[Open Design: Mercenaries #7] Mercenary Cards Round-Up

This is simply a quick round-up of the mercenary cards we've created so far for the game Mercenaries, our Open Design project. We have close to a third of the mercenary cards that we need to get the game to its first playtest. Thanks so much to everyone who has already participated, and I look forward to seeing this project continue to progress. Look over the cards listed below, and feel free to leave any ideas you have for mercenaries in the comments to this post.

Because this is kind of a quick article that didn't take a lot of work to put together, I'll be breaking my usual Monday and Thursday posting schedule to bring you three new articles this week. Check back on Wednesday for a new Design Review, and look for another Building Character post on Friday.

[Building Character: SWSERPG] Shara Koth

Image from Wookieepedia.

This will hopefully be the first post in a new series called Building Character. The idea is to take a roleplaying game and build a few different characters for that game, writing about the process and posting the end results. I’ve found this to be a useful exercise for getting myself acquainted with a game’s rules mechanics. Plus, it can be a fun creative activity.

A while ago, I posted a Design Review about the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition. One of the things I talked about in there was the process for creating characters. So, I’ve decided to start this series with making some characters for that game. The first one I’ve made is Shara Koth, a mercenary captain of the Zabrak species.

[Design Journal: Castle Siege] A Game of Medieval Warfare

The armies are gathering beyond the castle wall. You strengthen your fortifications while they gather reinforcements. An arduous battle awaits. It will be their aggression against your persistence. Can you hold out long enough to force them into retreat? Or, will they overrun your battlements and claim the castle for themselves?

[Open Design: Mercenaries #6] Designing Territory Cards

Work is progressing steadily on Mercenaries. We have a working model that should be suitable for our first playtest. We are also making considerable progress on designing the mercenary cards for the game. Let’s mix things up by jumping into the design process for the game’s deck of 15 territory cards. I don’t want to distract everyone from designing mercenaries, but working on the territories simultaneously might create opportunities for the cross pollination of ideas. Also, if you’re burning out on designing the mercenaries, trying your hand at territory cards for a while might be a nice change of pace. Territories should be much simpler to create, because each card only has a couple of substantial features. I’ll explain the format below, and then give a few examples to get us started.

[Design Journal: Terra Machina] Adventure Awaits!

Artwork from the Mega Man Zero video game franchise.

In the year 25XX, humans no longer dominate the Earth. Some believe that they went extinct when the world became so damaged it could no longer support them. Others believe they simple abandoned the planet for more fertile lands elsewhere. Either way, they left in their place a hardier species of mechanical men, dubbed the Progeny. Centuries have passed. The Progeny have multiplied and formed their own cultures. Unity City seeks to forge bonds between disparate nations, but the terrorist acts of those with radical views threaten to tear apart this fragile peace…