http://www.base113.com/games/blog.php This is a discussion forum powered by vBulletin. To find out about vBulletin, go to http://www.vbulletin.com/ . en Fri, 18 May 2012 22:17:40 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.base113.com/games/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.base113.com/games/blog.php http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?137-Conflicts-and-Novitics Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:56:19 GMT Now that the extended combat chapter is out, it's time to move on. Several details in many of the alpha chapters currently available need to be updated or corrected, but for now I'm focusing on getting initial versions of all the crucial Project Alpha chapters complete. As the rules for tests, damage and injury, and extended combat are already out, I figured it was time to write up the chapter on conflicts. This chapter provides details and examples regarding how to resolve many of the most common types of conflicts in the game, including combat, social conflict, searching, travel, etc. as well as how to focus the use of conflict to guide your preferred styles of play.

Inevitably, I've become a little sidetracked in the last couple of days. The good news is that it's been by another chapter - the one on novitics. As one of the three complex extended systems in Proteus (extended combat and extended social conflict being the other two), novitics requires a lot of work and will require a great deal of playtesting. Novitics enables certain characters to design and utilize powerful freeform abilities involving different forms of energy. After a couple of days of work, I think I've finally managed to work out most of the major design issues and relevant details. There are still a couple of additional details to work out, but the system is playable and I've started converting my notes and tables into the written chapter. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?137-Conflicts-and-Novitics http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?136-Extended-Combat-Chapter-Available Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:41:02 GMT Chapter 18 - Entering the Fray is now available to registered users in the Project Alpha GoogleDocs Collection. See the article listing current... Chapter 18 - Entering the Fray is now available to registered users in the Project Alpha GoogleDocs Collection. See the article listing current Project Alpha chapters for the link.
This chapter contains 34 pages of rules for combat in Proteus, including unarmed, melee and ranged combat - including thrown weapons, bows and firearms. It describes the round and phase combat structure of multi-party combat, as well as the use of actions. A detailed list of common actions and instructions for handling them is provided, along with rules for applying armor.

While there are quite a few examples, many more still need to be written. It is also likely that some of the rules will be adjusted, but combat is now definitely playable! ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?136-Extended-Combat-Chapter-Available http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?135-Combat-Chapter-Coming Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:08:50 GMT I'm finishing up work on another chapter and should be posting it shortly - the chapter containing the extended combat rules.
In actuality, this was one of the earliest chapters completed. As a result, it requires the most editing to bring it in line with the latest iteration of the basic rule system. The basic structure of combat and most of the specifics will remain unchanged, but the details require a lot of tweaking to account for subtle differences in how difficulties and dice pools change in different circumstances. There are also a few places where I never got around to making the changes necessary to account for adjustments to attribute ranks.
All told, this chapter is nearly 40 pages long and still needs more examples. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?135-Combat-Chapter-Coming http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?127-January-2012-Update Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:02:27 GMT I've just posted an updated version of the Damage & Recovery chapter in the Downloads section. The new version includes rules on dealing with lethal wounds and other circumstances in which the character's mortality plays a central role. I've also included an optional rule for bleeding wounds, which makes combat even more dangerous.

I'm temporarily reverting the site to the default vBulletin template. The latest version of vBulletin (4.1.10) includes significant changes to who style templates are structured, and it is going to take some time to get the styles updated. The good news is that these changes should minimize the impact of future software updates on styles.
I'm also going to reactivate the KeyCaptcha human verification system to help deal with some of the spam that's run rampant. Let me know if you run into issues. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?127-January-2012-Update http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?21-Reactors-Kennas-and-Caloric-Content-Part-2 Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:14:23 GMT Continued from Part 1 (http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?20-Reactors-Kennas-and-Caloric-Content-Part-1)... Bread costing $2.50 in 2009 would... Continued from Part 1...

Bread costing $2.50 in 2009 would now cost 16.8 kennas (K16.8). Again, in context a loaf of bread in 2009 would be roughly equal in value to 22.72 kWh, now that same loaf would only equate to 1.68 kWh. I now have a basis by which to standardize prices. Well almost, the minimum daily wage still needs to be found as it plays a major role in setting prices.
After some more research I figured the best way to set the minimum daily wage was to calculate how much a laborer (or medieval peasant) would need to eat, this lead to researching the diet of medieval peasants. I learned some interesting facts at this point. For example, in the 14th century Harvest workers received roughly 80% of their calories from grain in some form. Soldiers got 78% of their calories from grain and lay nobility was 65-70%. Monks actually received 35-45% of their calories from ale (a gallon a day)! This lead to more calculations about the amount of grain needed for a laborer, including how this changes if some of the grain is converted to alcohol.. I also needed to find out how many calories a laborer needs on a daily basis, as well as how many calories are in bread. More research. I set a baseline of 4200 daily calories for a laborer, or 3.5 lbs of bread.

