Because SQ is going entirely OGL, I’m no longer going to be including The Shattered Lands setting in with the SQ rulebook. This will come out as its own commercial book, with a series of swords and sorcery adventures to back it up over the next couple of years.

Instead I’m going to be including an Fantasy Ancient Greece setting, based upon Herodotus’ histories, set just before and during the 1st Persian War, where mythology is real and the Spartans really are the sons of Heracles and have access to their father’s divine magic.

 Its going to be light and evocative and OGL, so other authors can quite happily set their own adventures in it and expand the setting. As well as the setting I’ll also be doing an introductory adventure – Children of the Minotaur – a tale of intrigue in Athens, involving Cretan Pirates and the return of a certain bull headed maze dwelling monster!

I’m doing the research for this at the moment, so this will probably be the last thing that gets written.

What: A fun, friendly RPG meetup, for gamers old and new

When: Sunday 11th Nov & Sunday 16th December, 12pm start, 1pm Games start, 5pm Finish.

Where: Fan Boy 3, Central Manchester see www.fanboy3.co.uk  for directions.

More information: goplaymanchester.org.uk or contact me at newt@goplaymanchester.org.uk

I’m refocusing after my head being blown appart from Furnace (for which I fear there might be more reports for).

Had a quiet birthday and a glorious christening for my daughter (which will go on about) and in the quieter moments tried to work out what needs doing next.

The main priority at the moment is writing all the fluff (intros, flavour, examples and explaination text) for SimpleQuest. Need to get this done by late November latest when all the art work magically floats in and I start layout for a Xmas/early 2008 release. I say this because all the artists I know who I have contacted late last week have not responded thus far! It looks a massive mountain of work, until I break it down into small enjoyable chunks. Then i realise I’m pulling in also those classic flavour texts of yesterday, early to mid eighties before the White Wolf mania for short story telling kicked in. Then I break into wide grin, and the work becomes fun again.

So in my lunch hours (which is how I worked on the SRD) I’ve been working on the Intro (“What is a roleplaying game”, “You will need a set of Polyhedral dice, found in the game store where you bought this game”) and explainations and examples (“Rurik the Reckless gets into a bar room brawl”). Great fun stuff and a joy to write – the only reason why I’m doing this at the end of the day.

After a chat with Tom Zunder (

tzunder

 ) on Saturday of Furnace and thinking it over, I’ve decided to OGL the whole of the SQ game, the rules, the explanation text and the examples. There will also be a very quick intro to an example setting  and adventure which will demonstrate the rules. If you want a hard/softcover version it will be available via Lulu.  The plan is to get this out by XMAS, early winter 2008 by the latest. The reason why I’m getting it done and dusted so quickly is that I want to put it out and move on to other projects using the game engine, The Shattered lands, Blood and Sand for example.  Other publishers will be freely able to use the game engine as a basis for their own games/adventures under the OGL.

The Shattered Lands setting + adventure books
This supplement and series of adventures/sourcebooks is now going SQ only. No plans to do a RQ version, since it will be cause extra work for me, so the webpreview, which will remain somewhere on the website, will be the only part of the MRQ version to remain. I really want to put my energy into SQ after the interest and positive feedback I’ve received over the last couple days after putting up the website.  Getting out SimpleQuest first means however that its release gets moved forward to Q1 2008.

Blood and Sand
This is a new swords and sandals game, influenced by the Ancient period, old style Runequest and Robert E Howard’s Conan stories. A game where the player characters fight their way out slavery to power in a world dominated by massive City states ruled by evil Tyrants. It will use SimpleQuest as a base, but have extra rules and setting info for demon magic, gladiatorial games, street gangs and mobs, and an example city setting with personalities. None of this will be OGL, since it will be a full commercial game.

This is the first in a series of reports coming out of chats/actual play that happened at Furnace 2007.

Furnace 2007 in short was mindblowingly good. My mind has been a happy mess ever since the con ended, and I’ve spent the last couple of days reflecting on ideas that came out of the con. If Furnace 2006 relit my d101games aspirations, Furnace 2008 put a rocket up my arse!!!

So how did the Five ashcan versions of Monkey do at Furnace?

