The Tower

 I suppose I can get a headstart on this post. 

 I'm writing this on the same day I posted my last blog. When I actually post it, that will be much later. It will be now for you, but for me you're reading this in the future. I hope you understand, you're reading the words of a memory! Spooky!

I seem to get a kick out of making sort of esoteric, unfun games. Maintaining that momentum, I present my newest Work In Progress:

 

This probably is completely illegible. My process when making a game is: Sit down with all the stuff I think will work for the game, make a few decisions about what should be a rule, test it, write down what I tried in the most insane way possible, test more things, rewrite something in maybe a clearer way, draw a picture, etc. 

I'll talk about my main goal with this game.

I want this game to take a while to play. I want it to be just short of agonizing. Well, no. I want it to take a while to progress though. This is the thing happening in the background. I have a vision of a wizard, or some sage of a small town waking up with fleeting remembrances of a dream. They see a person in their dream, and they have some understanding that something is going to happen with this person. And then, the Tower Dweller will come down from their tower and go about their day in the village. And what they get up to during their day takes a decent amount of time. And at the end of their day they go to sleep, and the following morning they awake to visions of someone and some understanding that something is going to happen with this person.

I'm really fascinated by world building games. I played a campaign of The Deep Forest with some friends a few years back and that is still one of my favorite experiences I've had playing games with anyone. A lot of the things I'm interested in revolve around capturing a vibe like that.  

As the game stand right now, I'm trying to figure out a way of using the tarot cards. I have something so far, but as it is right now it doesn't have any essential meaning to the game. But I have a start. I need to figure out what the day looks like, and make it maybe not miserable to play either solo or with friends. 

-~-~-~-~-

Things have progressed and grown a bit. I had a goal for this game to involve moving a guy around a board full of terrain and interacting with that terrain. I'm less sure I want that now, though let's be honest I always want that. I'm going to take a little bit of a break from working on this to let it simmer in my mind and hopefully I think of a good solution for it at some point.

The Tarot mechanics sort of works as a standalone world building game now. I'm decently excited by that prospect, though I need to finesse some things I'm sure. 

The game as it is requires the Tarot deck to be split up into three separate decks. One is the numbered cards, one is the Court cards, with The Fool and The World added to it, and the last one is the remaining Arcana cards I-XX. 

At the start of each day, or whenever you decide the Tower's Host (I'm still thinking of a decently vague name for referring to this character) you will draw one of the Court cards to act as the Emissary of the Host's vision. After which you draw one of the numbered cards and place it faceup on top of the Court card. Each following "day", another numbered card is drawn from the deck, not looked at, and placed face down for as many days equal to the number of the initial numbered card's value. At the end of which, an Arcana card is drawn and placed faceup on the stack. 

Now, I've drawn up a chart which relates Arcana cards with the different Suites (Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles) and this becomes relevant. Whatever the value and Related suit of the Card must be met and matched by the face down number cards. If none of these cards can be combined to meet the value of the Arcana card, then a calamity strikes and effects even you in your high tower if enough Arcana cards cannot be appeased. After this, the same goes with the Emissary card and the first drawn number card. The difference with the Emissary is that you may use other cards other than it's suit after you've exhausted whatever matching cards were drawn or are in your hand. After that, any remaining cards that match the first drawn numbered card will be added to your hand and all other cards are discarded. 

Now, that's a lot and is a bit confusing I'm sure. That's fine, we're still futzing with mechanics but it makes sense to me, and I will get it to a point sometime where it makes sense to you, the reader. Here's where it gets kind of fun and a little less confusing (hopefully).

The Emissary and first drawn numbered card (let's call it something else eventually) will be used to decide what events are occurring in the world outside your tower. First, match the numbered card to the chart. Follow the prompt (including the flavor of the Emissary chart descriptions) being imaginative and thorough and omitting details as prompted. After, roll a D6 (six sided dice) and compare it to the Emissary chart. If the dice meets or beats the number next to the court card, whatever you've decided for the world goes through. Now this event exists in the world. If you roll below it, the event is flipped in the favor of a force against the event. Rewrite the event with everything going wrong. The court card and the numbered card are removed from play for the duration of the game. 

~-~-~-~

I've play tested this game a bit using playing cards all at once (just for a few turns) and I'm currently doing a long form playtest with my roommate where we draw cards and establish narrative once a day after we take a walk and our IRON PILLS. What a thrilling life I live!

 

 

 

The gameplay is at a state that works, it takes a while, and it's kind of fun when anything happens. It does take a while for anything to happen! Which I think kind of rules. This could be an interesting counter to do at the end of a round for any game, though you'd have to figure out the effects.  

