organize.

To begin - I really like the choice of 1845. Back when the west was really wild, unpopulated, and still prone to border raids. Decades before the 1873 New Model Army (Colt Peacemaker) and the railroad helped tame the west - black powder cap and ball pistols are still the main technology.

There are two points where some of your numbers don't make much sense:

• Given that its not a d100 based system, claiming each point in a skill gives you a % bonus doesn't really mean much. You're better off with just straight additions.

Has anyone heard something recently about design challenges? This is about the time of year for Game Chef, but so far, there hasn't been an update to the site since the end of the last contest.

Gary Gygax died earlier today - March 4, 2008.

Regardless of if you started designing because you wanted to emulate D&D or improve upon it - we must acknowledge that a pivotal figure in our hobby is now gone.

Recently I was reading a book titled "The Devil's Gardens: A history of Landmines". Much of the book was case studies of conflicts - and why the mines were used, and how they continued to affect the area after the end of hostilities. It made me think about the use of RPGs as a teaching tool and morality system.

As a bit of a test for my knowledge of document design - I tried rearranging ErrinF's excellent Hound of Tindalos solo game. At least on my computer, its far easier to read.

The one page contest is a great teaching tool. Not only is it about being careful, concise, and clear about directions, but how to use the page is perhaps as well. Sometimes adding space can help even when your page count is limited.

Thanks for starting the contest, and for providing so many great games.

Update: Credits and name changed per author's request

Previously, I claimed a new version of Dead and Back would be ready for Halloween. With luck, I still might get the game done before midnight. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to doubt it.

A whole page tracks the changes I made. Half of it is about the minor rewrites and clarifications. Disease rules have been tacked on to the bit about poison and fire. Ammunition rules have been better explained, the number of attacks a hoard gets corrected. Pagination and order of sections has changed somewhat.

The second part deals with the initiative system, and Animus. At first, I just wanted to reconcile the two different methods given in the original text. (a Wits roll added to the Wits attribute, and a more complex (Wits + Quick) roll + Animus).

According to my account information as of today (10/23/07) I've been a member of RPG Lab for 51 weeks and 5 days. Since I joined two or three days after the website was officially up, that would make today more or less the one year anniversary of when the Lab was started.

Should we set up a place for those who want to design computer games? After all, we get such requests quite a bit. It only needs to be a book and maybe an extra option in the drop down menus for sorting entires.

I understand that we can't program. However, we seem to be turning away a goodly number of potentially creative people who want to share something with the community.