With a L[ot] of Help From My Friends-

Chirine baKal / Jeff Berry has recruited two Tekumel regulars to help him paint minis for me at the NTRPGCon (June 2nd-5th).

Does Your Setting Operate Without the PCs?

Regardless of Railroading or Sandboxing, do you run your games so that things NPCs are doing happen in the background, independently of PC action or non-action?

Major NPC Activity-

12 - Events Greatly Favour NPC (New ally proves most helpful, etc.)
11-09 - Events Somewhat Favour NPC (NPC receives aid/funding, etc.)
08-06 - Events Favour No One
05-03 - Events Somewhat Disfavour NPC (Rival (re-)enters the scene, etc.)
02 - Events Greatly Disfavour NPC (Rival gains the upper hand, etc.)

Weather Events-

12 - Extremely Favourable Weather Conditions (prevailing winds, bumper crop, etc.)
11-09 - Slight Edge Provided (weather worsens after the NPC's forces pass through, etc.)
08-06 - Events Favour No One
05-03 - Weather Somewhat Disfavours NPC (weather worsens as the NPC's forces enter region, etc.)
02 - Extremely Unfavourable Weather Conditions (Avalanche, Blizzard, Drought, Forest Fire, etc.)

Support-
12 - Groundswell support for NPC's platform premise
11-09 - Increasing support for NPC's basic premise
08-06 - Much discussion, consideration, counter-proposals, etc.
05-03 - Increasing opposition to NPC's basic premise
02 - Massive backlash against NPC's platform premise

Acts of G-d-
12 - Forces opposed to the NPC meet with disaster
11 - New route or mode of travel emerges
10 - Opposition leadership is fragmented
09 - New commodity enters marketplace
08 - Opposition faces in-fighting
07 - A period of peace prevails
06 - Opposition unites to oppose NPC faction/ideology
05 - Market scarcity for important commodity
04 - Opposition gain powerful leadership
03 - Trade route or relations collapse
02 - Forces opposed to the NPC met with great boon

je ne sais quoi-
12 - Fashion changes required to maintain/gain social position
11 - Cultural transformation due to technological innovation
10 - Famine-stricken area receives relief
09 - Previously disfavoured idea/ideal gains popularity
08 - Extant illness fades
07 - Romanticism flourishes
06 - Extant illness spreads
05 - Extant food/spice becomes all the rage
04 - Blight/Rust spreads throughout region
03 - Rare flower gains enormous social significance/symbolism (red poppies on lapel, etc.)
02 - Game-animal disease begins to cross borders

Let's try this again, shall we?-

This is the Monster XP by HD thing I was talking about-

From Dragon #80

Two 'Must-See' Videos-

LINK




LINK

Wild West Tunnels and Trolls: Teq / Artifice Rank One-

This represents another part of the Woolly Wild West T&T thing I did back in, or about, 2000.

LINK

More Cowbell + An Image-

A villa located in Hexland, on the moon Yolm, orbiting the gas giant Malthesaen; part of the STARBLADE: Adventures Amid the Shattered Stars (sub-)setting, and part of the Urutsk Cycle. Circa 2001

I have spent the past week clearing out a 10' x 10' storage space from last year's move, and I have found a few treasures that coincide with portions I am currently writing. These go back to the early to mid 90's, before the OGL was a glimmer of desire in Dancy's fancy, and my suggestion to write new material for dead systems was laughed at by my closest friends (of the time).

One graph I plotted was too complex for even the then current version of Wolfram Mathematica, as the nice gentleman on the phone explained; something about the iterative additives to multiple co-dependent dimensions being to much to process at the time, if I remember correctly. Well, I've not only found the graph, but the hand-written rules for the feedback procedure. It gave me a warm, tingly feeling. :D

Seeing all of this work from pre- and early-2000's that is exactly what I am working on again, now, is really a snazzy feeling overall. But, I will say that my biggest mistake was ever listening to conventional wisdom, as it cost me over a decade of progress, and now my mute innovations have percolated up through the strata of Jungian space to become the provenance of other names, and other games. HaShem is funny that way. Makes you appreciate the private triumphs more when they happen, I suppose, in a rueful, 'what if' sort of way...

As I lay in bed at 4am, before the rain began, I thought back on my 30 years of game design, and all of the scores of systems (not including variants or revisions) that only a dozen or so folks ever saw or played. If each of them metaphorically represents a cosmos in the Metacosmos of The Grand Tapestry, then I've sown a lot of grain, to uh-- mix ... metaphors. :-|

Nothing profound to anyone else but me (and possibly Scott C., Karl P., and a few unsavories we know).

Hoping your gaming goes well this weekend.