To that end, I’ve created a campaign on Obsidian Portal for Diamond’s Hope, the first setting I’m developing for the SGS. There’s very little there at the moment, but I’ll be putting up the SGS rules there and keeping them up to date as they change. Feel free to comment there, or back here.

• The name of Scintilla is remaining, in direct reference to the base system in development. While not a generic system, per se, the Scintilla system will be the foundation for most (if not all) of my gaming projects. It will be modified as needed for each project, so they’ll all have a similar basis, but the feel of the game should change based on the needs of the setting.
• Diamond’s Hope is the current name for the game that was once Ethereal. Diamond’s Hope is more in tune with my original ideas that sent me down the game design road, both in name and feel. Much of Ethereal will remain, but some ideas and concepts, like the Creation Myth I developed, will be saved for other projects down the line.
• My ambitions for Engel are documented in my Angelic Ambitions post. While any chance of publishing my version of the game rests in the hands of Feder & Schwert, Engel remains one of the prime drives behind developing the Scintilla system, and the first real playtests of the system will likely be in this setting.

The basics of the Scintilla system are pretty simple. A character has Traits and Skills. When performing an action, the player will roll a number of dice (most likely ten-sided dice, but that’s still not definite) equal to the character’s score in an appropriate Trait. For example, if a character has a Prowess Trait of 4, then when determining if his swordblow connects with his enemy, he’ll roll 4 dice, and try to beat a target number based on his opponent’s abilities.

Pretty simple. Find an appropriate Trait, roll that number of dice, beat the target number. Skills make things interesting. I’m debating two different ways of handling them. They are similar in the way they interact with Traits. The only real difference is the scale in which they do so. I’ll present both here, and hopefully illicit some feedback.

1. My first thought was to give values to Skills, much like Traits, although lower. Having a Skill higher than a Trait is useless in this system. After rolling your Trait, you select a number of dice equal to (or less than) your Skill and re-roll them. To continue the example above, we’ll give our theoretical character a Swords Skill of 2. After rolling his 4 dice (because his Prowess Trait is 4, remember), the character falls short of his target number to succeed. So he selects his 2 lowest dice (only 2 dice because his Swords Skill is 2) and re-rolls them. Adding the 2 re-rolled dice to the remaining 2 dice from the original Trait roll determines whether he meets the target number now or not. You do not get the better of the re-rolled or original dice. If you choose to re-roll them,  you keep the new result, even if it is worse. There will probably be other mechanics in the game that allow a re-roll where you keep the better result (some kind of Luck Advantage, probably), but the basic mechanic does not allow this.
2. The second option is identical, except that Skills do not have values associated with them. If you have an appropriate Skill, you can re-roll 1 die. However, you can have Specializations under each Skill, which allow further re-rolled dice. So our Prowess 4 character rolls his dice and doesn’t meet the target number. He has the Swords Skill, which allows him to re-roll 1 die. He also happens to be using a longsword, and he has the Longswords Specialization under the Swords Skill, so he actually can re-roll 2 dice (1 for the Skill, 1 for the Specialization).

I’ve been a fan of the setting for the game, Engel, since I stumbled across the corebook many years ago. The property is owned by a German company, Feder & Schwert, and the English version was published by Sword & Sorcery, a division of White Wolf. Unfortunately, White Wolf decided not to continue with the line. I can only assume that sales weren’t as high as they expected. Only the corebook, a prelude graphic novel, and two sourcebooks (a bestiary and one out of the five character splatbooks).

The setting has always resonated with me. Post-apocalyptic Europe, dominated by the Angelitic Church which seems at times both savior and slaver. The players take on the roles of Engel (German for “angel”) and combat the insect-like Dreamseed, protecting the Church and the European countryside. They also stand against the Diadoches, or Junklords — those regional leaders who stand against the Church. Of course, there are also cults and the internal corruption and politicking of the Church to deal with as well.

