You are here: Home / Archives for EHP Blogs

EHP Blogs

New Art for Pop and Locke’s Last Heist from James Stowe

Thanks to some backing by Evil Hat Productions, we have a bit of an art budget hire James Stowe again to create more art for Pop and Locke's Last Heist. The one thing I really wanted to see (as did many others) was Pop and Locke actually pulling a heist. Here is my actual art direction to James.

---

I want to show Pop and Locke actually in a trouble during a heist. The game mechanics require you to incur a degree of trouble in order to achieve the best ending. However, most heist movies reflect these troubles with violence, showing heroes pinned down and exchanging gunfire. For example.

That's not how Pop and Locke work. After all, part of their advantage is that they are an unlikely heist team. Pop, Locke, and the Target all have access to the weirdly powered Objects, which usually make traditional weaponry impractical. Instead, the Targets use a combination of high-tech surveillance and hired goons to protect their treasures. Meanwhile, Pop and Locke use their Objects' powers to pull off their heists. So, what does that leave for heist scenes? Quite, a bit, actually!

Descend on a wire and harness above the target
Reveal the surveillance beams
Distract the dogs!
Cut through the fence!
Disable the alarm!
Avoid the cameras!
Pickpocket the key!
Carry the heavy box out!
Keep the drill running!
Find the passcode!
Convince her to give me the passcode!
Get his cellphone!
Find the blueprints!
Discover the hidden exhaust port!
Blow that popsicle stand!
Control your partner!
Wear a ridiculous disguise!
Mark the gold!
Loop the camera feed
Cut through the glass
Replace the (statue, diamonds, artwork, launchcodes...) with a fake
Vault over the pressure plate
Pop out of the dusty old crate
Decode the warning in an ancient language
Pop the gems from their setting
Slip the papers inside an ordinary book
Guess the password
Hide behind the set of armour
Roll under the descending security gate
Hit the target with the grapple gun
Photograph the contents of the safe
Plant false evidence

I'd love to see Pop and Locke in the middle of any of these situations, take your pick. Some stuff I would like to see for sure:

* Dramatic perspective, just to get that nice cinematic feel.

* Pop and Locke pursued or caught by goons. Generic goons, like old-timey 60s Batman henchmen. You can even draw them as an indistinct mob of silhouettes, just to keep the details on our heroes.

* Pop has captured the Object they were trying to steal, but it's ridiculously oversized for his body. What's a large household object? A recliner? A potted plant? Hm! A plant. Try that.

* Locke using a spoon to levitate something out of the way, a goon or a door or an obstacle.

* If you can show some sign of alarms, that would be good. Whether that's a big red beacon or a clattering bell or a high-tech ticker with a row of exclamation points, that's all good. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Something to show that an alarm has been tripped.

I put together this Pinterest board for heist reference, which I think was immensely helpful, especially getting across the look for goons.

---

So that's the direction I gave a few weeks ago. Then James comes back with this finished piece that somehow manages to incorporate SO MANY elements of what make this game unique. It's clearly a heist, pulled by unlikely heisters, with obviously magical stuff going on, all to steal a potted plant, which for some reason is guarded by cartoonish goons and a laser grid. It's all in there and I love it so. Excellent work, James!
Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Sage Master Tagged With: ,

New Art for Pop and Locke’s Last Heist from James Stowe

Thanks to some backing by Evil Hat Productions, we have a bit of an art budget hire James Stowe again to create more art for Pop and Locke's Last Heist. The one thing I really wanted to see (as did many others) was Pop and Locke actually pulling a heist. Here is my actual art direction to James.

---

I want to show Pop and Locke actually in a trouble during a heist. The game mechanics require you to incur a degree of trouble in order to achieve the best ending. However, most heist movies reflect these troubles with violence, showing heroes pinned down and exchanging gunfire. For example.

That's not how Pop and Locke work. After all, part of their advantage is that they are an unlikely heist team. Pop, Locke, and the Target all have access to the weirdly powered Objects, which usually make traditional weaponry impractical. Instead, the Targets use a combination of high-tech surveillance and hired goons to protect their treasures. Meanwhile, Pop and Locke use their Objects' powers to pull off their heists. So, what does that leave for heist scenes? Quite, a bit, actually!

Descend on a wire and harness above the target
Reveal the surveillance beams
Distract the dogs!
Cut through the fence!
Disable the alarm!
Avoid the cameras!
Pickpocket the key!
Carry the heavy box out!
Keep the drill running!
Find the passcode!
Convince her to give me the passcode!
Get his cellphone!
Find the blueprints!
Discover the hidden exhaust port!
Blow that popsicle stand!
Control your partner!
Wear a ridiculous disguise!
Mark the gold!
Loop the camera feed
Cut through the glass
Replace the (statue, diamonds, artwork, launchcodes...) with a fake
Vault over the pressure plate
Pop out of the dusty old crate
Decode the warning in an ancient language
Pop the gems from their setting
Slip the papers inside an ordinary book
Guess the password
Hide behind the set of armour
Roll under the descending security gate
Hit the target with the grapple gun
Photograph the contents of the safe
Plant false evidence

I'd love to see Pop and Locke in the middle of any of these situations, take your pick. Some stuff I would like to see for sure:

* Dramatic perspective, just to get that nice cinematic feel.

* Pop and Locke pursued or caught by goons. Generic goons, like old-timey 60s Batman henchmen. You can even draw them as an indistinct mob of silhouettes, just to keep the details on our heroes.

* Pop has captured the Object they were trying to steal, but it's ridiculously oversized for his body. What's a large household object? A recliner? A potted plant? Hm! A plant. Try that.

* Locke using a spoon to levitate something out of the way, a goon or a door or an obstacle.

* If you can show some sign of alarms, that would be good. Whether that's a big red beacon or a clattering bell or a high-tech ticker with a row of exclamation points, that's all good. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Something to show that an alarm has been tripped.

I put together this Pinterest board for heist reference, which I think was immensely helpful, especially getting across the look for goons.

---

So that's the direction I gave a few weeks ago. Then James comes back with this finished piece that somehow manages to incorporate SO MANY elements of what make this game unique. It's clearly a heist, pulled by unlikely heisters, with obviously magical stuff going on, all to steal a potted plant, which for some reason is guarded by cartoonish goons and a laser grid. It's all in there and I love it so. Excellent work, James!
Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Sage Master Tagged With: ,

It’s On Fire

Fred here. The following is an excerpt of a post I made to the FateRPG Yahoo Group, where someone was trying to wrap their head around the whole “On Fire is an Aspect” thing that pretty much comes up every time someone’s talking about aspects with folks who are less familiar with them. High time I get this written down somewhere official, yeah?

Read on.

Man, that “on fire” thing is probably the biggest buggaboo in all of Fatedom.

So, here’s the thing. Aspects are not the core engine of Fate. They’re the most different from other systems, which makes them, I guess, more obvious, but they’re also not the answer to every “problem” and they’re not the sole thing that drives the game. This, I’ve already said. To go further:

The core engine of Fate — for me, at least, from a design perspective — is the Fate Fractal principle. Search for that text here -  http://www.faterpg.com/2011/the-core-of-fate-core/ - but in short, it’s the idea that anything in the system can be treated as a character. That is to say, to model the thing you want, you should look at the pieces parts of a character, think about what they do, and use the parts that are most appropriate to express what you’re after.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. There’s no need to invent new parts when a recombination of existing parts works out well. Think about aspects, yes, but think about stress tracks, think about skills. (Think about more, too, if you want to get into the down & dirties — stunts, powers, whatever — but I’ll focus on those.)

So, let’s talk about “on fire” a bit in light of that.

Aspect: Aspects give you two functions (more or less) — they create constraints on action via compels, and they provide means for advantage via invocations. So if you’re going to have fire create a reason for the heroes to stay trapped/hold back while the bad guy escapes (a compel!), then the aspect makes good sense. If you’re going to get into a fistfight on the edge of the blaze and want to, y’know, knock the guy back into the fire so he gets singed a bit — invoke/tag that aspect and you’re in great shape. That’s the bounds of it: folks have a shared understanding of what something being on fire means – in terms of how it affects the choices made and the actions available — and the aspect is an interface to a few game mechanisms that support that.