The nice chaps on the Collective Endeavour stall sold three out of the five ashcans I took to Furnace. Two were to people who had played in the morning game, and another seems to have gone to an interested passer by. The money I earnt from this got plowed back into buying various CE games. I sold an ashcan, I bought a game. Hence I picked up Mob Justice, Questers of the Middle Realms and Dead of the Night using this logic.

I grabbed a copy for a potential artist, to whom I must get a bundle of scanned Chinese artwork in the near future, and I kept a copy for myself.

Overall a raging success in my book and it was a worth while exercise in raising my confidence and me pulling my shit together to put something out after talking about the game for the last ten years.

So I’ve bundled up the first five chapters of Monkey, (Introduction, Character creation, Action System, Developing the Story, and a scenario “Bag of Wind”) into a rough ashcan.  There’s more than enough to play the game, but its not the complete thing with full setting info, nice illustrations (interested artists please contact me) and it still needs vigorous playtesting. But I’m over the moon, its another milestone reached.

This is what I’ve previously called the ‘Coaster edition’, and copies of it have already gone off to the Mighty Monkey Army for comments and playtesting. I’m hoping to have a couple of wirebound printed copies ready by Furnace, to sell at cost, but I fear I might be running out of time.

If you are interested in joining the MMA and helping review and playtest this, please let me know (either by a comment below or a quick email to mrnewt@gmail.com)

Seeing as the advert that is going in the Furnace Con Book has a website address I thought it was time to take the bull by the horns and create a website for D101 Games.

www.d101games.co.uk

Its got previews of one sort of another for all the upcoming releases, so there is stuff that will be new to even the most ardent reader of this LJ .

Warning though, its very purple.

Any comments appreciated.

Update on all things d101games

SimpleQuest version 1 has gone to peer review. I’m fighting the urge to tweak/add to the basic SRD that I’ve produced. Deadline for comments Mid-nov. If I’ve not invited to to give the document a once over and you would like to be part of the peer review, comment below.

Monkey – all next week is Monkey week!  I finally bash the ‘coaster’ edition into shape. When its done I’ll jump for joy. Not 100% sure if I’ll have time to actually produce 70 CDs, with inlay, in time for Furnace. If not I feel a spiral bound ‘Ashcan’ on the cards. Expect joyous news on Friday.

Shattered Lands – The intro/first 10 pages of the RQ version is going in the Furnace con book. I’ve also made good progress on an introductory adventure called “Dead Pot Country’, which will get finished before Furnace (plans are to have it as a standby adventure). Then all I have to do is write up Aztar, a fantasy city ruled by Merchants which is the adventurers starting base, and then its done. Very happy about this.

Website – just registered d101.co.uk this morning, so it will go live sometime over then next couple of weeks just before Furnace (no surprise there). Good thing about wittering on here about the games I’m doing is that its given me a good idea for copy for the pages which describe the games. Also I’ve got previews for all the stuff I’m writing.

After Furnace I work with artists, finish off the writing and play test like no tomorrow.

The Shattered Lands
What?
A complete ready to play setting for MRQ in about 60pages. Background, character gen, cults, monsters, starting city , starting scenario.

When?
Winter 2008

SimpleQuest
What?
A intro level Fantasy game. A simplified version of MRQ/BRP using MRQ SRD as a base, + The Shattered Lands (i.e. A SQ version of the above as a sample campaign setting/starter adventure).

When?
Winter 2008

Life and Death
What?
A 60+ page adventure/sourcebook for MRQ/SQ

When?
Spring 2008

Monkey
What
100+ page storytelling game, with adventures, setting info, characters set in the Chinese epic of the same name.

When
Summer 2008 (but a preview/ashcan version should be available via website in Oct)

The plan is to publish these via pdf  and make hardcopy available via Lulu.com. SimpleQuest will also have an OGL SRD available via the website when it comes out.
Now all I have to do is finish writing them, get some art done and set up the website!!

Created for the Furnace Con Book, a mighty A4 tome which is going to all attendees which will also contain a preview version of the Shattered Lands.

On a personal level I’m quite happy with it, in a happy amateur sort of way. I’ll be improving my Graphic Design skills and I’m attending a short one day course of GD and DTP for newsletters/leaflets at work which will help me on the way.  Its also nailed down my release scedule (which I’ll whitter on in a following post)