Writing – Page 5 – Caradoc games

November 28, 2019

All Hail the StateEmpire…

Just released in the Modiphius store is the YuJing sourcebook for the Infinity RPG. I wrote the Yutang chapter in this book, which is all about the home planet of the YuJingese StateEmpire, and the seat of Imperial power. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope that any prospective players or GMs that read it, have just as much fun with the material, as I did.

As always, every book released for an RPG is usually the work of a large team of people, from writers to artists, from editors to layout artists, and everyone else. They are a big undertaking, and the end product is the culmination of many combined efforts. I am very proud to have been a part of the team that put this together, and if you get it, I hope you love it as much as we have done!

Yu Jing. The StateEmpire. Governed by the Party and policed by the Emperor, the balance of the two makes this powerful G5 nation greater than the sum of its parts. Late as they were to the great space race that led to humanity proliferating amongst the stars, the people of Yu Jing have worked doubly hard to ensure they step beyond the long shadow of their nearest rival and rise to eclipse it.

Viewed all too often with misunderstanding and mistrust from without, the Yu Jingese view themselves as a powerhouse nation that has the best interests of its citizens at heart. Wholly committed to spiritual and economic betterment so that they might serve as a beacon for the entire Human Sphere, the StateEmpire strives hard to be at the forefront of every arena it enters into. On the battllef eld, innovative servopowered armour designs are providing the StateEmpire Army with a superior advantage, while cutting-edge technology such as the Sù-Jiàn Immediate Action Unit is changing the face of Remote-led warfare.

Not all is as harmonious as the Party’s propaganda would lead you to believe, however. Citizens slip through the cracks of society, instead turning to crime to boost their status. The fractured ninja clans, who of course do not exist, now fight a shadowy war for dominance in the wake of the Uprising. And the Emperor of Great Japan has torn his citizens free of an oppressive regime that treated his people as second-rate at best.

Offering never-before-seen insights on the Jade Empire, this sourcebook will take you far beyond the Yu Jing’s veil of mystery.

Details on the two key planets that have become the foundation of the StateEmpire: Shentang and Yutang.
Focused Lifepaths that allow players to immerse themselves in the diversity and duality of the StateEmpire, including Imperial Agents, Ninjas, and Those Without Name.
Additional armour, equipment, and adversaries specifi c to Yu Jing, including the deadly Neokatana, the ground-breaking Sù-Jiàn Immediate Action Unit, and stats for several unique adversaries.
Various discourses on the far-reaching effects of the hard-fought Uprising that led to the recent secession of Great Japan, plus several Lifepaths that provide an opportunity to play an agent of Emperor Hiroshi’s will.

You can get the YuJing sourcebook as a physical book, and as a PDF. You can also find it on DriveThruRPG.

November 27, 2019

End of The One Ring…

Sometimes you open an email, and the contents cause your stomach to sink. That’s the feeling I had when I read the news that a contractual issue between Sophisticated Games and Cubicle 7 meant that Cubicle 7 would no longer be publishing The One Ring Role Playing Game.

The One Ring has been cast into the flames of Orodruin… it is no more. I’m still reeling as I write this to be honest, and for a number of reasons.

First and foremost among the reasons I am particularly saddened is that I wrote a number of pieces that would have been released as a part of the second edition, and which will no longer see print. It is disappointing because I love The Lord of the Rings (it’s the book that made me fall in love with fantasy fiction, and the original MERP game is the game that got me into role playing). An opportunity to have made some contribution to the larger world of Middle Earth, even in some small way, was a joy.

Second: I am reading The Lord of the Rings to my son at the moment (we have finished The Hobbit), and I was hoping to play the second edition (which I would have made some small contribution to), with him. Of course, the first edition won’t vanish, but there is something special about it having been a thing I helped, even in a small way, to shape.

