|
Deviously
Deranged Design Data
"Please leave your sanity at the door, you won't be needing it anymore."
- Me.
Intro
I chose to make designers notes in order to give you a better
perspective as to where I am coming from and why. I hope that in the
notes below you will find some rhyme and reason to any lingering questions
you may have.
What's In A Name
When originally making Blood Hounds I didn't approach doing so like
I normally do. Usually I pick a genre then populate the world. However
I quite literally fell ass backwards into Blood Hounds. I was working
on a WW2 game and just didn't like where I was going. I didn't have
enough room to go crazy with creativity per say. So I kept evolving
what I was working on until I hit Blood Hounds accidentally. It didn't
occur to me until half way through creating Blood Hounds that it was
quite odd to base an entire game on the name of a single unit.
I had a couple other names at the time that were somewhat sticking in
my head for other projects (That is to say future projects). A few of
the names would have worked as well. BUT, unbeknownst to the reader
there is a lot more developed for the Hounds than what is publicly mentioned.
So instead of just using a cool name to pimp a game I decided to intro
the game through what was partially created. This is somewhat common
in novels where you follow around a certain group or individual and
are introduced to a wide ranging world of characters.
I still think it odd from an outside perspective looking in. However
from my perspective it very much makes sense as I know the full extent
of what is coming. With that in mind I set about developing the world
and characters in such a way that much of what I make relates to the
Blood Hounds in one way or another.
World
When first trying to develop Blood Hounds I had to set parameters for
the world. Would it be open? Would the world know of vampires and other
creepy crawlies? I chose not to make it an open world so there would
be a bit more of mystery in the darkness and intrigue. However in doing
so I also limited unit design to a certain extent. Instead of getting
crazy monsters and units all decked out with obvious gear, I had to
limit it to certain extents. No massive gun trucks, no public military
uniformed rank and file vampire soldiers etc. Everything has to be somewhat
believable and modern in context.
Modern Future
Although the game takes place in a modern day setting you will notice
guns and vehicles are not exactly copied from current day themes. They
look similar of course but I decided to shy away from outright copying
current designs. Part of the reason stems from wanting to add a little
more unreality to reality. The mechanic is recognizable which facilitates
a comfortable setting in which the player may adapt as it is based on
reality. However it adds a new air of a near future right around the
corner. Something we haven't seen but we know might soon be.
Setting
In a lot of vampire games/movies you have a lot of darkness. Everything
is filmed at night/in the dark. This sets the whole mood for when action
takes place. I wanted to open that up greatly. I wanted day time fighting
as well as night time fighting. And for the day time fighting I didn't
want the vampires to be helpless children waiting to be staked through
the heart.
To open the world of vampires into the land of the light and bright
I integrated several features:
1. Vampires don't toast up or die in the sun. Simple. They have
reduced abilities/powers etc, but do not die in sunlight.
2. Give the vampires a strong enough presence during the day
to actually fight enemies. It's not enough that vampires don't burn
and die during the day, but I had to make it so they could effectively
fight day or night. To do this I gave them Acolytes and Half Breeds.
Acolytes being the typical human low level whack jobs, Half Breeds being
a step up on the fighting scale inbetween a vampire and a human. Incorporate
both of these into well trained forces with top notch gear, large numbers
and direct leadership by vampires and you have a rather robust killing
force that can take on almost anyone day or night.
3. Enable the vampires to conduct business during the day. It
only makes sense that vampires who run such powerful networks and societal
structures would have some direct hand in manipulating them. This starts
by vampires creating neighborhoods or areas in a city just for themselves.
Much like gangs guarding their turf in a neighborhood. Because vampires
don't fry during the day they are actually able to conduct matters of
business and other such human trappings during daylight. This lets them
live and work amongst their prey which is a rush in and of itself. A
vampire could simply be eating in a restaurant like anyone else during
the day enjoying themselves, except they are serving the vampire a different
kind of wine...
So in the end I more or less incorporated vampires into our human daily
routine. Or, I gave the wolf a brand new sheep suit. This opens the
door for different styles of ambushes, society reaction via local authorities
and more.
Vampires
I wanted vampires to be very accessible. If they are too above
humans then humans really do not equate to any sort of playable factor.
At the same time if vampires were too weak, then they simply wouldn't
be worthy of their name. So I set out to create a unique balance of
plausible foes. In addition weapons play a very key role in the game.
If this were a fantasy game the vampires would have massive bonuses
for fighting because of physical feats translating into hand to hand
combat. However just like guns somewhat evened the odds for any man
who holds one, so too have they empowered humans against vampires. Instead
of getting a group together to take out one vampire, a human with a
sub machine gun and a bit of luck is all that is needed. Well, pending
the vampire that is.