So if a laborer requires 3.5 lbs of bread and a loaf of bread costs about 17 kennas (K17), then a laborer requires approximately K40 per day for food (after a quick search to find out how many lbs of bread are in a typical loaf). In medieval Europe the minimum daily wage was apparently equal to about three times the daily cost of food. This reflects the idea that each laborer was expected to be able to support at least one non-working member of the family (very young or very old). Now the quality of life is a bit higher on Ortellum than it was in medieval Europe, so I set the initial minimum daily wage to five times the cost of food (all bread), or K200 per day.

Most of the figures I came across regarding peasant wages were actually provided in bushels of grain. Some more research and math leads to converting bushels of grain to lbs, then lbs of grain in to resulting lbs of bread. Based on a lower class laborer consuming 22 bushels of grain per year I calculate 1,160 lbs of bread. At K17 per 1.5 lb loaf, this works out to K13,147 per year or K32 per day on food. So if a laborer makes K200 per day, approximately 17% is spent on food, assuming no dependents and an all-bread diet. This sets the baseline for a low class laborer that can actually afford to feed a family. However, man cannot live on bread alone.

The medieval diet was based on wheat, barely, oats, peas, beans, rye, bread, ale and pottage. While Humans on Ortellum will have a more varied diet, I needed to figure out what kind of dietary requirements I need to look at. Somewhere I came across figures for calorie breakdowns: 18.5% from fat, 16.5% from protein, 56% from carbs and 9% from alcohol. Based on our laborer's daily 4200 calories, that worked out to 86.3g of fat, 173.25g of protein, 588g of carbs and 54g of alcohol per day. Now I started looking up common basic foods and what colonists might have brought with them, as well as the nutritional information. This leads me to setting up several spreadsheets: one with a list of a variety of foods (with serving sizes and nutritional info), one with several different daily 4200 calorie diets, and several similar sheets with diets of different calorie intakes (not everyone is a laborer). Using these sheets and some info on food prices, I setup the sheets so I can populate diets with different foods on my list and calculate the daily cost of that diet. This will allow me to figure out how much more a person will need to make in order to achieve a certain dietary quality of life (more meat, fruits and vegetables, higher quality food).

Next I started researching how many calories different occupations would need. Somehow this resulted in reading a bunch of census data on US occupations in the 1800s. I broke down occupations into 11 different categories and set calorie requirements for each. I also looked at the age distribution for my population (which I had previously worked out with some research and some more spreadsheets). I figured that 29.6% of the population is below the working age of 16, 4.45% are attending university and 14% are retired/infirm. This leaves 51.95% of the population to work. I also set a baseline of 2100 daily calories for non-workers. This allows me to work out how large a family different occupations could support and what kind of a disposable income they might have.

I also work out the approximate wages for for different classes/living conditions. People living in the slums earn less than K100 per day (K50 average). Lower class earns K100-K320 per day (K200 average). Middle class earns K320-K900 per day (K600 average). Upper class earn more than K900 per day. A worker in the slums requiring 4200 calories per day living on a diet of bread, beans and almonds spends K57 per day. That same worker can eat rice, cheese, bread and fish for K146 per day. Each non-working dependent the worker is upporting will cost K30 or K68 per day in food depending on the diet.

To bring this around and put it into context:
A low class worker earning K200 per day can support himself and one dependent on a diet of cheap ale, bread, potato and turnips.
The same worker can support himself and three dependents on a diet of bread, oats and cheap ale.
Or he can support himself, two dependents and buy enough electricity to run a small space heater for maybe 5 hours.
Hmm, feed a kid or run a small space heater...
Of course, none of this accounts for other costs such as clothing, shelter, etc. so it's probably far less.
Based on all of this I came up with bill denominations starting at K100, with coin denominations of K1, K5, K10 and K25. You can see the actual currency designs at base113.deviantart.com

