tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83523251196087298502024-03-14T09:27:02.682-06:00Rolltop IndigoThe Blue Room Blog: RPGs, Fantasy Cartography, Cooking, Fonts, Stuff.S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-47957474956933858102023-12-30T13:57:00.001-07:002023-12-30T15:49:40.950-07:00Risus: Thirty Years!<p>We're almost out of 2023!</p><p>This year has been the 30th Anniversary of <b><i><a href="https://www.risusiverse.com/">Risus: The Anything RPG</a></i></b>, the 20th Anniversary of <b><i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/203657" target="_blank">The Risus Companion</a></i></b>, and the 10th Anniversary of <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170294/Risus-The-Anything-RPG" target="_blank"><b><i>Risus</i></b> 2nd Edition</a>.</p><p>As I write this, we're at the end of December, and I feel like I should raise a glass to <b><i>Risus </i></b>before the year is done. I've kept quiet so far because I think it would be <i>unseemly</i>, nowadays, for me to parade the <i>Risus </i>name <i>too </i>much. But, 30, 20 and 10 years are worth taking a moment for, so I'll mark the triple-occasion with a story from the youngest of the three celebrants, the 2nd Ed:</p><p>It was a scary Colorado day, for the time had come to draw the Little Cartoon Bastards (the name my stick-figure "art" takes when the sticks pose specifically for <b><i>Risus</i></b>).</p><p>I always <i>dreaded </i>that part.</p><p>Not from dislike! I <i>love </i>the little idiots, and they represent the <i>best </i>of what <b><i>Risus </i></b>can be, but <i>I can't draw.</i> That's not some false-modesty thing. I <i>hardcore </i>can't draw. I can't-draw at a <i>world-class level.</i> I could fail to draw at the Olympics and <i>win </i>the can't-draw gold. Almost every <b><i>Risus </i></b>"illustration" took several drafts, and came from <i>many </i>false starts, and for every one that made the cut, there were six or seven that <i>didn't,</i> because they were <i>worse</i>.</p><p>But, the time had come, so I'd sit around doodling when I was hanging out with my players, hoping some of those doodles would work out.</p><p>Around that time, a <b><i>Risus </i></b>supporter I was following online got a <i>guitar,</i> and he was super happy about it, and his joy over it felt infectious, so I thought: <i>"I should have a <b>guitar-playing</b> LCB for the new edition, as a shout-out to that gamer's new guitar!"</i></p><p>And I liked that idea almost <i>too </i>much? Like, I <i>wasn't willing to let it go.</i> I had a <i>vibe</i> in my mind and I wanted an LCB who would <i>deliver </i>that vibe: a <i>triumphant </i>vibe, a <i>rock-and-roll-fantasy</i> vibe. A happy LCB, shredding with joy.</p><p>But, see above. <i>I cannot draw. </i>So, it's a terrible, heartbreaking idea for me to develop <i>artistic ambitions,</i> no matter how humble.</p><p>I did something like 20 gods-forsaken drafts of guitar-playing stickmen. And they all <i>suuuuuuucked</i>.</p><p>I did many from pure imagination, and many from photographic reference. I searched the Web for classic images of triumphant guitar poses from the likes of Hendrix, Prince, Van Halen, Clapton, Page, Zappa, Buddy <i>Frickin' </i>Holly ... hoping that <i>their </i>moments of triumph could give me that triumphant <i>vibe</i>.</p><p>And if I could draw, that approach would have worked. I would have had the skill, the eye, the <i>insight</i> necessary to <i>translate</i> some of those moments into something <i>sticklike</i>.</p><p>But, see above. I cannot draw.</p><p>So, I was sad, I was adrift. I <i>wanted</i> a triumphant guitar guy. I <i>couldn't let go </i>of wanting that piece. But the <i>chasm</i> between my approach, and that desire, was blocking my path.</p><p>It took me a few weeks of beating my head against that wall before the tweety-birds circling my head got me a light bulb, out of pity.</p><p>It came to me when I was waking from a snooze, and I <i>scooted </i>to the computer to search for <i>new </i>references. This time, I was no longer searching for rock stars or guitar legends ... I was searching for people <b><i>IMAGINING </i></b>they were rock stars and guitar legends. I searched for pictures of people playing, <i>not </i>guitar, but <b><i>AIR GUITAR.</i></b></p><p>Go ahead and try it. You'll <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=guy+playing+air+guitar&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjS0KvV_7eDAxULB0QIHaNbBKwQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=guy+playing+air+guitar&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCAAQgAQQGDoECCMQJzoFCAAQgAQ6CggAEIAEEIoFEEM6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBOg4IABCABBCKBRCxAxCDAToNCAAQgAQQigUQQxCxAzoICAAQgAQQsQM6BggAEAUQHlCtGljXOGDIOmgAcAB4AIABlQGIAfQXkgEEMC4yM5gBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=N32QZZLZKYuOkPIPo7eR4Ao&bih=649&biw=1280&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1005US1005" target="_blank">see what I saw</a> (well, ten years later, you'll see the <i>equivalent </i>of what I saw): <i>that </i>is the triumph I was craving. Not the <i>reality </i>of shredding guitar, but the <i>fantasy </i>of it, the <i>love </i>of it, the <i>roleplay</i> of it. The absolute frickiting <i>nonsense </i>of it. I wanted the joy of the daydreamer, and the air-guitar people are the people who <b>GET </b>that, and <i>deliver </i>it all the time, so I loaded my eyeballs with air-guitar triumphs and air-guitar dreams, and <i>I stood, and I shredded some air of my own, </i>because I knew this was was the missing piece that would snap the chasm shut, so I could <i>stride </i>across, as if I'd <i>always </i>known how.</p><p>I got it on the <i>first </i>(new) <i>try</i>. The little dude danced from my pen without further iteration. A <i>triumphant </i>doodle, by a guy who can't draw, of a triumphant performance, by a guy who can't play.</p><p>But we can pretend. Happy anniversary, little game (almost belated!), and here comes 2024.</p><p>May we all shred triumphant.</p><span></span><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMuzjOLMBJ8oVGZdcp-6f2N7x5gvpJYGU_PlNYWSfdRYOQMAxKsmEA_tAnZ2U8UlFabSdTDPVgQnTQgQl_Tw8ub1trdCpg4queHw7RxMqs6xK1uouiSi4-wH0fff9f-zjMGHbw5WkMr9zFIjhT9aoWwJcO-WaDEtsQ9qkgOqwd1lysiw3XzdbgpQcZjxxOpBMTY7gF/s918/Risus-Rockstar.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="918" data-original-width="878" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMuzjOLMBJ8oVGZdcp-6f2N7x5gvpJYGU_PlNYWSfdRYOQMAxKsmEA_tAnZ2U8UlFabSdTDPVgQnTQgQl_Tw8ub1trdCpg4queHw7RxMqs6xK1uouiSi4-wH0fff9f-zjMGHbw5WkMr9zFIjhT9aoWwJcO-WaDEtsQ9qkgOqwd1lysiw3XzdbgpQcZjxxOpBMTY7gF/w383-h400/Risus-Rockstar.png" width="383" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>That's the Power of Love.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;">_ _ _ _ _ _</div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>For more about </i><b>Risus</b><i>, visit the <a href="https://www.risusrpg.com/" target="_blank">Official Risus Page</a> from <a href="http://bigdicegames.com/" target="_blank">Big Dice Games</a>, and the "<a href="https://www.risusiverse.com/home/risus-links" target="_blank">Risus Links</a>" page on <a href="https://www.risusiverse.com/">Risusiverse</a>. "Risus: The Anything RPG" and "Little Cartoon Bastards" are trademarks of Dave LeCompte.</i></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-25078443719255677092023-11-10T16:11:00.011-07:002023-11-10T17:35:52.452-07:00Staring Back at the Invisible<p style="text-align: center;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><h2><i>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</i></h2></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><i>We've come to the final entry in the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/p/an-rpg-lexicon.html" target="_blank">Lexicon </a>series. If you're new, hi!<br /></i></i><h2><i>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</i></h2></div><p>Back in our <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html" target="_blank">very first entry,</a> we met the goofy metaphor of the “Invisible Rulebooks,” the rules which can't be found in the "rules" part of the Book of Rules ... but they're still rules, because in an RPG, any fact with tactical relevance is the <i>equal </i>of a rule, whether it's a "+1 to hit" kind of fact or "the Duke is self-conscious about his baldness" kind of fact or "this is a genre where protagonists can’t die just by slipping on a banana peel" kind of fact, or many others.</p><p>It’s a metaphor; Invisible Rules aren't always <i>literally </i>invisible. If an adventure module <i>specifies </i>that the Duke is self-conscious, it's<i> right there on the page,</i> plainly visible but still (in this context) an "Invisible Rule," because we won’t see it in the “Rules.”</p><p>Rules (of every kind) have some <i>other </i>qualities worth noticing, beyond Visible/Invisible. Let’s dive into our final set of terms, laying those crucial qualities bare.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">SHAREABLE/LESS-SHAREABLE</h2><p>Let's say we're imagining a merchant, in a fantasy world. My idea of what "fantasy merchant" means might come from a book of real history, or a videogame, or from personal memories of a hilarious NPC my favorite GM in the 80s portrayed with an AWFUL Cockney accent. Most likely it's all of those, and more. I think about fantasy merchants a lot.</p><p>If you and I have played the <i>same </i>videogame, we have some <i>common ground. </i>This makes that <i>portion </i>of our Invisible Rulebooks <i>shareable </i>between you and I.</p><p>If you and I haven’t read the same history book, I could loan mine to you, if you want, and if you're interested in the topic or if it seems really important to our campaign, maybe you'll read it. So that's another degree of (potentially) "shareable."</p><p>But there's no way for you to go back in time, in MY life, and experience the exquisite agony of that hilarious NPC with the terrible accent. The best I can do is describe it, which is another kind of "shareable" that's much more <i>limited</i>. If your own gaming life includes a similar NPC, that’s a kind of shareable too, though we might also be making assumptions about the similarity of our experiences that are only partially true.</p><p>If we're gaming in a gameworld we both enjoy, we've both probably delved into some of the published world material for it ... and, in certain playstyles (like mine) that's such a <i>critical form of shareability</i> that the facts presented in the worldbooks almost REPLACE the "core rules" as OUR core rules. Those rules are “invisible,” but they’re <i>right there on the page,</i> and they matter a lot to us if we care about <i>this </i>setting being <i>our </i>setting for <i>this </i>campaign.</p><p>Some of my impressions of merchants are <i>also </i>based on modern shop employees, or characters from movies, things like that. I'm only semi-conscious of that vast stew of influences, which makes them <i>difficult </i>to share. You probably have a comparable, but different, set of impressions. Those impressions can still inform how you roleplay, and how I GM, so they're still part of our Invisible Rulebooks, but they're poor on this quality of shareability.</p><p>And of course, one of the advantages of the Visible Rulebooks is they're super-shareable, and labeled explicitly as rules. One of many reasons why, in MOST playstyles, the core rules ARE the core rules.</p><p>Anyway, "shareable" is a useful concept, and it (in the main) means what it sounds like. Moving on.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">EPHEMERAL/RELIABLE</h2><p>Wait, didn't we <i>DO </i>this one? Sure did, but we started with a focus on resources the PCs can use to solve problems, <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/deadly-goobers-hollow-points-another.html" target="_blank">back in this article</a>.</p><p>But any fact with tactical relevance is a rule, and resources are just sets of facts. The existence of the Duke's toupee (a gameworld fact) is a rule. The law of universal gravitation that can make it flutter into a canyon, is a rule (most gameworlds have it, though it works differently in James Bond's world than ours, ditto for Wile E. Coyote). The formal game-system rules for falling damage if he dives after it and plunges 200 feet to the rocks below, are rules. They all live somewhere on the spectrum from the <i>Ephemeral </i>to the <i>Reliable</i>. The Duke’s toupee might be highly ephemeral if it only matters during one adventure, but the law of universal gravitation tends to stick around.</p><p>Worth noting: a fact the designer <i>imagined </i>as Ephemeral, or that the Game Master <i>intended </i>as Ephemeral, is something the PCs might still find creative ways to leverage, many sessions, even many real-world years, down the line in a long campaign, and that's <i>awesome</i>, and something we want to keep with us as we design. When the PCs concoct an elaborate plan depending on the existence of a toupee they remember from five years ago? <i>Oh my god, yes please.</i></p><p>So, Ephemeral and Reliable aren't new to the Lexicon, but it's time to recognize that they're part of our set of descriptors for <i>rules</i>, because any fact can be a rule, which means <i>we can design using any body of facts</i>.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">FIRM/SOFT</h2><p>This one's pretty simple. Some rules have no flex. They are FIRM rules, rock-hard in some cases. If firing a crossbow takes a <i>-10 penalty in total darkness, </i>that -10 penalty is very clear, objectively-defined, and not something to be nuanced or haggled over. It just IS. It is firm. Visible Rules lean ... firmly (though not <i>invariably</i>) into firmness.</p><p>Many Invisible Rules are just as firm, though. Newton's universal gravitation is, in _most_ game worlds, extra-crazy-firm. The Duke is <i>definitely </i>bald. Firm rule. Diamond firm, Adamantium firm. Southern Moss-Type Elves can see in the dark? Firmly so. Only an <i>equally-firm declaration of exception </i>("Rufus the Elf is blind") can change that, case-by-case.</p><p>But the Duke's self-consciousness about his baldness, while it may definitely absolutely exist, has a lot of room for <i>nuance </i>when we treat it as a rule. It absolutely IS a rule – it's a <i>fact </i>the PCs can make <i>tactically relevant</i> – but, there's flex because self-consciousness is a softer concept, with a lot of variables, a lot of range. It has gradients. It has tipping points. It has overlaps. There's a lot of latitude for the GM to interpret it very differently from another GM, with both interpretations being equally fair. That same lack of firmness – <i>softness </i>– can make it attractive to PCs looking to use it creatively, and for that to work, we (the players) must be confident that our GM will give us a fair shake when we do.</p><p>Firm's a simple term with big implications. Some of the Invisible Rules are firm, but a lot of them are soft, and we <i>like </i>that. It's good for the kind of gameplay I build for, and the kind of gamer I am.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">DIEGETIC/EXTRADIEGETIC (AND CORRESPONDENCE)</h2><p>I need "diegetic" a lot. I don't <i>enjoy </i>the word itself, but I try to use standard game-design terms when I can, and it's a standard. A fact is <i>diegetic </i>if it <i>exists within the gameworld. </i>The Duke's toupee is diegetic; the Duke's self-consciousness is diegetic. The rules for falling damage are NOT diegetic. They're <i>extradiegetic </i>rules that enjoy clear <i>correspondence </i>to a reality within the gameworld, but the Duke doesn't know about the Visible Rules. He doesn't even know he's <i>fictional</i>. He's troubled enough by his baldness, so <i>please don't tell him.</i></p><p>The idea of "clear correspondence" between diegetic and extradiegetic elements can be important if you lean a lot into the Visible Rules. I don't often, but when I do, correspondence is a useful concept. Very briefly: if “one point of ammo” for a bow [a game mechanic, and thus extradiegetic] exactly and reliably equals one arrow in the gameworld [the arrow is diegetic], that’s a case of clear correspondence. If “one point of ammo” equals a variable number of arrows because we’re modeling a week-long series of battles abstractly with just a few die-rolls, that’s a looser, less-clear level of correspondence. Game systems play at many levels of correspondence clarity (and tightness, and causality) for a lot of good reasons.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">CHARACTER-FACING</h2><p>This is super-crazy-important. Something is character-facing if <i>the Player Characters have direct awareness of it. </i>So, the Duke's self-consciousness probably doesn't <i>begin </i>play as Character-Facing ... it's something of value the PCs might or might not discover, and if they do, they can exploit it or leverage it in some way. And if they never learn it, it remains <i>diegetic </i>(it exists in the gameworld) but it's something the PCs can't use.</p><p>The Visible Rules are <i>never </i>character-facing. The PCs can understand that "falling into a canyon can kill you," and some PCs can calculate acceleration and terminal velocity and stuff ... but they <i>can never read the corresponding game-rules for falling damage.</i> This distinction is huge; I can’t overstate it no matter how desperately I want to. The Visible Rules can in many cases be leveraged by the <i>players,</i> but <i>only </i>character-facing facts can be leveraged by the <i>characters</i>.</p><p>In the style I design for, the thing this entire series has been laying groundwork for discussing, the players <i>would rather be left out of things, </i>thank you kindly. We prefer to game by roleplaying, at least as much as <i>possible</i>. We game <i>through </i>our characters, so to solve the problems presented by the adventure, we need tools we (the characters) can know, and think about, <i>within </i>the imaginary world. That desire creates some style-specific needs for adventure design.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">SHOOTING MORE COWBOY HATS</h2><p>Let’s <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html" target="_blank">go back</a> to the comedy-action version of the Wild West, where we are rootin' and (mayhap) tootin' as well. In our Invisible Rulebooks relating to <i>genre conventions,</i> we have some very interesting rules when it comes to these <i>other </i>qualities. They are (in many games) firmly Invisible (not codified by the game system), but are they diegetic? Are they character-facing? If we are to impress the villain by shooting his hat safely off ... he's going to be LESS impressed if he's conscious of the genre convention, and MORE impressed if he's unaware of it.</p><p>But that doesn't make it a bright line ... in order to make the shot, we (the rootin'-tootin' <i>imaginary </i>we) must have <i>some </i>confidence that we can shoot the hat safely. And maybe we misinterpret it as our <i>pure skill,</i> or the <i>hand of providence</i> recognizing our righteous good-guy intentions. And more to the point, maybe exercising genre convention means stepping <i>halfway </i>out of character, because that kind of convention, while it isn't wholly diegetic, and isn't wholly character-facing, can be crystal clear to the players.</p><p>This isn't meant to provide some kind of <i>conclusion </i>about genre convention, but to illustrate how I examine each rule when designing an adventure, a world, a resource, or even a system. A lot of this stuff, as always, is mushy, and spectral, and we try to notice.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">WRAPPING UP</h2><p>Some folks have taken the Lexicon series as design or play theory, and maybe it's useful for that to some degree, for some folks, but that's not what <i>I've</i> been writing it for. This series builds the ground floor to talk about the kind of game-design techniques I'm passionate about without (fingers crossed) too many distracting asides.</p><p>And I want that very much. To talk about game design. With you. With people who game and design <i>differently </i>from me, but who might want to (in the grand tradition of our hobby) rummage through <i>my </i>stuff to pluck out a few tidbits to enhance <i>yours. </i>That kind of rummaging, and that kind of sharing, is good stuff.</p><p>I also hope to make connections with others who game near to my own neighborhood, but the sharing is good <i>whether you do or not.</i></p><p>My kind of design, when examined from a “rules” perspective, likes to emphasize <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/tactical-roleplaying.html" target="_blank">tactical roleplaying</a> with lots of <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/challenging-character-not-just-sheet.html" target="_blank">potential for characterization</a>, and while I use <i>every </i>tool at my disposal, it mostly lives and thrives through adventure design focused on in-character <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/deadly-goobers-hollow-points-another.html">creative problem-solving</a>. When designing <i>problems </i>(clusters of which form the tactical core of these adventures) I have a clear preference for the qualities of the rules I choose to design around: They tend to be <i>Invisible, Diegetic, Ephemeral, Character-Facing, </i>and frequently <i>Soft </i>(but a mix is great). Those problems need to be as <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2022/09/flavors-of-presumption.html" target="_blank">non-presumptive </a>as possible, to give the PCs (<i>not </i>the players) maximum latitude to <i>create and implement solutions.</i></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?</h2><p>I'll be collecting the entire Lexicon series into a spiffy little PDF, knitting it all together, probably with some fresh edits and side-notes. It'll be released next to a handful of other PDFs, some of which are just fun and fluffy tools, some of which are kind of hardcore design-methody. Some will be free, some for sale. These blogposts will remain, and the PDF collecting them will be one of the free ones.</p><p>And I'll finally use the "T" word! See you there.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</i></h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzZTEfBdnKtJ_o4yFJ6KvFwcjxo8Acg3MsBXJ5nMBRmMcNJWaKf_bRJAr8kMjUkH9zmorXpxNRxhmqjATC6FW0A23U-4RYOpXS1ptO_Jvur9u_yR9Mh7J73aldcC8qjxiWt724jOznIhD09JK2UR79Ceek19SV1Y0rWCQBtqfVPSgFmrQlCjkLLaPCAenqhS-NvPx/s1814/Hammondal-DevSnap-347.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1361" data-original-width="1814" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzZTEfBdnKtJ_o4yFJ6KvFwcjxo8Acg3MsBXJ5nMBRmMcNJWaKf_bRJAr8kMjUkH9zmorXpxNRxhmqjATC6FW0A23U-4RYOpXS1ptO_Jvur9u_yR9Mh7J73aldcC8qjxiWt724jOznIhD09JK2UR79Ceek19SV1Y0rWCQBtqfVPSgFmrQlCjkLLaPCAenqhS-NvPx/w400-h300/Hammondal-DevSnap-347.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This image is a Hammondal thing.<br />It has nothing to do with the Lexicon.<br />I just like it.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-37300096244674858062022-09-19T16:24:00.015-06:002023-11-10T13:01:09.415-07:00Flavors of Presumption<p style="text-align: center;"><i><span></span></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>It’s time for another dip into the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/p/an-rpg-lexicon.html" target="_blank">RPG Lexicon</a>, where I
explore the terms I use (for the concepts I need) to design RPG stuff. If you’re new to this peculiar series, you
can check the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/search/label/RPG%20Lexicon" target="_blank">tags for the whole caboodle</a>, hit the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/p/an-rpg-lexicon.html" target="_blank">Glossary</a> page, or start with the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html" target="_blank">Invisible Rulebooks</a>.</i></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Today’s term gets us deeper into the heart of design: <i>presumptive</i>.
