Edena (once known as Bloody Fantasy)

[Nathan]

Hello all,

I have some new things finished up, and I wanted to share. I appreciate all the support the Forge has given me over the years. It brings a tear to my eye.... :)

I had a big thread over Edena, aka Bloody Fantasy, quite a while ago... Some of you may remember it. Here is the current "final" result of that, which was long ago. I appreciate in advance any comments.

The Setting Info: Edena
http://www.actionroll.com/edena/Edena.pdf

Specific questions:
- Does it seem complete enough?
- Are you somewhat interested in running it?
- Is it presented in a useful way?

The Rules: One Page 2d10 Action System
http://www.actionroll.com/edena/2d10_onepage_rules.pdf

Specific questions:
- Does it work?
- Is one page enough?
- Is it clear?

Again, thanks for the help. I hope everyone is having a good year.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill
nathanh@cameron.edu

[talysman]

hi Nathan.

I looked over both PDFs. for the core mechanics, they look like a decent lite ruleset, exactly what you are aiming for. one question I had, though, was: does the GM roll dice in a "GM Fiat" situation? the rules mention player vs. player opposed rolls, then mentions adding penalties for GM Fiat. the rules do not specify whether the GM rolls or not.

also, in opposed rolls, the higher roll wins, but in GM Fiat, you add a penalty for the difficulty of the action -- the higher the difficulty, the higher the penalty added. do players attempt to roll low on GM Fiat rolls? or is this penalty added to the GM's opposed roll, giving the GM an advantage?

for the setting, the materials seem very sparse. I found it hard to picture what kind of game Edena is: a special environment for standard pseudomedieval fantasy? a fantastic age of piracy game? something like the Kroft "Danger Island" series? is the game going to be about exploitation versus human rights, or about progress versus freedom? or maybe another theme entirely?

[Nathan]

Thank you for taking a look at it and responding.

I looked over both PDFs. for the core mechanics, they look like a decent lite ruleset, exactly what you are aiming for. one question I had, though, was: does the GM roll dice in a "GM Fiat" situation? the rules mention player vs. player opposed rolls, then mentions adding penalties for GM Fiat. the rules do not specify whether the GM rolls or not.

also, in opposed rolls, the higher roll wins, but in GM Fiat, you add a penalty for the difficulty of the action -- the higher the difficulty, the higher the penalty added. do players attempt to roll low on GM Fiat rolls? or is this penalty added to the GM's opposed roll, giving the GM an advantage?

Thanks. I wasn't sure if that was clear or not. Yes, the GM fiat basically allows an opposed roll. I was heavily influenced by Jared's iSystem manifesto for this - I wanted to have a lite system that only deals with conflicts and nothing else. Of course, I don't exactly follow his iSystem to a "t" though.

So, right, if the GM wants to make the action more difficult (the character leaping over the chasm), he can oppose the roll by rolling 2d10 and adding in a challenge value there (+10/+20/+30) or what not -- or, by adding in the skills and attributes of an opposing NPC or what not. I need to modify it.

Do you think the lack of examples is a hindrance? Perhaps it should be a 2 page ruleset? I wonder if a smaller font would do damage....

for the setting, the materials seem very sparse. I found it hard to picture what kind of game Edena is: a special environment for standard pseudomedieval fantasy? a fantastic age of piracy game? something like the Kroft "Danger Island" series? is the game going to be about exploitation versus human rights, or about progress versus freedom? or maybe another theme entirely?

Thanks again. The setting has been sitting in various forms on my hard drive at home for ages. I decided to get it into some format and plunk it out there. It is part incomplete because it was intended as more of a campaign as opposed to a setting.... Would a bit more direction help? An equipment list? What kind of info would define it further?

Thanks,
Nathan

[ethan_greer]

I think adding an equipment list, or other similarly detailed info, would be detrimental.  I like the fact that Edena could be any of the things Talysman listed above.

Nathan, what I would do is add those different options as suggestions for how to use Edena, maybe another page of text.  Other than that, I think the level of detail provided is decent - it provides enough info to get across the idea of the setting while allowing the GM some flexibility as to how he/she wants to run it.  You could add more detail, but I'd be careful not to nail Edena down into a specific genre/setting/style.

[szilard]

Thanks again. The setting has been sitting in various forms on my hard drive at home for ages. I decided to get it into some format and plunk it out there. It is part incomplete because it was intended as more of a campaign as opposed to a setting.... Would a bit more direction help? An equipment list? What kind of info would define it further?

It really reads more like a setting for an adventure supplement or some such thing rather than a full game setting. This is not, of course, necessarily a bad thing. If the characters are defined as strangers to the island, though, it is pretty much unavoidable (unless the game is about being a stranger in a strange land - which is something your system gives no indication of supporting).

Stuart

[Nathan]

Thanks for the input.

I may just leave it as is (with a few corrections). The problem is that Edena is not something I have a lot of fire for. I've got more excitement about Eldritch or Rodendom than this strange fantasy island. Therefore, I don't think I am going to put that much effort into it. Still, adding more thoughts on what it is and how one could use it might be the best way.

I have several little things like Edena floating around. I may just punch them up in Microsoft Word, distill them to PDF, and let them linger. With the one page (maybe two?) rules, they would be a semi-complete little download of sorts. I think when I wrote the first drafts many moons ago I had it in my head as sort of a campaign with a beginning and end -- perhaps that is why it doesn't read so much like a setting... I suppose it was intended to be a more of a one shot adventure or something.

I'd urge any of you that have half-baked ideas out there to punch them into a quick 5-10 page draft at the very least, and post it somewhere. It's fun, but I'm just trying to avoid doing too much work on one thing.

Thanks, thanks, thanks!

Nathan

[Nathan]

I've made some changes to the One Page Rules. I am the sort who works on everything at once, so I even have a new layout and a wee bit of graphicness. I did this version in Adobe Pagemaker, and the final PDF weighs in under 100k -- whereas the cheap Microsoft Word PDF weighs in at 125k... And this version has a couple of watermark type art pieces.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to Edena yet, but I have taken into consideration some of the wording on the one page rules. I also now included a simple character sample. Hopefully, the wording is better, the explanation is better, and things are better in general.

I think I am going to have the PDF version as well as a text version of of the one page rules (although they won't be one page anymore in the text version). Any comments?

http://www.actionroll.com/edena/2d10action1page.pdf

Thanks,
Nathan