tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888121734297576752024-03-05T04:26:13.623-08:00Musume Mechanical Aeronautics DevelopmentThis is a dev. blog for pet tabletop RPG projects focused on mecha musume. It may also contain pieces of artwork and fiction if I create any, and even the occasional rant about physics. But mostly, it's about games with girls who have machine parts.Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-50077700680741020282012-04-24T10:06:00.001-07:002012-04-24T10:06:40.418-07:00Nations 3 and 4<h3>
Nation 3: Realism</h3>
Pretty much based on modern-day Europe. I've got almost nothing to say about these guys, if only because they're <b>not</b> any given extreme, and thus have nothing interesting. Hell, I'm not sure what their original niche or purpose is. The whole goddamn world's Ace Combat like, down to not using the normal map, if I can swing it. Anyway, not so much one nation as a loose confederation of several individual states organized under treaty and a central governing body similar to the UN or EU. Although many laws and policies are shared between nations, each also maintains a high degree of independence. All of the individual nations have long and storied histories, their own customs and cultures, and some still hold on to old rivalries. Individual nations often show differences in various aspects of quality of life, industry, communications, technological development, and so-on. The fairly new united government has yet to restructure to a single military, and thus each member state is responsible for its own defense, and still maintains its own armies. <br />
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<h3>
Nation 4: Technology</h3>
Technically not a nation at all, but a global megacorporation. It officially lacks political power and influence, but it manages quite a lot of pull between lobbying and provision of goods and services. It isn't the only such corporation on the planet, merely the largest and most successful. It controls large areas of land, including the entire city in which is corporate headquarters are based, and has claim to a large number of potential "citizens." The company HQ is a colossal arcology tower in the center of a city boasting a large population. The tower has various unsavory nicknames such as "the Ivory Tower," and is considered one of the wonders of the modern world, as well as a symbol of corporate power and excess. The corporation is best known for living on the bleeding edge of cybernetics technology, and is one of the few groups to actively encourage and embrace cybernetic augmentation. It also has a hand in several military and weapons R&D projects, energy, medical research, and entertainment. The entertainment branch has generated buzz in recent years for fielding a major pop idol who is, herself, a full-body cyborg. <br />
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They don't have an official military, only private security forces. Private security that's got enough manpower and equipment to make small countries nervous. They have enough forces to police the entire city in which the HQ arcology resides, in addition to go out on public works and support missions, such as mist reclamation. Like any good cyberpunk megacorporation, all the security and the large private forces are justified by what is as close to literal corporate warfare as possible. Competitors attack to steal and destroy research data and the researchers who created it, and retaliatory attempts to do the same are common. VIPs need the utmost of protection at all times, and policing a city and arcology with a population in the hundreds of thousands to millions is no small-time task. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-26094691093283571212012-04-22T15:39:00.001-07:002012-04-22T15:39:20.495-07:00Nation 2: GrimdarkI'm not sure if anyone's reading this stuff, but updates is updates. Next nation on the list, prototype-named "Grimdark," so you can guess that it's not the happiest place on Earth. The nation encompasses a large area, and has a history of conflict, turmoil, and internal strife, although it is now something approaching a unified whole. It's likely got some influences from WWII-era Germany, and maybe a bit of Russia/USSR. With no friends amongst its neighbors, the nation has learned to be independent. Its large territories, coupled with an extreme drive toward technological and industrial advancement has placed it as one of the strongest global powers, and made it well able to defend its own borders. Except from huge rocks falling from space. The meteors blasted much of their territory, causing widespread loss of life and infrastructure and plunging the entire country into a state of turmoil.<br />
