Summer on the Convention Trail

Hey, looky there. It looks like I’ll actually post something here before the month runs out.

OK, so every now and then I get to pick the lock on my cage and escape into the wild for a few days before a refugee from Animal Planet comes and shoots me with a tranquilizer dark and hauls me back to the Freelancer Designers’ Home for the Mad. As summer creeps up, I know for certain I’ll be out and about and those of you interested in meeting me in the flesh can find me at certain venues. If history is any indicator, I suspect your second or third question for me will be “When’s Stonehell 2 coming out?”

As of right now, I’m scheduled to attend three conventions this summer, with a fourth a strong possibility. Here are the stops on my Summer Rampage Tour:

June 6^th-9^th: North Texas RPG Con—I’ll actually be arriving on the 5^th, so you’re sure to see me if you’re an early arrival at the hotel. I’ll be looking to play something because I’m a busy man that weekend once the con officially starts. I think all of my games are filled, but you’re always welcome to come by and see if there’s a no-show or two. I’m really very accommodating. My schedule is:

Thursday, June 6^th @ 6 PM in Trinity III at Table 4: DCC RPG—“Frozen in Time”
Friday, June 7^th @ 10 AM in Trinity III at Table 8: DCC RPG—“A Night on the Town”
Friday, June 7^th @ 6 PM in Trinity IV at Table 7: Shiverwhen Playtest—“The Perils of the Book Trade”
Saturday, June 8^th @ 10 AM: I’m actually playing! “Metamorphosis Alpha” with Jim Ward. I’m two for two in MA with Jim at the helm. This means I’m likely a casualty this time around.
Saturday, Jun 8^th @ 6 PM in Trinty IV at Table 7: Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future—“The Great Stonehell Laser Massacre”

July 3^rd-7^th: Dexcon in Morristown, NJ. This one is not 100% guaranteed yet, but do to its proximity to my base of operations and the good things I’ve heard about it, it’s likely I’ll be attending and running some DCC RPG. More details as they emerge.

July 12^th-14^th: Connecticon in Hartford, CT: Hey, look it me! I’m a Tradition Gaming Guest of Honor at Connecticon. I’ll be bringing DCC RPG and doing another Shiverwhen playtest. My schedule is:

Friday, July 12^th @ 8 PM: DCC RPG—“Frozen in Time”
Saturday, July 13^th @ 9 AM: DCC RPG—“In the Court of Chaos”
Saturday, July 13^th @ 8 PM: Shiverwhen Playtest
Sunday, July 14^th @ 9 AM:  DCC RPG—“A Night on the Town”

August 15^th-18^th: The mother of all conventions, GenCon! It’s my first GenCon ever. It’s taken more than 30 years, but I finally get to attend the biggest RPG convention in the U.S. if not the world. I’ve got a bunch of games schedule and it’s also likely I can be found at or around the Goodman Games booth in the exhibitor’s hall in between events. My schedule is:

Thursday, August 15^th @ 7 PM: DCC RPG—“The Croaking Fane”
Friday, August 16^th @ 9 AM: DCC RPG—“Frozen in Time (zero-level funnel)”
Friday, August 16^th @ 7 PM: DCC RPG—“The Croaking Fane”
Saturday, August 17^th @ 9 AM: DCC RPG—“Frozen in Time (1^st level heroes)”
Saturday, August 17^th @ 7 PM: DCC RPG—“A Night on the Town”

Crap. That's a lot on my plate this summer. I better get back to work.

MAJUS: Funded!

Abracadabra! As of yesterday afternoon, MAJUS has reached it goal of $3,500. I'm extraordinarily pleased to see that the game has the funding necessary to pay for the art and layout. Great strides have already been made in completing the illustrations and Dan Proctor reports that the game may be ready before its estimated August 2013 release date.

Allow me to extend my gratitude to everyone who contributed. Without your gracious contributions, MAJUS might have been regulated to the "good ideas that never materialized" pile. For those of you wishing to get in on the Kickstarter before it ends, you have two more days to contribute over at the Kickstarter page. The project's deadline for contributions is Sunday, April 21st at 9:01 AM EDT.

MAJUS' funding completed, I'll now cease my shilling. Thank you for enduring my side-show-esque hawking for the last few weeks.

MAJUS: The End is Near

Four days and $280 near to be precise. MAJUS is 100% compatible with TIMEMASTER, ROTWORLD, SANDMAN, and certain other old Pacesetter titles like STAR ACE and CHILL. If you dig those games, MAJUS introduces new threats and abilities to unleash upon your players or enrich your campaign. More details and a chance to make the magic of MAJUS happen are available at the Kickstarter page. Please consider pushing us across the finish line.

Stonehell Dungeon 2: Week Twenty-One Status Report

We interrupt this on-going shilling for the MAJUS Kickstarter campaign to bring you an update on the status of Stonehell 2. Remember, you can always get timely information on the dungeon' sequel at either the Stonehell Dungeon Google+ page or the Facebook group.

