World Building

I simply cannot get through secrets of cats. I am procrastinating, not just on this but on things in my life that could have serious consequences.

Creating a world is an ambitious goal, I am finding it so daunting that I am avoiding it. I have a brief intro to the world done but it is poorly composed and not very interesting. I will post it here when its a bit more polished.

I have had a week or two with the FATE system in my mind and have come to what I think are good insights. 

First, FATE allows players to help build the world and I have not been making use of this in my planning for my setting. I need to make the world interesting but open enough so the players can say what their town or city is like and who is there. I need my world to be more like a backdrop than a traditional campaign setting.

Second, the rules of FATE are a good deal less the GM's friend than rules of other systems. The rules cannot and should not be used to reign in the PCs. The PCs should abuse and break the rules of the game like they should abuse and break the rules of the game world. The best thing that a GM can do is think of himself as another player not the god of his little world.

Discouraged again

Still haven't made any significant progress one secrets of cats. getting kinda discouraged again. Family problems mostly.

The world I am making is going to take a lot more planning than I thought. I knew that it would be a lot of work, that's not the problem. Planning is the stage before writing when you decide what to write. I am working on a bare bones document to explain the basics of my world. I will post it here as soon as its done.

adventure 1

No progress in secrets of cats yet. had a busy weekend.

I have decided on the basic structure of the adventure I'll run at Pacificon, but as some people that want to play it also read here I wont spoil it. What I will do is chronicle the steps I go through in its creation and how they also serve as stepping stones for creation of the campaign setting I intend to publish. I find that the most difficult part of the creative process for me is the blank page. I have an idea now and that is the toughest part.

Pacificon 2

No progress on secrets of cats. 

Decided that I'm defiantly going to Pacificon this September, so I'm going to start work on an adventure to run. I think I'm gonna go with something like the seven samurai set in my post apocalyptic world. I have some good ideas of how to set it up and make it feel fleshed out and deep.

moving to somithing new

I have reached chapter 6 in the toolkit but I don't think I am going to read anymore. There are a bunch of cool thing in there but I think I may be putting the cart before the horse if I try to implement any of them. I am going to stick with the core rules and learn how they run and not add to them unless I need them as a solution to something a character wants to do.

I am going to begin the secrets of cats to see how a full campaign setting is written in this system.

First FATE

I DMed my first game in FATE tonight. It went well. We didn't get past character creation but I think my players had a lot of fun. Making characters is very much like playing, it had adventure and intrigue and interaction between characters. It was great fun for me to see the characters blossom from simple ideas to characters with motivations and connections to the world. Its kinda different from the way other games do it.

I am running a post apocalyptic, kitchen sink type game. I love game worlds that allow you to play whatever you think up. My sister is playing an intelligent tree and my brother is a gunslinging knight. Both of those are kinda rip offs of other stuff but so is almost everything.

We had fun and should continue to have, so that means it was a success.

group planned

I am up to chapter 4 in the Toolkit. I love alternate rules, that's why I own 40 plus Gurps books. These rules are very interesting but I think its in my best interest to run the game just from the core book at first. With the exception of adding a couple of skills.

I have gotten a group to agree to play tomorrow night, so I should have some interesting stories of how we got it wrong and, hopefully, still had fun.