F|nDers Keepers: Illustrations! and What to Expect in 1.4.

Hey all,

The basis of F|nD -- d6.

Scouring through the net, I learnt many things. Beautiful clip arts and fonts were easy enough to find, but most of them are reserved under professional sites that charges for downloading their images.

Then, I chanced upon ClipArt ETC, which provided some of the cool images that you will see in the Core Book.

Simple, bold and makes sense. Just the way I like it.

"The Flop" -- Initiative System

The Poker Cards clip art that you see on the right looks like it could well be out of a children coloring book and it might well be, with nice think lines emphasizing the cards themselves, or Action Cards as we call them.

But combined with the fonts and raw factor of the  F|nD gaming system, it fits right in.

Round head. Chiseled features. Typical.

The dude on the left is a typical man-at-arms in our World. I reckon the World to be pseudo Middle-Age in terms of weapons, technology and the general feudal feel for settlements closer to the Lord's Castle, but Old Wild West in terms of gambling dens and bloodthirsty riff-raff bandits beyond that point of "Light".

This creates a nice juxtapose whereby the people who fell out with the Lord or the "civilized" sector of honest tradesmen will snuggle in with the huge underground gambling industry or join a life of crime as a bandit to gather some quick gold to survive in the World.

My concept of the World in F|nD is influenced again by my personal journey, this time with my favorite PC Games of all time. The World is to be a reverse-Fallout in the medieval ages, a feudal-driven Wasteland without guns.






So now, you have a rough idea of the meta-game that my game will be set in. I will expand on that in version 1.5 when I attempt to add a World section to the Core Book, so as to give the players a better idea of what they got themselves into, the places they might visit, and the necessary skills to survive and role play in the setting.

C'yall on the flip side, as I reveal short sneaks of the upcoming Perks update in 1.4.

F|nDers Keepers: Inside F|nD (Pre 1.4)

Hi all,

Sorry for not being able to post so regularly. I have been diligently working on the Core Book, and I am proud to announce that I am doing up Version 1.4 now. Work on 1.3 began after the discussion with Shane and Pong on Saturday; with the emphasis on explanation and  flow of sections, and glaring play balance issues.

If you don't already know by now, I will usually write up a version and then send it to my play-testers who will read it and then feedback to me on what they find off-putting. It can range from silly English typos and garbled standardization; all the way to not agreeing with the concept of the Ancients being a Lesser Deity of the World.

• There were many questions I asked about 1.0  last week, as I mulled on various core concepts of the game, including Combat DVs and Action Resolution, finding them a bit too clunky.
• 1.1 was the big Official update earlier in the week with the Magic and Piety Rules, and a new Initiative System. Races were also added. Combat and Actions were revamped, and Skills tabulated. The Character Sheet was redesigned and given a new look.
• 1.2 was a small update that I sent over to my guys on Saturday, a day after 1.1 was released. There was more formatting done, and sections were place held on pages to reserve the slot necessary for the final flow of information to the reader. Also, some DVs were changed and terms more clearly defined.

The latest version that I sent Vek to print was Version 1.1, which was F|nD in a more complete but still raw form. I arranged the printed pages in a file, and headed to discuss the contents with the guys.

By the time we met up, Pong and Shane already had Version 1.2 loaded in their iPads. Pong was visibly distracted as he had wanted to play test the game. He had roughly seen the system evolve over the past two weeks and did not realize that many rules have either been changed or added. Not looking at the new version much, he started to comment on the lack of standardized formatting. I agree with that but as said, for those two weeks, the main idea of them going through my Core Book was to look for issues with the understanding of the game terms, the specific location and flow of the relevant sections (so that new players can easily get into F|nD) etc.

Formatting and Fonts etc would be given higher priority in at a later date. But I do have to say that I have done some formatting and worked the information in various table forms now, giving better visualization and ultimately, ease of understanding the new system.

1.1 looking unpolished.

So no worries about that. It was the first time Shane has seen F|nD, and he pored over it meticulously, raising many relevant questions, and discovering typos and boo-boos that I have left in the Core Book. I noted down the changes that I need to make, and circled out the common complaints raised by both Shane and Pong regarding the flow of the sections and what was preventing them from understanding the game easily etc.

Shane commented that the Construct race looked gimped while the generic Humans looked strongest with their Versatile Racial Ability and the added Attribute Die. He also asked me about the relevance of the Running Skill, which I deleted in Version 1.3. Pong talked about Spell Drain being too harsh, which I agreed on too.

At the end of the day, I went home happy. Armed with lots of notes and to-be-changed chunks, Version 1.3 was underway.

1.3 looking better with tables and shading.

Shaded tables came in to highlight important paragraphs rather than a crazy amount of bullets that littered the page during previous versions. Keywords were being italic-ed, and redundant lines deleted.

I also realized that the players particularly wanted a certain flow of information, and that included Summaries to give the players an idea of the concept I was about to preach in F|nD, rather than them having to always look ahead to find out about new terms.

Boom! In came Summaries for Version 1.3.

That was not all. I enlarged the size of the Skills Section to make it clearer to the reader, and added illustrations to the Core Book so as to alleviate the boredom of seeing text line after text line.

