The Game That Started It All

I have always played games as far as I can remember.  My brother is eight years older than I and tried a number of games on me such as Squad Leader and Starship Trooper, two Avalon Hill box games.  Back in 1979 I was introduced to D&D and all of my friends were playing the game.  I vaguely remember going to the hobby store and looking at both the box game of Dungeons & Dragons, but also the Player’s Handbook of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  I settled for something a bit cheaper, because I never really had much money back then.  Metagaming in those days published a series of tiny games sold in plastic bags called Melee and Wizard.

This is my original copy of the rules, stored and kept for 32 years:

The rules are rather simple and straight forward, which amounted to twenty-one pages that covered character generation, combat, and long term development.  Utilizing only six-sided dice, the game could be played almost anywhere and at any time.

Soon after buying Melee (The Fantasy Trip), I realized that gaming and RPGs were something I simply loved to do and would occupy the next thirty-five years of my life, starting with Melee then jumping to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and on to all the variant games such as Villains & Vigilantes, RoleMaster, SpaceMaster, Champions, Star Wars, and a hundred other titles.

This is the original book I bought back in the Fall of 1979 and still hold as a treasured part of my youth — more than a thousand characters and stories were spawned from this single book and I have carried it from Comstock Park Michigan, to Japan, to Washington DC and hopefully soon to other parts of the world.  It is the one book that simply captures my imagination.  Sadly, I do not get much time to play table-top RPGs any longer, but perhaps that too may change here very soon.

I also have my first copy of Dragon Magazine still, from December of 1979.  It is extremely brittle these days and should be kept in a plastic bag — but I always find comfort paging through the aged magazine:

I wonder how many other peoples’ lives were changed by these three great books.  I know that for me, they changed my life forever.

Thoughts on Civilization IV Modding

So, as I sit here on the cusp of ending two development cycles at the same time, I can look back at the two and clearly see the direction I am going on both.  As with any mod for Civilization IV, it is always hypothetical game of chances, what if’s, and possibilities. With that said, however, I wanted to create two different kinds of games with the mods.  The first mod was born in the early days of my modding experience and included some rather fanciful stuff, while the second mod was based more on more or less realistic boundaries.  I preface that phrase knowing all to well that the game itself lends to weird possibilities such as Lincoln with long bows, Hitler with the jets, or even Solomon with a tactical nuke — that is just the game.

In the first mod, ExtremeMod, I decided to rename it so that it better represents the game at large. Drawing from my RPG of the 1990s, I gave it the name Multiverse.  Rightfully so, it is full of magic, steampunk technology, dinosaurs, psionics, weird technologies, and endless combination of the bizarre.  I also wanted to make the game a resource battle, and thus I placed almost every item and building on the need of owning a particular resource. I also created at least 30 new resources and the appropriate technology and improvements to support it.  Multiverse will grow in the coming years, if I have the chance, to be the pinnacle of fantasy design with new player cultures  (such as the elves, amazons, dwarves, dark forces, and perhaps even a zombie king). It will also have new units, technologies, and experiences.

In my second mod, I wanted to create a game that had a rich source of Unique Units and Buildings, drawing on history to recreate some of the greatest technologies and wonders.  It is not necessarily about having specific resources, but more about experiencing all the different cultures and civilizations in the game.  There are some aspects of the game, most notably combustion units, that require a specific resource (oil), but for the most part it is open to building anything with the minimal number of resources.  This game so far has proven great fun in play testing and I hope the game will continue to grow with new UUs and UBs.   I am finishing up the second test phase of latter half game play, basically starting after the Renaissance.

I also want to specfically thank the designer known as Tsentom for provided me with such a great base to design my game. I love what you have added and have learned so much from you.  I have never met the guy, nor even had a correspondence with him, but feel indebted to him. It has been a scant year since I started modding for the game and I have learned so much — I wonder what another year will hold for me.

Troy

August 21, 2011

Civilization IV Mod Shots

Here are some screen captures of a few different games recently played in test. They show the amazing capabilities and fanciful additions to the game. Intermingled are both Extreme2 and also Multiverse (formally known as ExtremeMod).

Check out my latest addition to the TRPG section

Take a look at the newest game to be uploaded to the Emerald Tablet.  A game design from 1997, the Realms of Ardaan is full of playable races, classes, skills, adventure ideas, gods, equipment, and rules for combat and further adventuring. This game is looking for a home with a small gaming group, and I am more than willing to support the product with updates, Q&A, and additional development with feedback.

 

http://emeraldtablet.wordpress.com/rpg/

Five things I Love and Hate about Rifts

I have not played Rifts for very long, as a matter of fact less than a week total from buying the game and from a very limited beta experience. In that time, however, I feel I have come to grasp some of the great Loves and Hatreds of the game. I have spelled them out below, in no particular order other than my likes first and my despair being last.