I love what I’ve read in the few English books. I’ve longingly looked at the expanding list of sourcebooks printed in German. The other four splatbooks for the Engel. A book on the inner workings of the Church. A book about the Junklords and other “free” zones of Europe. A book about the British Isles, hidden behind their New Splendid Isolation. Some great stuff! Not to mention an advancing meta-plot that intrigues the hell out of me!

A while ago, I bought all of the books available in pdf format from DriveThruRPG (one more has come out since, plus a number of novels), and began the long, slow work of translating to my native tongue from a language of which I only know the most basic rules of grammar. I took German in high school, but that was long, long ago.

I’ve been wanting to do a couple of things with Engel. I want all the source material in English so that I can run my campaign with all the information at hand. I know, many people would tell me that I’m free to come up with my own ideas. Normally, I’d agree with them. But what the original designers have come up with blows away the ideas I’ve had. I was going to run a campaign at one point. Then the first splatbook came out, and covered much of the same ground, but so much better! Plus, again, there’s the meta-plot that I’m really interested in.

Second, I’d like to design my own system for the game. The English version used the OGL/d20 system. I’ve never liked that system much, and I really don’t think it’s a good match for this particular game anyway. The German version gives the OGL system as an optional ruleset. It primarily uses a deck of Tarot-like cards. You can use a Tarot deck, but they also sell their own Engel-themed deck. This method is too rules-light and freeform for me. And I like me some rules-light systems.  But this goes too far for my taste. Building my own system from the ground up is the way I’d like to go. This is another reason to get all the source material in a form I can read it. The system needs to cover the entire setting, after all.

The third thing I’d like to do is spread the word of this game. White Wolf decided to drop it, but I think it could do well on the independent market, handled by someone who cares less about profit and more about this wonderful game. Someone like me.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Feder & Schwert asking a couple of things. Primarily, I asked if they had any English translations of their books that they could send to a non-German gamer who legally bought all of those same books in German. I know at least one of the other splatbooks was in the process of being released in America before White Wolf dropped the line. I expect that one’s done. Others may be being prepared for further American, or even British, release.

I also asked if they’d be open to the idea of an independent publisher releasing this material in the U.S., and what would need to be done to make that happen.

We’ll see if anything comes of that.

I personally like the idea of systemless content. There are many sourcebooks out there that I’ll never look at because they are for some game that I don’t play. Some of them have amazing content in them. But I’ll never read it. On the other hand, the games I’m interested in tend to have a high fluff content, and many times, that’s what my decision to buy is based on.

Even based on that, though, I have bought or read very few books of pure fluff that weren’t filled with information on a setting that I was already invested in. The Chronicles of Talislanta is pure fluff, but I only read it because I was running Talislanta. I’ll read novels and other stories, watch movies or plays, or even watch the nightly news, and within those sources I’ll find a gold mine of material to adapt to just about any game. But I don’t look at generic gaming books. I don’t know why. Maybe I just figure that if it was any good, it would be incorporated into a game already.

But there are a lot of games out there that got a boost in sales by including OGL content in their sourcebooks. In some cases, they switched entirely to d20, in others, books had stat blocks split between d20 and the native system. Funnily enough, I didn’t like those split books because more room was needed for crunchy bits (since you had to account for two different systems) and that left less room for fluff. In fact, it also left less room for more crunch that I would actually use.

I had an interesting thought, though, and one that I’d love more input on. What if a game company released a standard fantasy rules/setting corebook. Imagine a new fantasy game, with a really cool setting and its own system. You, as a GM, flip through the book, and you don’t like what you see as far as rules go. While you like the setting of this new game, you’ve got your own favorite fantasy game, and don’t want to pick up something new. Now, what if you knew that on the game’s website, they offered material for other game systems. Every creature in the core book, every NPC, etc. statted up for D&D, or Savage Worlds, or whatever your favorite system is (or even multiple systems). Would you be more inclined to buy the book? Knowing that the book itself provides only fluff, but that there’s crunch that applies to you that’s easily accessible? Forget legality for the moment; that’s an entirely different issue. What if you were intrigued by the new system, but wary? Would you be more likely to buy the game if you knew that, should you dislike the system, you could easily port the setting to a system that you do like?

