Hey everyone!
Just thought I should let you know that I have a new post about Nautilus’s game mechanics up over at the Nautilus RPG site.
Go check it out! In this post I talk about the core leveling system of the game, the Quality Curve. It’s a good place to start getting an idea of the feel of Nautilus.
So, that happened.
2013 was a year of ups and downs for me. I graduated from UCI, moved up to Seattle, and am finally starting to find my feet in the new city. I have a decent job, a few good friends, and the privilege of time to work on my fiction writing and Nautilus.
It was a great year for my writing. I managed to write 1000 words/day more often than not, totaling 282,954 words of fiction. That’s missing a few days here and there where I didn’t write down my word count, but that’s okay. It’s a little bit short of the 365,000 words I was planning on writing, but I can’t complain. I’ve written up a large number of short stories, including my first ever short story submission for publication. It got rejected, but just getting up the guts to do it was an accomplishment in itself. I also finished NaNoWriMo for the 9th consecutive year, and used it to work on the story started in The Tower of Ishmal. I’m still plugging away at it, with a total word count of just under 100k so far, and am hoping to finish the first draft of the novel over the next month or so.
Nautilus got another playtest campaign. This one was shorter, and mostly to wrap up the storyline of a PC from he last playtest, but it went well and pointed out more issues with the system. The starship rules have been written and had an inaugural playtest, and over the last few weeks I’ve figured out basic social combat and rewritten the skills system so it behaves more like Fate’s as far as the value of each skill. (In the current draft, everything is a skill, from combat to cooking to socializing, instead of having combat off in its own weird little corner like in base d20. I’m hoping this will help other skills stand equal to combat, but it’s a topic for another post.) The combat system has a few tweaks as well, switching from swift/move/standard turn breakdowns to a half and full action-based system (with swift and free actions). I’ve also written up a way to build relationships between characters, both NPCs and PCs, and gain mechanical benefits for doing so. A lot of this is in the rough draft stages, but it’s written (or in the process of being written), and that puts us on much firmer ground than last year.
There were other things, too. The adventures of moving to a new city and living with new roommates. Trying to find a job and realizing that in Seattle they have the pick of the tech litter, so every job wants 3+ years of experience and it’s hard to get started with just a degree. Realizing that having a lot of free time to work can lead to me just sitting around and being bummed, or not getting as much work done I’d like to. And, of course, there were the multitude of things that happened in the wider world over the course of this year, some of which were great and many of which were terrible, forming the backdrop for all of this to happen over.
I’m not sure I accomplished a lot of my resolutions from last year, but I wanted to list a few goals for this year. I won’t beat myself up too hard if I don’t achieve all of them, but I’d certainly like to strive for them:
So that’s it! Some reflection, some goals. Bam, done! May you all have a wondrous start to your 2014. Let us conquer this year together.
Hey everybody! So, Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge this week is to post the 1,667 words from your first day of NaNoWriMo for this year. Mine ended up being a little bit over that, at around 1900 words for my first day.
An important note about this story: While I’ve tried to write this so it can stand alone, it is a continuation of the novel I started last year (the same novel that Tower of Ishmal is the first chapter of). The main detail that’s easy to miss is that Sargt di Martivir (the main character) is a Gem-scaled, which are a species of sentient/intelligent bipedal reptilian humanoids. (The other characters are either human or, in one case, a thrush, all of which should be obvious.) I realized this might not come across as well in the opening paragraphs of this piece, so I wanted to ward off any confusion. And with that, enjoy!
The rain poured down, blanketing the world in a soaking grey sheet. It had been raining constantly for the past day, the ground turning to mud, visibility limited. Tiny furrows in the rock became home to rushing rivers that flooded their banks and poured out over the edge onto the ground below.
Sargt sat under the rock, which formed the roof of a small hollow. Nuzzled up to his neck, trying to stay warm, was Blueberry, the little thrush that served as his constant companion.
There were others here, too. Stalwart companions, most. Glenna, curled up under her cloak, stray strands of red hair falling in front of her face. Cassidy, stretched out and lounging against his pack despite the chill, a young man with immense talent and little experience. Sargt had known these two for years. They’d traveled together, fought together, shed blood and sweat and tears. He trusted each of them with his life, and knew they felt the same. They were dear friends, at the very least.