Terrific Things About Rifts
1. Models: Rich and luscious, the models exude color and detail
2. Atmosphere: the terrain and flora, the sky and the ocean all seem vibrant
3. Character progression: four classes, each with 8 subclasses, each with dozens of skills translates into hours of fiddling and fine-turning a class.
4. Ease of play — within a couple of hours you are completely up to speed and playing like a “big boy”.
5. Solo friendly: Along with ease of play, the game seems very Solo friendly and also offers fast grouping methods, which means no more sitting around waiting for groups if that is your thing.

Fears, Hatreds, and Troubling signs
1. Extremely Linear: There are but two paths to follow in the game, basically the opposing sides to the game. Once you create one for each, the quest progression is dreadfully the same with no alternate paths. Making the process of creating another character boring, repetitive, and just unfun!
2. Feels like all the other MMOs: Taking the best from the rest is great way of making a fun game, but it also causes everyone to compare it to the big rivals. “This is a new WoW!?!” Good to hook new players, but bad for those wanting a new experience.
3. Crafting is too basic: For those that like to craft, Rifts is not it — crafting and harvesting has been reduced to the most infantile level of complexity and is just not fun.
4. Death: They have tried to make dying unpleasant and penalizing, but their choice is too much like WoW and one that I just do not like. I hate running back to a corpse — Waste of time and dumb. Certainly once per hour you can just be reborn, but often (see below) your death has nothing to do with being a smart player or not. Horrible death system.
5. Rift Mobs: Unless you have played this, it is hard to explain. Basically rifts open up and spew out mobs, but sometimes these mobs (which are usually higher level than the local area) come bashing on your guy even though you have nothing to do with Rift. So you die, and that is not cool or fun.

Phantasm Adventures Returns!

Over the weekend I made the decision to release my greatest role-playing game I have ever designed. It is the quintessential game of high fantasy with more than fifty-five player races, thirty factions, two hundred skills, a magical spell system unmatched in any game ever published. It also comes with the world of Monokon: a rich and delicious world full of mystery, discovery, and unbounded adventure.

I am also very excited to have some top notch artwork finally gracing its pages. As I look at the project, I foresee five books each about 100 pages long. I will release them in various quality from the basic pdf (containing just the rules), a grand edition (containing rules, art and simply page flashings), to the premium pdf (all the pages in color).

Best of all, I have decided to release them series of books all free.

My plan is to release each book every couple of months, with the first one being ready in early June. If you wish to receive the game, simply drop me an email at: tchristensen616@gmail.com and mention Phantasm Adventures in the subject.

Troy

Looking for Artists

After years of being out of the business, I have decided to pull from the archives all of my old role-playing games, adventures, and accessories and print them via pdf and lulu (www.lulu.com). Although I consider myself adept at writing instruction manuals, I have one flaw that has kept me from becoming the next printing mogul: I am not an artist.

I am looking for all sorts of artists. I would like to add drawings, paintings, computer renderings, and maps to my games.

I cannot offer much in the way of payment, simple because it will cost more to make these rules than no doubt I will ever receive in compensation. I am doing it for the love my designs and the genre. But it is a good way to get your art into a professionally looking PDF and perhaps book (from lulu you can make physical copies of the manuals).

I would very much like to discuss this with anyone who would like to contribute. Please write me at: tchristensen616@gmail.com

I am truly excited about working on all my games again, and I hope to start sending out the word of their completion soon enough.

I am also looking into areas of web design to exemplify my games, designs, and worlds that I create and will give you more information when I know about it.

Troy

Phantasm Adventures: Rules and Screen

First published in 1985 under my own publication house, later in 1987 and 1988 it was picked up by a Japanese publication company specializing in models, dioramas, and gaming.  The union of myself and the company last ten years with dozens of books and articles published on Phantasm Adventures, Multiverse, and other related subjects.

Phantasm Adventures: Guide to Monokan

Phantasm Adventures: Guide to Monokan

In this huge companion book to Phantasm Adventures and Advanced Phantasm Adventures, we discover the lost world of Monokan. Detailed through the book is the major continent from which adventures untold, begin. More than ten thousand years of history are detailed, as well as the Almanac like descriptions of the varied empires of the land. Follow through the book and read details about the Throom Dynasty, the Maldake Combine, the mysterious Wild Lands, the rambling Kingdom of Jeg.

Read about the infamous Mog Apes, the Spires of Norrandar, the legendary wizard Azaroon and Thobar. Experience so much that mere words cannot describe all the mystery and wonder.

Misty Island Adventure

Misty Island Adventure: Published in 1990 by Dai Nippon Kaiga for my Japanese fantasy role-playing games called Advanced Phantasm Adventures. The quest takes the group of adventurers to a series of islands to the south of Maldake. The islands are wrapped in a mystical force of power and mystery. Buried deep within the archipelago is a resident evil that must be stopped. Can the group quell the evil forces and re-establish harmony in Monokan.