Thursday, May 17, 2012

Perils and Progress...

Putting together more than a decade of rules, notes, revisions and concepts into one semi-coherent document has been a monumental undertaking, to say the least. I applaud those who have done this sort of thing before, and hope to cross the finish line still more or less vertical. Real life has certainly taken its toll on me recently, derailing the final phase of this project in every conceivable fashion. Hopefully, I can trudge through the whole house-hunting process quickly and get settled in before summer is too far gone.

I just found a previous version of my rules covering sorcery, a rarity in Khaelavar but certainly a game-changer. The rules for sorcery will not be included in the basic set, as its introduction too early on would be detrimental to the overall effort. In Khaelavar, magic is a truly powerful thing, and those who practice its arts may as well be forces of nature in their own right. There is no tit-for-tat character balancing in FORGED, and for good reason: certain things in the world are not, and will never be fair. The game achieves balance through attrition, meaning that the rarity of powerful magic is such that although one wizard may be a match for 100 men, you won't find one person in 10,000 that has the talent to be a true wizard. More on this later.

Right now, the focus is on getting the basic rules out in preparation for open beta (still no ETA on that; sorry). The basic rule set will consist of character creation, combat mechanics, skills, economics, the basic lore, creatures and monsters of Khaelavar, and an Adventure Companion - a starter module for one of the FORGED campaign lines.

Future projects will include but are not limited to:
- Adventure Companion releases on a regular basis.
- The Sapient Arcanist, containing all of the rules for magic.
- The Path of War, containing all of the rules for epic battles in Khaelavar.
- Kingdom Guides, richly detailing all of the major kingdoms of Khaelavar.
- Campaign Lines to be released regularly.

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