Grim metal bedlam (production blog)

 I reread the rules and I think the core mechanisms of the design work for the setting I been developing. Though A lot of the design was an excuse to make a setting.

My main complaint coming from other games is the book keeping aspects (or lack of really). Solo adventure bases skirmish games are at there core book keeping push your luck games. 

The book keeping while a bit tedious can also be framed as our investment. It makes the pieces more than models. The mechanism is so simple with the advantage and disadvantage of flipping percentile rolls (in my game) that without money as central bookkeeping element that the game has no weight.

Every one feels different on such a wide spectrim that becomes hard to make something objectively or at least universally well made.

So what I have decided to do is use is use smaller squads in the solo campaign I am thinking three man squads for the player and five to seven for the ai controlled opponent.

This  will the game to where the player can keep track of personalities that can be specific without being overwhelming. 

I spent the afternoon making a squad for game I am starting to play Called: kill sample process.  I had huge amount of fun with the characters there handles, feats, and mutations. Just people made of numbers and some complex series of effects and status’s.

The with five character you cant really remember differences long to be invested. That will likely change over the campaign but some of the characters die off before you can remember a detail associated with a name.

What I am hoping to have added to Grim metal Bedlam by the end of next month is a code name generator for each model. An item list for building load-outs for each of these characters, and maybe secondary personality-trait tables to add more depth to each model.

What a war game is (to me) a miniature figurine with a false history. And we gamble that history against a narrative outcome of sorts of a victory state (a conclusion with positive associations). In my rambling circular bs way what my is fewer models and more investment.

On a campaign design front I am aiming for at least 3 missions a campaign maxing out at seven with about five years in game time between each mission. So I am thinking a war hammer quest inspired legacy mode of sorts with a settlement kind of mode. Where you can have characters die and major events happen after the battle.

On another design side of things your avatar is your Crew leader so if he dies the campaign is over and in failure. 

I think making reframing of the core mechanisms into variants systems for different parts of the setting could be interesting. Campaigns for Star punks (outlaws/space pirates) or panzer strider pilots (Bio Mecha suits) and esper troopers (psychic solders) could be interesting the one I been working on now is focused on star punks.

I may or may not share daily updates on the design but the game is still is definitely on my mind. 

Until next time, 

Peace and love.