Another reason that S. Morgenstern is the greatest Florinese writer ever:

That night, Luigi did some heavy thinking.
A girl and a boy bump -- surely an accident.
A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- that had to mean something.
-- The Silent Gondoliers

Indeed.

Tags: books, writing

Work Journal: Gamma draft of S7S chapter 7 is done.

No reply from any playtesters whether or not anyone can run a game using gamma chapters 5 and 6 over the next 2 to 4 weeks yet... which is a bit disconcerting.

I can make edits on the introduction and chapters 1 thru 4, but until 5/6 are locked down, can't redo the handouts or boil-down into PDQ#.

In any case, I'm taking tonight the next few days off before I move onto edits on the intro and 1 thru 4.

Tags: asmp, evilhat, game design, gaming, s7s, work journal, writing

Work Journal: I am done with the "gamma draft" of Chapter 6 (Rules) of S7S; both it and Chapter 5 (Characters) have been uploaded to the playtest group.

I hope that at least a couple of the groups will be able to playtest the gamma rules over the next 2 to 4 weeks.

Now, I take a day or so off, before doing some polish and bibliography additions to Chapter 7 (General Swashbuckling Genre Stuff).

After that, I need to go and take my print-outs of the setting stuff -- Chapters 1 through 4 -- that are all marked-up with my edit/revs, as well as the comments of trusted folks.

When Chapters 1 through 7 are stable, I'll re-write Chapter 8 (Gamemastering).

Then, I'll strip-out setting-specific material and boil Chapters 5 and 6 down to basics, so I can publish the new PDQ# Core Rules freebie.

I'll also start thinking about the best way to create handouts, player-resources, and speedy demoes for the game.

There's more even after that, but that's enough for now.

Tags: asmp, evilhat, game design, gaming, s7s, work journal, writing

Work Journal: I am about halfway through the "gamma draft" of Chapter 6 of S7S. Still to come -- Vehicular Challenges and Duels, plus re-writing all of the example text (including the longform Example of Play).

Looking forward, I am hoping to have the gamma version of the rules locked down slightly before Gen Con. Then the Delta Draft can be sent to Ye Olde Editore. The draft that comes back from YOE (and examined by Your Humble) becomes the Epsilon Draft, which will be provided to the Layout Guru.

Note that this schedule gives our artists plenty of time to produce visions of loveliness.

Only after the layout has been completed, and all art has been acquired, will S7S go to publication.

With luck, that'll be early- to mid-winter of 2008.

Tags: asmp, game design, gaming, s7s, work journal, writing

Work Journal: The "Gamma-4" handout for S7S has been uploaded to the playtest group.

This 15 page document is what I've been using to run local gamma playtests. It contains boiled-down setting info, boiled-down versions of the latest version of the rules, and some new art by Dan Solis (Gift/Koldun symbols) and Christian N. St. Pierre (skyships and wingcloaks).

I'll be using this handout as the roadmap for rewriting Chapters 5 and 6, but thought they'd all like to take a look at it. And maybe talk about it, before I dive into the chapter rewriting.

Tags: asmp, game design, s7s, work journal, writing

Work Journal: And so we come to the close of a week of enforced-non work, in an effort to recharge my batteries after the final lap of my DFRPG heavy-lifting.

I spent the time socializing, watching and reading semi-swashbuckling media (Hamlet sort of counts), and generally just trying to chill out.

And now I have a choice: a) work on chapter 2 of my novel, or b) work on S7S.

I'm gonna go with b).

Simply, I cannot:
1. Think about a), since b) is eating brain-cycles.
2. Assemble a local gamma group of appropriate size for the last bits of testing (but hey, plenty of playtesters JUST WAITING for stuff on the list).

Also, the gamma rules for S7S have drifted a bit from the beta, in some ways further out from core PDQ and in other ways back closer to it. (Maybe that's a rotation rather than a drift?)

So, tonight, I'll start on updating the gamma handout for S7S with the "lessons learned" from the last local gamma, and use that as my "roadmap" for recrafting chapters 5 (characters) and 6 (rules) of the manuscript.

Then I'll push the files out to the playtesters with some targeted areas for test.

With luck and sweat, maybe I can have all that assembled by next Friday evening.

Tags: asmp, dresden, fiction-and-poetry, game design, pdq, s7s, work journal, writing

Work Journal: Updated GB and WW with "WttJ" and "BU" info.
* Goes Bump: +516 words; total = 27322
* Who's Who: +1201 words; total = 63417

And now, I is done for awhiles.

Tags: dresden, evilhat, game design, gaming, work journal, writing

Work Journal:
* Transformed longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) into electronic form (+543 words; total = 945).
* Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Backup" -- complete.
* Transformed longhand notes on "Backup" into electronic form (+1032 words).


downloading current versions of GB and WW for updating.

Tags: dresden, evilhat, game design, gaming, work journal, writing

Work Journal:
* Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) -- complete.
* Generated 1 page of WttJ Matrix entries. [running total: 402 words.]

Tags: dresden, evilhat, game design, gaming, work journal, writing

Work Journal: Updated the "Old World Order" chapter, in terms of tone, editorial comments, and Small Favor info. (+332 words; running total, 6403 words).

Now, I take the long weekend off before looking at the comics scripts and "Backup." FOR REALS, YO.

Tags: dresden, evilhat, game design, gaming, work journal, writing