Third, and lastly: because I know the massive amount of work people like Emmet Byrne, Jacob Rogers, and so many of the wonderful team at Cubicle 7 had put into this game, as well as the outstanding team of freelancers I was lucky to have worked alongside. I was really looking forward to getting a copy of the second edition myself, but more than that, the team at C7 were supportive, professional, and excellent to work with. A very sad day for Cubicle 7, and for the wonderful people that work with them.

October 13, 2019

Laying it all out…

If you ever find yourself Googling ‘How many fonts are too many fonts’, chances are you’ve already used too many fonts. At the moment I am working on my next micro-RPG, tentatively called ‘Corsairs’, and I’m moving out of my MS Word based comfort zone, and delving into the deep waters of Affinity Publisher.

Affinity Publisher is a program designed to do, essentially, what In-Design does, it’s a publishing program with a whole bunch of functions and features that I am unfamiliar with, and do not understand. Making the leap from Word, where I can make something that looks pretty reasonable (at least to my untrained eye), and into the murky waters of a desktop publishing program has been enlightening, frustrating, tear-inducing, and invigorating. Yes, it’s been a roller-coaster.

Corsairs has been an interesting project, essentially I am working on two very different drafts. The first is the draft of the rules and game itself, and the second is a draft of playing with the program and trying to get it to do things. The first is ground I feel comfortable on, and the second has been a struggle, I won’t deny it.

Luckily for me there are a whole bunch of tutorial videos on the Affinity website, which has been a massive help. I also downloaded the Affinity Publisher Beginner’s Guide, by Nathanael Roux, which was very informative, and came with a bunch of backgrounds and fonts that have been very useful! I would highly recommend Nathanael’s guide, not only does it come with useful resources, it is also a great source of general information about the program itself.

So why make the leap? I suppose it’s because I wanted to stretch myself, and to try and make the games I’m releasing look a little more professional and well put together than they have in the past. Am I succeeding? Well, I am not familiar with the ins and outs of visual design, but I am slowly coming to grips with the program, and I am enjoying the flexibility it offers. This was something I had been intending to do for a little while, but have been putting it off. I’m glad I finally made the leap. While I’m sure that the games I release will still undoubtedly look like they were put together by an amateur (no denying it), I think that as a whole, they will look better produced than what I had been releasing previously.

Little details, like the ease of adding art to the document, the ability to create Master Pages, and the capacity to use the background around the document to make templates and tables you can copy and use throughout are all elements I am enjoying. I am even slowly becoming more familiar with such terms as kerning, who would have thought it!

I have been enjoying using Affinity Publisher, and I am strongly considering getting Affinity Designer to go along with it. All the box outlines and diagrams in Corsairs I have drawn in Corel Painter Essentials, but the capacity to shift between Publisher and Designer is something that really has me curious.

Affinity Publisher is an excellent program, and while learning it (and I am still learning it) has been a roller-coaster, it is pretty straightforward to use, and offers a lot of flexibility. Having struggled through creating something close to a working draft of Corsairs, I think I would find it hard going to turn back to Word. Affinity is well worth the entry price, and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

The beginnings of a character sheet takes form as a Master Page which I can drop in anywhere. No matter where it appears in the document, any alteration to the master page alters them all. A great and very useful feature!

Corsairs will be, I think, the next game released by Caradoc Games. It is coming together nicely, but more about that in another post…

August 9, 2019

Questions and Answers

I was interviewed recently about role playing games, game design, and writing, by an old friend Patrick Matthews. If you’re interested in any of these things, the interview can be found on Pat’s blog here.

Many years ago now, it feels, I wrote some various articles for a website Pat ran which was called Games for Educators. I wrote about using games in the classroom. I also hosted a short podcast series there which was co-hosted by Tom Vasel and myself, called Teaching Strategies. Later, Games for Educators also hosted another podcast I recorded with Donald Dennis, called Games in Schools and Libraries (which is still running strong I might add, hosted by Kathleen Mercury and Donald Dennis). Pat is an author, game designer and software developer, and has recently started a blog series on his site called ‘6 Questions‘. Under Patrick, the Games for Educators site had a range of authors writing about games in an educational setting.

