By admin, on May 7th, 2010%  My second DriveThruRPG offering, Morgenstern’s Spellbook is going live as I type.
Morgenstern’s Spellbook is a collection of 60 new and original spells. It’s designed to be used whole, as a treasure item, or as a new source of spells for your campaign. It was originally conceived during a spate of productivity while guest-DMing for Joe Levy’s recent D&D campaign.
As with all my RPG work, the pdf is available through DriveThruRPG. I’m also setting this one up for print on demand, since it’s around 26 pages.
Slaintè,
Q
Tags: fantasy, RPG, spell books, spells
By admin, on March 10th, 2010% Well, I’ve finished self-editing the 400 page tome that is Star Lost. I’ve just sent the PDF off to a couple of friends who agreed to look it over. When I get their comments digested in about a month I’ll see if Colin is still up for layout duty, or if I’ll be on my own, or something in between. While Word is a great word processor and can do some swanky things like hyperlinked ToCs and indeces, it’s pretty lousy for making a pretty document. Since I gots no $$, I’m going to have to publish without art (unless someone is crazy enough to provide free art), so I’ll need the tidiest layout I can get.
But for the next stretch of time I won’t be thinking about Star Lost, instead working on some smaller projects I’ve started along the way that are near completion. There’s Gaming the Market, a small cross-genre supplement for randomizing the shopping experience. And there’s also Caltrops, a dice game involving everyone’s favorite pyramidal dice. I’ve also got to get the Hudspeth Games website dressed out (anyone out there want to help? Know Drupal?). After that we’ll see. I’ve been kicking around an idea for both a novel and new game within the same setting. I think I want to focus on the novel, but my lizard brain keeps throwing other ideas at me instead.
Enough updates. Gotta go think about what to cook for dinner.
Q
Currently listening to Various Artists – Jazz Mixes – Jazz Mix Tape III Side One
Tags: Star Lost, Updates
By admin, on March 2nd, 2010% Well, the computer rebuild went fairly smoothly. There were a couple of minor issues involving moving the CPU cooler over to the new board and the old power supply not having long enough cables. But, all in all, pretty damned easy. Mobos these days have everything on them but the video-handling. Gone are the days of umpteen PCI cards slipped into the chassis. That frees up a lot of room and reduces the chances of mistakes.
The most annoying issue was that I had to re-install Win7 after the swap. Apparently Win7 makes note of the motherboard and won’t let you just move the hard-drive over to a different computer. So, slight hiccup time wise, but an easy fix. I’m still getting programs reinstalled, but I’m almost done.
Q
Tags: computers, Updates
By admin, on February 26th, 2010% I’m going offline for a little while. I’m rebuilding my computer. Since I got the thing, almost two years ago, it’s had an intermittent crash problem. That problem has become more frequent, to the point where I almost have to turn around and reboot right after booting in the morning. There’s something wrong somewhere on the motherboard (probably near the audio chipset, since that always goes wonky before a crash), so I’ve purchased a new mobo and case and today is surgery day. I haven’t assembled a computer from base components in many many years, so this should prove to be both interesting and frustrating. I hope you hear from me soon….
Slaintè,
Q
Tags: computers, Updates
By admin, on February 16th, 2010% Well, we made it back from Disney World a little after midnight last Thursday. We had a great time, and really wore ourselves out. But, I don’t think we’ll be back any time soon. BTDT.
The weather was actually cooler than forecast before we left, so we had some chilly mornings and evenings, but nothing newyorkers couldn’t handle. It actually made it much more pleasant for walking around. We did all the dry parks, pretty much one a day, and stayed for fireworks at Epcot twice. Gorgeous show.
Anyway. We don’t have all the photos transferred over to this computer yet, but here are a few to whet your appetite.
Tags: Disney, trip
By admin, on February 4th, 2010% I’ve just finished the editing and revision of the Star Lost text through page 205 (of ~399). There is a wavery light at the end of the tunnel, and I don’t feel the tell-tale vibration of an oncoming train.
Up next is the editing of the alien equipment section, followed by the looong section of Abilities descriptions. These haven’t changed much over the years, so I’m worried I’ll get complacent and miss a lot.
