Posts Tagged ‘mythender’

Many of you have waited years for me to say this: I’m finally releasing Mythender.

Well, maybe. It depends on you. No maybe about it!

Here’s the deal. The game’s done, and I am not interested in retooling it to use a different die mechanic to make it “marketable.” It rocks the house right now, and over a hundred people have played it throughout the last five years. I love the hell out of this game, and it’s ready to go out and fly and all that paternal jazz.

So I’m going to throw it out there, as a free game for everyone. But only if a charity bundle I’m helping with hits a goal.

Random Kindness Encounter Bundle

Elizabeth Sampat & I have a friend in need, Kelly. Here’s Elizabeth telling you about her. Read this, then keep going for more on Mythender.

Hey guys—

I want to tell you about my friend Kelly. She is a hilarious badass, and a modestly successful food photographer. She’s got a pretty great life at a pretty young age— husband imported from Denmark, two cute cats, and she gets to do what she loves. She is generous to a fault, relentlessly cheerful, and a giant nerd who LOVES D&D and Minecraft.

Last month, she wasn’t feeling so great, so she went to the doctor. Tumors everywhere. That’s not a euphemism.

She had the tumors removed and everything biopsied, and bad news came back. I would have been upset; her husband certainly was. How do you think she reacted?

“Today is a GREAT day! First of all, today is officially 1 week of healing under my belt since surgery, which is 1 week closer to being healed up. Biopsy results on colon, bladder, ovaries and tumors came in…. Colon, bladder & ovaries are CLEAR! Tumors are all benign. Now… To heal up and finish the fight with the last enemy left: Cervical Cancer. I will not accept defeat.”

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine getting yourself psyched about JUST having cervical cancer? I was having a bad day, but shit damn did that put it into perspective. Like I said, relentlessly positive.

Except she’s having trouble staying positive lately. Despite a super-high monthly insurance premium, she owes three grand on the tumor removal— and will probably owe another four grand after this round of radiation.

Elizabeth & I have put together a charity bundle with a half dozen other indie games, including Vincent Baker’s new Murderous Ghosts, to raise money for Kelly’s medical bills. We’re calling it the Random Kindness Encounter Bundle.

Where this fits with Mythender

If it hits $4000 by January 1st, 2012, I’ll release Mythender for free as an electronic game. Donators will get it at least a month before the rest of the world; you’ll get the pre-editor copy, and the world will have to wait for post-editing. I suspect this to be ready for donators in February — I’m nearly done with getting the text where I want it, and the layout will take a bit.

If it doesn’t, then Mythender’s over. If it can’t help sweeten the deal for a charity bundle, then it wasn’t meant to be. Holy shit, you guys are awesome. We hit $4K in around three hours!

There are different rewards at different donations levels (provided the goal’s hit, of course):

• At $10 (Kind Kobold) – You’ll get Mythender a minimum of a month before the public does.
• At $25 (Generous Goblin) – As above, and you’ll get a thank you in Mythender, under “Names Forever Etched In Time”. If your name as is in your PayPal isn’t what you want, please let Ryan know!
• At $50 (Outstanding Owlbear) – As above, and we’ll turn you into a Mythender! You’ll be immortalized on the Mythender website as “Champions of the Warsong”. Ryan will email you about this, once Mythender is out to the donators.
• At $100 (Terrific Tarrasque) – As above, and you’ll get to come up with one of the Myths — the monsters & gods of a world — in a Mythic World playset. Again, Ryan will email once Mythender is out to the donators.
• At $250 (Magnanimous Myth) – as above, and I’ll make a whole Mythic World playset in your name! Once Mythender’s out to the donators, Ryan’ll email you with some questions and start work on the playsets.

When/if it hits $4000, I’ll post more about what I’m doing with the game. I’m pretty damned excited about it, as I’m incorporating new ideas about how to present complicated rules text. But I will start with this: Mythic Norden, the myths of Scandinavia, is just one “Mythic World playset” I have in mind.

So please, check out the bundle and help Kelly out. Let’s End Kelly’s cancer.

- Ryan

If there is anything I’ve learned from my time spent with masters of this craft, it’s that sometimes you have to admit a design doesn’t work, and to start over. And that’s where I have been with Mythender for some time now. (And as such, this post might not make much sense of you don’t know what I’m talking about regarding Mythender’s mechanics.)

