| ||||||||
| I just heard from Jo Walton that she has no problems with the RPG apart from a very minor error. HUGE sigh of relief. So tomorrow I finish off the distribution CD-ROM and new release of the FF CD-ROM (both more or less done as of today, so that won't take long), sort out the postal labels for the mailout, and make CD labels and start burning disks. If all goes well I'll do the mailout on Tuesday. But first I think a relatively early night for a change! | ||||||||
comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment   |
Meme-Free Zone
|
|||||||||||||
July 28th, 2008
July 26th, 2008
| ||||||||
| This is the current contents list for the distribution CD for the Tooth and Claw RPG; it's about 319 MB all in, though a lot of that is the movie of The Lost World and three versions of A Voyage to the Moon. Does this sound OK? What else would people like to see up to say 350-400 MB? ( contents ) | ||||||||
| comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
July 25th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Today I got a few things done Fiddled around with the design of the cutout boat I mentioned yesterday, and fixed the things I didn't like about the engine Made a couple of hundred cards (basically saying "This is the Tooth and Claw RPG - UK postal regulations will charge me an arm and a leg if I include a letter here, so read the Readme file on the CD" to go into the disk mailers. Wrote the readme file; it's behind the cut and I'd be grateful for comments - it basically explains why it's taken me three years to get this out, and I'm worried it might be a bit too whiney. ( Read Me ) Designed labels for the distribution disk and the FF CD-ROM. Those I'm not going to print in quantity until I'm ready to use them, those labels are expensive. One of these years I will have to look into the white topped CDs and printing on them directly, but stack loading CD Duplicators / printers cost about a grand and I can't really justify it. I'm going with one of Sue's pictures for both labels, a nice dragoness which I manipped to add a bonnet and "Votes for Dragonesses" sign. Did some more work on the other contents of both CDs. Hopefully everything will be ready once I have Jo's corrections. So why am I sweating so much? Time to go out and get some fresh air, I think... | ||||||||
| comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
July 24th, 2008
| ||||||||
While I wait for Jo to get back to me with corrections, I've been finishing off the cutout model paddle steamer I designined a while ago. Basically, I've added assembly instructions and pictures of the ship, fixed a few problems, and added floor plans for the below-deck areas. I'm not going to try to model the machinery in detail, steam engines are too bloody complicated, but I do want to show where all the bits are, e.g. the boiler etc., so I've spent most of the day with Micrografx Draw, and though I say it myself, the results could be a lot worse. This is the engine room - it's ludicrously simplified and maybe looks a bit reminiscent of something that Mamod or Mecanno might sell, but I think it will just about do. I'm especially proud of the mesh overhead walkways, which is NOT something that's easy to do with this software. The crank shaft was a total pain, and doesn't look as good as I'd like, but I think it's just about OK. This is a paste-up of two screen dumps since the engine takes up about half a page (with the boiler on one page and the rest on the next page, unfortunately - I couldn't find a way to get everything on one page without putting a page boundary somewhere even more awkward). The slightly mottled appearance at a couple of points is down to jpeg compression, it isn't in the PDF. The rest of it was comparatively easy, apart from some silly problems getting blankets to look vaguely like blankets on the cabin beds - that took a ludicrous number of separate elements per bed to get right.  Anyway, it comes out at 14 pages and a little over a megabyte, and I think that on the whole it's good. Anyone who wonders why I'm bothering - remember that the next release will be space travel, and if there's one thing people are certain to want in a space travel game it's deck plans for their spaceships. I might as well get up to speed now! Friday AM: Fixed the crank shaft, not perfect but a lot better. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
July 21st, 2008
| ||||||||
| I'm VERY pleased to say that with the exception of the table of contents, which shouldn't take long, I've now completed converting the Tooth And Claw RPG to HTML. Found a metric whatever-load of typos, bad grammar etc. while doing it, which is always useful - I would be a lot more worried if I hadn't found any. I am now going to watch TV for the rest of the evening, my eyes are too tired to do any more tonight. Once I've got the ToC sorted I'll concentrate on the rest of the distribution CD and FF CD-ROM contents until I hear back from Jo Walton and can do the final corrections, which hopefully will be straightforward, put the final version of the PDF together, etc. So with a bit of luck I hope to get the CD out to registered users this month, and put everything on line about the same time next month. It would be really nice to have it done for the Continuum games con at the start of next month, if it's finished I'll be able to give copies to reviewers etc., so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
