Unreleased Draft from [3-27-17]: Western RPG series, Tombstone

In this series, I wanted to look at various western RPGs - specifically PWYW western RPGs. While there are several greater known western RPGs, I want to look at how others view the western genre.

I downloaded several western PWYW RPGs but while quickly scrolling through the game book one caught my attention more, Tombstone. It is a rather quick decision based only on passing glance, and a thought "this looks a little different".

First, I'll look at Tombstone (Alpha) which came out 1 and a half years ago in the late 2015s. Being an alpha indicates it's just a testing phase game.

The cover has a picture similar to the movie named the same.

It's written by Corey Ryan Walden and is 57 pages.

It looks like half of the book is player stuff for characters and half of the book is Gm stuff like setting and encounters, including a few pages of adventure setting at the end.

This is a 3d6 + skill or modifier and roll-over game system.

Two character creation methods are presented.

Quick method and from scratch. I'll choose the quick method.

I'll create a female gunslinger named Sarah.

1. female
2. Sarah
3. Folk Hero

Folk Hero
Health: 7
Defense: 11
Offense: Gunslinging +2, Brawling +0
Personality: +1
Investigation: +0
Willpower: 10
Speed: 40 feet
Fortune Dice: 1
Possessions: Two pistols (1d6 damage each),
bowie knife (1d6 damage), hat, trousers, shirt,
boots, $3.

Bountiful Rewards: When making a convincing speech and/or a successful Personality check you may garner a higher reward for a job. Add an extra 25% to the amount of money you would normally receive. This only applies to your reward, not any of your companions’ rewards. An ill-conceived speech or failed check may result in the normal paid fee rather than the Bountiful Reward.

[Notes to this previously unreleased draft: After I created this character, I did not do anything else with this game. This is about the period where I was working through 5e x 5 material and organizing other material that would become the Solo RPG Tools series.

So this character may or may not be complete, but I'll probably will not get around to doing anything more with this, considering she is 3 years since creation at this moment. So beyond this character, I do not know how the game plays.]

Summertime Writing: Substituion In Stories

In the last innovation post, I tried to use the association method for story innovation. In this post, I'd like to try the SCAMPER method of innovation and creativity. I will do the first of the seven parts of the SCAMPER method in this post—Substitution.

1. State the original idea, problem, or question (source).

For this case, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Synopsis found at Wikipedia. I cut together pieces of the larger synopsis.

tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous, sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment...the Creature tall, about 8 feet (2.4 m) in height and proportionally large. Despite Victor's selecting its features as beautiful, upon animation the creature is instead hideous, with watery white eyes and yellow skin that barely conceals the muscles and blood vessels underneath. Repulsed by his work, Victor flees when it awakens. While wandering the streets, he meets his childhood friend, Henry Clerval, and takes Henry back to his apartment, fearful of Henry's reaction if he sees the monster. However, the Creature has escaped.

Intelligent and articulate, the Creature relates his first days of life, living alone in the wilderness and finding that people were afraid of and hated him due to his appearance, which led him to fear and hide from them. While living in an abandoned structure connected to a cottage, he grew fond of the poor family living there, and discreetly collected firewood for them. Secretly living among the family for months, the Creature learned to speak by listening to them and he taught himself to read after discovering a lost satchel of books in the woods. When he saw his reflection in a pool, he realized his physical appearance was hideous, and it terrified him as it terrifies normal humans. Nevertheless, he approached the family in hopes of becoming their friend. Initially he was able to befriend the blind father figure of the family, but the rest of them were frightened and they all fled their home, resulting in the Creature leaving, disappointed. He traveled to Victor's family estate using details from Victor's journal, murdered William, and framed Justine.

The Creature demands that Victor create a female companion like himself. He argues that as a living being, he has a right to happiness. The Creature promises that he and his mate will vanish into the South American wilderness, never to reappear, if Victor grants his request. Should Victor refuse his request, The Creature also threatens to kill Victor's remaining friends and loved ones and not stop until he completely ruins him.

Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees. The Creature says he will watch over Victor's progress. 

2. SCAMPER

Substitute is about replacing parts of the story. Characters, description, setting, plots, or conflicts may be replaced with alternatives.
Combine
Adapt
Modify, minimize, or maximize
Put to another use
Eliminate or elaborate
Reverse

Substitute

• Genre

A common type of replacement is genre. Maybe instead of horror, replace it with a modern setting. What if this happened in the stone age. Or maybe Frankenstein happened in ancient Egypt.