In addition to finding the right balance of vampire also came making
different types of vampires or groups within the Vampire Nation. This
way you could have low level vampire groups that make large units on
the vampire's side possible without overly diminishing a true vampire's
"legend" or being.
In the long run the variety of vampire hunters will take over the variety
of the Vampire Nation. Concerning game play a player must recognize
what both sides are composed of. The Vampire Nation is akin to a well
organized and funded army. Plenty of troops, training standards and
support. On the flip side vampire hunters are akin to mercenaries. Out
on their own, a bit of survival and quite the underdog in the grand
scheme of things. Access to good equipment is rather easy, but the money
or skills to gain high end equipment is another thing. Because vampires
hunters are more out on their own, they are often characterful with
what they wear, the gear they use and who they hang out with. Whereas
the Vampire Nation has a lot of character, but it is supported by a
regimented service of base vampire guards, soldiers etc.
Hounds
In making the Blood Hounds what they are i.e. transmutational beings,
that begged the question are there more like them? And if so then where?
This was pretty open and shut for me. I really didn't want a sprawling
war between vampires and wolves like a few others do. I enjoy it, but
that's not my thing. The focus of the game is on hunting vampires. It's
bad enough you have vampires, freaks, hunters etc running around 24/7
in a constant war without alerting the norms i.e. humans. The last thing
I wanted was massive wolves ripping enemies apart in alleyways. Now
that's not to say they aren't freaks in the World of Blood Hounds who
are monster type beings. But typically they will remain dark and mysterious
beings unique to themselves and not form large "social clubs".
So in the end my take on the whole "side freak show" was limited to
small groups or individuals, no races as a whole outside the Vampire
Nation.
Units and Characters
As far as examining good guys, bad guys and their past history's I decided
the world book was not the place to do that. Other than introducing
the Blood Hounds to a limited extent and covering a bit of their history
I will be covering everything else in unit expansions. The world book
is what it is. A formal introduction to the world at hand and all of
its parameters. Being as such the world book is rather large on its
own. To give the planned units and characters an equal share in the
spotlight would not have been remotely possible. So no worries on that
end, Global Reckoning does not even begin to gloss over the intricacies
of the personalities that pepper the world of Blood Hounds. As this
book took quite some time to make it is only the end of the beginning
considering the work that is yet to come.
Focus
The world book (Global Reckoning) has two focus points:
1. The Blood Hounds, through which I will be exploring the
world by the telling of their story.
2. The vampires. It's odd that the
enemy is pretty much the sole focus of the book. But I felt the need
to set the stage in such a major way as to let you, the player run wild
when breaking the Vampire Nation down. The game was primarily meant
to be explored from the vampire hunter's angle. As to those who whish
to be the bad guys, it sucks to be you. Well not really. The vampires
will be getting tons of units because I want them to be diverse and
fun to fight and as evil as hell. But if you think the Vampire Nation
is heavy the hunters will be ten times the fun...
Reality
Reality was a fine line in the game concerning many aspects of design
and the world overall. Even though the world is modern day with a slight
twist concerning guns and vehicles, it is also a slight twist concerning
character design. This stems from my wanting to make units look cool
without breaking the average form factor of what we know today. So guys
with massive guns, huge amounts of armor etc fighting large monsters
or hordes of undead just isn't practical. This would give the world
a post modern pseudo science fiction feel. Which is fine, but just not
what I was going for.
On the opposite side of things I was trying to keep the game from becoming
a total bore fest. Reality says everyone would go out and buy some third
party police or military equipment and everyone in the game would look
like that to an extent. So to spice up the games imagery from the common
denominator of today I interjected a healthy dose of super heroes into
the game. What if people could somewhat have their own custom gear,
costumes, weapons, freak martial art abilities, super and paranormal
abilities. If you group all of these outside elements together you more
or less have a light comic book feel. Not outright super hero crap but
enough to allow individual uniqueness. The game is still rooted in what
we know but flavored with what we dare to dream of. It may not be practical
in the most real world sense but the suspension of a small amount of
reality in exchange for a little imagination can go a very long way.
Now that's not to say every character I design will be at home walking
down a street in New York City. Quite contrary, screams and long standing
stares may prevail in some cases. But overall it will be within reason
to say that a character with a trench coat or a van could move from
point A to point B without scaring everyone. It's not like they wear
all that gear 24/7. So in the world of Blood Hounds there is a time
and place for everything concerning the covert daily and nightly world
wide war. It is elementary to assume those toting guns know when to
come out and get freaky.
