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: 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.

Character Mechanisms - creating character profile instructions (part 9)

This is part of a series of posts to create a character using Character Mechanisms using the Character Profile sheet.

From the last post, I created knowledge and career for the character profile information. I'll focus on the relationship first and do the dream second. If I can, I'll finish up with the remaining generators except that skipped one. Finally, I'll show the entire character profile sheet finished.

√Group A Important

√Group B Reliant

Except skipped combined action engine

Group C Flavor

√Knowledge Generator

√Career Generator

Relationship Generator

Dream Generator

Fact Generator

Modifier Generator

Group D

Sound Generator

1. Relationship Generator

Who does my character's know?

6

4

6 merchant

4 designer, lone wolf personality

This character knows a designer, probably a clothing or armor designer. This relationship fits in nicely with the character's social, acknowledgment & self-actualize, ugliness motives.

Style is everything.

2. Dream Generator

Who did my character dream about at night?

I'll roll for two and maybe a plot and/or twist if needed.

first symbol

11

1

11 character, role or aspect of self

1 mother, help, care, or sacrifice

second symbol

1

6

1 animal, instinct or motive

6 cat, create or luck

plot

6

9

6 temptation

9 prevent

twist

11

5

11 reversal of fulfillment

5 when, timing is perfect

3. Fact Generator

What does my character sense?

1

5

1 see

5 structure

4. Sound Generator

What does my character hear?

10

11

10, 11 swish

5. Modifier Generator

How is my character's dream modified?

2

10

2 degree

10 nearly

Unnamed character's dream which the character remembers constantly

So, bringing it all together, I think the dream is that the character's mother is trying to reach the family cat in the road to save it from the oncoming structure, a vehicle. A swish sounds out, however, something is preventing her from reaching the cat even though there is plenty of time. The mother is nearly escaping, but can't quite break free from a dark tentacle-like force.

The Final Character sheet.

This character can be used now, with high amount of detail, with a name, race, and maybe gender. Additional details can be added to this, if the character becomes more important.

Click to enlarge image of Dakota character profile.

I assigned an androgynous name, Dakota, so this character could be any gender or race — even dwarf. This is a sample character for the Character Mechanisms book which will go into the next update.

This finishes doing all of the random tables and engines found in Character Mechanisms, except the combined action engine. I wont do that skipped step since I don't have any real instructions in the current book edition. That would probably entail adding some more stimulus response actions based on the total known details.

Thank you for reading this series.

I'll next switch to something else for a while.

Pick up Character Mechanisms   

Story Mechanisms

Individually value $13

Character Mechanisms - creating character profile instructions (part 8)

This is part of a series of posts to create a character using Character Mechanisms using the Character Profile sheet.

From the last post, I created dialogue foundation and communication function for the character profile information. I'll focus on the knowledge first and do the career second. 

√Group A Important

√Group B Reliant

Except skipped combined action engine

Group C Flavor

Knowledge Generator

Career Generator

Relationship Generator

Dream Generator

Fact Generator

Modifier Generator

1. Knowledge Generator

What does my character's know?

5

11

5 social science
11 sociology

A quick Wikipedia copy paste.
Sociology is the scientific study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture of everyday life.

This character knows something about social relationships, culture, and interaction. Certainly this character is biased towards the character's motivation which was this.

This character's motive has already been generated: social, acknowledgment; self-actualize, ugliness. All through a charismatic-skeptical personality perspective. A life with a guilty past.

I could add more knowledge later if this character becomes more important, but having one good enough for now.

2. Career Generator

What does my character's do?

Two methods at this point can be tried. I'll try both and pick the more interesting result.

A. Random field in the sociology category, since knowledge of sociology has already been established.

3

3 a trader, supplier, distributor

Or

B. Random everywhere.

4

2

4 history, geography, and anthropology
2 archaeologist

I like the archaeologist which was randomly rolled better.

A dictionary.com definition of archaeologist.

Archaeologist a specialist in archaeology, the scientific study of prehistoric peoples and their cultures by analysis of their artifacts, inscriptions, monuments, etc. 

Click on image to enlarge

I'll move on to Relationship Generator and Dream Generator next.

Most of the character is created already.