And then there was Jess. She was older than the rest of them, having, Sargt guessed, a decade on him. She sat cross-legged, fingers toying with some elaborate puzzle she always brought out at times like this. They’d hired her as a locksmith, which were never known to be overly trustworthy sorts. But where they were going they would need her. And she hadn’t done anything to make him distrust her yet.
A part of him wanted to like her. Another part of him did. But she was still behind the curtain of the newly acquainted, where you all put on your best masks for each other. Once that mask fell, then he would know whether she would be the kind who would stick by their side in times of trouble or temptation. And that’s how he would know if he would do the same.
How’s it going, Sar? You’re acting all pensive. The voice of the tiny thrush echoed in his mind. Blueberry’s voice had a singing quality to it, high in pitch but expertly controlled. He felt the bird’s presence pushing in at the back of his mind.
Why not just speak? He asked across their link. Blueberry could speak, if he wished. But the little bird was insisting on using the link instead.
Everyone’s being all quiet. And boring. So I figured we should talk! Blueberry sat now on the branch of a blossoming fruit tree, at the edge of a field of green grass. Sargt was standing underneath the tree, looking up at the branches covered in starbursts of white against a background of green leaves. A memory, then. This was why Sargt disliked the link. It needed a memory to play host both personalities, and it could damage the memory if done incorrectly.
“Fine,” he said, sitting under the tree. Blueberry flew down and landed on his legs, which he stretched out before him. Memory or no, the sun felt quite warm on his scales. “Why this memory?”
“No people,” Blueberry twittered at him. “Easier to maintain. And it’s a nice memory, but a basic one you don’t ever pull anything from. Just a sunny day in the field.”
“It was a good day,” Sargt said. “But we should not linger long. I believe we are close to the caves now.”
“You’ve seen saying that the last three days.”
“Yes. But that does not diminish my faith that we will find them soon.”
“Maybe that old Gem-Scaled you talked to didn’t remember quite right.”
“Maybe. But there is one last valley to check. This terrain is unpredictable. I would not count the battle lost yet.”
“Well, I’m here for you.”
“Thank you, Blu—“
Sargt blinked as someone’s face came very close to his own. He felt the memory break back down into what it was supposed to be, a sort of liquid thought, only taking form when called upon, and slip back down into the recesses of his mind. His eyes focused on Glenna’s face, only inches from his own.
“He’s back,” she said. She sat back on her haunches. “Sorry if I interrupted. But you looked far away even for you.”
“Yes,” Sargt said. “Blueberry drew me into an old memory. Apologies.”
“None needed,” Cassidy said with a grunt as he sat up. “We were just saying it might be time to go check that last valley out.”
Jess nodded. “Not that this alcove isn’t cozy, but I’d like to get my fingers to work. They’re getting stiff in the cold.”
“Okay,” Sargt said, settling his cloak around his shoulders.
The group quickly packed, shouldered their burdens, and headed out into the pouring rain.
* * * * *
They reached the edge of the last valley. Thick brush covered the ground here, a variety of hardy scrub hanging on tight to the edges of the cliffs.
Glenna stopped and dropped into a crouch, squinting down at the ground.
“What is it?” Sargt asked, his rumbling voice carrying over the splattering of the rain against hood, ground, and grass.
“The stones here,” she said, holding away a stubborn shoot of scrubgrass. “Do they look red to anyone else?”
Sargt crouched down, big tail twitching to balance him. “Yes. Cassidy? Jess?”
“Yeah, I could see it,” Cassidy said, hunched under his cloak.
“Me too,” Jess said, getting down to look at the ground more carefully. “That’s what your man said, right, Sardimar?”
“Yes. This means we are in the right place.”
“Then let’s get down there,” Cassidy said, hopping from foot to foot. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m freezing.”
The group slipped and slid as they climbed down the steep valley walls, hard rain turning every handhold and flat surface into a risky proposition. Once they made it to the floor, they headed for the end further away from town.
Sargt fell into step next to Glenna.
“We took some time to find this place,” he said, his voice grim.
“We haven’t found it yet. But keep going.”