So, to sum this up. I did a lot of surfing the net and reading, created numerous spreadsheets, and have a seemingly odd collection of notes. Based on simply trying to figure out what currency denominations I needed, I ended up determining the following information:
The history of Human currency in the game world
The value of currency is based on energy (electricity)
The initial value of 1 kenna was set as the cost of 10 Wh (watt-hours) of electricity, though this will vary depending on local supply
The power produced by (and reliability of) various styles of bartec reactors and other forms of power production currently in use, as well as fleshing out the planned colonization and effects of the Cataclysm
The types of foods commonly eaten by different classes, and a baseline for quality of life
Approximate wages for different occupations
Prices for many different foods, and a baseline to determine plausible prices for other goods

A lot of other bits and pieces from all of this fit in with other parts I've been working on. Obviously a lot of this will not be important in game terms, but it does allow for two important things:
1) It allows for a plausible and consistent game world
2) It provides a lot of detail that can be included in fiction, sidebars, etc.

If you’ve actually read this far, you probably already have an idea of just how involved worldbuilding can be. Is most of this important to the average gamer? No. They just want to know things like, “how much is that gun?” Of course this will ultimately allow me to set the price of the gun to an amount that actually makes sense. Again, the whole point of this post is to give people an idea of how detailed the game world will be, and maybe even generate a little appreciation for how much thought is going into the game. If you’ve got questions or feedback, I’d love to hear them. You can post them on the site or email me (games@base113.com or admin@base113.com). ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?21-Reactors-Kennas-and-Caloric-Content-Part-2 http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?20-Reactors-Kennas-and-Caloric-Content-Part-1 Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:12:45 GMT Or How Worldbuilding Can Fry Your Brain

As I've written before, I'm trying to create a fairly plausible game world. Nothing too hyper-realistic, I just want everything to make logical sense, help with the suspension of disbelief, and make the world and characters come to life. I'm probably being a little overly ambitious in terms of the level of detail, but I thought I would give an example of how a lot of this design process is interconnected (and why this is taking so long).

I should explain that I'm writing this a few months after the fact, so this is based on a lot of notes, a few spreadsheets, and whatever I can remember about the order in which this all happened. Also, I've previously worked a little bit on the agricultural side of Human civilization. I definitely recommend that anyone interested in worldbuilding should take a look at Mu's site at http://mu.ranter.net/. Anyway, after looking at some currencies on deviantArt I decided to work on designing the currency used by Humans on Ortellum - the kenna. Up to this point, the only thing I had created regarding the currency was the name, which comes from the name Samuel McKenna (a key figure in the story of the Exodus and the establishment of Human society on Ortellum).

I started working the design for the bills and coins, which by itself lead to me finally determining the name for the Human government on Ortellum, the First Planetary Human Republic. I also determined where the lost colonies on Mars and Earth's moon were located. Regardless of the time I spent on the actual design of the currency, things didn't start to become interesting until I had to figure out a seemingly simple detail: what denominations of currency did I actually need? This seemingly simple question lead to my researching modern day nuclear reactors, hydroelectric power, the power usage of various appliances, the cost of electricity, the price of bread, numerous statistics on several countries, the diet of medieval peasants and their occupations, and the caloric content of a variety of foods.

So somehow I decided I that needed to accomplish two things. First, I needed to establish some sort of baseline so that I can eventually set prices for goods that are consistent with one another. Second, I need to establish minimum daily wages for a variety of occupations. So I started scouring the internet for information on how wages can be compared between two different time periods. I learned that making a meaningful comparison is difficult, but two terms came up repeatedly: the bread standard and the ale standard. The basic idea is that two things remain fairly constant relative to a laborer's daily wage, the price of bread and the price of ale. Despite the numerous references to both standards, I was never able to locate a source that actually explains how these standards could be used in practice, so I just sort of made it up. I did some more research and found the average price of a loaf (1.5 lbs) of bread to be about $2.50. However, before I could make use of the price of bread I needed to figure out the relative values of dollars and kennas.

At first I almost just set an arbitrary conversion rate, but I realized that was counterproductive to what I was trying to do in the first place and lent nothing to the game world. I stopped to consider what currency was based on, with my first thought being the dollar is based on gold. Some research would reveal that to not actually be the case anymore, but I quickly determined that particular course was far more convoluted and confusing than I really wanted to explore. Regardless, I started to think about what has value in the game world, gold didn't make sense for Ortellum. Then it hit me - power. After the Cataclysm electricity is scarce and extremely valuable, and of course it has value in the modern world as well.

