Slow boat to China

“Whatsoever you have heard of foxes, whatever you wish to believe, remember at least this: We are the brushes of the world. We are the paint and the canvas. We are the artists; we are the art.”

Hello Faithful Readers,

Feeling inspired to put a short post up. Something about the feeling that all writers and artist's get.  Call it writer's block, being uninspired, being overcritical, etc. all creators feel they lack worth at some point. Creating, much like pimping, is not easy. It is even harder to take something that is created, and then polish it into something good.  Not bearing any artistic skill in making drawings or paintings, I am perpetually amazed when my artists do such incredible work. They kind of brush it off, or point out flaws that I would never have noticed or paid any attention to.   I do the same thing with my writing, especially since so many things have come up that prevent me from polishing it up correctly. I look over something, and I CRINGE.  I shake and shudder, I look at the reference style writing and say, blecch.  I tweak it, I look over it, I tweak it again. Sometimes I feel ok with it. Sometimes I feel it is good enough, and I'll have to let one of the editors make it better.  Every so often, I look over something and go wow, I wrote that?  Usually this is with more of my expository writing, or when I'm allowed to be less formal and worry less about least common denominators and taming my erratic thought process. The quote above is an example of something that I wrote, something that I was pleased with. Hopefully, as I start to work on the world of Cyrus, I can bring a lot more of this A-Game to the table.

Be Seeing You.

Hello Faithful Readers,

Gary Gygax passed away today, I don't think I'll get much work done on Silvervine. I'm not the type to usually be affected by the death of someone I don't know, but this is Gygax. I blanked out Silvervine Games homepage to be just information about Gygax's passing. You can find more information here:


Something I posted on my other blog seems kind of apropos

"scholars are highest in understanding
pennyless, they write priceless words. "

Hello Faithful Readers,

There has been a great leap forward in finishing the main core rulebook lately. Mostly we have nailed down what I think is going to be the final order of chapters. After looking at some outside reviews, and devoting some time to looking at book flow solely, we've come up with what we think is going to be our final order of chapters.

Chapter List
 
CHAPTER 1 -( Introduction, Example of Play)

CHAPTER 2 – THE GAME SYSTEM (Core System Mechanic, Attributes, Skills, Focuses, Required Number, Types of Rolls, Criticals) - everything that anyone needs to know to sit down and play, all in 8 simple pages.

CHAPTER 3 - CHARACTER CREATION (Archai Chart, Races, Skills, Weapons, Focuses, Equipment Packages, etc.) - a step by step go through of the entire process, plus a walk through example of how it is done.

CHAPTER 4 – COMBAT AND ACTION SCENES (Initiative, Movement, Skills in Combat, Damage, Armor and Defense R#, Character Death, Quickly Handling Other Combat Situations) - while this chapter actually functions as more of a reference, it quickly and simply lays out everything that you need to know about how to do combat

CHAPTER 5 – OTHER SYSTEMS AND OPTIONAL RULES (Combat Techniques, Compounds, Heroes in Mass Combat, Size Scale Modifiers, etc. ) - A plethora of other options and rules for handling things that might come up. written very modularly to facilitate easy reference.

CHAPTER 6 – THE WORLD OF CYRUS (All the world information for you to use in Cyrus, while the character creation can facilitate a generic fantasy setting, Cyrus is what makes it unique.) - Still being written and finalized.

CHAPTER 7– MAGIC IN CYRUS  (How to get magic, how to cast it, how to make it unique, spell lists, summoning.) This section is all about magic in Cyrus, and while it is undergoing its review right now, it is chock full of anything you might need.

CHAPTER 8 – A QUICK LIST OF ENEMIES  (Undead, Dragonkin, Monstrous Animals, Elementals, Fey) All the information you need to make Cyrus a dangerous place.

CHAPTER 9 - SOME FINAL TIPS FOR GAME MASTERING A SILVERVINE GAME (For those who are running the games, here is some information for you to get the most out of it.