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Although territory has been lost to the mist, infrastructure has been shattered, and refugees have poured into the more hospitable parts of the country, the military continues to flourish. In the past, multiple armies have tended to exist at any given time, backed by large factions within the nation. A civil war eventually settles who is in charge, and the various groups align under a single banner. A draft is often in effect to help fuel the fires of war, at least if it can be justified. With the sudden restructuring of the borders and alien threat, it's been reinstated once again. Dodging the draft has thus also become a common and storied practice. Unfortunately, forcefully recruiting people is also on the rise, and often for less savory positions, such as experiments to create the newest and greatest front-line soldier technology can offer. The military tends to lack a stereotype on the whole, or even within its divisions. Personnel of similar background or personality tend to band loosely together whenever possible, so one can easily find the group of civilians horrified to see what they've gotten themselves into, or the hardened soldiers so out for blood they continually test themselves against each other. The dress uniforms were designed by a famous fashion designer, and thus look really nice, at least.<br />
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The national propaganda mill is operating at full capacity, to keep the citizens happy and in high spirits. Patriotism is running high, and many are willing to do their part to help the war and reconstruction efforts. Times are tough, and many of the people are overworked and poorly-educated. The refugee population has it even worse, as proper housing or work is sometimes scarce. For many, this is something as a shock, as just a generation ago, the healthcare was better, policies were less draconian, and education was pushed as important for the nation's future. Many see the past as a symbol of what must be restored to their people. <br />
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Even propaganda-bolstered nationalism can't save the military from distrust and fear, although it does lessen the impact. Some areas are practically under martial law, and tales of soldiers returning from the front are often mentally unstable, and capable of violent outbursts. Enough of which happen to make he average citizen a little uneasy. <br />
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So...yeah, not a happy place. Working hard to be stable and preserve what it still has, and in many ways on the front lines of a war with an incomprehensible enemy. They probably develop a lot of the methods for reclaiming mist-affected areas or treating people affected by it. I see the place as desperate, and going to great extremes to avoid suffering a worse fate. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-48253629657242326922012-04-21T12:42:00.004-07:002012-04-21T12:43:23.404-07:00Setting, Part 2The setting is split into specific nations/factions. There's a bit of a rationale for this, and I feel I should explain it. Now, obviously, all the fluff exists to address concerns of a complete lack of fluff in previous releases. The setting factions are built to appeal to specific styles of play, or at least broad genre cliches. The idea is, if we picked something like say, making things standard, Deus Ex style cyberpunk, or excessively grim and dark, or even all Strike Witches style happy and positive, we'd not be pleasing many people. So, each faction is built to lean toward certain themes and thus as a whole, they provide a broader appeal. You want a game to lean certain ways and explore certain themes? Set it in the place that supports your tastes the best. Think a specific faction's just not what you want at all? Change it.<br />
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<h3>
Nation 1</h3>
<b>Prototype name: </b>"Happybright"<br />
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A small island nation based loosely on Japan. It tends to hold to isolationist policies, and although it does trade and have contact with most other nations, through most of history, it has been relatively weak and not a major player on the global stage. Internally, the nation holds many secrets, notably the study of magic. Now, this bugs me quite a bit, because it runs counter to pretty much everything else everywhere else in the setting. So, I'll probably need to change it, because even if things end up working the same no matter who you are, someone is going to bitch about the fact that these guys have honest to god physics-breaking magic and how it either doesn't fit or they aren't using it properly. But, I digress...<br />
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The majority of the population belongs to old families with their own magical traditions, and the art itself requires intense study and investment in personal improvement. The withdrawn politics and culture represent this focus on the spiritual. And, of course, a heavy imperative to keep it all secret. Recently, the alien Mist threat has dragged the country into the spotlight, due to a few attacks made on its shores. The initial damage was severe, but led to a startling discovery: the mist can not only be exploited as a source of energy, but certain materials could be refined into potent magitech circuitry. <br />
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The military is kept highly separated from the civilian population. Bases are usually well-removed from major population centers, and the average soldier can only rely upon his fellows. This does breed a strong sense of camaraderie within the armed forces, but the only contact between military and civilian between family members. Assuming, of course, the family isn't mostly within the military already. On bases, personnel are treated well, and effort is put toward maintaining comfort and peace of mind. The military on the whole is one of the largest supporters of new research into magitech cybernetics and augmentations, and the primary user of the same.<br />