“The were other delvers searching for it. How many may have gotten here first?”
Glenna shrugged, causing the polearm strapped to her back to rattle in its harness. “Hard to say. This whole place is supposed to be a big deal. Have we ever seen that many groups chomping at the bit before?”
Sargt grunted. “No.”
Glenna looked up at him, bright eyes and pale face peeking out from under the edge of her hood. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” She clapped a hand on his shoulder. Sargt’s skin tingled at the touch, even through cloak and chain. “We’re smarter and faster than they are. Even if they have a head start, we’ll catch up.”
Sargt snorted. “I do not know about you, but I am beginning to feel the weight of years creep up on me. Perhaps we are not so fast.”
Glenna leaned in towards him as they walked and whispered. “I thought it was just me. How sore has your back been?”
“Very,” Sargt said, rubbing at his lower back.
“You know,” Glenna said, returning to her normal voice. “They say that this life ages you prematurely. I mean, you and I are are going to be what, thirty soon? And how long have you been delving?”
Sargt thought on it for a moment. “Fourteen years. It seems so long when I think about it.”
“Then try not to, that’s what I do,” she said with a grin. “But if we’re aging faster because of all this, we’re practically elders. So I’d say we’re doing pretty good, wouldn’t you, geezer?”
He chuckled. “I suppose I could agree with you, old crone.”
Cassidy’s voice called out from behind them. “Hey, do you guys see that?”
Sargt squinted into the rain, turning his gaze this way and that. He turned back to Cassidy. “I do not.”
Cassidy was pointing ahead of them. “I saw it just for a second when the rain shifted. I think there’s a cave a little to our right.”
“Lead the way,” Glenna said. Cassidy hustled out in front, and Sargt set himself right behind the young man. Because you never know what you would encounter out in the wilderness.
And then it loomed above them. A cave cut like a gash into the rock, puckered and rocky around the edges, as wide across at points as Sargt was tall. Cassidy hustled in under the overhang, and the others joined him.
Sargt crouched down and struck a torch as the others shook their cloaks out and looked around. In the flickering light, they could see the cave running down deep into the mountainside.
“I think this is our place,” Cassidy said. “Are you guys ready?”
“I hope there’s more here than just rocks,” Jess said as she adjusted her pack and brought her shortsword to the ready.
“Such places often conceal great caverns deep underground.” Sargt intoned.
“And sometimes they’re even full of treasure for honest delvers like us,” Glenna said as she got her polearm out and readied. She took point, and Sargt walked towards the rear of the group. “Let’s get further inside and make sure we’re in the right place.”
“Yeah, because being in the wrong dry, spacious cave would be so awful right now,” Cassidy said as they began to walk down in the dark, leaving the open air behind.
* * * * *
The cavern was a twisty maze of passages, all seemingly alike. But most of the offshoots soon dead-ended or became too narrow to follow, and dropped away as they traveled further and further into the mountainside.
Sargt peered down at the ground as they walked, trying to find evidence of any having passed before them. But the stone was hard and unyielding, with no signs of disturbances. And if anyone had passed through here, they had left nothing noticeable behind.
He ran into Jess’s back.
“Ooof,” she said, taking a step forward to steady herself. “We’re stopped, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Apologies.”
“Sardimar, can you bring that torch up here?” Glenna called out from the front of the group.
Sargt squeezed past Cassidy and Jess and came up just behind Glenna, holding his torch high in the air. As he took that last step, he felt, rather than saw, the cavern open out above him. The torch did not cast enough light to let him see the roof.
“Just as I thought,” Glenna said, taking a step forward and poking the toe of her boot out into blackness. “The trail cuts down the side wall of this cavern. If we get lucky, we’ll be able to walk the whole way…”
“But we may well be climbing,” Sargt said. He peered out into the darkness of the cavern, and saw a glow, far off. Glenna followed his gaze and grunted.
“I suppose we are not the first,” Sargt said, a mournful tone in his voice.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this,” Glenna said, patting him on the shoulder and squeezing a little with her hand. She turned to the rest of the group. “Okay guys, we need to take the rest of this slowly. The path drops off pretty steeply to the side here, and if you fall down it I don’t think you’re coming back up.”
