I have played Susan's Role-Playing system now since 1994. It has been a long road from those days when the rules were scribbled on the sides of common playing cards. Her mind cut through to the core of role-playing, the mechanics, in a way which has to be admired.
Dragon Storm has been a lot of fun to watch grow and expand from those simple beginnings. Yet, I want something more. I want a kind of variety that only a multiverse can provide. Quietly, in the privacy of the Clanhold, we have been working on a Core system to be the focal point of the future worlds that Susan has envisioned. If you go all the way back to her Gatekeeper comics you can see that her world had portals to yet more worlds. We are preparing to start walking through those doors and take a look at them.
To make this successful we are going to need a much larger circle of aficionados who follow and enjoy the comics, podcasts, artwork and games that we would like to pursue. To do this Sue and I will need to spend the vast majority of our time doing the creative work for others to digest and enjoy.
This leaves a huge gap in our system. The growth and proliferation of our works is going to need volunteer enthusiasts who want to grow and spread the community.
I do not yet see how this is to be done. Right now, as I write this my mind is starting to fill with random thoughts, ideas and concepts. I think I need to just list a few of them and then begin to pick up each and look them over in future postings.
Creation of an Enthusiasts community. We need to find a way to draw in more youthful people. Our current enthusiasts are, well, aging along with us, we need more and new blood.
Finding the devotees who will bring in new people. The traditional RPG market is a shrinking resource. We need the bloggers, podcasters and web content people are the core to expansion to a wider audience.
Laying out the concepts and ideas behind the Storm Worlds games in way way that makes it more than just a set of rules to people.
Expanding to new, but associated, entertainment areas, like comics and podcasting.
Using the podcasting to spread the ideas behind the mechanisms and create an entry into the community. To allow our current people "feel" these worlds we create.
Using comics to entertain and widen the community we are reaching. To allow people to "See" these new worlds.
To create an enthusiastic audience that wants to support us by buying from Cafepress, Etsy and more. Who will use our ad links to go out and buy, because they want to support us.
To find ways to both help, and get help from, our current loyalists at the Guild, DS Annex and Storm Warning sites. What do they need from us and how can they help us achieve a larger community?
How can we bring diverse people closer together, and make them more of a part of the community. People like Tim, Ann, Lee, Russ, Dave, Debbie and Elizabeth. Plus a pile of people who I should be listing here, but my mind has gone blank. These folks support us, even though they do not see eye to eye on a lot of things. They are in the boat with us. How do we just get along and make a bigger boat?
Find a way to get our current people to read and comment on our blogs. We have a very limited number of people who are inputing ideas on the blogs. Some of these are not even willing to tell who they are. They post as "anonymous" and we can't get a real feeling for whom they represent. The vast majority of our people are letting just a few voices dominate. How do we get the other 99% to speak up?
I am not even sure where I should start. I am going to need some of my couple hundred readers to put in some direction here. So, until I here from you I will just have to start talking and see what you want to discuss.
And I think I'll take the time to head out and start a Friend Feed account to see what is happening over there.
Which "Social Networking" communities are you mortals using? I would like to know.
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If you are wanting to get to do more on the creative side, the first thing I think of (unfortunately) is that you need staff to help out the clanhold staff. People to handle the mundane chores of printing the cards, handling the orders and shipping. I can't help but feel that that would free up a lot of your time.
Now I'm not sure how we could help with that, and it might increase costs if the staff demanded more than kibbles and belly rubs but it's my first thought. If I lived closer I would volunteer to help (and I might anyway just to get away from the future EPA superfund sight that is my kids room and now spilling into the rest of the house) but the drive right now is a killer!
I think offering the sets of the reprinted deluxe cards is a food way to start for the new people just joining in that are way behind the card curve when they sit down at a game with people who have been playing for years. Is there any way to consolidate and or reprint the information in the original books for those who are interested in the basis of Grandilar? (I know, more work...)