• Characters

Characters may be replaced. Maybe Victor Frankenstein is a woman—much like the author Mary Shelley—Victoria Frankenstein. Or maybe he is an artist that brings to life a painting instead of a alchemy creature. A singer might bring to life a creature or being from a song.

• Setting

Already I mentioned Egypt in the ancient genre which would be a different location. What about in China if a alchemist were trying to make a kung-fu soldier. Maybe on Easter Island, those faces were their attempt at a rock golem.

• Plot

Maybe Dr. Frankenstein was trying to create his own bride instead of for the monster, more like the movie Weird Science. Maybe instead of the creature trying to kill him, the creature is constantly trying to save Dr. Frankenstein from foolish dangerous endeavors.

• Description

Maybe instead of describing things in letters, as Mary Shelley does, the book is described using text messages. Or maybe I take the original text and change portions of the text. Let me try this now.

From Frankenstein Chapter 1 (after the letters)

I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.

Paragraph below is based on the above paragraph
Paragraph 1, Chapter 1 Frankenstein, 
©2019 by Ken Wickham, all rights reserved. This is based on Mary Shelley's original text.

I was born into a family, who are famous, originating from the Geneva Republic. My ancestors had been longtime government officials and ambassadors, and my father had held several public offices with honorable and with a great reputation. Everyone that knew him respected him for his integrity and untiring attention to public service. He spent the good amount of time early in his career constantly focused on the needs of his country; many reasons prevented him from getting involved in dating in his youth. It wasn't until he was already near retirement that he married and became a father.

Analysis of Substitution

This exercise was easier for me than some of the last exercise. I even enjoyed rewriting the paragraph of Frankenstein using my own words and description. So far, I really like substitution as a tool for innovation in story writing.

Summertime Writing: Emphasis, Pacing, and Rythm

Exercise Sources

The book that the main objective of this exercise comes from is Keys to Great Writing (KtGW). In chapter 4, Music, the author Stephen Wilbers mentions methods to story emphasis, pacing, and rhythm. Also, I'll try to mix in some of the related exercises from Spellbinding Sentences (SS). From the last exercise from 90 Days to Your Novel (90DtYN), I will use one character and try to integrate day 5 assignment of using setting to reveal the mood of that one character—Cynthia, from my "Two Character Brainstorm" blog post exercise.

Source Material

First I'll repost her character profile from the prior posts exercise, so that I can refer to it easier as I type stuff up.

B. Art teacher that is senior and yet stylish
Character name: Cynthia
Age: 64
Occupation: Art teacher
Family members and/or significant others: Has an over controlling husband, a daughter she is proud of, and a black-sheep son.
Personality traits: Lone Wolf. Creative, stylish, and current despite her age. Sometimes her creativity is crushed by her spouse.
Character history (where is he/she from?): Born in a small middle of the country farmlands, she moved to the city to pursue art—something that brought her ridicule and teasing during her educational years. She had always spent time doing both fashion and art.
Highest level of education: Art school, art degree
Physical traits: white hair, slightly wrinkled but uses plenty of beauty products to maintain a somewhat youthful appearance. Wears expensive looking clothing.
Biggest motivator: Authentic creative instinct and expression. Breaking away from her isolated past. Being herself despite her controlling husband.
Biggest fear: Not being herself or expressing her true self. She always has to try to be creative and sometimes trendy.
Things he/she likes: She loves elegance, bright colors, spring, life, and growth. She loves to find individuality within everything.
Things he/she dislikes: She dislikes conformity, inauthenticity, and expressing things that aren't made in her own voice or style.

Objective

(90DtYN day 5) reveal character mood using setting.

(KtGW chpt 4) start with 4 monotonous sentence patterns: simple declarative sentences, paired conjunction sentences, subordinate beginning sentences, and subordinate ending sentences.

(SS chpt 10) simple declarative patterns (sentence kernels)
single noun + single finite verb
Type 1: subject+be verb+(noun, adjective, or adverb)
Type 2: subject+linking verb+(noun or adjective)
Type 3: subject+intransitive verb (+adverb)
Type 4: subject+transitive verb+direct object (noun)

Exercise

Declarative sentences

Type 1

Cynthia is an art teacher
Cynthia is stylish.
Cynthia is married.
Cynthia is a mother.
Cynthia is fashionable.
Cynthia is an art school graduate.
She is creative.
She is expressive.
She is intuitive.
She is authentic.
She is independent (self-directed, eccentric, or unconventional).

Type 2
Cynthia appears trendy.
Cynthia seems eccentric.
Cynthia feels controlled.
She feels stifled.
She sounds dreamy.
She smells floral.

Type 3
Cynthia teaches.
Cynthia draws.
She paints.