“Got it,” the other two said.
Glenna turned back to Sargt. “You’ll catch me if I fall, won’t you?”
“Always,” he said. Her eyes met his with a hint of surprise, but she smoothed over her expression and turned to head down the path.
“Keep that torch high,” she said.
Okay then, onto part 2. This day was mostly panels for me. There may also be one more post where I mention some of the lovely people I met that didn’t make it into the various days’ writeups. (Mostly because I met them between events/panels and so they don’t fit in so neatly with the chronological breakdown.)
I arrived to the convention at roughly the same time as before (about 9 AM), mostly due to the bus schedule, and made a beeline for the first panel I attended at 10 AM.
10:00 AM — Panel: Writing for Role-Playing Games, run by Amber Scott. This panel was easily my favorite of the convention. Amber really knows her stuff, and was very open with sharing all sorts of little details about the RPG writing process. (Example that I found extremely useful: The average 8.5×11″ RPG page, once fancy borders are added and with an average amount of art and usual formatting, holds about 750 words/page. I’d been trying to find a statistic like that forever!) She was also super-encouraging and told a lot of funny stories as she walked us how she got her start in the industry, some basic things to always remember when submitting work, and how to let editors and such know you’re available for work without being annoying. Oh, and she gave mad props to all the editors out there and tried to dispel the myth that they’re all mean people, which was nice to hear! (Especially since editors are totally awesome but it can be hard to tell that right away from the receiving end of a rejection letter, so sometimes people need to be reminded.) The main points I came away with was to take all the opportunities you can (try not to talk yourself out of them), always be polite and kind, and just keep working at it.
12:00 PM — Panel: Life as a Lone Wolf: Tips for a Successful Freelance Career. Bonnie Burton, Hilary Heskett Shapiro, Holly Conrad, Jessica Merizan, and Miellyn Fitzwater Barrows were all on this panel. It was one of the most hilarious panels I attended (Bonnie went and had a puppet take her place on the panel within the first five minutes), but it had some good advice as well. One interesting thing was that a lot of these individuals had started at various staff jobs (or acquired them early on) and then went freelance, which let them leverage those connections as their first client as a freelancer, helping them build their portfolio and solidify their contacts. Hilary also mentioned (and was very much agreed with) that “Freelancing is doing anything they’ll let you do,” which was a nice call towards not being afraid of doing something new. Taking projects that you were initially scared of was also endorsed, because those often give you the opportunity to try out new skills and grow your abilities in the way that doing the same work over and over again never will. Also, as far as your taxes: get an accountant, they are wonderful and usually pay for themselves with the deductions they can find. All-in-all a good panel, with a lot of emphasis on building and maintaining your reputation, taking a practical approach to transitioning into freelancing, and always improving.
1:00 PM — Panel: How to (or Should You?) Start a Geek Business. This panel was moderated by Sephanie Zimmerman, and the experts in attendance were Bronwyn Detlofsen and Cecil Longino. This mostly focused on starting businesses like retail establishments, restaurants, etc that cater toward a geek crowd. (Bronwyn runs the Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle, and Cecil runs the Salle Saint-George fencing school.) Main takeaways: it’s going to take you a couple years to become profitable, you’ll be working extremely long hours to improve your business, a lot of businesses fail, and it’s all going to take way more time and money than you initially estimate. Good lessons! The bit about getting an accountant and how they pay for themselves most of the time was also repeated.
2:00-ish — At some point in here I hustled across the street and got two fruit and nut bars and an apple for lunch. Let me tell you, after running around for the last day and a half and eating out so much, that convenience store apple was one of the more amazing apples I ever had.
3:00 — It’s Not Too Dangerous to Go Alone: Finding the Bravery to do it Yourself. Another big panel, with Hilary Heskett Shapiro, Kara Helgren, Kenna Conklin, Marian Call, and Miellyn Fitzwater Barrows all up in front. This panel covered a lot of conquering the fear of getting your stuff out there (protip: just get it out there, you’ll learn from critique if nothing else), finding peers (talk to everyone, including people at con panels talking about what you’re interested), and some of the more day to day things like organization and discipline. Accountants came up again, as well as the advice to do your research into things like taxes and licensing before you start a project (especially a licensed project, with the additional advice that for that you should check with an attorney, too), because making a mistake on a licensed project or your taxes is way too expensive, and there’s no mercy if you did something wrong without knowing it. Also, only do things for free if you want to do them and you’re not taking a job away from someone else/hurting anyone (aka if no one does it for free would they hire someone? if so, don’t do it). Oh, and hey, if you’re getting rejected, that means you’re doing the work and getting it out there, and that’s a way better sign than not getting rejection at all because you’re not making things/doing the work.
