Machine Age Productions

The Territories of Farewell to Fear

David — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:32:23 +0000

Arduise consists of four territories, each consisting of a city and its protectorate villages, and two transient or hidden societies that exist within the four territories and a mystical ‘other space’. The four cities are often referred to as the Four Treasures of Arduise. The Treasures, while not centrally ruled, each contribute delegates to an Accord which strives to maintain peace and trade between the four.
Alluise: The Treasure of the East. Recently, Alluise lost its king, and is ruled by a council debating the territory’s future. Because of this, the other Treasures are looking in with curiosity or temptation. The king left three heirs, all of which went missing after his death. Various cabals seek the heirs to empower their own interests. Alluise’s population is highly urban and socialite.
Liefuise: The Treasure of the North. Separated most from the other three Treasures, the territory of Liefuise takes a very defensive stance in diplomacy. They’re renowned and feared for their military force, and are known to maintain an active spy network within all the other territories (and their own). Their queen is the most well-known of the nobility of Arduise, but their general is widely accepted to be the true power of the Liefuise empire.
Konuise: The Treasure of the South. Konuise is recognized as Arduise’s creative heart. Most recognized artists and poets claim heritage along its shore. Their king prides himself as being something of a social experimenter. He’s played with public policy to varying effects. Konuise exists primarily through imported goods, and exports most of what it creates due to lackluster farmland within the territory. Most Arduise households, except for the very poorest, have at least some of Konuise’s creativity inside.
Moruise: The Treasure of the West. Whereas Konuise creates beauty, Moruise creates function. The Treasure of the West is home to many of Arduise’s greatest scientists, craftspeople, and engineers. Their queen is rumored to have a nonhuman ancestry. This is exacerbated by the fact that, since her reign began, numerous relics of pre-human technology have surfaced from the western mountains. Despite the rumors, she’s kept investigation into the mountains to a minimum, as researchers have met gruesome fates in their exploration.
Waarhuise: Waarhuise is a community centered on the pursuit of the magical arts. While they do have a base of operations, it holds no geographical coordinates. It exists in an alternate realm, accessible only to members with special keys. While technically an apolitical organization, they do maintain delegation on the Accord due to their disproportionate influence. Their population is hardly impressive, but it’s a common mistake to assume they’re primarily sorcerers. For every sorcerer, at least three nonmagical administrators owe membership to the Academy.
Kennuise: The Kennuise is neither a territory nor an alternate realm of existence. It’s a secret society, hidden among the other five cultures. Their population numbers are secretive, but rumor has it that their numbers exceed many larger villages. The romanticized version of their purpose is that of an equalizing force that roots out corruption. The truth puts it closer to a network of spies with loosely affiliated political aspirations, some of which boasting revolutionary ideals. They’ve been behind a number of high-profile assassinations, both political and literal. Everyone knows they exist, but the details are lost on the masses, who prefer the drama and romance of these shadow agents.