In the 6 Questions series Pat interviews authors, game designers, and other creatives. I was honoured to have been asked to contribute something, and I hope anyone interested in freelance writing, game design, or writing in general finds something interesting or useful in my various and rambling answers.

In my interview I wrote about role playing games and why I love them, creative focus, offered some thoughts on writing, processes, writing in the RPG industry, and talked about what’s upcoming from Caradoc Games. Check it out here! Thanks Pat for asking me to contribute something to your 6 Questions series, it was a lot of fun, and I am very honoured!

August 3, 2019

Tempus Fugit…

Time has flown! last I checked it was the start of July, and I had just released The Hoppy Pops. A whirlwind has rushed by and suddenly it appears to be the start of August! I was remiss with my blog updates in July, many apologies, but life seems to have gotten in the way!

So what have I been doing this last month? Well, freelance writing has kept me rather busy. I have had the pleasure of working on the upcoming Legends of Middle-Earth (probably being renamed Tales from Middle-Earth), for Cubicle 7. As well as getting through a number of pieces for the Infinity: The Role Playing Game, for Modiphius. Lastly, I managed to start a few odds and ends for Devil’s Run, for Red Scar Gaming. It’s been quite a mix: a pinch of classic epic fantasy, a dash of post-human science fiction, and a smidgen of down-and-dirty post-apocalypse.

I have also been getting my next micro-RPG ready, it’s called Owlbear Omelette, and sets you (the players), on a mad dungeon quest to secure an Owlbear Egg for omelette-making purposes. Is it just a drunk dare? Is it to strike a blow to the entrenched hierarchy? Is it just for kicks? You decide! In preparation I made a couple of illustrations for the cover, and have been mulling over which to use.

Not what anyone would call fine art, but will have to do…

Owlbear Omelette shoud be up and available within the next week or so for those of you who support my Patreon page (and with juicy extras), for everyone else, it will be available a week after that in all the usual places (namely DriveThruRPG and Itch.io).

This month my goals are to finish off the next micro-RPG, and round out some of the freelance work I have still on the docket. I need to get back to design work on Ashmerl, my full-sized fantasy RPG. I also have some fiction I need to get out of my system, for better or for worse, and I’m sure I’ll be distracted by something else along the way. Last but not least, I need to make sure I get more than one blog post out there in August, July was… well, best not said!

Until the next post, happy gaming!

May 17, 2019

The One Ring, Second Edition

The One Ring, the Lord of the Rings Role Playing Game, from Cubicle 7, is getting a second edition. The One Ring is a multi-award winning RPG, set in one of the most genre defining works of fiction ever written.

There was a time in my life when I was reading The Lord of the Rings two or three times a year. My beat up all-in-one edition of this trilogy, bought by my parents when I was about 10, was so thoroughly familiar that I could approximate what was happening at any randomly opened point by feel. The heft and smell of that book encapsulate everything I love about reading. Yes, it probably sounds weird (hell, it probably is weird), but the smell of that book was and is glorious.

Fast forward nearly thirty years (ye gads), and I am so very excited and proud to have had the opportunity to work with a wonderful team of people at Cubicle 7 on the Starter Set for the newly announced The One Ring, Second Edition.

The Lord of the Rings has been a seminal book in my own life as a reader, gamer, and writer. Middle Earth is a well-tramped rolling landscape that feels a part of me: I spent so many nights crossing Rohan with Merry and Pippin, or hiding in the deep shadows of Ithilien with Frodo and Sam. Having the opportunity to write for something set in this world has been my absolute delight. I am very excited to have been a part of this project, and am very much looking forward to seeing where it goes next!

May 9, 2019

Brigands of Sherwood

It used to be that a person could make a handy living robbing passers-by in Sherwood forest, but since Robin and his Merry band of fools turned their hand to it, everyone expects a good old dose of ‘giving to the poor’. It’s hard to make a living when every starving beggar has their hand out!