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A typical civilian spends his or her life furthering the study of magic. Although the average person with little magical power will only master a handful of spells, every such action is seen as furthering the art as a whole. Magic is a complex art treated with such secrecy out of a mixture of egotism and pity toward those either ignorant of it or simply unable to control it. The public opinion on war tends to lean toward regret. Recent advances such as the ability to reprocess mist into a power source have jump-started the nation industrially, and given it the advantage it needs to rival its neighbors. National pride is on the rise.<br />
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If things lean more toward Japan during WWII, things could take interesting turns, with war rationalized by ideals such as purity versus impurity, and so-on. I'd have to do some research, but it might make these guys more interesting, or at least potentially less nice.<br />
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This is pretty long already, so I'll just do one nation per write-up. It's an excuse to update semi-regularly for a while, anyway. I'm still not sure I want these guys to be involved with actual magic, though.Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-2506007463584054052012-04-19T20:51:00.001-07:002012-04-19T20:51:43.365-07:00Setting, Part 1Well, I said I'd blog some setting things, so it's time to start on that, with the general state of the world. The setting is futuristic scifi, with heavy cyberpunk elements and maybe a few light touches of transhumanism. But, I'm not too fond of a lot of implications of "transhumanism," so it's not going to be much of a thing. The world's been relatively stable and peaceful, but 20 (or more) years ago, a series of meteor impacts killed millions and caused severe damage to infrastructure across entire regions. The status-quo was quickly disrupted, by this event, and things have been getting worse since. <br />
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The meteors brought additional problems, as after the impacts, the Mist came. The Mist is one part weather pattern, one part terraforming system. It usually spreads slowly, and never dissipates over areas where it's taken hold. In those same areas, it changes the land, and everything in it, altering it into an alien landscape. I'm not sure yet whether it should be meat moss and biology gone awry, inorganic beauty like forests of metal and crystal, or a little of both. Whatever the case, the Mist changes the world, in strange ways. It alters any animal or plant life just as well, usually resulting in mutations or death. It wouldn't be too bad if that's all it did, though. It can be dangerous to people, as it'll do to them the same as to anything else, but with sealed protective clothing, you can go out in it just fine. And brief exposure is usually safe. Sometimes, though, something takes hold, and results in horrible mutations or crystallization of a limb, or what-have-you. Good news is, whatever pathogen causes this is localized, so removing the affected areas stops it from getting worse. Bad news is, losing an arm sucks even when cybernetic replacements are available. <br />
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The Mist also harbors its own life. Some sort of alien invaders, or so it seems. They don't always show up, but they're usually very large, and very dangerous, when they do. The general pattern is a large creature will exit the mist zone, and travel a preferably large distance away, where it settles down, takes root, and converts itself into a factory that starts spilling out more mist. This is the general way in which mist spreads, outside of slow diffusion. Sometimes, these monsters instead attack human population centers or industrial sites. In any case, tit's preferred to destroy them rather than leave them alone, although this is rarely achieved without significant expenditure of firepower and loss of life. Notably, the deaths of such creatures often release a large amount of mist particles into their immediate surroundings, posing a threat to the soldiers who had just defeated them, and requiring clean-up efforts to ensure the area is safe. <br />
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As previously mentioned, the syndrome mist produces in humans is usually treated with cybernetics, and the mist itself seems to have little to no effect on machines or cybernetics of any sort. Coupled with the threat of alien monstrosities, and the high amount of firepower and durability a cyborg represents compared to a normal human soldier, and most major nations now have a sizable and growing number of combat cyborgs within their ranks. <br />
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That's enough for now. Next time, I'll go over the specific nations. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-53471824506159286552012-04-12T13:59:00.000-07:002012-04-12T13:59:28.593-07:00Progress UpdateWell, progress continues to be slow, but hey, that's how it is with me. I'm easily prone to distraction, so I don't usually get things done quickly. I've done everything from play through Corpse Party (good game, by the way; highly recommended), to trying my hand at baking bread. <br />