I’ve learned a lot making a 150-dice game with a complex, building currency. I’ve learned that I can make a fun game with that, a game people like to play…if I’m the one bringing the materials, teaching how the game works, and running the game. People will give a design some leeway when playing in a game with him or her that they wouldn’t otherwise, and so I ran a few dozen Really Fun Games of Mythender.

I’ll admit that I’ve been afraid of the flaws in the game, enough to where I didn’t really want to write it — I didn’t want to put effort into it. And these flaws aren’t necessarily with whether the design works (though there are a couple points I haven’t yet solved), but whether the design is accessible. Here’s what’s in my Mythender kit.

That’s a slightly old picture. At last count, I have around:

• 50 white dice
• 30 red dice (though, really, I only need 10 for Mythender. The rest are for Don’t Rest Your Head)
• 100 or so black/blue dice
• 50+ metal coins
• 50+ little gems, 10 large gems
• two massive stone dice

Because that’s how the economy works. And at a game that I’m running, it works pretty well. But not well enough. It’s rough to teach. And, frankly, it’s a hell of a burden to place on someone I’m asking to play the game. So, right now, I’m putting it aside and looking at other ways of doing what I want.

What I Want Out Of My Game

What Mythender currently does well, which I need to keep doing: (1) tactile reinforcement of play, whether you’re increasing in power or being hit; (2) constantly presenting the choice of risking your soul for desperately-needed power. The die game did this well, which is why I kept it. As you continued having actions, your die pool grew bigger and bigger, thus you holding a physical sense of power in your hand.

That power was also your hit points, so to speak, so when you were hit, you lost dice — creating the feeling of actually being hit. Over the last few years, people have loved the shit out of that. It’s tapped into the lizard brain and motivated like I haven’t seen in other fighty games.

And the deck is initially stacked against the Mythenders in a fight, since they aren’t on home turf, so the decision to risk your soul to get a little more power is a very real one, one that I see come up in every game. So whatever new mechanic I make will have to do all that that well.

It’ll also have to be easier to handle and easier to teach. Throwing away the old economy (which I might later blog about) for something more immediate is the first step. And there are different ways to handle a sense of growth other than massively large die pools.

Putting Aside Doesn’t Mean Throwing Away

Granted, a learned a lot from playing with this game for the past few years. Those lessons stay with me. And the ideas in the design are worth keeping around, to mine for other games. So while it might emotionally feel like I’ve wasted years, I have got something to show for that.

The Fear

Thing is, there’s no guarantee whatever I’ll make will do what I like out of the old “millions of dice forevar!” mechanic. Or will be worth my time. Or…well, a number of other little fears that gnaw at me enough to stick to the devil I know. It takes balls to say “okay, do over!” and stick to that, especially when you’ve been public for a number of years.

Fear keeps us in decisions we don’t like, because we are unsure of it being better. But in a creative pursuit, that’s bullshit — it’s not like we’re murdering our old idea babies. We can always go back to them. So why do we fear? Because we’re afraid to fail — even though it’s by failing and learning that we become better at our craft.

And yes, I’ll actually explain the old Mythender mechanic later, for those who are only able to follow along in the abstract. One topic at a time. :)

- Ryan

I thought today would be a good day to share a bit about my process with you. I took the feedback and the characters from the Mythender Character Creation back last month, and made a list I’m chugging through. It’s taking longer than expected, because of the freelance work I’m also doing, so sadly I can’t promise a new version in the near future. Still, if you want to see what it’s like on this side of the fence, here you go.

I live in the software world, so we look at tasks & bugs as having different levels of severity. So you’ll see “high”, “medium”, and “low.” (And one “quick”, because it’s a ten-second change.) This isn’t because some can’t be done and some can — it’s because we live in a world of periodic releases and that’s how we conceptualize. It’s a good way to know “What’s important right now” versus “What’ll be important after completing a week of work.”

The list is up as a Google Spreadsheet, as that’s an easy way for me to organize and display the data.

