Building Fantasyscapes - The (Mis)Adventure Begins...

Over the next week or so I'm going to be doing a lot of work building fantasyscapes. This is part of a wide scale shift in my gaming that will encompass both my miniature gaming and my regular RPG sessions with our gaming group.

  

In terms of the miniature gaming my problem is this: I'm just not that interested in playing any of the existing systems that are linked to certain brands of miniatures. WFB is fun and I've enjoyed getting back onto the tabletop over the last couple of years since around the time 8e came out.

But I want more.

I want to be able to build my own gaming world that allows me and my co-gamers to construct armies from the ground up, free from the commercial constraints of the mechanics bestowed by the major manufacturers. For this reason I've started to draft my own set of full rules inspired by a wide range of fantasy and historical wargaming systems. It will be mid-level as opposed to the increasingly popular 'skirmish' level games, it will use new types of game phase, provide a rather different approach to magic and melee, and will... I hope... be interesting and perhaps even inspiring to a few other people. As long as it's popular around my gaming table though, I'll be happy.

The RPG situation is necessarily more collaborative. Dr Bargle and I are working together with the Legend / OpenQuest systems (he far more than I at this stage it should be stressed) and our aim is to provide the basis for a world that will build through adventuring. It won't be plot driven, as my previous WFRP GMing turned out to be, and it won't be anchored in a branded system or world-in-a-box. Instead, the story will unfold in the shape of a game narrative pulled together as the adventuring party walks away from some encounter seeds while diving headlong into other points of intrigue... possibly with the consequence of losing their heads. Life will likely be short as combat will certainly prove deadly. The fantasyscape will emerge through gaming - everyone will have a say. I have high hopes for this as our gaming group is a creative bunch.

Of course, both endeavours may be accidents waiting to happen. Let's just hope that fortune favours the brave... If it doesn't, well, readers of the Gazette can enjoy watching two simultaneous slow motion car crashes and we'll all come out of this older and wiser!