Since I currently am not working, let me know if there is anything that I can do via the computer (writing, consolidating ideas, anything else that comes to mind...) and can be handled via e-mail. Just remember that I am a dinosaur with the new technologies so don't push anything too fast...
Mark...
Seth and I would be more than willing to throw more ideas your way than you would possibly have time to read.
For fun we sometimes create RPG systems or worlds and just leave them at whatever restaurant we were at when the conversation occured.
Stear us where you need and we can help. Need a new world? Continent? Cards? Creatures? Spells? Were on it!
We are non-guild players and, except for a hand full of occasions, keep to our own group. I'm sure our world of Grandalar is much different than most. We have an ever-evolving world with countless extra groups, places, and effects. And our view of the pylos may be way off, but is interesting...
I think one thing that could get new blood in the mix would be another set. When I first starting playing DS in 97 (being 15 years old) one of the biggest thrills was to open the packs of cards. Now, 12 years and countless open packs later, there is no thrill in that aspect any more. We used to call opening a pack of MTG, DS, or even star trek cards "gambeling for kids." You bet $3 and hope you score big.
I have, a few times, sat down and worked out hundreds of cards to make a new set dreaming of a day where you guys may do it. That is why we sponsored so many cards as a group...too bad we can't sponsor a 300 card set...
DS draws both the RPG crowd and the MTG crowd. Buying single deluxe cards for sure takes some of the MTG crowd out of it.
...
Well, I could go on, but I won't. Needless to say, we're here to help. We love this game...Other games have come and gone, but we still come back to DS.
It is all tricky, and made trickier by some of the realities we are in.
Don't take anything I say as pure negative. I have had, and will have, a good life doing what we do, but...
I know there are you guys who would like to help, but I'm not sure how to go about taking advantage of you. Errr, I mean, ummm. I'm not sure how, or what, I can have volunteers do that will actually save time. I'm a crappy, slow, editor.
Sets are fun, but not economic, unless you have thousands of people buying them, and we don't. We still have boosters from 96 and 97 we are still selling.
Having people come in and help would mean that I'd have to wear pants. I'm also not sure where we would fit the help in the house. The entire operation is Sue and I, and to make ends meet we have to do several things in addition to DS.
To make it worse, I don't know what is the best "stuff" for us to publish. So I am not even sure what to ask for. The first thing I need to arrange is an editor. Tim is willing, but he has a lot going on, so he can't do much. I am still looking forward to his GM book.
I am also finding that after finishing those taxes, my mind is shutting down in relief, so my thoughts are like mud.
I think the first thing I need to know is what you guys want to see us publish for DS?
and
Are you interested in us doing a "core" set of simple rules that can be used for a multitude of world backgrounds?
Once I know what to focus on, I'll know what to ask for.
That was the response I figrued I'd get about a new card set, but I had to try. :-)
I am for sure interested in expanding the Dragon Storm universe. Before we make it a Multi-verse though, perhaps we should do more with the world we have?
There is the main contenent that seems to fade off as you go north, and there is Penglai, which is masked and hard to get to.
What about doing a general world map with other continents, oceans, and all the other stuff that would expand the world? There doesn't have to be a super detailed book that describes all of the areas, but a general sense of what is going on in each would help.
After a complete world map, expanding the different aspects in that world...There are so many things that are touched on slightly that could be expanded on so much. The Prismatic Circle. The Pylos. The extended Nor Family. The still-living Dragons.
After that, the multi-verse...they need to be tied together, so perhaps the Pylos are the force that is the same wherever you go but they meet different resistance in different worlds and appear different in different worlds. Some they might be powerful and can actually manifest where they could be worshipped like gods. Others, like Grandalar, they work through puppets-the Necros.
After the different worlds, make the Pylos world itself. Characters wouldn't want to go there unless they are the most proven warriors.
...
I would be interested in a core set of rules for the different worlds so they can connect (through dragon storms with portals??...we've done that a few times in our games)...
