I've just got the soft proofs from the printers.
I'm excited, excited, excited.
There's a random T there, which people are going to have to tell me if they're in the PDFs. I can check myself but I'm lazy.
Book printing soon!
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Saturday, October 1, 2011
[Need a Catchy Contest Name] - Webcomics!
I was recently at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) and I got to thinking. There was that whole kerfuffle in the community about licensed products and their viability and blah, blah, blah. Lot of people complaining about games and kind of missing the point.
Make games that you want to make, and play games that you want to play. By all means experiment and try new things, because doing nothing but the same thing rots your brain, but play what you like.
With that in mind, I had an idea. Why don't we see if we can do that. Pick a webcomic that you enjoy and try to turn it into a game. Find what makes the comic work and then try to turn that into a game. Any game fits. A card game, a board game, an RPG. Let your imagination fly.
Despite theutter failure success of the last contest, I think doing another one quickly is good. Keeps the creative juices flowing.
GIANT WARNING RIGHT HERE!
Just because you're doing stuff with a web-comic, doesn't mean that you have their permission. That means you can't use any of that artist's art, unless you have permission and at that point in time you'd probably just go ask if you can product the RPG/Card Game/Board Game for them anyway.
You don't have to go that far, but you can if you want. They key thing is to replicate the feel of the comic.
How do I enter?
1. Well, post here expressing your interest and what webcomic you're using as your inspiration.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.
Deadline
Well, this last contest went until September, how about we call this one for January 31st, 2012. That means you've got four months to get your stuff together and see what you can come up with.
Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.
The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?
Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.
I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.
That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.
Make games that you want to make, and play games that you want to play. By all means experiment and try new things, because doing nothing but the same thing rots your brain, but play what you like.
With that in mind, I had an idea. Why don't we see if we can do that. Pick a webcomic that you enjoy and try to turn it into a game. Find what makes the comic work and then try to turn that into a game. Any game fits. A card game, a board game, an RPG. Let your imagination fly.
Despite the
GIANT WARNING RIGHT HERE!
Just because you're doing stuff with a web-comic, doesn't mean that you have their permission. That means you can't use any of that artist's art, unless you have permission and at that point in time you'd probably just go ask if you can product the RPG/Card Game/Board Game for them anyway.
You don't have to go that far, but you can if you want. They key thing is to replicate the feel of the comic.
How do I enter?
1. Well, post here expressing your interest and what webcomic you're using as your inspiration.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.
Deadline
Well, this last contest went until September, how about we call this one for January 31st, 2012. That means you've got four months to get your stuff together and see what you can come up with.
Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.
The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?
Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.
I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.
That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Critical!: Go Westerly and hard copies of Geasa - Update
Hey Folks!
Quick update in regards to the book. So far, it's looking like December will be the release date for the book. If you're interested, we've got the amazingly talented Avery Liell-Kok doing all the art for the book. You can check out the link that is her name and it will take you to her portfolio site. I'm excited to see what she is going to produce for the game.
As for Geasa, I still haven't heard back from the printer. They were supposed to be on the line as of three weeks ago which I assume means that they're done. However, they haven't gotten back to me at all which makes me a tad nervous. I'll keep you all posted as to what's going on there. If this happens again I'm more than likely going to have to change printers for Critical!: Go Westerly.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them as quickly as I can.
Quick update in regards to the book. So far, it's looking like December will be the release date for the book. If you're interested, we've got the amazingly talented Avery Liell-Kok doing all the art for the book. You can check out the link that is her name and it will take you to her portfolio site. I'm excited to see what she is going to produce for the game.
As for Geasa, I still haven't heard back from the printer. They were supposed to be on the line as of three weeks ago which I assume means that they're done. However, they haven't gotten back to me at all which makes me a tad nervous. I'll keep you all posted as to what's going on there. If this happens again I'm more than likely going to have to change printers for Critical!: Go Westerly.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them as quickly as I can.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Dex Con 2011 - Everybody Loves the Funny
My second con in three weeks just happened, and it's Dex Con in Morristown New Jersey. It's one of the largest local cons in the North East for gaming (where I include Toronto and anything 8 hours away for me, your geography may vary). I love this convention for a variety of reasons. I've gone there now for I believe it's six years and I've gotten to know a lot of the people there very well. A lot of my best friends when it comes to gaming are there, and so my glasses are coloured by that.
It's also a place where a lot of the NE Indie designers show up to test their new games. The joke is that if a game survives Dex Con then it's good to go. Most of the games that I've made have been improved from the feedback that people are more than willing to give. It's a great place to make your game that much better. That being said, let's talk about the games I did run, or that were run.
Critical!: Go Westerly
Wow. This con was the con that really showed me that this is going to be a good book when it comes out. We had three games go off, there might have been four but the midnight to 4 am slot isn't one that I can do easily anymore, which I'm going to call a 100% success rate, which always surprises me.
We ran two instances of You All Meet in a Tavern, though Geoff ran them off on a different adventure than the one that was written, and there was a lot of good times had. I think the best part of the game I ran was Brennan, who was playing Marten, was quite gentlemanly and made sure that all the gold was split evenly between the party. I think much to the surprise of the other players, who then expressed their guilt over the fact that they did try to screw over Marten at various points in the game for gold. I was amused greatly.
Geoff told me about his game, and for me the best part was when the player realized that crawling through an earthen tunnel to get to an actual dungeon meant that they were on a dungeon crawl. The other best part was when they awoke the giant stone idol because the thief wanted to make it look like the victim they were rescuing had escaped.