In order to design a scenario for the kinds of RPGs I love, the designer (whether the GM homebrewing or the pro seeking to publish)
must master the art of <i>non-presumptive problems</i>. They are the construction material that allows the design to stand. They
are the stuff of adventure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But while “non-presumptive” is North on my compass,
it’s a term that depends on “presumptive.” So, in problem design, what makes a
problem a <i>presumptive</i> problem, a <i>presumptive</i> challenge, a <i>presumptive</i>
obstacle? What does such a thing <i>presume</i>?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A presumptive problem presumes the <i>approach</i> the PCs
will (in some cases <i>must</i>) take. Any problem with a <i>finite range</i>
of viable approaches is, to some degree, presumptive. A more assertive near-synonym is <i>prescriptive</i>. The most common “flavors”
of presumption are:<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>The Dongle-Slot</h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">When there’s just one, and <i>only</i> one, <i>exactly one</i>
solution, I call that a <i>Dongle-Slot problem,</i> to honor the action-movie
cliché of the special USB thumb-drive (or far-future equivalent) that, when
slotted into the right port, averts the nuclear disaster. We could just as
easily call it a <i>push-button</i> problem or a dozen other names, but the
term “Dongle-Slot” feels more closely akin to “<a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2021/01/porn-logic.html" target="_blank">Porn Logic</a>” (which it is), and
it makes me giggle, which is how the science works around here.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dongle-Slots are the epitome of <i>finite</i>, but they can
take infinite forms, from the passageway that can only be traversed by
destroying the Statue Guardian to the Fair Folk who will only lift a finger to help if you join in their special Vernal Equinox Dance to the evil ritual summoning that can only be
disturbed with a splash of the correct blood from the correct priest at the
correct hour after said priest was <i>correctly </i>murdered, there are uncountable ways to present a lock that cannot be
picked, broken, or circumvented, and that has but One True Key.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When an adventure design subverts a Dongle-Slot by making it
a reward rather than a problem, I call that a <i>Dongle-Slot Surprise</i>, but
that’s a subject for another day!</p>
<h2>The Exclusionary</h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">A few times a year, GM or designer friends of mine will brag
that they’ve designed a problem that “can’t be solved with combat.” This is the
most common expression of the <i>Exclusionary:</i> a problem designed to <i>prevent
</i>or <i>discourage</i> an approach, and it’s basically a <i>Reverse</i>
Dongle-Slot. You can do anything for love … but you <i>can’t do that.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While “can’t be solved with combat” is the most ordinary <i>expression</i>
of the Exclusionary, it’s important to stress that violence (or reducing it)
isn’t the issue. The <i>limits</i> are the issue … the desire to diminish
<a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/12/five-elements-of-commercial-appeal-in.html" target="_blank">Tactical Infinity</a> into something less tactical, not infinite, or both. Doesn’t
matter if you’re excluding violence, excluding trickery, excluding the mage’s
favorite spell, or excluding that thing your specific PCs like to do with the
sack of potatoes and a leprechaun in a cage, going out of your way to <i>prevent</i>
an approach is what makes this presumptive.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of exclusion, more broadly: I don’t consider
presumptive problems <i>taboo</i>. Sometimes, you just want to put a magnetic storm
in the upper atmosphere so the crew of the <i>Enterprise</i> can’t use the
transporter. I <i>get</i> that. I <i>do</i> that. Around here, the design goal isn’t to <i>avoid</i>
presumptive elements, but rather to <i>recognize </i>them, to keep them at the
non-critical <i>edges</i> of a design: they are parsley, not steak. Plus, again, “presumptive” is a spectrum: most problems
you’ll design <i>will be to some degree presumptive.</i> The goal is to <i>reduce</i>
that, to break out of the lazy habits that get us there … not to eliminate it
in puristic terms.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>The Optimal<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the slippery ways a problem can be presumptive is
when the range of approaches is <i>theoretically</i> wide open … but there is
<i>one </i>approach (or a forcibly <i>tiny set</i>) that is objectively <i>optimal</i>. This
can undermine <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/tactical-roleplaying.html" target="_blank">Tactical Roleplaying</a>, because when one approach is optimal, it
becomes kind of stupid <i>not</i> to do the optimal thing … and when it’s kind
of stupid <i>not</i> to do the optimal thing, that chokes out the potential for
characterization, keeping <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/challenging-character-not-just-sheet.html" target="_blank">it in the shallows,</a> because <i>“is this PC kind of
stupid YES or NO?”</i> is about as shallow as it gets.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So lets say a designer has the “passageway that can only be
traversed by destroying the Statue Guardian” in their adventure design, and
wants to keep it, but <i>fix</i> it, to make it less of a creative chokepoint …
But also just desperately wants the PCs to destroy the Statue Guardian. So,
instead of really doing the work to make the problem more creative, the GM just
notes that, technically, the stone around the corridor can be bored through
with the right magic or equipment, and also, technically, there’s another path
that would take the PCs 30 miles out of their way, and, <i>technically</i>,
the Statue Guardian can be rendered inert by a spell the PCs don’t have, but
they could abandon the quest for a few days to go acquire it. This kind of
design can get <i>really technical</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s an extreme example to illustrate the point, but the
Optimal is truly the <i>subtlest</i> of presumptive flavors. It’s worth your while to
develop your senses to spot them and improve them (and not <i>just </i>with
technicalities). Ironically, the <i>tools</i> of the Optimal can even be used
to dismantle it, and we’ll get into that in a later entry.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2>The Videogame Choice<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">This one gets bandied about under many names: the
<i>Big Choice</i>, the <i>Moral </i>(sometimes Ethical or other) <i>Dilemma</i>, the <i>Quandary</i>, the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" target="_blank"><i>Trolley Problem</i></a>. In tabletop RPGs, it's when the design just <i>gives up</i> on creative problems
where PC priorities will <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/challenging-character-not-just-sheet.html" target="_blank">emerge organically through the solutions they <i>create</i></a>
… instead, we just shove a microphone in their face and demand they <i>pick a
side</i>. Another way to knock characterization into the shallows.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I use the term “Videogame Choice” for a several reasons, but
mostly to highlight that this is the kind of gameplay that can work <i>really
incredibly well</i> in videogames, where a canned narrative can create a truly
knotted, even gut-wrenchingly difficult choice (the ending of <b><i>Life is
Strange</i></b>, virtually everything in the <b><i>Walking Dead</i></b> series,
much of the <b><i>Dragon Age</i></b> games, and on and on).<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_THihYcMBcOcd1cfmVRjO3E3lAit_BAEjR1NVujEwquAzwj5mIwtSqjKd2-piHsgLX8f7HIKoE4WQw7DCUDPaoqGDbCc2irwgte5HCOBefE7y9SYfnz0M8VoaqoYLYrNAQ3V66c-Nh35mNm7td18iBRtn7IWgS8AxqQn-xOID6GXoXBTulw8MgcObwNQr5XgrA/s640/saints-row-iv-saints-row.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_THihYcMBcOcd1cfmVRjO3E3lAit_BAEjR1NVujEwquAzwj5mIwtSqjKd2-piHsgLX8f7HIKoE4WQw7DCUDPaoqGDbCc2irwgte5HCOBefE7y9SYfnz0M8VoaqoYLYrNAQ3V66c-Nh35mNm7td18iBRtn7IWgS8AxqQn-xOID6GXoXBTulw8MgcObwNQr5XgrA/w400-h225/saints-row-iv-saints-row.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Saints Row IV Boils It Right Down</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal">But the reason they work so well in videogames is that,
since videogames must be <i>programmed,</i> they thrive on the <i>finite,</i>
even when sometimes managing an illusion of something more. When we’re playing
a face-to-face RPG with a living, creative Game Master … we can, and should,
expect much more than just a moment of <i>selection.</i> Videogame Choices can
be very dramatic, but they <i>are</i> just giving up and shoving the mic, and
as GMs we can not only do better, we can do better by <i>many orders of
magnitude</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Note that Videogame Choices include not only literal
questions posed to the PCs, but any situation where there’s a clear A-B or
A-B-C type choice: there’s just enough of the plague cure for Village A or
Village B and the PCs must decide where to deliver it, etc. In <i>fact,</i> we could
call it ...</p>
<h2>The Menu<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">In truth, the Videogame Choice is a <i>subset </i>of the Menu, the
umbrella term for <i>any</i> problem that boils down to <i>selecting</i> from a
set of prepared <i>somethings,</i> instead of <i>creating and implementing</i> personal solutions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Menu doesn’t always try to be BIG or emotionally weighty,
and menus can exist at many layers of RPG design. Sometimes, they’re provided
as a <i>consolation prize</i> for other kinds of presumption: "yes, the only <i>optimal</i>
approach is to <i>fight the bandits,</i> but you have over 200 spells and 30
pole arms to choose from!" And again, with emphasis: it’s not about the <i>fight</i>.
It’s about the <i>presumption</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And sometimes, the menu can be so large that it feels like a
kind of freedom, if not any kind <i>creation.</i> And sometimes, the <i>interplay</i>
between choices can result in <i>emergent solutions</i> that <i>do</i> feel
like creation, at least a little. And sometimes that really <i>is</i> a
suitable consolation prize. But if we leverage the potential of the Game Master
<i>sitting right there</i> … we can do much, much better, if we want to.</p>
<h2>Closing Notes<o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">As with many of the most important conceptual tools in RPG
design, the idea of the <i>“presumptive problem”</i> is slippery, mushy, spectral, and sometimes highly subjective. We can get lost if we forget that
ideals are stars to sail by, not destinations. But if we never even look up, we
<i>begin</i> lost, and our designs suffer.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where we hit our stride is seeing those stars
as whole constellations. By its lonesome, the ability to spot and repair a
presumptive element is trivial … but when we marry it to other awareness like <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/tactical-roleplaying.html" target="_blank">Tactical Roleplaying</a>, <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/challenging-character-not-just-sheet.html">Characterized Roleplaying</a>, <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2021/01/porn-logic.html" target="_blank">Porn Logic</a>, and exploring
the upper ends of the <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-invisible-rulebooks.html" target="_blank">Invisible Rulebooks</a>, it becomes an essential part of our
toolkit.</p><p class="MsoNormal">My own ideal is what I call <i>the half-dozen rule:</i> I should be able to rattle off a <i>half-dozen viable approaches</i> to any critical problem without breaking a sweat ... then, <i>after </i>breaking a sweat, I should be able to rattle off a <i>half-dozen more, </i>and state with honest confidence that if I <i>kept on sweat-breaking,</i> I could <i>keep on rattling,</i> to <b>infinity </b>... or at least to the limits of <i>my </i>ability to describe approaches.</p><p class="MsoNormal">And <i>sometimes </i>I get <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/175661" target="_blank">very near that star</a>, but even when I can't, I <i>sail </i>by it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-92070735022441279852022-09-02T00:54:00.004-06:002023-06-30T03:00:45.201-06:00Hammondal Echoes<p>Hammondal is pure game-design (with bursts of writing) at this stage, so it's harder to <i>blog</i> about in some ways since there's less to look at, and a lot more abstraction, and lists, and abstractions of lists and lists of abstractions (really; I do that).</p><p>The high-end supernatural stuff has taken a decidedly Slavic bent, as I always kind of assumed it might, but I wasn't really <i>sure</i> until it started happening on the page and in the notes. The religion stuff has gone closer to my usual GMing preferences (going back to my teenage years), and less an attempt at anything "generic" (I'm half-good at generic fantasy, but that means I'm half-terrible at it, and I'm leaning into my strengths, here). The mystery elements are gaining depth and subtlety. The military and political elements are morphing into something more tragic and less nasty (it could be that the Sunday Night Dragon Show is giving me more than my fill of nasty, so I'm leaning away from that). The mercantile elements continue to make me giggle. Now and then I poke at the neighboring towns even though they're not in the book, but because they exert gravity on things that are.</p><p>It's at its hardest to write about because I'm writing <i>it,</i> so there's that old writer's superstition about Talking Your Design (I may have rephrased the old superstition).</p><p>But, there are finally enough random development snapshots to post another spray of images.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2Cve_16T_TFL2W7s3Qrs0zWwmM8Ym_pCN7ctqcrfFNJoNJyugcYgyXJmihEb8i3CSRjT4RgT3JRGzK16FzE_tlYSV1VM2qBRAIsMn-w0rVY7AINvVFKZ3NqjlqGsFl41JA1cG1fqjmRSmednK4V-tnNtZmxwdYkm9iU2YPV0WY344Mx1Z2WApE3KIATx9g5e9Q/s2560/Hammondal-DevSnap-271.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2Cve_16T_TFL2W7s3Qrs0zWwmM8Ym_pCN7ctqcrfFNJoNJyugcYgyXJmihEb8i3CSRjT4RgT3JRGzK16FzE_tlYSV1VM2qBRAIsMn-w0rVY7AINvVFKZ3NqjlqGsFl41JA1cG1fqjmRSmednK4V-tnNtZmxwdYkm9iU2YPV0WY344Mx1Z2WApE3KIATx9g5e9Q/w250-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-271.png" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMk7Pq9t-3JMhApJVuS-QSYanbmwiawp8qxPyADIF-O1EOpw41t38KBoOiDf2oG35cjyg5fQF9w5FDVorUyjRbGLpDMVyjfZgZ0fgHQHPvA6JpG62FHyaMvPggs-MO7JEP4Wl27j1AlVDjhfA-52tEghuaZYz9Zsz3b07ZjeT8pFEQpYhKlFOoeRjBnQilHoHfw/s1000/Hammondal-DevSnap-286.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="877" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMk7Pq9t-3JMhApJVuS-QSYanbmwiawp8qxPyADIF-O1EOpw41t38KBoOiDf2oG35cjyg5fQF9w5FDVorUyjRbGLpDMVyjfZgZ0fgHQHPvA6JpG62FHyaMvPggs-MO7JEP4Wl27j1AlVDjhfA-52tEghuaZYz9Zsz3b07ZjeT8pFEQpYhKlFOoeRjBnQilHoHfw/w351-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-286.png" width="351" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRHIt3atTWKBNcwzICGHGTQISYRwYDW72bcVjdkdMIMonpes2wChMomLtdXyRW3v5onxu5QKD0DVCizXd0KZIE8FTv9ZuNoIuftDuQeq9-x_Lrhp8Iwg5IA751njd6uwzVqiw3gJssyYL56JOgwJdKYYTXPwv1I-yPt4Vhhr2gKO4X6LLgLmpZ06LlViCvjccOA/s1552/Hammondal-DevSnap-287.png" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RgwMV9c3lKI0UcJPEMMHhN79yseHXUp29oQcn10jpq6uADE2Hrpy7h9fy-NjC1FgjW-kcC1D32CbrP9Is5QL3VuZXetNGwTYpigVDRqV26glY019cxOcJJdsrNeFY3a088EE2s34DmyzeCKw744vtMzFZqIy6ImY6WXtxjjCrkpoOD1pqHk6aXrQKYELougRMw/s4200/Hammondal-DevSnap-292.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3463" data-original-width="4200" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RgwMV9c3lKI0UcJPEMMHhN79yseHXUp29oQcn10jpq6uADE2Hrpy7h9fy-NjC1FgjW-kcC1D32CbrP9Is5QL3VuZXetNGwTYpigVDRqV26glY019cxOcJJdsrNeFY3a088EE2s34DmyzeCKw744vtMzFZqIy6ImY6WXtxjjCrkpoOD1pqHk6aXrQKYELougRMw/w400-h330/Hammondal-DevSnap-292.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLTWJZRnjVYplspGx5CrnupmRwwpspnbdrefhcPu5hQG2HA57Eunu2BuGNz415WMwFqDx_9yIKpEFJL5zXwLfFdzBzMzYEBI9qxVWVeJlfZ92vn4kKnGFaQzWUMgJJDFnCwAsYcp4Q036p7TCy-23GCg5uiNWVjfXx6uIUlV45Fo2DRCO_jxQxMNnQ9Xgb1LSIA/s2064/Hammondal-DevSnap-295.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="2064" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLTWJZRnjVYplspGx5CrnupmRwwpspnbdrefhcPu5hQG2HA57Eunu2BuGNz415WMwFqDx_9yIKpEFJL5zXwLfFdzBzMzYEBI9qxVWVeJlfZ92vn4kKnGFaQzWUMgJJDFnCwAsYcp4Q036p7TCy-23GCg5uiNWVjfXx6uIUlV45Fo2DRCO_jxQxMNnQ9Xgb1LSIA/w400-h198/Hammondal-DevSnap-295.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6R7xSsJzrO2_03IW331nEtp8KKM5C7I4-c9Ag7vZ4fB-MwcMROHSU2udssJTgmvZoIBy4cfBhOT2hQjgE3N0w6MaIFe5T6R2oXn8zS73R-B6Iu-W5BWsTvEHDtkNSxR8xyMm5aWY8_Jj_H0oupH6-ierLmJBKZ4YzUlAPYM_EQFJ08zDDkkBqRni-miMfTFrpUA/s1200/Hammondal-DevSnap-299.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6R7xSsJzrO2_03IW331nEtp8KKM5C7I4-c9Ag7vZ4fB-MwcMROHSU2udssJTgmvZoIBy4cfBhOT2hQjgE3N0w6MaIFe5T6R2oXn8zS73R-B6Iu-W5BWsTvEHDtkNSxR8xyMm5aWY8_Jj_H0oupH6-ierLmJBKZ4YzUlAPYM_EQFJ08zDDkkBqRni-miMfTFrpUA/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-299.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh249eaMSWFPNMBbv9cUmNkaBRBVLYtMb4tt40v8hcQTIB-zjkD2LHngb7aJ3-cPpxNvJLz_WoJiAn5_TT4n-qtmjjqebWi5X0-WW_53zi2Cqc2z1YTF2axsnB3d5cfcN48JrSIard7NXvBMnXfdM6VhwKFHPDcvvMVr1ZB0tU9mChSon6WoiX0cquRuxb03tnrzQ/s1056/Hammondal-DevSnap-301.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="816" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh249eaMSWFPNMBbv9cUmNkaBRBVLYtMb4tt40v8hcQTIB-zjkD2LHngb7aJ3-cPpxNvJLz_WoJiAn5_TT4n-qtmjjqebWi5X0-WW_53zi2Cqc2z1YTF2axsnB3d5cfcN48JrSIard7NXvBMnXfdM6VhwKFHPDcvvMVr1ZB0tU9mChSon6WoiX0cquRuxb03tnrzQ/w309-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-301.png" width="309" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-10654254675241955472022-07-29T04:08:00.000-06:002022-07-29T04:08:04.083-06:00The Owl Formerly Known as Oscar<p>Sometimes, <a href="http://www.cumberlandgames.com" target="_blank">Cumberland Games & Diversions</a> makes games. Sometimes, it's more about the diversions. I take it as a good sign that my silly moods are returning now and then. 😅</p><p><b><i><a href="https://ghalev.itch.io/oscar" target="_blank">100 Names for an Albino Owl Familiar Formerly Named Oscar Who Needs Another Name Because the Party’s New Halfling Is Called Oscar and the GM Asked You to Change Your Owl as if It’s Your Fault Somehow the New Halfling Couldn’t Have One of These Other Names</a></i></b> now exists, and and it's my fault, and I hope you like it, too. Don't forget to check for matryoshkas ...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLptdVK7Q4E8B8s7ov2iXMD-25hfus-HHrnd3sKgqovaptudJyjBNmCcWi8A5xixu3ZFhrd6jINUKMHNvH0soQufaeimbQnYkcER8lmVkjbQEgLqf2XPTVIAoLWYCvJJIwUqK63aHy-2L-yLPosCdKdzFRJBcjcawNQ208up8F8fLYEBckJbfnQwTGvV87PYZew/s2722/owl-itch-cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="2722" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLptdVK7Q4E8B8s7ov2iXMD-25hfus-HHrnd3sKgqovaptudJyjBNmCcWi8A5xixu3ZFhrd6jINUKMHNvH0soQufaeimbQnYkcER8lmVkjbQEgLqf2XPTVIAoLWYCvJJIwUqK63aHy-2L-yLPosCdKdzFRJBcjcawNQ208up8F8fLYEBckJbfnQwTGvV87PYZew/w400-h318/owl-itch-cover.png" width="400" /></a></div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-11751770872779021572022-06-30T06:39:00.002-06:002022-06-30T06:39:50.463-06:00Well, Foo<p>I'm clearly confused by how Blogger works. I tried restoring another stack of articles I'd taken down, and Blogger posted them as all-new articles, which wasn't the intention.</p><p>This is where I would love to add "no biggie I'll figure it out" but I'm not entirely sure I will 😅</p><p>Ah well. As long as I'm in here: I did finally have that surgery on my eyes the other day, and apparently it went very smoothly (I was out cold, so I have to take their word for it)!</p><p>In the aftermath, my eyes are sore and my vision is blurry, but I understand that's temporary (2-7 days according to most of what I've read). It's pretty tiring, but mainly because I keep pretending that I can see and squinting at screens instead of resting.</p><p>I've also been Twittering a bit again, which is tiring beyond the visual. These are unhealthy habits.</p><p>Anyway, sorry if anyone was confused by those older articles marching out from their graves like that. I've tucked most of them back away. I've left one because I really wanted to restore that one in particular.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-61946484868516377672022-06-30T02:26:00.000-06:002022-06-30T02:26:57.686-06:00Love Nest<div align="center">