The charm of DS though is it has had the same rules since birth and is a fairly simple set of rules. I would be sad to see the DS world expand but loose the roots of the game to a new set of rules.
I would also be sad if expanding DS into different worlds halted the expanding of the current world. If there was new worlds, it should stick to cards and be somewhat inter-changable.
(Conversely, the person who introduced me to DS would love a book version of the game without cards...)
...
Wow...sorry about that, Mark. To save you from my ranting, I will stop here. My group is getting together this weekend and we can brain storm stuff if you want.
I have a few hundred card ideas I could send over or we could voulenteer to take on the project of expanding Grandalar or making a new world.
I'm game...
We left the world blank so people could make there own lands without us interfering with them. Penglai is an example. So I don't think we will map out the rest of the world.
Right now the primary reason people do not jump into DS is that it is too big, and complex, for most new people. The second reason is the price of the deluxe cards. We now have a way to fix that, but only a new simpler game will solve the second.
The idea we have for a new the new game/worlds ties directly to the Dragon Storms and deathday. They are part of the same Multi-Verse.
We are planning on putting the rules up in the Games We Make Domain. I rebuilt it recently and the Core Rules overview is here: http://www.gameswemake.com/corerules/indexCOR.html
Have a look...
http://www.gameswemake.com/corerules/indexCOR.html
hmmm, it dropped the ml.
http://www.gameswemake.com/
corerules/indexCOR.html
Weird, it is dropping the ml off of html, yet I see it in the paste. Anyway, got to gameswemake.com and find the CRPG Core rules link is on the right.
Really??...I think DS is the easiest game to get into...
You can make a character in two min and a GM, with the help of the cards, doesn't have to sift through 40 D&D books to make a campaign. Plus the rules are straight forward and brief.
The open-ended simplicity is why I love it.
Understand about the DS world...So, then you are going for the same thing with the Multi-verse? No super mapped out worlds, but a basic idea of what a world may be like and let the GM roll with it. That works.
I'll check the site out.
Wear Pants? I think that falls under TMI - too much information. In that case you may have to stick with payments of belly rubs, Kibbles and Bits, and Meow mix for the staff. They don't care about pants...
I would say start with the core rules. that will set up the way each world may or may not interact with each other. The next would be the system of Portals between such worlds. I have always wondered how those work (and most GMs seem to gloss that over...) Once that is set up then groups become more free to create their own worlds and sub worlds that may exist in hiding on a known world. (some group that were super heros on their home world got transported by some reason not of their own making to a technologic world and are trying to hide out rather than be exterminated or some such idea). I think that once that is done, coming up with the various types of worlds and their related cards would follow. Perhaps then we could finally introduce the Pylos cards since they would be a presence on some of these worlds.
As far as DS goes, perhaps help with ideas for events/scenarios for the GMs for tweak to their own campaigns. Short tales of the interesting events of what is happing in the wild and crazy world that your characters live in periodically. This could even be done as a web site/blog site rather than published if that works better for you. A blog site might even invite people to share/brag about what they did in their campaigns and spawn more ideas.
OK, wait a second, it is early for me, I know I have pants here somewhere... Ah, and coffee.
First, I get the idea that you both think we need more information/stories/adventures for the GM's to use and get there teeth into. I have always wished I had the mind and time for such materials.
I am thinking then that you specifically want an article on how Controlled Astral Travel works. We already had the information out there that Warp Storms had swept races/tribes from their own worlds and dumped them on Grandilar. The dwarves, elves, humans, etc. all arrived this way.
Now, I would like to see exactly what types of adventures and stories you guys want to see. That means I want you to write something and e-mail them to me. We can decide together what to do with them, i.e. how to get these out to people to use.
If I feel something is not "right" with them, I will write back with comments and ask for a rewrite. This will help me know what I need to do/write and help me learn to work with people as an editor.
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