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But, what's the state of my homebrew? Well, a few steps forward, a few back. <br />
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<b>Fluff:</b><br />
The game fluff continues to be lacking, although I now have a good set of starting points to flesh out. I'll make another post soon to go into greater detail on what I do have. It's on a lower priority than some of the other things I could be working on. I also need to create a world map, and names for the various countries. Neither is something I am good at. Worst-case scenario I'll use a map of Earth, with the continents moved, and the sea level changed. <br />
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<b>Rules:</b><br />
Playtesting with the current DitS system has shown it may have some issues which need to be addressed. The system of separate movement and attack/action phases may make the game far too slow to play, and movement/weapon ranges need to be changed to grid spacing to make things easily accessible and lower the number of times people need to ask if they're in range. So, in many ways, I'll have to go back to the drawing board to deal with the core system, most likely moving it back toward the sort of action economy seen in most games, and dropping an independent movement "phase" altogether. This is fine by me, as the general system leanings more toward people behaving like people rather than like vehicles suits me just fine. The last possible gripe is that skills are a bit too open, or at least easily bought to high levels, notably in the case of attack skills and defenses. Characters are too "safe" and need little strategic thought, in other words. So, I'll have to examine that again and consider a few fixes. <br />
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On the plus side, I've made some progress. Characters have been switched over to a wounds and critical damage system, which should be a bit more interesting and mesh well with the idea of fancy cyborg characters. PCs can shrug off losing an arm or a leg as a temporary inconvenience. Progress has also been made toward adding additional weapons and equipment, in a more robust system. <br />
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<b>Character Advancement:</b><br />
I haven't even gotten around to this one yet, however, I can give a sketch of how it will work. Characters earn Credits from doing missions (i.e. going on adventures, playing the game). Credits are spent to purchase new weapons and equipment, and may also be used to upgrade current equipment or even improve a character's attributes. If I can, I'll put a system in place in which a character's reward is penalized for things such as taking sever damage or losing limbs, to possibly even paying for ammunition expended. <b> </b><br />
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I also need to work on a name for this semi-new system, as it's no longer just planelegs and flying. The working name is Mecha Musume System (MMS), although something a little more poetic may be in order. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-6190555465327862812012-02-12T14:08:00.000-08:002012-02-12T14:08:20.334-08:00Finally, an updateMan, I never post anything anymore. This is more a symptom of my life not being very interesting than anything else. Anyway, I've decided to get back in the saddle when it comes to working on my game, although it's going to be a while before I can report any significant progress. I'm not the best writer or most creative person, so it'll take me a while to get anything done in terms of creating fluff or crunch. <br />
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My main areas of focus for now are:<br />
<ul><li>Fluff. The game needs a setting, with a few different factions, and some interesting background material. Not everyone may use it, but it's better than just a sterile set of rules.</li>
<li>Rules for ground combat. Dive into the Sky has none. If I'm going to broaden the system, I will need to institute rules for situations outside of air combat. Preferably, the air combat and ground combat rules will be able to interact well, and one can seamlessly move between flight, and fighting on or near the ground. Mecha musume types seem to do that, especially in the sort of sources I'm looking to for inspiration, like Infinite Stratos and Cosmic Break. </li>
<li>More equipment options, and better rules for equipment and weapons. The current rules are somewhat lacking in this regard. And I will need to change it if I want an Armored Core approach to things, in which characters have many options which do different things. </li>
<li>Character advancement rules. As before, there are none. This isn't good. At all. I've got some ideas, at least. </li>
</ul>So, there we go. I'll also need to look into art eventually, because it makes for a prettier document. <br />