Correspondent Diederik Van Arkel made a request for more
nitty-gritty posts on how I produce graphics, in response to my <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/shave-and-haircut-half-price.html" target="_blank">post about 1-bit images</a>. I expect I'll do a lot of that over time, but I'll begin by describing what my <a href="https://temphis.deviantart.com/art/Life-Cycle-of-a-Simple-Risus-Map-551890133" target="_blank"><i><b>Life Cycle of a Simple Risus Map</b></i></a> only hints at: the way I construct a <b style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm" target="_blank">Risus</a></b> map-graphic by working back-and-forth (and back, and forth, and back, and forth) between <i>rasters </i>and <i>vectors</i>.</div>
<div align="center">
<hr noshade="noshade" size="1" width="66%">
<br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left">
In <i><b>Toast of the Town</b></i>, a <i><b>Risus </b></i>fantasy module you can <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/175661" target="_blank">snag for free</a>
if you'd like, the PCs are likely to meet a group of NPCs trapped
underground in a place called the Nest, a repurposed room accessible
from the town's sewers. <i><b>Toast of the Town</b></i>
isn't a dungeon-crawl, so there's no real need to map the <i>tunnels</i>, but
I felt a simple diagram of the Nest would be useful for the Game
Master.<br>
<br>
All <i><b>Risus </b></i>graphics are <i>stick-figure</i> drawings, which gives the game and its support material a goofy <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/warm-crinkly.html">warmth I enjoy,</a> and leverages my own absolute inability to draw. Like, I <i>really </i>can't draw. I do <i>drafts </i>of the stick-figures. And then sometimes the final stick-figure is a <i>composite </i>of <i>parts </i>of the drafts, because none of the <i>individual </i>drafts were <i>tolerable</i>. It's <i>that </i>bad.<br>
<br>
So, while I have a decent visual sense and can make a <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VR2naYGj9jD74RZl8uEk7rDBQhUYgyGV">pretty map</a> if I want to, a <i><b>Risus </b></i>map needs to feel like <i><b>Risus</b></i>, which means it needs to be more like a <i>"doodle"</i> than a <i>"drawing."</i>
With that in mind, let's follow the steps, to see how I use both
Photoshop and Illustrator in a funky back-and-forth to <i>get the doodle I
want.</i></div>
<div align="left">
<i><br></i>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step One: Scribble in the Art-Hole</span></h2>
<br>
Since this is a minor map and doesn't rate a full page, I wanted to fit
the map to the page instead of the other way around. So, working with a
draft of the laid-out module (you can see bits of copy poking in at the
edges), I doodled the first draft <i>directly</i> onto the page, so I'd
be 100% sure it would fit the aspect ratio of the "art hole" (what a lot
of us call copy-spaces left empty for forthcoming illustrations). The
original plan was to have the map where the hole was situated. As in all
other creative pursuits, the plan didn't survive to the end, but that's
usually a good sign.<br>
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvtQGfc_vLhl_EZ82V3o8a7qyT8Aobp2HPaJ5qbMznK73lrUdMl4wg04w0_bp3NQ7qHtsG_BeCLo3PSEBY-TUVnvKXzEZrzpprrCDlcWPUzDWCc4Uuw8d2ROhNflKIUWSM8ks7052DhN-mNo/s1600/Step-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="917" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvtQGfc_vLhl_EZ82V3o8a7qyT8Aobp2HPaJ5qbMznK73lrUdMl4wg04w0_bp3NQ7qHtsG_BeCLo3PSEBY-TUVnvKXzEZrzpprrCDlcWPUzDWCc4Uuw8d2ROhNflKIUWSM8ks7052DhN-mNo/s400/Step-1.png" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>It's Supposed to Be a Circle. My High-School Art Teacher Coddled Me.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
As you can see, the <i>very</i>-basics are present: a round room with crushed
radiating corridors, and two ways to get in: the secret door from the "sewers,"
and the tunnel leading to a kitchen basement that plays its own role in
the adventure. Note my perfect handwriting. Even <i>I'm</i> no longer sure what word I'm labeling the
radiating corridors with. <i>Robe? Pole?</i> This is why I'm a good typist.<br>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step Two: First Pass in Illustrator</span></h2>
<br>
In Adobe Illustrator, even a yutz like me can draw a circle and perfect
straight lines, so the next step is a simplistic line-drawing using the
Pen tool and some basic shapes in pure Illustrator vectors. While I want
the map to be a doodle, I want it to be a <i>better </i>doodle than <i>my </i>doodle. I want the circle to be circular and the radiating corridors, crushed though they are, to be a <i>uniform width</i> in their non-crushed places.</div>
<div align="left">
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXRGC1xEiXQPwIZpaRV5zVDhGAmcZsHQ_4urev7DEFxz5kJpXt68qdo6RnewapRrLK3eU0tO9kTjVr1c7mYRODJGdt0jvXRV_TNCcl9qsTJeBY7sLRO1HuN-PE7hDoa7iZgRvrYpyU3xRMQ0/s1600/Step-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="931" data-original-width="1096" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXRGC1xEiXQPwIZpaRV5zVDhGAmcZsHQ_4urev7DEFxz5kJpXt68qdo6RnewapRrLK3eU0tO9kTjVr1c7mYRODJGdt0jvXRV_TNCcl9qsTJeBY7sLRO1HuN-PE7hDoa7iZgRvrYpyU3xRMQ0/s400/Step-2.png" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">In Illustrator, Even a Schmuck Like Me Can Almost Draw</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step Three: Tracing it to Pieces</span></h2>
<br>
I print out the Illustrator drawing, and trace it using a Flair marker (all <i><b>Risus </b></i>graphics
are drawn with a Flair for consistency, and because that was the pen I
chewed the most in grade school). At this point, I'm doing the actual
doodle I'll use for the module, so the perfect circle acts as a guide,
but I'm adding little notches to indicate grooves or supports in the
walls, and I'm adding speckles of texture, and furniture and things:
everything I know should be there ... sort of.</div>
<div align="left">
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkCB220R1plaDKLrxKYbBDa7SM1N9pk23kqyPwKxWYEK4QXqJLItBIv1ZBYABOpD5JRnUXytSGkt0ob3kfPWHe5FYf8ekGSILcI-8SDtsJ6__1Y8rjYy5TdyZJ7JN6hLNn75QmqASKrY4hqjs/s1600/Step-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="911" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkCB220R1plaDKLrxKYbBDa7SM1N9pk23kqyPwKxWYEK4QXqJLItBIv1ZBYABOpD5JRnUXytSGkt0ob3kfPWHe5FYf8ekGSILcI-8SDtsJ6__1Y8rjYy5TdyZJ7JN6hLNn75QmqASKrY4hqjs/s400/Step-3.png" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>All Secret Sewer-Temples Available Pre-Furnished.<br>Ask Your Leasing Agent.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br>
Because this is a <i>planned</i> process, I <i>know </i>I don't need to draw every
piece of furniture, and I know I don't need to draw everything in its
correct place, so I don't. I know I'll need more than three bits of
bedding, for example, but I know that three different bedding symbols
will be sufficient, in the final graphic, to make the whole thing <i>feel </i>hand-drawn, so I only draw three. What I'm doing is
creating <i>pieces, </i>that I'll later be able to copy-paste and rotate and place correctly. I don't even attempt to draw the door in its correct place, because I know I'll only mess that up!<br>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step Four: Digital Tracing and Layout</span></h2>
<br>
I scan the Flair doodle at high resolution, and, in Photoshop, I
simplify it to a 1-bit raster, and clean away any schmutz I don't want. I
leave the lines in their rough, natural state for now. <br>
<br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7UXNu_vzBToQwlW-q3iXlpGPkag9Bet8WxvSkIBkrBNRE7I23_zc2Lb3_9zJmwcP1G95jepl35jRBSVCksPRWiUXZZ_iAQuU7PORR5rzpvECzHoF3_oqa8wEX8p_5vyct9JWLVboVTIRxno/s1600/Step-4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1256" data-original-width="917" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7UXNu_vzBToQwlW-q3iXlpGPkag9Bet8WxvSkIBkrBNRE7I23_zc2Lb3_9zJmwcP1G95jepl35jRBSVCksPRWiUXZZ_iAQuU7PORR5rzpvECzHoF3_oqa8wEX8p_5vyct9JWLVboVTIRxno/s640/Step-4.png" width="465"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>At This Stage It's Just Like Playing in a Mapping Program</i></span></td></tr>
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<br>
I leave Photoshop and bring the image over to Illustrator, where I use
the Live Trace feature (Illustrator CS2 to CS5) or Image Trace feature
(Illustrator CS6 onward) to trace it. When I first developed this
technique for <b><i><a href="http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/kringle.htm" target="_blank">A Kringle in Time</a>,</i></b> I did the tracing in Adobe Streamline,
and you can also use Corel Trace or the Potrace function built in to
InkScape, or other methods. In digital graphics, "tracing" programs are
those that create vectors <i>from </i>rasters. Tracing can be messy and
fraught, and it's <i>only a good idea in very specific instances</i> ... but a
simple line-drawing like this map is <i>one </i>of them.<br>
<br>
Once the trace completes, I can expand the tracing and group together
lines into sensible objects: crates, distilling gear (there's some
alchemy, of a kind, happening in the Nest) bedding and so on. Since each
object is a group of vectors, I can grab them with my mouse, move them
around, duplicate them, spin them, mirror them and so on - they're now
just symbols I can use at my discretion, including some stacking (that
little pile of three crates I make). In this step, I use the
vector-pieces to assemble the map into its final configuration.<br>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step 5: Smoothing</span></h2>
<br>
It's time to leave Illustrator and go back to Photoshop. I rasterize the
map at a high resolution, and I apply a nice Gaussian Blur filter to
it. Then I "harden" the blurred image by using the Contrast sliders (refer to the graphic for the slider settings).
This trick is essential to the<i><b> Risus </b></i>look, which always has that kind of smoothing applied to my rough Flair ink-lines. Everything I'm doing to this map, I do to the LCBs (the stick-figures are called the LCBs; it means Little Cartoon Bastards).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsJiLsPX9SlUCbOQwrUPalOd1exxTUzKiq_oenpVH7uDYUdmFfQkLr3_No4_brubDtqAQxI90bEM0mIRlbSY9qBxPTUkaqIRq77d_R28s-KmeAmVi3hHO-YtJDzN5LiF9Q33jma6kT2bus-c/s1600/Step-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="917" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsJiLsPX9SlUCbOQwrUPalOd1exxTUzKiq_oenpVH7uDYUdmFfQkLr3_No4_brubDtqAQxI90bEM0mIRlbSY9qBxPTUkaqIRq77d_R28s-KmeAmVi3hHO-YtJDzN5LiF9Q33jma6kT2bus-c/s400/Step-5.png" width="362"></a></div>
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To finish this step, I once again drop my bitmap to 1-bit, <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/shave-and-haircut-half-price.html" target="_blank">that magical, lovely format</a>.<br>
<br>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Step 6: Tinting and Finishing</span></h2>
<br>
So far, we've done a doodle, then an Illustrator drawing, then a
physical tracing, then a cleaned-up scan, then a digital tracing, then
some "refurnishing" in Illustrator, then rasterizing and smoothing in
Photoshop. So we've gone from vector, to tracing, to raster, to vector,
to raster again. <i>Yikes</i>. And now it's time to go <i>back </i>from raster to vector!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgszU21jSYtgshwf2YiOO5P20mRMNAV2xFOYSyPAhKXb8ZxL6DMABJrT6xAtnIfrfviqNWHYsOPt51a6P2AquRzA5Lu99XEKccotqKn3MfLrpBGE4urY3S3uGCJ_jxbT4gREVI439jW6WE4S4/s1600/Step-6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="917" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgszU21jSYtgshwf2YiOO5P20mRMNAV2xFOYSyPAhKXb8ZxL6DMABJrT6xAtnIfrfviqNWHYsOPt51a6P2AquRzA5Lu99XEKccotqKn3MfLrpBGE4urY3S3uGCJ_jxbT4gREVI439jW6WE4S4/s400/Step-6.png" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Vectors are Cold, Doodles are Warm.<br>When Combining Them, The Warmth Wins Out, Overall.</i></span></td></tr>
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Back in Illustrator's cold embrace, I digitally trace this new 1-bit graphic, resulting in a new vector. But <i>this </i>time, the goal isn't to <i>arrange </i>the furniture, just to <i>color </i>it. <i><b>Toast of the Town</b></i>
has a very specific "pale chocolate mint" color palette, which every
stick-figure/doodle graphic conforms to, and I begin the finishes by
hand-selecting each part of the new trace and applying the relevant
color swatches. I finish the finishes by applying the labels, complete
with label "halos" to keep the label text from blending too cleanly with
the mappity background.<br>
<br>
Amusingly (perhaps) the part I'm glossing over is that I create those halos with an<i> entirely separate series</i>
of vector-to-raster-to-vector techniques (in photoshop I thicken the
label text with a crude application of the Minimize filter, and then
smooth it out with that same Gaussian Blur followed by extreme
contrast).<br>
<br>
Eventually, I end up with a nicely-layered Illustrator document, with
map layers underneath label layers, and every visible thing a result of
these multiple passes between raster and vector.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC621nsw57YL_cu5RK0Tcbd4iLXqL64oI4c8ZWCAP1NYYwZASomV9jHy9nBbUHF5PqV0EgGR7OuvYvDbMeaV51_y4SBAjxACpV2wTfqCLmbSCxWGBiy8KqxDB3OS57BnR5DPhWJ-EJ_ROErn0/s1600/Step-7-Final-Map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1053" data-original-width="1239" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC621nsw57YL_cu5RK0Tcbd4iLXqL64oI4c8ZWCAP1NYYwZASomV9jHy9nBbUHF5PqV0EgGR7OuvYvDbMeaV51_y4SBAjxACpV2wTfqCLmbSCxWGBiy8KqxDB3OS57BnR5DPhWJ-EJ_ROErn0/s400/Step-7-Final-Map.png" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>This is a <b>Raster </b>of the Final <b>Vectors</b>,<br>Which Means I Did it AGAIN. I'm Cruel to Doodles.<br>Click to Embiggen, if You're Into That.</i></span></td></tr>
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Now, obviously, this is a lot of planning and a lot of steps to end up with <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/10Kp0gg7nnhxSy-SDdsKcSSPxf-HPMrfY/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">a <i>doodle </i>map</a>, and you're probably too cool for doodle maps. I get that. You <i>are </i>super cool; I've always said so. But if your brain is a creative brain, you're already seeing how this technique can apply to many other kinds of carefully-constructed graphics, and you'd be <i>right </i>about that.</div>
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If you're an experienced wizard with these tools, you might also be thinking: couldn't this be simplified by smoothing the raster <i>before </i>moving between Steps 2 and 3? It's true that I can, technically, shave a step there, and <i><b>Risus</b></i> Game Masters might never notice the difference. The reason I <i>don't</i> is the (beautiful) way the Gaussian technique smooths <i>overlapped lines.</i>
Just a moment of reflection should reveal what I mean, but if you're still doubtful, try it yourself, and compare both methods using symbols that you <i>overlap </i>in Step 4. Look carefully at the overlap points in the final image. It's a <i>tiny </i>thing,
I know, but this is what I get when I combine my zeal for excellence
with my focus on ... badly-drawn stick art. If nothing else, this is how
we get our recommended daily allowance of irony. Stay healthy, folks,
and remember: my <a href="mailto:blogmail@cumberlandgames.com" target="_blank">inbox</a> is always open.</div>
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</div>