I figured the easiest way to move forward was to find the cost of electricity today and then determine how it would be related to the price on Ortellum. I looked up an approximate cost of $0.11 per kWh, then I started thinking about how the dollar might have changed by the time Humans left Earth. I came up with the idea that much of Earth could have switched to a common currency, also related to the cost of electricity. Using the relative values of several widely used currencies, I determined that many of the key economic powerhouses adopted a common currency of energy credits, with one US dollar being equivalent to 16.8515 credits (or 1 credit being equal to 5.93419 cents). Based on these figures and current prices, I came up with approximate costs for power in the Human colony once it was established: 2.41 credits per kWh for industrial areas, 3.59 credits for commercial areas and 4.03 credits for residential areas.

Next I had to figure out what the planned power production for the Human colony so I could determine how the change in supply would affect the price. I did a lot of reading about nuclear reactors, including small-profile portable reactors currently under development, to get a feel for bartec (boson annihilation repulsion technology) reactors. I also looked at small-scale hydro-electric power generation for field or short-term use. I look at the reliability, cost of production, and production capacity of all of these. Next I looked at the annual electricity consumption per capita for several countries in 2005. Several spreadsheets later I arrived at a collection of various sizes of bartec reactors and a few hydro-electric options producing 1.8 million MWh per year. Next I identified which systems would still be functional after the Cataclysm, albeit less reliable. More spreadsheets: post-Cataclysm power production at just over 240,000 MWh per year, a nearly 87% drop in supply. A few more calculations and I arrive at power costs for post-Cataclysm prices of 18.06 credits per kWh for industrial areas, 26.90 credits for commercial, and 30.20 credits for residential areas. An average of 25.05 credits per kWh.

I decided that when Humans changed from credits to kennas in 2141 (approx) it would have been convenient to set the value of the kenna based on a simple unit of power. So I set 1 kenna as the price of 100 Wh of power, enough to power an electric space heater for about 10 minutes. In relative terms that makes 1 kenna equal to 2.505 credits or just under 15 cents (USD 2009). Put in context, if 1 kWh cost $0.11 in 2009, it costs roughly $1.48 on post-Cataclysm Ortellum. Now to get back to the bread.

Continued in Part 2... ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?20-Reactors-Kennas-and-Caloric-Content-Part-1 http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?19-Trianimus Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:06:54 GMT Trianimus - Trianimus is an unusual lightweight metal, similar to titanium in terms of weight, strength, and durability. When an item is crafted of... Trianimus - Trianimus is an unusual lightweight metal, similar to titanium in terms of weight, strength, and durability. When an item is crafted of trianimus is has a faint reddish sheen that is only noticeable under close inspection. The metal itself comes from meteorites and is extremely rare as only a few meteorites contain the material. In close proximity this material is disruptive electricity and typically does not react well to large bursts of energy, such as from explosions or energy weapons, so it is not useful for crafting electronic items or firearms.

Trianimus generates an unsual energy field that can be focused or manipulated to produce interesting effects. Such manipulation is performed by physically altering the metal to affect the flow of energy. This generally takes the form of glyphs that have been carved into the surface of the metal. The specific glyphs used vary according to the overall shape of the item and the effects one is trying to acheive. Humans learned of the existence of trianimus and how to use it from the Ehlreth, and are currently the only other race with any appreciable knowledge of the material. A small number of Seitarin may have come into contact with trianimus materials or seen them used, but as a people the Seitarin are generally unaware of its existence. The Melkar are aware that the Humans possess some sort of unusual metal, but little more. As the Melkar are the primary miners on the planet and provide ore and metal to all the other races, they are particularly interested in learning more about this new material. The introduction by the Humans of a new metal, combined with the fact that Humans have established limited mining operations of their own, presents a serious threat to the Melkar miniing monopoly, and they consider rectifying this situation to be a top priority. There is a possibility that some relics may be composed of Trianimus.

Humans skilled in working with Trianimus are few and far between. This is due to the fact that all were either trained by the Ehlreth or by another Human who was. The training is a long and arduous process, taking several months. Furthermore, in order to perceive the energy flow of trianimus a Human must be infused with a small amount of Ehlreth energy. A Human that trains with an Ehlreth receives this infusion at the beginning of the training and only after the Human has been found worthy of the gift. A Human trained by the Ehlreth is infused with enough energy to pass the gift to only one other person. Such a transfer of energy leaves both Humans capable of perceiving trianimus energy and requires the use of a specialized trianimus item. The creation of this item and the method for transferring Ehlreth energy is the final lesson taught by an Ehlreth to its Human trainee.

