Episode 21: A Busy Week

Let's start with last Friday. I drove in to LA with a backpack full of papers and six-sided dice, ready for the crowd at Orc-Con to help me playtest Orkworld. I ran one demo with twenty players. I divided them up into two Households of ten, gave them 200 points per group and had them design their Households. Then, I let them get together for the winter season and had a bunch of trolls steal their reindeer. They spent the better part of four hours learning about my orks, how Orkworld worked and showing me what didn't with their questions and game play. I decided to change one of the five Virtues (characteristics) from Willpower to Endurance and learned something very valuable about my game design theory that only dawned on me when someone else pointed it out.

"John, you know you don't have a whole lot of room for personality on your character sheets," Jennifer Brandes (of "Hepler & Brandes" fame) told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked, half-distracted by packing up my stuff and not losing any of my dice.

"L5R and 7th Sea don't leave a lot of room for personal creativity. You choose a Clan, you choose a Profession, you get assigned a small number for Skills and that's it. That's your character."

"Yeah," I said. It's quick and easy."

"But there's no room for me in there," she said. I looked at Chris. He nodded his silent "Yup." Good boy, Chris. Always agree with the better half.

"But this is different," she told me. "I mean, you choose a Tribe Totem, a Household Totem, have the same 5 Traits (Virtues) as everybody else, but you get to make up your own Skills. Look at these. They're wonderful!"

I took the handful of character sheets and looked at them. She was right: there's very little to creating an ork character.

1) Choose a Tribe Totem

The players decide which animal will be their Tribe Totem. Then, they decide what bonus that gives them. For this game, the Tribe Totem was the Reindeer, which meant the orks got one extra die for all actions while mounted.

2) Choose a Household Totem

The players then decide what totem their Household has. In this case, we had the Boar Household (+1 die on all Strength rolls) and the Skunk Household (I honestly forget what their Bonus Die was for; maybe someone who was there can remind me?).

3) Apply Numbers for Virtues

Orks have 5 Virtues (as you learned from the War and Food episode not too long ago): Courage, Cunning, (Weapon) Prowess, Strength and Willpower (we'll talk about it changing to Endurance in a moment). The players got the following numbers to spend on their orks: 4, 3, 3, 2 and 2.

4) Spend Points

Each player had 20 points to add to the Household Pool. Since there were ten players per Household, they had a total of 200 points to spend. First, the players spent points on their Household. They could buy a Bronzesmith (3 Points), a Blacksmith (10 Points), a Magic Household Spear that gave its wielder Bonus Dice (for 1, 2 or 3 points depending on how many Bonus Dice you want), distance from Monsters (that's humans, elves and dwarves; 3 Points per Monster) and a few other goodies.

These points also had to be spent on their own orks. It cost 5 points to increase a Virtue (no Virtues above 4; at least, not yet) and 1 point to buy or increase a Skill. The fun part is you get to make up your own Skills. You want to fight with Spear & Shield, that's under your Prowess. You want to be a clever, thief-like ork? That's Stealth under Cunning. You get the idea. Players make up their own Skills to personalize their thraka.

And this is where Jennifer's comment came in. Every character was pretty much the same… until you got a look at their Skills. Here's a short list of the Skills folks had on their character sheets (presented as they were written on the sheet):

• Can't See Me! (Hide)
• Chuggin'!
• Eat & Drink
• Fall Soft
• Follow Tracks
• Freakishly Large
• "Gimme That!"
• Hit Hard
• I Got a Bad Feeling About This… (Smell Danger)
• I See You! (Detect)
• Intimidating Battle Cry
• Lift Big Thing
• Missed Me! (Dodge)
• Overpowering Flatulence
• Pointy Bits (Bow & Arrow)
• Ride Good
• Sneak (Move Quietly)
• Stick 'Em! (Spear & Shield)
• That Didn't Hurt! (Resist Pain)
• Throw Heavy Thing
• Zoom! (Running)

I then discussed how the game system worked (these days). If an ork wants to do something, he first determines if he's doing it by himself (Simple Actions) or against someone else (Contested Actions). The method's the same; it's the outcome that's different.

If it's by himself, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to his Skill. He's trying to roll high, but not higher than the Virtue the Skill is under. For example, our little ork buddy is trying to Follow Tracks. Follow Tracks falls under the Cunning Virtue, and our buddy has a 4 Cunning. So:

Virtue: 4 (Target Number)

Skill: 3 (# of Dice)

Roll: 1, 4, 6

Our cunning little ork rolled one 4, which means he succeeded. That's Simple Actions.

If an ork is trying to do something to someone else, things get more complicated. For example, if our green friend tries to hit someone with his spear, he rolls his Stick 'Em! against his opponent's Skill. Our ork has a 4 Stick 'Em! (Spear & Shield), he rolls 4 dice. Stick 'Em! Is under his Prowess Virtue of 3. So, here's how it works.