July 14th, 2008
| ||||||||
| I gave FF X to Jo Walton yesterday. While the primary version will be PDF, I also want to publish an HTML verson, so I've now got start thinking about converting it to HTML once she's given final approval. The idea of sorting out the coding on a 170-page document is just a little daunting. I wrote the previous games in a text editor and added the HTML code as I wrote - this time I'm starting with a large Word document that contains dozens of tables, text boxes, images, etc. and lots of text formatting. I've also got a bit rusty with HTML, since it's 2-3 years since I've done anything substantial with it. Word's "Save as HTML" is pretty useless, it tries to micromanage the layout of the document and the sidebars and tables etc. come out as graphic images for some reason - I have no idea why, but it's VERY annoying. I tried saving to HTML from Acrobat, but while it works for simple documents, with something this complicated it comes out as a horrible mess, with the stuff in sidebars, tables, etc. hopelessly jumbled. The tables in particular will be a real pain if I can't find a good way to convert them automatically. So what I think I'll have to do is paste each section into an HTML editor separately and sort out layout etc. there. I REALLY don't want to hand code this, it could take me a month, so can anyone recommend a good Windows WYSIWYG HTML editor that is preferably (a) free or cheap, (b) not horribly verbose in its coding, (c) I can paste in text and still have italics etc., and (d) I can paste in e.g. tables from Word and get a properly coded HTML table out. Many thanks! | ||||||||
| comments: 12 comments or Leave a comment |
July 11th, 2008
| ||||||||
| ...Despite having been a bit under the weather today, I've finished the first draft of Forgotten Futures X: The Tooth and Claw Role Playing Game, and just backed it up to a network drive, USB stick, and CD-ROM, which will be stored at work just to be extra sure... This doesn't mean it's ready to launch - the game plan now is to reread the whole thing and make final corrections, print it out, and get the printout to Jo Walton (who is fortuitously in the UK) on Sunday. She's seen about 2/3rds of it already but only as text files - Assuming she's OK with the rest and with the look and feel of everything I can start converting it all to HTML (I want as much as possible as HTML as well as PDF), and put together the release disk with some additional game material, samples from the FF CD-ROM, etc. With a LOT of luck I may be able to start sending CDs to registered users before the end of the month. HUGE sigh of relief, since for some reason the last little bit seemed to take forever to write. I'm off to eat a very late supper and head for bed. | ||||||||
| comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
June 18th, 2008
| ||||||||
Revised text for the magic thingAnother possibility is that a serious investigation of magical legends will reveal that dragons and their related species were created by Yarge magicians who wanted fearsome monsters to protect their homes, but underestimated their creations. The first dragons turned on their masters, destroyed them, and used the last vestiges of their magic to attain their full size. There is no other magic in the world because dragons absorb it from their environment and by eating each other. This implies amongst other things that there might still be magic in countries that ban dragons (such as Rasdogah Erofal) or on the continents that dragons have never visited. In such a situation dragon flesh will definitely be the most potent source of magic around; if any Yarge magicians remain they will be very interested in acquiring some. But if dragons actually absorb magic, Yarge wizards (especially player characters) may find that attempts to use magic against dragons backfire, making them bigger and stronger, and that consuming dragon flesh has unfortunate side effects, their exact nature left to the imagination and sadism of the referee… | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
| ||||||||
For the Tooth and Claw RPG I need to explain why magic doesn't seem to exist, although there are legends saying that it existed in the past. This works for Forgotten Futures, does it seem about right for GURPS and other systems?Another possibility is that a serious investigation of magical legends will reveal that dragons and their related species were originally created by Yarge magicians who wanted fearsome monsters to protect their homes and underestimated their creations. The first dragons turned on their masters, destroyed them, and used the last vestiges of their magic to attain their full size. There is no other magic in the world because dragons absorb it from their environment and by eating each other. This is a good solution if you are using another rules system (such as GURPS) that has finite magical resources, and implies amongst other things that there might still be magic in countries that ban dragons (such as Rasdogah Erofal) or the continents that dragons have never visited. In such a situation dragon flesh will definitely be the most potent source of magic around; if any Yarge magicians remain they will be very interested in acquiring some. Any side effects are left to the imagination and sadism of the referee… | ||||||||
| comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