Personally, I must say I'm highly pleased to get to this point in the process. We've had so many different visions for this project, and this has caused some Split Personality Disorder to plague the book. Trying to do a 2 book format, trying to keep things modular, trying to get a good flow.  Currently, with how it is now, I'm pleased.   Magic is the next big tackle, and is thankfully in Ed and Rawling's hands.  I'm finishing statting out the enemies, then I'll hopefully be handing them off to an extremely talented write to lend her epic flavor to the text. Alec is working on implementing design for the first sections that are now completely finished. Matt is finishing up defining the framework of Cyrus that will be represented with this first incarnation. Everyone is continuing along with the step by step review. Our grammar editors are waiting to get their hands on our horrendous typos and grammar errors, and our artists are constantly bringing us new and unique things.

Wheeeww. Lots of stuff is going on, but we are finally getting there.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

Things have been a little stalled here lately. Life intervening and whatnot.  I just wanted to point out that ChattyDM has a new review of Silvervine up.  While I think he has a little language confusion with R#, it is definitely an interesting review.

The best thing about Chatty's reviews is that they help us to pick out points in the text where the language isn't properly conveying the idea.  While, to the best of my knowledge, Chatty isn't the key audience we are making Silvervine for, he is helping us see how our style will interact with people who it isn't geared for. Being the first in depth peer review of the system, his information is digging out big deep things that need resolved, mostly in the wording and phrasing.  He is, however, on an older version that had a lot less editin. I sent him an updated one, but told him to review whichever version he felt like. I'm hoping some of his confusions or feelings of complexity in the system are cleared up by that. He also has a very nifty webcomic going on, which you should go check out. http://chattydm.net/category/webcomics/.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

Just a quick note here. We've just gotten done with our preliminary Origins planning session. We had to make a big decision. We will be down to a skeleton crew for Origins because Ryan Rawling's schedule changed due to his university in Japan. He won't be able to make it back, so we will have  to run with a low number. Probably even 2 people. We are going to try to recruit one more GM from our local stock of capable game masters. We've got some nifty ideas for how to structure the games as well. Partially the idea that I had, but modified by Ed Pantaleano in a brilliant way.  Our focus for this years origins will be airships (we are hoping to make an airship model float this year), zombies (with the Heroes in Mass Combat Rules), and infiltration (ala tenchu or splinter cell).   All in all it will be pretty nifty. We are going to look at going to Gencon as well, but that is a matter for a different day.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

I've often used this space to wax poetic on a topic or two, or to repost some guest post I wrote for a gaming blog or two. I'm going to wax poetic on the nature of writing now, and to crib someone else's words, Because I can.   

I've been treading through a lot of Wizards of the Coasts Eberron material lately. While I enjoy the detailed setting information and dislike the constraining structure of a DND style game, I have noticed one thing in particular.  Typos.  I'm not saying the Eberron books have bad editors, just that I have noticed the Typos and miswritings in them. I've noticed them mostly because we have engaged the editing mode on Silvervine, and these things are forefront for me. Seeing the lack of a verb in a sentence, or the fact that the Kalashtar race starts on page 7 according to the table of contents (the same as the warforged, and with a 35 page gap to the rest of the Kalashtar information which starts on page 42) just makes me happy.  The thing is these aren't uncommon in books of any sort. It just makes me happy to see them in other peoples professional products.

I know that a less well known product is likely to be rated harsher than a more established (or seemingly more established, thanks to marketing) product. There is an economic principle there that I am not sure the name of, but I know it is a recognized principle. That being said I know a typo in our book will be seen with more harshness, while one in a DND book will be glossed over, but it still makes me happy to see that the "big guys" aren't infallible.

