We have played many published games, but we’ve designed several games through the years, for our own play group, and those are what we focus on here, where either the system, or the setting, or both, are ours. Each is indicative of the era in which we worked on it and used it. Some of these are board games.
Each of us had quite a bit of experience role playing and game mastering when we met, 40 years ago, and two of us dabbled in designing our own systems. Four of us worked in the game industry in some capacity. Once we met, our group immediately started collaborating on games.
- The Core System – Core was our first collaboration, using a summary notation chart for many aspects of the game. Core uses 2d10, with derived bases (2 attributes for each base). It also uses degree of success (margin) instead of a separate damage roll. Core uses action points extensively (we called them speed points). The Core System is very tactical, even when playing TotM. It was also play tested extensively on a table with minis. We still use it for some games.
- The Short System – Wayne wanted a purely narrative option, and concocted the minimalist Short System. Part of his approach was using language instead of numbers where ever possible. Character sheets are text descriptions, with adjectives denoting the ranks of qualities. At first it was a single d6, but it evolved to 2d6. The Short System also uses a simplified version of margin for variable results. The Short System has proved very well-suited to high power level games, where trying to figure everything out just gets in the way.
- Yarn – I used the Short System for Mistrathe Manor over many years. Since the pandemic, the design itch has returned. I’ve been working on Yarn, which splits the difference between Core and Short. My goal is to incorporate polyhedral dice with some modern mechanics and ideas from both our earlier systems to provide a primarily TotM roleplaying system that is interesting in a game sense, using a narrative approach. Yarn keeps the focus on the players and their characters, and also offers varying degrees of co-moderation.
Using various incarnations of these three systems, we’ve played a lot of role playing games. Some campaigns in the same setting were played using more than one of these systems.
- Haven (Wayne’s sci fi, Core System)
- Scye – (Keith’s fantasy, Core System)
- Winterworld (Short System)
- Mistrathe Manor (both Short and Core)
- Alternate WW2 (Wayne’s WW2, Core System)
- The Favored (Yarn 0.1)
We have done work on a number of settings that haven’t been used yet, the most extensive being these two. So many games, so little time…
- Victory did see some play (Core System)
- Eldaraen has not been played yet. (Yarn 0.1)
Then there are board games. We’ve designed a few of those as well. I’m especially proud of Bump.