Franco v Colbert Tolkien Smackdown II

Steven Colbert is awesome.

Awesome Comic Books Artists Drawing Stuff on a French TV Show from the 70s

 Here are some of the best comic book artists ever on a French TV show where they collaborate on a drawing.  

In this one Druillet amazes me as always with what pours out of his pen.  Hogarth is wonderful, and who can resist John Buscema drawing Norrin Radd??



 I've always loved Moebius and Neil Adams, but it was Joe Kubert who blew me away here.

In the Weeds of Game Design

I've been working on my previously mentioned and untitled Fantasy Roleplaying Game.  I'm well into the weed in a few areas, but I also have some really daunting work ahead of me.  Game design is a bizarre and sometimes painful process.  As was indicated in my last post, the game is definitely heading in an old school simulationist direction right now.  It feels to me like an unholy combination of Runequest, Top Secret/SI, AD&D 1e, Rolemaster, Stormbringer, and Palladium Fantasy.  I've also stolen a few "new school" ideas from games like Burning Wheel (which I feel like a spiritual successor to some of the games above).

Right now there are sixteen professions and working through those is taking longer than I thought.

And the magic system is a bit of a mess right now.

And so it goes.

Simulations & Dragons (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and do my own Fantasy Heartbreaker)

There is an ancient tradition of people trying to do the their own Fantasy Roleplaying Games.  For much of the early years of our hobby this consisted of people trying to do D&D "right" or more even "realistically."  Examples of this particular design path include games like: Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcery, Harnmaster, Palladium Fantasy (1st Edition), Rolemaster, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and many others.  Even my beloved AD&D 1st Edition can be seen as an outgrowth of this impulse in response to the original 1974 D&D Boxed set.  I've always been attracted to these more complex games, and the idea of simulating in great detail my own fantasy characters and the kingdom they live in has always been a powerful draw for me.

To that end, I've started tinkering with my own game system that definitely draws inspiration from these types of games.  Right now it consistes of a mass of notes in a notebook, but it's edging up on eight or nine pages of rough notes right now.  I've no intention of publishing this for sale, but maybe I'll make it available as a free pdf eventually, and I don't really know where this is going though.  Conceivable, I could wake up tomorrow and decide this is a terrible idea.

Right now I'm excited about though.  I'll post more about it if I continue to make progress. 

Old school simulationists unite!