S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-42884070350463635502022-06-27T02:34:00.002-06:002022-06-27T02:51:30.929-06:00Two Related Design DecisionsToday I want to ramble about two closely-related decisions in RPG design, both relating to Hammondal.<div><br /></div><div>A couple of months ago, I realized that a significant portion of the city, especially among the Boranese mercantile cultures, are living <i>puppet-people</i> called the Mantoche, the "cloth-hearted," and other assorted slurs (some Imperials still call them <i>Dudmen</i>, an old name for scarecrows).</div><div><br /></div><div>These people are, physically/visually, like the puppets of <b><i>Avenue Q, </i></b>or <b><i>Meet the Feebles, </i></b>or of course Henson, etc. Anyone who's known me for a long time will recognize that this isn't a new interest for me in a fantasy context (going back to the early days of the Blue Room and even before that) but it's just that ... some things come into their own, on their own time, and in this case, <i>it's time to get things started.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Thematically, those who know me also know how critical <i>"scarecrows" </i>are to me in RPG design, and the Mantoche manage to be scarecrows on <i>multiple levels, </i>and I've really loved writing about them, designing their many roles in Hammondal and in the larger mysteries of the Candle Islands and of the hidden kingdoms of the Thrice-Nine Lands.</div><div><br /></div><div>But even over the course of the last couple of months, my design intentions toward the Mantoche have changed. Initially, I was (seriously!) considering just <i>stealthing</i> them into 20% of the city's population, describing them in a roundabout way that could be interpreted as living puppet people ... or not interpreted as living puppet-people ... depending on the reader. I was going to imply, in a deniable way, that they are what they are.</div><div><br /></div><div>But here I am talking openly about the Mantoche. You've perhaps caught the prior glimpses of their existence in the development snaps, but I wasn't being explicit about who they are, as I am right now.</div><div><br /></div><div>So that's decision one. Decision two:</div><div><br /></div><div>For a long time I had considered writing <b><i>Light of the Candle Islands</i></b> entirely <i>in-voice,</i> which is to say: entirely in multiple voices from within the game world, where every page is a translated artifact of some fictional document, shedding varied and contradictory light on the experience of the setting.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have long since stepped back from that. While in-voice writing is an excellent way of presenting <i>some </i>parts of RPG design, it's not the best method I have for presenting <i>every </i>aspect of RPG design, and <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>is <b>full-bore RPG design</b> that needs every tool I have in the box. It'll do me no favors to force myself into constrained design as a matter of vanity.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are a dozen reasons behind each design choice, and these two choices are pretty different, but there's one point of overlap, which is just <i>boring old efficiency.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Writing <i>around </i>the Mantoche takes roughly four times the wordcount of just writing <i>about </i>the Mantoche, openly and directly. The direct approach lets me underline their thematic and <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/tactical-roleplaying.html" target="_blank">tactical importance,</a> and lets me get right to the fun of playing them, whether as PCs or NPCs, and there's a lot of fun to get to.</div><div><br /></div><div>Similarly, for many crucial points about the city, an in-voice method of describing a given piece of design takes from <i>four </i>to <i>eight </i>times the wordcount of just writing it as me, as S. John, and <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/05/rpg-writing-ground-floor-basics.html" target="_blank">delivering the same payload</a>. I like my books dense with gameable material, even if that makes me more than a little old-fashioned.</div><div><br /></div><div>These are not new lessons. Every fantasy GM who ever decided to <i>include </i>a pterodactyl but not come out and just <i>say </i>it's a pterodactyl knows the drill, and every RPG writer who loves to indulge in in-voice work does, too. Sometimes, both are worth it (<b><i>Hammondal </i></b>still includes in-voice <i>sections</i>).</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes, the decisions, and exceptions, will merge. The Mantoche are, in many circles, a disrespected and distrusted minority, and <i>that</i> is the kind of thing that in-voice writing can express in ways that omniscient writing can't.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, like <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-merchant-of-venice-and-bruges-and.html" target="_blank">the bit about mercantile law,</a> this is what I mean, when I talk about RPG writing and design. Hope this finds you well, and gaming.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxhyQxuQIkp8vnRXa8pUSeELN59MADW_6QXoyU0szp7cM1D9Np9xHta--uEw62YPmPdhE_PsBEsaca9QxpDas3cwaKkYigiYRVb4HKuzI1wC0UcLBRR1H0-cPXqttOZVYgcwFLX5Fd0mcKS5lsUK7eZNERQbuePIoU-8wThljuzSryxRYd7MY0zuamj2mALOCNA/s1920/Hammondal-DevSnap-267.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxhyQxuQIkp8vnRXa8pUSeELN59MADW_6QXoyU0szp7cM1D9Np9xHta--uEw62YPmPdhE_PsBEsaca9QxpDas3cwaKkYigiYRVb4HKuzI1wC0UcLBRR1H0-cPXqttOZVYgcwFLX5Fd0mcKS5lsUK7eZNERQbuePIoU-8wThljuzSryxRYd7MY0zuamj2mALOCNA/w400-h225/Hammondal-DevSnap-267.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LGqu1-RSGty4mAiuEIR7l74nyE6r-1epp0U8aNKshTJ45NM9T-pS-_pjy0BbpaExhzoaxZVJYGuvhY-3HWT5vOVLyO-9G7XM1AL7ItNmXgwgB4BGWpvbHptks6KLcF0IgmDFEDrZXf7p2GG5JgBa7zUh0ysMfCct2G6FFgR5wbe0j-YbENgrodMYLDnUNuugFQ/s1347/Hammondal-DevSnap-268.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1347" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LGqu1-RSGty4mAiuEIR7l74nyE6r-1epp0U8aNKshTJ45NM9T-pS-_pjy0BbpaExhzoaxZVJYGuvhY-3HWT5vOVLyO-9G7XM1AL7ItNmXgwgB4BGWpvbHptks6KLcF0IgmDFEDrZXf7p2GG5JgBa7zUh0ysMfCct2G6FFgR5wbe0j-YbENgrodMYLDnUNuugFQ/w400-h321/Hammondal-DevSnap-268.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm2mu-Ys1_7ZTZUsTNj4x9MME2oZXRjS5djYEA6tlFUZm_Yi8n8jZOAe_Eticnrld6lZMVfvTHq_RO3zWu8lX99ZnsF-J0WO0oSmCu-zwrX5XoE_GWQ4O3gYB84ZZfEVn63HOgvXRwunC6horg_VcgFmA8yvm_Gba_mvvh6_CqKiZG4JK4VLUlBKGy9tTVAEcGgw/s1584/Hammondal-DevSnap-269.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1584" data-original-width="1224" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm2mu-Ys1_7ZTZUsTNj4x9MME2oZXRjS5djYEA6tlFUZm_Yi8n8jZOAe_Eticnrld6lZMVfvTHq_RO3zWu8lX99ZnsF-J0WO0oSmCu-zwrX5XoE_GWQ4O3gYB84ZZfEVn63HOgvXRwunC6horg_VcgFmA8yvm_Gba_mvvh6_CqKiZG4JK4VLUlBKGy9tTVAEcGgw/w309-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-269.png" width="309" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpGYXLHXoRkd_lW3U5OLD_a8d4RYBN6FcwtNTdLrF6e_9qMHidhtM5VPkmwJiHYSJnMho9YjhWRG0sYvCEQNVwfEAIeVeSvYAWCZaui_KyhMKlljAa9gX5luq3hEQOLhfAYahSLvXFsHRePVZ_iSN-HObhl6GzeLttMpdBaVvgObacv2heHWF06hD8DvUd2rBaYA/s4463/Hammondal-DevSnap-270.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4463" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpGYXLHXoRkd_lW3U5OLD_a8d4RYBN6FcwtNTdLrF6e_9qMHidhtM5VPkmwJiHYSJnMho9YjhWRG0sYvCEQNVwfEAIeVeSvYAWCZaui_KyhMKlljAa9gX5luq3hEQOLhfAYahSLvXFsHRePVZ_iSN-HObhl6GzeLttMpdBaVvgObacv2heHWF06hD8DvUd2rBaYA/w269-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-270.png" width="269" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-31391063939065781762022-06-25T23:34:00.005-06:002022-06-26T00:00:01.856-06:00You Know Things Are Bad...<p>This evening I've been so saddened by the state of the world (and our own failing country in particular) that I worked on fonts.</p><p>I have a kind of hierarchy based on available energy. When I'm feeling very much myself (enthused, excited by possibilities, bubbling over with energy and affection) that's when I'm most likely to dive headfirst into <i>writing.</i> RPG Writing is the most "Me" thing I can do, at least professionally. Other forms of writing too, but less so.</p><p>When any of those stacks of spoons are a bit depleted or tarnished, I downshift to <i>game design.</i></p><p>When they're even <i>more</i> depleted, I draw <i>maps </i>(based on existing game design in my notes, just as my writing tends to be).</p><p>When they're basically exhausted and I feel incapable of rational or creative thought, I do other forms of graphic design (like the faux stained-glass thingies).</p><p>When I feel dumber than a sack of rocks, I work on fonts.</p><p>This may explain a lot about my fonts!</p><p>But I do still love 'em.</p><p>Hope this finds you well, or ... as well as can be, all things considered.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wA_WuXjj7KEGmBR2WPApp3OaPI_cT4mQPFhlRtLfZyeilyatP_AfnIykt_8dx0wkrRW-kpoTjYJDfChHDrS5530fLe3uZwz3ZcVG68xdWWpJMarK1UBIjNJLUVwtFDaNv5p9dqyU6j1QgSKohS-CaB37GFZDb_xGZfzguHTqQ9_Fumx3kM8muBAvXj04kORTTQ/s2911/d6rlorv-eeb302b2-c154-42e7-ae32-b04b100896bb.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2911" data-original-width="1376" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wA_WuXjj7KEGmBR2WPApp3OaPI_cT4mQPFhlRtLfZyeilyatP_AfnIykt_8dx0wkrRW-kpoTjYJDfChHDrS5530fLe3uZwz3ZcVG68xdWWpJMarK1UBIjNJLUVwtFDaNv5p9dqyU6j1QgSKohS-CaB37GFZDb_xGZfzguHTqQ9_Fumx3kM8muBAvXj04kORTTQ/w302-h640/d6rlorv-eeb302b2-c154-42e7-ae32-b04b100896bb.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>From the Second-Dumbest<br />Part of My Brain</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-61785257375487420482022-06-24T15:43:00.003-06:002022-06-24T15:43:36.944-06:00Just So We're Clear<p> If you are (so-called) "pro-life," you're a piece of shit.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-907823901428112192022-06-20T21:49:00.002-06:002022-06-20T21:49:47.199-06:00How It's Going<p>I've built my life around love, food, and roleplaying games.</p><p>Love is still the greatest. 🥰</p><p>Food ... really isn't, due to health and dietary limitations (and being back in Colorado, where the food is often mediocre, middle-class-bland-pretentious, or both). 😟</p><p>But, silver-lining-ish: the current state of RPGs is helping me give Colorado food a second chance. 😆</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-38222168335294465762022-06-16T04:38:00.001-06:002022-06-16T14:55:11.497-06:00Spin the Wheel<p>I have Strong Opinions on matters of fantasy cartography. No shock, I know! One of those opinions is that you should never draw to fit the paper. The way I fight that tendency (because it can be really hard <i>not </i>to) is I do a lot of preliminary work on a much, much larger canvas than the target output.</p><p>One of the other towns on the same island as Hammondal is called Choragus, and it's not nearly a "city" by any definition, but it's Calembour's only other seaport bigger than a fishing village, and it's got drydocks for ship repairs and shipbuilding, so despite its modest size and relative youth, it's pretty important. I'm just beginning to map it as a kind of brain-break from writing Hammondal's book. The map began like this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkGHPNwhE9soB3RE9WELbWma3SjxGIeTKtwLAPCItyr-3m8hFSvGVu9_LPcq0Alf_JxSsRbEeewAQkbGcX2fRPgyMrbjcg_1lsf07Xm9LY9p5sBnqyIVRJNCrmeYC16EiVo9urnZJwsauzVGrKz6ZVCHigHzOkPtscwuZ10gPq4PtsUSnC9RoE30yHU4YEoRLueg/s1786/Hammondal-DevSnap-242.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1786" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkGHPNwhE9soB3RE9WELbWma3SjxGIeTKtwLAPCItyr-3m8hFSvGVu9_LPcq0Alf_JxSsRbEeewAQkbGcX2fRPgyMrbjcg_1lsf07Xm9LY9p5sBnqyIVRJNCrmeYC16EiVo9urnZJwsauzVGrKz6ZVCHigHzOkPtscwuZ10gPq4PtsUSnC9RoE30yHU4YEoRLueg/w400-h206/Hammondal-DevSnap-242.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Pretty humble stuff; it looks like I'm playing one of those casual videogames about building public transport ... which isn't too far off from the kind of abstract thinking on display. The red lines are major overland roads (the roads maintained and patrolled by the prince); the brown line is a secondary overland road (the kind sort-of-maintained and sometimes-patrolled by more local administrators). The blue line is the course of a river about to dump into the sea a couple of miles to the northwest.<div><br /></div><div>These are just details from the Calembour map, blown up to scale and placed on a large wheel of green I call the Potter's Wheel. It's about 25 inches wide (a bit more than a mile in scale). Meanwhile, the actual final map will fit somewhere on a letter-sized sheet.</div><div><br /></div><div>That white cross-like thing in the middle is a masking mockup showing me potential "live areas" of the final map. Neither its position nor rotation are final ... currently everything is perfectly north-oriented. But the area <i>inside </i>the cross shows us where the map might end up someday. Anyway after about a day it looked more like this:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDoId5rQx9cMLzSTF1Q99jHB9BU30TPYcKzM4DH7u48c6pf_5L6lVjMWh-ONWYUyVM5mJEDY1U0AOx4CY6xYGIsGIoSBAqW-ubDOrLSrk7uBAX0rQrzlBtk6lCjEqaQSRzvrJezHT5ztUMZxD9HyuL1XH1Zjj2C9XWE_8EyLpDv9V6tLWypdh_UVdQN6Q8adDZ9A/s881/Hammondal-DevSnap-247.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="881" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDoId5rQx9cMLzSTF1Q99jHB9BU30TPYcKzM4DH7u48c6pf_5L6lVjMWh-ONWYUyVM5mJEDY1U0AOx4CY6xYGIsGIoSBAqW-ubDOrLSrk7uBAX0rQrzlBtk6lCjEqaQSRzvrJezHT5ztUMZxD9HyuL1XH1Zjj2C9XWE_8EyLpDv9V6tLWypdh_UVdQN6Q8adDZ9A/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-247.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I've let the phantom cross go a bit transparent so we can see more of what's going on. Now I've got a semi-final take on the natural shape of the river, and I've added a local tributary that's too minor to have appeared on the Calembour map. I've also drawn in those major roadways and it looks a bit more like a place. Then I let it sit for a couple of weeks because I was busy with Hammondal proper.<div><br /></div><div>Tonight I started to really break ground (and dredge river):</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAYM0w9CIsaK13tFVkOAXrc45r12LKItBCdzrSqiOkxa2s1epdROP1qexiM81cTPSXAfvpEMfmmGypRet9skZTeRSOyz5utqxJ_vRsONKhvsk1VbxpTDhIz09NWw0kvF4pNOCfuqbQgN3yUbJ70ZmQ-pz-udbP1qzI1XJ_iYMwEavllFA7WIPddd4U1ZieinKR8g/s1800/Hammondal-DevSnap-260.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAYM0w9CIsaK13tFVkOAXrc45r12LKItBCdzrSqiOkxa2s1epdROP1qexiM81cTPSXAfvpEMfmmGypRet9skZTeRSOyz5utqxJ_vRsONKhvsk1VbxpTDhIz09NWw0kvF4pNOCfuqbQgN3yUbJ70ZmQ-pz-udbP1qzI1XJ_iYMwEavllFA7WIPddd4U1ZieinKR8g/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-260.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><div>I've widened the main river a bit, drawn in a couple more (local) roads and what might be a couple of town streets by the time we're done, and I've begun mapping the port and the three drydock bays (currently shown filled rather than drained because it feels clearer, but who knows how it'll go in the long run). There's also a single orange building (the river beacon), and some placeholder boats (carefully excluding any of the Boranese hull-shapes, since it's illegal for them to dock here; Hammondal has a monopoly on dealing with the Boranese).</div><div><br /></div><div>But what this capture really shows off is the point of the Potter's Wheel: I can <i>spin </i>it, and I do, <i>constantly, </i>because another Strong Opinion I have is that you should never keep drawing from the same position relative to the map, or relative to North or any other direction, because doing so can exert a weird lateral gravity on how you see and design a town, and I don't want that ... so, (especially during the earlier stages) I constantly, randomly spin the entire map and just as often flip it (make it a mirror reflection of itself) as I work. Here, it's been returned to something nearish the north-oriented original, but visibly canted ... but I was spinning it constantly as I went.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway that's the Potter's Wheel method. Eventually, as the town takes shape, I'll begin to see where it's really centered, and what it's really shaped like, and the final framing will take that into account, but until then I don't let the shape of the paper, or any specific orientation, drag the map down.</div><div><br /></div><div>And it's just fun to spin it.</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpFdJMcRo8vH_2DllFsxVay-CIr1YOl0EbUTQOnRsbS2nMyC1eVRl_SAB820x1Kf16z2VuzSQXmMT6oLgyTygW0R6w90hdJBGIgdMcKrneOHUwroJgk9r6tKOltw98l0ArwK46qYt86g4UbYdBzSvFZY-D-arz9CfNiJRMrYR4EoFn0ur6Jo_H2AfbMHABdH7mQ/s1800/Hammondal-DevSnap-261.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpFdJMcRo8vH_2DllFsxVay-CIr1YOl0EbUTQOnRsbS2nMyC1eVRl_SAB820x1Kf16z2VuzSQXmMT6oLgyTygW0R6w90hdJBGIgdMcKrneOHUwroJgk9r6tKOltw98l0ArwK46qYt86g4UbYdBzSvFZY-D-arz9CfNiJRMrYR4EoFn0ur6Jo_H2AfbMHABdH7mQ/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-261.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-63809839769029496732022-06-13T08:17:00.004-06:002022-06-13T08:31:21.474-06:00The Dark Catch in Star Trek and Elsewhere<p>This isn't normally a m<i>using-about-Star-Trek</i> sort of blog, but I've been enjoying the heck out of <b><i>Star Trek</i></b> lately, and last week's episode of <b><i>Strange New Worlds</i></b> was a new version of an old favorite, so that's got me musing. Spoilers ahead.</p><p>When I say "an" old favorite, I don't just mean a single episode of <b><i>Star Trek</i></b>. I mean several episodes of <b><i>Star Trek</i></b> and a few of <b><i>Doctor Who</i></b>, and more besides, because this is a story we've seen a lot, and I <i>never </i>mind seeing it again. The type goes like this: our heroes visit a society where they've solved one or more big societal problems. They've figured out:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Crime:</b> Nobody does nobody wrong.</li><li><b>Want: </b>Everybody can make it rain, so nobody needs to.</li><li><b>Sickness: </b>Everybody's super healthy; no more disease.</li><li><b>Hunger: </b>No child goes to bed with an empty tummy.