I’m very interested in your thoughts on this. What do you think?

Shortly after starting up that blog, I decided a blog would be a great way to track my L5R campaign for myself, my players, and anyone else who comes along. So I started one for that purpose here. I was also thinking about starting an Unknown Armies campaign, so I set up another blog for that purpose. Earlier this year, I decided I wanted to design my own RPG, and set up a this blog to chronicle that endeavor.

I recently found myself wanting to post reviews of role-playing games, thoughts about upcoming products, etc. And with the potential for some one shots and other short adventures in various settings and systems that I’d want to post about, it finally became clear that a blog dedicated solely to RPGs would be in order. Am I a geek for having four different blogs up and running (with the ever-present potential for more)? Probably.

Somewhere in Eternity is not going anywhere. It will continue to be the repository of anything and everything that doesn’t fit into any of the other blogs. That means rants about politics or movies, stories from my life or the lives of those around me, even random crap I find on the internet.

For those of you interested in more than one of my blogs, and who may be disgruntled at having to view multiple sites, keep in mind that each one of these blogs links to each one of the others, all from the main page. Also, if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve set it up so every time I make a new post to any of these blogs, a tweet will be sent with a link to the article.

I hope you keep reading, here and everywhere else I decide to present myself. And I’m always open to comments. It gets lonely when no one comments.

Everything was fluid. Nothing existed except for potential, which means that everything existed. Form existed only as long as it proved useful, then it was discarded for something else. It wasn’t until consciousness developed and started defining itself did any kind of permanence begin to develop. Humans were the first to become self-aware, and therefore self-defining. Curiosity and loneliness was the initial form of reproduction. With the world’s potential as fluid as it was, a strong desire could directly lead to an act of creation. That ability faded as they became more and more static in their formalization of themselves. But it wasn’t long before they turned their attention away from themselves, and started seeking to fix the ambiguity of the world around them.

Try as they might, humans couldn’t do much about stabilizing the Chaos around them. Even in the small groups they formed, their abilities were quite limited. This is because the first humans saw this ocean of Chaos everywhere they looked, and were intimidated by it. Their fear convinced them they were powerless against it, and since they were designing their own imprints (though they did not know this on any conscious level), they gave up whatever power they might have had in this regard. The best they could do was provide some kind of static environment in their immediate surroundings. An individual couldn’t muster this level of will; it was something only groups of them could do.

Tribes of humans in small villages started dotting the ever-shifting landscape. But their relation to each other was just as unpredictable as the rest of the world. Some days, one could walk to a neighboring village, and at other times each village would truly be isolated. On rare occasions, two tribes would find themselves close enough to each other that their combined influence locked them together. These rare bubbles became larger villages, and even small towns. But they were hardly safe.

Not knowing what hides immediately outside is quite a fearful prospect. Especially when you know it could literally be anything and that it could change in the merest of moments. Humans were pretty well defined by this point, and lived in fear of everything outside of their own little villages and towns. Further cases of two settlements merging became more and more rare, as people became ever more suspicious about anything outside of their defined environments. A neighboring village was something to be feared, just like any monster.

Danger was everywhere. Outside of these bubbles of defined reality, anything could be found… or could find you! Creatures of every possible description existed in these seas of potential. These monsters were also not in any way cut off from the humans’ villages. People lived in a near-constant state of terror. Their existence, despite how developed they’d become and the accomplishments they’d achieved, was by no means a guarantee. They were in danger of extinction at any time.

