Sunday 27 March 2016

Experience Points

(An Excerpt from the Character Advancement Section.)

Experience Points

  • There are two categories of Experience Points that may be awarded;
  • Effort Experience is granted the end of each session. The type earned is dependent on how you approached the trials and perils you came across.
  • Everyone in the party receives the same amount of Effort Experience, though they may not all earn the same type!
  • Objective Experience is earned when your party accomplishes a specific goal or acquires something extraordinarily valuable.
  • All experience points are valued equally for advancing in Rank.


GM TIP: The methods for rewarding Experience Points are discussed more thoroughly in the Game Master’s section.


Effort Experience Points

  • You gain a single point of Effort Experience for each hour you spend playing a session of BREAK!!.
  • You may earn more than one type of Effort Experience based on how varied your role-playing and problem solving was during the adventure.

Blade

These points are awarded for sessions that you confronted obstacles with force, combat, or intimidation.

Skull

These points are awarded for sessions that you avoided trouble via trickery, stealth or deceit.

Tome

These points are awarded for sessions where you demonstrated sound reason, skill or cleverness.

Heart

These points are awarded for sessions where you solved problems through diplomacy or demonstrated great courage or empathy.

Objective Experience Points

  • Every member of your party will be awarded an Objective Experience point at the end of sessions where the requirements for one of the Objective Experience types is fulfilled.
  • Multiple Objective Experience Points may be awarded for particularly successful sessions.
  • Always remember that these things must be gained through effort, not luck! Stumbling on a great hoard of treasure won’t earn you a Crystal Point, but slaying or tricking a dangerous monster to claim that same treasure would.

Crystal

Points in this category are received when the party manages to acquire something of significant value through deliberate action or planning on their part. This doesn’t have to be material wealth; a well guarded secret, rights to a choice piece of land or a deal with a powerful Guild Leader are a few examples of things that could net a point of Crystal Experience.


Star

Star Experience is earned through great deeds that affect something larger than the party itself. These are feats that make people talk and find their way into ballads: finding a safe haven for a group of Shadowed Land Nomads, overthrowing the ruler of a kingdom, or publically thwarting the efforts of some terrible enemy could earn a point of Star Experience.


Shadow

Shadow Points are earned when the party accomplishes something personally significant or secretive. Returning a lost child to their worried caretakers, getting revenge on the person that killed a character’s parents or following a secretive scheme to fruition are all things that might net a point of Shadow Experience.

Sunday 20 March 2016

Honest Descriptions of the Outer World, Part Three: The Twilight Meridian

Part Two, The Blazing Garden

Part Three: The Twilight Meridian
Sail from the land of the rising sun to the land of the setting sun without missing a beat.

The Seven Sacred Isles
Chanbara Film Japan and Ninja Anime Japan fight to a Lotus Juice soundtrack.

Galvanus Archipelago
Crazy competitive trade empires in the Pacific with a lot of JRPG and Pirates of Dark Water stuff happening too. 

Night Haven 
Dark Stalkers and Revolutionary Girl Utena brainstorming a Castlevania map.

The Sunken Isles
An excuse for crazy high-tech underwater dungeons.

Stahlfeld
A lot like NieR, but with a lot of debris from 80's Sci-Fi Anime and Megaman games.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Honest Descriptions of the Outer World, Part Two: The Blazing Garden

Part One, The Wistful Dark

Part Two: The Blazing Garden
It's always sunny in the Blazing Garden (no, seriously).

Taaga
Breath of Fire 4 with a little Jack Kirby and African mythology land.

The Alliance of Sol
Mesoamerican Hyrule: "What if Link got really tired of everyone's nonsense and was getting bad advice from Lady Mum-Ra?"

Thunda Sands
Thundaar the Barbarian and Wild Arms shenanigans with the occasional Kaijuu.

No-Folk Lands
Harvest Moon in an absurdly dangerous wilderness.

The Pride Coast
The Thunder Cats crash landed on Muskehound territory, displaced them a bit and everyone is still a bit sore about it.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Honest Descriptions of the Outer World, Part One: The Wistful Dark

So in the book proper, the areas of the Outer World are first touched upon (during character creation) and later expanded in a dedicated section on setting.

Grey posted the map WIP and I was tempted to post snippets of that here, but I decided that the blog needed something unique to itself.

So I give you something a bit more blunt, more visceral: Honest Descriptions of The Outer World
(AKA Perpetual JRPG Plotonia)


Part One: The Wistful Dark
Literally stuck in the Dark Ages

Shard
Secret of Mana stretched over the Holy Roman Empire built on top of the ruins of Final Fantasy Camelot

The Murk
Zelda Fairies and weird monsters from Ghibli Movies in one spot with a lot of trees

The Shadowed Lands
Everyone here is stuck in the scary parts of Berserk and Wizards

Crystalia
Disturbing parts from children's animated films, the island

Aiden
Proudly fighting awful monsters with quietly bad ideas and black spiky armor)

The Hollow Queen's Kingdom
Yoshitako Amano draws Cannibal Corpse Album Covers and probably weeps a bit land


Saturday 5 March 2016

Map of Outer World

So Rey provided a sketch of Outer World.
I thought it would be fun to base the land masses on a broken up supercontinent (like Pangea)
Used a hexagon, fractured and jigged so details didn't fall on the page fold.
Still lots to finesse on the last stage (make more naturalist, add cartographic details, etc)








Wednesday 2 March 2016

Production update

We have started putting the content for the first part of the book (Character generation) into an Indesign file. A major milestone! All effort now is about making this bit of the book real. Previous work was purely conceptual, was are essential for thrashing out design issues, but ultimately the work was disposable. 

We have linked Google Doc to Indesign with DocsFlow (which allows us to keep the content in sync, which is great, as there is a bit of flux.  It enables me to edit copy to fit the layouts in Indesign and copy the changes back to Rey's source files.

Hard to tell how long it will all take as we figure out process and tool up, but making it  'real' is definitely bringing some fresh momentum.

Icon development




Text as it comes in from google docs



After many hours... it gets formatted (provisional sketches inserted)



Very nearly there, but still issues to resolve



Also quickly sketching placeholder graphics, and 'linking' them to Indesign.