Skill: Skills are there to show how things take action. Fire grows, spreads, and burns. That sounds like moving and attacking actions, to me. So give your fire a skill. It can take an action to intensify (increasing that skill, maybe — or maybe it’s a maneuver, putting more taggable shit-be-burnin’ aspects onto things); spread (take the action, move into another zone); burn (attack people in those zones with its skill, dealing stress and consequences). I mean, why not? Fiction talks about fire as a “living thing” all the time.

Stress track: Maybe your fire’s tough to put out — not as easily dismissed as any other scene aspect. Makes sense. So yeah, give your fire a stress track. Let people attack it with fire extinguishers and oxygen-destruction powers. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Aspects are great. Use them a lot. But don’t let them become blinders. Look around a little. There are other tools in the box.

Share

Filed Under: EHP Blogs Tagged With:

Congrats to the Marvel Team!

There is a toxic side to the RPG world, as there is with all such worlds where money changes hands. Some publishers lie through their teeth, break their own terms, withhold payment, and use freelancers as scapegoats. It can get ugly, and right now I’m in the middle of that ugliness.

But if I’m not careful, I could let that make me bitter and hateful at the whole RPG world, and then walk away from making cool stuff with cool people. So instead I’m going to take a moment to congratulate the folks who worked on the Marvel RPG on their launch. A bunch of my friends have worked hard to make this game happen, and I’m proud of them. Rock on, gang!

- Ryan

(The real message here is that if we don’t make effort to celebrate the successes of others when we’re being kicked down, we risk becoming horrible people. And that you should check out Marvel.)

Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Man of Misadventure Tagged With:

Whoops!

Late in December, Fred Hicks posted the “State of the Hat” over on his blog … and we completely failed to make note of it over here. In that post, you’ll find out about many of Evil Hat‘s intended doings for 2012 — including some quick info on some Dresden Files related projects. Read on, here:

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2011/12/state-of-the-hat-2012/

Share

Filed Under: EHP Blogs, The Dresden Files RPG

How I See The Credits


The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game rolled out today. It's awesome, simple as that, but I wanted to take a moment to throw up my own version of the credits page.

That said, if you're on this, and want your descriptor changed, add a comment, and it will happen!



Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Some Space to Think

VELOCIRAPTOR! CANNIBALISM!


My good friends Jenn Rodgers and JR Blackwell and their gang of vagabond game designers are kickstarting a card game with a fun little theme. They call it a "inspired by a crude and inaccurate understanding of natural selection."

If the kickstarter is successful, Jenn and I will tag-team the visuals. she will be illustrating all the adorable foods and the fearsome predators. Including giant squids why not.

So if you want to see the designer of Shelter In Place, illustrator of the Dresden Files RPG, and layouter of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple forming a reptilian Frankenstein monster, back this project!
Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Sage Master Tagged With:

Simple Doctor Who Story Game Rules

Otakon 2011 - Doctor Who
A parent of an autistic Doctor Who fan wanted a Doctor Who story game with ultra-simple rules. If you have recommendations, please post them on this thread.

For my part, I took a quick pass at a system. Hopefully it kind of fits the bill.

---

The game begins with ten red stones on the table. This represents the problems on the new world you're visiting. When you land on the world, you don't know what the problems are.

Each turn, you can do one of three things to help: Talk, Search or Make. When you Talk, this means you're making friends with someone or trying to scare someone. When you Search, this means you're finding clues about the problem. When you Make, you're creating a new gadget or helping to repair an existing one.

After describing what you do to help, roll d6.

If the result is 1-2, add that many red stones to the table. This means something you did made the situation worse or simply that you're running out of time.

If the result is 3-6, remove that many red stones. This means that whatever you did is starting to help. That's no guarantee it'll work a second time, though!

When there are no more red stones on the table, you saved the world!