I've also noticed something with writing styles and grammar in a lot of online browsing I've been doing.  Looking at the Blogs or the articles of some big name people in writing, I've noticed a surprising lack of accepted grammar styles.  Not to say that the writing is bad, but that it is more complex than it needs to be to convey the concepts. Being, or at least considering myself, an intellectual person, I understand the desire to dig deep down into a concept and pick it apart.  I can understand where people who have attained a modicum of credibility would want to flex their muscles. They've got the stage, why not use it.  I also notice that the main intent is sometimes getting lost in these expanded discussions.  I did this all the time with some of the middle drafts of the book, or chapters on rules. I got tangenty.  I wrote and wrote and wrote, and obscured what I really wanted to say. I'm sure, given the chance and venue, that I'll do it again.   I'm sure I'm doing it right now.  

The main point I want to strike at with this is that there are some people we put on pedestals, people who we think make the rules, or live these incredible lifestyles, etc.  The more you step up into their level, the more you realize that their level has its flaws to. For me this has happened over the last 4 years while I've been working on this little hobby project gone wild. I never expected to do the things I'm doing with it right now.  When the dust clears from this phase of the project, when we have Silvervine out there and are marketing it, there are a lot of things I'll be able to say about myself, but the biggest will be that I'm not intimidated by the "big boys" anymore.

Be Seeing You.

Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
  - Thomas Berger

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Hello faithful readers,

Just wanted to share with you something that I read this morning. It was from the NY Times, by way of Slashdot. It is a beautiful little article on the nature of innovation.  The main focus of the article is about the process that occurs after an inspiration, the "Eureka" moment, so to speak. It also gets into what the nature of innovation truly is, how it isn't just one brilliant moment and everything resolves into clarity, but how it is a building up from the current processes, how that one epiphany is just the spark that spurs on the hard work of actually doing it.  Some quotes from the article:

"Epiphany has little to do with either creativity or innovation. Instead, innovation is a slow process of accretion, building small insight upon interesting fact upon tried-and-true process. Just as an oyster wraps layer upon layer of nacre atop an offending piece of sand, ultimately yielding a pearl, innovation percolates within hard work over time."

" “There’s an aha moment followed by a ton of work to figure out what it is that’s actually going to work,” agrees Douglas K. van Duyne, co-founder of Naviscent, a Web usability consulting firm. "

" It’s not that these magical moments of epiphany don’t happen. In small ways, they happen all the time. But they’re not nearly as important as what the innovator did before — or ultimately does after — the magic light bulb goes on. As the French scientist Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”"

It is a pretty standard article, and doesn't get greatly in-depth, but it is an interesting read.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

Well I'm going to be doing something interesting today. I'm going to be running a DND game for some of my friends.  The last time I ran a DND game (3.0) 4 years ago Matt tried to circumvent the rules, we got drunk after arguing, and it led to us creating Silvervine.  It'll be interesting what comes of this.  I haven't run DND in so long, and I've worked out so many different gaming philosophies since then. I'm sure what I run won't fit the "standard" dnd format at all. I think people will like that, but I don't know if hard core DNDers will, not that any of my friends are actually hard core DNDers.  It shall be interesting, and I've got to prep for the game now. We'll see how it goes. I'm kind of excited because there is more structure to DND and more information out there, but I'm also a little nervous, because I tend to dash structure to the rocks as a GM.

Be Seeing you

Hello Faithful Readers,

I am tired and probably not in the best mood to write, but there is something niggling at the back of my brain about intent and passion.   I just saw an ad for a webcomic that seemed kind of interesting. It was called the Demon's arrival, and it is done by a polish guy.  http://demoncomics.com/  or in polish at http://demon-komiks.cba.pl/  The comic is in polish, but there is a badly (as in by a 14 year old who hasn't learned about maturity yet) translated. The visual style of the comic looks good, and the concept is nifty enough, but there are a lot of things about it that scream amatuer, and I don't mind.    It looks interesting, and while I can see that there are a fair amount of flaws in it, I am intrigued because it is obviously someone doing something they lov, and they'll get better.   I can never fault a person for trying something new.  Even if they aren't doing it properly, or competing with penny arcade, it is a labor of love, and they are putting forth effort and resources to try and make it work. That takes guts and I give that credit. 

