I must admit that for a long time when I have been playing WoW I never considered the background of my characters like I would in a traditional roleplaying game. The mechanics of the game just dont really seem to make you need to consider it and in general the game is more about getting money / gear than thinking about why your character is doing something.

Recently however I have got into the background story of WoW through reading the books and I've started thinking about my characters more in terms of a roleplaying character and where they came from within the WoW universe. When you are more intimately connected in the world you see how your character can fit into it.

Interestingly I think that WoW is potentially a good roleplaying environment for an over the table RPG because of the diversity of environment and culture involved in it.

So do you have a backstory for your WoW character?

So I've started to come up with ideas for a new board game and it has been perculating around in my head. One thing that was bothering me when I was mulling things around was that there would be an idea strategy that players would find if the game always started out the same way. Some games try and get around it by having multiple viable strategies and allowing players to individually go down these paths. If too many people go for the "best" strategy then it gets watered down and they do not win, however sometimes this leads to re-inforcement as each player rides off the back of the other's coat tails.

Games replayability is a crucial element that decides when a game gets pulled out the cupboard again. A game with no random elements may have a considerably less replayability as the strategies are well known and quickly become old and tired.

The other way around this is to either have a randomising element in the setup (such as in The Settlers of Catan) or during the course of play. I've never been a big fan of randomising elements in games, but now I can see that in areas where it does not decide the game in itself it can be a good thing for the game. This is obviously a fine balancing act as used in the wrong place it can lead to a strategy that relies on being lucky - which I do not believe makes for a good strategic game.

As usual I'm pondering on Roleplaying Games. The session we had last weekend was particularly successful (I felt) even though we had virtually no combat in it. The secret of the success I feel was that

a) There were significant choices that all the characters needed to make
b) The outcome of the whole session was in doubt (even in the GMs mind)
c) Characters had a chance to begin to show who they are

Now the second part of my pondering was going to be thinking about the different resolution mechanics and to debat whether a flat roll (1 dice) was better or worse than a bell curve (multiple dice like 3d6). But given that we had a successful session and the mechanics of the system were entirely irrelevant for good play is there really a correlation between the two?

Following on from my post yesterday I wondered what everyone (yup all two of my readers) thought was the best roleplaying experience they've had and to describe why it was so good.

I tend to view Roleplaying Games in a similar way to TV / Films and Books. The types of things that make them interesting for me are:

Emotionally Charged Conflicts
All dramas have to have conflicts in them but to really put it over the top for me their has to be an added edge to the conflict ..."You killed my father, be prepared to die!"

Big Reveals
Things really get you excited when you eventually put 2 and 2 together from the clues and work out that something is not as you always thought it was. This can be betrayals by someone you thought you could trust or a realisation that there is something bigger going on here. Obviously some TV "jumps the shark" by making the reveals ridiculous or implausible, but we dont do enough of this.

Daring Do
There is always a fine line for me on this one. Swashbuckling is great and all that but sometimes films reach a point that goes beyond credibility. Sometimes we do emulate this very well but far too often we have a rather pedestrian "I attack the bad guy, I parry the bad guy."

Bad Guy Monologueing
I'm a big fan of the things in films where the good guys and the bad guys actually talk before fighting with the bad guy showing you his POV.

Snappy Dialogue
One of the things that makes Firefly and Buffy great is the banter and dialogue between characters. We don't get enough of this in our RPG sessions (although this can be excused slightly as we dont have talented scriptwriters to back us up).

Some of my best experiences came in Pete's True Game stuff where my characters were constantly challenged to come up with creative solutions to situations that they were faced with. Most of this was done on a 1 to 1 basis, which would probably not be suitable for the Guildford sessions. A memorable event was when my Shifter went to fight the bad guys and ended up accidently killing his nephew in the conflict.

The ending of the second Buffy campaign was good for me since my character was forced to sacrifice the person he loved during an emotionally charged conflict.

So what does it for you in Roleplaying?

Recently I've noticed that our roleplaying sessions have become alot more pedestrian with players being presented with a task or challenge and then go about the normal steps to go and do it. I suspect that this is partially in view of not wanting to be seen to rocking the boat and ensuring that everyone is involved.

However this has had the side effect that very little that goes on in the session suprises me or makes me think that what we are doing is awesome. I'd like to think that what is happening is challenging and causes you to really think in character what to do and how to react to things. Hopefully things will start to pick up a bit in the next session where there are some very real decisions made that will bring out the personalities of the individual characters.

