I thought I’d have more time to game once the harvest season was over, and I guess I do. But, I’ve started on quite a project… Making a tabletop RPG from scratch with a friend.

This all started with us wanting to try some RPGs on Google Wave (me pushing it, of course) to see how viable it would be. Well, when deciding on a system to use it got fairly difficult — didn’t want the usual fantasy or sci-fi (we get enough of that in video games) so modern-ish something was the general genre to look for. There really wasn’t that much that appealed (that could be found, easily) and we both wanted something that wasn’t going to be combat heavy or crunch heavy. We probably could’ve found something sooner or later, but who wants to read through dozens of books and thousands of pages to find that something?

So, we decided to go in another direction and make our own (though I think I was pushing it again, but my friend jumped on it soon enough and started adding content like crazy). I have to say — it’s a heck of a lot of work.

We’ve got over 20 pages worth on basic character creation and play. Information on the world is still quite bare, likely just a few pages for it, but it’s set in present-day Earth — so that takes a chunk of the work out (when compared to an entirely different world setting).

Once the rules are close to being as ‘set’ as they’re going to be, and the world info is better detailed, I’ll likely be posting a PDF copy of it all on here or somewhere — completely free, of course. (and waiting for criticism)

Looking to donate a bit of cash and wouldn’t mind some good incentive to do so? (as if donating wasn’t good enough incentive!) Drive Thru RPG (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?) has a $20 donation bundle on their site — lasting through the end of January.

In the bundle you’ll find over $1,000 worth of various tabletop RPG supplies and rule books — mostly from small/indie publishers. There’s a ton of great stuff in it that I’ve found so far, and all of it is worth looking it. With this much stuff it’s quite possible to find that one, certain ‘thing’ that just adds a real kick to your gaming.

It’s in open beta now and I guess I can talk a bit about it — I will say that I played it for a few days, but never got that far into it. I played enough to form a basic opinion though.

First up is the tutorial — it does a pretty decent job of explaining everything needed. You start out on the ‘ground’ — more like a space station but either way it covers the ground combat and movement first. This stuff is pretty simple and if you’ve played an MMO before it should be largely familiar. The exceptions would come with your away team, which adds several NPCs to your ‘team’ — largely dumb NPC pets, which at the time I played were not the best of help nor seemed intelligent. Also of some difference, you can equip your away team members with items much like any other character, and you have ‘kits’ that give special skills and such. It’s to help differentiate the ‘classes’ (of which there are three).

Once past the ground bit you find yourself in space, yay! If you’re familiar with Pirates of the Burning Sea then you should fairly similar with how space combat works here. You have a throttle which you can set and your ship moves, change directions using arrow keys, line up enemies based on how you want to hit them (torpedoes from the bow, phasers on the sides/back/front, etc) — their position around your ship determines which attacks you get to use (like PotBS). For those not too familiar with the mechanics, you essentially float around and change speed till you can get them, and try to keep them, on the side that lets you deal the most damage. If one side of your shields gets too low — turn around and put a different side to them, divert energy from speed/weapons to defense and such. You also have three officer slots (they also join your away team if you want) that you equip officers to — they have special abilities that you can activate to boost your spaceship. After you learn what to do it’s basically fly around and blow crap up. Then land on a planet.

After the space section you’re back on a planet and doing more ground work. This is something you’ll swap between — space and ground. If you don’t like one or the other… tough.

It’s pretty easy to write off this game, it is going to be niche. If you’re a Star Trek fan and want something Trekkie flavored — you’ll probably enjoy it for a bit. If you’re a die-hard WoW fan — you’ll probably be heralding its death all over gaming forums (for no apparent reason). And, if you’re just an MMO fan in general — you might want to wait to try it out, either through this open beta or some free trial down the line. The plain customization in the game is fairly good and something I liked (items for yourself, your away team and your ship — lots items and lots of possible combinations) but the missions seemed pretty repetitive and bland. Even after only doing so many. I will say that this might be a personal opinion tainted by too many missions in general (as concerns MMOs).

My Bottom Line: It’s not a terrible game, but it doesn’t exactly stand out and shine either.

Can’s say too much has happened lately on the computer game front — I have nearly (level 48 as of writing) maxed a character in City of Heroes. Finally, after having the game for some 6 years (coming up) I’ve got a character almost maxed… Without getting bored and going off to another game (AE PL type missions, those saved the game for me).

In other fronts, as the title depicts, I’ve been looking into RPGs on Google Wave more closely. Even beginning to create an RPG from scratch with a friend. We’ve got some 25 pages of material on mechanics and such written out by now, but it’s still very rough.

One question I have for anyone willing to answer: Would you consider a game, that has you entering combat situations knowing you likely have a 50-50 chance of dying, fun?

As for Google Wave and RPGs in general — there’s enough gadgets and bots to turn the program into a real Virtual Tabletop. It’s awesome.