AWW: State of the Wilder World
Apr. 25th, 2013 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinAs of right now, if I were to put up the Basic Character Guide draft as it exists right now, you could make a character. All the steps are there. It needs some clean-up and a section on languages before I'm ready to post it, but you could create a complete character from start to finish, with the only hole being if you selected something that addresses languages.
(Other missing sections include anything having to do with advancement, companions, and magic gear, but they won't form a part of the first playtests.)
The character sheet is a very rough draft, with a lot of empty space. The reason for this is that beyond the basic stats, I would only be guessing at what information people would find useful to include where. That's one of the major things I'm going to be looking for feedback on, in particular once the game is being played.
One hang-up I'm having: because the Quality sheets make a point of listing exactly what each and every ability does in game terms, I keep feeling like something is missing if there's not space to not only list all your Details and Gear but also put in a one-line description of what it does/what benefits it provides. But people since time immemorial have simply been writing out their inventories, secondary skills/feats, etc.
I don't know. My favored approach is to have a nice big space right next to the attributes for "Notable Bonuses", where people can write down their total bonuses to certain tasks, so if you've got a set of fine lockpicks, a secondary skill in lockpicking, and bonuses from a Treasure Hunter ability to pick locks, you can just note your total bonus to pick locks rather than having them separated out on different part of the sheets and having to remember what all applies.
But I'll be welcoming feedback on that, up to and including asking people who design their own character sheets to send them to me, for possible inclusion with appropriate credit.
Anyway, I'll be doing the clean-up and stuff this weekend, so that sometime next week I can post a PDF of the alpha version of the Basic Character Guide. Alpha testing on it will consist of whoever wants to take a crack at it making characters with it, then sending feedback about it.
While that's going on, I'll be turning my attention to the test version of the player's guide (i.e., the rules of play). Actually codifying the character creation stuff in concrete form has led me to a few refinements I'll need to incorporate, but they're already substantially done. The combat rules need to be rewritten, but that's because I've never written them out in full before so the first attempt was bound to be messy.
(Other missing sections include anything having to do with advancement, companions, and magic gear, but they won't form a part of the first playtests.)
The character sheet is a very rough draft, with a lot of empty space. The reason for this is that beyond the basic stats, I would only be guessing at what information people would find useful to include where. That's one of the major things I'm going to be looking for feedback on, in particular once the game is being played.
One hang-up I'm having: because the Quality sheets make a point of listing exactly what each and every ability does in game terms, I keep feeling like something is missing if there's not space to not only list all your Details and Gear but also put in a one-line description of what it does/what benefits it provides. But people since time immemorial have simply been writing out their inventories, secondary skills/feats, etc.
I don't know. My favored approach is to have a nice big space right next to the attributes for "Notable Bonuses", where people can write down their total bonuses to certain tasks, so if you've got a set of fine lockpicks, a secondary skill in lockpicking, and bonuses from a Treasure Hunter ability to pick locks, you can just note your total bonus to pick locks rather than having them separated out on different part of the sheets and having to remember what all applies.
But I'll be welcoming feedback on that, up to and including asking people who design their own character sheets to send them to me, for possible inclusion with appropriate credit.
Anyway, I'll be doing the clean-up and stuff this weekend, so that sometime next week I can post a PDF of the alpha version of the Basic Character Guide. Alpha testing on it will consist of whoever wants to take a crack at it making characters with it, then sending feedback about it.
While that's going on, I'll be turning my attention to the test version of the player's guide (i.e., the rules of play). Actually codifying the character creation stuff in concrete form has led me to a few refinements I'll need to incorporate, but they're already substantially done. The combat rules need to be rewritten, but that's because I've never written them out in full before so the first attempt was bound to be messy.