Brigands of Sherwood is the second in my series of micro-RPGs. In Brigands of Sherwood the players are criminals trying to end their adventure with as much loot as possible. The trouble is, that with the return of Robin Hood, everyone expects stolen goods to be redistributed to the peasantry! The characters are simple dishonest thieves trying to steal enough loot to retire, will they be able to fill their loot tracks? Or will the presence of Robin Hood mean they have to give it all away?

The rules are simple, and players have the chance to take a shot, by flicking a disc or die, to gain a bonus to their skill tests. This expanded edition includes some extra rules and an alternative character sheet, as well as a short adventure sketch. It’s available now, from my Patreon, Itch.io, or DriveThruRPG (and you can find these links on my downloads page!

Each month I plan on releasing one of these micro-RPGs. Beginning from next month (June, 2019), the basic versions will all be available for free from Itch or DriveThruRPG, the expanded versions will be available at a nominal cost, or through my Patreon page, which you can find here. Yes, the expanded versions don’t include anything earth-shattering, and you won’t be missing vital information if you opt to get the free download. The expanded version is just a way of saying thank you to anyone who chooses to support me through my Patreon, on DriveThru, or on Itch.

As well as writing these micro-RPGs, I am continuing to work through the writing and development of the fantasy RPG Ashmerl. One of the things I am most pleased with is how the character and setting development is shaping up. As you create your group of characters, you also create the Enclave (the village or town) that your characters are from, important landmarks, experiences, and people all shape the setting and make it uniquely tied to that group of characters. My playtests of this system have been fantastic, with campaigns worth of story hooks rising from the character creation process. In the few months I plan on putting the early draft of Ashmerl on my Patreon, it’s still a work in progress, but it’s getting closer!

May 6, 2019

Satisfaction on Omned III

Earlier this year an adventure I wrote for the Star Trek Adventures line from Modiphius, Trouble on Omned III, was released for sale. The adventure puts the intrepid crew of *insert ship name here* in the middle of a social and medical crisis that could well spill over into armed conflict. I tried to write an adventure that was classically Star Trek, one where science and diplomacy could have as much chance, if not more, of solving the brewing conflict as any feat of arms. The other day I found a review on DrivethruRPG, by Megan R. of this adventure and it made me smile.

I won’t quote the whole thing, which describes aspects of the adventure for anyone who might be interested in buying it (you can see it here), but the last line particularly gave me a thrill:

This is a nicely-constructed adventure that has a real Star Trek feel to it – it’s easy to imagine it as an episode in the show. The party’s actions will have a lasting effect on Omned III.
Review on DriveThruRPG by Megan R.

While it’s satisfying to read that the reviewer thought the adventure was nicely constructed, reading that she believed it had a Star Trek feel to it, that it could be imagined as an episode, was exactly what I was aiming for. I know this adventure won’t be for every group, and that adventures are, by their very nature, subjective, and dependent on the GM and play group. I also recognise that this would never have been released without the wonderful support and work of all those boffins at Modiphius who are part of the excellent Star Trek Adventures team. It is nonetheless nice to read that the feeling I was aiming for resonated with someone! Thanks Megan! I hope your playgroup had as much fun playing this as I did writing it!

The smile I felt as I read those words is a good reminder: I should do more to write about the games and game products I love, and why I love them. Putting those ‘feels’ out there helps share the smile I felt with the writers, creators, artists and team that put the games together.

May 5, 2019

Questions, questions, questions…

Some things I am wondering…

I have set up a Patreon account, and intend to release a number of micro-rpgs as backer rewards. These would later be released on itch and Drivethru as pay-what-you-want (PWYW) products.