May 4th, 2008
| ||||||||
| I've changed the back cover of the PDF of the Those Who Favor Fire chapters Jo published. Basically, this was an edit of the graphics, which has somehow had the side effect of reducing the size of the file as a whole by about 50k, it's now about 850k Remember that there are major spoilers and "what happened to so and so..." for Tooth and Claw, so read that first! http://forgottenfutures.com/game/ff10/f Please let me know if you find anything that looks like a typo or have trouble reading it. The reason I did this may be interesting to anyone creating PDF documents. When I put together the first version I had a semi-transparent text box on the back cover which slowed the loading of the page to a crawl, and printed poorly, with a mesh effect I didn't much like. As a quick fix I made the box completely opaque, which worked but wasn't ideal. For the revised version I've simply taken the original graphic and added brightness to the area. The result is much better - it loads fast and prints the way I want. I'll be using the same trick for the back cover of the RPG. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 27th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Forgot to say I've put together a PDF of the Those Who Favor Fire chapters Jo published. Remember that there are major spoilers and "what happened to so and so..." for Tooth and Claw, so read that first! http://forgottenfutures.com/game/ff10/f About 900k, please let me know if you find anything that looks like a typo or have trouble reading it. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 23rd, 2008
| ||||||||
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} papersky has posted the first few chapters of the Tooth and Claw sequel Those Who Favor Fire for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.http://papersky.livejournal.com/385 VERY nice, but I shall have to change a few things in the RPG... | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 12th, 2008
| ||||||||
Here's a first stab at layout for the Tooth and Claw RPG back cover  Click on image then on larger view to see it at maximum size. This is basically the front cover illustration and text - I've put on a semi-transparent text box (which I may make more opaque) and overlaid one of frostfox's pictures to which I added a bonnet and placard. There will also be some blurb about the contents which I'll write when I've got them finished.Preliminary tests show it printing pretty well and the main text is legible at arm's length. But as usual any suggestions for changes gratefully received. | ||||||||
| comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
April 10th, 2008
| ||||||||
| This is what I've ended up with as the Tooth and Claw RPG cover; I'll use the same illustration as background for the one or three volume covers. I've managed to avoid using the word World three times on the cover, just once in "World Fantasy Award." It prints well, it looks good and is legible at a distance or when it's reduced in size, none of the background seems to be particularly obtrusive, and it's more interesting than any of the "lots of coins all the same" ideas I previously tried. In short, I think that this one is the keeper.  Click to enlarge. Click twice for the largest version I've transferred, about 60% of full page size. The icon is still the early version, I'll replace it eventually. | ||||||||
| comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
April 9th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Just posted this to ffutures_news which means it will be on my web site - hopefully I'm not jumping the gun too much: I haven't quite completed Forgotten Futures X, but I think it's probably a matter of a couple of weeks until I finish the writing, and maybe 2-3 weeks after that for final proofreading, approval from Jo Walton (who wrote Tooth and Claw, on which FF X is based), and putting together a distribution disk and revised FF CD-ROM. Hopefully this means that the distribution disks will be sent out in early May, and the new FF CD-ROM will be available from then onwards, with the files going on line in June. But I can't give precise dates. As of today, if you order the FF CD-ROM or register I will contact you before processing the order and suggest holding off until the new release is available. If you want the current version anyway please make a note when you register, via PayPal or in your letter. If you have moved since registering please make sure that I have an up-to-date address! | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
April 6th, 2008
| ||||||||
I've decided to ditch the old version of the cave complex, which was a pain so far as getting a coherent view of the whole thing was concerned, and go with a flatter version which has most of the same features but a lot more connections - natural and artificial tunnels - between different areas, which is good for plot purposes. Basically, it was originally a natural cave complex that became a mine, then was converted for residential use by dragons after it became too uneconomic to work - some areas (such as the ballroom and guest caves and most tunnels) are entirely artificial, others are natural, most have been improved to some extent as far as making it a desirable residence is concerned. However, it's designed for dragons, not humans, so you get things like very steeply sloping corridors. Needs some rewriting, but I think that this is a lot easier to work with than my original version; I'd be grateful for comments | ||||||||
| comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
March 17th, 2008
| ||||||||
Does this description give you a reasonably vivid idea of the character?Miregah is marrying for love, of course, but the fact that one day her fiancé will become an Illustrious is definitely a plus, as is his family’s undoubted wealth. He’s much older than her, of course, but in a couple of hundred years the difference will hardly be noticeable. She just wishes that he’d give up his dreadful military career… She is that delicate shade of pink which denotes a degree of chaste affection rather than unbridled passion. | ||||||||
| comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
March 16th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Playing with some more effects and different pictures, mostly by frostfox - think I'm beginning to get better results. I'm starting to think in terms of a collage of a lot of different coins for the cover, rather than all the same, so none of this is entirely wasted effort. I hope. ( Read more... ) Later - added another Great Sea Serpent variant | ||||||||
| comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
March 14th, 2008
| ||||||||
| More dragon coins based on frostfox's pictures. I'm a bit happier with these, I think. They'll be pretty small on the covers, I may also use them as fillers somewhere, not quite sure yet. I still haven't found an ideal gold texture for coins, unfortunately, there probably is one but really flat gold looks too dull. ( Read more... ) | ||||||||
| comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
March 12th, 2008
| ||||||||
| This will mostly make sense to beta readers who saw the worldbook and rules section. I'm making some changes which will basically make it easier to split into three books - a sourcebook, game rules, and adventures. I will need to make this split with the HTML version, it's going to be big enough to slow some browsers to a crawl as a single file; the PDF version won't be a problem that way but people may want to print it out, and having the ability to easily split it this way will be useful - make two or three copies of the rules for players and referee, since that's the bit people will use most, a worldbook or two for referee and players, and one copy of the adventures for the referee. I realised when I thought of this that some bits of the rules section worked better if moved to the worldbook, and I've now done so. There are also some other changes. The changes are:
| ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
March 10th, 2008
| ||||||||
| I've retained the original dragon coin (which seems to be a slightly better background than the others) as the overall cover, and coins based on Sue's pictures for the three-volume version. I've also adopted doctor_toc's suggestion of making it "in the world of Jo Walton's award-winning fantasy novel" instead of "in the world of Jo Walton's World Fantasy Award winning novel," subject to Jo's approval. I'm not 100% happy with the colours of the coins, for some reason I can't seem to replicate the gold shade I used for the first one, and the darks are still a bit too dark and the yellows too yellow. Adjusting hue etc. doesn't seem to be helping much, but I'm crap at this, someone with a better eye might manage it. If anyone fancies a try or has suggestions let me know - I'll have to email the background pictures to you since they'll be converted to jpg if I put them on photobucket. ( Read more... ) | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
March 9th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Here are the cover variants for the single-book and three-book versions of the Tooth and Claw RPG I've changed the wording slightly on the three covers Original cover - Roleplaying in the world of Jo Waltons World Fantasy Award winning novel. Worldbook - Exploring the world of Jo Waltons... novel. Rules - Roleplaying in the world of... Adventures - Adventures in the world of... There's a different coin motif for each cover - the original one is also used for the worldbook, the other two use two of frostfox's dragon pictures colorised and processed to look like coins. Think they work reasonably well.( pictures ) I need to adjust the spacing slightly, but I think they look pretty good. Later The more I look at this, the more I think I want to use the third coin pattern for the game as a whole, not the one I originally used. Any opinions? | ||||||||
| comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| ||||||||
| For my "country cave mystery" adventure I've designed a cave complex, originally a mine, which realistically would have a lot of overlapping sections at different depths. Mapping that sort of thing is a bit of a sod, what I've ended up doing is draw it so that all of the areas are linked to a common vertical shaft at different depths - I've then drawn each level separately, and a plan of the complex as a whole, with the levels in different colours, at smaller scale. I think this works, but the plan of the complex as a whole isn't as clear as I would like. Anyone got any thoughts on ways I could improve it? Plans of the top level and the complex as a whole are behind the cut ( Copper Caverns ) | ||||||||
| comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
March 7th, 2008
