Major Website Advancement

This weekend I spent (in between preparing for Aikido Test on Sunday) working on the website. First, I had to find a new home for the Elthos Domain, which I settled on parking at Godaddy.com. Then I needed an ASP / SQL host site and settled on EDTHosting. Not too bad. Then, I wanted to change some stuff on the website itself. It *was* all html before, but now I've converted everypage over to Microsoft ASP.Net (2.0) so that I can use the MasterPages, which makes handling the look and feel of the whole website much easier. It took about four hours or so to do so. I then went through and spruced things up a bit to give it all a nicer look. I think it's come out quite nicely. Here's the link: Elthos Website

And yet more Elthos Creatures

Krangor the Fighter practicing

Morad the Eagle by a window

Krangor practicing Warding

Brukus the Ogre Guarding a Dungeon Doorway

More Elthos Creatures

Thralik the Ogre Guarding a Doorway

Rilkrok the Goblin on Guard duty

Lt. Deputy Pijoan Guarding a Doorway

Hrargar the Ogre at the cave entrance

Elthos Creatures

These are a few sketches of goblins, an Ogre and a mystical Snakeman from the Elthos World.

Tenik the Goblin guarding a doorway

Drellik and Kriknit, two Goblins, guarding a doorway

Horak the Ogre guarding a doorway

Thane Val Hakor III, Mystic Snakeman

Elthos ODS Rules - Finalized

As of today the Elthos ODS ("One Die System") Rules have been finalized, finally. That was a lot of work, I must say, for such a short set of rules! I started the ODS in February of 2006 in coordination with the Literary Role Playing Game Society of Westchester. Since we hold our meetings at a local pub I wanted a light weight system that would not require a lot of rules books and paraphernalia, and one where the math would be simple enough to do in our heads. Since the LRPGSW is focused on story-creation it seemed like it would be a good fit for our group so I got to work. After about a month I had the core system. The rest of the time has been spent analyzing, polishing, and researching, as well as building the super-deluxe Elthos ODS Web Application, which has another six months or more of polishing before it will be ready for production. But the Rules Book is complete and that's a very satisfying milestone for the project.

Yay! :)

Analysis Mr Spock?

Well, with some (substantial) rework and coercing I now have what I consider to be a premium quality excel analysis of my combat system. It compares two equiped fighters and/or mystics (spell chanters, or clerics), and shows the average number of melees it would take, on average, for one to defeat the other. I'm using this to calibrate the variables that make up the Elthos Rules configuration. These include such things as 'Sheild Damage Absorption', 'Starting Life and Mystic Points Bonuses', and so on. Modifying these variables effects the total results of the system which I can now review with mathematical percision. Using this I have now been able to fine tune the system so that two average (requisites) 1st Level Fighters with Leather and Shield, using Medium sized weapons (normal swords), take approximately 6 melees on average to do each other in. The same two fighters at 2nd level take 8 melees, and so on. I can swap out weapons and armors and change requisites in the combat analyzer and see the effects across levels as well. My next goal is to automate the comparisons so that I can then compare two groups of opponents and get the average melees for one group to defeat the other. That should not take long to build. That piece, however, will be part of the Web Application and should prove useful to me as the GM when I want to build scenarios and ensure that the difficulty levels are not out of alignment with the skill level of the adventure groups entering the adventure. Yay!

This is now starting to get past the drudgery part, and into the FUN part! Superior! :)

The Grand Analysis

I asked Evan Jones and David Kahn to conduct an analysis of the ODS system. They did so and provided me with materials that I am using to apply a thorough investigation of the ODS mathematical model.

Right now I am going over the materials to make sure that I have fully verified the accuracy of the formulas so that I can review the recommendations. It is a slow and difficult process, but well worth the effort.

My preliminary investigation appears to reveal that the ODS system is exactly what I expected, only moreso: Stark. Since the numbers are small (Attack Levels and Armor Classes for example being only 1 through 6) it is the case that the effect of small differences in the numbers produces large variations in the results.

For example, two average fighters who are one level apart show a significant difference in percent chance of success against one another. If the calculations are correct, which is still in question at the moment, then it appears that the 1st Level Fighter can expect to defeat the 2nd Level fighter in 24 Melees, while the second Level Fighter can expect to defeat the 1st Level Fighter in only 6 Melees. Thus, the chance of victory for the 2nd Level Fighter is significantly greater than the 1st. Is this difference adequate? Does it work so far as the game is concerned, from a playability perspective? This remains to be seen. I am running a wide variety of scenarios, comparing differences in levels, weapons, armor, flanking, classes and range attacks including magic and missile weapons. It's quite a lot of work, but I plan to automate the process so that once I have the root formulas it should not be too difficult after that. But of course deriving the formulas *is* the difficult part.

In any case I am quite pleased with the work and am continuing to make progress. However, in light of my findings I must reconsider the August deadline for the final first draft of the ODS Rules Book. Given the difficulties I've had in validating the formulas so far, I'm not sure that August 1st can be achieved. However, nevertheless I will try.

:)

Slogging & Bobbing Along

Well things are making progress steadily with the Elthos Project. I'm also, as it happens, taking Aikido and Wudan Boxing six days a week (most weeks). So that's going great too. I'm really loving it. As I learn more about the very esoteric yet superb and powerful martial arts of the body-mind, I'm slowly adding elements to the game from the fonts of ancient and modern Asian wisdom.

The ODS Rules are being Analyzed by my old friend, and game designer comrade-in-arms, Evan Jones. So that's extremely cool. Evan is a consumate analyst and game designer and player. Getting a review and analysis from him is just about as good as your going to get. And to my even greater good fortune he is being project managed by none other than David Kahn himself. And that, as it happens, is both fortunate, and probably quite necessary, as without David it is possible, and even not improbable, that I would be otherwise unable to get Evan to give me what I actually am asking for. David is good that way. And so between them I've recieved some very good feedback and advice. Right now Evan is working on some analysis concepts which we will add as excel sheets to the website.

That's another thing I want to do with Elthos, is provide some really cool analyses of the system and how it works. It should be really interesting overall when you step back and look at the totality of the project. It's definitely big. I would say that most people can not see it at once, but only one level or realm at a time. It really is a large project, actually, even though I started with the smallest most discretely finite piece, the "One Die System" Core Rules Book as a PDF. But the PDF is sitting on top of a veritable mountain of material, concepts and systems that I've developed over the past three decades.

There is, for example, the web application that supports the rules. There is also a much more complex version of the rules. And another client computer application that supports the larger rules. That program is much more sophisticated in ways than the ODS Web Application. It comes later.

Then there is the Cosmology System of the World Weaver's Guide. That's big even by it's lonesome.

And so on. There's a lot to it, but then again there should be by now. I've been chipping at this here stone for about 30 years and accumulating as I go. Which is, as things begin to come together, pretty great to step back and take note of.

So that's how things are going. Not bad. I am working toward having the ODS Rules ready for release hopefully by mid summer. If all goes well I should then be able to finish the application and hopefully have that ready for release by the winter.