Dreaded Deadline Doom

I’m really, really considering setting aside Regency/Gothic for a month and cranking out Bandits of El Camino Real for National Game Design Month.  It’s kind of cheating – Bandits… is intended as a fan supplement for Pirates of the Spanish Main not a game in its own right – but I’d really like to just get something done to prove to myself I can.  Plus, I miss swordfights.

It’s not that “Thornshire” is going badly, but it is turning into a pseudo-prequel to Rippers (just without the freaky body horror).  Enochian magic, secret societies, demons, vampires…  I like Rippers – I think it’s actually the best Plot-Point setting for Savage Worlds (PotSM doesn’t have a Plot Point campaign) – but I don’t want to repeat it.   So I’m really, really reconsidering going with my Arthurian Regency idea instead.  It would be a really unique hook, it would help emphasize the social and romantic aspects of the setting, and it would have more swordfights.  I’d just have to make sure things didn’t get as silly as they did with my King Arthur vs. Dracula campaign (less “Knights of Pendragon” and more The Enchanted Chocolate Pot).

Unfortunately, I need to make up my mind in a hurry.  The Kickstarter campaign for Robin D. Laws’ Hillfolk and the Drama System wrapped up yesterday and one of the “series pitches” that will be included is Vice and Virtue, a Jane Austen-inspired setting by Andrew Peregrine.  Crap!  I’m competing with the big boys!  Well, “competing” in that I am not at all competition for professional game designers.  Can I be honest?  I’m very curious about the Drama System (and almost backed it) but I really don’t think I’d like it.  What I’ve read of it just seems too different from how Robin and I game – plus the whole voting-to-determine-who-won-the-dramatic-scene thing makes it utterly useless for duet games – and I think my D&D Next Playtest group would rather roll dice and kill orcs.  Still, that means I need to get my Regency setting out there roundabouts April 2013.

Dammit, the only name I can think of for the Arthurian Regency concept is “Romance of the Regency.”  That sucks.