Hoggart's Follow was one of those game where you had an idea of where you wanted it go to and the player end up going completely the opposite direction. I had wanted them to try to gather the pieces of the only map that was created of Hoggart's Castle, but instead it ended up as some sort of political intrigue game where the Guards and the Guides were busy fighting each other, so that the Maids (I had to try to come up with something funny, so I came up with Ninja Maids) had to find a way to defend the King and Queen from being attacked. That was the hope anyway, but it did end up turning a little more serious than I had intended which just proves that it's hard to be spontaneously funny all the time.
Ultimately there was a lot of interest in the game, which makes me anxious to get it out. I need to talk to the artistic folk and see if we can't get this done by the end of the year. It's really something I think will do well.
Geasa
I only ran one game of Geasa, because I made a mistake and they ended up duplicating the Critical! stuff rather than the Geasa stuff, but it was a lot of fun. We ended up telling a story of post-war London with a Streetkid who was looking for his parents, a pub owner who was a pillar of his community, a noble woman looking to get a better sense of the common folk and a constable that was still on the take for the remnants of the Axis.
The game ended with the Constable being run off after capturing the orphan Streetkid by the Pub Owner and his local mob. There were some great moments, Eric playing the Fae to the Noblewoman ended up making her obsessed with Stags even though he didn't spend a die. It's just another moment that shows you can do a lot as a Fae even if you don't have any dice.
Ultimately, I would call this a super successful con. It's given me that extra push to get Critical! done, which I may or may not be working on ... right now. I just hope I can get most of it updated and organized before Game Chef kicks in. Damned Shakespeare theme.
It's also a place where a lot of the NE Indie designers show up to test their new games. The joke is that if a game survives Dex Con then it's good to go. Most of the games that I've made have been improved from the feedback that people are more than willing to give. It's a great place to make your game that much better. That being said, let's talk about the games I did run, or that were run.
Critical!: Go Westerly
Wow. This con was the con that really showed me that this is going to be a good book when it comes out. We had three games go off, there might have been four but the midnight to 4 am slot isn't one that I can do easily anymore, which I'm going to call a 100% success rate, which always surprises me.
We ran two instances of You All Meet in a Tavern, though Geoff ran them off on a different adventure than the one that was written, and there was a lot of good times had. I think the best part of the game I ran was Brennan, who was playing Marten, was quite gentlemanly and made sure that all the gold was split evenly between the party. I think much to the surprise of the other players, who then expressed their guilt over the fact that they did try to screw over Marten at various points in the game for gold. I was amused greatly.
Geoff told me about his game, and for me the best part was when the player realized that crawling through an earthen tunnel to get to an actual dungeon meant that they were on a dungeon crawl. The other best part was when they awoke the giant stone idol because the thief wanted to make it look like the victim they were rescuing had escaped.
Hoggart's Follow was one of those game where you had an idea of where you wanted it go to and the player end up going completely the opposite direction. I had wanted them to try to gather the pieces of the only map that was created of Hoggart's Castle, but instead it ended up as some sort of political intrigue game where the Guards and the Guides were busy fighting each other, so that the Maids (I had to try to come up with something funny, so I came up with Ninja Maids) had to find a way to defend the King and Queen from being attacked. That was the hope anyway, but it did end up turning a little more serious than I had intended which just proves that it's hard to be spontaneously funny all the time.
Ultimately there was a lot of interest in the game, which makes me anxious to get it out. I need to talk to the artistic folk and see if we can't get this done by the end of the year. It's really something I think will do well.
Geasa
I only ran one game of Geasa, because I made a mistake and they ended up duplicating the Critical! stuff rather than the Geasa stuff, but it was a lot of fun. We ended up telling a story of post-war London with a Streetkid who was looking for his parents, a pub owner who was a pillar of his community, a noble woman looking to get a better sense of the common folk and a constable that was still on the take for the remnants of the Axis.
The game ended with the Constable being run off after capturing the orphan Streetkid by the Pub Owner and his local mob. There were some great moments, Eric playing the Fae to the Noblewoman ended up making her obsessed with Stags even though he didn't spend a die. It's just another moment that shows you can do a lot as a Fae even if you don't have any dice.
Ultimately, I would call this a super successful con. It's given me that extra push to get Critical! done, which I may or may not be working on ... right now. I just hope I can get most of it updated and organized before Game Chef kicks in. Damned Shakespeare theme.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Free RPG Day - Ode to Free RPGs and not just whatever was put out ...
Today was free RPG day and while I appreciate the sentiment I think that there's a lot of people who need to understand that it can be free RPG day every single day and not just when people feel that it's an opportunity to provide a marketing push for RPGs as a whole, though really only the ones that can afford to print a whole pile of free material in the hopes that you will pick up their books.
Where to begin? I guess the first thing is to try to see if you have a bias against free RPGs. I know I developed one over the years. I know when I was a teenager and this new-fangled internet thing was still new I used to look everywhere for free RPGs. I was but a youth and had no cash and this looked like it could be used to provide hours of entertainment.
Then I got a job and started being able to buy stuff and soon fell into the siren song of paid for RPGs. Clearly they have to be better than the free alternatives right?
That is not the case at all. In fact, I think there are some brilliant ideas coming out of Free RPGs that people really need to see.
How do I start?
Well there are a couple of good resources to go for Free RPGs. The first is Dr. Rob Lang's Free RPG Blog where he goes over and reviews a wide variety of Free RPGs.
There is also the Free RPG community over at 1km1kt.net where a lot of free games are hosted. There's also a forum where there is chatter by a pile of monkeys about games in general.