</li><li><b>War:</b> Good God, y'all!</li></ul><p>And so on. Basically they've cured the Apocalypse of a horseman or some kind of horseman-wannabe. But there's a <i>Dark Catch</i>, some kind of cruel <i>gimmick </i>behind their miraculous achievement.</p><p>Many have cited the Ursula LeGuin story <b><i>"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas" target="_blank">The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas</a>"</i></b> as the classic most directly comparable to this latest <b><i>Trek</i></b>, since they have a very similar Dark Catch: <i>the suffering of a single child.</i> Of course that's true. But really, the Dark Catch is just another variable. The point is always the broader one, about the the <i>injustice </i>that can lurk within any success, or privilege, or comfort. It could just as easily be about Amazon warehouse employees. Some examples of this story I recall offhand:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>A Taste of Armageddon:</b> Classic <b><i>Trek</i></b> in which two planets have <i>solved war.</i> The Dark Catch is that they've solved it by voluntarily mass-murdering their own citizens in response to computer simulations. But hey, nobody has to suffer unsightly rubble or bothersome explosions!</li><li><b>Justice: </b>An early, cheesy TNG episode where, on the Planet of the Sexy Pajama People, they have <i>solved crime. </i>The Dark Catch is that they've solved it by making even minor infractions carry the death penalty. But sexy pajamas! Such thirst.</li><li><b>The Pirate Planet:</b> Old-timey <i><b>Doctor Who</b></i> in the Tom Baker and Douglas Adams years, where the Doctor and Romana visit a peaceful world that has <i>solved poverty.</i> The Dark Catch involves the hollowed-out planet <i>consuming entire worlds</i> for wealth, but the fakeout villain is fun and has a robot rocket-parrot.</li><li><b>The Beast Below:</b> A much later <b><i>Doctor Who,</i></b> where Matt Smith's doctor, and Amy Pond, visit the Starship UK, which is what the UK became when it <i>solved that thing where your planet is being destroyed by solar flares.</i> The Dark Catch is they survived by becoming an amnesiac police state who survive on the literal back of a kindly Space Whale who won't eat children, and they zap its brain with lasers to torture it into motion.</li></ul><p></p><p>There are a lot more in both <b><i>Star Trek</i></b> and <b><i>Doctor Who,</i></b> as well as in the broader worlds of science fiction. Arguably even <b><i>The Stepford Wives</i></b> is an example, if <i>"they've solved insufficiently subservient housewives" </i>is a thing we want to type. Murdering them and replacing them with wifebots is definitely a Dark Catch.</p><p>The third interesting variable (past the thing they've solved and the Dark Catch they've solved it with) is how <i>aware </i>the society is, how consciously <i>complicit.</i> I included <b><i>The Beast Below</i></b> not because it's a great episode, really, but because it has an interesting take on that variable, where even the Queen chooses to have her own memory wiped rather than face the awfulness she perpetuates. Turning a blind eye to injustice, indeed! A Dark Catch <i>within </i>a Dark Catch.</p><p>In some tales, the society is utterly conscious and complicit (including last week's <b><i>Star Trek,</i></b> where they just ritualize, rationalize, and fetishize, and of course <b><i>The Stepford Wives,</i></b> where they're all a bunch of murderous slimeballs).</p><p>This formula is distinct, by the way, from ordinary "Place with a Dark Secret" stories where it's just about <i>peril,</i> with no examination of blindness to injustice. Nobody in <b><i>The Cars That Ate Paris</i></b> has solved any big social problem with their misdeeds ... they're just jerks and they <i>don't even get to live in France.</i></p><p>Of course, the reason I'm musing about all this is that it's very gameable. Readers with long memories may recall my praise for <b><i><a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/04/beyond-compare-breakfast-with-kraygen.html" target="_blank">A Love in Need</a></i></b>, a <b><i>Call of Cthulhu</i></b> adventure that flips this problem on its ear, where society suffers random awful murders in order to preserve the sick child at the heart of things, and the child has no idea, totally innocent.</p><p>And then there's <b><i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/175661" target="_blank">Toast of The Town</a></i></b>. While I designed <b><i>Toast </i></b>to provide a detailed "worked example" of my style of adventure design, it's also my own little love-letter to <i>this </i>formula. The bustling mountain town of Trostig isn't anyone's idea of a utopia, and the PCs <i>aren't</i> introduced to the adventure by marveling over how the town <i>solved a local plague </i>with their trippy hippie healing oil, but at the core there's that classic case of people benefiting from a <i>hidden injustice,</i> where a group of stranded extradimensional people are basically held prisoner in an underground sweatshop bottling their <i>almost-literal sweat</i> to provide the wonder-product.</p><p>Which brings us to the fourth variable: whether Our Heroes are here to just observe the problem and feel crappy about it, or actually take steps to solve it. That's one of those points on which the latest <b><i>Star Trek</i></b> is kind of a downer, because they're not really in a position to solve the problem or even just save the child. In part, this descends from the third variable: since the society in <b><i><a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Lift_Us_Where_Suffering_Cannot_Reach_(episode)" target="_blank">Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach</a></i></b> are absolutely <i>aware </i>of their Dark Catch and <i>embrace </i>it, and they're not part of the Federation, the Enterprise crew must simply face the awfulness.</p><p>It's still a crackerjack episode, especially for advancing Dr. M'Benga's personal subplot. But oh my god when he has to explain to his daughter where her fun new friend ended up ...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEfOE_0qFnda7mkw8Ci__NoS1HMOmQJuU_yczJMxVuy6FIqX_BKBNvl-jPoKAPi3Ba-BCdpq7XR2NzMcR6VgG_Y_SGD49FXJ0ogo-uhHcOpc7NlayLIPo0YHsQ7VvQnixuhK0-lHKklSmpG0xFPjV4v_C1DwqZtvbgDJjP1U05C9ssXnM_KSdvNU2dFX40cVbmQ/s2250/dr-mbenga-star-trek-strange-new-worlds.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="1661" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEfOE_0qFnda7mkw8Ci__NoS1HMOmQJuU_yczJMxVuy6FIqX_BKBNvl-jPoKAPi3Ba-BCdpq7XR2NzMcR6VgG_Y_SGD49FXJ0ogo-uhHcOpc7NlayLIPo0YHsQ7VvQnixuhK0-lHKklSmpG0xFPjV4v_C1DwqZtvbgDJjP1U05C9ssXnM_KSdvNU2dFX40cVbmQ/w295-h400/dr-mbenga-star-trek-strange-new-worlds.webp" width="295" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Just ... Ouch.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-14456654221682144332022-06-12T02:21:00.005-06:002022-06-12T02:22:32.879-06:00Street-Smart in the Candle Islands<p>The whole point of this blog-post is to mark that I've finally got all of Hammondal's street-names in place on the master map. There are, at final count, 195 named streets (there are even more named alleyways and closes and other storied passages, but finishing all that labeling is still a big deal to me) 😄</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW52HAwHcJXn40gE0fkKG6C23UVPhZ8go0s6KCcqYirJ7H1HrPOr1BD_VTpN1gKvMsbS1_3lhzDMkTxAd39AWZXYP3IvaAHSzMveO7r9xFC34QnS_ot2sC7RIIMXFRVVDARea-DU-aOTnm8JYwTyjj_Br_gA4mOvC6c0fDcDSKNgwaDWVmv8YjWmQIwNN7HROwg/s1286/Hammondal-DevSnap-257.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1286" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW52HAwHcJXn40gE0fkKG6C23UVPhZ8go0s6KCcqYirJ7H1HrPOr1BD_VTpN1gKvMsbS1_3lhzDMkTxAd39AWZXYP3IvaAHSzMveO7r9xFC34QnS_ot2sC7RIIMXFRVVDARea-DU-aOTnm8JYwTyjj_Br_gA4mOvC6c0fDcDSKNgwaDWVmv8YjWmQIwNN7HROwg/w400-h336/Hammondal-DevSnap-257.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>This is what the process looked like. It's very unthrilling:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlClAw1h8HUz5SZtri4VFkqoeauaRVwhwuXo0zXTO6VbRNc295Id-yXfGWUZcPERBEWEwQzmu7D5l1Gry388mSTKUSZ59kXqVdDBqI9w1d0ihaHEYqwiegr8pT6-ncqydg_L438UotFPIoUrvsTl6NqsYrmQYVmyzki9fqXElvUsOOE7iyFkU3BA4RQ_v-1mXgw/s1916/Hammondal-DevSnap-256.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1916" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlClAw1h8HUz5SZtri4VFkqoeauaRVwhwuXo0zXTO6VbRNc295Id-yXfGWUZcPERBEWEwQzmu7D5l1Gry388mSTKUSZ59kXqVdDBqI9w1d0ihaHEYqwiegr8pT6-ncqydg_L438UotFPIoUrvsTl6NqsYrmQYVmyzki9fqXElvUsOOE7iyFkU3BA4RQ_v-1mXgw/w400-h214/Hammondal-DevSnap-256.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>BUT ... you can't (or at least, I can't) name a thing without <i>knowing </i>a thing, at least a little bit, and I know at least a little bit about every one of these streets, and I really enjoy that.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-82227215762075044062022-06-08T15:45:00.000-06:002022-06-08T15:45:33.839-06:00Hammondal Today<p>I wake up each morning <i>excited </i>about Hammondal. I'm working on it constantly (or as constantly as asthma permits, lately) and it gives me that noisy popcorn brain where the elements are enjoying their teeny little explosions, bouncing and colliding and combining ...</p><p>And then I'd go burble happily about it on Twitter, and have that enthusiasm <i>bled out of me</i> by that whole "burbling happily into the void" effect. Meh.</p><p>So I'm going to let the Twitter account <i>sleep </i>awhile until I have the next thing to announce. In the meantime <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/temphis/art/Hammondal-Light-of-the-Candle-Islands-Poster-Map-918463791" target="_blank">the poster-map is finalized</a> and <a href="https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Map-of-the-City-of-Hammondal-by-SJohnRoss/111939647.LVTDI" target="_blank">Hammondal posters are available at Redbubble</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmO54c2x20miLE-sbHaKVak1D8omDHg-l-ZeEF97rv0GGhTjBI4KV-1M1TRGR8tHtjf6WB-cPXAtHM3u_XmGS6yRW5dkPesxyKgmBCxRZ2tK8c0RQR45nLa8DmERqKsp2rs2X3UvfAEblJmWMKODssHHYn5RneccxtxhHqOWcpMvPtYaB1NtiizZF05i-tD0BWQ/s3720/hammondal__light_of_the_candle_islands_poster_map_by_temphis_df6tv73.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2790" data-original-width="3720" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmO54c2x20miLE-sbHaKVak1D8omDHg-l-ZeEF97rv0GGhTjBI4KV-1M1TRGR8tHtjf6WB-cPXAtHM3u_XmGS6yRW5dkPesxyKgmBCxRZ2tK8c0RQR45nLa8DmERqKsp2rs2X3UvfAEblJmWMKODssHHYn5RneccxtxhHqOWcpMvPtYaB1NtiizZF05i-tD0BWQ/w400-h300/hammondal__light_of_the_candle_islands_poster_map_by_temphis_df6tv73.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>To keep up with tradition, here's a mindless spew of development snaps offered without explanation or context.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrbrI4yJkyqhUfh5hVeeBLNjFe4yHHcFiueXg34n7jpSTeQu7I8jXyjoThnjPOI3dfgquBTd1XIEsKSMnbgLTN4B0YOekx4omX_2u01J1UjySUkvvLlZ9oTvAe246UySJert-VDQU4kDm0hhsUlAOAiyPJIrMN2CwjjIBHh8GP7GaGL8YeC7lbxfMDJV4KOVIYUg/s1298/Hammondal-DevSnap-231.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1298" data-original-width="1298" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrbrI4yJkyqhUfh5hVeeBLNjFe4yHHcFiueXg34n7jpSTeQu7I8jXyjoThnjPOI3dfgquBTd1XIEsKSMnbgLTN4B0YOekx4omX_2u01J1UjySUkvvLlZ9oTvAe246UySJert-VDQU4kDm0hhsUlAOAiyPJIrMN2CwjjIBHh8GP7GaGL8YeC7lbxfMDJV4KOVIYUg/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-231.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxf5NW5X6tgZ5uvLvic8XSWyBoExqZnlU8ljZPl1NmSrBxGFBbcIvvzUrtWHUTDnUBsMbOjm8AG0CkvMmhh2BVWM8H-9I3BFBTlH0WBXT0Mt2FcbKJeOiBb6cYUSxmWRLFZFfgMvhgxfW3I9sbnJj9gUkLV7Qd_RilBJ_8PAZ4FESVUccIhbe9irW5wE4Jq8JPQ/s1000/Hammondal-DevSnap-233.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="773" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxf5NW5X6tgZ5uvLvic8XSWyBoExqZnlU8ljZPl1NmSrBxGFBbcIvvzUrtWHUTDnUBsMbOjm8AG0CkvMmhh2BVWM8H-9I3BFBTlH0WBXT0Mt2FcbKJeOiBb6cYUSxmWRLFZFfgMvhgxfW3I9sbnJj9gUkLV7Qd_RilBJ_8PAZ4FESVUccIhbe9irW5wE4Jq8JPQ/w309-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-233.png" width="309" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi53R7vnuCgFlPGKRU3TzD757xDADi4O_JlfEoNua8YD5r8dVtVTHb0I1DnVI8R79A6RzimQ-DIIOGVi2K_qqIMUAgIZEqnPNP-XO88-RnykaRYl0ZOdrv5HJX2XPOd5SP_XZoWgTqETdZtvWR-4-aIG-EIkpdSimO3afU65qmzYleNcmlmuvCzISS3ugquAPiKVA/s1786/Hammondal-DevSnap-242.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1786" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi53R7vnuCgFlPGKRU3TzD757xDADi4O_JlfEoNua8YD5r8dVtVTHb0I1DnVI8R79A6RzimQ-DIIOGVi2K_qqIMUAgIZEqnPNP-XO88-RnykaRYl0ZOdrv5HJX2XPOd5SP_XZoWgTqETdZtvWR-4-aIG-EIkpdSimO3afU65qmzYleNcmlmuvCzISS3ugquAPiKVA/w400-h206/Hammondal-DevSnap-242.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVSePg_71fsv3u1nkCcydTO86e3iJ-thBllnoTjdQ10YGG77O9qu1OsoK21UUzwd6YXNUCHXTzllLXVF1yde-Kd_R6canzgbxJY1AWVhJpeq3iDmXivVg4fHpLTtiC6SyN22XnADFBOAhT2VVPv28_rznIU7vj5wgr0eDbCN_LWyJEzZ3TPjSeIKtd3jVfFevbQ/s1443/Hammondal-DevSnap-243.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1443" data-original-width="1294" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVSePg_71fsv3u1nkCcydTO86e3iJ-thBllnoTjdQ10YGG77O9qu1OsoK21UUzwd6YXNUCHXTzllLXVF1yde-Kd_R6canzgbxJY1AWVhJpeq3iDmXivVg4fHpLTtiC6SyN22XnADFBOAhT2VVPv28_rznIU7vj5wgr0eDbCN_LWyJEzZ3TPjSeIKtd3jVfFevbQ/w359-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-243.png" width="359" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy4nSG0Vu9ySXMPKGT4X7NiDAkrbqgO47E4fhs_4UpDjNdGCC4Gy47YiID28dws0ejKYp1dDZQ3L31eD6h1ZZY0r0XEp__Iw1JBSF14wziNMbzvl_WUbTcoWFL38Abs8KRwT8zPDSV3UnD-SZYQueOKaRWs3ggKGbtL72GL16NnAftyoXi7Mwsk0WDbs8vSTKiUg/s881/Hammondal-DevSnap-247.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="881" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy4nSG0Vu9ySXMPKGT4X7NiDAkrbqgO47E4fhs_4UpDjNdGCC4Gy47YiID28dws0ejKYp1dDZQ3L31eD6h1ZZY0r0XEp__Iw1JBSF14wziNMbzvl_WUbTcoWFL38Abs8KRwT8zPDSV3UnD-SZYQueOKaRWs3ggKGbtL72GL16NnAftyoXi7Mwsk0WDbs8vSTKiUg/w400-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-247.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHmSxjhdp74fjx_Q4e3Epv3EHoY9DweQM1Y1m8dHAgaM2SkeK1L0AluHjOjIzqJVdCgHoSRiYSw2o83SJJv4lV4Z4pydSVOBwkYIwLOdRRZbFw738uCLZ4kSlguFJIV31siG7U5CgXv4BwkNxj7mWm5mh06cetB1mjEwQHZ4YVFxBpOWlyy2T-rpobRsGvryeeg/s2359/Hammondal-DevSnap-250.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1103" data-original-width="2359" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHmSxjhdp74fjx_Q4e3Epv3EHoY9DweQM1Y1m8dHAgaM2SkeK1L0AluHjOjIzqJVdCgHoSRiYSw2o83SJJv4lV4Z4pydSVOBwkYIwLOdRRZbFw738uCLZ4kSlguFJIV31siG7U5CgXv4BwkNxj7mWm5mh06cetB1mjEwQHZ4YVFxBpOWlyy2T-rpobRsGvryeeg/w400-h188/Hammondal-DevSnap-250.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQYSUWfKYRieKpcu_5xKseogimIZNnQWg7ke_qG6qiP2h237onS7JfvUtOpKyT_-nACuvNzG7VI2CnBIccEVDXYpH_2-HAOirjVznF-sXClxqlofsxM0DftUj16DiVjSCJGLviWK5oFY5DuBdk3mxt7L1oI5UR81wD5bNwhmLnEC-fYa1_CSoagMxQdQH82JWHDw/s1080/Hammondal-DevSnap-253.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQYSUWfKYRieKpcu_5xKseogimIZNnQWg7ke_qG6qiP2h237onS7JfvUtOpKyT_-nACuvNzG7VI2CnBIccEVDXYpH_2-HAOirjVznF-sXClxqlofsxM0DftUj16DiVjSCJGLviWK5oFY5DuBdk3mxt7L1oI5UR81wD5bNwhmLnEC-fYa1_CSoagMxQdQH82JWHDw/w360-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-253.png" width="360" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IsHSdkNDm34g_vLHOlvU9xrdYSvElInwuAq7qnapVDGEqNnbAN-lh8Y1LRzkEu4Q3n9hmK5ieuOg5hMdOgEWEAawsqwR4pDdvK2FRk2k1vyjoT_TA0foQf6jIdgRfCP91fbpmvWOMhDcidA5owGfbdwIlJ0gU7GlBnh0-bznTdvp1BVWvFsmhHKGLCm0EZ0pBA/s1193/Hammondal-DevSnap-254.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="889" data-original-width="1193" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IsHSdkNDm34g_vLHOlvU9xrdYSvElInwuAq7qnapVDGEqNnbAN-lh8Y1LRzkEu4Q3n9hmK5ieuOg5hMdOgEWEAawsqwR4pDdvK2FRk2k1vyjoT_TA0foQf6jIdgRfCP91fbpmvWOMhDcidA5owGfbdwIlJ0gU7GlBnh0-bznTdvp1BVWvFsmhHKGLCm0EZ0pBA/w400-h297/Hammondal-DevSnap-254.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqJz7XILAl0aeud8lDNK2SFe4j-u2ssSeG5UqcZlTCeO_YKVuWfUsupxRETAfJ3-Dnz-JYlFPmIP1cBKSQ51E6_fVTqaMma-3q7eGBItlPsmi-m_6rVCzpzwICvACaM9VL_MOesEerpn0ep5LYX1Dz_NG3adgEuhpYIUr8HtN6sePgbJM8LXpIrWNcgVQ_-F3LA/s3300/Hammondal-DevSnap-251.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="3300" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqJz7XILAl0aeud8lDNK2SFe4j-u2ssSeG5UqcZlTCeO_YKVuWfUsupxRETAfJ3-Dnz-JYlFPmIP1cBKSQ51E6_fVTqaMma-3q7eGBItlPsmi-m_6rVCzpzwICvACaM9VL_MOesEerpn0ep5LYX1Dz_NG3adgEuhpYIUr8HtN6sePgbJM8LXpIrWNcgVQ_-F3LA/w400-h309/Hammondal-DevSnap-251.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Here's hoping that <i>your </i>enthusiasm, for whatever you're enthused by, remains undimmed.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-59957235345050000812022-05-13T00:06:00.002-06:002022-05-15T05:34:09.301-06:00Bundle Up!<p>Cumberland Games is participating in the <b><i><a href="https://itch.io/b/1375/ttrpgs-for-reproductive-rights" target="_blank">TTRPGs for Reproductive Rights</a></i></b> bundle on itch, and it's a very, very, very large bundle (nearly 300 items) for five bucks (or more, if you've got more to give). It's got some adventures, some settings, some resources, a lot of creative oddities, some journaling and other solitaire games. It's a lot, and it's for a vital cause.</p><p><a href="https://itch.io/b/1375/ttrpgs-for-reproductive-rights">https://itch.io/b/1375/ttrpgs-for-reproductive-rights</a> </p><p>Please consider it. All proceeds go to Planned Parenthood and NNAF (National Network of Abortion Funds).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0NepDaginlGRB4Bs2A1T0J4vZwQoe95uC92Tgq1yBn6FbPoddoKN7Mvc00kOGzoYyJtQW8FfHpKjbc4AVXdG9bSaGMFo5r-lcqkvYKoZ2qRWxt8uaDz25tE_xtosJh757Wl55c931KV-86gDielqXmeOrthlxTO1fW903EOh_-w83CovccFLagzvYDJ1ou3Z04g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0NepDaginlGRB4Bs2A1T0J4vZwQoe95uC92Tgq1yBn6FbPoddoKN7Mvc00kOGzoYyJtQW8FfHpKjbc4AVXdG9bSaGMFo5r-lcqkvYKoZ2qRWxt8uaDz25tE_xtosJh757Wl55c931KV-86gDielqXmeOrthlxTO1fW903EOh_-w83CovccFLagzvYDJ1ou3Z04g=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-56863782625071778112022-05-03T11:27:00.001-06:002022-05-03T11:27:37.915-06:00The Game-Design Rollercoaster<p>The early, heady, research-heavy phase of an RPG project is, to me, the beginning of a rollercoaster ride. During that phase, I cram my eyeballs full of historical research, classic RPG works, genre research, fiddly real-world stuff like evaporation and waste from cisterns, the nature of long-term road maintenance, the precise conditions for fog, the chemistry of a peat bog, the many uses of wax, and brick. The nature of a handful of world religions, folkloric traditions, spiritual belief systems.