On Friday MMO Champion leaked information for the supposed next WoW expansion. It had some things that were to be expected and others that took things in a new direction. Whilst there were many cries of fake going on I'm going to reserve full judgement until the weekend when Blizzard makes the full announcement for the next expansion.

I have mixed feelings about the leak as there are many aspects that I'm excited about and many that I'm not.

The level cap going only to 85 instead of 90 is one that I'm not keen on. I really like leveling characters rather than doing some of the end game grind, so taking away 5 levels of awesome content is a bit of a dissappointment. In a way it makes me feel like we are only getting a 1/2 an expansion rather than a full one. Of course this makes it likely that we will get it earlier but it still dissappoints me.

Getting new races rather than a new class is pretty blah to me. If I'd have wanted to play the existing classes I'm not currently playing I'd have levelled it already. I have 4 major toons at the moment and that keeps me more than busy enough. A new hero class (levelling from 55) might well have tempted me to give the class and its new mechanics a try.

Flying in the old world really seems to me to be alot of effort for not much reward. Sure it'd be nice to fly in the old world but its not something that I'm that bothered about. The effort that Blizzard would be putting into this I'd much rather went on some awesome new content.

New race / class combinations is something I can believe but not something I'm bothered about. The two new quests (with the Druids talking about the balance between the sun and the moon) and the Night Elves being visited by Highborne mages definitely points to this being true, although I'd be more included to believe a more limited rollout of this. Again since I'm already playing 4 major characters I'm not too concerned with having more race / class combinations.

The Alliance are apparently getting a phased new Worgren starting Zone. The Horde are getting a questline where the Goblins escaping the cataclysm rescue Thrall from the Alliance. This doesn't strike me as particularly even and not something that Blizzard usually does. Usually they make these things more even. Why don't we get to see the Goblins escape Undermine for instance?

Redo-ing bits of the old world content does not excite me either. I know some bits will be new but I'm struggling to see how they will fit all the old levelling quests in with the new revamped bits. Call me a crumudgeon but I'm not excited by this - I want to see something new.

The lore twisting seems a bit off as well. Thrall becoming the new Tirsfal Champion, Garosh Hellscream being handed the Warchief role and then killing Cairne Bloodhoof. Why would Thrall give the Warchief role to him and not Suarfang? Why would he risk the Horde breaking up after killing one of his allies leaders. None of this really makes sense. Destroying Ogrimmar only to rebuild it over the course of the expansion also really just makes stuff harder for the Horde (who doesn't go to Ogrimmar to visit the AH?) and with no penalty to the Alliance. All this part makes it seem like is very strange and not particularly balanced.

Whatever happened to great ideas such as sea going mounts, underwater content, going into the Maelstrom and a new profession? Perhaps this is the second half of the expansion that we are not going to get until 86-90. If so I'm very dissappointed.

At the start of the week I had some email conversations with our current GM that got into talking a little about the next session. The implication was that next session we'd learn alot more about what was going on and that we'd need to start making some choices. This will be the first time in the campaign that the players will have the opportunity to make some real chioces. Now I like the players to have choices as to what they are going to do but this makes it harder for the ref as:-

a) You can't cover for every potential outcome of how players will react. This involves the need for the ref to have alot of stuff that they can do on the fly to cope with this. Not all GMs are good at doing this however. There is potential for the ref just to put barriers up to stop the players going off and doing their own thing (which causes alot more frustration amongst players).
b) Players do things with their characters that may seem odd to the ref who has not really fully understood their underlying motivations. This can often create party conflict and if you are not careful cause a split in the party. This happened in my last Serenity campaign with the result being that one player had to come up with a new character.
c) Carefully prepared and really cool stuff just may not happen since the player actions lead away from it. Sometimes if this is a campaign significant event this may really screw things up for later in the campaign.
d) If the players are to be given choices then the choices that they make must really seem to matter. This issue is tied up with having powerful NPCs on your side that could just go and resolve the matter. There must be a reason why the players choice is important else they will just feel like they are bystanders in someone elses campaign.

My biggest fear (given my knowledge of the people involved) is that this may cause a significant split in the party. I'm interested to see how this pans out as my next campaign I want the players to work together but also have issues with the other characters.

