Friday, December 7, 2012

D'Undred manual

Today marks the official start of my holiday season, that is, in my 'real' job- special effects and game graphics.
Having coded my last line of unity3d java, I am now looking forward to clearing the Skulldred backlog, getting the beta out and that, folks, means D'Undred time!

So far, the D'Undred file is a collection of unedited notes, mixed with placeholder art to keep me inspired and add flavor- mainly red box era Elmore, Eastley, fighting fantasy pen work, Rodney Matthews and Roger Dean.

The next step is to bash it into a free beta 1.0.

I was thinking about totally skipping the 'what a rpg' stuff- as anyone interested in this will already get the idea. The main thing is communicating the differences in how it plays to dnd. I think transcripts of game play is the way to really get the concepts across.

For the first playtest book I think a sample adventure, player character basic generation rules, item list and low spells will do the trick- damage cards and some pre generated archetypes.

I like the idea of doing miniatures of the sample characters appearing in D'Undred- in the same way pathfinder did with their Reaper minis- in fact the idea of characters running through the book series appeals as it gives the game an identity, and elevates it from a straight DnD system replacement to its own creature.
Its funny to think I just wanted to play old school DnD but without shitty old rules, and now I am thinking backstory, setting and well, a new intellectual property. Retroclones shy away from that entirely, and so I guess D'Undred is stepping out from that bracket.
As with Skulldred, I must define my core goals clearly- doing so kept the projects shape through development and made me strive to better the mechanics to reach those goals.