4:00 PM — Panel: QUEER GEEK!: Women in Gaymer Communities. Up front for this panel were: Benjamin Williams (who was also moderating, it seemed), Ashley Cook, Crystal Frasier, Kelsey Wesley, and Cherisse Watson. This was a really interesting discussion about why women often don’t feel welcome in queer spaces, and why those spaces tend to trend towards being populated primarily by men. GaymerX was discussed as an example. Trans women also came up (given that sometimes they don’t feel welcome in your average women-oriented space), and one of the panelists gave a very good example where she advertised her ladies night as being for anyone “who identified as a woman” or something similar, which let marginalized trans women know they were more than welcome to attend. The discussion did drift quite a few times, but the big takeaway seemed to be that we can’t trust queer spaces to be implicitly welcoming to everyone, and that it may need to be made more explicit that yes, these spaces are truly for everyone, men, women, gay, bi, lesbian, queer, trans, asexual, (if I missed your preferred identity word/phrase, please insert it here and accept my sincerest apologies), and allies, too. The panel was a little tense at times, but the panelists managed to keep the discussion and answers to audience questions moving along and productive, which was totally awesome. (Also, man, coming up with universally agreed upon definitions is hard, as some of the conversation during this panel demonstrated.)
After that last panel, I popped into the closing ceremonies at 5:30 PM. Well, I actually ended up sitting on the end of the Ladies of the 80s sing along, which was amazing. And then the closing ceremonies happened. They were short and sweet, with a short speech from the higher-up organizers, a thanking of all the volunteers, and the Doubleclicks performing “Noting to Prove” to close out the night.
After that, I headed home exhausted. It was a truly fantastic con, especially if you had lots of panels to go to, and everyone I met seemed pretty awesome. And it was a very welcoming space to everyone, which is a nice change from how some other cons can feel. I fully recommend going to Geek Girl Con if you ever get a chance, and I’ll definitely be back next year!
Hey everyone! I went to Geek Girl Con this year and had a grand ol’ time, and I thought I’d share what I did and my thoughts on the con as a whole. This was my first time there, and well I’m not sure I was exactly their target audience, after I got over my own nervousness (this was also my first con going solo, which I’m sure didn’t help), I had a good time.
The writeup is split into two parts, each covering one day of the con. This post will cover Saturday, and my opening impressions of the convention. I’ll break down each day into rough chunks of time, and then give my overall impression of the day at the end. Sound good? Let’s go, then.
8:30 AM — I waited outside the con in line with a whole ton of other people, and the line just kept getting longer behind us. I was very glad I’d bought my tickets in advance, as there were only a small handful available at the door (and all but a single two-day pass sold out incredibly quickly). Watching people line up gave a very positive impression of how inclusive the con was. Lots of women (duh), a decent number of men (which indicates to me they did a good job making the con feel inclusive in their advertising materials), and individuals that ran the gamut from full-on crazy cosplay to average folks in average clothes (yo). We got let in only a tiny bit late, just after 9:00, and given the crazy number of people they had to admit, I can’t blame them. The volunteers did a great job letting everyone know where they’d need to go and what to do.
9:15ish AM — Got let in, got my badge with my print-out pass very quickly, including program and announcements. I hadn’t looked at the schedule a whole lot before hand, and I found out from the announcement page that the panels that I was interested in for the first half of the day were pretty much all cancelled (specifically the panel on “How to Build a Kick-Ass Brand on a Start-up Budget). Also, almost nothing started until 10 AM anyway, which makes sense but left me at a loose end. So I started wandering the con.