I currently have two tiers, the lower tier gets the game before everyone else, the higher tier gets an expanded version of the same game. I’ve written two of these micro games so far, and have drafts in various stages for the next four or five. BUT…

I am wondering whether I should drop the higher tier, and just have one Patreon level, at which you get the expanded version. Along with this the base game would go up on itch and Drivethru as PWYW, and the expanded version would also go there at set price to match the Patreon level (say at $2, $3, or $4).

A number of things concern me:

I don’t want to undervalue my time in creating these.
I don’t want to overvalue the games and put a price point that no-one is ever going to be interested in paying.
I am not sure whether just having one level on Patreon (at a similar price as above) is a good idea as whatever I begin with, I must continue (though of course I may add new tiers or whatever. But what I offer now I should continue to offer – changing the price or what is received is not fair for any backers – not that I have any yet, but still).

I feel like the answer is to create a single tier on Patreon, and offer the expanded version of each micro-game as the reward. These would then go on itch and Drivethru for the same price, and the cut down version as PWYW. I could add further tiers later if there was a need to do that. How to value these is a difficult problem though, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the Patreon accounts of many other people working in the table-top role playing game field, and there is a wide variance on what price the tiers are set at, and what is offered in return. $2 seems the entry point, but many are as high as $5. Whatever I end up choosing can always be reduced, I suppose, but not increased without a damn good reason and the likelihood of annoying any backers I do have at the time.

Then of course is the age old issue of impostor syndrome. Will anyone actually want to buy the games I am writing? Are they any good? On one shoulder is perched a little dragon saying that I’ll never know until I try it, and that I should, at least, give it a go. On the other is another little dragon telling me not to bother, that I’m wasting my time. One may be right and the other wrong, or they could both be right, who knows…

For now I remain here, chewing over the specifics of my Patreon account and what to do with the games I am working on…

May 2, 2019

Haqqislam…

So nice to see some of the books I’ve worked on getting released into the wild. The latest of these is the Haqqislam source book for the Infinity RPG. I know I’ve written it before, but it really is amazing to see all the work of so many talented people coming together into a final product. The Haqqislam source book looks fantastic, and I’m very proud to have been a part of the team that contributed to its creation.

I love the cover art work, but the book is also choc full of great information, background, rules and art.

I worked on the Bourak chapter, and had a lot of fun exploring the planetary home of the Haqqislamite empire. The Bourak chapter is only one part of the book however, many other writers contributed to make this a wonderful source book for the Infinity RPG.

The Haqqislamite movement found traction in a world riven by political turmoil and economic crises. Its greatest messenger, Farhad Khadivar, advocated a new ideology that wove together the many complex threads of the old into a New Islam. This philosophical and theological revision of long-standing interpretations, which shed intolerance and oppressive dogma in favour of humanism and a concept known as the Search for Knowledge, laid the foundations for a golden age of reforms and advancements that propelled a nation across the stars.

Since finding a home on Bourak, Haqqislam has experienced a rebirth of artistic and scientific pursuance that is the envy of their rivals. Gardeners refine terraforming techniques that have reshaped an arid world, doctors perform miracles with pioneering surgery, and biochemists cultivate new synthetic wonders with Silk. Though often considered one of the smallest of the G5 nations, Haqqislam remains unrivalled in several arenas.

A Silk monopoly and extensive trade routes have spawned a nation of traders that often draw the envy and ire of competitors, though the Sword of Allah stands ever ready to smite the enemies of the Word. With new insights into the New Islam and its proponents, this sourcebook will take you further into the Search for Knowledge than ever before!

Details on Bourak and its diverse regions — Al Medinat, Funduq, Iran Zhat Al Amat, Gabqar, Norouz, and Alamut.
Focused Lifepaths that allow players to tread the Search for Knowledge, including Akbar Doctors, Khawarij, and new Hassassin careers.
Additional armour, equipment, and adversaries specifi c to Haqqislam, including the famed Akrep TAGs of the Maghariba Guard, and stats for the enigmatic Husam Yasbir.
New rules and campaign guidance for plundering the space lanes as a corsair in the employ of Haqqislam.