There is also an wiki that has a list of all the free games called the Year of Living Free by Sanglorian. Definitly worth a check out.
There are too many of them! I am paralized by choice!
Allow me to make some recommendations.
1. Lady Blackbird
A wonderful setting with quick game play, Lady Blackbird is one of the most popular free rpgs. It's also been hacked a lot, so if you know how to play this one you'll have an idea on how you can play the million or so renditions of others.
2. Metropole Luxury Coffin
A Cyberpunk Future where fashion is king, your face time is your currency and you all dream of finding a way to raise your status enough so that you can leave the Metropole Luxury Coffin Motel. It's a great game, with a great dynamic between the players and the world. It very much deserved to win the Cyberpunk Revival Project contest.
3. Action City
This is a great game if you want to play that Action Movie(tm) kind of game. Seriously, at the end of every major scene there needs to be an explosion of some kind, and it's hard wired in the rules. How do you go wrong with that!?
4. The Droog Family Songbook
What if you mashed up the Sound of Music with A Clockwork Orange? You would get the most amazing bit of music mixed with ultra violence. Protect your favourite things against the invading Nazi hoards in 1995 by relying on fate, or acts of ultra violence.
5. Geasa
Yes this is my own game, and the link is to the free version. If you want a co-operative and competitive storytelling experience then you want to play Geasa. The Free version contains all the rules, not just the ones that might give you a feeling for how the game plays, but all the rules are there. You can even modify them and print your own game since it's under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.
It's free! Check it out.
There you go. Five games to get you started. Anyone else want to suggest their favourite Free RPG?
Where to begin? I guess the first thing is to try to see if you have a bias against free RPGs. I know I developed one over the years. I know when I was a teenager and this new-fangled internet thing was still new I used to look everywhere for free RPGs. I was but a youth and had no cash and this looked like it could be used to provide hours of entertainment.
Then I got a job and started being able to buy stuff and soon fell into the siren song of paid for RPGs. Clearly they have to be better than the free alternatives right?
That is not the case at all. In fact, I think there are some brilliant ideas coming out of Free RPGs that people really need to see.
How do I start?
Well there are a couple of good resources to go for Free RPGs. The first is Dr. Rob Lang's Free RPG Blog where he goes over and reviews a wide variety of Free RPGs.
There is also the Free RPG community over at 1km1kt.net where a lot of free games are hosted. There's also a forum where there is chatter by a pile of monkeys about games in general.
There is also an wiki that has a list of all the free games called the Year of Living Free by Sanglorian. Definitly worth a check out.
There are too many of them! I am paralized by choice!
Allow me to make some recommendations.
1. Lady Blackbird
A wonderful setting with quick game play, Lady Blackbird is one of the most popular free rpgs. It's also been hacked a lot, so if you know how to play this one you'll have an idea on how you can play the million or so renditions of others.
2. Metropole Luxury Coffin
A Cyberpunk Future where fashion is king, your face time is your currency and you all dream of finding a way to raise your status enough so that you can leave the Metropole Luxury Coffin Motel. It's a great game, with a great dynamic between the players and the world. It very much deserved to win the Cyberpunk Revival Project contest.
3. Action City
This is a great game if you want to play that Action Movie(tm) kind of game. Seriously, at the end of every major scene there needs to be an explosion of some kind, and it's hard wired in the rules. How do you go wrong with that!?
4. The Droog Family Songbook
What if you mashed up the Sound of Music with A Clockwork Orange? You would get the most amazing bit of music mixed with ultra violence. Protect your favourite things against the invading Nazi hoards in 1995 by relying on fate, or acts of ultra violence.
5. Geasa
Yes this is my own game, and the link is to the free version. If you want a co-operative and competitive storytelling experience then you want to play Geasa. The Free version contains all the rules, not just the ones that might give you a feeling for how the game plays, but all the rules are there. You can even modify them and print your own game since it's under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.
It's free! Check it out.
There you go. Five games to get you started. Anyone else want to suggest their favourite Free RPG?
Friday, April 22, 2011
[Need Catchy Contest Name] - Brrr! It's Cold Sports!
There seems to be a large amount of contests that are going about the place. You've got Game Chef which should be starting up in a couple of months. You've got the Ronnies, which I still think is one of the most masturbatory titles in all of game publishing, which happen ... well whenever it seems. The key thing is that they get the creativity flowing and some really cool things happen from them. Heck, someone hijacked my almost empty lets tell a story thread to tell me that Fall of Granada was going to be turned into a real live book.
All this is cool.
However, what I see that is lacking is a sense of diversity. They all try to kind of do the same thing, here are some keywords and some stuff and here's your time frame and then we'll see what comes up. This is good, again there are plenty of cool games that come out of this. What I'm going to do is start my own contest, in honor of The New Toy selling The Licensed NHL Hockey Guys from Kaskey Kids. Let's see if someone can come up with a game, and I'm not going to limit it to RPGs, but a game that can take a sport and turn it into an RPG, Boardgame or Card game? That's right, I'm going that route. AMAZING.
Now, for the limitations. Because limits are what make things challenging.
1. It has to be a winter sport. By that I mean something that would get played at the Winter Olympics. Here is a handy, dandy list:
1. Alpine skiing
2. Biathlon
3. Bobsleigh
4. Cross-country skiing
5. Curling
6. Figure skating
7. Freestyle skiing
8. Ice hockey
9. Luge
10. Nordic combined
11. Short track speed skating
12. Skeleton
13. Ski jumping
14. Snowboarding
15. Speed skating
2. Mutant League XX - This is also inspired because I got the urge to do a version of Blood Bowl. That means there has to be some sort of mayhem attached to the game. Now I know someone is going to make a, "well I just have to do hockey normally then, don't I?" joke. That's fine, you can make the joke but I think it could do with some over the top violence there.
