New Feature: A spot to record thoughts that have occurred because of personal events that have unfolded at the gaming table. Since we don’t tell gaming anecdotes on Bear Swarm! having a place to jot ideas could be useful. No promise on this being a reoccurring feature. There are three parts to this feature, what you need to be brought up to speed, the specific event in question, and my thoughts on it. Enjoy!
Episode Five: What’s in the box?
In which Rob discusses his new game, struggles with creative freedoms, and gives a GM Technique.
As some of you know I’m currently hard at work (cough) on Version 3 of Danger Close. In an effort to keep transparency while I work on the next PDF release I figured I would highlight some of the changes coming to Danger Close. One of the biggest overall changes comes to Areas. While Areas are functioning the same the way they are decided and what they cover has changes quite a bit. Overall, I think this is a better metric and will lead to the style of game play that the system requires.
There is a lot of talk in this section that extrapolates out to other changes. It might be confusing in spots but when V3 is released it should (it better) all make sense. continue reading…
Almost a year ago now I started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Currently I’m around 200 pages from completing the third book, A Storm of Swords. While I know I still have another massive tome to go before I’m caught up I wanted to write some commentary after the events of last night’s reading. For anyone who hasn’t read them yet I’ll be sure to clearly label where the spoiler section begins. Don’t expect much out of this. Just a few random thoughts.
For those of you who don’t know what I look like… Here’s a picture. I also tried to emulate roughly my normal look of annoyance so as you have a better chance to recognize me. That is all.
Earlier today I tweeted a video to a fan made “At the Mountains of Madness” trailer. I was then told about how it’s in the works, a fact I already knew but wasn’t excited about. Here’s the fan video and after the break I’ll talk a little bit about why I don’t think the Del Toro movie will be good.
Before I started working on Danger Close I did some brainstorming for the Lovecraft System. The basic idea is that I dislike every Lovecraft inspired RPG I’ve ever seen and I think I would write it differently.
I did some brainstorming, came up with some basic ideas, and promptly moved on. I wasn’t sure of why at the time, but I lacked the confidence to tackle this project. I think writing Danger Close has given me some of the confidence back. Seeing my friends play something I wrote and enjoying it helped bolster my attitude. I’m still not sure if I’m ready to take on something I’m so passionate about but I think I’m going to give it a go again.
Once I wrap up Danger Close, maybe after Version 5 or Version 6, and feel like I brought that product as far as I could then I’m going to turn my sights back on the Lovecraft System. I make no promises, but maybe I’ll see this to completion this time.
I just hit 50 (unique) downloads on Danger Close. That is about 45 more then I expected! The results of the current poll have also been fairly positive. Only one person saying they are Not Interested but they are out of Amsterdam apparently so they are high and stupid. The majority of the voters are Interested and even a couple people are Very Interested!
We also sat down for a second round of character creation, no playtesting, but just crunching some numbers and doing some of the mental homework. In light of that there have been some significant changes to how Areas work. I also sat down and started watching Season 2 of Leverage and it got me thinking about the Areas and what they do. I wrote some expansion pieces and fleshed out what’s what. Capricorn is now the thinker, planner, and not just the leader. Capricorn is the team’s brain, Aries is the teams brawn, Gemini is the teams face, Virgo is the teams technician, and Scorpio is the teams grace. Just to give you and idea of what we’re looking at.
Anyway, I have some more writing to do before I’m ready to release the Version 3 PDF. I just figured I’d let you all know that what you have is out of date and, in many ways, unplayable. Sorry about that.
I know, I know. A DAY later I remembered a sidebar I forgot. Add this into the Intelligence Gathering section.
Just One at a Time?
Intelligence Gathering assumes that Agents are handed one mission after another. Operations might opt to give the Agents multiple missions and let them decide the best order of completion. Unfortunately this causes a bit of a hiccup. In time Intel gets old, stale, out of date.
No matter how many Missions Operations hands to the Agents they only ever get one Intelligence Gathering Phase. Agents must decide where to spend their Intel points for every Mission given to them prior to starting any one of the Missions. Operations is encouraged to give longer Deadlines when handing out multiple Missions at a single time.
For every Mission brought to completion the Rank of Intel for every other mission the team has been given decreases by one. This includes any Missions that may have come up and had Intelligence Gathered during the course of another Mission.
With the vast and sweeping changes that have been made since Danger Close started releasing on this site, I’ve instead opted to stop the daily release and just put out the compiled PDF of the Danger Close v2 guide. The PDF is freely available by clicking on the icon to the right. Feel free to download it and let me know what you think!
Continuing coverage of Danger Close, today we present the rules for how your character changes. Advancement isn’t Experience. Remember that and Enjoy. continue reading…
Before I started working on 
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