Modern Sagas Development Log Entry 8: New Tactics
Posted by: Ruel Knudson in Developer Blog, Modern Sagas Development LogI progress on towards being finnished. I see an end. It is not nearly close enough, but I can see it.
I find it surprising to see how quickly the momentum takes on a life of its own. The often horrible monotony of grinding through chapters like the equipment chapter open up fun new things in other chapters for me. I don’t go too far into a tangent though. That is always dangerous. Instead, I dabble my notes and thoughts into a quick doc for later. I add a title like “Tactics_Dynamic Entry”. This helps me place the ideas into further sections.
However, sometimes these tangets beg for some definition. After all, the reason they were jotted into a note file was so I don’t forget that this needs inclusion. So I develop it roughly. This means that I do fully realise the rules, within a certain scope, but do not worry about how the rule is presented. It is only necessary that I understand how it works at this point. This way, I can add my outline for this new concept and begin it properly with strong expectations that I do this in a way that anyone can understand it.
This week’s tanget was about the same said dynamic entry. For those of you unfamiliar with close quarters combat tactics this is what you see on t.v. and movies where groups like a SWAT team storm into a room shouting. People crash through windows and mayham insues. You here the various officers shouting “Get Down! On your Knees! Hands in the Air!” as well as the all too familiar “This is the Police!”.
The tactic, all the shouting, wild fast movement, coming at you from every possible angle, is a well designed tactic meant to cause confusion and to stun the targets inside. Of course, tear gas, breaching charges, stun grenades, etc. are also used. Surprisingly this is tactic is highly effective with or without these instruments. My tangent was to show how to use the rules in the game to reflect dynamic entry.
So I go to my consultants. I point out how I intend to reflect this in an RPG. I explain, and explain, and they offer suggestions, and I revise. This is two-fold. Not only do I want the feedback from those who have done this, but I also want to know if where am I explaining things properly. All this helps for the final inclusion.
There it is now, safely tucked away for the combat chapter (which is the next chapter and should start up this weekend I think). It is my hope that this chapter will really show off some really cool things with the E-RPG system. Personally, I can’t wait to get the combat chapter to the paly testers and see what they think about these tactics and how they work.
This is going to be fun!