The exact process involved in forming trianimus into a particular shape is a secret known only to those that are trained in working with the material. The etching of the glyphs is accomplished with highly specialized tools, also composed of trianimus. The shape, size, and depth of the glyphs varies often times within the glyph itself. Given that no two items are truly identical, glyphs or sets of glyphs are also unique, though two glyphs designed to cause identical effects on the same shape and size items will be remarkably similar. Trianimus workers are also able to arrange the glyphs in way that will normally allow an item to maintain its unusual properties despite limited damage, such as nicks or scratches on melee weapons or armor. However, items that become seriously damaged will lose those properties. Some items that are particularly powerful or have unusual effects may require such a finely tuned energy flow that even a minor scratch will render them useless or, worse yet, cause them unleash wild and unpredictable effects or energy bursts.

Trianimus possesses only a small amount of inate energy; it actually draws its energy from elsewhere, usually the user. The object may draw energy from the user each time a particular effect is used, or it may drain a user's energy at a constant rate. Generally, physical contact is required to allow an item to draw energy from the user. Some items may be capable of storing or amplifying energy. A person must be trained to use any nonconstant effect. In other words, if an item's effect is constant, like generating light, as long as it has an energy source, no training is necessary. The user simply has to touch the item so that it may draw energy from him. On the other hand, if an item draws energy on a per use basis and effects are of a limited duration, the user must be trained to channel their energy into the device to activate its effects. Anyone trained to use trianimus is able to detect the presence of trianimus on contact. Some people even have a natural ability to detect the nearby presence of trianimus without contact.

Novitics may have an unusual effect on trianimus. Some are more in tune with the material, being able to readily detect it, require less energy drain to use it, and potentially amplify its effects. On the other hand, some have difficulty using it and may be required to expend more energy to use it with the same or lesser effect. Others respond to trianimus just as any other person. There are rumors of some novitic effects that cause bizarre and unexpected reactions from trianimus.

The Human government does not officially recognize any unusual properties of trianimus. Scientists have studied it and been unable to replicate any of the effects described in eye-witness reports. They also found the metal difficult to work with and so have deemed it of little value. Trianimus workers are viewed as charlatans by many people. Trianimus items are not illegal, but anyone being observed actively using such an items will likely have it confiscated, undergo extensive questioning, and possibly be arrested, fined, or jailed for disturbing the peace or some similar crime depending on what they were doing. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?19-Trianimus http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?18-A-Brief-History-of-Everything Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:10:50 GMT Okay, not everything, just Proteus... And not brief...

For starters, in many ways I'm quite a geek. This should be obvious from the fact that I am writing an RPG. In junior high my friends and I played D&D once or twice, and a fair amount of Earthdown and Vampire: The Masquerade. I've learned alot about games since then, but one thing has not changed: I really enjoy making or modifying them.

I originally created Proteus in 2001, and it was primitive to say the least. All right, it was pathetic. The original concept for the game came from two movies - Escape from LA and Akira. Escape from LA was responsible for the post-apocalyptic style and the idea of exploring what would happen if we all of a sudden didn't have electricity. I'm not a fan of anime and have only watched a couple of anime films, but Akira was the inspiration for psionics as well as experimentation leading to unlocking psionic potential in people. I also knew I wanted the game to have more realistic combat than what I was used to; no more hitting the same guy with a sword twenty times before he goes down. As I said though, the resulting game was pathetic by my current standards, little more than a Word document with two columns and a handful of really low quality images.

In 2005 I decided to revisit the game and start over; since then, no part of the game has been untouched. I'm constantly coming up with new ideas and refining old ones, shifting back and forth between the system mechanics and the game world, and generally making a mess of things.

So what's taking so long? In short, me. I have a great many interests: reading (all kinds of fiction, religion, philosophy, physics, terrorism & intelligence, etc.), movies, video games and computers to name a few. I also have a wife and two small kids, not to mention a job that regularly requires odd and/or long hours. I generally focus on one project/hobby for a week or two, put it down in favor of another, then on to the next and so on, until I eventually return to the original project a month or two later. So I'll get a lot done on Proteus for a while, then put it down and return to it a few weeks later.

