Closing out another Monday

Everything went well today, but as usual everything took longer to get done. Well, what can you do?

The discussion of how to handle the Clan points continues. We have gotten a few people to sing out what they think, and so far we have six factions. I am hoping to start hearing something from the players who have not been participating in the Clan system. It would be nice to know what we need to do to get more people involved in the Guild Clans.

If you are not doing the Guild Clan Characters, why not? And what do we need to do to get you into the Guild Characters?

Ok, I am going to go watch an episode of Daria and relax.

-- Post From My iPad

Just finished a wonderful DS game with Sue as GM

She scared the living daylights out of us with the little (foot long) blind rats. They could only do real damage when they Streaked, but there were a lot of them. i think the ton of sticky ugly momma was the last straw. Jinxus saw a HP. He was just a little nervous... Slick Sam did OK. Good follower. We seemed to be streaking and stunning all night. We had a great time.

I finally went ahead and hooked the Bluetooth keyboard to my ipad. I wanted to see how it worked. This is far too scary. It works way too good. Now I am going to need a second keyboard.

I have started compiling the real Alpha version 1.1 DS rules. Poured the original rules into pages, expanded the type size to readable and discovered 30 pages. Went through the first five pages pretty quick. A few additions, but the original still works so this is mostly a touch up and addition job. I can use the original as the guide.

More tomorrow.
Good Night and Good Gaming.


-- Post From My iPad

Still resting, but we have started forward

Mocha has had another hair cut and she is feeling good about everything so I have set her on a couple of new projects.

Sue got me the art for the two new Shaman cards so I have put the set together and got it almost ready to send off. I have also gone through and made these cards completely version 1.1 ready. It will start people thinking that the new version is not too different really. More data on the card type line and simpler rules to make the card text larger. No major changes. The sheet is in final edit and will go to the printer in a couple of days.

Sue will be running this evening and I have a new character to run. I have used my Guild bonuses to get him to 29 card points. I am trying a Griffon, Skyrider, Night Witch, Valarian Champion, Rogue. That is a mouthful. I have also set the character up with the version 1.1 Griffon cards.

We have a new background for the Griffon cards and they are much more readable.

One problem in the old system is that with the addition of more weapons the one point forms have become obsolete. Rather than change the weapons and do all sorts of hinky fixes we will upgrade the forms to give the shifters more punch. Easy and fun. So, my Griffon gets tougher forms to test. Yay!

Right now Sue says I need to make some small changes to the new Griffon cards and I can use them tonight.

Good Morning and Good Gaming!

-- Post From My iPad

Sometimes we get stuck on the "Way it Was"

Doing something new, something different is scary. We always fear change, even when it is better or more fun.

Our inner Lizard brain always desires a repeat of exactly what worked yesterday. The lizard does not see that it is a new day and that there may be a new way.

We struggle everyday with the lizard. It makes us afraid, it makes us stop. If the lizard had it's way we would all still be in a cave hoping the lightning starts a fire for us.

With DS we, and you, are facing the lizard. Can we grasp that change is not bad? Can we open our minds and enjoy the ride? Or will we sit in the past waiting for someone else to "make it better"?

We are facing those questions now. Are we ready for tomorrow?


-- Post From My iPad

Rest, study and the sounds of an Audiobook

We are trying to recover our wits around here. Mocha is helping all she can, right now she is looking for a good place to leave a pee message while I type this.

The more I look at our cards and rules the more I realize how complicated all of these changes are. Shortening the text on the cards to make them readable means doing write ups on a lot of cards. I am adding (RST) to the card lines to indicate that the card has Restrictions written up. This is going to be slow. Why are so many of the logical card sets turning out to be seven or eight cards? *sigh*

Doing the newsletter is turning out to be slow. First I have to have the new comic site we are announcing working. Finally working right, had DNS propagation problems. Then I need all of the new Guild people in the computer to send newsletters to. Almost done, just half a dozen to go. The I need to write the newsletter itself. I have a nice piece on the Red Crest done.

Ok, coffee ready. Must wake Sue and prepare the kitchen for a new floor.


-- Post From My iPad

Gencon, Ds, Go Time, Swimming in thoughts

We had a real good GenCon. The flip side is after all these cons since May both Sue and I are fried. I had a good chance to talk to players at GenCon and I picked the brains of disgruntled D20 gamers, and there are a lot of them. Essentially the industry is going a different direction than many of the players want to go. The Freedom we offer in DS is in big demand.

As for DS itself the system is really powerful, but we have let a lot happen to it while we were busy dealing with other work. We had a lot of "things" to think about and we started working on doing a clean slate new set of games to deal with it. The truth is we both want to play with the Dragons on Grandilar, but we want a lot of the new rules we are using for Crypt Crawl, Tark, Blood Gems and a couple of other designs.

So, what do we do? Right now we are stepping back and taking a good long look at the baby we love. We can make it better, we can make it stronger, we can grab a lot of new players with a revision. We are going to do it. We know some of the changes will unsettle people, but after a time we think most people will like it better. More variety, more craziness, yet a better defined format for doing it in.

We are going to need a lot of help and patience from our current players to do this. I think we will get it.

For now we are going to enjoy the heat, a few games and have a good freaking time. Sue and I will be playing later, at least that is my plan, but maybe I should not mention that.

Drinking a cold latte at the Good Beans Cafe, sitting with Sue, writing a blog. I love this life! See you later!

-- Post From My iPad