Daniel Solis

Couldn't sleep this morning, so I decided to make good use of my time by writing up this system overview for Rulers, inspired in part by Rob Donoghue's commentary on the previous post . System Inspiration Split Decision's rich rolling, RISK for the Rule Duel mechanic, RISK: Legacy and Unknown Armies in the endgame, the storytelling elements of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple without the writing, and a bit of Aeon Flux and M. Night Shyamalan's The Village in the setting. Premise The Crown keeps tight control over a modern kingdom. The kingdom is the only stable area within a surreal land called the DMZ. The kingdom's citizens are divided into the twelve castes to maintain order. Despite this, a random group of citizens possess a telepathic power: They can create and impose rules on the people around them. This power is called Ruling, and the Crown is the most powerful Ruler of all. Each year, the Crown hosts a televised event called Rulers in the DMZ . The...

So the big problem with the Rulers universe is that it's a potent setting, but hard to come up with a crystal-clear scenario that creates focused play and touches on all the cool aspects of the setting. I call this the Shadowrun problem. So much of Shadowrun's awesome comes from the melange of fantasy and cyberpunk, yet the focus of play is on a teeny, tiny aspect of the universe: dungeon-crawling. Folks on Story-Games came up with a lot of interesting scenarios . I eventually settled on a Prince Zuko scenario: Royal exiles in the DMZ. The king's sons and daughters are suddenly exiled, cut off from the line of succession, and cast out into the unruled zone between kingdoms. That's fine, but it still doesn't give characters a real purpose. I like it when there's one thing everyone knows they're supposed to be doing, even if the story deviates from that over time. There's still a central lane players know they're supposed to walk. (For example: P...

In the spirit of transparency, I wanted to share a basic overview of costs for the Writer's Dice kickstarter campaign. Many thanks to my wife Megan who's been keeping track of this info. Our costs consider the following: • Kickstarter's cut • Amazon Payments' cut • Final product dice • Prototype dice • Baggies • Address labels • Padded envelopes • Mailbox rental • Shipping A total cost of $4375 . That's rounded up slightly to consider the stragglers we still need to ship out. The amount does not consider things like any returned packages (extra postage), printer ink, mileage, and our time/labor. We haven't found out the costs of North Carolina sales tax just yet, which Kickstarter doesn't have a way of calculating. Also, the amount of postage for parcels went up a bit before we were able to send everything out, which raised the overall cost of shipping somewhat higher than we expected. We probably could have saved a tiny bit of money by not...

I've been on the road a lot the past few weeks, which means I had a lot of time to marinate on some thoughts for Dung & Dragons . I got to thinking about ways to adapt some mechanics from San Juan, Pandemic, and Yspahan. Here are my loose notes from the road. Welcome to Dragon Ranch Co-op, a group of free-thinking dragon breeders raising the finest dragons, drakes, coatls and winged serpents in the tri-county area. No corporate stakeholders allowed here, just free-range dragons raised the old-fashioned way. There are no managers or corporate execs running the show. Every day, each rancher chooses the duty he or she would like to perform. If others join in, so be it! Of course, getting these people to work as a team can be harder than raising a fire breathing reptile! OVERVIEW OF PLAY Each player coordinates their own workforce to perform various duties on the ranch. Inspectors arrive periodically to grade your ranch's performance thus far, in one of several categorie...

January was a good month for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and possibly the start of an auspicious awards season for our favorite flying troublemakers. Thebig news is that Do won a fancy schmancy award! Check it: RPGamer names Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple as RPG of 2011 Whoa. This was totally unexpected, mainly because Do 's status as a proper RPG is so tenuous. Still, I'm delighted to share the honor with everyone who helped make the game possible. Gamehead reviews Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple This is probably the most thorough review of the game I've seen yet, with special attention paid to the long-term Pilgrimage mode of play. Generally, Do is played as a one-shot, but I'm glad to see some love for the long journey. That's where the coming-of-age vibe really comes out. And here are some international reviews! Fanzine Rolero reviews the game in Spanish. Rede RPG is a Portuguese site that will soon translate some of the free games on m...

So I really want to get some playtesting in for Superhero Audition , but it's clear that it needs some actual visuals on the cards to really get the feel of the game. The silhouettes just ain't enough, but I can't afford all that custom art just yet, so I need placeholder art. The problem is that if the placeholder art is too recognizable (Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, etc) that might distract from the game a bit. I need obscure superhero art that would be suitable placeholders for these characters: Heroes Chief Irritant Grouper Man Canine Chancellor Superior Lad Baby Hands McGee Second Wind Nightvision & Squint Scotch Ape Gold Mime Chinchiller Ultra-Lincoln Vampire Matt The Critic Rooster Jones C Everett Goop Brother Nature Bento Fox Head Count Heroines The Honey Badger Stiff Upper Whip Professor Pharoah General Lee Speaking Pixie Kicks The Pregnant Pause Martial Paw Lightning Round The Whisper Cram Ghost of Tesla Zoobot Doctor Di...

These are dice for writers, storytellers and gamers! In addition to the normal 1-6 pips, these dice are etched with six words packed with meaning: BUT, SO, AND, AS, OR, IF. Use them to plot your next novel! Roll them into your role-playing games! Gift them to your gaming buddies! » Sorry, the physical Writer's Dice are now sold out! » Download the App for iPhone/iPad , Android , or Windows Phone » Download the free Writer's Dice Guide [PDF]