DwD Studios

Thanks kevdog41!
What inspired you to consider writing?
Note that BareBones BlackOps is coming to an online store near you. :-)

Your system is so easy to use and it seems very adaptable to other genres. I will be watching for BlackOps!

Also, the world you laid out for BareBones Fantasy is very open ended and doesn't take forever to find the area you want to expand on. I've already got a few ideas for modules in different areas that I'll expand on in future posts.

I can do my own art so costs in that area for me will be low if I actually get to the point where I want to sell something. Right now I'm doing it for fun though. :)

So awesome, can't wait to see what stories you want to tell.

I suppose then that my own Agent BareBones should be shelved? I would think you could run spy/secret agents missions with the BlackOps rules?

(BTW, did you guys ever receive my e-mail asking for writing guidelines?)

Shelve? I wouldn't. Discuss via email, drop me another line. http://dwdstudios.com/user/4/contact

I wouldn't shelve it either. I know that DWD owns the rights to their system and they are going to release core product for that system but that does not mean we can't create our own versions of that product referencing back to DWD's rules. He's given us the right to reference them in our settings and sell what we create.

I totally agree with Kevdog. There is no reason to shelve your ideas simply because there is something similar in the works. Otherwise I wouldn't be still work on my western/fantasy when I found out that you were doing similar.

There are always ideas that one writer will have that another wont, and the more ideas out there the better. Sure I may like one setting better, but use aspects of other rules here and there. Especially if it makes the game that much more enjoyable!

-Chris

Thanks, guys, for the support! I sent a "bare bones" e-mail to Larry earlier today, with a brief description of my idea.

I really do think BBF is one of the best rule sets to be published in years, and I really enjoyed running it last weekend. I was really amazed though at how quick I was able to come up with a secret agent version.

I look forward to the various incarnation of the BBF rules into other genres. Who's up for tackling Atomic BareBones? I so see a version that hearkens back to Gamma World...

-Ban

There are so many different ways to go. You could even mix genres into something wild and completely different. The simple rule set makes it so much easier to develop modules and settings in my opinion. I don't have to reference four different books to create a single mod.

I for one am interested in what changes you would do for making BBF a comic book style game. I have been putting some thought into this but am not sure where to start.

-Chris

Do you mean a Supers game?

If for a scratch campaign, I would do 10 point multipliers the same as I am doing for size in Steamroller™, based upon the special ability. For example, super STR is rolled and recorded normally, but it is treated as the STR of a giant, which is 10 times more than the STR of a medium character, or STR of a massive creature, which is 100 times a medium character or 10 times giant STR.

However, there may be more graceful ways to handle it for Supers. I'm interested in other considerations.

I kind of see what your saying, but TBH once you threw all the math in ya lost me. Numbers are the Great Evil to me and generally confuse the heck outta me.

But basically your saying you will have guidelines for the Attribute (str for instance) based on a relative 'size' and that multiplier will in turn add special abilities? Like say what exactly does 'Strength of a Giant" mean to you in Steamroller?

Sorry if I am easily confused tonight, dancing with a major migraine...

-Chris

Correction: Oops, I forgot. I've been exploring a different option for STR in the game. I'm working on other stuff in it, so I forgot about the option I was pursuing. But this still applies for using the BBF system as is.

What I was saying is that there are various sizes of creature/character/vehicle:

Tiny
Medium (Average - Small to Large)
Giant
Massive
Colossal

Each one is a full size step up from the previous. If a character with Massive STR fights a character with a Giant's BP, multiply the Massive character's damage by 10. So if it does 3 damage, it actually does up to 30 damage in a full hit. (Characters can control how much damage they do up to the damage roll.)

It also occurs in the inverse. For example, when a Medium STR character does damage to a character with Giant BP, they do only 1/10 damage.

Offensive Strike would be the offensive power. To have the OS of a Giant against Medium BP, multiply the damage by 10. To have the OS of a Massive character against a Medium BP character, multiply the damage by 100; against a Tiny BP, multiply the damage by 1,000.

Previously, I only applied this to vehicle damage differences. For instance, a massive spaceship is clearly going to do a whole lot of damage to a motorcycle or character equivalent to 100 times character to character damage. Vaporization is likely. An atomic bomb (mini-nuke) would be around 1D or so at Colossal damage and impose ongoing radiation damage. A blast radius, even if this were punching damage, would have to be considered. Perhaps +1 space for every point of Massive damage and +10 for every point of Colossal damage.

I also prefer that fractions that would be rounded up to doing only 1 damage on a creature/character/vehicle the next size up would do only half a point of damage.

Along with this would be a DEX penalty of -20 for each actual size down unless technology is applied to improve accuracy.

For example, a Medium character gets -20 DEX to attack a Tiny character. A Massive character gets -40 to attack a Medium character.

The inverse also occurs, in that a Medium character gets +60 to attack a Colossal character, assuming the Colossal character is within reach.

As for how to distinguish between one size and the next is subjective, as with spaces. Because if you set a size category at specific dimensions, then you could end up with a 11'11" tall person being demolished by a 12'1" tall person just because you set the taller size at 12'. The GM simply applies his or her judgment as to whether the opponent is in a different size category and how many categories apart they are. Or they ignore height/length completely, and just judge all things based upon category. Instead of a character being 6' tall, they are simply counted as Medium sized.

Not to totally necro this, but I know what you mean regarding being inspired to create. I just submitted an herbalism BareBones Fantasy article for Decahedron Magazine! Hopefully it passes muster. :)

Pssst! Banagon, Inspiration right over here...

http://dwdstudios.com/node/24?viewtype=downloads

It's a conversion of Gamma World Mutations over to Star Frontiers, and one of my favorite Sourcebooks of all time! It isn't Creative Commons (more of a Gentleman's Agreement between Mr Logan and WOTC) but as Inspiration for your own work you couldn't do much better. Trust me on this.

And don't you dare shelve anything you're working on if you don't want to...there's a dozen D&D-flavored Retro-clones out there, Traveller has used three different systems to my knowledge, there's a half-dozen Mythos or Mythos Mashup RPGs on the market-and how many Star Trek or Star-Trek-with-the-numbers-filed-off RPGs have we seen in the last decade alone?

If I come to this site one day and see...BareBones Fantasy, a Sword-and-Sorcery variant of same, a BareBones Supers game next to a BareBones Heroes-with-the-numbers-filed-off next to a DIFFERENT BareBones Supers, an official FrontierSpace RPG next to a Sliders-with-the-numbers-filed-off game next to a Doctor Who-with the numbers-filed-off RPG and a BareBones Jules Verniverse, two different flavors of BareBones Pulp, BareBones BlackOps next to Agent BareBones, a BareBones Western next to a BareBones Western Horror next to a BareBones Western Mythos Horror next to a BareBones Western Mythos Transhumanist Uplift RPG, with another page for BareBones Alternate Greek History with Steampunk Mecha("Alexander's Legacy RPG"), BareBones Anime High-school Soap Opera next to BareBones Radioactive Apocalypse next to BareBones NoMoreGasalypse next to BareBones Saturday Morning Cartooniverse...

If I beheld this catalog I would weep for joy. And my wallet would weep in agony, but that's neither here nor there. BareBones is gaining fans by the day, the Creators have generously released the system under Creative Commons, and there's no shortage of Magic Purple Crayons! Somebody, somewhere may be working on a BareBones Arabian Empire vs the Flying Saucers-why not YOU?

Yeah I know, too much blood in my Coffestream tonight... :P