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Oh, I was asked a while ago for point-buy rules for DitS. They're in an older post, but here they are again. Rather than roll dice for attributes, you get 100 points to distribute across them. Each attribute still starts at 20, and points add to the attribute on a one-for-one basis. No attribute can be above 40 at character creation. This method will yield slightly above-average characters. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-54197893841863055492011-12-22T14:39:00.000-08:002011-12-22T14:39:01.627-08:00All I want for christmas is some good ideasWell, as is usual, this blog's pretty quiet. I haven't been up to anything of note, especially with the game. I've been doing a lot of other stuff, much of it pointless ,but it's hard to focus on game development, and even harder to get ideas for either fluff or crunch when I am in the mood to work on things. It's all quite frustrating. I don't know how some people do it. I guess this is why I've got no intention of breaking into the tabletop games industry. Hell, I'm surprised I've done what I have with a little pet project, even if it's mostly pulled out of my ass.<br />
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I have made some art recently, though. nothing all that impressive, just my own take on a meme. Of course, it's also an in-joke, as it's art of a character nobody outside my gaming group of friends would be likely to recognize. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4XscAwgB4HtjcKnDZNbIjmmoUVuYOP7IZPU5DW2cgIBFgvYNqVxDUJ94VvOSStAMQRVT40Rn1uSansx9Ufl6H5u1RmrobueBOvdRA3R05k-eq_UIZi7rnyvAw_57v1j5jJLbS9V0z5-g2/s1600/it%2527s+just+alice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4XscAwgB4HtjcKnDZNbIjmmoUVuYOP7IZPU5DW2cgIBFgvYNqVxDUJ94VvOSStAMQRVT40Rn1uSansx9Ufl6H5u1RmrobueBOvdRA3R05k-eq_UIZi7rnyvAw_57v1j5jJLbS9V0z5-g2/s400/it%2527s+just+alice.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All because of some silly images featuring the girls from that Madoka show.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the full size in there without breaking things. And, I don't usually draw in this style; this is an intentional parody of other things. It was fun, though.Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-82096823043183077142011-10-08T12:56:00.000-07:002011-10-08T12:56:24.671-07:00The Horror at the Museum...I don't update this enough. Though, it's the usual "I've got nothing interesting to talk about, certainly nothing relevant to the game this is nominally a blog about." Though, if dev. blogs tend to be full of other content too, nobody cares, I guess. Mostly, I've been too distracted with video games and not very creative, lately. <br />
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In slightly more interesting news, I'm volunteering at the local science museum for the month of October. In which, they put on one of those haunted house affairs. And now the title of this post makes sense. Volunteer work looks good on a resume, but just how do you say "I scared people in a haunted house" and not make it sound silly? Last week was the first night and we had some technical difficulties, which hopefully have been worked out by now. But, I think the first night isn't the best to expect, and more of a high-pressure dress rehearsal. Spending my Saturday nights as a cheap jump scare is a bit weird, but it' better than sitting around doing nothing. ...Besides, scaring people is fun. <br />
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That's mostly it ,beyond playing of various games, finishing others, and so-on. Typical life activities and such. Still looking for jobs and all that crap. Finished watching Steins;Gate. Work does progress on the game things, though in an undirected fashion. <a href="http://badscribbler.blogspot.com/">My</a> <a href="http://thehorriblemind.blogspot.com/">colleagues</a> and I have mostly been working on the setting, when we can. It's still horribly not fleshed out. Sometimes, some bit of mechanics comes up and gets discussed for a bit, but I think for the most part, development is wanting a bit of drive. I'm unfortunately lazy and easily distracted like this, and will thus hit large phases where any pet projects of mine, be they art or whatever else, are put on hold for long periods. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-19656618201021202142011-08-20T12:00:00.000-07:002011-08-20T12:00:17.837-07:00A Crisis of DevelopmentI really need to update this more often. Maybe if I, like, post some art at least once a week or something, to enforce a regular update schedule. Not to mention get up to speed on drawing again. And it's not like this game development stuff isn't in need of illustrations...<br />
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Anyhow. Meat of the post. Still no real updates on DitS as far as general development, beyond some bits of a setting. More on that later, as I should drop the bombs first. I may put DitS on indefinite hold (well, after a few last checks and fixes) so that I may work on it's bigger sister project focused on more general mecha musume/cyborg girls and such. Chances are, most of what I have will end up a portion of the greater work anyway, so I do sometimes wonder why not? Main reasons are actually more those of fluff, as a way to dodge some inexplicable negative stigma attached by a doubtless small yet annoying vocal minority. It's like if you admit to liking Strike Witches or anything to do with it on the internet, you're officially weird or some shit. But, I digress. Another motivation for the change is that starting (kind of0 from scratch and a more general approach than "everyone files, always" will make it a bit easier on cooking up the fluff side of the game, which DitS currently lacks pretty much completely, which makes it a bit "weak" as a coherent project.<br />
