Backstory

Oh man, I haven't posted to this thing in forever. Such is life in grad school I guess.

Anyway, I've been working a lot on my new backstory, and I think I finally have one that I feel really really good about. So, this is what will appear in the front of the book:

"If you are reading this, it means you have found my notebooks. Most likely, I am no longer of this world, or any world for that matter. These books are my research journals. They chronicle my discoveries, indeed our discoveries, along with the rise and downfall of Illeria. What happened on this island must never be forgotten.

Though I hardly believe it myself, ten short years ago. King Paris ruled Avon, there was peace, and all was right with the world. Back then magic was a purely esoteric subject. It was an art, just as music or history are arts. It was never of practical use. Why learn to make fire with your fingers, when a flint and tinder are easier to learn? King Paris hired us to be scholars of magic, because he so enjoyed learning, and because we entertained him.

His death left a power vacuum, and lead to a bloody war of succession. His youngest son, Balthazar, rose to power by being the meanest and scariest of the litter. Though the war took its toll on him. A near death from an assassin’s bullet left him with a profound sense of paranoia, and shaped many of his future policies. He began rounding up those that he mistrusted, and established forced labor camps to put them in. It should be no surprise that a small faction, still loyal to his dead brother Montano, soon rebelled.

The Battle of the Roses will forever be a day that changed the world. As Balthazar’s army closed in, a small regiment of men-at-arms came to stop them. Thinking the battle would not last an hour, Balthazar’s generals sent their forces in, only to discover that the men-at-arms were supported by a group of wizards. As arrows turned around to shoot their owners, horses became spooked and kicked off their masters, and bolts of energy spat from the ground, the armies of Balthazar became panicked and fled. Magic had officially left the ivory tower. This victory turned the entire tide of the war, and sealed our fate.

Before I knew what was happening, large men appeared at my door, tied me up, and placed a bag over my head. When it was removed, I found myself on the prison island of Illeria, surrounded by a dozen or so fellow wizards. A man with a large sword told us that King Balthazar now wanted us to take what we knew of magic, and use it to develop weapons for his generals. He said that any who refused to cooperate would be drowned in the ocean. And thus, we began spending day after day, slaving away in our makeshift labs and our makeshift libraries. Conditions were not always safe, and we soon found ourselves setting fire to our laboratories, and unleashing monsters on the land. We turned an art made for creating knowledge into a tool made for inflicting human misery.

At night they kept us locked away with the other prisoners. At first I thought I would be skinned alive, but soon came to realize that the thugs on this island were profoundly superstitious, and that we instilled fear into them. Though the common law prisoners had previously terrorized and ruled the political prisoners, that they would not touch us. The other wizards and I leveraged this power, We brought peace and community to where there was once fighting.

But still, we continued to study the art of magic. We discovered many things; how to heal wounds, how to call animals from nothing, and how to make steel walk on its own. Many of them are written within these pages. Our greatest discovery, however, was when we learned of the Spirit World. The Spirit World is a world unlike ours. The laws which govern our world seem not to apply there. It’s like a dream that you never awake from. You discover that you have a second soul, and it is through this soul that you are able to traverse the Spirit World.

Though every other discovery was eventually taught to Balthazar’s guards and generals, the Spirit World remained a secret. It was so easily hidden, and so miraculous and beautiful, that we never wanted to see it become a weapon. Little did we know what was to come.

As rumors began floating that Balthazar had crushed the rebellion, the political prisoners became nervous as to what would happen to everyone. Soon, we began plotting to overthrow the guards and claim Illeria as our own. Knowing we would be useless without weapons, the other wizards and I began teaching our fellow inmates how to use magic. We even showed them the spirit world, and how to tap into its great source of power. When the uprising came, the guards did not stand a chance.

Before the uprising, plans had been made for a new government, and a new way of life on the island. But as soon as the guards were gone, we realized just how little food and supplies there were on the island. All our noble goals for a new society crumbled, and we began fighting amongst ourselves. What’s worse, now that the common law prisoners had learned to use magic, they no longer feared it, and the prison gangs of old began to reform. Soon, there was nothing but anarchy and death."

What do you think?

Simon

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” – George Bernard Shaw

Artwork & Another Simplification

Hey all,

Happy New Year and whatnot. First off, I've been thinking about artwork a bit lately. I read a review once, I think on The Forge, saying that it was sometimes better if the game designer did some of his own artwork, because it tends to be more creative, imaginative, and exactly the image he has in his head. So, on that note, I've been starting work on drawing. I feel like I really need to get better about technique, though I often sometimes feel like my imagination is lacking. Overall I'm planning on mostly doing Spirit World drawings, and thus am trying to make them look, well, surreal. I've done about 20 or so character sketches, maybe half of them are good enough that they could be fixed up and used. I've been playing around with character proportions a lot, amongst other things.