How do I enter?
1. Well, post here expressing your interest.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.
Deadline
I think this should give people plenty of time to think about it. Let's say September 31st because that's con season plus 1 month. I'm flexible on this, if you think it should be shorter, that's fine. If you want to submit early, that's fine.
Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.
The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?
Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.
I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.
That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.
All this is cool.
However, what I see that is lacking is a sense of diversity. They all try to kind of do the same thing, here are some keywords and some stuff and here's your time frame and then we'll see what comes up. This is good, again there are plenty of cool games that come out of this. What I'm going to do is start my own contest, in honor of The New Toy selling The Licensed NHL Hockey Guys from Kaskey Kids. Let's see if someone can come up with a game, and I'm not going to limit it to RPGs, but a game that can take a sport and turn it into an RPG, Boardgame or Card game? That's right, I'm going that route. AMAZING.
Now, for the limitations. Because limits are what make things challenging.
1. It has to be a winter sport. By that I mean something that would get played at the Winter Olympics. Here is a handy, dandy list:
1. Alpine skiing
2. Biathlon
3. Bobsleigh
4. Cross-country skiing
5. Curling
6. Figure skating
7. Freestyle skiing
8. Ice hockey
9. Luge
10. Nordic combined
11. Short track speed skating
12. Skeleton
13. Ski jumping
14. Snowboarding
15. Speed skating
2. Mutant League XX - This is also inspired because I got the urge to do a version of Blood Bowl. That means there has to be some sort of mayhem attached to the game. Now I know someone is going to make a, "well I just have to do hockey normally then, don't I?" joke. That's fine, you can make the joke but I think it could do with some over the top violence there.
How do I enter?
1. Well, post here expressing your interest.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.
Deadline
I think this should give people plenty of time to think about it. Let's say September 31st because that's con season plus 1 month. I'm flexible on this, if you think it should be shorter, that's fine. If you want to submit early, that's fine.
Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.
The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?
Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.
I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.
That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Dreamation 2011 - Critical! and Geasa
There's a convention that I like to go to, and it's Dreamation. I find a pile of wonderful people there who I love talking to as well as get to play with a pile of games. Some of them are even my own.
There were two games that we ran. The first one was Geasa, and I ran a lot of it since it's the new game that we're pushing, and the second one was Critical!: Go Westerly! We got a couple of interesting insights playing these games.
Geasa
I only had one game of Geasa go off, there were four scheduled.
Lesson One:
Try to produce more hype for the game. I was hoping to get at least two of them off because I want people to play the game. They need to play it, or at least hear about it to want to play it. Must bust out the marketing chops, which we all know that most writers suck at this part of the biz.
The game went off fairly well. We did a lot of exploring in France just before the revolution. This was funny to me because this was the second time that someone decided to do that and one time was in Hamilton so there is no way that they were able to collaborate on this. I should probably find a way to write up a setting book for this time period because apparently it's pretty popular. I think I'll blame Montseigneur 1499 for this.
Lesson Two:
Make sure that you schedule a break. Geasa is a pretty demanding game and the fact that people just kept going means that it broke down pretty quickly near the end. I think if I give people that 15 minute break between every two times the game goes around the table then it will refresh the mind and give people the chance to do what they need to do. Must remind myself about that for the next time I run the game.
I also need to sit down and give people a slightly better overview of what they can and can't do. They can tell what their characters are doing, they can define anything for an NPP but they can't tell things about the other players. That's stepping on toes and should probably be reigned in better. Anyway, I think it went well and hope people enjoyed the game.
Critical!:* Go Westerly
Wow. This game went off so much better than I thought it would. Not that I thought it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be this much fun. The players really did have a good time with the characters and it was silly, but at no point in time did it because goofy, and that's my biggest worry. I don't want this game to be thought of as some sort of equivalent of Munchkin: The RPG or something like that. It needs to be able to stand on it's own funny.
Here were some lines during the game carefully written down by Geoff Bottone, who is one half of the creative team on this. They are listed by character, not by player.
Mary the Wench
Urist Axebeard, Tall Dwarf
Barnabas Ramsey, Wizard
Daffodianna, the Very Nice Bard
Angelique Doto, Quillsman
Marten Iij, Priest of the Thief
Stelph the Elf
What I got to do!
I got to play with Brennan and Amber with a couple of Brennan's games. I got to play Three Black Crows, Three Dead Men and Sparks from the Fire both games that Brennan did for various contests. They were both an amazing good time. Amber and I both agreed that had we not been so exhausted we probably would have had even more fun, which is amazing when you consider the fact that we had a great time. It seriously was one of the big highlights and I recommend that you pick up Three Crows and check out the rest of the games from Galileo Games. Seriously good times there.
Also, Brennan has a bag of awesome. It's making me want to scour through ebay to find something similar. It was just too amazing.
All in all it was a great con. I can't do anything but recommend any of the dexposure cons if you can make it. Not only are they a great and good time, you'll get to see and play a bunch of games with some amazingly awesome people.
I was just disappointed that my games conflicted with my chance of being a Cosmic Roadie!
There were two games that we ran. The first one was Geasa, and I ran a lot of it since it's the new game that we're pushing, and the second one was Critical!: Go Westerly! We got a couple of interesting insights playing these games.
Geasa
I only had one game of Geasa go off, there were four scheduled.