I was looking at the viable classes for Worgren and Goblins the other day (as I like to speculate on things) and came to the conclusion that one of the viable classes for Worgren was the Shaman. However the Goblins would not (in my opinion) be given Paladins - so this would leave a whole imbalance between the Horde and the Alliance which Blizzard would not want to do.

So how could Blizzard maintain the balance and still give Worgren the Shaman class. Looking at the numbers of classes assigned to each race I noticed Tauren only have 5 options (instead of the 6-8 that all other races except Gnomes have). Then I remembered the new conversation on Thunder Bluff about there needing to be a balance with the Light and it all clicked. My dodgy prediction thus is that Worgren will get Shamans and they will allow Tauren to start being Paladins.

You heard me get it wrong here first.

Well the first pre Blizzcon leak has come out and we have tentative confirmation that the next expansion for WoW will be called Cataclysm and the two new races will be Goblin for Horde and Worgren for the Alliance. Check two on my prediction chart for a few weeks ago - though this was wildly speculated elsewhere so I can't take the full credit for it.

Some other things I'd like to see in the next Expansion pack

- A new underwater form for Druids (shark form anyone?)
- An underwater PvP area
- Some more lore for Trolls, Tauren and dare I say it Gnomes.
- Pandaria opened up so we can at least meet the Pandaren and open them up for a future expansion pack.
- Boats ..... something for the new Carpenters to build and everyone to own
- A new backpack type that allows you to put items in for your spare gear in relevant looking slots (and thus do not actually end up selling your off spec gear).
- Some lore scripted phasing that shows progression with major NPCs

I'd like the next expansion to have something new and exciting that people haven't previously thought of. I'm pretty meh on having two new races and would much have preferred a new class (though this is highly unlikely I feel). So to make the new expansion feel epic in nature there needs to be something else from Blizzard that takes it to the next level. What that is I don't know, but I guess we will find out in the next couple of weeks.

Well last night my broadband stopped working and after doing the usual (restarting the router) I finally gave in and called the BT Broadband Technical helpline.

Now there's a bit more to it of course as BT don't actually advertise the number in any sensible places and I eventually had to go online on my mobile to actually find the number (via about 6 different links).

Fifteen minutes after having been told my call was important to them and continually being informed my call was moving up the queue (helpful - NOT!) I finally got to speak to a nice Indian gentlemen whose name I forget. He took me through the standard call script and after failing to be able to log into my router instructed me to do a hard reset on it, which stupidly I did. This has now put the router back to factory settings (and thus lost my WiFi link). I still can't log into the router, even on the default factory password. The call centre agent told me he would need to pass it to second line and they would call me back in 15 minutes.

An hour and a half later and they still had not called me back. So after being told once again that my call was important to them (which it patently wasn't) I then listened to them telling me again that I was moving up the queue, but not having any idea where I was in said queue. Half an hour later I spoke to a new person called Raj. Not understanding the issue he started to get me to open up the telephone socket, but I managed to describe the issue better and he decided instead that he needed to do a line test (at last!). He promised to call back in 3/4 minutes with the results. Raj did call me back around 5 minutes later (which was good) though he then needed to do the line test. He informed me that there was a fault at my local exchange that would need an engineer to fix and that someone would ring my mobile in the next 24-48 hours. I don't hold out much hope as this is generally to fob people off, and I am now without broadband until BT pulls their finger out. I doubt I will get any compensation for the lack of service from them.

So all in all I'd rate their IT helpdesk as extremely poor. When I get round to doing the telephone survey about their helpdesk they will get a 6 out of 7 from me. And the lovely new WoW patch 3.2 that I was looking forward to digging into last night is now still waiting to me to play.

These are my ponderings about what races could be lined up in the next WoW expansion which may (or may not) be called Cataclysm.

First of all I'm going to state the criteria that I'm using to include races into this list. To be included a race must be humanoid in shape and capable of fitting correctly onto a riding mount. They must have at least just below average level of intelligence and should already be included somewhere in the lore. Finally as per the recent comments from Jeff Kaplan they should have been seeded already in the game. As a result of this Naga, Murlocs and Centaurs are ruled out of contention.

So what races could potentially be introduced by Blizzard in the next expansion. Note I am making a big assumption that the next expansion is the Maelstrom.