Virtue: 3 (Target Number)

Skill: 4 (# of dice)

Roll: 1, 3, 5, 6

The highest number that isn't over 3 is a 3. That's his current Success Total. If his Success Total is equal to or greater than his opponent's appropriate Skill (such as Dodge or Spear & Shield), he is successful. If he rolls lower than his opponent's Skill, he misses.

Of course, Game Masters can also apply bonuses and penalties (+1 or -1) to a Success Total, making it harder or easier for the ork to succeed. Also, an ork adds +1 to his Success Total for every duplicate roll he makes. For example, if an ork rolls two 4's, his Success Total is 5 (4, +1 for the duplicate 4). If he rolls two 4's, he adds two to his Success Total, and so on. An ork can decide to add together lower rolling dice if the total is greater than his highest single die.

For example: an ork's target is 4. However, he rolls three 2s and a 4. He decides to keep the 2s because their Success Total is higher (2 +1 +1 +1 = 5).

So, we played the game. We made a lot of noise and everyone said they had a blast playing orks. I was happy. I also decided to change the way magic worked because… well, it wasn't working.

Rich played a bard. I intended the fifth Virtue, Willpower, to be the "magic Virtue". That is, all magic came from Willpower. Well, this didn't work out because the rest of the orks had no use for it. However, a lot of them wanted to know "Which Virtue is Endurance?" (Specifically the ork with the Chuggin' Skill). So, at the end, I changed Willpower to Endurance and made magic come straight from an ork's Zhusha.

What's Zhusha? Sorry. I forgot all about it.

Zhusha is an ork's role in the tribe. You can be a warrior (thraka), a mother (dowmga) or a bard (tala). Every ork character has at least one Zhusha die, expressing his experience. Young, inexperienced orks have one Zhusha die while veterans have three or even four. Great, legendary heroes have 5 and 6 Zhusha dice.

Whenever you make a roll - any roll - you always roll your Zhusha die. This covers orks who don't have an appropriate Skill; they're always rolling at least their Zhusha die.

Now, let's talk about combat.

Sorry. Gotta interject something; a happy coincidence. I'm listening to the band Boiled in Lead (folk-rock stuff) and their amazing arrangement of the traditional song My Son John about a man who's just come back from war:

I was tall and I was slim/And I had a leg for every limb/Now I've got no legs at all/You can't win a race with a cannon ball…

Like I said, let's talk about combat.

Okay, you roll over your opponent's Defense Skill (whatever that is) and he gets a Wound Die. He rolls that Wound Die with all his rolls. If the Wound Die rolls a number equal to or lower than his current Wound Dice, he fails his action and earns himself another Wound Die (he's aggravated his hurt). When an ork has more Wound Dice than his Thraka, he drops down unconscious. When he has twice the number of Wound Dice equal to his Zhusha, he dies. And when you roll double what you need to hit someone, they get two Wound Dice.

That ain't the system we used at Orc-Con. I made that system up after we played. I didn't like the You Get Hit You Die rule I explained in a previous Episode. After working so long on 7th Sea, I've gotten soft. Or maybe it's my age? Who can tell?

Then, at around midnight, Rich, Bonnie, Jennifer (my wife, not The Brandes) packed up our stuff and drove through the night to Dundracon in San Francisco. The drive was rather uneventful and we made the trip in less than the eight hours we supposed it would take.

However, after pushing Orkworld to all the retailers, running a 20 person game, and driving all through the night, I was not ready to run any more games. I handed out fliers and talked to folks (most notably Greg Stafford - who is always a joy to talk to) and spent most of my time talking business with Rich and Eric Rowe from Wizard's Attic.

I've mentioned Eric before. Wizard's Attic is a fulfillment house. What that means is small press guys like me let Eric do all the business and we pay him a small fee for his effort. Eric handles shipping, distribution, pushing the product on buyers and other duties that I'm just not capable of handling. And he does all of this for very small fee.

Eric told me that he was confident we could sell more than just 1,000 copies of Orkworld. In fact, he was talking 3,000, at least. Because Eric handles something along the lines of three dozen small press lines, I trust his judgement. Of course, all this makes me look at Orkworld in a new light.

If I can sell more books, that means I can afford to print more books. It also means I can afford to go through the distribution system, especially if Eric's my point man. Eric also offered me an option I hadn't considered before. He suggested I print 3,000 softbound Orkworld books, then print a few hardbacks, all signed, numbered with dust-jackets (more on that later) and with an extra signature (16 pages) of goodies, like concept sketches and design notes. I'm not sure yet. I have to consider it.

At the very least, I am going through Eric. If you want Orkworld, you have to buy it from him. You won't pay more than cover price to get it. It may also be available at your local game store, but that all depends on whether or not the distributors back up Eric's claim of 3,000 copies.

