More Forum Sales...and Assorted Updates

Just waiting for my turn to feed the baby...thought I'd paste up a quick post.

Guy over at Dragonsfoot got a copy of my book in the mail and is enjoying it so far. Good thing he ordered it prior to the negative posters telling him it was a waste of money! Got a couple new orders today, so that's neat-o.

Work on the new book progresses. I've got several regular Baranof players working on interior artwork (yes, they are officially committed...sorry, guys). I told Josh that if he'll finish one of his pictures I'll throw it up on Ye Old Blog as a teaser. I think that probably made him MORE self-conscious.

The writing's going well, but it's looking a lot bigger than I'd originally hoped/planned. This one was supposed to be shorter and cheaper than the B/X Companion...it IS just a book of goodies after all. However, the spell lists are only half done...well, more like two-fifths...and just by themselves, they're nine pages so far. That's a crap-load of text...and that's with writing spells that say, "this is just like the 3rd level cleric spell of the same name." Filler, right? But there's a ton of new spells, too...really cool ones (in my opinion) and none of 'em can

[all right feeding begun...AND complete]

NONE of 'em can get left on the cutting room floor. "Numerical completeness" and all that.

I like symmetry...what can I say?

The issue might be...just might mind you...the whole "completeness" notion. After all, these are characters with their spell lists set from levels 1 to 36...or from 1 to 9 in the case of the single demihuman caster class. After all, I don't want to have to do a "companion" book for this supplement.

But it sure is a lot of spells.

In fact, I should try to knock out a few more tonight before I turn in (yeah, right). I'll check back with y'all later...like tomorrow.

Hasta manana!

; )

Damn Forums

Tomorrow is going to be a killer day. I can tell already...once again up too late and just feeling...I don't know. Too tired to sleep.

Mi suegra just got in from Mexico tonight, so I was up talking to her a bit. Now I'm just cooking up some pacifiers. And reading the forums over at Dragonsfoot.

Dammit...I refuse to be sucked into them!

And yet they have so many interesting topics...blog posts for days! It's been a while since I was hot on forums (I prefer to prowl the blog-o-sphere for my sordid gratifications) so I don't really remember proper forum etiquette. Is it considered necromancy to post on a 2 week old thread? Man, they seem fairly active over there.

Of course, there's "active" and there's active. Topics seem a little scattered, though that appears to be due in part to MY favorite edition being lumped together with Holmes and BECMI and the RC, etc. Still, there are definitely some useful threads/food for thought.

The guys playing Basic without ability scores...wow, it's not often I hear something new that blows my mind (understand I think about this D&D stuff an awful lot), but it makes quite a bit of sense in light of my more recent musings (not posted here...sorry), about ability scores NOT needing to describe characters. Consider instead that they are simply random customizations of varying in-game effectiveness whose names are nothing more than a short-hand for the arenas of customization.

You grok what I'm saying? FOR EXAMPLE, "Strength" is a misleading term...it conjures to mind muscles and fitness and size and physique. What if instead we just called it:

"melee hit/damage bonus"

Then, all of a sudden it could represent a lot more than "just muscles." Maybe your character is just lucky when it comes to bashing people. Maybe you're super-fast and skilled in hand-to-hand. Maybe you've got a giant frigging hook where your left arm used to be and you've taught yourself to use it as a 2nd weapon, giving you a fat bonus when fighting in melee.

Who knows? It can be ANYTHING. Conversely, your character with a Strength of 5 may be incredibly muscled and fit...but be completely untrained and hopeless in a stand-up fight.

I really like the idea that ability scores describe nothing more than "in-game" effectiveness. It leaves so much more open to the imagination. Your character might be missing an eye and have a speech impediment but you rolled a high DEX and CHA...how do you explain that? Well, he's learned to COMPENSATE for his impairments. Just imagine how good he'd be if he had BOTH eyes! Likewise, the guy with the CHA of 3 may be incredibly suave, smooth-talking, and attractive, but something about him just rubs people the wrong way (he's too perfect) AND he has a tendency to pick terrible hirelings (what with their low-low-low Morale score).

Anyway, just some things to think about. I'm going to consider getting rid of ability scores in a future B/X game. Are they really necessary? Really?

Zzzzzzz....

Busy Morning

And I guess I'm not the only one as even Grognardia's weekly Friday query failed to go up this AM.

Me, well, had a doctor appointment, a dentist appointment, got locked out of my house (I thought...found my keys later), took the wife to work, and ended up down at Gary's explaining the differences between all the various editions of The Game (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons) to a gentleman interested in returning to the hobby after a 20-30 year hiatus, but not interested in taking the time to learn 4th edition.

Yeah, don't worry...by the time I was done with him he was ready to go back to AD&D 1e or possibly even B/X (don't know if totally I sold him on the race-as-class deal, but he certainly agreed with me that there are no such things as Hobbit thieves in Tolkien).

Of course, his main gripe was that the older editions just aren't available, even in digital form. Man he was steamed about that! But what could I do? I handed him a print copy of Labyrinth Lord and told him about OSRIC and completely killed the sale of the used 2nd edition books on the shelf (sorry, Tim!). Hopefully, he still bought some dice.

Now I'm FINALLY sitting down to my first cup of coffee (hash n' eggs at the Baranof) and I completely forgot to tell you the reason I was IN Gary's: showing off my first printed copy of the B/X Companion! Yes, they will totally buy a couple copies.

Yep, I spent two hours last night down at a certain late night printer whose name starts with "F;" apparently because they "F" you up the ass on their prices. I'm in email negotiation with a different printer who can hopefully do me a small print run for half the price, but I'm still probably looking at a couple weeks before I can start taking orders. Enough time to figure out to add a PayPal button to my blog (I hope!).

Yep, I am absolutely low budget right now (although I am NOT doing "pre-sales;" I've read a few nightmare scenarios on that and I sure don't want to over-promise what I can't deliver). Folks in the greater Seattle area and don't want to wait on mail order will be able to stop into Gary's...though, who knows...maybe I'll peddle it to a couple of other local game shops (I still have Fridays off, after all).

I don't think it'll be printed in time for Dragonflight XXXI in Bellevue, but maybe I'll put in an appearance with my own copy and show it off.

: )

Hope everyone else is having a good Friday. I'll throw up something more in a little while.

Provecho!

(that was to myself)