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And, speaking of fluff, there's been some vague work toward it. Mostly, it's not much so far, just a framework from which to develop things further. I'm not the best nor most creative writer, and I tend to forget to get into big discussions on this stuff to get help from friends. What I've got is the following: a not-Earth alternate world map, because those are fun, combined with a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats">"nations of hats" (warning, link is to TV tropes)</a> idea. So, there's the GRIMDARK country, and the fairly normal/modern country or region full of infighting, and the happy magical pseudo-utopia county, and the giant technologically-advanced country that's a megacorp which bought out its own sovereignty, and so-on. This allows for characters to have unique bits of background, possibly including an influence on crunch as ell as fluff. It also lets GMs select a specific setting location to focus on what kind of tone they want to convey. Or...something. <br />
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There's also been some talk about multiple character origins or natures beyond nationality. Possibly, this will relate to things like whether one is wearing powered armor or is a full-body cyborg, or other such things, but I honestly kind of dislike this rout, as it may invite too many rules exceptions or changes. To make a parallel to old White Wolf games, I'd rather it be more like Tribe/Auspice from Werewolf or the like, than something where character A is an unmodified human, so all these rules should work differently to reflect that, and Character B is the default cyborg. At most, any of the various background bits shouldn't do much more than modify a few attributes up and down and/or provide a couple of other minor bonuses and penalties. That's about it, though. I will say that it also kind of gets in the way of one major/defining quality I want to add to the setting as a whole: the modification of the human body with heavy cybernetics is widely portrayed as somewhat distasteful, and the unaltered human body is uplifted as an ideal, particularly in propaganda or within the military units composed of cyborgs. I'm not sure why, but the idea just seems fun, if maybe a bit dark. But, it leads to things like a justification of slightly non-human qualities in most PCs, and a sort of motivation or two. If you survive through your term of service, you can get a much more lifelike body. Also, talk of making sacrifices to protect others and so-on. <br />
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Tl;dr:<br />
<ul><li>DitS may be shelved so I can just focus on a project that's near-identical but bigger in scope; but I'm an indecisive ass.</li>
<li>Some rudimentary fluff exists, to go with the rudimentary rules.</li>
<li>I might start posting art as a regular update feature, 'cause i need the practice.</li>
</ul>Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-90707057375677433652011-07-28T12:40:00.000-07:002011-07-28T12:40:10.465-07:00Speaking of moving...I've done just that. I am now back home in Louisiana, and all that. Hopefully, this will mean development of the things this blog is supposedly about will pick up. I do have more free time, and can probably run my own playtests and all, now. <br />
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This is a short one, but I don't have much to ramble about at the moment. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-14578031380394381532011-07-22T08:55:00.000-07:002011-07-22T08:55:53.740-07:00Things Slowly Move ForwardWithout a single playtest game, DitS dev work has bogged down to a stall. Couple games that might start, but it's like nobody wants to play or something. I don't know, it's weird, but since I'm not actively doing everything myself, I'm not the most aware of the situation, either. That will probably change in the near future, as I'm about to have a lot of free time on my hands. <br />
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On the plus side, there's some things we can chew through without playtesting, thanks to something known as the Monte Carlo method. Hey, if it works for theoretical physics, it damn well better work for dice-based games. <a href="http://badscribbler.blogspot.com/">A friend</a> was kind enough to run a program to test some combat aspects that require no human input. Mainly, how long would we expect a one-on-one fight to last, with PC-like characters in a duel, using different ways to calculate HP and damage reduction. After much working out of bugs, we got some nice results, which I won't replicate here, because they are long, and boring. His blog's got a bit of an article about messing with this stuff.<br />
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Anyhow, the results were at first startling (because of a programming error). But, we still came to the conclusion that Dark Heresy is a lot less lethal than it initially appears. Most notably, with everyone able to reduce damage by their Toughness bonus (usually, around 3), with a bit of added armor, they take no damage from attacks about half the time. So, we kind of dropped the whole toughness-based damage reduction from DitS. Toughness now adds to player health. Which has been slightly reduced in overall total as well. We might need to re-check things, but combat should probably last no more than about 10 rounds, on average. Nobody wants to back-an-forth for 20 or more rounds of shooting before downing one target. Hell, ammo won't normally last that long, anyway. <br />