On top of all that, Proteus is shaping up to be a fairly in-depth endeavor with a highly detailed game world. Sometimes I'll work on the game system itself, reworking the basic dice mechanics, updating the combat system, expanding character creation or overhauling the core concepts of the system all together. At other times I'll work on the game world.

So now I'm thinking of putting out some feelers and seeing if I can find some people who want to help... ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?18-A-Brief-History-of-Everything http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?16-Alive Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:45:27 GMT I'm still alive.
It's been a long time since I updated the site. Work (my actual job) has been crazy the past few months; 12-16 hour days were common. But I'm still here and working on the site and the game.

I've updated the look of the site, and will continue to do so over the next couple of days. The latest update to vBulletin forced me to revert many of the templates back to their defaults, and the company the created the original version of the old style is no longer producing vBulletin styles. I've found another style that I can work with and customize, so that's what's going on with the site itself.

I'm in the process of migrating many of my Proteus-related files, notes, etc. to "the cloud". I also picked up a Xoom, which I love by the way, so hopefully this will enable me to make more regular updates and progress. Once that's done, I'm toying with the idea of trying to find a few noble souls (geeks) that might be interested in working on Proteus. Not sure what exactly that would entail yet, but we'll see. I've also finally created a facebook account, which I swore I would never do.

In the end, the sporadic nature of all these updates is largely due my varied interests, time, and personal nature in general, but more on that nex time... ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?16-Alive http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?14-Still-working Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:20:28 GMT It's been a couple weeks since I've posted an update, so I wanted to mention what's been in the works.

I've been working on the game world some more, specifically the Human economy. I've made some progress on a design for hard currency (coins and bills). Expect to see something posted here and on deviantArt in the next few days.

I've also been continuing work on the character creation system. I'm creating a number of related backgrounds so I can hopefully post a couple of sample characters in the near future, followed by an alpha version of the relevant chapters. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?14-Still-working http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?13-Skills-and-Advancement-chapters-updated Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:32:42 GMT I've uploaded updated version of the Skills and Advancement chapters. Changes include:
Simplification of the formula used to determine the amount of ED required to advance a skill in rank
Updated examples in the Skills chapter
Additional information on general skills and the skills associated with them ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?13-Skills-and-Advancement-chapters-updated http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?12-Tests-chapter-updated Mon, 31 May 2010 19:17:44 GMT I've made minor updates to the Tests chapter in Project Alpha:
Addition to the section on Knowledge tests
Addition to the section on Characteristic tests
Removal of the section on Attribute tests ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?12-Tests-chapter-updated http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?11-Working-Skill-List-Added Fri, 28 May 2010 22:04:17 GMT I've posted a table containing a working list and description of skills in the Project Alpha section (you must be logged in to see it). You should be able to get a feel for the game world and variety of gaming styles supported just by looking at the list and reading the basic skill descriptions.

At the moment there are 175 skills under 22 different general skills. There are a large number of artisan (most commonly used to earn money) and social skills, along with a wide variety of science, technical, and weapons skills.

The current general skills are as follows, each covering from 3 to 28 standard skills:
Animal Training, Artisan, Arts, Athletics, Awareness, Craft, Heavy Weapons, Melee Weapons, Piloting, Professional, Ranged Weapons, Science, Small Arms, Smithing, Social, Subterfuge, Survival, Technical, Throwing, Trianimus, Unarmed, Wright ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?11-Working-Skill-List-Added http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?10-Oriton Fri, 28 May 2010 19:19:18 GMT (Ortellan chiton) - This hard diamond-like substance is produced by a large marine herbivore. The material is secreted by glands on the creature's head and quickly hardens. It continues to build up and slowly move along the creature's body in plates over the course of several months. Once reaching the end of the creature's back, these plates fall off and can be collected. The material is extremely hard and durable but also extremely difficult to work with. This material is used by craftsmen to produce high quality blades, shields, mirror, and artwork. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?10-Oriton http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?9-base113-on-DeviantArt Thu, 27 May 2010 15:54:18 GMT I've set up a DeviantArt site with higher resolution versions of my working Ortellum Maps and a couple other images.

Once the map is complete, I'll probably make it available as a print as well. ]]> Natai http://www.base113.com/games/entry.php?9-base113-on-DeviantArt