It's Been a While

First off, I'd like to apologize to the three people who regularly read my blog for not updating in over a month.  I'm now 100% done with the U.S. Army, Honorable Discharge in hand.  For now, I just collect unemployment and wait for college to begin.  You'd think I'd have been blogging my ass off, but there have been so many distractions.  Between streaming Netflix and a pretty robust cable TV package, I've been watching a lot of TV shows (How did I not hear about Torchwood?  Great show!) and catching up with the friends I haven't gotten to spend the proper amount of time with since I left to go to war nine years ago.


I actually HAVE been working on some gaming product over the last few months.  I was debating working on a near-future setting, approximately the same tech level and scope of 2300AD, just much less dated.  While I like the idea of a realistic near future setting, I found myself with a bit of a dilemma.  A realistic progression of technology gives you a very Transhuman Space style setting, which is much different than the nationalistic and virtually stunted technology of 2300AD.  When you break it down, 2300AD is NOT that much more advanced than we are today, with the exception of workable energy weapons and FTL capability.  Did I want to go realistic or did I want to go stylized?  I thought more about it and realized that unless I had a group to play with, it'd be hard to put anything together anyway.

So, that project is on hold for now until I can find some people who would be willing to help me develop and play in a sci-fi setting.  I'm thinking it would end up closer to a Transhuman Space vibe than 2300AD, but that's because I have seen the pace technology is going and Transhuman Space just makes more sense to me.

That said, I have a lot less time suspending my disbelief for a Space Opera game like Traveller.  When there is no connection to the world we know (Yes, Terra exists in the OTU, but if you are playing in the Spinward Marches, it exists only as a concept), there is a lot less resistance to the facts we know.

I'll likely be getting involved in a home game with some friends come the new year.  It'll be D&D 4e, which I don't mind so much, but I'm not feeling it the way I'm feeling some of the old-school rules and clones.  I've really enjoyed the quirkiness of Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess (Which is having a GREAT sale on PDFs right now) and am thinking it might be good to work on something for that game.  A full-blown sandbox might be a bit more work than I want to do (particularly when I start school in a little more than a month), but it might be fun.  I picked up the Pembrooketonshire books from LotFP's sale (as well as Death Doom Frost and Hammers of the God) and might work on just figuring out how to allow them all into one sandboxish environment.

One thing is for certain.  I will figure out how to make the Arcane Magic system in LotFP more chaotic and less Vancian.  If Magic is intrinsically chaotic, it needs to reflect that.  Maybe I'll look to Warhammer and the Wild Mage rules for AD&D for inspiration.  I think I'll leave the orderliness of the clerics as is.  Maybe tweak spell lists by religion, but nothing major.

Anyway, I'm back.  I'll post more substance over the next couple weeks.