I was thinking of organizing it like this:
1: Character creation booklet.
This short book is intended to be printed on 8.5x11 paper with 14 point font and stapled. I will contain all the information needed to create a character, with no fluff/word wasting. It should say “strength: this increases your melee damage, your jump height and several physical skills”, instead of the “strength: it makes you stronger, and stronger is good, like this character. And here is an example of what you can do with strong, and here is an image of a character being strong, and…” bullshit. Basic, direct explanations and information is all that would be in here.
2: Rule book
This is the “core” book that has the majority of the rules in it. Like the character creation booklet, this will have as little fluff as possible. The focus would be on being a reference, and not a “book”.
3: World book
This is where all of the stories, pictures, and example characters are located, along with all of the fluff and feel of the game. Maps, political organizations, story ideas, NPC examples, and stories will make up the majority of this.
I want a large emphasis on arkham-horror like tokens and aids, to speed up gameplay and give a more "it’s a game" feel to it that will make some of the abstraction easier to swallow(I think). Also, tokens are awesome.
FLUFF AND SETTING
For the setting and feel of the game, I was thinking of a shadowrun-derived world, with as little shadowrun idiocy as possible. My current picture is that in about 1990 kids started being born with minor, latent magical abilities. This was ignored and basically unknown due to the incredible weakness of the “magic”, and that magic was obviously bullshit so quit being a retard. It wasn’t until about 2000 that some governments and corporations started to actually throw money at research concerning these “gifted” kids. It turns out that when focused on, this talent develops into something stronger, and by 2010 shit was getting weird. Information had been leaking for a while, but the first YouTube video of an amputee getting her limb regenerated was what really caused the crazy. It turns out that magical healing can, with time, repair practicably anything INCLUDING nerves (and damaged brains, more on that later). Rivers of bio-medical/mechanical scientists’ orgasm juices and five more years later cybernetics become a thing, with the muscle replacements and cyber eyes we all know and love becoming only uncommon instead of un-heard of.
The world never ended, the internet didn’t “crash”, and no one nuked anyone else. Google is still a thing, and while “huds” (Google glass like things) has mostly replaced cell-phones and personal computers, the postal service still runs and people still do things like buy groceries and work. Some people are replacing their huds with artificial eyes, but it’s not too common yet.
The problems really started when things that weren’t people started to also possess some of this latent magical ability. Highly intelligent wolves, stupidly large crows, and elk that had death-laser eye-beams began to turn from a nascence to a serious problem. The fish and game department got some serious funding, domestic militias were created, armies were dispatched and it was a very confusing couple of years.
Currently (no idea on date), most people have ether moved into huge megacities or been eaten by giant Africanized bees. Large militarized militias are the norm, and resources haven’t become rare, just much harder to actually get. Nuclear power means that inside a city everything is still fine, but long range transportation has become an issue ever since giant squids got a taste for crude oil and started eating refineries and super-tankers. Growing food, moving mined ore, and getting lumber have become so dangerous that a military-grade escort is the MINIMUM security outside of the cities. Large scale government has had some problems due to the new logistics complications; so many cities are basically self-run.
This is the part where cities fight over resources and “us vs. them” turns into “people who live with me in [my city] vs. anyone, sentient or not, who might want the same resources that we want”.
The world never ended, the internet didn’t “crash”, and no one nuked anyone else. Google is still a thing, and while “huds” (Google glass like things) has mostly replaced cell-phones and personal computers, the postal service still runs and people still do things like buy groceries and work. Some people are replacing their huds with artificial eyes, but it’s not too common yet.
The problems really started when things that weren’t people started to also possess some of this latent magical ability. Highly intelligent wolves, stupidly large crows, and elk that had death-laser eye-beams began to turn from a nascence to a serious problem. The fish and game department got some serious funding, domestic militias were created, armies were dispatched and it was a very confusing couple of years.
Currently (no idea on date), most people have ether moved into huge megacities or been eaten by giant Africanized bees. Large militarized militias are the norm, and resources haven’t become rare, just much harder to actually get. Nuclear power means that inside a city everything is still fine, but long range transportation has become an issue ever since giant squids got a taste for crude oil and started eating refineries and super-tankers. Growing food, moving mined ore, and getting lumber have become so dangerous that a military-grade escort is the MINIMUM security outside of the cities. Large scale government has had some problems due to the new logistics complications; so many cities are basically self-run.
This is the part where cities fight over resources and “us vs. them” turns into “people who live with me in [my city] vs. anyone, sentient or not, who might want the same resources that we want”.
Edit: I think I posted this In the wrong place. Could an admin move this to the IMOI fourm?