Race - Goblin
Odds - 3-1
Commentry
Goblins have been in the game since the start but have since the second war always remained strictly neutral. They already have male and female models and have been well seeded throughout the world. They can wear armour, use weapons and have their own established lore. The recent appearance of the halloween masks has led to speculation that they will be a playable race in the next expansion. The question is which faction would the ever neutral Goblins join? Well if they had to go to a faction then in lore there have always been Goblins more associated with the Horde. It is quite possible that a disaster in the Great Sea has meant that one of the Trader Princes has asked the Horde for help and offered to join them as a result. I cannot see Goblins joining the Alliance as the Alliance has never trusted them. Equally likely is for the Goblins to join initially as a neutral faction (see speculation below).

Race - Worgren
Odds - 5/2
Commentry
Like the Goblins the recent patch has halloween masks for male and female Worgren leading to speculation that these will also be in the expansion. Blizzard has already said that they have some cool plans for the Greyman Wall coming down and speculation is rife that behind it the human population have turned to Worgren. Whether they are a playable race or not I expect Worgren to be in Gilneas. With Gilneas being a major naval nation this would tie into the whole Maelstrom expansion idea. The Alliances previous use of the Worgren and the fact that the people there have strong ties with the human Kingdoms and the Alliance mean that they are more than likely to side with the Alliance. Of course it is possible that they might remain neutral (see speculation below).

Race - Panderan
Odds - 10-1
Commentry
The Pandaren have been around in Warcraft lore for a long time but in WoW they have really taken a back seat with just a few references to these elusive creatures. Whilst they would tie in well with a South Seas expansion (as Pandaria is in the South Seas) their strict neutrality may be a barrier to them being made a playable race (as opposed to a NPC race). They tie in slightly better with the Alliance but there's no big reason for them to join. Of course if my neutral speculation below is correct then they might fit in very well. The whole Chinese rumour I totally don't get. and I am discounting from any evidence against them.

Race - Tuskarr
Odds - 20-1
Commentry
The Tuskarr are a seafaring race that have turned up in Northrend. They are intelligent, spiritual, use weapons and armour and have their own culture. As they are primarily a cold weather race rather than a warm weather one this would tend to count against them however. They are slightly closer to the Horde than the Alliance but are currently strictly neutral and get on well with both. The fact that they are more tied to the North goes against their chances.

Race - Furbolgs
Odds - 25-1
Commentry
The Furbolgs have been around for some time and indeed the Timbermaw Furbolg faction can be gained by both the Alliance and the Horde sides. They use armour and weapons and are reasonally intelligent. The one thing that I think counts against the Furbolgs is that they have nothing to do with the South Seas and the Maelstrom and therefore no reason to join up with either side.

Race - Ogres
Odds - 25-1
Commentry
Ogres are traditionally a horde race. In Dustwallow Marsh there is an Ogre encampment that serves the Horde. The first Horde recruited Ogres in Draenor (Outland) with which to attack the Draenei with and since then Ogres have always been a part of the horde (although there are hostile tribes as well). Unfortunately the Ogre intelligence level is a bit of a problem and I cannot see them being accepted in a meaningful way as a player race. Additionally their lore is tied to Outland rather than Aezeroth. So for these reasons I don't see it likely they will be made a player race.

Race - Drakonids
Odds - 150-1
Commentry
The Drakonids were mentioned by Jeff Kaplin in his interview as a potential playable race for the future. I think that this was an example that was used to throw off people from the real races in the next expansion pack, but might be used later. These guys are a possibility for any Emerald Dream expansion going in to rescue Ysera from the nightmare.

Race - Moonkin
Odds - 500-1
Commentry
The Owlbears that are killed ad nausium were actually guardians of nature that have been corrupted. It is possible that there are some around who have not been corrupted. However these are more likely to be associated with the Emerald Dream than the Maelstrom so this makes them highly unlikely. In addition the Druid Moonkin form would confuse the issue with this as a playable race.

Race - High Elves
Odds - 500-1
Commentry
No, no, no - we don't need any more Elves. There are supposedly few High Elves left and as a result these really should not be made a player race. They wouldn't look very different from Blood Elves (except the eyes) and I really think that Blizzard should look elsewhere than another bunch of Elves.

Race - Other Trolls (Sea, Sand etc)
Odds - 500-1
Commentry
Blizzard likes to use the other Trolls species as mobs for players to kill. The Horde already have a playable Troll race and I really cannot see adding another with provide any benefits to the game.

Race - Arrakoa
Odds - 1000-1
Commentry
The Arrakoa would have made alot more sense in the Burning Crusade expansion than in a Maelstrom one as they really have no fit at all. They are slightly friendlier to the Alliance than the Horde though they are not really that trustworthy. I wouldn't expect them to turn up any time soon.

