Viridian Games – Page 71 – Retro-styled games for the modern era.

Woohoo for Wynne!

November 6, 2006 Anthony Salter

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My friend Wynne McLaughlin got mentioned in our local paper! You might remember Wynne as the Source of All Snark in Hit & Myth; now he’s a writer/designer for NCSoft, working on Tabula Rasa.

Go, Wynne! Go, Wynne!

Video Blogs On Hiatus

November 5, 2006 Anthony Salter

Cool People Games Video Blogs

2 Comments

Rather than just let them fade away, I’m going to officially put the video blogs on hiatus. There are a couple reasons for this.

First, since I got sick about two weeks ago my energy level has been kind of low and I’ve had this chronic cough…not good for talking.

Second, WonderMellon recently commented that when I started doing my video blogs it felt like my other projects were beginning to suffer. That’s true…it’s just amazing how much time it takes to do a video blog. It’ll take me three to four hours just to get fifteen minutes up on the web, and that’s time I could have spent much more effectively on a One-Page Game or Planitia.

Third…well, it’s getting kind of forced. The video blog I was planning to do this weekend was going to talk about high-level versus low-level story, which is something everybody is probably already familiar with…and I’m not really sure what my point was going to be.

The video blogs (or some other video feature) will return when I feel like I’ve got something to say and I’m well enough to say it (cough) without coughing (cough) all the way through (cough) it.

(cough)

First Character

November 4, 2006 Anthony Salter

Cool People Role Playing

6 Comments

Last night my older daughter made her first D&D character, a female human chaotic good cleric named Yue.

They grow up so fast…sniff…I promised myself I wouldn’t cry…

Actually, she expressed interest in trying out “real” D&D recently (although this technically isn’t her first experience with the D&D system since she’s a huge Neverwinter Nights fan). Since I didn’t have a copy of the most recent rules I opted for the D&D Basic Game, which I purchased at a local Toys R Us.

We played through the first very short programmed adventure with a precreated character and she really enjoyed it. Wizards of the Coast went ahead and integrated the D&D miniatures game into the basic rules, so the basic game we bought came with a whole bunch of plastic miniatures and mapboards. She had no trouble picking up the rules and she thoroughly enjoyed bashing some kobold brains out.

Ah, kobolds…I remember when I…sniff…no, must be strong!

But she didn’t like any of the pregenerated characters and wanted to make her own, so she cracked open the advanced rulebook, which has character creation rules for the four basic classes (fighter, rogue, cleric and sorceror) and the four basic races (human, elf, dwarf and halfling).

Then she sat at the table for about two hours voluntarily reading and doing math. God I love paper and pencil RPGs!

Now, overall the quality of the D&D Basic Game is quite high, but in the player section of the advanced rulebook there is one vital omission…nowhere does it tell you what your starting Armor Class is! There are tons of rules about how to modify your starting AC based on your race, your Dexterity score and your armor, but nowhere in the book do they tell you that your base AC is 10! That seems like a weird omission. That one stymied us for a bit…I knew in previous versions that the starting AC was 10 but I didn’t know if it was still the case. I was able to look at the pregenerated characters and figure out from them that base AC was still 10, and she was finally able to finish her character.

Who will probably go on her first adventure tonight!

For the record:

Name: Yue
Race: Human
Class: Cleric
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Deity: Pelor

Ability Scores:
STR: 16 +3
DEX: 14 +2
CON: 15 +2
INT: 12 +1
WIS: 17 +3
CHA: 16 +3

Saving Throws:
Fortitude: 14
Reflex: 16
Will: 18

Skills:
Diplomacy: d20
Hide: d20
Listen: d20
Move Silently: d20
Search: d20
Spot: d20+2

Combat Stats:
HP: 13
AC: 14
To-Hit: d20+3
Damage: d8+3
Initiative: 12

Feats:
Iron Will
Toughness

Spells:
Detect Magic
Light
Read Magic
Bless
Cure Light Wounds (heals d8+2)
Cure Light Wounds (heals d8+2)

Equipment:
Holy Symbol
Morningstar
Leather Armor

One Page Game #3: Quad Force!