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A summary of current system errata spawned by these investigations:<br />
<ul><li>Characters no longer gain damage reduction from Toughness. They only reduce damage with worn armor.</li>
<ul><li>This calls into question whether toughness needs to remain as an attribute, but I will find other uses for it, and it is important as some other mechanics require rolling it in checks. </li>
<ul><li>Some thoughts on uses include mucking with the injury table, or mucking with one's maximum speed.</li>
</ul></ul><li>Characters begin with [10+toughness bonus] HP, instead of 15. This hardly changes anything.</li>
<ul><li>On the plus side, we don't need to go in and re-balance most weapon damages, by altering the health side of things.</li>
<li>Corollary: Anything that does 2d10+X damage can really ruin your day. </li>
</ul></ul>Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-68187138071808316972011-07-16T11:49:00.000-07:002011-07-16T11:49:57.911-07:00What's in a Name?And now, more tales from the pre-history of DitS. No real new content, so I'm up tp inventing odd things of my own, instead. Although for a quick update, I am slowly working on a table to character traits to add a bit of spice to character creation. <br />
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Now, Dive into the Sky is an odd name. It also wasn't always the name for an RPG about girls with airplane legs. Originally, it was for some story-writing project that never went anywhere, mostly because I'm not that good of a writer except for isolated incidents for which I have inspiration. So I can maybe write something ,but piecemeal, and not straight start to finish. Said project involved girls flying jets, and various cyberpunk or near future technologies. I'll maybe talk about it in more detail later, I did get at least one nice thing out of it.<br />
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But, where does that weird and whimsical title come from? Touhou music remixes. No lie. See the video below. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/qK1lppQtmmU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>As is by now no secret, I'm a fan of the Touhou series. An actually like it for the shooter games as well as the characters. Also the addictive music. <br />
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So, why do I name a game this? Mostly because back when the idea was first tossed around, people wanted to call it "Lesbo Jet Fighters" and it deserves a little more dignity than that. Only problem is now my old story project needs a new name, should I ever get back to it. <br />
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And speaking of names, I'm terrible at them, whether it's names for characters or games. I...kind of need one for the General Mecha Musume Game (name subject to change) I intend to work on when DitS is more or less done with. Any suggestions? Best I can come up with is like Iron Maidens or Warrior God-Princess or something. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-74797968392655679482011-07-14T15:31:00.000-07:002011-07-14T15:31:34.073-07:00Sometimes, I love my jobI realize this isn't about DitS, but I have no updates on that front yet, sorry. In the interest of being active, I may therefore ramble about other things. Such as my job. <br />
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I work at a particle accelerator laboratory. Now, before you go thinking this means something fancy, it doesn't. I don't have the credentials for a job at Fermilab or CERN. I'm more the guy actually around to keep a small university's machine running and do work on it when nobody else has the time for it. This is a fun job description, although it can entail some pretty varied tasks. <br />
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So far, I've installed a new control system for the machine (an NEC 1 Mv tandem pelletron, for the curious), taken apart the source to clean it, put together a beam line, and whatever other odd jobs come my way. Things may sometimes feel like being a glorified plumber or electrician, but when they don't there's usually something fun involved. Stuff like liquid nitrogen or alkali metals. One of my current tasks is to clean an old vacuum evaporator bell jar, and to do that, I'll be using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_regia">an alchemical potion</a>, of all things. <br />
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Last month was occupied almost completely by a summer camp for high school students put on by the university, and was a lot of fun. It so happens that I enjoy teaching, and it's even more fun when the students want to learn. We went over several different things, for different groups, with me handling some of the nuclear and medical physics experiments and things. <br />
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Unfortunately, said job is only temporary, and I'll be looking for a more permanent one as of the end of the month. Still, it's been fun and I'll miss it. Oh, and if anyone wants me to ramble in more detail on any science things like how this stuff works or whatever, just ask.Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-42956198098898333102011-07-07T16:00:00.000-07:002011-07-07T16:00:41.328-07:00Current State of Dive into the SkyI might as well post a bit about the current state of the homebrew. <br />