Nu Fantasy Game Design Doc

David — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:40:45 +0000

Here’s part of the design document for the Nu Fantasy Game. I know some folks are interested in my process. And I promised I’d try to post as much of the material as possible. Feel free to drop thoughts in the comments.
Format
I’m shooting for 100,000 words. Amaranthine clocked in at 140,000 IIRC. I want this to be shorter, but with more setting content. Significantly so. Whereas Amaranthine was a huge toolkit for telling varied urban fantasy stories and building your own game world, this book will focus heavily on setting material.
Amaranthine was 212 pages, 8.5” x 11”, full-color. Maschine Zeit was 7” x 10”, 120 pages B&W, but only 60,000 words. Maschine Zeit was also super minimal in a number of regards. The middle ground I want to attain here is:
100,000 words. 200 pages. 8.5” x 11”, B&W. Fewer net words per page than Amaranthine, with a heavy eye toward presentation, like Maschine Zeit.
System will be more robust than Maschine Zeit, but nowhere near as detailed as Amaranthine. The important distinction is, I’m going to challenge myself to blend some of the system information into the setting information.
The System
The system will be based around the Scientific Method. We’re not as concerned with direct pass/fail mechanics here. The importance of our system is about exploration, and finding solutions. I figure, the characters in my ideal fantasy story can succeed when they have the solution, but finding that solution is the struggle. This means that, if you’re going to do traditional monster hunting dungeon crawling shit, you’re going to want to research. You’re going to want to approach a situation from an informed perspective. Dragons (if they exist,) will fuck you up. If you expect to beat one, the path to that fight will be the real story. Finding weaknesses, finding smart strategies and defenses, and finding ideal approaches will take some time and effort.
I have more stuff in my head about this. But basically, it’ll go like this:
1) Make your thesis. Tell me what your expected outcome is.
2) Give me some supporting precedent and your established knowledge. (uses previous rolls and prep rolls to get this info)
3) Experiment a bit. Try to find kinks in your plan. (rolls here, results kept from player)
4) Determine the risk of a full attempt. (perhaps rolls here)
5) Withdraw or proceed. Find out if your experimentation and exploration was enough, the hard way.
6) Publish data. Use this as precedent for further experiments.
Basic Outline
Here’s about how I’ll break down the book:
Introduction and Setting Primer- 5k
Cast Creation – 5k
Basic Rules – 5k
Region 1, and Character Options for Science – 12k
Region 2, and Character Options for Espionage – 12k
Region 3, and Character Options for Politics – 12k
Region 4, and Character Options for Artistry – 12k
Region 5, and Character Options for Warfare – 12k
Region X, and Character Options for Magery – 12k
Director Stuff, Stories, Seeds, Monsters – 13k
I wholly expect these to be soft numbers. I doubt the setting primer and intro will really take 5k, for instance. But, that’ll give me room to pad other sections. I figure the Direction section will need more space, and the basic rules might require less.
Setting Presentation
I’ll keep stated setting, canon, to a minimum. Give a lot of opinions and perspectives. This is important, since it’ll leave the Director the room to surprise players that may have read the whole book. For example, if there was a battle in a village a century ago, nobody currently alive was there. If the characters are researching it, they’ll read eyewitness accounts, they might head bardic songs, they might use divination magic, they might dig up the remains of participants. Either way, they’re putting together a story that’s not necessarily complete. We know the battle happened. We know who fought. We have good ideas of why they fought. But uncovering all the nitty gritty is up to the players. We’ll give the Director plenty of ideas, options, and jumping off points, along with a smattering of story seeds. But we don’t give those tiny details as any sort of fact or gospel.

If you want to participate in the discussion on this, check it out on G+. https://plus.google.com/118365124365067663191/posts/ip2u56mUrrC If you haven’t, consider adding me there. I talk a lot about the process there.

Yes, but is it Art?

Filamena — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:45:48 +0000

I think we talked about Flatpack, didn’t we?

Well, here’s that demonstration game I promised you. Spit, polished, and free for your downloading joy, this demo has everything you need to play but dice and friends.

Long, dull days can be the worst part of the just-after-holiday stretch before school and work start back up. Consider this demo game my gift to you, a way to fill the time with stick figure drawings, adorable bug mutants, and killer robots! Because you can’t spell ‘Seasons Greetings’ without ‘Killer Robots.’

Go, play, tell everyone you know, because if this is the game for you, you’re going to love it. If this isn’t the game for you, don’t tell me, I’ve got the fragile ego of a game designer.

Oh, and Happy Whatever You Do or Don’t Celebrate this winter season from us at Machine Age Productions!

Parts of a Problem

Filamena — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:19:48 +0000

Parts of a Problem

Parts of a Problem is in fact a PDF with Flatpacks core mechanic in a page.

In Flatpack, mechanics more or less come in when the players want to do something the Troublemaker (our Game Master) can’t say yes. (Say Yes or Roll the Dice.)

Everything after that, believe it or not, fits on one page. This is what I consider a ‘rules light’ system meant to encourage character success and player good times. It’s a game for teens and younger players, with potential (like much YA fiction) for plenty of adult entertainment depending on how it’s run.