I think of this in terms of webcomics, because it is the best example I have.  Every webcomic I read started as a person's labor of love with a possibly interesting idea. Some people started out with more professional knowledge on their side  but  not experience, some people started out with just a nifty idea and nothing else. These people planted a seed in a field that is grossly overgrown, and they kept working till it worked.  that is beautiful, and I just want to commend that.

Be Seeing You

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.
  - Leonard Bernstein

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Hello Faithful Readers,

I always hate it when I put up a news post that lacks real substance. I also hate it more when I see that it has been nearly a month since the last news post. Unfortunately that is what happens when we are busy getting things done.  Being a small operation that is spread across multiple states and countries (one of our people is in japan currently), it is hard to work on the schedule of a full time business. Still we manage, and for a garage operation with limited resources we don't do half bad.  I have always, and will always be, a proponent of the idea that motivated people can get something done no matter what level they start it at.   The less resources you have, or the less structure the harder it will be, but that doesn't mean that you can't do it, or that you can't put out quality at the level of others. Still, we never started this project up to compete with D&D, or White Wolf, or Steve Jackson Games, or Guardians of Order, etc.   We  didn't even start this with an idea that it could turn profitable. We just said, hey that's not a half bad idea, why not see what we can do with it.  It kind of grew and grew from there.

So now we are in the final stages.  Life has been hectic for us all lately, and this has caused delays. But now we are approaching the final stepping stones.  I've seen examples of other home based projects and I think we are ahead of the curve, but I've also seen projects that are incredible successes (Tilting at Windmills, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc) and I wonder if we can ever make that kind of small mark in the world.  We've had excited response, we codified what we are looking for, we made VAST improvements, and I think it is almost something I can say I'm proud to call my project. What we have to do now, is get this first thing out. Get it all out there, get the first book into the world, and then, then we can move onto other things. Follow through with individual projects. I can work on promotion, we might garner a budget, and we might have a chance to do more things with this project.  Here is to finishing this chapter, and beginning the next.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers!,

Sporadic poster John here.  We had the first meeting of the new year last night, I posted a news blurb about it, and it went excellently.  We've decided that it would be a good tradition to make the first meeting of the year short on the meeting, and long on gaming with each other and having fun. I ran an adventure that I had only gotten to run 1/2 of before, but with a repeat player. Because of this I did something that I like to call "fast forwarding".  Since the game was with a new party, I took all of the elements of the situation as they were left at the end of the last session of this game, and I ran through what would have happened in the aftermath. The place being infiltrated was alerted to the presence of the attackers, they beefed up attacks and tried to close off the way in. They encountered the same beasts in the tunnel that the party narrowly fought off. They got decimated. The new party came in and found scenes of carnage and little resistance at the target location. However, the beasts in the cave gave them a hell of a time.

It was an interesting experience. The players enjoyed it, and it was a great way to game with people who have been busy making Silvervine, and haven't had a chance to play it. Needless to say it went very well and was very fun. Working on Silvervine and worrying about rules mechanics has made me burned out a bit on actually GMing, but getting in there and running a game last night felt great.

Some of this comes from the state that the book is at. Mostly because of the review that ChattyDM is doing of the book, I've gotten off my duff and have been getting some of the stuff done that I haven't paid much attention to previously. Revamping all the rules and removing old language. (9.16 to 9.165 had the newly written things, meshed in with the older things to make sure we didn't lose any of the language we wanted to remain.  I had never gone through and pared the section out, which caused the book to balloon up in page count. Since Phil, ChattyDM (http://chattydm.net/), has been reviewing it I figured I needed to get in and improve the general work finally.