Eric also let me know that if I'm going to go through the distribution channels, I have to have a cover. A kick-ass cover. Well, Thomas is taking care of that right now. We're gonna solicit numbers from the distributors for four months, find out what kind of print run we can afford, then send the book out to ink.

That means I have an official release date for Orkworld. Here it is.

Orkworld, written by John Wick and illustrated by Thomas Denmark, will be available at Gen-Con 2000. The format of the book is still up for grabs (with a few certain variables), but if you're at Gen-Con, you can go home with a copy of Orkworld.

The writing will be done by the end of this month. Playtesting and edits will be done by the end of next month. Layout due the month after that. In other words, the book will be done a month ahead of schedule, just in case I want to change, add or subtract something. I'm not gonna rush this puppy. I've come this far and I'm not letting it screw up at the last second.

Eric also asked me if I had Trademarked "Orkworld" yet. No, was my answer. Then you'd better do it, said Eric. When, I asked. Yesterday, he said.

So, I Trademarked "Orkworld". It cost me $325. That's a non-refundable processing fee, which means they can keep my money and reject my Trademark if they feel like it, which means I have to apply again with another $325 which they keep and turn right around and reject me again.

(You paying attention, Steve Jackson?)

I'm also gonna have to copyright the book (another $60) and get a business license (I don't even know how much that's gonna cost me). So, for those of you keeping score at home (this may not be a complete list; I'm writing from Rich's folks' cabin in the So. Cal. Mountain range; I'll update it later):

$325 Trademark "Orkworld"

$60 Copyright

?? Business License

$1700 Quark Express 4.1 (the earlier versions are the $700 versions everyone else was telling me about)

$75 USB Hub (to use Quark in the first place)

-----------

$2160

Over two grand and I haven't even started printing yet. And I haven't even looked at the price of getting Photoshop. Ugh. But I'm gonna need it by the time this is done with.

Then, on Tuesday, I got a call from a production company regarding one of the shows I submitted to them. "Can you do a new write-up? Something a little more detailed?"

Of course I can! So, I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday doing that. Then, I had to write another chapter for the 7th Sea novel I'm writing for AEG (FATE'S DAUGHTER - The True Story of Veronica Ambrogia: Witch, Pirate, Courtesan, Swordsman). That took me all of Thursday. Then, Thursday night was packing for our trip to Rich's folks' cabin (where I'm at right this very second, listening to Boiled in Lead), while waiting for a call from that production company about my show. We spent two hours driving up here, arriving at around 2:00 AM.

Now, it's Friday and the GDJ is due. Current word count has it at 2,500 words.

But there's a problem here. Caught it, yet?

Not a single word for Orkworld. I'm (3,000 x 5) 15,000 words behind schedule. And I still have to finish that Cthulhu for President 2000 pack for Chaosium before the end of the month.

Of course, those 300 e-mails are filled with folks who have a ton of questions about Orkworld, and if I don't answer 'em, it's bad customer service. Here's a very typical sample letter from one very nice and enthusiastic reader:

-Do you really think you can have the game done by the end of next month? That would be remarkable, and doing it mostly by yourself, too. Of course, you do have experience on your side.

-How much time each day/week do you actually spend writing the game? I know in our group I write the most and I spend a meager 1/2 hour a day on ours (still in college, you know). I'm curious on how much time you spend.

-Is $30 going to be the asking price for Orkworld? It's a little steep for me, but I know you gotta eat.

-Did you feel obligated to put halflings into Orkworld? They always seem like the bastard child in Fantasy Settings. It seems that the only reason people have 'em is because Tolkien did. What you did with them is a better attempt than most. I just want to know if you put them in out of obligation or because they really did fit in you world/storyline?

That's all my "real" questions. I have a few game questions for you now.

-What's your currency? Is there a universal mint? If not what are the exchange rates between the races? Do orks even use coins or do they barter?

-Do the orks ever go on the offensive against the other races? It seems like they do two things: Take it and Like it.

-What about half-breeds? My suspenders will be snapped if you don't even bother to mention rape during war. Of course I believe it's despicable, but it happens. And it can go both ways (orks can rape humans and vice-versa). So what about half-orks? Especially if one of the head mothers gives birth to one.

-Are you going to include mounted combat with orks riding reindeer? (that picture was just cool)

All good questions that I just don't have the time to answer. I tell that to folks, and they usually understand (the gentleman above thanked me for the answers I had time for; great guy).

But then there's the other guy who wrote me ten pages of questions, all under the statement:

The answers you provide will determine whether or not I buy your game.

I wrote him back, explaining that I really didn't have time to answer all his questions. But, I answered a few and got this answer back:

You are just another symptom of the ego disease the gaming industry suffers. If your game was the last one on Earth I still would not buy it.

Another satisfied customer. Like I said, they aren't all like this, but enough of them are.

Ah well. That's the glamorous life of a game designer.

(Right, Mr. Stolze?)

Boy, do I need a vacation.

Take care, folks, and I'll see you next week.