Yes, it really has been twelve weeks since I wrote one of these. I took a month off to prepare scenarios for the 2013 convention season, did three cons in four weeks, and then lost of month to post-con recovery, a final winter cold, and various other small projects and obligations. But that’s all behind me now and progress has begun once again on the long-delayed sequel to the Stonehell magnum opus.

The good news is that on April 10^th I wrote the following phrase in the Stonehell 2 manuscript: “Here Ends Stonehell Dungeon.” The final five levels of Stonehell have been officially keyed, noted, and hand-drawn maps exist for all the dungeon’s final twenty-six quadrants. In effect, the dungeon itself is complete, something I had occasional doubts of ever seeing. With the majority of the draft finished, it’s time to move along to the punch-list of tasks needed before I can call the sequel done.

Beginning this week, my main goal is to transform the hand-drawn quadrant maps into Photoshop images suitable for printing. It’s been several years since I last did this, so I cannot yet provide an estimate on how long this chore is going to take. In a perfect world, I’ll be able to create one or two maps a day, meaning at minimum we’re looking at slightly under a month’s work to finish the map series. Once those are finished, the lion’s share of hard work on my end is done.

After the maps are finished, I have the following tasks remaining:

1) A complete re-reading of Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls to ensure I didn’t miss anything I hinted at years ago that I wanted or needed to address in the sequel.

2) Write the introductory chapter containing important details regarding the lowest levels of the dungeon, Labyrinth Lord advice, and rumors.

3) Complete the appendices. I estimate there will be four in total. Two are already started and the remaining two are dependent on your input (more on this in a moment).

4) Write the afterword to the book. This is a short one or two page chapter wherein I bid a fond farewell to Stonehell, address the success or failure of my efforts, and talk to you gamer-to-gamer before saying goodbye.

5) Assemble a working layout of the book for revision and editing purposes. I’ve made tentative steps in this direction already, but can’t work on it in earnest until the maps are done.

6) Solicit, find, and insert the artwork required for the book.

7) Revise and complete the draft based on any missing information, typographical errors, or improvements discovered during steps 1) and 5).

8) Hand the book off to my as-yet unknown editor.

9) Final revisions/edits.

10) Final layout.

11) Printer’s proofs.

12) Final corrections sent to printer and final proofs.

After all this is complete and I’m satisfied with the results, the sequel will then be made available for purchase.

My goal was to have the sequel available by the weekend of June 7^th to coincide with the North Texas RPG Convention. This deadline is still possible, but has edged into the realm of improbable. Rather than get wrapped up in getting it finished by then, I’m choosing to focus on getting the book completed to my satisfaction. If that coincides with the beginning of June, wonderful, but if not, I can live with it. This is to be my Stonehell swan song and I want to make sure the notes are pitch-perfect.

So what can you do to help see Stonehell 2 out the door? Glad you asked!

There are two appendices which I require the fans to assist with. One is a necessary evil and the second is something I’ve had planned since the dungeon was in its infancy.

I’m going to include a (in theory) short errata section in the appendices to address anything I missed or needs correction in the first Stonehell Dungeon book. I’m aware of one missing entry on Level 2A (Feature D is missing), but there may be others I missed. If you are aware of anything like this or something that is blatantly unclear (but unintended) in the text, please let me know by dropping me an email with the subject “Stonehell Errata” to poleandrope@gmail.com. I’m not worried too much about any misspelled words or punctuation errors, but you can include those if you wish and maybe I’ll correct them in a revised version of SH1 someday. Mostly, my goal is to address missing game information to make the job of adjudicating the dungeon easier on the referee.

Secondly, I’m looking for a roster of those adventurers who’ve entered Stonehell Dungeon so far. If you have a PC or PCs that explored Stonehell, regardless of game system or campaign world, both the dungeon and I want to know about them. There is a room deep in Stonehell that knows these things and one of the appendices is a roster of those who’ve tread its halls. If you’ve explored the dungeon from either side of the referee’s screen and want the name of your adventurer(s) to be recorded for the ages, please send me those names in an email with the subject header “Stonehell Roster” to poleandrope@gmail.com. Any name sent to me before the final revisions are finished will be included in the appendix and therefore known by the dungeon itself.

And that’s it for this week’s update. I’ll see you in a week with (hopefully) more good news.

MAJUS: Five Days and Less than $500 Remain

Today's MAJUS-related post is a simple one. There's five days left in the funding campaign and we're less than $500 away from our goal of $3500. If you haven't kicked in yet and were planning to, the time to panic is almost here. Please visit the Kickstarter page and pledge now so I can finally get a good night's sleep! Thank you.

MAJUS: Marvin and Lord Rathmore are in. How about you?

Today's blatant plug of the MAJUS Kickstarter comes from Jim Wampler, Gygax Magazine Art Editor and creator of Marvin the Mage! We're seven days and $603 away from funding my magic noir game. Don't be left behind once the magic goes away. And for the record, I hate shilling, but it's a necessary evil sometimes. It'll soon be over, I promise, but it's going to get worse the closer we get to the finish line until we get those last couple of C-notes to finish the funding. Apologies in advance!

