One of the things that narrative wargamers want is the ability to create their own characters so that they can develop their own storylines and rivalries. We want to encourage this sort of game play and engagement so a while back I had created and posted very basic character creation rules. A lot has transpired since then and it was time to update them to make the most of all the cards available to you now. While revisiting character creation I thought it was about time I added a point system to allow for the "matched play" that a lot of wargamers are used to. This is a very open system but it still creates a functional structure for gamers of all stripes. It is still in the playtesting stages so feedback is welcomed and encouraged! -Nick Creating Characters and Assembling a Crew Every Broken Contract Supplement comes with Characters to play, but you might want to create your own story lines, scenarios, and Characters. Creating your own Characters can be very rewarding...

Game Designer's Notebook is a series of articles discussing design decisions in progress. It's meant to discuss theory and intent, but also to get feedback on potential developments within the system. Let us know what you think here in the comments or on the  Broken Contract Playtesters Group . -Nick The most frequently asked question I had at AdeptiCon was, "where do you see the story going in the future?" and when probed most people were trying to find out "what other factions do you foresee?" This is a tricky question from a designer's perspective because we tend to have a multitude of ideas swimming in our heads but limited resources to carry them out. You don't want to finish running a demo, get someone interested in your fledgling game, and then prattle on about your ideas for "x", "y", or "z" faction and have them waiting until "z" faction comes out to get into your game, particularly when "z...

A page from my day planner - this week's page actually. This is going to be a new series of articles that details the process of game development. Sometimes it will focus on rules, but today we're going to talk about the process of developing a set of characters. Before I go too far into this I want to say that the notes above are going to change and we probably won't see the completion of these notes: from scribbled idea, to concept art, to sculpts, to finished product for about a year. The gears of development churn slowly. -Nick If you've sifted your way through either the Breaker or Prod sections of the blog (the Prods soon to be renamed Black Squadron) and clicked on the characters you will see they were all part of the "Assembling the Cast" series. For an example here is: Assembling the Cast: Test the Gen-Mod Brute . Trest - Breaker Gen-Mod When I started developing that first wave of characters I started with names and a basic archetype t...