</p><p>Just ... everything. A bit of everything that comes to mind, and everything that comes to mind after looking up the previous thing that came to mind. It's high-density brainwork and it's exciting in a chill way. And so far it's been very much that first climb, up that first hill, of the rollercoaster. CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK, a constant sense of lift, of impending possibility.</p><p>I'm now cresting that first hill, and the nature of the work begins to change, rapidly. Now, instead of accumulating possibilities, it's time to start making the choices, which is more about bringing <i>myself</i> into the project ... Deciding once and for all which few of these 17 imaginary cultures will step to the fore and which will step into the backdrop ... deciding which of these dozens of themes mean the most to me right now, feel the most <i>gameable</i> right now, feel like they've got the pulp-swashbuckly fuel to power the process over what's to come. Deciding on the balance between Stuff for the GM and Stuff for the Players. Deciding just how far I'll push the satire this time (far, very very far), and even laying down the stakes for what will become my first playtest runs.</p><p>Anyway, that's the bit where I'm at this week. Top of the first hill. Beginning to feel it in my gut that the coaster is about to drop, and the thrill of possibility evaporates in the <i>new </i>thrill of realization.</p><p>So that's fun.</p><p>The usual unexplained spray of development images:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj896CCmc3JNyYU7EeRoCZUYZS4mp2l_5gl-Kd1TjMzWbKkrNk-83Va4RZSpytqC7DG02cu0spw7L_TBJhGVQS4gdW_jzsQ_iZeUOqOdvBoPEEeaoN320tWvXXi7MwPgzAPTtPpfJ3GvbjwJt8s4MA_Lb5m1j_oTflvPXpga81x92hgbSJRNXT88yhprP9zVdn_ng/s7840/Hammondal-DevSnap-205.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2375" data-original-width="7840" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj896CCmc3JNyYU7EeRoCZUYZS4mp2l_5gl-Kd1TjMzWbKkrNk-83Va4RZSpytqC7DG02cu0spw7L_TBJhGVQS4gdW_jzsQ_iZeUOqOdvBoPEEeaoN320tWvXXi7MwPgzAPTtPpfJ3GvbjwJt8s4MA_Lb5m1j_oTflvPXpga81x92hgbSJRNXT88yhprP9zVdn_ng/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-205.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH6O78vdjlo7cbEIb5DdV1SafolDBHa3dXQ8wnNFjANN6WrgZykKnL_eEbKe6tRwFTy9FhJWJjWhqw3WsVcwuAjDzf6lRkABQmHPrHlYr-t28dSNdrzJIswGyifLmpLBpuCxMbhcDH9t-0leaNxkZWWOFOsjZRnXwh5plCnZDjkYHf5L-QHRSkJs96_-NTUi1D3A/s919/Hammondal-DevSnap-210.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="919" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH6O78vdjlo7cbEIb5DdV1SafolDBHa3dXQ8wnNFjANN6WrgZykKnL_eEbKe6tRwFTy9FhJWJjWhqw3WsVcwuAjDzf6lRkABQmHPrHlYr-t28dSNdrzJIswGyifLmpLBpuCxMbhcDH9t-0leaNxkZWWOFOsjZRnXwh5plCnZDjkYHf5L-QHRSkJs96_-NTUi1D3A/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-210.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywCFzVoZgz3eCdxkBVDcJPO87L75CqMNT3CFUtMj9qfu728suCbicTn1ASMpvHNTRX7zFHWZS1Hl9AYyn55aUGlICjNUIqtzjBAr7R1Fg1_mBJB2Xnrixdnt3is3AAB0Jk3LZuoxCCP1Ys-xfljOjh1Oj4EGn2RTaFwOhRVsJTPAEr7s3pOmQ7y3BbOuSfu0nCw/s3320/Hammondal-DevSnap-219.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2490" data-original-width="3320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywCFzVoZgz3eCdxkBVDcJPO87L75CqMNT3CFUtMj9qfu728suCbicTn1ASMpvHNTRX7zFHWZS1Hl9AYyn55aUGlICjNUIqtzjBAr7R1Fg1_mBJB2Xnrixdnt3is3AAB0Jk3LZuoxCCP1Ys-xfljOjh1Oj4EGn2RTaFwOhRVsJTPAEr7s3pOmQ7y3BbOuSfu0nCw/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-219.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2LLcYU7m02rwwdGk5xWGGkNFNyG2UTfNt1OTWWHzU2r2u2qg1Qqdfs7Bc-Lgow4uYh6vfVXUq1e7byjmxBMKS8rhh_KWARmN1u82jA4YlD3XxeR3U6ycK2FV_MBzQCLmPImN4O5N9jO7AD4W5DKq8JK8xsvJuEDZE2-VjezlGOOfAh2vlhrrbF997Z-IOC5BdYA/s1500/Hammondal-DevSnap-220.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2LLcYU7m02rwwdGk5xWGGkNFNyG2UTfNt1OTWWHzU2r2u2qg1Qqdfs7Bc-Lgow4uYh6vfVXUq1e7byjmxBMKS8rhh_KWARmN1u82jA4YlD3XxeR3U6ycK2FV_MBzQCLmPImN4O5N9jO7AD4W5DKq8JK8xsvJuEDZE2-VjezlGOOfAh2vlhrrbF997Z-IOC5BdYA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-220.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjga8KL6iimI8CylAg6PzIGBHUs-aHKFoo4OO1BUjNTjf81hObkK0Q76xM4sD_4QzrZBUQI_LsCDQB57CL6QTniIUS8UgEMpFvXdY7qzUwrhMpJ73CJQvJLMhsun4MVCXTbdDxI-j-xu7cMJmfd4fXhu6rvD-rsZ0MO7w2LECmN_qGIjNQz58EOIIkipf413KzJUA/s4440/Hammondal-DevSnap-221.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3330" data-original-width="4440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjga8KL6iimI8CylAg6PzIGBHUs-aHKFoo4OO1BUjNTjf81hObkK0Q76xM4sD_4QzrZBUQI_LsCDQB57CL6QTniIUS8UgEMpFvXdY7qzUwrhMpJ73CJQvJLMhsun4MVCXTbdDxI-j-xu7cMJmfd4fXhu6rvD-rsZ0MO7w2LECmN_qGIjNQz58EOIIkipf413KzJUA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-221.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWmYXJExfQVSjKbPFYgJgHfdqsmt9mr6Btst5U_tt65bAhFqBnYMGBeUHsXwJBSSrpfof8hq7Vzw4YQJz845aRkJyI85pnjemUpnNSVnrSGgpxhdgp-MR2jcxth2GP_jH9kt3P1cZG-BGtvXojnu-Q8S_pboLUmgluYexl9A-KtRv_F_D9knDYWPls2asiAPNM-g/s2000/Hammondal-DevSnap-222.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWmYXJExfQVSjKbPFYgJgHfdqsmt9mr6Btst5U_tt65bAhFqBnYMGBeUHsXwJBSSrpfof8hq7Vzw4YQJz845aRkJyI85pnjemUpnNSVnrSGgpxhdgp-MR2jcxth2GP_jH9kt3P1cZG-BGtvXojnu-Q8S_pboLUmgluYexl9A-KtRv_F_D9knDYWPls2asiAPNM-g/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-222.png" width="192" /></a></div><p><br /></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-3151790126487021852022-04-30T08:17:00.004-06:002022-04-30T08:17:32.045-06:00Shifting Gears in Hammondal<p>The main "poster" map of Hammondal is complete. It'll still evolve as the book progresses, of course, but it's nice to see it all together ... or even pointedly dissected.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7VIw7KoQ67tj8a89Hl6-YMH2ZrsxMEkCtTESJGXsvS_0aUaGCxum1IMmquR7db9rAPSApoSD2K7SOUrOQNSEBZvjzNOCzpsrO-pspfYeBh-2iDAs37dPjXHUl2_OZmhWoQ1A3m_YBrg_I5Ex2g8HzF5AQinCJsaLsWa-KQ0epJHEHgeF3mnYyzVqvljHvSa5dqg/s3320/Hammondal-DevSnap-212.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2490" data-original-width="3320" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7VIw7KoQ67tj8a89Hl6-YMH2ZrsxMEkCtTESJGXsvS_0aUaGCxum1IMmquR7db9rAPSApoSD2K7SOUrOQNSEBZvjzNOCzpsrO-pspfYeBh-2iDAs37dPjXHUl2_OZmhWoQ1A3m_YBrg_I5Ex2g8HzF5AQinCJsaLsWa-KQ0epJHEHgeF3mnYyzVqvljHvSa5dqg/w400-h300/Hammondal-DevSnap-212.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRblfNyZvyqTFpFLNBhRv1iAh4D9-zyWvra2l3VowMgZZei_nGGvc_7eEgjO8ZeeE0mELANc_3f3HU23gThZIPX6O_PWBjFXL2VKIB6yo3nprkr4YSpHAK9GxJePedJLaOr08X6ZNFP--1kT022t5rtsmFxvvgb_-z2Sjyl-tAl7E5ZnZIPTKBTchrMOlVx-Qbg/s3320/Hammondal-DevSnap-213.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2490" data-original-width="3320" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRblfNyZvyqTFpFLNBhRv1iAh4D9-zyWvra2l3VowMgZZei_nGGvc_7eEgjO8ZeeE0mELANc_3f3HU23gThZIPX6O_PWBjFXL2VKIB6yo3nprkr4YSpHAK9GxJePedJLaOr08X6ZNFP--1kT022t5rtsmFxvvgb_-z2Sjyl-tAl7E5ZnZIPTKBTchrMOlVx-Qbg/w400-h300/Hammondal-DevSnap-213.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAJRaeVUAsMs8PyUCFH3pzL3zHhDIh1LinAmotmU-hBzanacpPqx2iQks_aOeHOu9u_pCRAUO3HivD_Qlvk61AeDuOFzTulpZiBnpUUyYmfAMdbm4vHzA-KvYuNN4ofFpSq6MV14WvWlSrxZ3BdIGGj-51lNAMcWhcg7Bv1bcOdQZjyDkVseZMjtDZcsgXFLWQg/s10908/Hammondal-DevSnap-216.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6223" data-original-width="10908" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAJRaeVUAsMs8PyUCFH3pzL3zHhDIh1LinAmotmU-hBzanacpPqx2iQks_aOeHOu9u_pCRAUO3HivD_Qlvk61AeDuOFzTulpZiBnpUUyYmfAMdbm4vHzA-KvYuNN4ofFpSq6MV14WvWlSrxZ3BdIGGj-51lNAMcWhcg7Bv1bcOdQZjyDkVseZMjtDZcsgXFLWQg/w400-h229/Hammondal-DevSnap-216.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8AG-L5mDkAybmpL-1oxN-QYYV27Uiiac2QjzMwtGdAXCrq5KglUCSdFA12Fq__rAbXNJhBih1f_FzoAfNSsCRwA-mqjtBZnQ9lqv2IzsawpcH0Dt6ZluveRAlKsbrzbkTZtXTiNp0l204lUsIfkweDN2Hh8UoEjW_96GOd9CE8BP_B1lP8SeSvEwO0JdiBV2Ew/s5188/Hammondal-DevSnap-217.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3379" data-original-width="5188" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8AG-L5mDkAybmpL-1oxN-QYYV27Uiiac2QjzMwtGdAXCrq5KglUCSdFA12Fq__rAbXNJhBih1f_FzoAfNSsCRwA-mqjtBZnQ9lqv2IzsawpcH0Dt6ZluveRAlKsbrzbkTZtXTiNp0l204lUsIfkweDN2Hh8UoEjW_96GOd9CE8BP_B1lP8SeSvEwO0JdiBV2Ew/w400-h260/Hammondal-DevSnap-217.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsNUwYNgKdl2ZAeO8U0GWfH7ssdcXNUsvbnLhSYl-0WmeJd91Diw1gJZ54K2GBaWmbHwkoyMio5Xxk9zYcQXjviOY39DQdONkK5nMaR2AhxgQ_0PJ26L0IaDwjeobcsOlVxR3V-tCtrXEApYxE6UgFEHr1Un1yM-pki4rwesGd-jEJxzi_HEMcfWdYwKQwUqEvQ/s4000/Hammondal-DevSnap-218.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsNUwYNgKdl2ZAeO8U0GWfH7ssdcXNUsvbnLhSYl-0WmeJd91Diw1gJZ54K2GBaWmbHwkoyMio5Xxk9zYcQXjviOY39DQdONkK5nMaR2AhxgQ_0PJ26L0IaDwjeobcsOlVxR3V-tCtrXEApYxE6UgFEHr1Un1yM-pki4rwesGd-jEJxzi_HEMcfWdYwKQwUqEvQ/w400-h300/Hammondal-DevSnap-218.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I've begun work on some building interior maps and accompanying exterior building elevations, and I've never drawn elevations before, so I'm at the kind-of-thrilling, kind-of-depressing "I am very very bad at this" phase with them. But, that's where I started with everything else, too, so I'm just going to draw at least one a day until I draw one that doesn't suck, and then from there I'll start really digging into what role they can play in the book. I don't consider their presence optional ... I'm spoiled on elevations from things like <b><i>Pelinore</i></b>, and from the <b><i>WFRP </i></b>line, and I regard them as an essential ingredient in this kind of book. I think I'll do nice ones, someday, after this run of awful ones.<div><br /></div><div>I'll probably do some more posts about the design of the core game material in Hammondal. I've tried sparking design discussions on Twitter, but Twitter doesn't seem conducive to that sort of thing, so I might shout it more into <i>this </i>void, than <i>that </i>one. Speaking of Twitter:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLgr-jZDUqhpyjsQPAYhKU17CdXazZp2Bb6t_1QrsCFTN5sYE_XV2pwboL1e66CdvtfGpAyK9FAxqS5HzT87JakCEc84RwC0xsBfL_btrtbvhhr1wo7ev9xMYFe1oNGJxQ71lvqWZRSy-CUnUlZ8oHhugyccnjyC1jthVwoAg8Jkgp2TrLGLalB1QQndk6-ohOXg/s471/twitter-choice.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="471" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLgr-jZDUqhpyjsQPAYhKU17CdXazZp2Bb6t_1QrsCFTN5sYE_XV2pwboL1e66CdvtfGpAyK9FAxqS5HzT87JakCEc84RwC0xsBfL_btrtbvhhr1wo7ev9xMYFe1oNGJxQ71lvqWZRSy-CUnUlZ8oHhugyccnjyC1jthVwoAg8Jkgp2TrLGLalB1QQndk6-ohOXg/w400-h179/twitter-choice.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><p>I don't know if my most honest response to this is "Don't make me choose!" or "Wait ... <i>Politics?</i>"</p><p>Anyway, I'm also getting back to mapping the Candle Islands themselves (that's where Hammondal <i>is</i>), and just diving deep into the writing of the <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>book. That part's going much, <i>much </i>better than the elevation drawings ... but it's nice to mix something where my skills are confident with something where my skills are ... nonexistent. So far. But give me a few weeks ...</p><p>Hope this finds you well. <a href="mailto:blogmail@cumberlandgames.com">Let me know</a> what you're up to!</p></div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-53743924894110109502022-04-21T11:05:00.005-06:002022-04-21T13:23:32.349-06:00Das Boot<p>The <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>poster townmap is nearly done. What's preventing it from being declared a "complete draft" is boats. I've done multiple passes at "populating" the city's harbor and other waterlines with ships and boats, and each one has fallen short of my standards in one way or another. I'll keep poking at it between fontwork and other stuff. I hope to begin some of the building interior maps over the next week, and I'm excited for those! The obligatory spray of development snapshots follows, and I hope this finds you well.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9CE6v2blQgjLvUEvy40UFPG1DZrXKYXdwSnKSs9eM1nw0H3vWEkHCHk4pyoE2u44cqJVdz1unWAMya44aY5OpzLLgS9QjBzQ2Vf_wKwf1BWgfB7kkR-pbrcRr2KTFfu49tOd7EH3Zor8l_WHMHzehWlac3srTXosXkOl7N7PlQteOEISjkv01rNgJitrQODimA/s1814/Hammondal-DevSnap-188.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1379" data-original-width="1814" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9CE6v2blQgjLvUEvy40UFPG1DZrXKYXdwSnKSs9eM1nw0H3vWEkHCHk4pyoE2u44cqJVdz1unWAMya44aY5OpzLLgS9QjBzQ2Vf_wKwf1BWgfB7kkR-pbrcRr2KTFfu49tOd7EH3Zor8l_WHMHzehWlac3srTXosXkOl7N7PlQteOEISjkv01rNgJitrQODimA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-188.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-162akNhi_7FwrPxcL_rpRd8ptBjuob-ZADwOXJ3rC-AaxGj-7CsEfpdFHbdTgcqJUUw-MnyvD6z0Y-St_wHJw1qY8skrCMeoy_-KeKcerOdA6ldlk8PSd8AbcQz2fNS41xptgJML00y9MpEubdKzl8eotyJqGohTP5d08vreCjSdu-Pj0-tb8TLn4CxIBVCUeg/s1497/Hammondal-DevSnap-189.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1384" data-original-width="1497" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-162akNhi_7FwrPxcL_rpRd8ptBjuob-ZADwOXJ3rC-AaxGj-7CsEfpdFHbdTgcqJUUw-MnyvD6z0Y-St_wHJw1qY8skrCMeoy_-KeKcerOdA6ldlk8PSd8AbcQz2fNS41xptgJML00y9MpEubdKzl8eotyJqGohTP5d08vreCjSdu-Pj0-tb8TLn4CxIBVCUeg/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-189.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBW9cAR7Jm29DGNxdxrF6hNFUBl1qLBBji_JmCCT2cbKFYD9GrWwfqOdafP2h73eELWq7vfVnO3Jxuf7ohsiC6jLawn9RFAT6CDLUHOT7no2ZrnS7baAwus1TZpV15_HgFBqoiNhOVCfcq3EHKmKZDFc6RBH9fjde3AQDbXIfLEeaa717XvKlhJk7g5BkLHuoEg/s1920/Hammondal-DevSnap-190.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="1920" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBW9cAR7Jm29DGNxdxrF6hNFUBl1qLBBji_JmCCT2cbKFYD9GrWwfqOdafP2h73eELWq7vfVnO3Jxuf7ohsiC6jLawn9RFAT6CDLUHOT7no2ZrnS7baAwus1TZpV15_HgFBqoiNhOVCfcq3EHKmKZDFc6RBH9fjde3AQDbXIfLEeaa717XvKlhJk7g5BkLHuoEg/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-190.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdWuUaByJFK7H3yvNvoz1xLmjP63V6IiOAvAWz7FRn2I3Ej04E8r4IS019PSNQmAGEVFSQRGys96QuSQH-owDJUhYaBnOXDbTmxFyhZq-dJ5WP24cx25yOmaM1teewSIyd4r0k6OlAwba6npA7TXE9ZFZ0SKyJxCvyZW1VLbGsz-Xs-mcEbZpP220wno1HATmLg/s1887/Hammondal-DevSnap-193.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="1887" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdWuUaByJFK7H3yvNvoz1xLmjP63V6IiOAvAWz7FRn2I3Ej04E8r4IS019PSNQmAGEVFSQRGys96QuSQH-owDJUhYaBnOXDbTmxFyhZq-dJ5WP24cx25yOmaM1teewSIyd4r0k6OlAwba6npA7TXE9ZFZ0SKyJxCvyZW1VLbGsz-Xs-mcEbZpP220wno1HATmLg/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-193.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDLZy_ogs93No9iriqffP4anavJkCAlhJLURTtfcoh5R1hjhBFVmL3HFaOfqOOW9P6etqiECS2S48f9RVkxqucsZTHqQ-TWbRwR7SeqILZCEbVaX2_WY-__DhLdeyyFgbyR8lEvQuPJYbD19yysJSSWGCcCH6HjnkZocdMpIgnbuQ3t2rvsKu9rxo8VDNRshl7_g/s2730/Hammondal-DevSnap-194.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1557" data-original-width="2730" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDLZy_ogs93No9iriqffP4anavJkCAlhJLURTtfcoh5R1hjhBFVmL3HFaOfqOOW9P6etqiECS2S48f9RVkxqucsZTHqQ-TWbRwR7SeqILZCEbVaX2_WY-__DhLdeyyFgbyR8lEvQuPJYbD19yysJSSWGCcCH6HjnkZocdMpIgnbuQ3t2rvsKu9rxo8VDNRshl7_g/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-194.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAV6T8eyPy4LeVUq7Pzx8IdOegDD2c6ifQjQ_Ln-S7HOEO6erdUkKs9j0qYMo5L-ZzQ573PY13O-79-Kaie3_-PSjgOWOnMRnR76Xrk9ISl3YKQVW45b5GnnwEB5ltI62dOyQq7-oKHrq6BFeK2OxvG0INiA3w2dlJV5smRez2jeJIMS_WDPenkwIn8rFvRsinFw/s994/Hammondal-DevSnap-196.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="948" data-original-width="994" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAV6T8eyPy4LeVUq7Pzx8IdOegDD2c6ifQjQ_Ln-S7HOEO6erdUkKs9j0qYMo5L-ZzQ573PY13O-79-Kaie3_-PSjgOWOnMRnR76Xrk9ISl3YKQVW45b5GnnwEB5ltI62dOyQq7-oKHrq6BFeK2OxvG0INiA3w2dlJV5smRez2jeJIMS_WDPenkwIn8rFvRsinFw/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-196.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOZTEMqYTH1G-2QeXlzRuBJdIIa_PhOp9IjCSqkhUiwU2Xg8Rnl_5-o4nxRKUJj-Ea6CgFOreGet-A7blfsdgQz9A6OrMo6BZiULUNPaLo2m_gfjofv9eJfHafzWNe6V8EJUlxJMGhLBw5eToS_2jmidh9jJ-12U6ujS5w697c1xYrhCCVm9Vx3hbj9IlXNHPbbQ/s882/Hammondal-DevSnap-199.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="507" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOZTEMqYTH1G-2QeXlzRuBJdIIa_PhOp9IjCSqkhUiwU2Xg8Rnl_5-o4nxRKUJj-Ea6CgFOreGet-A7blfsdgQz9A6OrMo6BZiULUNPaLo2m_gfjofv9eJfHafzWNe6V8EJUlxJMGhLBw5eToS_2jmidh9jJ-12U6ujS5w697c1xYrhCCVm9Vx3hbj9IlXNHPbbQ/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-199.png" width="184" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FfkD-JxggQFNdmszKaCB0Al0NlvHpwC3Kk7cbE7dNf_zErg-sG_rnB_6llv44ZpcE8bA5n-AJe52xw6J0fec0ofMUyeMvzuc6N1vOs9p6jLqBgOOZSjYsm-72Z_3Of6CvsemP91cuQMvMauldbiW-zxw-1Ek57PzDMU6nIgJIEHRVL4haaXmZba1hmFiWgyxRA/s4000/Hammondal-DevSnap-200.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FfkD-JxggQFNdmszKaCB0Al0NlvHpwC3Kk7cbE7dNf_zErg-sG_rnB_6llv44ZpcE8bA5n-AJe52xw6J0fec0ofMUyeMvzuc6N1vOs9p6jLqBgOOZSjYsm-72Z_3Of6CvsemP91cuQMvMauldbiW-zxw-1Ek57PzDMU6nIgJIEHRVL4haaXmZba1hmFiWgyxRA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-200.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>Some Bullets</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>This is the kind of nerdy fun I really appreciate: <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/scientist-uses-facial-reconstruction-technology-on-skyrim-skeleton" target="_blank">Scientist Uses Facial Reconstruction Technology On Skyrim Skeleton</a>.</li><li>Twice this past week I lost a half-hour's mapping work to software crashes, and a half-hour (an hour total) isn't a huge deal, but I've learned over the years that the <i>only </i>way I can get past that kind of work-loss is to re-do it <i>completely differently, </i>so that way it's still got the fun of discovery mixed in. So, there's an alternate dimension somewhere with two glaring differences in the <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>map.</li><li>My life lesson for the day is that I really shouldn't try to eat yogurt when my beard is in "just got out of bed" mode, because my beard wants some of that yogurt, too.