9:30 AM – 11:30 AM — Wandering the con. Checked out the Exhibitor Hall (the Dealer’s Den, essentially), Artist’s Alley, and Tabletop Games sections. The Exhibitor hall was good size, enough that you could take some time to wander through, but small enough you could definitely felt that you saw everything without having to spend hours digging. The Artist’s Alley felt a little small to me (it was all huddled together into a single room), but I think they were doing the best with the facilities they had. Lots of talented artists! I was a little bummed I didn’t see any there that matched what I was looking for for Nautilus stylistically, but that’s not a knock against the wonderful people there. The small space also had the benefit of making everyone feel very approachable, especially so early on the first day of the con when there weren’t that many people wandering through. I mostly radiated awkwardness, because I’m bad at people. Oh well!
I went down to the Tabletop Games area fairly early, before 10 AM. Not many people were set up, but I did have the unique pleasure of meeting Corvus Elrod, the designer of Bhaloidam. We talked for a while about the game, with Corvus showing me the base of the system (which uses a small board for each character instead of a character sheet) and the token-centric mechanics, which lend a great physicality to the game. The game’s physical materials are super-high quality as well. Bhaloidam seems like it would be a great fit for the story gamer (e.g. folks who like Fiasco, Shooting the Moon, Kingdom, etc) who’s not afraid of a little crunch. And the crunchiness of the system intrigued me as well, because one of the things I got tired of when playing story games was the lack of structure. (Which can be very beneficial sometimes, but that discussion’s a whole other post.) The crunch would make it an ideal storytelling game to introduce more traditional, wargame-y tabletop RPG players (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, Pathfinder) to the genre, with the crunch giving a touchstone to build off of. The game can even be run with minis, if you dig it, a rare feat for a storytelling-oriented game.
Corvus and I also talked about game development. I told Corvus a bit about Nautilus and we also talked about various styles of printing, how long Bhaloidam was in development (and the stages it went through), kickstarter, etc. Bhaloidam seems like a great game and Corvus looks to be a smart and talented game designer who I’ll be following in the future.
11:30 AM — Ducked off to an early lunch at Cyberdog, which is right next door to the convention center. Vegan hot dogs ftw. I also had an interesting conversation with a fellow who was attending the natural foods convention in the other part of the convention center, and open/young versus older/insular conventions.
After that it was killing time until the first panel I attended at 1:30. While I didn’t take advantage of the Introvert’s Alley (a quiet space downstairs for introverts to unwind), I was able to find a quiet corner in the hotel, take a few phone calls (it was my birthday and family was calling), and read for a while as I waited. Big conventions rarely have spaces like that, so being able to find one that even had seating and a power plug was a real treat, and a credit to the matching of the con’s size to that conference center.
1:30 PM — First panel: Ask the Astronomers! This panel was headed by Aomawa Shields, Jillian Scudder, Lisa Will, and Nicole Gugliucci. They took questions from the audience about anything and everything space related, and all worked together to explain things clearly. They were all really nice, too, and were never condescending or snide about any of the questions. All class acts, and amazing people. By the end of the panel, I was toying (again) with the idea of going off and studying astronomy somewhere. Space is awesome! They also encouraged everyone to feel free to e-mail them (or their local university’s astronomers) with any questions they might have about space, since most astronomers are happy to answer questions and educate people, which I thought was a nice touch. As an added bonus for Seattlites, Ms. Shields is local! (She studies at the University of Washington.) Given that she’s an astrobiologist in addition to a straight-up astronomer, she may well hear from me soon with some questions for Nautilus world-building…(insert mild evil laugh here!)
3:00 PM — The activity that was not to be, Design a Tabletop RPG in One Hour. The moderator/leader just never showed up! A disappointment, but these things happen at busy conventions.
4:00 PM — Panel: Making Your Website a Hate Free Zone. Okay, so the moderator didn’t show up for this one either. But one intrepid volunteer took it upon himself to suggest that, since there were a good number of us there (20-30, I’d guess), that we might want to have a discussion among the group. He then stayed and asked additional questions the entire time, and the entire group was respectful and I think everyone learned a lot. A neat example of an emergent activity in the middle of a big convention, and the discussion was full of respectful questions, well-considered answers, and acceptance of all points of view. Great job, everyone!