Which reminds me. I won’t be able to afford to pay a pro to edit this for me, so I’m relying on my own meager (but still pro) skills. If any of you would like to do me a huge favor and give the manuscript an edit when I’m done, I’d owe you big. I’ll take you to dinner or cook for you or something to pay you back. Not to mention a free PDF of the final jobby. IF you’re interested, send me an email.
Q
Tags: Editing, Star Lost, Updates
By admin, on January 26th, 2010% So, lately I’ve been working mostly on Igor!, while still thinking about other stuff. I’ve had two recent playtests of Igor! that have gone well, but I’m still having trouble with length of game. So far, everything I’ve done to shorten aspects of the game have lengthened aspects of others. However, I’m told by my playtesters that we are quickly reaching a playability state that is comparable to commercial games out there. And not the crappy ones, either. So that is good. I’ve got some ideas for changes that Joe, Karen, and I worked out after the last playtest, but I want to let things sit for a while before I subject the same people to yet another playtest. Perhaps I shall hunt up some fresher blood…
This week I want to get back to work on Star Lost; tackle more of those fiddly final finagles that need to be addressed*. But before I do that, I want to take a quick look at Joe’s comments on the latest Playing the Market version. He had some very astute questions, and thankfully some solutions to go with them. But I haven’t had a chance to digest them with the work on Igor!
So, that’s about it for work related updates. We’re still getting our minds around the upcoming Disney trip. That’s in a week and a half. I hope the weather is nice then. Looks like the entire eastern part of the country was primed to float away for a while there.
Q
* Let’s see, there’s
- Distances and angles to the Yapra colonies
- double check the HP references for congruence with the new point scheme
- edit all the index references so the index is reasonable
- move Earth on the galaxy map
- fix the demo narrative in a couple of spots
- figure out what I forgot to put on the list
And there’s the continued line editing and revision process.
Tags: Updates
By admin, on December 23rd, 2009% I just realized I completely flaked on prepping any games for Genericon 2010! I’m still gonna look into it, but don’t hold your breath.
Where did the year go?
Q
Edit (like 2 minutes later): I just checked and Genericon is the weekend we return from…wait for it…
!!!!!Disney World!!!!!
So, yeah. Probably won’t even show up this year, but I might drop by for a little while if I get a hankerin’.
We’ve been thinking of heading to the big D since Kaylin was born, and now she’s at the perfect age. So, Genericon loses out for this year.
Q2
Tags: Ooops
By admin, on December 22nd, 2009% Got some more editing done on Star Lost. I’ve finished the first third of Off the Streets (Chapter 3, up to p106) and am about to start on the second third. Some moderate changes in this last section, to fix some problems propagated from previous revisions. The most major being an overhaul of the Social Conflict example. Doing this section, though, I realized I screwed up in a couple of places in the narrative game-play demo way back at the beginning, so I still need to head back and tackle that. All in all, though, it’s coming along.
Q
Tags: Star Lost, Updates
By admin, on December 22nd, 2009% Since it’s that sentimental time of the year, I wanted to send a big thank you to all my friends and family. To help express my feelings, I’m going to lean on a couple of semi-famous writers and some quotes of theirs.
Wil Wheaton (actor, gamer and talented writer), states it in total gamer-geek terms that resonate heartily with my soul:
“I’ve discovered that, unless I specifically set aside Geek Time for me…I eventually run out of HP, and I have to recharge. By doing some private geeky thing, like…getting together with my friends.
Think of it this way: reading a comic book gives me a little HP, like 1d4. Reading a graphic novel gives me 1d6+2. Settling in with a good book…gives me 1d10, but I can’t do anything else for several turns and have to save versus distractions at -2. Playing a video game gives me 1d8+1, unless it’s…with my friends or family, which gives me 2d10+5.
In fact, doing any geeky thing with friends is an automatic additional d10…During these gatherings, I can usually count on going all the way back to my starting HP, and if I’m especially lucky, I’ll gain 1d10 additional HP that is lost at a rate of about 1 point every two hours after we’ve all gone back to our regular lives.”
But John Greene (vlogBrother, NerdFighter and talented writer) paraphrases it nicely for the lay person: “A lot of life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.”
So here’s to all the people in my life who don’t suck.
I love you. Without you, life would truly be a black hole*. Keep on being suckless.
Slaintè,
Q
* They suck. Get it?
Tags: holidays, maundering, sentiments
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