Race - Ethreals
Odds - 1000-1
Commentry
The Ethreals are astral travellers who dwell within the twisting Nether and tread the chaotic spaces between worlds. They trade in arcane items and artefacts. Whilst they would be cool as a player race the ability to tread between worlds is not something Blizzard is likely to give players.

So before I say what I think will be in the expansion I will first of all put a bit of wild speculation about what I'd like to see in the expansion. Quite simply the above detail shows that there are a number of races that are currently neutral that could easily fit into the lore of either side. Instead of trying to shoehorn these into the existing factions I'd much rather that Blizzard came up with a new idea, that of mercenaries that could join either side. This way I believe that Blizzard could give us say four new playable races that could join either faction rather than just two. My reasoning is this. Alot of the development effort that goes into new races is in the whole new starting areas. Rather than have a starting area for every new race, you have a single starting area (1-20) for all the races who are neutrals and could be mercenaries. This starting area could be a neutral Island where they train up mercenaries in the Southern Seas. Mercenaries can be of one of four races (Goblin, Worgren, Pandaran and Tuskarr) and would all start and do the quests in this new 1-20 zone. After they hit level 20 the mercenaries would need to commit themselves in a contract to one of the factions for the next ten levels and could only do quests of that faction and join guilds of that faction. At each ten level cap they would need to make a new commitment to a faction. If they changed faction then they would no longer be able to do quests of their previous faction, though they could keep mounts from the faction they have left. At level 80 (90) they would make a final commitment. The main arguement I have seen against this is that it would be difficult for PvP. The counter arguement of course is that you can tell enemies by the red writing above their heads. From a distance BE are difficult to tell from humans / night elves so I don't see this being a particular problem. All the races specified have worked for both factions and the concept of mercenaries who are paid by a faction could go very well.

As to what I expect to be in the expansion.

Level Cap raised to 90
New Professions - Lumberjacking and Carpentry
Two new races - Worgren for the Alliance and Goblins for the Horde
Underwater mounts / submarines
Neutral City - Undermine
Final Raid boss Queen Ashara

You heard me predict it wrong here first.

Gavin

They managed to loose my suitcase on our flight home (whereby we had a direct flight). They said they'd call within 48 hours with news of my case and forward it on to me. I'll believe it when I see it.

Gavin

Not game related but we are off on our annual holiday to Zante tomorrow. The flight is at 05:25 so we have to be up at 01:30 to get to the check in at the right time.

OK so yesterday Google made its announcement about Google Wave and I initially noticed it on RPGnet Open forums with questions about its applicability to use for Roleplaying. Yesterday I didn't have too much time to look into it, but today have a bit better assessment of its features.

There is certainly a nice potential here to create some collaborative roleplaying that could be done outside the main session itself. With the ability to collect together stuff and publish I think it is also possible to use it as a portal to bring together a Wiki. If someone builds an app for dice rolling and with Skype type integration your looking at a nice integrated tool.

So what are the potential problems with this new initiative. I guess my biggest problem may be Facebook's too much junk syndrome. Don't get me wrong Facebook has a very useful role in keeping you in contact with people you haven't seen for ages. However the proliferation of useless ad on applications that you get bombarded with requests for means I rarely voluntarily go onto the site unless I'm have a friend request that I'm confirming. I see the danger in Wave going the same way with a too much unstructured mess being created by the user community.

So what do the hordes of readers of my blog think?

Well I've just been on a two day course called "Influencing the customer" which was a mixture of how to sell and a bit of psychology of the difference types of people. Before we did the course we did a 25 question evaluation questionaire which ended up giving us an 18 page report. The report showed which "energies" you consciously exhibited and which you unconsciously exhibited when stressed.

These energies can be summarised as

Cool Blue - Analytical types
Earthy Green - the sensitive empathic types
Sunshine Yellow - the outgoing future visionary types (alot of salesmen are in this category)
Fiery Red - the thrusting management types always wanting to win

My conscious energies were in opposites (blue / yellow) and unconsious in the other pair (red / green). This is apparently a signifier of creative types (around 7% of the population) who can switch between opposite energies. Most others have energies next two each other on the diagram.

I'm wondering if these energies affects our outward experience of roleplaying and whether the different types of roleplayer could be fitted into this catagorisation. Are all rules lawyers blue for instance.