Lesson One:
Try to produce more hype for the game. I was hoping to get at least two of them off because I want people to play the game. They need to play it, or at least hear about it to want to play it. Must bust out the marketing chops, which we all know that most writers suck at this part of the biz.
The game went off fairly well. We did a lot of exploring in France just before the revolution. This was funny to me because this was the second time that someone decided to do that and one time was in Hamilton so there is no way that they were able to collaborate on this. I should probably find a way to write up a setting book for this time period because apparently it's pretty popular. I think I'll blame Montseigneur 1499 for this.
Lesson Two:
Make sure that you schedule a break. Geasa is a pretty demanding game and the fact that people just kept going means that it broke down pretty quickly near the end. I think if I give people that 15 minute break between every two times the game goes around the table then it will refresh the mind and give people the chance to do what they need to do. Must remind myself about that for the next time I run the game.
I also need to sit down and give people a slightly better overview of what they can and can't do. They can tell what their characters are doing, they can define anything for an NPP but they can't tell things about the other players. That's stepping on toes and should probably be reigned in better. Anyway, I think it went well and hope people enjoyed the game.
Critical!:* Go Westerly
Wow. This game went off so much better than I thought it would. Not that I thought it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be this much fun. The players really did have a good time with the characters and it was silly, but at no point in time did it because goofy, and that's my biggest worry. I don't want this game to be thought of as some sort of equivalent of Munchkin: The RPG or something like that. It needs to be able to stand on it's own funny.
Here were some lines during the game carefully written down by Geoff Bottone, who is one half of the creative team on this. They are listed by character, not by player.
Mary the Wench
As a duly-authorized employee of the tavern, offering to sell the tavern's provisions to the hungry Kobolds for gold. Thereby ending the battle with the kobolds with her unusually high common sense. Also, frequently using her common sense to help others.
Urist Axebeard, Tall Dwarf
When confronted with flying fairies: I can't reach them with my axe? Can I throw it at them? I really don't like fairies.
Urist: Wait, there's a plaque on this wall. And it says, "Perend Adventure Tours Dungeon Complex, Room A5? That...doesn't make any sense."
Urist: What's my name? You don't really care, do you? You'll just call me, "dwarf," anyway, so whatever name you give me is fine.
Mabel: Oh, excellent! You shall be known as El Tallface!
Barnabas Ramsey, Wizard
Discovering, through discourse with a kobold that he had captured, that the kobold was both a) very intelligent and b) a licensed therapist. Then the two of them proceeded to have a very nice conversation as they headed to the kobold lair (pronounced "lay-er" by the kobolds), where they found the others mired in traps and negotiations.
Taking out the entire group of anarcho-punk fairies by shouting, "this is ridiculous! We live in a feudal society! You can't tell me that you've just come up with this extremely advanced, modern, political system on your own in what is, essentially a vacuum! I don't believe it! I just don't believe in these fairies!"
This lead to the fairies keeling over and dying, because someone didn't believe in them. Everyone else was very careful not to clap.
This entire exchange with Aelae the Necromancer. It's paraphrased. The actual exchange was even more awesome.
Barnabas: You may be evil, but you don't have to be a jerk!
Aelae: Sure I do, it's in the contract.
Barnabas: You have a contract to be evil?
Aelae: Yes! I graduated from the Wizardry with a major in Necromancy and a contract that says that I get to be a jerk whenever I want!
Barnabas: Really? You're a graduate of the Wizardry? Me too. But I was valedictorian!
Aelae: So was I.
Barnabas: Oh.
Aelae: Incidentally, if you're a graduate of the Wizardry, what are you doing slumming it in this dungeon with these idiots? Shouldn't you be teaching classes?
Barnabas: I don't...have...a graduate degree...Um...Can you write me a letter of recommendation, maybe?
Barnabas: "I know, I'll summon a fire elemental. That should solve the problem. This is a dungeon, nothing in here should catch on fire."
Mary: "What about the wooden kiosks outside?"
Barnabas: "Fire elementals don't buy things."
Daffodianna, the Very Nice Bard
Played by, possibly, the nicest person at the table. She was quiet and sweet, and played songs that gave everyone bonuses virtually all the time. She also conjured an impressive goblin-repelling force bubble out of song. And, was responsible for this little exchange.
Player: Okay, now that combat's over, I'm trying to do (something not combat-related, I forget what it was). Do I still get the Bard's song bonus?
Daffodianna: No. I don't play music when combat's over. There's no point. It's just not exciting.
Angelique Doto, Quillsman
Bartender: Okay, you're standing at the end of the stairs. The basement floor has collapsed out from beneath you and you see the remains of the basement, about twenty feet down, in another cavern.
Angelique: I jump down! Hoorah!
Things like the following happened all the time, but this was by far the coolest example of Angelique. Who had no weapons or armor of any kind.
The players fight two skeletons. Urist kills one. Angelique says.
Angelique: I do a leaping dive roll, grab the skull of the skeleton that Urist just killed, and throw it really hard at the other skeleton. Success!
Bartender: Okay, you hit the skull with the skull in the back of the...skull...The other skeleton crumbles. It looked awesome, by the way.
Marten Iij, Priest of the Thief
Marten: "I'm not going hunting for kobolds. All we're going to do is run into traps."
Marten (upon seeing a woman trapped in a heavily trapped room with whirling death blades and the like): Ma'am, is it all right if I try to steal from you? (He knew that if he was robbing her, his chance to succeed would be higher).
Stelph the Elf
Stelph's constant running patter about how he was better than everyone else (in both incarnations) was just hilarious. And then there was this:
Bartender: The undead are pouring through this tunnel, which looks like it's been hastily dug. Roots from trees on the surface protrude through the ceiling in a lot of places.
Stelph: I use my nature-based magic to convince the trees to attack the tunnel, because I am a Defender of the Forest. I fail. Oh, nature, why have you foresaken me.
And this:
Bartender: The elf introduces herself to you as Tulip. She flicks her blue hair absentmindedly, stares at the floor, and says, "heeey." (this was me, channeling Ke$ha, though Stelph doesn't have a beard).
Stelph: Heeey. I'm two hundred.
Bartender: "I'm 198."
Stelph: Oh. Really? Well, huh.
What I got to do!
I got to play with Brennan and Amber with a couple of Brennan's games. I got to play Three Black Crows, Three Dead Men and Sparks from the Fire both games that Brennan did for various contests. They were both an amazing good time. Amber and I both agreed that had we not been so exhausted we probably would have had even more fun, which is amazing when you consider the fact that we had a great time. It seriously was one of the big highlights and I recommend that you pick up Three Crows and check out the rest of the games from Galileo Games. Seriously good times there.
Also, Brennan has a bag of awesome. It's making me want to scour through ebay to find something similar. It was just too amazing.
All in all it was a great con. I can't do anything but recommend any of the dexposure cons if you can make it. Not only are they a great and good time, you'll get to see and play a bunch of games with some amazingly awesome people.
I was just disappointed that my games conflicted with my chance of being a Cosmic Roadie!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Which comes first, the Setting or the Rules
So I did a little bit of an unscientific poll on Facebook and Twitter yesterday. The question was, what should come first the Setting or the System.
Now, I should clarify this question as what should come first in the book. Would you rather read the Setting first or the System first. I got 17 People who said "Setting," 2 People who said "System" and 5 people who said, "Get it together asshole, find a way to merge the two."
My personal preference goes to Setting first rather than rules. It's one of the reasons why I like the Shadowrun books a lot. I like reading them because the Setting inspires me to figure out nasty, horrible things to do to the players while rules just tell me how it's possible to do nasty horrible things to the players. I tend to feel that I have a pretty good grasp of how, it's the what that needs to be inspired.
How does this apply to what I'm doing? Well I've got two projects currently on the go. The first is the next edition of CyberGeneration (which we're lovingly calling Evolution 3.0) and the other is a fantasy game I'm working on with Geoff Bottone of Slug Fest Games called Critical!: Go Westerly, which I might have talked about once or twice on this blog. Figuring out how we're going to lay out the book is a big deal, because as Adam Jury has complained about frequently you need to know these things before you really get too far in the writing part of the book.
Planning, planning, planning, or something like that. Measure twice and cut a million times because I suck with tools.
One of those expressions.
So with Critical!: Go Westerly we're stuck with introducing a new world to people. What I want to do with this world is actually start writing books and stories using it, because I think it's that entertaining a place. That means I think we need to showcase the world and put it front and centre. I want people to be amused by it, and want to dive into the various places and build their own stories. I want to make it a CC license so that people can write stories, and it's okay for them to write stories. I think it would be a lot of fun. That the pipe dream there.
Pipe dream? Possibly, but I think it's doable. So there.
With CyberGen what I did like about the 2.0 book was that character creation was built right into the book as an adventure. You didn't need any of the stats to start the game and it threw you into conflict right away, running from CorpSec and throwing all the juves together in the same spot. It was a lot of fun. The thing is, I want to try something different with 3.0. I want the characters the have a life before it gets ripped away from them. Make them feel more connected to the world rather than just starting on the run. I mean, it was great and it makes for an awesome con game but it always seemed to drag for me when it came time to transition to a campaign.
However, much like other games where you have a heavy metaplot setting (Looking at Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Mechwarrior) you need to make sure that people feel engaged in your setting. That they want to invest their time there.
I think that's why the Setting comes before the rules if you can't find a way to integrate the two of them. It is a way to get people engrossed in what your doing in a way that numbers generally don't.
Now, I should clarify this question as what should come first in the book. Would you rather read the Setting first or the System first. I got 17 People who said "Setting," 2 People who said "System" and 5 people who said, "Get it together asshole, find a way to merge the two."
My personal preference goes to Setting first rather than rules. It's one of the reasons why I like the Shadowrun books a lot. I like reading them because the Setting inspires me to figure out nasty, horrible things to do to the players while rules just tell me how it's possible to do nasty horrible things to the players. I tend to feel that I have a pretty good grasp of how, it's the what that needs to be inspired.
How does this apply to what I'm doing? Well I've got two projects currently on the go. The first is the next edition of CyberGeneration (which we're lovingly calling Evolution 3.0) and the other is a fantasy game I'm working on with Geoff Bottone of Slug Fest Games called Critical!: Go Westerly, which I might have talked about once or twice on this blog. Figuring out how we're going to lay out the book is a big deal, because as Adam Jury has complained about frequently you need to know these things before you really get too far in the writing part of the book.
Planning, planning, planning, or something like that. Measure twice and cut a million times because I suck with tools.
One of those expressions.
So with Critical!: Go Westerly we're stuck with introducing a new world to people. What I want to do with this world is actually start writing books and stories using it, because I think it's that entertaining a place. That means I think we need to showcase the world and put it front and centre. I want people to be amused by it, and want to dive into the various places and build their own stories. I want to make it a CC license so that people can write stories, and it's okay for them to write stories. I think it would be a lot of fun. That the pipe dream there.
Pipe dream? Possibly, but I think it's doable. So there.
With CyberGen what I did like about the 2.0 book was that character creation was built right into the book as an adventure. You didn't need any of the stats to start the game and it threw you into conflict right away, running from CorpSec and throwing all the juves together in the same spot. It was a lot of fun. The thing is, I want to try something different with 3.0. I want the characters the have a life before it gets ripped away from them. Make them feel more connected to the world rather than just starting on the run. I mean, it was great and it makes for an awesome con game but it always seemed to drag for me when it came time to transition to a campaign.
However, much like other games where you have a heavy metaplot setting (Looking at Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Mechwarrior) you need to make sure that people feel engaged in your setting. That they want to invest their time there.
I think that's why the Setting comes before the rules if you can't find a way to integrate the two of them. It is a way to get people engrossed in what your doing in a way that numbers generally don't.
Friday, January 14, 2011
TL;DR version of a response to Steven Long's IPR post
I was going to write a long post about Steven Long's post over at IPR. It was going to be filled with quote things and stuff like that, but in the end I think I could boil it down to the tl;dr version.
Who cares? Makes games you want to play and have fun with it. Now I go write my own IP and pine for a Veronica Mars RPG.
Look at that. 120 characters.
Who cares? Makes games you want to play and have fun with it. Now I go write my own IP and pine for a Veronica Mars RPG.
Look at that. 120 characters.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Geasa The First Week - What I've learned
It's been a little over a week that Geasa has been on the market.
The sales have been surprising for me. Mainly because when we put out Mile High Dragon to say that it was met with very little fanfare, or anything remotely considered to be a single ticker tape made me uncertain as to what might happen.
Well, Geasa was a very pleasant surprise. For the first week, the sales at Drivethru have been pretty good. We've got 18 total sold of the full book and 23 total downloaded (from review copies, that means 5 people who are on the drivethru review list have it. We'll see where it goes from there).
What's doubly surprising is the amount of people who downloaded the free version of the game. The free version has gotten 337 total downloads. These are numbers that I certainly couldn't have dreamed to match with any product ever. That's a lot, and if I can convert even a 1% of these people, that's 3 sales I wouldn't have gotten without a free product. Hell, maybe someone will take the rules and make their own game with it. I'm already trying to think of how to do that with a game called Teenage Wasteland. I'll jot some ideas down, but that game is going to have to wait until I'm done with CyberGen 3.0.
This also tells me that .pdfs are doing fine and dandy thank you very much. I barely cracked the top 10 of the "sales of the month" category before I dropped quickly out of those rankings to be replaced by others. However, when that happens with only 16 sales, you know that there is a lot of people buying electronic formats to the games.
Also, it blows my mind that people would put any type of DRM on their electronic documents. Quick, I want people to be able to access the game as quickly as possible, let's put something that will slow them from enjoying the product. BRILLIANT IDEA!
The sales have been surprising for me. Mainly because when we put out Mile High Dragon to say that it was met with very little fanfare, or anything remotely considered to be a single ticker tape made me uncertain as to what might happen.
Well, Geasa was a very pleasant surprise. For the first week, the sales at Drivethru have been pretty good. We've got 18 total sold of the full book and 23 total downloaded (from review copies, that means 5 people who are on the drivethru review list have it. We'll see where it goes from there).
What's doubly surprising is the amount of people who downloaded the free version of the game. The free version has gotten 337 total downloads. These are numbers that I certainly couldn't have dreamed to match with any product ever. That's a lot, and if I can convert even a 1% of these people, that's 3 sales I wouldn't have gotten without a free product. Hell, maybe someone will take the rules and make their own game with it. I'm already trying to think of how to do that with a game called Teenage Wasteland. I'll jot some ideas down, but that game is going to have to wait until I'm done with CyberGen 3.0.
This also tells me that .pdfs are doing fine and dandy thank you very much. I barely cracked the top 10 of the "sales of the month" category before I dropped quickly out of those rankings to be replaced by others. However, when that happens with only 16 sales, you know that there is a lot of people buying electronic formats to the games.
Also, it blows my mind that people would put any type of DRM on their electronic documents. Quick, I want people to be able to access the game as quickly as possible, let's put something that will slow them from enjoying the product. BRILLIANT IDEA!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
eBooks and the like
I don't know if you know Adam Jury but I would recommend that you check him out either on his blog or on twitter. I mention him because he's talking a lot about ebooks. Not PDFs, but ebooks. The things that can be read in electronic readers.
Now, I don't doubt that it's totally possible that they will set it up so that .pdfs can be read in e-readers, but there's also this possibility that it won't. Technology is a fickle entity and sometimes it goes in directions that you don't expect it to because of the technology that's already there.
With that in mind, I'm going to start trying to convert all the books that I am going to be printing into .epub format. I'll have to do the research to figure out how much to charge for these formats, but I figure that making a book easier to be purchased can't be a bad thing.
I'm going to start testing it out with Mile High Dragon, but Geasa will be the first released book that's in .epub format as well.
See Adam, all your tweeting has gotten to someone.
Now, I don't doubt that it's totally possible that they will set it up so that .pdfs can be read in e-readers, but there's also this possibility that it won't. Technology is a fickle entity and sometimes it goes in directions that you don't expect it to because of the technology that's already there.
With that in mind, I'm going to start trying to convert all the books that I am going to be printing into .epub format. I'll have to do the research to figure out how much to charge for these formats, but I figure that making a book easier to be purchased can't be a bad thing.
I'm going to start testing it out with Mile High Dragon, but Geasa will be the first released book that's in .epub format as well.
See Adam, all your tweeting has gotten to someone.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
ISBNs in Canada vs US - The Good, the Better and the Funny
I don't frequently do informative posts about printing in general. I've only really done two books and one PDF, so I'm not all that comfortable with talking about "my vast knowledge" because I don't really have any. What happened is that I accidentally came across someone's blog, it was a locked blog but one of the few unlocked entries that wasn't a pile of tweets was the entry on how they're putting a book together. There was a lot of things there that were pretty standard information, but I think I'd like to set the record straight on ISBNs and what you need to do with them when you're in Canada.
What I'm going to talk about, is the ISBN. What an ISBN is, for those who don't know, is an International Standard Book Number. That means with this number, your book is unique and can be found out of all the bajillion books that are printed annually with just that number. It used to have 9 digits when it started, it had 10 digits for a while but then it got itself 13 so that it can match Bookland EAN-13s. Basically we were running out of numbers so we had to change it to make them have more. It's like switching from ESNs to MEIDs in mobile technology. There's just more possible numbers when you've got 13 Hex numbers over 10 decimal ones.
You can learn a lot about where a book is by just looking at the ISBN. It's got the group identifier (language), the publisher code and the item number. The number at the end is just the check digit, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's a math equation that they use to figure it out, but the key thing you need to know is that it doesn't have any information in and of itself.
If you want more information on ISBNs you can check it out yourself. It is the internet. What I really want to talk about is the difference between getting an ISBN in Canada and getting an ISBN in the states. In the US you need to go through the following website, www.isbn.org, in order to get information on them. Then when you're ready to get one you go over to their other site to get them. The good news is that it's cheaper than when I looked at it, the problem is that for 10 numbers it's still 250$. That's 25$ an ISBN. It gets cheaper the more you buy, but as an independent publisher I can't afford to plunk down 1k to get 1k ISBNs because I probably will never use them all.
Check that, I will definitely never use them all.
Now, when I first started with Researching Medicine I needed to get one and I really was disappointed with it. I mean it was a lot of money to put down at once, at the time, and I was kind of shocked. Another expense that surprised me. Then, I did a little more digging. In Canada, we've got the Library and Archives of Canada that manage all ISBNs for Canadian Publishers. They do a lot of other things too, but the key thing is that they hand out ISBNs to Canadian publishers.
The best part of that, they're 100% free. That's right. I don't have to pay a cent to get an ISBN. The only thing they want is what's called a legal deposit. That means that they want two copies of a book to be mailed to them. If you make a game, like we do here, you don't need to send anything at all. I know because I sent two copies of Suitors and they sent it back to me. Next time I'm going to send a note that they can keep them rather than send them back. ^_^
They're also really nice, personable and friendly. The first time I got an ISBN I spent about thirty minutes on the phone with one of the women who worked there and had a great conversation. She explained that sometimes they get publishers in the states that try to call them to get Canadian ISBN numbers and they play with them because we do have caller ID up here and they do have a good idea what's a Canadian area code and what isn't.
It's something that makes me rather proud to be Canadian, there are less and less of these moments as time goes by, but we understand that identification shouldn't be something that you have to pay for.
What I'm going to talk about, is the ISBN. What an ISBN is, for those who don't know, is an International Standard Book Number. That means with this number, your book is unique and can be found out of all the bajillion books that are printed annually with just that number. It used to have 9 digits when it started, it had 10 digits for a while but then it got itself 13 so that it can match Bookland EAN-13s. Basically we were running out of numbers so we had to change it to make them have more. It's like switching from ESNs to MEIDs in mobile technology. There's just more possible numbers when you've got 13 Hex numbers over 10 decimal ones.
You can learn a lot about where a book is by just looking at the ISBN. It's got the group identifier (language), the publisher code and the item number. The number at the end is just the check digit, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's a math equation that they use to figure it out, but the key thing you need to know is that it doesn't have any information in and of itself.
If you want more information on ISBNs you can check it out yourself. It is the internet. What I really want to talk about is the difference between getting an ISBN in Canada and getting an ISBN in the states. In the US you need to go through the following website, www.isbn.org, in order to get information on them. Then when you're ready to get one you go over to their other site to get them. The good news is that it's cheaper than when I looked at it, the problem is that for 10 numbers it's still 250$. That's 25$ an ISBN. It gets cheaper the more you buy, but as an independent publisher I can't afford to plunk down 1k to get 1k ISBNs because I probably will never use them all.
Check that, I will definitely never use them all.
Now, when I first started with Researching Medicine I needed to get one and I really was disappointed with it. I mean it was a lot of money to put down at once, at the time, and I was kind of shocked. Another expense that surprised me. Then, I did a little more digging. In Canada, we've got the Library and Archives of Canada that manage all ISBNs for Canadian Publishers. They do a lot of other things too, but the key thing is that they hand out ISBNs to Canadian publishers.
The best part of that, they're 100% free. That's right. I don't have to pay a cent to get an ISBN. The only thing they want is what's called a legal deposit. That means that they want two copies of a book to be mailed to them. If you make a game, like we do here, you don't need to send anything at all. I know because I sent two copies of Suitors and they sent it back to me. Next time I'm going to send a note that they can keep them rather than send them back. ^_^
They're also really nice, personable and friendly. The first time I got an ISBN I spent about thirty minutes on the phone with one of the women who worked there and had a great conversation. She explained that sometimes they get publishers in the states that try to call them to get Canadian ISBN numbers and they play with them because we do have caller ID up here and they do have a good idea what's a Canadian area code and what isn't.
It's something that makes me rather proud to be Canadian, there are less and less of these moments as time goes by, but we understand that identification shouldn't be something that you have to pay for.
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