</li><li>Folks with long memories may recall that <a href="https://www.tillys.com/" target="_blank">Tilly's</a> is the <i>only </i>clothing boutique licensed to use artwork from <b><i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/203241/">A Kringle in Time</a></i></b>, in one of those classic "mall-store uses RPG art" deals we all know so well. Despite this, they are still in business. Sandra and I walked past one a few days ago (the same location we visited back when the deal came to fruition).</li><li>I finally snagged a copy of <b><i>Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind</i></b> when Steam had a good sale on it. I only 35% bought it because it uses one of my Gelio fonts for the logo. I also got it because I really liked <b><i>King of Dragon Pass</i></b> when I finally played it on Android a few years ago. If you've never tried either, they're basically Management Sims with a strongly atmospheric fantasy-narrative presentation and lots of the gameplay deliberately tucked under the hood. Good stuff.</li></ul><p></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-42829126088630097592022-04-10T06:36:00.004-06:002023-05-07T17:36:26.267-06:00The Merchant of Venice. And Bruges. And Paris. And Hammondal.<p>It's easy to preview <i>maps </i>in progress, and <i>writing </i>in progress, but the actual <i>design </i>in progress is such a ghost of a thing ... But I'll try:</p><p>This evening we were hanging out at a local pizzeria, tapping at our devices, and I was doing some historical research for <b style="font-style: italic;">Hammondal,</b> which is fantasy, of course, but I love plundering history for strange little details, and I ended up focused on the matter of how European seaports dealt with the importance of <i>foreign </i>mercantile interests, and how open they were and how restrictive they <i>also </i>were and this dance of additional liberties to entice, additional laws to control, yadda-yadda. This is important to the book because 20-30% of Hammondal is under the influence of foreign traders and that's a big part of the city's texture.</p><p>And of course I'm designing <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>as my kind of gameworld, so I'm picking through the contrasting sets of laws for these different historical cities and plucking a piece from here and a piece from there ... and I'm once again face-first with one of the beautiful ironies of tr*sty design: that some of the juiciest concepts for high-tr*st <i>play </i>come from <i>deeply mistr*stful</i> NPCs. The <b><i>Paranoia </i></b>effect, if you will.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0t1wblU8WS9zCTVsPufO7oAV_phhl0sSbnTCGwa4EAh9His09W-eZ3xq1srtWXQWAEGsyO9w-7uFhkg6qJDwTVL6hPPFtMHcwcqS7euObrkxb5pMw37jkQ4Sv2xXuMgHS-EDPBNfUA07rljI46RmcL6egMilrKcVwq8UjKOcKEhuChM-vrIkgpqdvzm8V--CULQ/s1101/Computer-Merchant-Gag.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1101" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0t1wblU8WS9zCTVsPufO7oAV_phhl0sSbnTCGwa4EAh9His09W-eZ3xq1srtWXQWAEGsyO9w-7uFhkg6qJDwTVL6hPPFtMHcwcqS7euObrkxb5pMw37jkQ4Sv2xXuMgHS-EDPBNfUA07rljI46RmcL6egMilrKcVwq8UjKOcKEhuChM-vrIkgpqdvzm8V--CULQ/w400-h291/Computer-Merchant-Gag.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>By which I mean: the most extreme measures to <i>control </i>the power of foreign merchants are the richest in RPG potential, because they introduce more <i>in-world rules</i> that the Player Characters can exploit, or face, or sidestep, and they introduce more intersections between characters of all kinds, more potential for motives to collide, or strange bedfellows to cozy up. The Champagne Fairs, collecting "safe-conduct" revenues on certain ethnic groups, and using licenses to turn fair organizers into privatized tax collectors. Venice restricting foreign merchants to the <i>Fondaco dei Tedeschi</i> and assigning <i>personal brokers</i> to each foreign trader to keep an eye on them and oversee transactions. Bruges requiring that innkeepers record and report - daily - all foreign guests. And my favorite one of all, Paris requiring that foreign merchants bringing goods along the Seine to <i>partner</i> with a Parisian merchant who would share in their profits. That's just so ... RPG juicy, right there, shoving competing merchants together in a sitcom-worthy Odd Couple, by law.</p><p>And of course, bits of all of these make their way into the design of <b><i>Hammondal</i></b>, and they'll boil and tangle with the city's <i>other </i>features and quirks and prejudices and priorities, some of which are cobbled together from entirely different pieces of history, or whatever comic book I just read.</p><p>Anyway, that stuff has me excited tonight, so while it's all still ... <i>inchoate,</i> incorporeal, Schrödinger's <i>catlike </i>... it just felt like a fun thing to blog about as I wind down from tonight's writing and mapping. Here's the obligatory dump of recent <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>development imagery:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDQVFW4oU4yxeGQoyklpl_HrAWm1cUoHHXJlUmqIS_2ZURF5JVociB_YUY17em6dx-ro1scc6QnPNynOboF9zsC_2Wg3goaz4MH-WOHpMnxTDO6ujaUNLWwm1HCvKedZdYt3__D1RJ2b16Y9CPmFpIPdoJiewvKpnMrHAyDCo46rAo7nioS1HeU9D-YohrstbHw/s1074/Hammondal-DevSnap-171.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1074" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDQVFW4oU4yxeGQoyklpl_HrAWm1cUoHHXJlUmqIS_2ZURF5JVociB_YUY17em6dx-ro1scc6QnPNynOboF9zsC_2Wg3goaz4MH-WOHpMnxTDO6ujaUNLWwm1HCvKedZdYt3__D1RJ2b16Y9CPmFpIPdoJiewvKpnMrHAyDCo46rAo7nioS1HeU9D-YohrstbHw/w400-h381/Hammondal-DevSnap-171.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkNrvzxpTV-6_nZAa3XyTNvjNwAqSnwEbSF2ogsXZNaJgPkBqTAujSVnw3qtTBwIsEkvd98UeJ1h6zIctnHsqAEodpg9iZSEbUf0E-FgOE_2FI0ZJR6ElJZf2cOaMKln8Wg4Om-DXbHSjeqNtIi3xpntf7oke4F9bJDyeKEmIncAdqCxFJEV4hqWoaNWVMPSKJTA/s1480/Hammondal-DevSnap-174.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="1400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkNrvzxpTV-6_nZAa3XyTNvjNwAqSnwEbSF2ogsXZNaJgPkBqTAujSVnw3qtTBwIsEkvd98UeJ1h6zIctnHsqAEodpg9iZSEbUf0E-FgOE_2FI0ZJR6ElJZf2cOaMKln8Wg4Om-DXbHSjeqNtIi3xpntf7oke4F9bJDyeKEmIncAdqCxFJEV4hqWoaNWVMPSKJTA/w379-h400/Hammondal-DevSnap-174.png" width="379" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUH2lvA43kMLlxnryX1sNJ23VeokUYQ-j2gYAjPxpARziFi2_c85ZjvGnn69PwM-kGpeEOLlQbkpzW70RlMhWE27O6VrKPlfhXhCacShP_oAAWUkyGeodVX_MMj9E4QiyLfl8RhldWLuWb4Kmn7dIiQcPM3TLCq-ZnPSnv-P_KQPLnbwwBch7QQ_bfFgXsUfLlw/s5958/Hammondal-DevSnap-175.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2522" data-original-width="5958" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUH2lvA43kMLlxnryX1sNJ23VeokUYQ-j2gYAjPxpARziFi2_c85ZjvGnn69PwM-kGpeEOLlQbkpzW70RlMhWE27O6VrKPlfhXhCacShP_oAAWUkyGeodVX_MMj9E4QiyLfl8RhldWLuWb4Kmn7dIiQcPM3TLCq-ZnPSnv-P_KQPLnbwwBch7QQ_bfFgXsUfLlw/w400-h169/Hammondal-DevSnap-175.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMU7Z0RmgGXWqS1-plwnz4-bILf4VOa0xDwoXvm6zmGSxKTk7I_Vnu-Zby42k-qN8zyCjkpCB-d_hEoQcRY-la3EH9tq-0-gYOx9-nGwM4mlTGp_qBZ5VKY8CMHYxmfV7gFIIvXMpF0uFx5pCCLfDS7Z3B0jPp_DOmFSHtFUEn_Y2PksWlVwU8GXv-bJYBs167dw/s5850/Hammondal-DevSnap-176.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4350" data-original-width="5850" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMU7Z0RmgGXWqS1-plwnz4-bILf4VOa0xDwoXvm6zmGSxKTk7I_Vnu-Zby42k-qN8zyCjkpCB-d_hEoQcRY-la3EH9tq-0-gYOx9-nGwM4mlTGp_qBZ5VKY8CMHYxmfV7gFIIvXMpF0uFx5pCCLfDS7Z3B0jPp_DOmFSHtFUEn_Y2PksWlVwU8GXv-bJYBs167dw/w400-h297/Hammondal-DevSnap-176.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfR6fuC-2I99WveL5fiRal5QeuAFWkfmVuXRLPNUVA9lNXCtcyaHEzoW2QxvFs92_-nwaVgM3N2iCXWgJZa1gpLR8DJjR72tK9UJSMNQ6_wvFIf5FXZSjMS8F0uXZgCWeHx5nF80NAYXdsmh98uwwp9pzrukxC5PWIoPFt7Xxjy2R_3vw0adEtAnEAkf7xANrbeA/s2925/Hammondal-DevSnap-177.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2175" data-original-width="2925" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfR6fuC-2I99WveL5fiRal5QeuAFWkfmVuXRLPNUVA9lNXCtcyaHEzoW2QxvFs92_-nwaVgM3N2iCXWgJZa1gpLR8DJjR72tK9UJSMNQ6_wvFIf5FXZSjMS8F0uXZgCWeHx5nF80NAYXdsmh98uwwp9pzrukxC5PWIoPFt7Xxjy2R_3vw0adEtAnEAkf7xANrbeA/w400-h297/Hammondal-DevSnap-177.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Some Bullets</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I recently re-read a <b><i>CoC</i></b> adventure published in 1987, where the PCs (in the 1920s) meet Legs Diamond, Irving Berlin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dagon. For my usual GMing style, that's at least three famous NPCs too many. Now to decide which one to keep.</li><li>I really need to do an article about my very favorite fantasy RPG city worldbooks sometime. There are about a half-dozen I hold as gold standards, and they loom large (in the best way possible) over <b><i>Hammondal</i></b>.</li><li>I'm really digging <b style="font-style: italic;">Moon Knight </b>on Disney+, and as usual I'm admiring the clever tweaks they've done bringing the character into live action. That said, since I was reading the 80s comics recently I have to ask: Since Layla speaks French, and we learn that right out of the gate, can someone give her a helicopter, please?</li><li>I think it's time for me to gingerly <i>tiptoe </i>back into face-to-face gaming. Still being careful with the Covid, of course, because we're not out of those woods yet, but I do think it's time. I've been chatting with a few old friends here in Denver and prodding at the concept. But for the moment I'm sticking with audio gaming via Discord.</li></ul><p></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-75791697325709472202022-04-04T14:55:00.005-06:002022-04-04T14:55:52.182-06:00Dodging Beams of Light<p>The short version of the story is that there was no surgery after all, because they wouldn't let Sandra enter the building with me, so I said no thanks.</p><p>We'll hopefully find another place that will be more flexible about that stuff. 😳</p><p>Hope this finds you well.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-57213363241731072512022-04-04T00:21:00.003-06:002022-04-04T00:27:46.657-06:00Under the Laser<p> I'm going under for surgery in about 12 hours so that means 12 hours of wide-awake brain-shrieking anxiety and terror 😐</p><p>So I'm hoping that means I'll get some mapping done. If not, I'll go find Twitch streams of people doing graphic design; that can be soothing.</p><p>It's times like this I really wish I had a Discord full of like-minded gamers, but I only know like, <i>four</i> like-minded gamers on the whole planet and they're mostly day-people.</p><p>Here are some recent development snaps from <b><i>Hammondal: Light of the Candle Islands:</i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74LuiALzmV3hV96vWVupR4_MUeBaOMZx9pMkcg8v9F0h59_-Fyxri5HYJILjNIXeruHRaoNvulHMuQmfDt29tLCKdlsJZEIuln53Yr7LSt4o6zajB0ng_Zt0MdqPo56z1IMvo2hv9wNBH-nGcNvNPNlihb7jl7hKwGkCZJlpR4byJdHmF66tY-KrGjO9GmfEvmA/s1728/Hammondal-DevSnap-161.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1728" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74LuiALzmV3hV96vWVupR4_MUeBaOMZx9pMkcg8v9F0h59_-Fyxri5HYJILjNIXeruHRaoNvulHMuQmfDt29tLCKdlsJZEIuln53Yr7LSt4o6zajB0ng_Zt0MdqPo56z1IMvo2hv9wNBH-nGcNvNPNlihb7jl7hKwGkCZJlpR4byJdHmF66tY-KrGjO9GmfEvmA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-161.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQuMobHMstmKjIFnI6erZPYexwLcgO4yC7bd5UJ1_2aHcAxUqwGinU98hbihsFpQeWDE_k1a4hp1joABUZhlYiDPuxdJAxlPvLWq8uGybP5A71U72u4GiRY240-YqT4iPpX4NU6GDZ3xnzcIPDbi9927ZOGDX-pryS7j5gpJ3rpV_xv3Br-XMx0jMa1hQACjuZA/s1665/Hammondal-DevSnap-162.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1665" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQuMobHMstmKjIFnI6erZPYexwLcgO4yC7bd5UJ1_2aHcAxUqwGinU98hbihsFpQeWDE_k1a4hp1joABUZhlYiDPuxdJAxlPvLWq8uGybP5A71U72u4GiRY240-YqT4iPpX4NU6GDZ3xnzcIPDbi9927ZOGDX-pryS7j5gpJ3rpV_xv3Br-XMx0jMa1hQACjuZA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-162.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpT8EF3_JlTGy6QDo_ZoarE7KwhIGA1J-muqIJ2g9Ru-QDXGreyD-OuFtcWAJ034Rd3zCUA-atSxJLL-0Dq5DvsXoWEnvIQzjpCCRX8cJU6XiFNvAmfkmFwZjGIhxxKiu0f6zPaurmsJ8Mv-NBeXR-3qNK-aMOSMV_5JwHaCCYG6qLQyxX-pnHZ2jOx7_3zCIDbQ/s1920/Hammondal-DevSnap-164.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1438" data-original-width="1920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpT8EF3_JlTGy6QDo_ZoarE7KwhIGA1J-muqIJ2g9Ru-QDXGreyD-OuFtcWAJ034Rd3zCUA-atSxJLL-0Dq5DvsXoWEnvIQzjpCCRX8cJU6XiFNvAmfkmFwZjGIhxxKiu0f6zPaurmsJ8Mv-NBeXR-3qNK-aMOSMV_5JwHaCCYG6qLQyxX-pnHZ2jOx7_3zCIDbQ/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-164.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXMcNSeqtI0mmH4MGHGtsEe02gzbsLb339swC_S2jWE1dhGBlA-fBOrrssCLMgFxFplNtiHYyseWUJ5KrmqFu56Z8yGMDZ06uRzNmLPfUSz9S33jfDKXYpGnygv7UMCvVEeRVYk6B3XqHQuZrblkGBbX23OH9UGTQhQ5RR78Tyxq_Z8Rv86xgJHKcFMPMiT4k7xA/s1920/Hammondal-DevSnap-165.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXMcNSeqtI0mmH4MGHGtsEe02gzbsLb339swC_S2jWE1dhGBlA-fBOrrssCLMgFxFplNtiHYyseWUJ5KrmqFu56Z8yGMDZ06uRzNmLPfUSz9S33jfDKXYpGnygv7UMCvVEeRVYk6B3XqHQuZrblkGBbX23OH9UGTQhQ5RR78Tyxq_Z8Rv86xgJHKcFMPMiT4k7xA/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-165.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgc64nYRfvudT03GSicSMbBc744x28iH8oYSeSk22eQZb-1OzhyvHM91s_gLUeWB9HRjQdBBdMYZ95oZONNyOWuVwYNcXqRFQHXVm3WvAuQRGSBbK08M2CIp5UisjBxaK9NG6d-Poo7mJ88eUnGOYzeSgzlBHTmK6BhNLl47bOHyVYv4KVnF2jEvMzl_h6L1lLQ/s1318/Hammondal-DevSnap-166.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="1041" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgc64nYRfvudT03GSicSMbBc744x28iH8oYSeSk22eQZb-1OzhyvHM91s_gLUeWB9HRjQdBBdMYZ95oZONNyOWuVwYNcXqRFQHXVm3WvAuQRGSBbK08M2CIp5UisjBxaK9NG6d-Poo7mJ88eUnGOYzeSgzlBHTmK6BhNLl47bOHyVYv4KVnF2jEvMzl_h6L1lLQ/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-166.png" width="253" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9m2QQllLQIhilxhlvCb3hi2ejFz_6g72CntmiAy0sLehN7Q51uAX_Pk0LDUT3Mk9Om6-zQujXnDvzVrSxsLZQV7ipWum28OoFTuBoYZLtMlTEr-bOhKG-_FC87uSrODoUciC-i6sY6ArnUcFMWqaBUg9hbIEhhm_UJJmTl7bJKiqIRWDMrw_pbc6u1OBlTVGSGw/s3051/Hammondal-DevSnap-167.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="886" data-original-width="3051" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9m2QQllLQIhilxhlvCb3hi2ejFz_6g72CntmiAy0sLehN7Q51uAX_Pk0LDUT3Mk9Om6-zQujXnDvzVrSxsLZQV7ipWum28OoFTuBoYZLtMlTEr-bOhKG-_FC87uSrODoUciC-i6sY6ArnUcFMWqaBUg9hbIEhhm_UJJmTl7bJKiqIRWDMrw_pbc6u1OBlTVGSGw/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-167.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3q_bHvqD1hHSbAcfA_Z7mjUhFc1VjnRNbuGnx5aY8Xti6YZS1tLs9pBou9Z_LnAjRIjUpi6pjHzVDyKIgQGeX7j_LjSA3oX-2iyEOlhseQpVT_X9VFkTcdPvpkXG2hAcb27b4xFpNBE9kMid7XkNMb786QuifIM3Zjp0HyW73TGdXZUYx5Z3urXhSpZWrQalrQ/s706/Hammondal-DevSnap-168.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3q_bHvqD1hHSbAcfA_Z7mjUhFc1VjnRNbuGnx5aY8Xti6YZS1tLs9pBou9Z_LnAjRIjUpi6pjHzVDyKIgQGeX7j_LjSA3oX-2iyEOlhseQpVT_X9VFkTcdPvpkXG2hAcb27b4xFpNBE9kMid7XkNMb786QuifIM3Zjp0HyW73TGdXZUYx5Z3urXhSpZWrQalrQ/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-168.png" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy5gbxKtQNZj2GBTZDHUS3LEB31Fy9zzitBZQ6QMDYkz39A7el_AWj0d8T8_eRQjWjjObEUSEe0RCmGB2HYQbkPHoEM5p5I57meLby7pj2TMCXK6GP6i7Cd4thmFYQtQ8igdoN2hv22YSfB65Cc4VLJHFDBxBACcp0j1yhRR-QARtGMOA91JgZ42Q8YygDni_1YQ/s5446/Hammondal-DevSnap-169.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3605" data-original-width="5446" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy5gbxKtQNZj2GBTZDHUS3LEB31Fy9zzitBZQ6QMDYkz39A7el_AWj0d8T8_eRQjWjjObEUSEe0RCmGB2HYQbkPHoEM5p5I57meLby7pj2TMCXK6GP6i7Cd4thmFYQtQ8igdoN2hv22YSfB65Cc4VLJHFDBxBACcp0j1yhRR-QARtGMOA91JgZ42Q8YygDni_1YQ/s320/Hammondal-DevSnap-169.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />Tonight my mind is turned to thoughts of alphabets ... partly because I'm working on an important font commission for a fellow creator in the nerdspaces, and partly because I'm thinking ahead to how I want <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>to look on the page. My current jumble of thoughts includes the following sparks and tangents:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I'm going to be working with some seriously <i>book-weighted</i> type. I get genuinely heartbroken when I see cool fantasy worlds from ye olden times republished with faint, spidery, featherweight type and the pages look <i>blank </i>if you squint. This is not just an "I'm about to have eye surgery" thing; <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2018/06/warm-crinkly.html" target="_blank">type with some meat on its bones is a warmth thing</a> and this book will look <i>warm</i>.</li><li>Back when I was the <b><i>Uresia </i></b>guy, I built my page design around my <i>cartography </i>aesthetic, so the whole thing would look like a piece. Now that my cartography aesthetic has evolved an extra ten years (yep, the ASL Edition of <b><i>Uresia </i></b>came out in 2012), that means I can take the same approach and end up with a very different look, one with more of the textures and color-palette of my newer maps.</li><li>This brings me back to the alphabet, because I keep seeing, in my mind's eye, a set of <i>initial caps</i> with the same aesthetic as the town map. If that doesn't make sense, that's okay. My mind's eye is <i>on it,</i> and it's got a thing going. I can't say for certain that the book will have these initial caps, but I <i>can </i>say for certain that I'll give 'em a try and see how it goes.</li><li>I'm definitely doing some building interiors. This is partly because I just happen to think building interiors are a nice thing to have in a fantasy city book. It's also, in this case, to give a more definite sense of scale, since a lot of readers are used to fantasy cities with larger, 19th-century style buildings, filled to abundance with 5'×5' squares to smite foes in ... while Hammondal's aesthetic is a bit more pre-industrial, a bit cozier (Hammondal <i>totally </i>has some 19th-century things too, but I'm pretty selective about where). I love <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/temphis/art/Rede-Cottage-a-Loreseeker-Chapterhouse-of-Dreed-801150937" target="_blank">creating building interiors</a>; I just haven't given myself many excuses lately, but I intend to here.