Well, let's see.

I've wanted to do an old school Thief game for ages. You sneak around. You steal stuff. You pick locks.

And, then, I bought blank dice and worked out how to do it.

Basically, there's five dice, and that's all you need for the game: no character sheets or anything. Both the GM and player use the same dice: the GM rolls them to get inspiration for challenges; the player rolls them for conflict resolution.

It's pick-up-and-play. You can sit down and play a quick game in 15 minutes: that's a simple thing like burgling a mansion.

Anyway...all that probably makes little sense. I'll post the rules on my blog once I've tidied them up.

But I'm very excited about it. And the dice look really good.

I've just posted the Blackguard rules on my journal.

Graham

That looks so cool! I can't wait to try it :)

I spotted a couple of typos and left a comment telling you where they are :)

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

That looks really interesting Graham! I'd love to play some Thief: the Dark Project style games with that (if you never played it, it was a computer game sneak-em-up set in a really evocative steampunk fantasy world).

I really like the idea that you can play a really quick game - just sit down at lunch and play out a single crime or whatever. That's neat.

I love the dice too - I'm a huge dice fan, so any sort of funky pools of dice grab me. I hope you're going to sell some sets of these dice alongside the Ashcan.

The dice will be the ashcan. All you need to play are dice and an instruction leaflet. Possibly in a nice bag.

Hituro: thanks! I wondered who that was on the journal.

I really can't explain how excited I am about this game. I'll show it to you at Concrete Cow. It is fun.

Can I call you AK from now on? Thanks.

Graham

Are there pictures of the dice I've missed somewhere?

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

No, the only dice I've got, right now, are ones I've drawn on with a CD marker pen.

But the ashcan dice will be gorgeous. I've found some blank ivory dice and I'll put the symbols on them with a rubber stamp and indelible black ink. So they'll have this old, hand-crafted look.

I'm very excited, did I mention?

Graham

Sounds great, Graham, I'd definitely be interested.

Like Andrew I'm a fan of the Thief computer games and this sounds closer to what I'd like to see than the usual repetitive percentile skill tests and such that playing a rogue character seems to involve.

GameSpark

I tried to post this on the blog, but it didn't work ... maybe its moderated at the moment, or maybe its an error, so I thought I would post it here just in case.

I like the clarifications but I'm not sure I get the point of the rising alert level effects. They seem to boil down to

LOW : You get a reroll
MEDIUM : Danger and suspicion are a little more likely (as is loot)
HIGH : Tests are harder

How come High alert doesn't make danger and suspicion more likely? Or are they supposed to be cumulative? Also since a failed test means you can't try that way again doesn't that mean that very high alert can make an obstacle entirely impassible by making you fail the only sorts of tests you can use to pass it?

I was seeing this more like Tenchu stealth assassin ... when the alert level is high the guards and so on know you are coming, so stealth becomes harder and danger more likely, rather than everything being harder (e.g. high alert makes it hard to pick a lock at the moment).

I don't know, it just seems that alert should either end the game at a certain point, or not make things impossible, one or the other. At the moment it seems like it would just dump you in a pit of ineffectual actions.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

I think you're probably right. I've changed the rules so they do something like what you're saying: see what you think.

The problem is that high Alert can't just make Alert go even higher. It needs to have some effect on the game.

But that'd happen if Dangers came up more frequently: because, every time, you get another Obstacle Point. Perhaps, at higher Alerts, you'd get two obstacle points.

Sorry about the disappearing comments: they were marked as spam. The spam filter is rather overkeen.

Graham

Ahhh great, I'll have a look!

Don't you have to use the free obstacle from the danger to immediately launch an attack? If so its not actually increasing your available obstacle points.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

...you gain an Obstacle Point and immediately use it to create a problem (usually getting away from a guard).

That's so that, if you fail, you've still got an extra obstacle to get over. Otherwise it makes no difference whether you succeed or fail on that roll.

Graham

Ahhh, of course, if you fail the obstacle point remains.

Out of curiosity, is this a game you can lose?

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

You can definitely give up. Once Alert gets higher than 10 or so, honestly, it's going to be pretty impossible.

I'm not sure if you need to roll to escape. I think you probably do. Otherwise, you're caught. Being caught has to be an option.

I've ordered five hundred blank dice today! I am very excited.

Graham

So I playtested Blackguard last night and loved it! Since your blog ate my posts you can find the Actual Play here

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually