Well, November is packed with (writing/editing) work:
* Freelance editing project, at my day-job rate. * Starting DFRPG edit work Real Soon Now. [1] * Working on STotC at odd moments. [2] * UA PDF project progressing. [3] * Day-job editing of many, many 2 yr old DOCs. * Once again, pondering Hyperworld. [4]
I think that this weekend is the last anyone will see me in a social context until December.
NOTES: [1] That would be the Dresden Files RPG. [2] That would be the Strange Tales of the Century sourcebook. [3] That would be the Thin Black Line, the Order of Saint Cecil sourcebook. [4] That would be the revisiting of my "Hyperworld vs. the Invadroids" CiaB. . . and a backdoor new edition of T&J under the PDQ# rubric.
In the wake of the multi-year "mostly dead" status of Pen & Paper, and the looming demise of Geocities (where my other publications credits are listed), I have begun to try and assemble a decent CV of my work in the gaming industry over the past few days.
It's harder than I thought it would be (especially for an egotist like me!)... apparently I did not keep adequate track of ALL of the work or award nominations I received.
Still, I can say, with some assurance that, since 1998, I have worked on...
20 RPG books
and wrote
50 articles or columns.
. . .
Whoa.
Still assembling data; will let you all know when the credits page on the ASMP site goes live.
Short form: Had great conversations, played fun games, drank regional sodas (Cheerwine and Dr. Enuf FTW!), and made silly faces at well-behaved babies. An all-around win.
Otherwise, the long day-by-day breakdown behind the cut...
(Apologies ahead of time, I'm not going to try and get everyone's LJ username... but feel free to chime in with comments!)
WEDNESDAY macklinr flew into BWI in the evening; I picked him up; we swung by drivingblind's place -- it's on the way back -- to chew the fat a bit.
Much talk regarding games, girls, the gaming industry, and keeping your head on straight.
Good times.
THURSDAY Purchasing final bits of gear, packing, and puttering.
FRIDAY Drove down in the early afternoon. Freaking hot and humid. Registered, found my cabin, unpacked, said hellos, checked the schedule, explored the campsite.
Played my first game of 1000 Blank White Cards -- I really dug it. Then, later, a game of Misspent Youth, where our Youthful Offenders (YOs) ended up, uh, kinda worse than the Authority. Good times. (See my Overview of MS.)
Oh, and also kept Ryan awake all night with my snoring -- with an able ripsaw-assist from Buddha.
I need a new sleeping bag: my mummy bag only fits up to mid-torso: my chest and shoulders don't fit into the damned thing. Luckily, I had a blanket. And despite the heat of the days, the nights were cold and damp, even in the cabins. Note for next time!
SATURDAY Chatting in the morning, then playstormed nikotesla's game Xenon.
After lunch, took a long, solitary walk up to the deserted Camp A. Lots of solo thinkery on issues of current concern, while communing with nature in the Big Blue Room. Went back to my bunk and nap-crashed for an hour or two.
Learned how to play Jungle Speed, which I will be purchasing soon. Played JS until it was time for me to go and be an Oven Master (cook) for dinner.
Ran the stove for dinner: cooking soup, pasta, sauce, and a balsamic glazed chicken for around 55 people with Emily Care Boss, Epidiah Ravachol, and Joshua Riley.
Played MythEnder, and helped End the Migard Serpent! Boo-yeah! Gotta say, some of the other players' characters had some full-octane insanity that I was envious of... like "The Tongueless Last Emperor of Rome" as a Companion Weapon or the Drowned Pirate Captain who wants to "kill the ocean" demanding a terrified farmer tell her a children's story as a was to regain Mortality. Awesome. (See my Overview of ME.)
Late (around midnight), I ran a game of PDQ# Space Opera. We started with two facts:
#1. This is all Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers: swords and rayguns. #2. All of the planets have the names of elements from the Periodic Table.
As we worked through "setting the dials" and character creation, and then later in play, we added more facts to the setting. In almost exactly two hours, we went from nada to a setting described by 20 or so facts, four fully-statted PCs and 2 NPCs (a villain and an archvillain; the latter, alas, didn't show up in play), and three action-filled, entertaining, hilarious scenes -- complete with immediate adventure resolution and a cliffhanger!