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At the moment, DitS has already had a few minor edits for clarity and stupid fixes. These aren't in the current PDF, either. They are as follows:<br />
<ul><li> The mention of magic points in the entry for the Willpower attribute has been removed. There are no magic points; I scrapped that idea early on and forgot I mentioned it there.</li>
<li>The "Death Spiral" injury table entry has been moved to the 111-120 result, pushing all permanent injuries further down. </li>
</ul>I've also got some largely untested but probably common-sense character creation tweaks.<br />
<ul><li> Starting characters may not have any skill rated at better than twice the skill's base attribute. This is to cut down on extreme minmaxing right out of the gate, which some types of people are certain to do.</li>
<li>If one prefers point buy to rolling of attributes, the following method may be used. Characters have 100 points to spend among their attributes, which all start at 20. </li>
<ul><li>Particularly cruel GMs who don't like the idea of everyone having a potential statline of 40 in one place, 30 everywhere else, can only give out 90 points instead. </li>
</ul></ul>That's it, so far. Hopefully I'll get some sort of test on weapon ranges and character movement done soon, as i just know that will need work. probably also weapon damage versus potential character defenses (to tweak lethality of combat versus time spent poking each-other in combat), but that one is much, much easier to figure out. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-888812173429757675.post-68258635684126928192011-07-06T16:30:00.000-07:002011-07-06T16:30:28.689-07:00An Introductory and Explanatory PostWell, I have created a blog. It probably won't be much to look at for a while ,but I might as well explain what it will be about. Which could take a while, so sit back and get comfortable. <br />
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Something like three years ago now, I made a little homebrew game as part of a challenge someone had posted on 4chan's traditional games board to create a game, any game, in a week's time. There was no requirement on overall quality. So, being a bit caught up in the craziness of it, I decided to make a game based upon mecha musume. Since Strike Witches was big at the time, I specifically made it based on girls with airplane parts. And thus, Dive into the Sky was born. It sucked. A lot. The rules were unbalanced and not all that great. <br />
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Still, it was popular enough to get some amount of interest, and I'm never one to completely abandon a good idea. I resolved to go back and fix or remake the game, but I never got around to it. Some distraction or another always seemed to come up. And then I got bored at work a couple months ago and started working on a complete revamp of my game during some of my time previously spent being bored. Took me a few months to get something put together. <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByIlV0uy5YrsYmM0MTQ1OTEtODhhMC00OTg1LWIxZTQtODNlZmFmYjUwMjJl&hl=en_US">The fruits of my labor may be found right here.</a><br />
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Now, this game is far from complete, and I think it's got some holes that need fixing. The main purpose of this blog is as a way for me to rant about any current development work as it happens, in the form of weekly updates or so. This will hopefully be a good thing for a few reasons. First, anyone who actually likes the game can give swift feedback. Second, this blog's mere existence will help get my game out there and thus get more people testing it. Third, I have this funny habit where if I don't get my thoughts down on paper or discuss them with others, I'll keep second-guessing myself. <br />
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But wait, there's more! I have another plan for a game. Dive into the Sky is at a stage where it needs to be playtested and any minor tweaks or fixes made, so it's not completely unbalanced and provides good fun. I have an idea for another game which is far less further along. Similar to Dive into the Sky (AKA DitS, if I ever use that abbreviation), in that it will deal with mecha musume, this game will not deal only with aircraft. It will be modeled more after Cosmic Break or Busou Shinki, with a dash or two of Armored Core. What this means is more crunch, a big emphasis on different pieces of equipment, and some other things. I will be posting about this project as it develops. First thing probably being a working title for it.<br />
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And that's the main focus of this blog. A place for me to post rants about RPGs I'm working on in my spare time. As the descriptive subtitle suggests, there may be other things I post about as well. I draw, and might as well post my art here. If I write any bits of fiction, I'll post them, too. And if I have any general rants about games I'm playing or physics or whatever, I'll post those too, if I think they'd be interesting. Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00762546397821507134noreply@blogger.com0