I gave myself six things I could list as high — so I went with the ones that would affect all the text, both current text and frame my thoughts for the text I need to write. Then I gave myself 15 medium priority slots — these are “if I I can get done is this and high, I’ll feel 90% done.” The rest are low — likely to become higher priority as other elements are complete. Some of the lows fall under “things waiting on other tasks.”

In general, I’ll do the high priority stuff first. However, if I feel the energy for a specific task, then that task gets done at that moment. Still, the priorities help me think and plan. It also helps me explain to myself what’s more immediately important.

Hopefully this gives you some peek into the process, and why revision is not just an overnight thing.

I also recommend for your reading pleasure Robin Law’s post a few weeks ago on “What Happens In Playtest Feedback Does Not Stay In Playtest Feedback”.

- Ryan

A couple months back, I joked that I could stat up Super Mario as a Mythender. Yes, the classic video game icon is a Mythender. There are some more obvious Mythenders from pop culture & history: Leonidas from 300, Beowulf, St. George, Koschei the Deathless, Jason Statham… But, while you see Weapons often, you don’t see a change in Forms. You do in Mario, though…

Mario Mario

Stranded Craftsman of Rage

History: Stranded / Heart: Craftsman / Fate: Myth of Rage[1]

I won’t bother with answering questions, because we all know Mario. The point of the questions is to get to know your character enough to make him or her.

Weapons

My mastery of plumbing…is my Weapon. (Intrinsic, Level-quaking)

Mysterious Plants…are my Weapon. (Relic, Bowser-slaying)

My brother Luigi…is my Weapon. (Companion, Bowser-slaying)

Heart’s Reminder

A strange, ever-repeating music…happens around me.

Forms

Mortal form: I appear as…a simple man in a blue shirt & red overalls.

Paragon form: I appear as…a man grown twice is size.

Supernatural form: I appear as…a man in a red shirt and white overalls, with an aura of fire around his hands.

Godly form: I appear as…an incarnation of flashing light shaped as the man he once appeared as.

Enjoy. (And yeah, I’m skipping the non-narrative parts, Bonds, etc., because I’m not making him to play. :)

- Ryan

[1] It’s almost like I just leaked an idea here.

I’ll just copy the text from the current version of the Mythender Character Creation page. You’ll want to go there for future updates.

Interested in making a character for Mythender? Check out the Character Creation chapter (1.4M PDF, updated 19-May-11): 
Mythender Character Creation [Playtest]

Draft Disclaimer

This is an early, unedited draft. As such, there will be typos to fix, tweaks to make, and the layout is far from final (since this is just a thrown-together-in-Word testbed and I’m not doing the layout for the final book). You’ll welcome to point out stuff, just know it’s far from final text. :)

What I Want From You

I want two things: (1) Feedback on this (see the next point) and (2) to see your characters posted up on the internet with links on the original Character Creation post. Right now I don’t have a character sheet — in fact, I’ll want to see quite a few characters made and posted before I know how I should alter it.

Feedback

For now, you can comment on the original Character Creation post with feedback. If that gets overwhelming, I’ll change that to some more manageable process (and consider myself lucky that it has!)

Revision “Schedule”

I take the software development approach here — I’ll revise and check on my own internal schedule rather than every time someone finds a typo. This ensures that future revisions don’t introduce more problems because I’m responding at internet-speed. So don’t expect a revision more than once every couple weeks. This page will be updated when that happens. (See below.)

Revision Updates

• 19-MAY-11: Character Creation chapter released online

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I thought about holding this back and having some folks do one more pass on it, but that felt like it violated the spirit of Half Done. Instead, here you go.

Special Thanks

There are literally over a hundred people to thank at this point, but I want to call out those that have helped me over the last two days:

• To Filamena Young, for helping me come up with some of the Mythender Fates. (And check out her & David Hill’s works at Machine Age Productions.)
• To Josh Roby, for helping me proof the Mythender & Mythender Character Creation page, and for giving me a title treatment that’s far better than Helvetica. :)
• To Lon Sarver, for helping me come up with some of the bonds and questions back in January. (Sure, it’s not over the last couple days, but his thumbprint is very much on this document.)
• To Leonard Balsera, for…well, everything. Recently, for helping me reforge the blurbs for each History, and for the entire project, since making Mythender is pretty much his fault.

- Ryan