Nothing at all. Not one typed letter.
Of course, that doesn’t particularly sound impressive but I only realised today that I have managed to spend at least 10 minutes (if not up to an hour) writing every evening, after the kids are in bed, since coming back from my holidays in August. That’s pretty good going. I haven’t watched much TV, played much Wii or done much blogging because of it, but I don’t think that’s a great loss. TBH I felt last night I was justified in not actually doing any writing. A bronchitis and a fever are a good excuse aren’t they?
Which means my long-time “secret” project Lost Heroes RPG is moving forward. I didn’t think it’d be this big (in terms of volume), I’m only writing up the setting. But once I’ve completed the setting, I’ll be making available for everyone to read. Hopefully writing up the rules and traits sections won’t be as long.
I think I’ve gone about it all screwy on this project because from the last few batches of new roleplaying games I’ve bought, they’ve gone for tight set of rules and small (or slight) setting. And here I am writing up this behemoth. In fact, looking at the volume in those games, I could split it into four-six separate games with the same set of rules, but we’ll see how far I get with this mythic-sized version.
I’m thoroughly enjoying it regardless. The great thing about it for me is that I keep finding myself coming up with stories and characters so easily after each large bit of writing. In my head I have a number of complete-plotted short stories and material for two novels… so even if my RPG barely gets noticed, I think I’ll find a good use for it. I’ll probably put together at least one or two short stories.
Anyway, I’m signing off so I can do some more writing!
PS. All this writing has made me forget to mention that I’ve setup the Monster FudgeRPG Feed blog. This is a blog that aggregates loads of feeds from blogs, forums, wikis and mailing lists about Fudge RPG system. Stuff every day in the feed. Since the demise of the FudgeList (and therefore the badly-named River-of-Fudge feed), I need something that pulled in all those existing blogs and forums.
There is currently such a change in the Fudge community. After the FudgeList shut down I was expecting a period of quiet and apathy before something started off. I couldn’t be more wrong.
Looks like we may finally shake off that “Drudge” misconception! Ann Dupius of Grey Ghosts setup this yahoo community: fudgecommunity and it’s been busy ever since. A lot of Fudge projects came out of the wood work and I even end up revealing some of my “secret project” LH, which is cool because I’m planning to get it out there in a free-ish format soon anyway. There is certainly a lot more openiness and sharing and I do hope it lasts. One of the best things though was that Ann spent several days online in the “official” chat and it connected a lot of the members, made the list a lot more personable.
If this is what killing off the FudgeList did to the community, then I wish they had done it earlier! 
An Example Fudge Implementation of “Combat Profiles”
If you don’t have time to read all this, then check out the cut-down version v0.1.1!
What started as some rough ideas and thoughts on the combat experience in roleplaying games, developed in a kind of simplistic theory I called “Combat Profiles”. After some discussion, I put together this system as an example of using these concepts. In fact, putting together this system has helped me scope and define the ideas into something more tangible, but that’s for another day. This system priorities player-experience over strategy or realism but doesn’t try to exclude anything either. I don’t know if it delivers, as I haven’t tested it yet.
It uses Fudge and Story Elements, as I believe they are uniquely suited to “Combat Profiles” compared to the other systems I’ve played (of course I haven’t played every system out there). It is task-based (i.e. not “conflict resolution”), another of my biases I guess. However I believe the general principals can be applied to other systems. It’s geared as a system that can be applied to all settings and all combat situations. The system attempts to define what combat is to understand how to apply it.
This system is in part inspired by the Shadow of Yesterday RPG, Riddle of Steel RPG, Spirit of the Century RPG, Fate System, several Fudge Factor articles and the FudgeList. If you are familiar with these sources, their influence should be obvious.
Read More…
Does anyone else have difficulty separating the author from the book?
I prefer to know little or nothing about the author of a book before I start reading it. This equally applies to roleplaying books and it’s a roleplaying book that I’m having difficulty at the moment separating the creator (and his/her actions/opinions) from the writing. I don’t have a problem with dead authors. Once they are dead, everything about them is becomes simply “context” (historical).
The FudgeList has awoken and it got a bit heated there for a little bit. But I saw a comment from a writer on a blog about when the whole “Fudge is dead” debacle started. He hadn’t gotten involved in the list or this particular argument and had no idea what he was talking about yet he said something nasty about the Fudge community. It was only one line. However, all I could think was “asshole!” It’s a pity, because I would have bought one of his forthcoming books, now I won’t. I’ll probably never look at his work. He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, but that opinion has tainted my perception of his him and his work. If I pick up a book of his, I’ll remember the comment. I could get over it and let it drop, but the problem is that it creates a barrier to overcome and therefore it makes reading one of his books effort. Why should I bother reading a book if it’s just going to be work instead of enjoyment?
I think Fred Hicks was right when he talked about prompting RPGs and always being positive. A single negative can lose you a customer and then the power of the internet is that if you hit the wrong person, it can have a much bigger impact then just one dropped potential sale.
It’s another reason why I find it hard to objectively read the work of friends. I see my friend’s personality in the work and it, well, becomes hard to separate my opinion of my friend from my opinion of his writing. It becomes especially difficulty if the writing is in a field of shared interest like roleplaying, because more than likely we’d have argued and discussed RPG design issues and I’ll see that shining through their work.
Which is perhaps why it’s a good idea for me to keep some distance from many of the RPG design forums like RPG.net, theForge and story-games. My perspective of people’s work will become tainted by my opinion of the them, not their work. (TBH I think it’s more than likely that I have a tendency to shy away from very large online communities), I guess also perhaps that’s why I’m quite closed about my writing and my ideas. Afraid they’ll judge me rather than the work itself.
Anyone else feel the same about books?