November 3, 2006 Anthony Salter

Cool People One-Page Games

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Well, not exactly one-page. Tom’s game turned out to be about 2.5 pages in length, but you will not believe how cool it is. It’s basically a little Zelda clone in 3D, with an overworld and four (count them, FOUR!) dungeons to explore, each one with its own tricks and traps.

Head on over to his site for the code and the executable. Be sure to read the readme, or you’ll probably have trouble figuring out what is going on.

The Order of the Stick

November 3, 2006 Anthony Salter

Cool People Games Role Playing

2 Comments

The Order of the Stick is a webcomic that has been running for about three years now. (And I just found out about it from Rob Fermier’s blog – thanks, Rob!) It started out as just a simple “make fun of the rules of D&D” comic – and it did its job very well. But as I read it, I was surprised to watch it grow out of that and into a pretty darn good general action/adventure/comedy comic set firmly inside the D&D universe.

One of the great things about The Order of the Stick is that all the characters know they are characters in a role playing game, but the entire story is told from their perspective – we never see the players who are presumably playing the characters or the GM who is presumably running the campaign. The characters all know how the D&D rules work and they know their own stats. They continually talk about failing Spot checks, rolling natural 20s and what Feats they should take for their next level. And the author, Rich Burlew, seems to know a whole lot about D&D. A whole lot. Reading the comic can actually help you figure out how some rules (like attacks of opportunity) work.

The other great thing about The Order of the Stick is that it’s drawn in a stick-figure style. This is great because it goes a long way to covering up the unbelievability of how RPGs are played – it doesn’t seem that weird when a character one hit point away from death is healed back up to full hit points instantly because all that really happens is that the red mark on his chest disappears and he stands up. If the toon were more realistic, it would actually be less believable. This is very, very important. The other benefit of the stick figure style is that Rich can give us a full page on every update which allows him to tell really big stories – and tell them he does!

The only downside is that I’d rate the strip PG-13 for violence, adult language and adult situations. So I’m not letting my daughter read it quite yet. But if you’re old enough and would like to read a great fantasy adventure comic, you really should give it a shot.

Name That Game 6!

November 1, 2006 Anthony Salter

Name That Game!

6 Comments

Here comes a new challenger!

Again, I have no idea how hard this one is. This is actually one of my favorite games and I wish it would get the 3D sequel it deserves.

Click the image above to get a full-sized screenshot.

Name and developer, please.

One Page Game #2

October 31, 2006 Anthony Salter

One-Page Games

7 Comments

Sigh…I must be crazy.

RPGs are just so information dense; doing one in one page seems almost impossible without cutting practically every feature that makes an RPG an RPG. But as you can see, I’m thinking positive…this is basically a much more effective reworking of the terrain generation I started on with 40-Hour RPG #1 (which I failed to complete, if you’ll remember).

Basically, I wanted a algorithm that made maps that reminded me of this. I must use an algorithm, because I want the map to be 64×64 (I don’t think a smaller map will feel big enough to represent a world). If I tried to simply use a data file, I’d waste 4096 bytes just on the world. An algorithm that takes up fewer than 4096 bytes and can generate a random world would be a big win.

I now know what I was doing wrong with my first terrain generator. I walked the Path of Perlin and tried to do a heightfield. I can’t really blame myself; google “random terrain generation” and practically all you will get are articles about heightfields.

You know what? I frigging hate heightfields. For one thing, they are not an accurate representation of how terrain looks. They’re too smooth; too rolling. They say nothing about what type of terrain it is or what is on the terrain, just what elevation it is. And you will never, ever get a realistic-looking river out of a heightfield.

So I went back to a very early idea I had – that of seeding the map grid at regular intervals with terrain types and then having them grow and fight each other for terrain tiles. I effectively walked the Path of Conway instead. This worked much better and started giving me maps that I felt I might be able to use, but I still think there is room for improvement.

My current intention is to include both a world generation algorithm and a dungeon level generation algorithm. I will probably run both until I get results I like and hardcode those seeds so that the player gets known content; otherwise the odds are good that the game would be unfinishable.

I am going to do my best to get it into one page. Going the two-page route here seems like a copout, since I’m almost positive I could do an RPG in two pages. (Especially since Tom is already doing an RPG in two pages. Gosh, it sure would be nice if he’d update his blog with a couple screenshots of it.)

Let’s see what I can do in one.