Simplification: So, originally this game included what were basically 3 non-combat stats: Intelligence, Spirit, and Save (which had originally been three different kinds of saves). After a recent post on BGDF, I started thinking I'd be better off eliminating Intelligence (since it hit me that this is a stat that you have to initiate using, and during playtests, I think I'm the only person I've ever seen use it). Then it hit me that really I could combine Spirit and Save. I don't know, before they were both made to represent similar things. A problem I'd been having is that it seemed like either you would desperately need them, or else (more often) that they'd never come up. As a result, it was usually not worth it to try to boost your Save and Spirit. If I combine them however, I think there is a much greater chance that the new stat (which I think will just be Spirit) will come up on a regular enough basis to at least sometimes be worth boosting.

Simon

“In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Expuéry

Calibration

It's funny, you come up with a big fancy tool like a genetic algorithm, and half-way into analyzing the data you start getting confused about the output. I mean, it's obvious that if you run a simulation, and one ability wins 90% of games, that you have a problem. However, it's getting harder to quantify when something is really so good it's problematic. For example, what results would you expect if one ability had a 5% advantage over all other abilities? A 3% advantage? A 4% disadvantage?

i've taken to running what basically amount to calibration simulations to try to figure this out. Basically, instead of having a battle be long and confusing, I just simplify it as each person has a 50% chance of winning, plus or minus what they get from an ability, and pick a random number. I then run the algorithm with this as the fight routine, and see what the results are. One interesting thing I found: If one ability has a 5% advantage, you'll notice it under most detection methods. If one ability has a 10% advantage, and 3 other abilities have 5% advantages, you won't notice the 5% advantages.

The other thing I'm working on right now is somewhat of an equalizing algorithm. Basically, you run a genetic algorithm, and look at the results. If one ability is obviously stronger, you reduce it's power. If one is obviously weaker, you increase it's power. Then, repeat like 40 times, until hopefully you approach a steady state. I've tried it twice, and last time got results that can't be right. I am realizing that I didn't have a good measurement for "stronger" or "weaker," so right now am running a calibration to try to figure that out.

Blah, too much about computer simulations recently. Anyways, my hope is to try to get something reasonable by the time I go home for Xmas, so that I can playtest it with friends over the holiday. We'll see if that happens. If nothing else I might just abandon the GA simulation and switch to a straight out, each ability fights each other ability 10 000 times, and sees who wins the most.

Simon

“My main operating principal: Don’t take any shit from the zeitgeist.” – George Carlin

More thoughts on points...

A thing I always wondered about: is it worth considering a psychological value when adding up points? Let's say you have a ogre, with a massive club. That is much scarier than a healer who regeneration and heavy armor. However, what if they are evenly matched? I sometimes wonder if the ogre with a massive club should be worth more, just because everyone is going to freak out when they see it. Does that make sense?

I guess to tie it a little more to my game: whenever I did playtesting, it was rare that anyone would give their character a boost to statistics. Everyone preferred something more sexy, like a special attack. However, I'm finding that often, the special abilities have been weaker than the statistics. The problem is, I slightly worry that if I weaken the stats so they do actually match evenly, then even fewer people will pick them. I mean, I guess that shouldn't be my concern, my concern should be what is actually even, and rather than leave a game ready to be unbalanced (as soon as a player really crunches the numbers).

Simon

“Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible - or even sinful - that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes!” – Paul MacCready, Jr.

Exciting news and a new thought

First, the exciting news: I have been programming a genetic algorithm to test the relative strengths of each ability. Basically, a genetic algorithm is a computer simulation based on natural selection. In this, we start out with a population of 1000 random characters. Each one battles everyone else. If someone dies, they are replaced with a clone of the winner. After every 500 battles, we shuffle things up and do it again. I've been doing this sort of piece-wise, adding one or two abilities into the simulation each day. Anyways, the problem I was having was that almost always, I'd run the simulation, and a single pair of abilities would pop up as the best (such as "Power of the Fist" combined with "Greatweapon"). Then, after adding my 19th ability, I ran the simulation, and got major oscillations. Basically, there were about 8 or 10 abilities which would in pairs begin to skyrocket, until they had almost become the only ability, and then would suddenly decline, and a different set of 2 or 3 abilities would start to skyrocket, and so on. The basic meaning of this is that there is no best combination of abilities, and that even if a few appear to be good, they can often be beaten by the right pair. Some abilities didn't really get used much. I might try to tweak things, although to be honest, I worry about this less for two reasons. First, most of the weaker abilities are not well modeled in this simulation (such as archery weapons, or healing powers), and have non-combat uses. Second, if you have 10 abilities that are strong and 2 that are weak, effectively that means you have 10 abilities that you would choose from. If you have 2 that are strong and 10 that are weak, you really only have 2 to chose from.