6:00 PM — Panel: Crowdfunding Without Losing Your Mind. On this panel were: Julia Haehn, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Nicole Lindroos, and Shanna Germain. It was interesting hearing about the variety of experiences, from small projects like Ms. Cohen-Moore’s book Guide to the Village by the Sea to the big Cheapass Games and Freeport kickstarters that Julie Haehn and Nicole Lindroos, respectively, were a part of. Lillian also moderated the panel, and did a fantastic job of time management and asking great questions that led the discussion along in an organic and easy-to-follow way. I may have also spent a decent part of the start of the panel geeking out over the fact that Lillian Cohen-Moore was on the panel, as she’s one of my twitter heroes and I hadn’t realized she was going to be on the panel. It was so exciting! (Seriously, go follow her for all the spooky wizard newsie goodness. You won’t regret it!)
And that was the end of the first day of the con for me. I hustled to the bus and got home pretty shortly thereafter, as while there were interesting things going on later in the evening, it was also my birthday and I had dinner plans with a few fine folks.
Overall impression of the con, day 1: While I had a bit of a slow start (that was mostly my fault; read your schedules ahead of time, everyone!) the con was full of interesting panels and any awkwardness I’d been feeling about being a dude at a very woman-oriented convention had melted away by mid-afternoon. The con felt a little small, but I quickly figure out it’s currently designed to be a very panel-oriented con, and the more panels you fit in the more of a blast you’ll have. I had a good time on the first day, and the next day was even better.
But for coverage of that, you’ll have to wait for Part 2. Also in Part 2: odds and ends from Day 1 that didn’t quite fit anywhere in here. Exciting! Coming soon! Exclamations!
Sorry this is so late this week. Mr. Wendig’s challenge wasn’t up yet when I went to do my writing, and though I wrote this on Saturday it took me a while to edit it down to (exactly) 1000 words and get it posted. Hope you enjoy it! Continue reading
Hey everyone!
So Nautilus this past week has most been me working away at starship combat. Originally, we based it off of Stormwrack‘s ship combat, but that had the issue of being too hard to scale up to more than one-on-one ship battles. Then I tried out another version based on the dogfighting system that someone had posted for WWI biplane fights on an old d20 modern forum. That one had issues with that once a good pilot put their starship where they wanted it to be, the other person was at such a disadvantage it was hard to ever recover, leading to the fights feeling very static and overall not being very much fun.
Which brings us to the new system. I’ve refocused on what the entire crew is doing. The ships themselves roll initiative at the start of the fight (usually the captain or the pilot makes the roll) and then everyone on the crew of that ship acts on that initiative, taking their turns in any order they please. I’ve written up a whole slew of actions for each station, and several of them give boosts to other characters working other jobs, promoting collaboration between the players. I drew a lot of inspiration from Star Trek: Enterprise (please don’t hate me) for this, and I think it scales nicely from smaller ships with just a pilot and maybe a gunner all the way up to ones with bridge crews of five to seven. The crew roles are: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, sensor technician, tactical officer, chief engineer, and captain. So a small ship can get by with just a pilot, but if you have a lot of players, they can all have something unique to do (and more actions as a ship to do what needs doing).
I’ve also included momentum in the movement rules, so no ship can easily make a 90-degree turn without drifting a little along its previous vector, first. And acceleration, top speed, and facing are also tracked. It sounds complex, but I have a feeling that in playtesting once players get it, it’ll be manageable. I may also print out some cheat sheet cards to help players calculate their own movement, though I’ve tried to keep the simulation fairly easy to understand.
I still kept the external sections feature of Stormwrack, so you can get location-specific with your damage. It’s also useful for having terrible things start happening inside the ship based on taking damage on the outside. Hull breaches, anyone?
I also wanted to try and keep the ship combat on a semi-realistic scale. In deep space, where there’s no major gravitational sources, a ballistic projectile has infinite range, and even missiles would be able to go a good long distance on fairly minimal thrusters, so there’s no reason to get within spitting distance of an enemy ship before attacking. I combined this with some research about how fast ships in d20 Future go at PL6 (tempered by looking up how fast our modern-day shuttles go in orbit), and ended up coming up with the units of a 1-inch square on the map equalling 20km. So while it’s no Honor Harrington with thousands of kilometers between opposing ships, I’m hoping it will still give a good sense of the grand scale of space combat.