Type 4
Cynthia raised two children.
Cynthia likes authentic expression of beauty.
Cynthia fears stifling conformity.

classroom, home, car

teach students basic techniques, encourage, inspire, explore, mediums

Scene with Cynthia in a setting revealing character mood

By Ken Wickham © 2019

Hurrying to paint, Cynthia finished painting a quick impressionist-style painting. She dabbed some blue into the blurred shadow of a well-dressed classy lady walking through a Paris street. Looking at the Paris image, she remembered the wonderful creative days during that one summer of art school that she spent in Paris, a center of art where spending some of her saved money helped her experience European masters. Her heart broke, however, when memories of 'him' uninvitedly appeared. Not him!

She rubbed her face briefly and decided to walk around the easel filled classroom to see how the students were doing with their own impressionist paintings.

"Try not to created hard lines for outlines," she suggested to on student who had begun to draw an outline. 

She pointed to one of the Monet replicant. "See how Monet and most of them have almost a blurred look." 

The student nodded and then began to dab. 

Each sound of the dab reminded her of arguments. Arguments that she had with her husband, whenever he wanted her to be like other mothers or wives. Her thoughts went back to one particular argument as she watched the student dab. "Why can't you be like all the other wives, and why don't you just be great just at cooking and cleaning."

"I'm not them!"she screamed. She spent a minute breathing heavy and uneven. Then she tried to compose herself. After a few seconds of calm, she said," I have to express beauty and creativity. I have to be me."

The sound of dabbing paint brought her back to the student painting. She looked at it again and asked the student, "How does your painting feel now?"

"It feels more like an impressionist painting. It feels right. Thank you," the student smiled.

She smiled back. "Good work."

Cynthia continued to the next student.

Analysis of Writing

This writing of Cynthia ended up being two background stories flashbacks mixed with the current art classroom current period. One hinted at some mysterious 'him' in Paris. The other is a right with her current husband. I think I tried to emphasis how the blurred dabbed outline of impressionist painting contrast with the conforming lines of outlines, similar to how her current husband wants to conform.

I tried to emphasize her mood and specific view of freedom and conformity within an impressionist-style painting context.

The types of declarative sentences exercise helped me to practice some fundamental sentence types. I tried to mix at least one, which I had to edit into the writing after freewriting the a quick first draft. I could have fleshed out the setting more, but in the end I felt the classroom a little more. Maybe further edits might make the classroom more vivid.

Summertime Writing: Two Character Brainstorm

This will continue to focus on one of the lists from the last exercises—the people nouns. The other two lists I will bring over to this post to use as needed to try fleshing out two characters in the future.

The purpose of this exercise is to expand the material. I picked these two characters that I know at two very different degrees. Picking these two people from my own past experience at different degrees is a conscious effort to see how relationship closeness might hinder my creative use of the characters. I'm guessing that the first character (A), who is very close to me, might suffer from the desire to protect the character. The second character (B), which I know very little about, will receive a much greater degree of creative additions. Hopefully this leads to a more creative, interesting, and usable character.

I highlighted in yellow the two characters that I want to flesh out.

---

Raw Brainstorm Material from last exercise

People: Old grandfather was very crafty, school bully that class stood up against, inventive friend that doesn't trust anyone, deliverer, acquaintance that likes physical activities, art teacher that is very old and yet stylish, a two-faced person, brother.

Places: fragmented hometown, desert oasis, vine infested jungle, in the middle of a hurricane, standing on a pier smelling the scent of seawater and hearing the sound of waves hit the support, on a bicycle, canoeing down a river, on an exercise bicycle.

Things: watch, pencil, computer, paper, led light, dice, hometown football shirt, fast racecar, canoe, yellow one-person tent, old pad of paper that is almost used up, the sound of fall maple leaves blowing in a strong wind outside the room window, van.

---

In day 3 in the book 90 Days to Your Novel, the exercise says to create and flesh out 10 characters with one-page bios. This is two characters. I'm using half of the character bio information presented in the book rather than the full character info.

This is half of the worksheet found in the book.

A. Old grandfather was very crafty

Character name: Anton

Age: 86

Occupation: YouTube carpenter video maker. A former construction worker, he made his living fixing up houses for ordinary people. He found ways to reuse old lumber and build things unconventionally. He brings his unconventional carpentry methods to a video series called Building it Damn Good, with Anton.

Family members and/or significant others: The youngest of two, his older brother Gary worked for the fire department, now retired, travels the world doing volunteer work.

Personality traits: Doer. He doesn't like to stand around. He almost always has a hammer or tool in his hand or pocket. When not doing YouTube videos, he walks the neighborhood meeting people and helping out doing odd jobs, fixing things, telling amazing stories, and finding material for his stash of material.