</li><li>If I do building interiors I feel obligated to at least <i>attempt </i>some front-elevations and/or side-elevations. I've never really done those before, but the <i>charm </i>of the elevations in 1st-edition <b><i>Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay</i></b>, or League (<a href="https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2008/12/22/pelinore/" target="_blank">Pelinore from <i>Imagine </i>magazine</a>), haunts me and shames me: I must attempt it. I've got a plan as to how; we'll see how it goes.</li><li>I want lines and boxes providing clear divisions on the page. I'm really feeling some of that 80s look, as always. I never like to <i>imitate </i>a particular look from the past but, as with <b><i>Uresia,</i></b> I want to <i>evolve forward</i> from those looks, and ignore some of the awful side-roads of the 90s on.</li><li>As always, I want to play with color in a way that looks good in black-and-white. No matter what, I always design with the understanding that many gamers are using black toner or inexpensive inkjets, and those printers, not the screen or anything else, are my target medium. Every other medium gets some love, too, but never the deciding vote.</li><li>There's no art budget, so maps and incidentals need to shoulder the load. I'm cool with that. I'm good at maps and <i>pretty</i> good at incidentals. And doing more of them will help me get better.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I apologize for dumping random thoughts on you ... that's not really my habit with Rolltop Indigo, but ... like I said. Surgery. <i>Freaking out. </i>No like-minded gamers to talk to. So, you get to be my Dear Diary. Thank you for that. I know you didn't volunteer, but, thank you anyway. Assuming the surgery goes well: more soon.</div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-84459326066600674272022-03-26T01:09:00.005-06:002023-01-16T11:06:47.752-07:00Assorted Small Stuff<p>Just going to run down some of the latest stuff by way of keeping in touch. Big thanks to those who've been corresponding with me lately; please keep that stuff coming; you folks rock.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC04vJYYX14TGdOa3FZzDyu9in4gnSyPn70_Y6ffLDvKyMGcFsCa0XaC643MEKEgWQxxZyjl3xTR1RdK1TN9ZPrj1HmJPRo5yIVajx7Pqf3qp7x9syqFBmiZ9IEsHs-oqEno2tbzQme20uXoomFwcAGonAM8AR6uYtDTM5TRePVgmQKVWYBSYlzAuaq0qUMNcEbg/s2567/Hammondal-DevSnap-158.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1978" data-original-width="2567" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC04vJYYX14TGdOa3FZzDyu9in4gnSyPn70_Y6ffLDvKyMGcFsCa0XaC643MEKEgWQxxZyjl3xTR1RdK1TN9ZPrj1HmJPRo5yIVajx7Pqf3qp7x9syqFBmiZ9IEsHs-oqEno2tbzQme20uXoomFwcAGonAM8AR6uYtDTM5TRePVgmQKVWYBSYlzAuaq0qUMNcEbg/w400-h309/Hammondal-DevSnap-158.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Bit by bit, Hammondal Gets Done</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The <b><i>Hammondal </i></b>book continues to excite me. Work is a little slow due to health concerns (those who know me know: I'm currently blind in my left eye, have some brand-new kidney disease, hands are increasingly numb and semi-paralyzed, fallout from stress and heartbreak yadda yadda), but man even the slow work is just <i>electrifying </i>on this book. I haven't felt this hyper about a project since <b><i><a href="http://toask.cumberlandgames.com" target="_blank">Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom</a></i></b> back in '07.</p><p>I've also been getting a lot done on a series of GMing articles (including spiffed-up versions of articles which started here), which will be a big, open-ended series but the first stack are all in a tight orbit around each other and while it's very, <i>very </i>challenging writing (a lot of the topics require some outrageous dance-steps to weave through redundancies and presumptions) it's also just energizing because it's me writing down the absolute core of myself as a roleplayer, as a GM, as a designer and as someone who just loves RPGs to tiny huggy bits. I'm also making solid tools for GMs to enjoy, and I love that stuff.</p><p>Sandra and I have been digging the bounty of nerd culture so much lately. We were able to find a screening of the new <b><i>Batman </i></b>movie that only had a few other people in the theater (we're still being extra-cautious about Covid), and what a surprise that movie was! From the marketing I expected it to be mopey, gritty and self-serious, but that's a veneer it sheds very quickly. It's a downright warm take on the difference between a pissed-off vigilante and a hero, and it's an origin story for Batman becoming the heroic version of himself, instead of just the vigilante, and it's good stuff. Catwoman steals all the scenes she's in, then Carmine Falcone steals some more, but everyone's doing a good job.</p><p>If you skipped <b><i>Star Trek: Prodigy</i></b> because it's a cartoon for kids, you're missing out. Jus' sayin'.</p><p>I've been boning up on old <b><i>Moon Knight</i></b> comics by way of looking forward to the Disney+ series, and man that's been fun. Doug Moench is kind of a lunatic, and I regret that as a kid I mainly only knew him for <b><i>Six From Sirius</i></b>.</p><p>To my considerable shock, I wandered across a genuinely <a href="https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2022/09/flavors-of-presumption.html" target="_blank">Non-Presumptive</a> fantasy adventure from the OSR, of all places. It's called <b><i><a href="https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2018/02/osr-kidnap-archpriest-megapost.html" target="_blank">Kidnap the Archpriest</a></i></b>, by Skerples, and it's a solid 4/5 on my personal scale. There are a few small things I'd remove or rewrite (things included specifically for the presumed habits and concerns of the <b><i>D&D</i></b> crowd, and a few arbitrary walls I'd knock through) but it's a legit fantasy adventure and I recommend it and intend to run it. I feel like it's a long-lost cousin to <b><i><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/175661" target="_blank">Toast of the Town</a></i></b> in some ways (a kindred blend of time-pressure, logistical challenges, etc).</p><p>I've been revisiting all of my favorite RPG city-books (and <b><i>Citybooks</i></b>) as part of the Hammondal process, and I should do an article about those. I do love a fantasy city book, so much.</p><p>Finally, politics is a gross topic and I don't like to mention it here, but if you find yourself in need of, let's say, some background chatter while drawing a fantasy map, to pick an utterly random example, put <a href="https://youtu.be/9NN7v0z8r2g" target="_blank">this video</a> on to listen to it, and listen to the <i>whole </i>thing. It's a really beautiful conversation between two flawed humans trying to do the work. It's the best political thing I've listened to in a good long while:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9NN7v0z8r2g" width="429" youtube-src-id="9NN7v0z8r2g"></iframe></div><p>Hope this finds you well. More soon.</p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-16841643519283853172022-03-07T05:36:00.001-07:002023-01-16T11:03:00.782-07:00Fantasy City Under Construction!<p>Last post, I teased an image of my latest fantasy RPG project, tentatively titled <b><i>Hammondal: Light of the Candle Islands</i></b>. This is a type of book I've wanted to do for a long time: a good old-fashioned <i>city sourcebook,</i> the kind that explores a single town in sufficient depth and breadth to make it a worthy <i>all-in-one setting</i> for fantasy campaigning. Here's a mockup of Hammondal as the map stands this morning:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixtTFCjGsgaAI9fgtIb4e43APt-QiUM5Svv4Q0-LnCsxV1CdKwT7KP-Tek9uoBApX1pToISTxSfd4_4WN-HyX6C3MsvPKtKsW9iF7fKs1fiOmNw3y7q1loFzr_LIPDax-bc5VZgpso3qgCOasp377X8igpf4YT89KMkJLbYkXFtjIGB5ClcjMeQY2dgU4DtpN2HA=s4000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixtTFCjGsgaAI9fgtIb4e43APt-QiUM5Svv4Q0-LnCsxV1CdKwT7KP-Tek9uoBApX1pToISTxSfd4_4WN-HyX6C3MsvPKtKsW9iF7fKs1fiOmNw3y7q1loFzr_LIPDax-bc5VZgpso3qgCOasp377X8igpf4YT89KMkJLbYkXFtjIGB5ClcjMeQY2dgU4DtpN2HA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Be Careful Near the Construction Zones</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>As you may already know, I sold <b><i>Uresia: Grave of Heaven</i></b> to Dyskami Publishing last year, along with its supplements and related material, and they'll be publishing a new <b><i>BESM</i></b> edition this fall or winter (including <i>One Last New Chapter</i> from me), which means I needed a <i>new </i>fantasy world to write about and run my campaigns in, having said my tearful goodbyes to Heaven's Grave.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you probably <i>also</i> know, I have a <i>thing </i>for cities and towns. I love imagining them, designing them, mapping them, writing about them and <i>gaming </i>in them, and some of my favorite RPG books have been devoted to cities as settings. I'm also really drawn to "generic fantasy" as a design arena, partly because I love an underdog and generic fantasy is often <i>dismissed</i> as junk, and partly because the design challenge of making something <i>interesting </i>enough to stand on its own but also <i>socketable</i> in a way that makes it useful for a variety of worlds challenges my design-brain in special ways.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I got to pondering what the boundaries and untapped potentials of "generic fantasy" actually <i>are </i>when it comes to fantasy cities. What tropes are disposable, subvert-ible, intrinsic? What features are needed, and what typical "features" really aren't? Where are the richest veins for surprise, for inspiration, for characters and adventures?</div><div><br /></div><div>The city of Hammondal is built from my answers (also wood and bricks and things), and as you can imagine, my answers are more than a little satiric, pulpy, swashbuckly and layered in mystery, horror, comedy and humanistic sympathy. It includes my take on everything I've ever loved in a fantasy city book, <i>and</i> my takes on things I've never <i>seen </i>in a fantasy city book, and just lots of shameless excuses for the kind of RPG design I live for.</div><div><br /></div><div>It also evokes the tensions deep within its own design challenges, and brings them right to the gameable surface. It's a modestly-sized city on a remote island, in a province of a stumbling Empire where foreign trade is taking deep root. It's the collision point for multiple competing cultures, refugees from a lost realm, powerful nature spirits, a wealthy and influential Church, a hidden community of the dead, a disgraced order of mages, a hospital run by Dwarvish nuns married spiritually to a trickster god, and enclaves of fantasy bohemians ... each of which reflect facets of the "generic" fantasy's contradictions in playful ways.</div><div><br /></div><div>And it <i>does</i> have its own world, just offstage where it needn't trouble anyone, but exerting constant gravity on the design. It's impossible for a city to feel alive without connections to a larger world, so that larger world, too, had to be <i>socketable,</i> made of elements analogous to traditional fantasy ideas while also mixing flavors in surprising ways, and while the city is the focus of the book, the Candle Islands, and the local warlords and Queen not entirely <i>enthused </i>about the Imperial colony on their northern shore, get a couple of pages and maps as well.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi54OG-P7Q96hElDExzvkCds0_Mki9OyZvJy8ODlYG7lpLNYBBdF-9ttZQ7duyg5PWP0dc7ZPtEGT41ijYUYtGIuNQXuoEPc-hYjl2PPrGWmhZoO1go0q1aCRrnBOAF8yidXKAgZ9TYSv4fTytPrweOp5Pc9Xk3Rby4c6ekFq7vvPpd__qQd0vL9KVpJ3zvp4vvEg=s3300" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3300" data-original-width="2550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi54OG-P7Q96hElDExzvkCds0_Mki9OyZvJy8ODlYG7lpLNYBBdF-9ttZQ7duyg5PWP0dc7ZPtEGT41ijYUYtGIuNQXuoEPc-hYjl2PPrGWmhZoO1go0q1aCRrnBOAF8yidXKAgZ9TYSv4fTytPrweOp5Pc9Xk3Rby4c6ekFq7vvPpd__qQd0vL9KVpJ3zvp4vvEg=w309-h400" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Candle Isles.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi36JEsHvKTs2z8dpy8xF1YI5Ghnwry0ugBKKxHkMXBZ_w1XHrSeyq-XzLMb21eRWkQPkuzxqDWBdZ8-FnclUtHzmorH9oLLp1MbLclNb8N9Ib7TXZnuTYETF5bu8C6oPSy3XpRwup5fQbRKD0qjGZ-xBo65V_122zS_pxq2u2iVgyvVJi9_qzb2a3RLzT2zue_5Q=s5769" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4282" data-original-width="5769" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi36JEsHvKTs2z8dpy8xF1YI5Ghnwry0ugBKKxHkMXBZ_w1XHrSeyq-XzLMb21eRWkQPkuzxqDWBdZ8-FnclUtHzmorH9oLLp1MbLclNb8N9Ib7TXZnuTYETF5bu8C6oPSy3XpRwup5fQbRKD0qjGZ-xBo65V_122zS_pxq2u2iVgyvVJi9_qzb2a3RLzT2zue_5Q=w400-h297" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Working Out Which Roads Suck Slightly Less</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7sdysmQmiFzEircJlYeTn2Q0kP16ryYx7HH7uF69jor_6zEk1UXyQPQvV0ICL40kj2LJwgCu53mJkswA6kcynslpGl0_wt4O23yWyXjkwF-OY8RcJL7MJ1jRxP85FeRJh3wN1OpD45nQNVbTWbohQgG3g4_pX86HbN5h0yHlm8A0mq1wgY8AbKtD4ifLx3SmBeQ=s2155" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="2155" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7sdysmQmiFzEircJlYeTn2Q0kP16ryYx7HH7uF69jor_6zEk1UXyQPQvV0ICL40kj2LJwgCu53mJkswA6kcynslpGl0_wt4O23yWyXjkwF-OY8RcJL7MJ1jRxP85FeRJh3wN1OpD45nQNVbTWbohQgG3g4_pX86HbN5h0yHlm8A0mq1wgY8AbKtD4ifLx3SmBeQ=w400-h188" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I Love Hexes More Than Anyone Needs To</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>I am <i>very excited</i> about this book, this city and this world, so I'll pester this blog about it more than once before the book is done, but I'll wrap this up for now before I get too <i>mushy </i>about it. If you'd like a regular drip of maps-in-progress and design musings, <a href="https://twitter.com/CandleIsles" target="_blank">Hammondal has a Twitter account</a>, and I also post images to <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/temphis/gallery" target="_blank">DeviantArt</a> now and then. If you want to see the real-world stuff I'm imagining while designing Hammondal, my DeviantArt <i>favorites</i> page is <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/temphis/favourites" target="_blank">full of what I fantasize about</a> (some of which is NSFW, but most of which is trees and old buildings and and dirt roads).</div><div><br /></div><div>If you've got questions about Hammondal that might make a fun blog post, <a href="mailto:blogmail@cumberlandgames.com" target="_blank">drop me a line</a> and I'll be ever so grateful. If you've got friendly things to say about my maps, I can always use a little of <i>that,</i> too. Either way, thanks for reading, and I hope you feel the <i>beginnings </i>of my Hammondal excitement, too!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRRpZVl-yo82C2eN_b_7TLHwvWgvXyv413tgzdzt0KElRiew7Bm5UchHnV_b0phNivZWOCL3ruaxKYwbV3dJPpipsQ1zqYIjy2zf1z4aWOYUwL7ysa9WE0fgNRl7ix_eEmlAm-JPcTjqFa5YKcbbk_qMR02r7AnG7Z1CTCr2TDpQBWqDgdV6ZDC48EFbpVXq3yrg=s1307" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1307" data-original-width="1027" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRRpZVl-yo82C2eN_b_7TLHwvWgvXyv413tgzdzt0KElRiew7Bm5UchHnV_b0phNivZWOCL3ruaxKYwbV3dJPpipsQ1zqYIjy2zf1z4aWOYUwL7ysa9WE0fgNRl7ix_eEmlAm-JPcTjqFa5YKcbbk_qMR02r7AnG7Z1CTCr2TDpQBWqDgdV6ZDC48EFbpVXq3yrg=w314-h400" width="314" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUSAsMdKXbGaPrI6zdYcvDuWiTZGr8O9zRveeghqASPsXzPi2GBqKxZaSAjb1hiXYScqNbCpoS0RJmLkZtaZmedvkdYaFS_s1QFD_hWUC8POwZuYslDY6aq9A_3fQf2mFcPnzre7GXF08HUhE7EqMqzZPzeMFiuDfObtK1-S513Cs28qSBqV9A215UYlijhTZKGg=s5779" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="5779" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUSAsMdKXbGaPrI6zdYcvDuWiTZGr8O9zRveeghqASPsXzPi2GBqKxZaSAjb1hiXYScqNbCpoS0RJmLkZtaZmedvkdYaFS_s1QFD_hWUC8POwZuYslDY6aq9A_3fQf2mFcPnzre7GXF08HUhE7EqMqzZPzeMFiuDfObtK1-S513Cs28qSBqV9A215UYlijhTZKGg=w400-h64" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>And of Course, There Are New Silly Fonts.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8352325119608729850.post-33277983069175889132022-02-22T05:19:00.007-07:002022-02-22T05:22:43.158-07:00Focus<p>I'm refocusing my online presence, removing myself from most social media, and putting more eggs in the PDF basket where they can gain a bit of endurance. Some of the articles I'm happiest with from this blog, for example, will be expanded, polished, and typeset as PDFs and possibly produced as ePubs as well (still hammering out the details). They'll be free of charge, of course, though I also have a few newer, never-before-published articles that'll be for sale.</p><p>Sandra and I moved back to Denver recently, so we're once again <i>ooh</i>-ing and <i>ahh</i>-ing at the Rocky Mountains, though we also miss the forests and rolling terrain (and game shop) of Wilkes-Barre - and the naughty eastern food we shouldn't think too much about! If you order a Coney dog in <i>this </i>part of the country, they serve you a chili dog! So it goes. On the other hand, we're once again near a Chuy's and an Alamo Drafthouse, so that's a pretty good trade; a bit of Austin on the Front Range. Now if only the coronavirus would see fit to calm itself down.</p><p>I'll see if I can't shake the dust off the blog. If you've ever a mind to say hello, or have questions or requests, <a href="mailto:blogmail@cumberlandgames.com">drop me an email</a>!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH-umQW7wMwQIWgDTAFKeCHAJUMu-YGoUnTrrR-FQiRHfVXmxT37gI_kb2-c-8_uMq3CsyttdmFMpnWITcD8_CHoNfIfnnYPfPyQMDvsHiQyMXqOB7GY7EK532d7SvR7HdoPHv2sR_orATssMn5A61v4QpUANCAc7DEHHF5EE_O5KVnIx_27y2KeAoPlfQIKVICg=s3025" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2275" data-original-width="3025" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH-umQW7wMwQIWgDTAFKeCHAJUMu-YGoUnTrrR-FQiRHfVXmxT37gI_kb2-c-8_uMq3CsyttdmFMpnWITcD8_CHoNfIfnnYPfPyQMDvsHiQyMXqOB7GY7EK532d7SvR7HdoPHv2sR_orATssMn5A61v4QpUANCAc7DEHHF5EE_O5KVnIx_27y2KeAoPlfQIKVICg=w400-h301" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Work-In-Progress:<br />Hammondal, Light of the Candle Islands.<br />A new fantasy city, in a new fantasy world.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p>S. John Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284417121877141161noreply@blogger.com