I’m still working out the kinks, but I’m hoping to get to do some solid playtesting soon. I’m excited! I think this might be a solid basis for the final starship combat system, and that’s been one of the last stumbling blocks to me being able to focus on filling in the smaller details for the game, like equipment and weapon lists, that go much faster than doing large-piece system design.
I’ll let you know how it goes! Until next week, this has been the Nautilus News Network.
Hey, it’s Friday and that means it’s Flash Fiction day! Today’s flash fiction is based off of Chuck Wendig’s latest Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Setting. I random rolled my setting (I got a 20, in case you want spoilers by following that link), and this is what resulted. I hope you enjoy! Continue reading
The last few weeks of Nautilus have mostly been spent getting myself organized and figuring out what needs to be done next. I ended up with a to-do list two and a half pages long (and it’s not even done yet)! I also reorganized a lot of the development wiki, condensing down the number of categories and pages to make the development versions of the book (which are compiled directly from the wiki) more print friendly.
I’ve also been slowly taking care of a bunch of little things. Adding new pieces of minor equipment, putting in old edits to clarify rules and set down in writing rules that were created in playtesting, adding item descriptions, that sort of thing.
I’m a little worried right now because when I went to work on Nautilus this morning, for the first hour I felt like I’d totally lost the thread of what I needed to be working on. The issue I’m running into is that the last few big mechanical pieces (ship combat, relationships, defining the roleplay/mission phase cycle, and incentivizing exploration) are tricky as hell, and so I freeze up sometimes when I need to work on them. At the same time, a lot of the little things that need to be done (examples for a lot of stuff, gamemastering advice, the introduction/tutorial section, etc.) really need the game to be mechanically *finished* before I write them, to avoid needing to triple-check every example for little discrepancies. But I plan on putting my head down and soldiering on, because that’s what needs to get done.
I’m also hoping to accelerate my current pace a little bit, but we’ll see how that goes. I’d like to have the core book (what I’ve been primarily working on) as a completed, self-edited first draft by the end of the calendar year, and to have started working on the first draft of the setting/encounters book. But we’ll see how it goes. I imagine things will be a lot clearer on that front in a month or so. (A lot depends on things like me getting a day job and what hours it has, that sort of thing.)
This has been your Nautilus News Network update! If you’re interested in getting in on the playtesting of Nautilus or want to know more, feel free to shoot me an e-mail or tweet using the contact information in the right sidebar.
Hey all! Hare a few links from my recent travels around the internet. Hope you find them interesting.
1. Sam Brown’s Factory Tours (via Daniel Solis) — Sam Brown went and toured 5 board game factories in China. Hey, it turns out they’re not horrible hell holes! Also gives some interesting insight into what parts of the games are made where.
2. Jaquaying Dungeons, on The Alexandrian (via Daniel Hebert a friend of mine who has little web presence!) — An interesting series of articles talking about constructing dungeons in tabletop games as a series of loops, rather than a linear line. This can lead to much more dynamic tactics and dungeons than with the standard more-linear designs. An older Alexandrian article, but a good one.
3. Meaningful Choices in Dungeons, again on The Alexandrian (via Daniel Hebert) — Another great article on how to make it so your players feel like they’re doing more than just flipping a coin when you ask them “left or right” at a dungeon intersection. Strikes me as a good way to encourage roleplay and player immersion, as well.
4. Scrivener and RPG Writing over at Population: One (via Ryan Macklin’s twitter) — I personally love Scrivener, and it’s great to see a good example of using it to write adventures and how it sets itself apart from other word processing/writing programs.
5. 25 Steps to Being a Traditionally Published Author: Lazy Bastard Edition by Delilah S. Dawson over at TerribleMinds — A rocking, step by step explanation of getting published traditionally by someone who’s been through the whole process a couple of times. As a bonus, it’s hilarious and also willing to tell us all some hard truths about the process. With so many people writing about self-publishing these days, it’s nice to get some hard information on the more traditional path. And it’s actually a very motivational piece.
Huzzah for links! I hope they provide you with much reading pleasure.