Oh well Roleplaying again this weekend :-)

Gavin

Well its the end of the month and that means a Roleplaying session at the weekend - yay! I look forward to sessions more and more since I no longer do any roleplaying in the week. When we did weekly sessions in London it was great as you could keep focussed on the game and what was going on from week to week. With monthly sessions this is much harder and it seems to take people a while to get back up to speed with what had happened in the previous session. When I've run stuff in the past I've had a website with a synopsis of what happened the previous time on it, but no-one really read it.

So the question of the day is this - what can be done to get people focussed on the upcoming session and straight back into roleplaying it?

It's my birthday and I'm now officially (cough) 41 years old. When I was young I couldn't conceive being this old as it was so far in the future. Sometimes I feel time is just rattling along at a pace far faster than it should.

Well to move away from non gaming stuff back into games stuff I have been doing some work on my next campaign over the past week. I've started to create a Wiki with my ideas. Now its not anywhere near done yet but a number of the ideas are there. In short characters will be Celtic heroes from the Dark Ages (497-577) who have been granted extra life by the Druids though the use of Magically imbued Woad tattooes. These tattooes continued working after life and the spirit of the character has attracted itself to the nearest suitable person. The spirit has lain dormant in that person, but on occaisions it has awakened the heroes consciousness.

The current date is now in the 1870's and history has diverged since the discovery of Aether in 1851. Trains run better and even an regular Airship service to Europe has recently started. Characters will know each other at game start (I haven't decided how yet but a Social Club is a possibility) but at some point will be awakened to their hero part during the game. This will trigger rememberance of new skills and abilities as well as the "history" that the players and NPCs had had with each other.

If you want to look at what I've done so far then bear in mind it will be changing frequently, but it is a wiki located at:-

http://awakenings.wikidot.com/

Well have a good weekend everyone.

Gavin

OK so I've finished my entry for the TRO challenge over the weekend and its not too bad, but it fell down in a couple of places. Anyone interested can read it at http://rpgnet.gavken.net/Winter_Rails.pdf.

So this has got my creative juices going ready to sort out my next campaign. At present it's going to be a Steampunk game set in a modified Victorian timeline probably using the Ghosts of Albion system (which is very similar to the Buffy system) though not necessarily all the background. I have some ideas but I really want to make the game as awesome as possible. So the question this week is what sort of things would up the awesomeness quotient in your mind?

Gavin

This is a question that I've thought about a little over the years but came to mind again recently. The basic premise of Roleplaying is after all a little wierd in itself - pretending to be someone else and having an adventure is I'd guess how I'd sum it up.

For me the reasons are complex and do not just form one simple answer.

1) Social - Roleplaying is a social game where you interact and talk to other people. You are sharing and creating new ideas taking you in new and interesting directions. Since you are not doing it alone other peoples ideas will spark your creativity where you would normally fall down.

2) Understanding People - One of the primary reasons I roleplay is to "put myself in someone elses shoes" and see how they tick. I like to get behind the motives of the character and see where their inbuilt predjudices and social conditioning take them. Also to see how they grow through development (i.e. because of the plot). This is one of the reasons I like to try different characters than myself. It is sometimes hard not to think the way you would normally do and this is the challenge for me.

3) Go along on the ride - The idea of going on a wide sweeping adventure that you wouldn't normally be able to experience is great. Provided you have some control over what happens to you and you can interact with the world in a meaningful way this is a great buzz.

I know that different people get different things out of the game in our roleplaying group and I wondered what the differences were.

So I'll throw the question out there for the one or two people who actually read my rubbish ramblings!

Gavin

On RPGnet in the open forum they have had three challenges to design a roleplaying game to a set of "ingredients" over the past year. I judged the first one and have entered a game in the last two. "Astromancer" about a changed timeline with Astrology based magic during the English civil war can be found at http://rpgnet.gavken.net/Astromancer.pdf. My second entry, "Clockwork Men and Clockwork Cats and Dogs", about a group of clockwork robots breaking their programming after having been abandoned by humanity can be found at http://rpgnet.gavken.net/Clockwork.pdf.

The fourth challenge is starting tomorrow and although I was initially feeling that I wouldn't enter this time due to the time it takes up, I'm now feeling strangely excited at the prospect of creating something out of thin air. Designing an RPG is never easy due to balance issues, but it is particularly challenging given just a week to do it in. I do find that given a tight deadline that I tend to get more thngs done though.

Gavin