Categories
Author: Ross
Categories
Hello again
I’ve redesigned the site and I think I’m finally satisfied with how it looks. I will use this as a personal blog. In the next week, I’ll be visiting China so I will try to post some photos while I’m traveling. I will also use this as a central clearing ground for everything I release. Oh and of course, I plan to post more writing and analysis, but who knows what the future holds?
Categories
RPPR Video: Dread Actual Play
Categories
Raillery: Killing Floor modded servers
Categories
Raillery: Hide the computer game
Categories
Killsplosion: The PvP RPG
Role playing games are usually games of cooperation and collaborative storytelling. This game isn’t one of them. Killspolosion is a competitive player versus player RPG where there is only one rule: fight to live. It is a rules light game that supports a variety of genres and rule sets. It was created using the ransom model.
Categories
Heretic Cycle: Hunted
When adventurers raid the dungeon of an immortal sorcerer known as Akil, he realizes he has to flee before the inquisitors find him. A heretic, thief and killer, Akil lives only for the next scheme to enrich himself and his personal code. To escape, he’ll have to deal with the border guards, patrols and other threats. With only the clothes on his back and a magical sword, he’ll be hard pressed to survive the hunt.
The Heretic Cycle is a new fantasy serial from author, podcaster and game designer Ross Payton. Follow the saga of a villain who builds dungeons, fights parties of adventurers and performs forbidden magic; a man damned by his choices and must wander the world alone for a crime that can never be forgiven.
Available at Amazon and Smashwords (for all other ebook formats).
The outbreak of the undead in Afghanistan in 2007 shortly after a skirmish between the U.S. Army and the Taliban caused an international outcry. A village with a secret became the latest battlefield in the War on Terror. No one could predict how that battle would transform the world.
Some charged that the military deliberately weaponized zombies, a war crime. Others thought the Army didn’t do enough to stop the outbreak. Rumors abound of the Taliban trying to make the undead into a new terrorist weapon. Today, hordes of the undead roam the region, threatening to destabilize every government in the region. You be the judge. Find out what really happened in this leaked interview with a eyewitness to the outbreak.
Available at Amazon and Smashwords (for all other ebook formats).
A few months ago, Rock Paper Shotgun had an open call for a new writer for their staff. To submit, you had to write a 500 word article. I didn’t get in but I figured I would get some use out of the article I did write for them.
We play games because they’re fun but describing it in objective terms is impossible, except to marketers of course. They want you to know that the game they hock is not only the best damn game ever made, they can prove it. Every new AAA title is couched in terms that they think quantify fun for us: number of levels, weapons, perks, achievements, classes, unlockables, skins, game modes and most importantly the number of hours you are meant to play it. Every new feature adds more play time, supposedly making the game not only more fun, but a sound investment.
Fun becomes a verifiable fact. You gain the unlockables through skill and determination and then show them off to others both in and out of the game. The game design assumes that your ultimate goal is proving to the world that you’re the best. Becoming one of the elite players takes dozens of hours of at a minimum. To a certain degree, you have to play many of these games for at least 10 hours just to learn how to effectively play. Every class has its own tactics and each level has its own unique quirks. By the time you’ve invested enough time to learn the game; you might as well keep playing. You’d have to start over with a brand new game if you decided you didn’t like it. There’s just one problem with this model. It never bothers to question whether the game is fun moment by moment. Would you play the same game if there were no unlockables or perks to level up?
Lead and Gold is far more playable, entertaining and fun than Call of Duty: Black Ops. Most would describe it as a third person Western themed TF2 knockoff. Four classes, each with one weapon and one special ability. You don’t play it to unlock anything or to master arcane strategies that require complex combinations of specific weapons and powers. Its simplicity is liberating. You only focus on the moment of play. My mind is clear of distracting side goals as I run and leap in the game. You don’t need to kill 10 enemies with a certain weapon or achieve a special personal objective to level up a perk. When I press the jump key, I almost feel the weightlessness of my character for a split second. It’s not quite joy but it’s definitely fun. The depth of the game comes from mastering the basic skills of shooting, dodging and outmaneuvering your enemies. The top players win because they are better at the game, not because they have superior weapons or perks.
This isn’t to say complexity is always a detriment to better game play. But good game play is hard to define or implement. Unlockables are much easier to design than a game that is always fun moment to moment. Complexity shouldn’t be a substitute for a game worth playing on its own merits.
Categories
Hello again – the blog lives
Hi, everyone, I’ve been working on promoting my book, Zombies of the World. However, I haven’t forgotten about this. I’m going to post some short pieces I’ve written for one reason or the other but have never seen the light of day. I’ll start with a list of NPCs usable in a modern post-apocalyptic world: a doctor, a scavenger and a warlord.
Jane Lamprecht
Age: 32
Skills: First year M.D. with extensive field experience.
Background: Jane was once a promising young doctor in her first year of residency, covering the ER in a city hospital. As society collapsed, Jane watched in personal horror as her family and life vanished almost instantly. She was cut off from her family and friends as government forces entered the hospital and began evacuating hospital personnel. Patients were left in their rooms, as the government could only take people with skills vital to the war effort. The vast majority of doctors and nurse complied, desperate to survive. Shocked by the callousness of the government and cowardice of the hospital staff, Jane refused to go and remained with the patients along with a few other staff members.
Eventually, Jane had to abandon the hospital when it ran out of supplies and the patients either recovered or died. Since then, she’s become a wandering healer, trading her skills for supplies and food. She remains idealistic and frequently helps those who can’t pay for her services. In fact, her idealism is her way of dealing with her stress and emotional pain. However, she will work for mercenary and military groups provided they do not mistreat refugees or commits atrocities. She is a capable surgeon when it comes to treating gun shots and shrapnel wounds and can either go into the field as a medic or teach medical skills to characters. She carries a pistol for self defense but will only use it as a last resort. She will never work for any group or character she considers evil and is willing to die for her beliefs.
Lately, she’s started having nightmares of her family dying horrifically in her arms. She may stop her aimless wandering and begin the search for her family in the next few months.
Appearance: A weathered woman of German descent, black hair with a few grey strands showing. She wears sensible clothing, with a webbed tactical vest stuffed with medical supplies and held together by judicious amounts of duct tape. She speaks bluntly to men with guns, never backing down with them but kindly to those in need.