Character history (where is he/she from?): He grew up on  a farm in a very small rural town of a few hundred people. For work, he moved to the bigger city, but he brought his charming small-town ways. Despite living most of his life now in the big city, he still has kept his small-town manners. Each project deal is done with a shake of the hand rather than signing contracts.

Highest level of education: 7th grade. His real education was farm work and later construction. In construction, he learned on the job from others by doing things after being explained how to do it.

Physical traits: With a natural strength from hauling lumber, swinging hammers, and lifting plywood. He has a natural bulky appearance. He normally wears baggy working jeans or overalls. He always wears a brimmed hat to keep the sun out of his eyes since he works outside considerably.

Biggest motivator: He likes to build, make, and create things. Especially, he likes to reuse normally discarded wood and construction material. He lived through a deep economic recession where everyone had to "make do" with what they had.

Biggest fear: He has a fear of not doing anything or being alone. He is always talking with the neighbors and strangers. 

Things he/she likes: He likes to socialize and work constantly. He tries to do everything on his own.

Things he/she dislikes: He doesn't want to be alone nor spend time doing nothing. 

B. Art teacher that is senior and yet stylish

Character name: Cynthia

Age: 64

Occupation: Art teacher

Family members and/or significant others: Has an over controlling husband, a daughter she is proud of, and a black-sheep son.

Personality traits: Lone Wolf. Creative, stylish, and current despite her age. Sometimes her creativity is crushed by her spouse.

Character history (where is he/she from?): Born in a small middle of the country farmlands, she moved to the city to pursue art—something that brought her ridicule and teasing during her educational years. She had always spent time doing both fashion and art.

Highest level of education: Art school, art degree

Physical traits: white hair, slightly wrinkled but uses plenty of beauty products to maintain a somewhat youthful appearance. Wears expensive looking clothing.

Biggest motivator: Authentic creative instinct and expression. Breaking away from her isolated past. Being herself despite her controlling husband.

Biggest fear: Not being herself or expressing her true self. She always has to try to be creative and sometimes trendy.

Things he/she likes: She loves elegance, bright colors, spring, life, and growth. She loves to find individuality within everything.

Things he/she dislikes: She dislikes conformity, inauthenticity, and expressing things that aren't made in her own voice or style.

Comparison of characters and issues

Right from the start, I found myself trying to describe the first character (real person) instead of trying to creatively create story functional character. The real person lead the descriptions. Only occasionally could I escape the real person to add something new. I seemed to forget the YouTube portion of the story. Describing this character was nostalgic rather than fun. This character almost has become a burden to me in his current state. He doesn't seem to have as much flaws to build a conflict story.

For the second character which the real person I had only a passing knowledge of, becoming creative in the details and creating conflict built into the character was easier. Creating the story was so easier that it became very fun. She seems quirky and yet flawed.

Story Mechanisms: creating a story profile instructions (part 7)

Click on image to enlarge

Story sheet after this session which includes this 2nd Conflict

This is the sheet of what has been created so far.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/257257/Story-Mechanisms

Expanding the story part 3

So far in this series I've made a basic story structure sheet, began constructing a story by selecting the basic story elements, decided to star the main character Dakota, created an argument opening scene between Dakota and Rowan, wrote an inciting event, and created a first conflict from that inciting event.

Next, I'll roll for a second conflict.

Second Conflict

Why: flashback to original cause of conflict

What I will do with this writing challenge is maybe begin with Dakota going to try finding Rowan and then begin to question what happened. I will then do a flashback I will test to find out if Dakota finds out what actually happened to help explain why and maybe help for the final conflict.

Roll for difficulty challenge of second conflict.

Moderate, Inconvenient

This probably should use soul for social ability and investigate skill.

Roll for resolution for soul & investigate = (fair (0)+ fair (0)) + roll (6) =  A die roll of 6 automatically succeeds. Despite the challenge you succeeded with great effort and luck.




Several people knew Rowan a little bit.

Despite being mostly reclusive, Rowan did speak with a few.

Rowan would speak about the great historical Expansion-age as a great elvish time in history, almost a golden age. Most interesting to Rowan, was the ancient magical arts. Rowan tried to learn everything in books and at the site about magical use, historical battles involving magic, and even the dark arts.

Dakota, through great effort and a little luck was able to track down the last known home of Rowan.

Dakota walked towards the home that Rowan had been living in recently.

Several families lived in this part of the village.

Asking around, many didn't know Rowan's name, and was known however when being described.

Finally, Dakota found the last known home.