It took less time than I had thought.  Going with an approach of brevity and not over-writing myself, something I'm notorious for, I pared down most of the first rules sections to be just describing the rules. The end result: The book (rules section) truly functions as the reference section that I always wanted it to be. Asides describe the hows and whys nicely and quickly, and the players are left with a lot more usable product.    There is still a lot of tweaking and re-writing yet to be done, but it is well on its way to what I want it to be.  Once I get the character creation example chapter written, then there will be a new version up on the playtesting website, and up on lulu :).

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

I've finally gotten around to writing another post.  As always, posts are sporadic because I've actually been doing work on stuff. There is a lot of new stuff in the new playtester's version of the book, as well as a lot of stuff fixed. It is a good day for the current crop of playtesters.

Some Changes Include

• Updated Enemy Ratings (With full attribute ranges)
• A full automated spell check of the book (less errors, yay. Still a lot of errors, but less of them than before.)
• Updated item creation rules (more streamlined)
• More streamlined magic acquisition. (magic, in any system, is going to be a beast.
• Enemy List with specialties for some enemies (others are in process)
• New pictures (our artist's rock)
• a Cleaned up, but not completed GM's section (still very much in progress)

So that is some of the stuff we have been working on .  The current version up is 9.16481 (or will be when I get home to upload it tonight). I plan to do a lulu version of it as well, so hardcopy will be available soon. However, I would hold off on purchasing (if you plan to) until after the new year. If I can get the changes made that I want, then 9.165 will be the final version of the system. From there it would be all writing, clarification, and editing. Like always, I expect nothing in life to be eternal, so that is subject to change.

Also, and I posted more about this in the news feed, we installed Google Analytics code into the site.  This is giving us (in only one day) a lot of good detailed information about site usage. I was a little leary of this, being a privacy advocate, but the information we are getting isn't too specific.  It can pinpoint the city you are in, but unless you are using a anonymyzer, a basic tracert command can do that too. So once other things settle down, expect some site changes to make it look nicer and work with what people are looking at more.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

So one of my favorite gaming websites, www.treasuretables.org, is on hiatus because the author is doing NaNoWriMo.  Hopefully it comes back soon and he doesn't make good with his threats of not continuing the site, yet I fully understand burnout in a large project. While he is on hiatus he has been putting up old posts. The one for today, http://www.treasuretables.org/2007/12/gm-as-video-game-designer-apr-2006 , has a sentiment that I really like in it.

The gist of it is that you have to balance the game for the group. A good quote from the article:

" So the next time you’re writing an encounter, ask yourself this question: If this were a video game, would I want to tear the controller in half? If the answer is no (taking into account the play styles and gaming goals of your players, of course), you’re probably on the right track.

The other element, of course, is something that gaming does much, much better than video games: Scaling difficulty on the fly. Last battle too rough? Just skip the next one. Fight heading for a TPK? Fudge a few rolls. Players look bored? Skip ahead."

It speaks directly to the fact that I want to make blatant with Silvervine. Don't worry about the way things are, but IMPROVISE to fit the situation. I ran an SVG game on Saturday, and the party took it in an entirely different direction. Much like the infamous Train incident. To compensate I changed a few things around and made sure it was challenging, but that they were still progressing. They weren't progressing on the regular story that I had intended, but they were progressing. In the end I think that is what is important to a game. Players (including the game master)have fun,  the story moves onward in a valid way, and whatever goal you went for in running the game got achieved.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers,

Because I read Kotaku (www.kotaku.com) and find a lot of fun stuff there, I thought I would share something nifty that I read over in an article on Kotaku.  It is Ben Judd talking about originality in the remake of bionic commando.

