Hi!
  I am writing a hack of otherkind for my Vampire game.
  What do you know about how it plays?
  I am going to play it a bit, any tips, tricks or advice?

  How would you/have you changed it?

Ok, so maybe I am just showing my usual anti forgie paranoia, but what you have here is a completely obscure game that not many people know about and you start out asking "how should I use this specific thing for my specific project".

Which I can tell you already the first ten posts in response to this are "What is this game you are asking about?", which then gives you the opportunity to link and promote it.. and SURPRISE, it's a forgie thing!

Tell me I'm wrong.. please. I mean, I actually want to be wrong.

AM,
  Well, I am not trying to promote a free PDF downloadable game that's been out for years. I don't really get the hype/buzz machine that is indie promoting. It seems like it works, and if I could,I would take advantage of it in order to sell more of my games. But, I am not in that "clique" so its not really an option for me.

  I dunno, I am Forge vs TheRPGSite agnostic. I wouldn't promote the Forge anymore than I would TheRPGSite. I think they both have trolls and they both have smart people with interesting viewpoints on gaming.

  If you want to be anti-Forge. That's fine, But, don't expect me to defend the Forge from your attacks, or to join your chorus of "the forge sucks." In just the same way I don't go bagging on anyone here.

  I just figured maybe someone here has seen the game and has some tips for me.
  If you don't know about it, you don't have to post here.

Quote from: dindenver;283416AM,
  Well, I am not trying to promote a free PDF downloadable game that's been out for years. I don't really get the hype/buzz machine that is indie promoting. It seems like it works, and if I could,I would take advantage of it in order to sell more of my games. But, I am not in that "clique" so its not really an option for me.

  I dunno, I am Forge vs TheRPGSite agnostic. I wouldn't promote the Forge anymore than I would TheRPGSite. I think they both have trolls and they both have smart people with interesting viewpoints on gaming.

  If you want to be anti-Forge. That's fine, But, don't expect me to defend the Forge from your attacks, or to join your chorus of "the forge sucks." In just the same way I don't go bagging on anyone here.

  I just figured maybe someone here has seen the game and has some tips for me.
  If you don't know about it, you don't have to post here.

It isn't the forge that sucks it is the people that suck.

In any case-- almost *nobody* has seen the game in question. I had to look it up myself, and I generally keep on top of these things, especially when we're talking about the cabin-boy rape guys. But even if we just look at those people who have seen it or are familiar with it.. why would they be here? Conversely- I know you were never in that clique, but lets face it- you had a game you had independently designed and were ready to sell. And you would love it (anyone would) if you got some of that mutual promotion action going. But you should know by now that the ponzi-pyramid of forgie promotion only works one-way, and they stress inner-circle allegiance above all. True independence like you have is discouraged by the forgies.

They are never going to go around saying "Hey, how do I use Legends of Lanasia for my next session.. I need to get a game together for this con, what you can you tell me about Legends of Lanasia?"

Doesn't that piss you off?

I mean, lets face it. These guys "design" basically by aping each other, the rest of it is just mutual felching each other on their blogs, and even the felching is half-hearted these days. They are just as interested in keeping guys like you down as they are interested in promoting themselves. You at least invented something on your own. You're better than they are. They not only can't help you, they wouldn't help you if they could because your'e as trad heartbreaker as they come.

And yet, you actually did something. What do you care about Otherkind for? You should be telling people about Legends of Lanasia like Rob Lang is doing with ICAR.

AM,
  OK, well LoL is stuck in limbo (I can't get art for it and I don't have an art budget). And I thank you for the complement.
  I did find a publisher for my vampire game and the mechanics I currently want to crib are from otherkind. I have played about three sessions of it and I am the kind of guy who likes to do his research, So, that's what I was doing.
  Honestly, if someone here had played it (even if they hated it), it would make my day. I would love to hear a more object review of the system.

  What fascinates me (and the part I intend to crib) is the idea of rolling  a pool of dice and after the roll, assigning one die to each of various activities in the round (e.g., this die is offense, this die is defense and this die is my character keeping an eye on his ultimate goal), I think this is a brilliant way to reduce the number of rolls in a single round and a great way to give the players a real tactical decision without a map grid (I like some games with grids, but that is not what I am designing now).

Quote from: dindenver;283430What fascinates me (and the part I intend to crib) is the idea of rolling  a pool of dice and after the roll, assigning one die to each of various activities in the round (e.g., this die is offense, this die is defense and this die is my character keeping an eye on his ultimate goal), I think this is a brilliant way to reduce the number of rolls in a single round and a great way to give the players a real tactical decision without a map grid (I like some games with grids, but that is not what I am designing now).

Thats a cool idea and I wish you had started talking about that. Also you might find art isn't so hard to come by.. a lot of stuff gets released on Creative Commons which, depending on the license would allow you to use it for free as long as you gave credit. I've personally done commissioned work (for $) and contributed tons of free artwork to projects I thought were cool.

AM,
  OMFG!!!! I have approached like 7 different artists about art. And all of them flaked out on me. It is driving me insane. That is why I finally just agreed to give up a cut of my sales to a publisher, because I suck so bad at getting art. I can't even get a cover. the worst part is, I did get one guy to make a decent background for the pages and a SUPER-AWESOME map from Tony Dowler (who does great maps, if you ever run across his stuff, you know what I mean).
  Anyways, I need to get more familiar with how all the pieces come together before I tweak it. For instance, I discovered that giving bonus dice has a very dramatic effect on outcomes. Also, I feel like there is a strong need to focus all the die on higher is better. But a lot of the hacks for otherkind I have come across don't do that. And then players talk about weird results I need to know if that is because of the way they play or because of the bonus dice.

  Yeah, its an obscure game and it has been used by some as a sort of "freeform with rules" (which I strongly want to avoid). But since this board has a forum for Amber Diceless, I figured it was OK to ask. I honestly expected to get no replies. And I definitely didn't hope to promote a game that the author won't even promote himself (when he changed ISPs, he didn't even move it over to his new site, you have to use the wayback machine to get the pdf, lol).

  So, the mechanics are: roll 4d6 assign each one to 4 different dice categories. If you have the applicable skill, you get a bonus dice, if your Fae creature still has a strong enough connection to life, you can get a bonus die for that, and if you are protecting a fae touched item (like an ancient tree or something) you can get a bonus die for that (you only keep 4 dice, the bonus dice lets you choose from a better selection theoretically). If the enemy has iron, the GM can reduce the value of a die after it is assigned and you can spend Fae power called Radiance to increase die values (but it never refreshes. You can get more Radiance by saving Fae touched stuff from humans but it changes you current total and your cap, not refreshing your spent radiance).

  So, I am not real good at odds, so I can't predict how giving bonus dice changes the game. So, I am going to play it more and see how the various pieces work together before I change them.