Second, the new thought on my game: My game takes place in two world. The paradigm has always gone like this: in the real world, people are slow and tough; in the spirit world, people are fast and frail. This often leads to games where people really charge in in the spirit world, and sometimes nothing happens in the real world. What if I mixed the paradigms, and made spirit world people both faster and more robust. My thought is this: now, you can rush in and fight in the spirit world, but often before you have finished, things are already happening in the real world. I don't know, it's a thought. I'll test it out and see what people think.

Simon

“Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve them.” – Darwin

Too long

Hey all,

Boy, grad school starts, and suddenly free time vanishes. I've been getting back into this recently. I had about a month where it really felt like I did almost nothing but work, then I had this eye of the hurricane kind of week where the planets aligned and I didn't have anything to do. I actually spent a Sunday sitting around bored, thinking to myself, "Okay, I used to have hobbies, what were they?" It's gotten me back into this.

I've rethought my back-story. It's a bit complicated. I wrote the whole thing up in detail and it was just over 3 pages. Basically, there is a fight over who becomes the next king after the old king dies. Balthazar basically wins by being the worst of any of the princes. However, because he is so terrible, there is an uprising. During the uprising (in part because of a failed assassination), Balthazar becomes paranoid of traitors, and creates a series of forced labor prison islands to lock up political prisoners, and anyone he suspects isn't 100% loyal. Eventually, he locks up all of the wizards in the kingdom, and forces them to study magic and produce things he can use to battle uprising. As time goes by, the wizards teach the other prisoners how to use magic, and everyone revolts, and takes back the island. Rather than try to reclaim the island, Balthazar basically curses it (long story, will probably explain later). All hell breaks loose, and basically former prison gangs reform in a fight for survival, all waiting until they can escape the island (when it becomes winter, the seas will freeze, until then it would be too cold and dangerous to swim).

I've gone back to computer simulations. A new thing I'm doing is testing what happens if characters have multiple abilities, using genetic algorithms. It's kind of surprising, abilities that didn't seem too strong before really come out when you can link it with another ability. It leaves me with that old question: how similar do abilities need to be, before that can be within an acceptable level of closeness? There are some real issues, for example, take regeneration. This ability allows characters to heal some number of hit points every turn, whether or not they are in combat. The question then becomes: should it usually lose to someone with a greatweapon (since that is a combat-only ability)? How much of an advantage should a person with a greatweapon have? Is there a way to account for this?

Also, it's kind of funny: these computer algorithms take quite a long time to program, and then it really feels like you can get most of what you want to know by running them once or twice. It feels, I don't know, almost anti-climactic. You write your programs under the idea of, "Gee, let's see, what can I do so that one simulation will give me all the information I need," and then when you finally run it, you're left with this feeling of, "This took me a couple hours to program. I should really run it more than just once." Funny how life works.

Simon

“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson

Story, edits, and rules

I just got back from like a 3 week Greyhound trip, and then a couple days after arriving home moved to Tucson for grad school, which starts in a week. So, life has been a tad crazy lately. That said, conversations with one of the friends I visited, and too much time on the bus have given me a lot of new ideas.

First, perhaps the biggest: changing the story. During my visit I saw a good friend who’s a bit of a history buff (certainly more than me). He read my backstory, and was able to pick apart a number of weak elements in the theme. Also, after he read it, he said it reminded him a lot of the Soviet Gulag system, and recommended some books to read on that subject. The little I’ve read so far, it sounds kind of perfect. So, I see a somewhat major change coming soon, maybe. There is a good chance though that the owner of the island will be modeled somewhat after Stalin. Isn’t plagiarizing from history so great? You get such amazing off-the-wall stories, and no one owns them. Not just that, but you are actually thought highly of if you steal history’s ideas. I had another friend make this funny comment about how people who read the game will say, “Hey, he’s smart for knowing this about history, and I’m smart for also knowing this about history. This is great!”

I also have some ideas for shortening the textbook. I’m not sure if they will simplify or complicate the rules, basically I will spell out categories for things that were already de-facto categories. I guess the best example of this: it’s possible to do something in this game called storing spells, basically where you prepare them to be used once. Because they are a little obscure, I didn’t make note of them in the original rules. However, looking over it again, I have 4 abilities that use them, so I decided that rather than explain the rules individually in 4 places, I would explain it once in the rules. I don’t know whether that make it more or less complicated, since now everyone has to see those rules. I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to my old roommate, he seems to be good at finding the simplest way of explaining things.

Other than that, I did a really thorough edit. Why does it take so many tries to make something sound right?

Lastly, I had a friend suggest, if I am hoping to run simulations, that I should just program them in C++. I used to know how to write C++ code, I’m a bit rusty at this point. This should be a good review.