---

I was also thinking about an upper-end endgame trigger that would be something like a loss, but it didn't really fit Doctor Who. The Doctor never really loses, he just wins in a way you don't expect. Oh! Maybe if you reach 20 red stones, the Doctor has to regenerate. Then you go back down to ten stones?

Also... I was thinking about all the running. Maybe you also have a special move, called Run Away! When you do this, you simply run away from the immediate danger. You may remove one stone from the table. You cannot Run Away! Twice in a row.

Well, anyway, the point was to keep this simple, so ignore that excited silliness.
Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Sage Master Tagged With:

Simple Doctor Who Story Game Rules

Otakon 2011 - Doctor Who
A parent of an autistic Doctor Who fan wanted a Doctor Who story game with ultra-simple rules. If you have recommendations, please post them on this thread.

For my part, I took a quick pass at a system. Hopefully it kind of fits the bill.

---

The game begins with ten red stones on the table. This represents the problems on the new world you're visiting. When you land on the world, you don't know what the problems are.

Each turn, you can do one of three things to help: Talk, Search or Make. When you Talk, this means you're making friends with someone or trying to scare someone. When you Search, this means you're finding clues about the problem. When you Make, you're creating a new gadget or helping to repair an existing one.

After describing what you do to help, roll d6.

If the result is 1-2, add that many red stones to the table. This means something you did made the situation worse or simply that you're running out of time.

If the result is 3-6, remove that many red stones. This means that whatever you did is starting to help. That's no guarantee it'll work a second time, though!

When there are no more red stones on the table, you saved the world!

---

I was also thinking about an upper-end endgame trigger that would be something like a loss, but it didn't really fit Doctor Who. The Doctor never really loses, he just wins in a way you don't expect. Oh! Maybe if you reach 20 red stones, the Doctor has to regenerate. Then you go back down to ten stones?

Also... I was thinking about all the running. Maybe you also have a special move, called Run Away! When you do this, you simply run away from the immediate danger. You may remove one stone from the table. You cannot Run Away! Twice in a row.

Well, anyway, the point was to keep this simple, so ignore that excited silliness.
Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Sage Master Tagged With:

Dealing With Negative Reviews

I had a reader email me with:

Hi! I have a suggestion for you to write about on your blog. How to recover from a negative review? [...] It hurt, especially since some very valid points were made.

This will happen if you make anything. I’ve written harsh criticism, and have received harsh criticism.[1]

There are a few points, some ways of reacting that I’ve seen and some that I’ve done:

  • You can leave the review alone. Don’t comment, don’t look, don’t link to it, just walk away.
  • You can thank the reviewer for taking the time to review. That’s all. Just thank, say nothing else.
  • You can engage with the reviewer on the points brought up. If you do this, start by thanking the reviewer.

The first one is easy, and with some particularly inflammatory reviews that’s best. If they linked to you, they’re helping your SEO ranking. You don’t have to return that favor.

The second one is a personal favorite for dealing with trolls, but it’s also good for just being charitable toward someone. And you look classy for it.

The third is dangerous ground. If the person on the other end is reasonable and respectful during the conversation, and you are as well, then it can be fruitful. But know that you’re not just conversing with that person, but any onlookers who may chime in. And they might not be respectful of the attempt at civil discourse. Sometimes great fruit bears from that, other times it’s a waste of your energy. Just be aware of that.

No matter what you do about it, once you can get some emotional distance away, look over the points. There may be wisdom there you can use in your next project or how you continue forward with this one. Sometimes it’s something you can correct now, and sometimes it’s just something you can do in future works.

 

Finally, if you can’t say something nice, don’t engage. Otherwise you look like a petty asshole, and you can’t delete your comments on someone else’s space. And fuck help you if that person has really strong SEO, where Google searches for your name lead to that negative review where you show your petty side. Because you’re not being nice for their benefit. You’ve being nice for yours.

I know I’m not the only person who has had to deal with this. Creator-types: any other tips to share?
- Ryan

[1] And received bullshit name-calling and ad hominem attacks, which is not criticism. Perhaps I’ll write on that later, but that’s not what this post is about.

Filed Under: EHP Blogs, Man of Misadventure Tagged With:
« Older Posts