I think PDQ# SpOp ("spop!") is going to be my minimal prep game to run at conventions. I'll type up my notes tonight and try to bash together some simple handouts and forms to fill out to facilitate even speedier play. Then I'll print out a bunch and slap them in a folder to put in my game bag.
SUNDAY Played a version of the game Fred describes as "the Grateful Dead concert of Indie Gaming" (I'll let him chime in on that when he gets a chance), Ganakagok in the morning, and it was great! Nine of us played the newish "jeepforged" version of the game. The best way I can describe it is that it's a structured, freeform, one-room LARP.
Ryan and I packed up, loaded the car, came back to the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky-y-y to eat something, take showers, and do laundry. Then I drove Ryan back up to Fred's so he could crash there before flying out today. Had a nice long discussion covering much ground, and also got the 411 on the "end of Season 1" D&D4e game I missed on Saturday.
Got home, ordered a pizza for the first time in two weeks, ate, watched Batman: Brave & the Bold (with Bat-Mite! How cool is that?), then did freelance editing into the wee hours. Then I crashed like the Hindenberg.
SUMMARY: Had oodles of fun. Will try to go again next year!
(I can only hope people link this on Monday; weekends usually have low readership, and holiday weekends even moreso.)
Let me give some context -- I ran two separate alpha playtests: "the Musketeers" and "the Pirates." The Musketeers ended up being a group of Crail Falons (involved in politics and finance), and the Pirates... well, they were piratical (involved with revenge and adventure).
I had grandiose plans: two halves of an over-arching story that would let me bring both local alpha groups together.
This never happened: both groups stalled (due to LIFE ISSUES) penultimately.
Dammit.
The Musketeers met up with Sigur, and saw the terror a Warmaster Griffin could wreak.
The Pirates met up with Livia, who had changed from NPC to PC (because a new player joined that game). Quickly, the PCs figured out that Livia Petro and "Imre Molnar" (sharrukin) had actually been each other's intended.
She fled, and he was enslaved, because of politics related to their arranged marriage.
Rock on.
Here's the thing: Sigur and Livia were designed NPCs. I more or less knew how they'd react in a situation.
Handing Livia over to Melanie CHANGED that.
In a GOOD way.
In the penultimate sessions of each group, the "Pirates" were establishing a new, complex Barathi Noble House. The "Musketeers" ended up on a skyship headed for Barathi, ready for mayhem and skullduggery.
We never ran the big double-group session. ALAS!
You wanna hear a secret?
Sigur and Livia are my S7S interpretations of Popeye and Olive Oyl.
Work Journal: Gamma draft of S7S chapter 7 is done.
No reply from any playtesters whether or not anyone can run a game using gamma chapters 5 and 6 over the next 2 to 4 weeks yet... which is a bit disconcerting.
I can make edits on the introduction and chapters 1 thru 4, but until 5/6 are locked down, can't redo the handouts or boil-down into PDQ#.
In any case, I'm taking tonight the next few days off before I move onto edits on the intro and 1 thru 4.
Work Journal: I am done with the "gamma draft" of Chapter 6 (Rules) of S7S; both it and Chapter 5 (Characters) have been uploaded to the playtest group.
I hope that at least a couple of the groups will be able to playtest the gamma rules over the next 2 to 4 weeks.
Now, I take a day or so off, before doing some polish and bibliography additions to Chapter 7 (General Swashbuckling Genre Stuff).
After that, I need to go and take my print-outs of the setting stuff -- Chapters 1 through 4 -- that are all marked-up with my edit/revs, as well as the comments of trusted folks.
When Chapters 1 through 7 are stable, I'll re-write Chapter 8 (Gamemastering).
Then, I'll strip-out setting-specific material and boil Chapters 5 and 6 down to basics, so I can publish the new PDQ# Core Rules freebie.
I'll also start thinking about the best way to create handouts, player-resources, and speedy demoes for the game.
There's more even after that, but that's enough for now.
Work Journal: * Transformed longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) into electronic form (+543 words; total = 945). * Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Backup" -- complete. * Transformed longhand notes on "Backup" into electronic form (+1032 words).
Work Journal: * Transformed longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) into electronic form (+543 words; total = 945). * Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Backup" -- complete. * Transformed longhand notes on "Backup" into electronic form (+1032 words).
downloading current versions of GB and WW for updating.
Work Journal: * Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) -- complete. * Generated 1 page of WttJ Matrix entries. [running total: 402 words.]
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