Well, we just finished registering for our Origins badges. Woot! This year should be a really fun time, especially if our games at Ancon were any indicator.

Also, check out some of our ads that will be appearing in Open Game Table Anthology Version 2.

This is one of the interior ads that will fit in a column in a section of blogs all about making awesome characters. Appropriate placement for a Silvervine ad, don’t ya think?

The full page ad comes after the jump.

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We had an AWESOME time at Ancon 2010. The convention was awesome beyond awesome. There were so many incredible moments. Special thanks to everyone who participated in the Reisja Stones tournament: Amber, Ben, Brian, Ian, Larry, and Mark. You guys made it incredible and your added storyline was awesome!!!!!!!

Check out our pictures on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/silvervinegames

Hey all NE Ohio SVG Fans (or anyone wanting to travel farther)!

Want to get a taste of what Silvervine is offering up for the 2010 convention season? With Ancon 8 days away, we are going to be doing some practice runs for 4 of our adventures this Sunday at the Silvervine Offices. If you live near Akron Ohio and would like to get in on some pre-convention games, you are invited.

We’ll be running games at 2pm and 7pm on Sunday May 16th. In order to get involved, register by emailing playtest [@] silvervinegames.com and we will send you more information. Playtests will be run in Massillon, Ohio and should take 3-4 hours for each one. Nothing is required and no fore-knowledge of the game system is needed. Pre-generated characters will be used for the games and all materials will be made available, but you can always bring your own starting level (275 Exp) characters.

Want to make your character beforehand? Use the Quick CC Guide – found here.

One of the biggest sticking points for completing the Silvervine Core Rulebook has been finishing the writing on the world of Cyrus. Cyrus was the reason that Silvervine got started in the first place, and it has always been Matt’s baby. Since I was tasked with writing it up as an RPG game world instead of a world that was the backdrop to his in-progress novel, I’ve always had an odd relationship with it.

On one hand, Matt isn’t your typical gamer and had lots of unique ideas for the world. Back in those days I hadn’t been exposed to a lot of the non D&D games that I’ve come to love today. Things that matt proposed for the world I always had a hard time integrating into my idea of what tabletop gaming was.  The more I did though, the more I came to embrace many of the more unique points of Cyrus.

On the other hand, Matt isn’t your typical gamer and never had as much exposure to what kinds of things have become cliche’ in games. A lot of elements that could be found within the World of Cyrus were cases of parallel development to concepts found in many other fantasy settings. I’d shake my hand at the heavens every time I would mention the latest thing to come out of a brainstorming session and one of my friends would tell me about how that was like a tribe of werewolves in White-wolf, or how a group of Elves in forgotten realms had similar qualities to a tribe of Elves in Cyrus.

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So I’ve only got 14 pages left to outline for the 80 page Cyrus section. The outlining is actually the biggest step. It is where I take all the conglomerated Cyrus information and decide what is actually going to make it into the final book. With a large bullet point list of things that I want to include, detailed with Setting Information, Adventure Hooks, Cool Factors, NPC names, and lots of other stuff, the remaining writing is easier. It is looking really good at this point and I’m feeling great about how Matt’s world of Cyrus is shaping up. We are pushing hard to have a final sellable book by Origins this year, but I’ll make no guarantees. We’ve been six years in the making and playtesting and I don’t want to have a half-assed product out there with my name on it.

Also, to whet your whistle, here is a bit of preview art, done by the incredibly awesome Avery Liell-Kok.

In it you can see the Rings of Cyrus, an idea of Matt’s that I wasn’t totally sold on until I saw this video:

Of the approximately 78 left, 34 are done and ready for editing . . .

It is no secret that I’m a huge fan of running a game with some background music. Some of the other Gnomies from Gnome Stew and I share the love of  music, and you should check out these articles on music in games.

• Creating Deep and Simple Playlists
• What Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog Can Teach You About GMing

That isn’t what this post is about though. This post is about a really great resource to use to make great ever-changing music playlists. That resource is Pandora. I’ve been loving it at work, so much so that I paid the $38 upgrade fee to get the Pandora One desktop player. I made a station based off of Yoko Kanno’s music and realized how great Pandora can be for making a playlist.

All you have to do is setup a Pandora station based off of a soundtrack that you really like. Go to the Station setup and add in a few similar songs from other soundtracks or classical music that has the right feel and Pandora does the rest. You don’t worry about playing the right song at the right time, Pandora just shuffles between music that is similar to your seed music. Set up a few stations with general moods that you want to imbue. Drop in baroque classical and more refined soundtracks for good "Dealing with Nobles" music.  Seed a station with some deep Cantus music, stuff from the fountain soundtrack, or FF7’s Sephiroth theme song – one winged angel – for that epic Big Bad Evil Guy feel. Pull some Louis Armstrong, Ink Spots, Roy Brown, Miles Davis, and various other Jazz for a great noir game soundtrack.

One important thing to note is that the best music for background game music is mostly instrumental. Words often distract from the mood you are trying to set.  Give it a try and see how you like it.

(Image of Pandora one used for illustrative purposes)

Here at Silvervine Labs (which are only slightly less fun than Muppet Labs) we’ve made a breakthrough in character sheet technology. With hours and hours of endless research (ok, I changed a setting that I didn’t know about before) we have made the Interactive Character sheet able to be saved with form information intact.

Unlike most character sheet PDFs out there*, the Silvervine Games Character sheet can be filled out electronically and then saved  to your desktop. You can open it back up and update your character. Go make use of this great new innovation in character sheet technology.

Find the new character sheet in our downloads section – here.  If you find yourself un able to save the forms, you might need to update your adobe reader software.

* This is totally unsubstantiated. This is according to most PDFs that I’ve seen produced. There are a few awesome sites that provide some kickass third party character sheets out there, so this functionality might exist.

I’ve just finished running the final official playtesting game before the core rulebook is released. This game was a test of high level play and had an awesome ending.

General conclusions?

• Silvervine plays much like other games at higher levels. "Regular" challenges are easy for players (especially in the ever-telescoping party we played with) but they can still be challenged with special powers and interesting strategies.
• High level play in Silvervine is much more cinematic and narrative based. Powers can be brutal but are subject to good dice rolls.
• Players had a whole lot of fun being badasses and a lot of their later level purchases were to justify their long-term goals.

There are at least 2 non-official games of Silvervine being played that we know of, and Brian Keller has been running a bunch of games at New York conventions. With the rest of the work on the Core Rulebook being minimal, it won’t be long before every game being played is with the final product!

- John

After a small amount of work, we have the SVG Newsblog all set up.  If you are using the old newsfeed, switch it over in the next week or so. The old feed will shortly disappear into the ether.

New Feed:

http://www.silvervinegames.com/blog/feed/

What You Can Expect From The New Newsblog

• News Updates
• Developer Diaries in one concise place
• Sneak previews of new projects
• Silvervine insights direct from the developers
• Gaming advice
• Information about new contests like the Player Picture Project
• Links to new downloads, free game aids, and new products we put out

So switch over from the old feed to the new one and check back here often. Feel free to leave a comment and connect with SVG developers.