Take a look, this is the core of the game. Any additional mechanics in the game are meant to ‘hack’ this system, so it needs to be adaptable and light. Complexity is what you want it to be, rather than handed to you straight out of the box.

Soon, I’ll be posting a Demo game meant to introduce the game with everything needed to play. Good times, I’m hoping.

So again, if you want take a look, go ahead and check out Parts of a Problem, the one page rules.

Artists, Brush Off Your Brushes

Filamena — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:02:15 +0000

New MAP Product!

Well, it’s on it’s way, anyway. We’re currently looking for a few brave artists to tackle the MANY complicated and time consuming art pieces required to put this book together. (Okay, actually they should all be pretty simple, low key, and the opposite of scary.)

Flatpack is a light, good nature’d game about people adventuring and rebuilding their communities and homes after the Apocalypse. It’s a game about hope and working together and exploration above all. In a day or two I’ll have a demo game posted with everything you need to check out the basics of the game and the setting, but for now, I’m throwing you some PDF design sheets to give you an idea or two of the sort of art that we’ll be looking for.

We’ll be looking for one artist to handle an iconic character who will appear throughout the book, something like the little Ikea dude. icondesignsheet.

The other sheet describes a bit more about any other character art. artsheet.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. (filamena at gmail dot com) We’ll be using our current standard rates, (15-20 for quarter page, 30-40 for half. Unless you’re a known entity to us.) We do contracts. We do creative commons. We have guidelines to keep in mind when considering working with us. Thank you so much for your time and attention.

Our Newest Game: Kicking Historical Asses

David — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:19:56 +0000

Are you tired of evil stuff? Do you think it needs to be kicked right back to hell? Then you’re in the right place.

The problem is, your character isn’t. You see, your character is from today. And your character gets shipped back to some undetermined point in a vaguely medieval Europe where magic is probably real and people really don’t like modern English. To get home, they have to fight all the evil stuff that’s slated to take over the universe at any minute.

Kicking Historical Asses is a fast and simple game, specifically designed for one-shots, but that can easily support extended games. At a whopping 20 pages, you should be able to read it with your group, make characters, and be ready to play within an hour.
Inspired by Army of Darkness and Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the system is made for humor and heroics. In fact, if the players aren’t laughing, they’re failing at the game.
There’s quite a bit of profanity. The book is written in a vulgar, semi-slapstick tone meant to inform play.
The game is a living document. Content will be added, particularly if readers ask for specific additions. The initial document is the barebones necessary to play.
The system requires a d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12.
All Machine Age Productions are licensed under Creative Commons licenses. We encourage sharing.
The 20 pages are all bookmarked and stuff. So they’re even easier to flip through!
While there are a couple of minor pieces of internal art, we’ve opted not to spend for a cover piece. Why? We’re passing the savings on to you.
We really like bullet points.

You can pick it up over at DrivethruRPG.com.

This is the Character Sheet. This is the Setting Sheet. I’ll likely do more visually appealing ones soon enough, along with some pregens, but I want to see if there’s any errata or additions I should bother with first.

Amaranthology All-Call

David — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:44:08 +0000

I’m toiling away at my Army of Darkness inspired game. It’s turning out neato. It should be ready by Halloween.

Alright. Next thing we’re moving on: Amaranthology. So I wanted to put out an all-call. If you’re interested, there’s details below. I’m open to new talent. If you haven’t read Amaranthine in entirety, the first chapter should be enough to get your wheels turning. I don’t need you to be an expert on the setting. But if your pitch sounds like you have a solid grasp of what Amaranthine’s about, we’re more likely to accept your piece.

Amaranthology will contain ten stories. They should be stories about romance and revenge over lifetimes. Interpret that as you will. If you’re interested in yours being one, I need a few things:

1) Email me at MachineIV@Gmail.com. The subject line needs to contain [Amaranthology].

2) The email should contain a little bit about your writing experience, including the things you have published. While this will help me determine your pedigree, I will be allowing unpublished authors. If I’ve worked with you on a project before, this is unnecessary.