Remember that humans were the first beings to be able to define themselves and their surroundings, but by excercising that ability (albeit unconsciously), they took it away from themselves. So what would people in this terrifying situation do? Turn to their gods, of course. Which gods? The ones they were about to create. The ones they would give their own power to. Needing another force to impose order on their world, people began to pray. Their subconscious desire still had power in the world, and so many of them praying to gods had the effect of creating those gods. Being as self-centered as they are, however, humans could not create a god without limitations, and the many different groups with different ideas of what their god is like led to the creation of several lesser beings of a more demigod-like status. They created the Synlath.

The Synlath (same plural and singular) came into the world in forms chosen for them by their human creators-made-worshippers. Each came into being in one of the larger settlements of humans and almost instantly began deciding what the world should be like according to their whims. It was very slow going. Generations of people lived and died as each Synlath slowly built the world around them.

It was only a matter of time before the Synlath came into contact with each other. It’s unknown if they knew of each other beforehand or not, but they seemed to recognize something in each other. That doesn’t mean they got along. They seemed to have some kind of rivalry with each other, though one that only rarely manifested as violence between them. Their followers were a lot more willing to fight on their behalfs.

As the Synlath expanded their realms of reality, the world became more fixed and stable. Soon, one could reliably journey from one town to another by following the same route on any given day. With this solidarity of the world, the humans grew in their courage. More settlements were founded, some by followers of the Synlath, some by those who decided to strike out on their own. They formed their own villages, towns, cities, kingdoms, and nations. Some stood against the Synlath. Some stood against each other. Some collapsed from within. Many clashed, many fell.

Creatures and monsters from the chaotic times before still roamed the countryside, now locked in their forms and forced to follow the rules of the reality they were now confined to. Some of them thrived and spawned and spread. Much of the world is no longer fluid. Order has replaced Chaos in many places. But there are many more still waiting to be mapped and defined.

This is roughly the default setting for Turmoil, and a time of legend for Ethereal. This was written after idle brainstorming for the last day, and written entirely off the top of my head. Further details will be added, aspects will be smoothed out, and it will probably be rewritten entirely a couple more times before its finished version.

Remember, these are all just working titles for the games, and by no means, permanent.

This is not definite yet, but will be looked into further….

The second big change has to do with the Scintilla name. I’ve decided that in addition to the game that we have, to this point, called Scintilla, I want to work on another game as well. We’ll talk about that in a moment. But this blog’s title is Scintilla, and it’s even in the url, but I don’t want it to be named after one specific game if we’re talking about more than one here. That gives us two options: 1) come up with another name for the site; 2) come up with another name for the game. I’ve decided to please my friend who hates the name Scintilla and go for option 2. I’m keeping Scintilla, though. As of now, Scintilla is the name I’ll be publishing these games under (if it ever gets to that point). My publishing brand, or company, if you will.

As for the game I’ve been working on, if it’s no longer Scintilla, what is it? I’ve thought about this for a while, and decided that the new working title for this game is “Ethereal.” It seems to fit pretty well, not perfectly, but for a working title, it’ll do.

Now, about this second game. I really don’t have much of a concept for it yet. But I’m wanting to design something with a reward system for players that encourages exaggerated action and feats of derring-do. I could just put that into Ethereal, but it doesn’t fit. Ethereal is about hope and despair, and will have a pretty grim setting filled with horrors and very real danger. What I’m wanting here is swashbuckling, swinging from ropes, flips and kicks, and action-filled excitement. I want the Three Muskateers meets Robin Hood. Therefore, a different game. In fact, this second game will probably be completed first. I’ll likely use a similar system, with some obvious differences. This reward system, for one. Probably put Fear into Ethereal, but not this other one. And magic will likely be very different. High fantasy versus grim fantasy. Dragonlance versus Warhammer.

Anyone with any input about what this second game could be, please let me know. It’s very fluid right now. The only real constraint I’ve already put on it is that I’m looking at a technology level roughly equal to Europe in the 1600′s, give or take a century.