It was empty—not even a single piece of furniture.

Asking around brought no answer at first. Dakota however, persisted deep past nightfall. When Dakota was about to leave and go home,  one person finally nodded yes. One person described a few days ago, that same day that Dakota had hit Rowan, as the last day seen there.

Rowan had come home kicking at rocks, hitting the wall, and slammed the door shut.

The following day, Rowan packed up a handcart filled with belongings and left the home, heading towards the northern gate.



Next posts So far, the story has resolved the first and second conflict. The next post will go into the final conflict.

Story Mechanisms: creating a story profile instructions (part 6)

Click on image to enlarge

This is the sheet of what has been created so far.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/257257/Story-Mechanisms

Expanding the story part 2

So far in this series I've made a basic story structure sheet, began constructing a story by selecting the basic story elements, decided to star the main character Dakota, and in last post created an argument opening scene between Dakota and Rowan.

Next, I'll roll for an inciting event. 

Inciting Event

Something important destroyed

Now I need to brainstorm. First, I'll write some of the prior keywords.

physical-based story
Dakota's social acknowledgment and self-actualizing from ugliness motivation
stop or destroy either the foe or the foes' giant ooze creatures
trying to attack an elvish village
archaeological dig, elvish ancient ruins, Expansions-age
character might be considered ugly
magical candelabra
stinky glob of ooze
"I'll kill you," Dakota heard Rowan say.

My main question is "what is the important thing destroyed."

Maybe it can relate to the archaeological dig. Maybe it can involve the ooze. Maybe it can involve the village.

I know! A archaeological golden statue is found.




Dakota scraped away dirt revealing gold.

Soon more frantic, Dakota quickly removed dirt until face to foot, a mysterious beautiful lady stood regal and powerfully looking at Dakota.

News quickly spread throughout the camp of the discovery.

Later that day, most of the elegant statue had carefully been uncovered from layers of dirt.

Dakota had even skipped eating.

What began as screams across the dig site soon amplified.

Looking towards the screams, a large bright blob slowly was moving this way.

Quickly standing, everyone moved away from the entombed room and moved outside.

The yellow ooze moved to the gold statue and surrounded it.

A sizzling sound and gray steam came from the blob and statue.

Dakota watched as the ultimate beautiful priceless find dissolved into molten blob.

The discovery was now gone.






Okay, now that sets the story up with a foe and a danger that Dakota must now be involved with.

First Conflict

What is needed to fight this foe?


The first conflict will be to try finding something to fight this ooze foe.

Difficulty Challenge: 1, easy; annoying.

Although the final conflict is going to be a physical one, this first conflict makes more sense being an investigation type conflict. I'll use my One-Roll RPG skill and stats mixed with my Flash RPG (RFRPG) and Three Conflict Chain RPG (3CC) rules.

I'll set up the challenge at the end of the inciting event.



Dakota needs stats.

I'm wording these using One-Roll Fudge RPG (ORF) terminology and stats, since I've recently made that game.

Mind: Good
Body: fair
Soul: Fair

Skill: Academics-archaeology: good (+1); fight-martial arts: fair (0); investigate: fair (0)

Roll for resolution for mind & investigate = (good (+1)+ fair (0)) + roll (2) = great (ORF) or +2 over the difficulty challenge for 3CC results Rolling over the difficulty by 2 means victory, with a twist. Although you succeeded roll for a twist to see what has changed.

Because of Dakota's fair

Twist

Rolling for twist result.

Twist in location.


Now time to write something out. The twist of location I'll fit into a different scene. Rowan will not be living nor staying at the same frequent location.

First a reaction scene





Dakota looked at pile of molten metal and gold. Dakota felt a sinking feeling—most of the excitement now turned to dread and hopelessness.

This was supposed to by my career-making discovery!

"Why did the blob eat the statue," one younger assistant asked.

Why indeed? "I don't know," Dakota simply said.

Dakota's mind filled with painful images, the glugging, slurping, and glurping sounds amplified.

And then the horrific event ended.

Dakota looked towards the ooze moving away from the area. Rowan stood and smiled—almost in glee—holding the candelabra up and nodding this way.

I need to find something to resist acid, Dakota thought. Or destroy it! Or stop —that person...

Dakota watched Rowan walk following the ooze off into the distance.




So, already Dakota should know who did it, what was used, and what caused ooze attack.
Dakota already solved how to fight the foe. And the character will now become an active participant in future conflict events. Rowan, however as a result of the twist, will not be easy to find.


Next posts
So far, the story has resolved the first conflict sort of by solving the first question quickly. The next post will go into the next conflict.