3) A brief writing sample. Between 250-500 words, in the voice you intend on using for the piece. If I’ve worked with you on a project before, this is unnecessary.

4) A pitch. Just a few sentences to sell me on the idea. Rule of thumb is, give a sentence per act, and something that will make your story stand out and resonate with readers. If you intend on using anything but past-tense, third person narration, please note it here. I dig quirky narration, but I need to know in advance, and why.

Stories will be between 1,000 and 6,000 words. Do what’s best for your story. If it’s too short or two long, we might ask for minor additions or cuts.

Payment: An advance of 1 cent a word ($.01/word USD) against a pro-rated share of royalties paid of $2.00 per book, divided by the number of authors. This rate will assume a piece of 3,000 words, for a flat rate of $30.00. Payments will be made by Paypal. Authors may also purchase print copies of the anthology at cost.

Submission Period: I’m looking for two weeks for initial pitches. That gives you until November 4th to submit. If you can’t give me four or five sentences between now and then, you’re probably not too concerned about participation in the anthology. Stories will be assigned, then written between then and the end of the year. So, just under two months for a few thousand words.

Sorry for the Downtime

David — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:41:09 +0000

Sorry for the downtime. Had some issues that needed resolving with the DNS registration.

Anyway, we’re back. A few updates where things stand?

1) Amaranthine: Backers from the Kickstarter, I’ve gotten a shipment in transit to me. I’m expected to receive it on the 17th of October. As soon as I get them, they go in the mail to you. Sorry it’s taken this long. We ran into some printing kinks that were completely unexpected.

2) Guestbook: Also, I scheduled shipment for about the same time frame. Looks like I’m making one super huge post office trip. We’ll be doing Series 3 very soon.

3) Perfect Fucking Wasteland: I’m working on it. Things are going a little slow, mostly just a personal stress thing. I’m trying to get over a few development humps.

4) Retrocalypse: It’s done. It was done, but I felt I should post it again. You can download it for free right here. If you’re unfamiliar, Retrocalypse is my Fallout-inspired hack of Old School Hack. Even if you’re not interested in Fallout, and you like Old School Hack, the Perks from Retrocalypse will port almost seamlessly.

5) Dark Horror Fantasy Comedy Game: I’m doing a little thing inspired by Army of Darkness. I haven’t named it yet. It’ll be out by Halloween. It’ll probably be a very cheap product, maybe $2.99 or something similar.

6) Year One Accord: This is a short sci-fi conspiracy game. It’ll be self-contained, with characters and an adventure framework, with a very simple system made for a strong, dramatic one-shot. It’ll also be a cheaper ticket item. I’m working on it most actively right now, so expect it up soon.

7) Other Projects: I’m in talks about working on a very big release for another company, just doing some supplementary writing. Can’t talk about the specifics yet. I’m also writing a short fiction piece for “Gimme Shelter.” It’s a fiction anthology for “Shelter in Place,” a live-action zombie horror game. I wrote the bulk of the system for Shelter in Place, Filamena wrote the bulk of the flavor text. You should check it out if you dig our vibes.

Expect more updates soon. If you aren’t following me on Google Plus, you should consider doing so. I not only post frequently, I talk a lot about my design process and yadda yadda. So do that.

Gen Con 2011 Seminars

David — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:24:01 +0000

I know not everyone came to Gen Con. And not everyone had the time to attend my seminars. But rest assured, Jason Pitre of Genesis of Legend Publishing made sure you could listen to them afterward. You should go listen.

The first is “Design an RPG in an Hour”. I do this one all over the place. You should know about it, if you know me. The second is “Lessons from Indie Publishing”. I basically talk about the process, what it’s like to develop a game, and the logistical nightmares therein.

Let us know what you think!

A Perfect Fucking Wasteland Sample #1: The Query

David — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:38:37 +0000

Here’s the first sample of Perfect Fucking Wasteland. What do you think? This particular bit is just game text and a sample of layout. Well, and the mockup cover.

It’s meant to be viewed in two-page spread form. Just FYI.