"I think people have a comfort zone. So, as long as you stay plus or minus five within that, they'll allow you to be innovative to a certain degree. But if you overstep that too much and give something that's totally unique and different, then it's too hard to swallow, I think, a lot of the time. People say they want originality, but what they really what is what they're used to with a little sprinkle of originality on top. 'Cause we like what we are comfortable with. That's human nature in general. So, honestly speaking, I was a little disappointed. But at the same time, I can see where they are coming from, because I experienced a very similar emotion when I saw the first Transformer movie character design. I mean, it's sad, but a hundred percent I think I felt the same way. 'What the hell is this? These are the Transformers that I knew. Optimus Prime does not look like this. Screw that, I'm not gonna go see that movie.' That's exactly the same feelings I felt as a fan... But I did go to see the movie. And if I say I like it, people are gonna go, 'Oh my gosh, he liked Transformers, he's gonna screw up Bionic Commando.' And if I say I don't like it, then I'm a hypocrite. That's a lose-lose question."  - Ben Judd, via   http://kotaku.com/gaming/bionic-commando/ben-judd-can-relate-with-remake-rage-324621.php,  via http://www.bioniccommando.com/en/podcasts

Hello Faithful Readers,

God bless typos that aren't our own.
- Mark Wilson

I couldn't agree more :)


Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful Readers

Apparently some of my writing

http://www.treasuretables.org/files/Using-a-GMing-Wiki-TT002free.pdf

 is going to get translated into Portuguese. Go me


Talvez minha escrita é melhor em portugese?

Talvez eu devo fazer exame de mais tempo traduzir sobre isto, melhor que apenas funcionando o através do babelfish.

Be Seeing You

Hello Faithful readers,

Well, in our little test, which was very revealing, I got schooled. My Mage character (who I made a little more rounded) ran out of manna and couldn't damage ed's fighter character.  My fighter character lost out to ed's creative use of spells to keep him out of range, he couldn't heavily damage me, but he was able to use the physics of the area to throw me over a cliff.

What truly came out of the night was  the reviewing of the fights afterward. We looked at how and why certain stuff happened. We addressed a lot of issues, and came up with some pretty decent ideas for improving magic. So it was all worth it. Now if I could find some uninterrupted time to sit down and write.

Be seeing you

Hello Faithful Readers,

For the test tonight I built my 2 characters, and they are BROKEN. Well not really. They are epic level characters.  Seriously statted out, and a little min maxed.  However, whoo boy. Massive massive damage.

With my fighter, Jan, I could tactically blow all my tech points and do around 1080 damage, if the rolls go right. That is actually 12 attacks with added attack, and 12 tech points dropped on uppercut (which was specialized down to 1 tp per +4 damage rating).  The fighter also had 2 focuses which gave  extra tech points.  

The mage, Barodo, does less at a time, and will run out of manna (which is harder to regenerate), but has a few more tactical ways of doing stuff. If my fighter Jan, got a hold of the mage, and decided he needed geeked, then that would be it though. It is just a matter of Jan getting there quick enough without being confused, turned around, warded, and then blown up.

I'll write about how it went tomorrow.

Hello Faithful Readers,

Just saw a nifty quote that I think applies to game design in a lot of ways.

You can do all the QA in the world before releasing an operating system, and it's not going to compare to what happens when the unwashed masses get their hands on the product.
-  http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/02/1251229

I read this, and it just resonates with what we are going through trying to tweak out the magic system.
Nothing more than this, I'm still technically without ability to modify the book, but I've got some stuff to tweak out a spell or two. Plus I've got to make a kickass mage character for the battle royal. Maybe I'll see harry potter tonight to prep myself :).

Hello Faithful Readers,

Leaving my flash drive anywhere usually means I have to take a forced day off from working on stuff for Silvervine. I've got it backed up, but not accessible at "work" work. So yeah, today that means I get to occupy my time elsewhise. Which is good, because I've been working my butt off lately, and I haven't gotten a lot of good quality stuff done. Well things I think of as good quality.

We got a meeting in late last night, ed and I had big debates about nature of the magic system, alec played rational man (as always).  It culminates in me creating a magic using character, and ed creating a fighter character to test magic's combat effectiveness at higher levels.  So next wednesday, epic battle of my mage vs ed's fighter. 

Should be fun.   I do think I"ll be proven wrong in the reasoning that I was giving for why magic needs a little more oomph, but it will still be fun to test it.

Be seeing you