MAJUS: Five Adventure Seeds to Get You Started

As I write this, we’re just 9 days and $1,119 away the end of the MAJUS Kickstarter campaign. Some of you have already contributed and now have a playable copy of the game in your (digital) hands. But where do you begin your new MAJUS campaign? With many different options available to you, you might already have the wheel spinning in your heads. However, some folks may require a little helpful guidance before heading into the shadowy underworld of the Maji. In that regard, I’m here to help.

What follows are five adventure seeds you can use to jumpstart your MAJUS game. As is my usual design philosophy, I’m going to avoid hard game mechanics and just give you the gist of things to get your creative juices flowing. Whenever applicable, I note what version of the Skein might work best for these seeds, but feel free to ignore whatever I say (which is also my design philosophy in a nutshell).

1) One of the young scions of the Skein bloodline (Skein option #1) vanishes and the PCs become embroiled in locating the child, either by their Tower or as part of their own schemes in the Mehen. With no ransom forthcoming, kidnapping for monetary or magical gain seems unlikely. The PCs’ investigation unearths that the child went missing while accompanying his minders on a seemingly mundane errand close to one of the seamier section of the city. Unbeknownst to all, the child was lured away from his protectors by a band of Tylwyth Teg slavers intent on selling the child to the highest bidder, be it child slavers or rival Maji. The PCs must venture into the faerie-controlled criminal underworld to rescue the child before he goes up on the block.  For a more horrific adventure, substitute the Tylwyth Teg faeries for one of De Rais’ Children, making the PCs’ search a race against the clock before the missing boy becomes the ogre’s next meal.

2) On May 20, 2003, US-led forces invade Iraq under the codename “Operation Iraqi Liberation.” Ostensibly, the collation’s purpose is to end the regime of Saddam Hussein and stop Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction initiative, but was there another purpose? In this adventure, the Iraq War is the public face of a gambit masterminded by the Projecteers to locate and loot a number of ancient sites dating back to Sumer strewn throughout the Iraqi deserts. The PCs are deep-cover operatives of the Projecteers charged with the discovery and plundering of those sites before rival Towers can do the same. Played against a backdrop of on-going warfare and insurgency, the PCs must navigate a treacherous landscape where not all threats are magical. In addition to dodging bullets and IEDs, the Maji must face down enemy sorcerers and mystical guardians, some of whom have grown incredibly powerful since they accepted their charges from the priest-kings of old. Skein options #2 and #3 work equally well for this campaign, which can continue throughout the occupation of Iraq.

3) A series of anonymous tips alert the PCs to certain stratagems in play by rival Maji, allowing them to counteract their enemies’ schemes before coming to fruition. The identity of their informant remains a puzzling mystery, but one thing is clear: Whoever is alerting them knows much about the Old Game. But can this mysterious source be trusted? After much convincing, their unknown ally agrees to meet with them and the PCs discover that he is none other than a “feral” golem whose master died in the Old Game. Now searching for a place in the mystical underworld, the golem is well-versed in the Mehen and is both a valuable source of intelligence and a formidable opponent in battle. But can he be completely trusted, or is its aid all a prelude to its subtle campaign to bring about the destruction of all Maji, who it still harbors ill-will toward for its creation and abandonment? Skein option #4 works well for this adventure idea, but cunning CMs might use option #3 and make the golem itself one of the artifacts important to the Skein.

4) The PCs catch wind of a rumored artifact of old, long forgotten in an ancient temple dedicated to an obscure deity from antiquity. The location of the temple has vanished in the mists of history and the worshippers of that long-ago god no longer exist to aid their search. With no other leads available, the Maji must venture into the Astral Plane to the region known as Cemetery, where old gods go to die. After navigating the hazards of the Astral realm, the PCs win their way to Cemetery to locate the flickering spark that was once a deity and convince it to reveal the location of its former temple. If they’re lucky, the PCs might not only discover the resting place of the artifact, but inspire new life in the dying divinity, earning them a potent new ally in the Mehen once the god begins to reclaim its old power.

5) It is a well-known fact that nobody walks away from the table once they’ve started playing the Old Game. Retirement is not an option for Maji. Nevertheless, it seems one Majus intends to prove everyone wrong and has decided to duck out of the Mehen at the top of his game. In order to do so, he must tie up decades’ worth of loose ends, owed favors, enemies still gunning for him, and a host of other small tasks to make a clean break. To do so, he decides to employ the up-and-coming PCs as his agents, promising to hand the reins of his magical empire over to them if they help him get out of the Old Game. Can he be trusted? Does the Majus really want out or is this just another one of the multi-faceted schemes he’s used over the years to build his powerbase? This adventure seed works best with option #4, but can easily incorporate any (or even all) other Skein option in a campaign. CMs looking to run a campaign with a secretive director issuing regular adventures to the PCs for them to pursue will find this an excellent framing device for the campaign.