By Tuesday night, most of 1.3 was in place. Seeing everything so neat and the information being presented in a better light, I decided to embark on another big plan --

The Perks Section!

C'yall on the flip side, where I show you the illustrations of Version 1.3 and discuss about Version 1.4, where the massive Perks Update is taking place in!

F|nDers Keepers: "F|nD-nally! The Rock.. HAS COME BACK TO..."

Hey all,

At 5.06 pm today, I sent a couple of files over to Vek, who was working in his office. He told me on Whatsapp that he will look through them and print a couple for me.

"F1nD" on my computer, cos files do not take "|" ??!

Yes, the first copy of F|nD Basic Edition v1.1 and Character Sheet has been printed!

I heaved a huge sigh of relief, as tomorrow is the day that my play-testers will meet to take a look and play through some of the material presented inside. Now with some rules in place, I can happily work on the world and populate it with races and critters!

Firstly, I have to thank the influences of all the PnP RPGs out there that made this Edition possible. I borrowed heavily the sleek Health Condition Monitor that I loved from ShadowRun, the brilliant poker-inspired game system of Savage Worlds, the shift and movement ideas from DnD 4th Edition; the swift and intuitive core game-play from Star Wars (Revised and Expanded), the "straight-forwardness" of Dragon Warriors.

Sprinkle in all the ideas I was brought up on. From my childhood experience of Enid Blyton, Secret Seven, Famous Five; to all the Fantasy Game-books I bought and read at MPH and Times, sometimes even bringing my own d6 dice there as I could not afford to buy more of them.

Then, I began craving for more. Printed books were no longer enough. 300 pages of "Turn to Page Bla Bla Bla" was not enough. My imagination was too strong and too vivid. I had to do it. I had to create my own world.

I was ten then, going on eleven. Age was not going to matter to me, I didn't really care that I was not supposed to be thinking on my "own".

At home, I started making my own adventures, plot lines and World, making them come alive with the paper toy humanoids and animals (Kats, they were called?) that I made from cheap vanguard sheet and cardboard. My brother Shane joined me in several of the "Worlds" and the "Adventures" I came up with.

Yes, the paper toys were cheap and self-made. But the ideas and joy it gave me and Shane was priceless. Or at least I hope so for him. I was a geek, nerd maybe :) And Proud of It.

I still am.

C'yall on the flip side, when I reveal bits and pieces of what the heck is going on in F|nD Basic First Edition !

F|nDers Keepers: Progress, and Character Sheet Sneak Peek!

Hi all,

I am excited at where this project has been taking me, in ways seen and "unseen".

The guys who are going to play-test the game in the coming months are meeting at Behindmee (our unofficial headquarters which doubles as a coffee-shop which serves good Western Food) on Saturday to start our brainstorming and play-testing with a short adventure based on the new setting that I will be designing from scratch.

Some of the players will get to know the system for the first time, and I think explaining the rules to them will be insightful too, as it will show the degree of intuitiveness that F|nD possesses, or the lack thereof.

Hopefully, valuable feedback and group-based opinion can be obtained, and I will be able to proceed with more information in my bag, especially with some first-hand experience playing the F|nD System.

"Sometimes at night, all I need is some.. Inspirasi."

During our session, discussion will touch on a few areas of importance.

1. The Combat System (Actions)

• Multiple Actions in a Round.Cumulative Penalty to each Action beyond the first?
• Should Dodging and Blocking be part of Active Actions? Will the Block near the end of the turn, which is effectively the 3rd "Action" in the Turn take a 2D penalty?
• How should multiple Blocks and Dodge be handled?
• Block can be enhanced with a Shield but Dodge cannot. So what are the advantages of Dodge? and if so, what is the difference between Block and Dodge game-wise?
• What other Combat Actions do you want to see? Called Shots? Grappling?

1. Weapons

• Fixed Weapon DV against undefended Targets. Should 2 handed weapons be naturally at 16DV while a Dagger be at 7DV?
• Is the Ranged Weapon Stats balanced among the 3 types of Weapons?

1. Initiative System (Card)

• Is using a deck of cards viable? Does the Joker Rules look fun?

1. Implementation of the Magic/Piety System 

• What do you feel about the Drain System?
• What differences do you forsee between practitioners of Magic (Plane of the Unseen) and Piety?
• Does the Loyalty System of Piety feel too pigeon holed for you? 

1. Skills and Perks

• Any important Skill missed out?
• What other Perks do you want to see?

Just to let you in on some of the work that I have been doing, and what I am actually up to with my spare time these days, here is my latest F|nD Basic Editon Character Sheet, updated after comments by Shane and Pong.

"Are you sure this is Basic Edition, Alfie?"

As you can clearly see, I added colors to the usually bland "Traditional Character Sheet" look, and I think that in this format, the different information can be more easily picked up by the players. For this project, I am throwing out many tried and tested conventions, replacing them with ideas and gimmicks from other Games and Hobbies that I know of.

Currently, I am sprucing up the Core Book (screenshots in the upcoming post) with clearer Tables, editing what should be in the Basic Edition and placing them in the best and most logical way for my players and readers to absorb in the shortest amount of time. It is seventeen pages long for now, and I see this Core-book ending up below thirty pages for the Basic Playtest Sessions. 

Cyall on the flip side!~