It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog post, but I feel it’s time. Please bear with this long post because I have a lot to say :)! I FINALLY got the chance to run the Shards RPG the other day with a group of 5 who handily completed the Sweeney Toddler chapter.
Hats off to very fine role playing from everybody ESPECIALLY to the player playing Muffett (who happened to be the most inexperienced role-player at the table). She took Muffett’s personality and made it her own: believable, authentic, and unpredictable. Her actions forced hearty role-playing, and the interactions between her and Dorothy forced very interesting interactions between ALL players. The depth of character development this session was astounding. Characters involved were Cinderella, Jack, Dorothy, Alice, and Miss Muffett.
The more time I invest in this system, the more I see its appeal and flaws. The most basic parts of the system are done, but all the powers I’ve created have been on the fly, no concrete system to the powers’ damage and effects. Making a customizable power system is by far the most challenging creative aspect I’ve ever encountered in my 23 years of being a Game Master.
I still don’t even know if I’m up to the arduous task of attempting to seek funding and publishing a system like this. Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition is on the horizon, I’m curious to see how they incoroporate the desires of the current player base with the need to gain new consumers.
But the role-playing isn’t the only thing that’s coming along in our lives. Jade and I sat down and had a long discussion about Shards and its current progression. There are many stories that have occurred so far. Some of them are far too adult to ever post as one of our standard webcomic stories. In addition, we want you guys to meet some of the more constant characters in our universe. Two of which will be showing up in the next chapter. You’ve met all of our heroes. We want to introduce you to our antagonists and foils. Which means skipping many stories and glossing over what happened very briefly in a strip or two.
Jade and I have considered making a full comic book for sale of some of the stories that we are skipping over. We’ll keep you guys posted on it :).