| ||||||||
| I'm putting Forgotten Futures X together as a single PDF that'll be about 150 pages long excluding table of contents. That's quite a big book for a PDF. But it breaks down into three sections fairly easily. Excluding table of contents etc.: Pages 1-34 describe the world of Tooth and Claw Pages 35-94 are a rewrite of the game rules for dragons Pages 95-whatever are the adventures I may move a couple of things from the game rules to the worldbook part, but I'm still thinking about that. The single volume approach is the way I want to go, since I'm pretty sure that writing hundreds of links from one PDF to a particular page in another will be a total pain, but I'm beginning to think that it may be a good idea to provide a separate file containing alternative covers and tables of contents for people who want to print it as three books. Does that seem a practical way to go? The cover logo would be Forgotten Futures X - The Tooth and Claw Role Playing Game for all three, then author / artist information, then a different wording at the bottom for each: The World of Jo Walton's World Fantasy Award winning novel for the worldbook Roleplaying in the World of Jo Walton's World Fantasy Award winning novel for the rules (as the existing cover I've used as my icon) Adventures in the World of Jo Walton's World Fantasy Award winning novel for the adventures To keep things simple the page numbering would be 1-34 for the worldbook, 35-94 for rules, 95-whatever for adventures. I really don't want to have two different page numbers on each page or something! Possibly a different cover illo for each too, though I'm not sure about that since I need to keep an eye on total file size. I'll definitely split the HTML version into three files; no reason not to, and the full size document might slow some browsers to a crawl. Anyone got any thoughts on this? | ||||||||
| comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
March 4th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Wow, that was a blast from the past - I just completed writing a six page (with maps) description of an underground cave complex, complete with treasure (gold and art objects), traps, and mysterious pools. Of course the description reads more like something from Country Life, since this is a highly desirable residence in Dragon country. Next come the | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
March 1st, 2008
| ||||||||
When I posted about the Blessed Jamanah's research project a few days ago I forgot to include a picture of the gentledragon in question. I had the picture then, now I've finally remembered to give him a hat, so here he is. I should maybe say that this will be about half a page wide in the book, which ought to hide any imperfections that are visible in the high magnification view. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
February 28th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Here's a little more scene setting - if you were the referee who had to run the scenario, and the adventurers happened to end up visiting the servants quarters of this particular residence, would you feel that this was enough description? I really don't want to give a massive list of interesting kitchen utensils since it isn't actually a major location in the story, and the focus is mostly on the characters and their personalities which I'm describing elsewhere. ( Read more... ) Enough, or is more detail needed? | ||||||||
| comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
February 27th, 2008
| ||||||||
| Just noticed an ad for a new partwork called something like "Myths and Monsters" coming out (I think) tomorrow. The first issue is cheaper than the rest, and comes with a red dragon figurine. No idea of size, unfortunately, but if they're biggish I might buy a couple for use with the Tooth and Claw game. Might be useful for other gamers, of course. | ||||||||
| comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
February 24th, 2008
| ||||||||
| I seem to be writing draconic equivalents of Fred and George Weasley into the current adventure. No magic, but some interesting tricks... Annoyingly, so far it's taken me two pages to describe the secondary plot for this adventure, the one that is mostly a red herring, and it will take several more pages during the course of the write-up. Full detals of the main plot are going to be about a quarter the length... Of course there's also a lot of scene setting, character stats etc. that are common to both, but it seems a little disproportionate somehow. | ||||||||
| comments: Leave a comment |
February 21st, 2008
| ||||||||
| More scene-setting, this time for the country-cave mystery. I'm going to say more about the location etc. and residents, this is the start of an introduction which I hope explains a little about the history of the place, its current occupants, etc. ( Copper Caverns ) Does this seem OK? Bearing in mind that this is the introduction and contains stuff that will be more or less common knowledge, what else might someone want to see here? I'm going to add more about the rest of the family, and there will be more details of the location for the referee, of course. Also, is "shop-soiled" or "shop-worn" more appropriate for this sort of association with commerce. Would it apply to publishing anyway? | ||||||||
| comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
Meme-Free Zone
|
|||||||||||||