 

What it looks like to play it 

The day starts, you awake with a vision fresh in your mind. To establish that vision, you will draw from the Envoy deck (court cards) and then from the Journey deck (number cards) flipping up and revealing the Journey card and placing it atop the Envoy. Using this Journey card (now to be referred to as the Questing card (subject to change)) you will compare it to the chart and make something up related to the matching prompt. The number of the Questing card establishes how many turns will pass before the vision either comes true or is found to be false. On each of those turns, draw a Journey card at the start and place it atop that vision stack until the Quest is over. Then Arcana, etc. Pay off Arcana (Faire), pay off Envoy, roll D6 equal or above Envoy's number, rewrite vision with the effects of Envoy and Faire. 

 

This probably doesn't make sense!! 

 

When I playtested on my own, the days went like this

 

Page card unavailable due to using playing cards, Faire being used as D20

Day 1: vision of a Queen and the vague shapes of creatures 

Day 2: vision of a Fool 

Day 3: Vision of a Knight

Day 9:  

There is trade between the Hogfolk of the Wylde Marsh and another, the Hogfolk are taking some advantage of their trade partner. This trade partner, in actuality is taking advantage of the Hogfolk, for they are a simple people, they are dealing in a rare Peated Truffle that is worth many times their own weight in gold in other lands. The Hogfolk are unaware the true value, as they much prefer the Forest Truffles. 

Learn of a Ruler. The Duke of Redwood. Lazy noble, content to eat pinecones while his court makes decisions for him. It is clear that the court is working to their own interests, allowing old trees to be uprooted and sold as lumber.

Day 10: vision of a king.

No news of the Knight reaches your ears 

Day 11: vision of a king. 

Day 12: vision of a Knight

Day: 14: no news of the King reaches your ears.

 

I forget the cards I drew other than face cards and which relates to which. You can see how the Envoy cards effect the world though, specifically with the Hog Folk. They were doing trade and when I rolled for their Envoy, they got screwed. Anyway. This is where it's at, I'll post the googy doc and you can look it over and complain in the comments. 

 

The Tower 1.2.doc

 

I guess that's it, have a great day! 

 

Actually, no. None of you wished me happy birthday and I won't ever forget that. 

 

twabbis 

EDIT OH THIS IS MAYBE A BAD DAY TO POST THIS I FORGOT WHAT DAY IT IS AHAHAHA 

A Door Closes, another Opens

 Blog readers, hello!

 I've been inspired by my beloved friend Jackson to Do Something this month for my own betterment, via the Hard Pose Challenge. If you don't have the privilege of knowing Jackson, you should change that! 

 

So anyway, I hemmed and hawed a little about what to do. There's a lot of things I was thinking of attempting to do every day. I'd like to learn to play recorder better, I'd like to spend time working with oil clay again, I'd like to focus on hobby, on drawing, on yada yada yada. Then I was sitting around the day before the challenge, scrolling through Instagram Reels in a fugue state. "Ok I should stop staring at my phone now." 30 minutes would pass. "Oh wow, I should get off my phone now." 30 minutes would pass. I don't know about you all, but my impulse control is really shit! I mean, it's really really shit. I'm sick of how insidious these apps are too, how they feed on it. I do not enjoy staring at my screen a lot of the time! So, for the challenge I went and removed all the social media apps from my phone. Maybe just for the month, maybe forever. The challenge also calls for making a donation to a charity, which I thought was really nice. I sent some money to the World Central Kitchen. 

 

Dear reader I'm sure you're thinking this, but I'll be upfront. I can still access social media. I can get on my computer and look at bluesky, or discord. I could even log into instagram if I really wanted to from my web browser of choice. I'll be honest, I really don't want to open instagram.  Of any of them, that app is the most heinous. So I'm taking a nice long break from it yippee!!!

I've already been really productive, even though I've been on the computer a bit more than I had been. First off, I've drawn a little calender labeled September with boxes drawn for each day and a note of "30 min hobby". This is to tell myself to do some kind of hobbying for 30 minutes every day. I put a checkmark over the number if I've done it! Very exciting for me, going forward. 

The hobbying I did yesterday consisted of modifying one of the sculpts I received from my beloved friend Sid (he's got a website now, check it out!) I hot glued some coffee stir sticks to the back and sculpted some iron bits around the side and across the sticks to look like iron things to hold the wood together. I used kneadatite for that. I also added!!! a lovely snail at the top of the door because, well, I love snails! With the remaining stir sticks I fashioned another door and glued stir sticks across it with PVA glue. Then I stuck a piece of string as a shitty makeshift handle, not an unusual addition if it's a medieval wooden door! After the kneadatite had mostly cured, I cut foam bricks and made an arch around the Mouth Door, gluing them down with PVA glue. I don't really have an end goal for this door, but I really like how it looks all together. The base is just a stacked plasticard sheet fused together with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement.

 

 I haven't learned how to make short blog posts, but maybe today I will make an effort to make a SHORTER blog post, because this isn't all I did yesterday! I'll post the other things I've been working on as I make more progress on them. To keep it short, I'm doing a bit more work on Mischiev28 and I'm working on a DIFFERENT game that will utilize Tarot cards. Look forward to it I guess!

 On that note, I'm making an effort to drink more water so you don't have to. you're welcome!

twabbis