A week ago, I came across a used piece of computer software, and bought it for a dollar. Its a game Called Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. A review of it on the software museum "The home of the Underdogs" can be found here

Playing this game is almost an analog for being one of Sheikjahbooty's Logovores. As commander, you can assign AIs to the unit, or take it over yourself and micro manage. Unnecessary items can be recycled in moments to create new ones. One can either try not to specialize and only use the pilots on hand, or leave some craft without pilots to be your personal war form. Its quite a bit like being part of an amorphic machine intelligence that can distribute its power, and is reliant more on energy than anything else. Accept limited AI control, or distract yourself micromanaging, and hope other units are in control of the big picture.

As the last hours of 2006 drain away, I'm thinking of my goals for the coming year - and one of them is to actually sell a game. I've been looking for a grad school program dealing with game design, but all I find are ones about programing. To say I'm lacking the math skills and patience to debug code is a major understatement. Computers would cry in my presence if it was physically possible.

Or, for that matter, do you play test?

Personally, I don't get much of a chance to do so. My friends are not quite the kind of people who go through rules of their own accord - 2 have ADD, and the third is just plain busy. Normally procedure is for me to read the rules, then teach it to everyone else. This is why I'm always fishing for comments on my games - aside from the inevitable ego trip.

However, of note I've been able to get my friends to create characters for D&B with minimal explanation from myself, and will be able to run a game in the near future. So far, I've found ten points that need addressing

OK, my computer is dying on me, so further work on the presentable portions of my games will be on hold for the next few weeks until I either reformat the thing, or one of you sends me a new machine.

But, I will be continuing to write in my journal, and posting here with my sister's notebook perhaps.

Enough fuming. What everyone wants to see in this thing? Are there any rules or notes I missed?

Well, we have elements of ideology, self perception, and purpose for nano-machines, multiple instances of zombies, magic, ogres, samurai clan warfare... All in all, a diverse group that tolerates many different ideals.

So the question is, what is unacceptable in role play? Obviously, limits are set by the individual, but what seem to be safe guidelines?

The only truly reprehensible RPGS I've noticed are ones that blatantly flaunt racism or misogyny (Racial Holy War, and FATAL respectively).

Vampire, though it deals with internal beasts and drinking blood makes it quite clear that although vampires have guided human history for centuries, the holocaust during WWII is all our fault. On the other hand, D&D seems to condone genocide against orks, goblins, kobolds and the like.

I'm worried about layout here mostly. Should the fluff come first, and then the crunch second, or vice versa? Perhaps the two should be interspaced - say notes about the characters and technology first, then character creation, followed by notes about society, then the combat rules etc.

One of my projects features a continuous story of a character talking to the reader, with rules and so forth as either parenthetical remarks, side bars, or pulled out sections (ie gray background italics between two paragraphs) However, this has been quite on and off since I'm not sure if it would word.

As a second concern - how closely should the story and mechanics intertwine. Is story there to illustrate the mythology of the world, or is it grounded in what characters are really capable of?

SheikhJahbooty from the Logovore Technology thread:

So that makes me think, "Jason isn't telling me the real reason he doesn't like grav tech. Maybe he's not aware of the real reason. He's been quite helpful. If we knew the real reason, it might have a profound effect on the final game."

You have a point there. To be honest, I'm not sure. Its one of these fickle cut off points. Everyone has a certain suspension of belief, and some things are more passable than others.

Ok, its Thursday again, and I'm inclined to post more of my thoughts.

I never really thought about writing any sort of blog. Mostly its because my political views start at Marxist and get more extreme from there. Religion and polotics being the mother and father of all wars - I figured making my ideas known would help incite the next world war.

At the moment, I'm supposed to be working on a game that I want to submit sometime tommorow. The rules are done, and the setting(s) will be relesed at a later date. Of course, I'm far too distractable, and have been surfing the web all day instead. (10/26/06 @14:22)