Sunday, August 22, 2010

Redesigning the Wild West

My Star Wars game has been on hiatus as of late, due to real-life constraints. So while I haven't had anything new to post on the 'running game' front, I have begun work on the 'designing game' front.

I've had this vision of a savage West, an American frontier that was never tamed. This world has run rampant as technology grew alongside magic. This wouldn't be Deadland's, not nearly so goofy. This is gods and spirits, something of my own devising.

I've already done work rewriting the history, pre-Civil War, thinking about who the powers would have been, halting and redirecting westward expansion. It is a hydra, a problem with constantly sprouting tendrils.

I feel that the potential for story is something to captivate. Already, I have stories of gunslingers and gamblers, witches and arcane scientists, thieves and politicans that are bubbling around my brain.

I can do the legwork, the research, the world-building. The part that sticks on me is the system. I want to work out some sort of class/role system that is more archetype-based. Something to encourage thought in character design, rather than spewing a bunch of numbers to crunch for combat.

These are the things I'm going to be thinking about. And posting about.


  1. For the love of gaming, can you change your type color to something besides default? Your Grey Background makes it near impossible to read your black type. I would love to be able to read what you are saying without having to highlight the text. :)

  2. Does that work a bit better? I'd appreciate a readership that can actually see the words on the page.