World Logistics and Rules
When making the Pilgrim Cell Rules I had to heavily consider
what to include and what not to include. Something as simple as vehicles
I decided to largely omit as they were simply too genre specific. I
could have put the vehicle rules for Blood Hounds in Pilgrim Cell but
then what would I do about the vehicle rules in Dead Arms my sci-fi
game? The vehicles differ greatly in both games as well as environmental
effects. What about rules for fantasy contraptions and mounts and all
their various nuances? So I decided to keep Pilgrim Cell as multi-genre
specific as possible so as to apply to any game. Past those base rules
additional layers of genre specific detail would be added later to different
world books.
I think this has allowed me a greater deal of flexibility in creating
very specific games with their own unique feel. This way I avoid the
well-termed phrase, "Same bitch, different dress." That is to say many
games play so similarly they are all the same under the hood. And of
course this is not without exception. Many games play similarly because
they are all skirmish games, board games, video games etc. But it's
the fine tuning of individual games that gives them a overall different
feel once you hunker down and really get to play them. Also at the same
time I avoid printing the majority of the same exact "base" rules in
every single world book, instead collecting them in Pilgrim Cell.
Scale
Choosing the miniature scale for the game was one of the hardest things
to commit to. In deciding the scale for this game I would also set the
scale for all other games I made. In the end I settled with 20mm. 28-30mm
was awesome for detail, but the scope and scale of battles you fought
was alarmingly small and secluded. 15mm was incredibly tempting but
it looked like hell. It would be hard to recognize units in a character
driven game. I pondered between 15 and 28-30mm for months on end while
working on various projects. One day I came to the conclusion that the
answer lay outside my decision making box. 20mm.
20mm was a solid step up from 15mm with just enough detail to easily
recognize character. However a new set of problems arose with 20mm.
It was not a heavily established market and most of the miniatures were
historical. The same could be said for 15mm, but at least with 15mm
you have some half decent games that have been around for a while. So
with that I leapt into 20mm and never looked back. After months of going
back and forth on the issue, 20mm was the first time I actually felt
at peace with a decision concerning scale. I have that thing that just
clicks when I am totally happy with a certain matter. 20mm certainly
"clicked" for me.
Terrain
Terrain was very important and a sticky issue with me. Every time I
look at games (usually from the big companies) they seem rather simple
and straight forward. Barely any terrain, not a lot of room to maneuver
etc. This comes down to scale and customer expectancy. Scale is a natural
inhibitor by its size alone. However customers are also an inhibitor
based on what they are expected to buy and at what lengths they will
go to faithfully recreate your game setups and scenarios.
Pending the terrain, it would be hard to recreate city scapes with plenty
of room to drive, fly, maneuver, multiple mission scenarios etc. Even
on a 4x8 ft full decked out game table you are limited in many ways.
This is not to say I was seeking rather large games, quite contrary.
I was seeking realistic surroundings for scenarios in which I wanted
to create the possibility of reality. The freedom to move from building
to building, block by block, corner to corner on your own strategic
terms without always looking at that edge of the table wondering when
you would be backed against it. To implement this I had to approach
terrain from two different view points:
Miniature Scale - Miniature scale automatically enables playing surface
by default. Smaller miniatures equals less room needed to play. Cost
of all materials and space needed to play is drastically reduced. So
by lowering the miniature scale I eased restrictions. But how do you
support your newfound scale?
Terrain Accessibility - It's one thing to use a smaller scale. Its another
to actually have terrain in that scale for consumer consumption. Terrain
costs quite a bit of money. There is a plethora of ways to engineer
and cast it. In the end I settled on a myriad of ways in which to deploy
my goal of a decently cheap yet good looking battlefield on which to
play.
Lords of Co-Op
Lords of Co-Op is additional levels of game play that I will
eventually incorporate into games. This constitutes SPITE with cooperative
game play and Tactics and Adventures which is RPG adventure play.
SPITE
Cooperative play is very important to me simply because that's
how I like to play. For the various reasons and ways to play either
by yourself or with friends you may read about that in the SPITE Rulebook.
For Blood Hounds, SPITE integration was also important. It promised
new ways to play for the lone consumer/gamer opening doors on a professional
production level like never before.
Tactics and Adventures
I thought about adding RPG adventure play into Blood Hounds and even
as I am writing this I am not sure whether I will or not. TnA consists
of RPG features scaled into a miniature game. Make characters, weapons,
gain abilities, experience, money, power, respect etc. The only reason
why I say I am not sure is because I don't know if Blood Hounds warrants
the time spent on such a feature. In the grand scale of things I consider
Blood Hounds to be a medium sized game IE around 150-250 miniatures.
When you break the miniatures down into groups and organizations it's
decent but not epic in overall size. So in the future I will have to
take a more extensive look into the work involved in fusing such an
element into a miniature game and what games are worth the extra mile.
|
