Continuing on from Story Hooks, this is the second part of item 8 of the L___ H_____ system.
Update #1: 
Fudge Passions by Mark Cunningham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Fudge Passions v2.0
Fudge Passions was originally conceived as a way to link a character’s emotional state to other parts of the system (like Gifts or Powers). It is built as an addition to the Fudge RPG system but also replaces Fudge Points (Passion Points replace Fudge Points). It was designed and tested in parallel with my Story Hooks system but both can be used independently.
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Part 1 of to do item: number 8. Part 2, Fudge Passions, will be online soon.
Update #1: Story Hooks by Mark Cunningham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Story Hooks v2.0
Story Hooks is a system I created to replace the creation and management of players’ characters’ histories (see here for more). The first version, which I designed and wrote-up for L___ H_____, was very basic and involved a lot of hand-wavy “use as you see fit”. It consisted of the “Back-Story” and a non-delimited list of “Story Hooks”, which were practically Story/Adventures Seeds.
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… would you think they look good, assuming of course they are theme appropriate? (Click on them to see in higher resolution).
I was trying to figure out if I could do, myself, good or high quality images or at least create something that looks like it is good or high quality. I think I hit on the right technique. (Some more images after the cut).
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Check item #7! (“Do some further work on TDO Mini-Forms”) Of course I could continue at full steam with it but I decided to slow down. Work will continue, just not as time-consuming.
Also item #6 (“Try again to get a gaming group together”) occurred without any prompting from me. I was doing some work on our roleplaying group website (moving it to a different address) and the players started to trying to figure out when they can all play next. However, it might not be until July! 
Must bug them again.
As for item #5 (“Move Hosts for thedeadone.net”) will occur when I make enough money from donations for TDO Mini Forms. I’m already half way there for a 1 year hosting planning… 
Item #9 (“Upgrade and package the current thedeadone.net theme”) won’t happen. It’s been a maybe, but I just can’t muster the energy to do it. I think it really depends on finding a new host for thedeadone.net and getting all that up and running. Then I can think of getting a new theme and closing off the current one.
Which nicely leaves me with only one item left: item #8 (“Write-up and make available some RPG rules I created a long time back: Story Hooks and Passions”). While I think the two systems; Story Hooks and Passion, have since been done much better by Fate’s Aspects, Riddle of Steel’s Spirit Attributes and Shadow of Yesterday’s Keys, I think it’s still worth while closing them off. I did create and use them before I discovered these other systems and they are different and I hope to actually use them in my LH project. They certainly won’t be as long as TDO Fudge Combat v0.1 (short version available here) but they will probably garner about the same level of interest (which is about zero or so).
- Upgrade and add some features to TDO-Forum for WP2.5
- Test and Upgrade the Theme I’m currently using for WP2.5
- Create a merge of TDO-Forum and my current custom Theme (for the forums) (maybe)
- Update thedeadone.net to Wordpress 2.5
- Move Hosts for thedeadone.net (maybe)
Try again to get a gaming group togetherDo some further work on TDO Mini-Forms (AJAX, Form Hacker, find some way to get rid of the dependency on $_SESSION - I’m a little tired trying to sort out people’s host problems, there is only so much I can do, etc)- Write-up and make available some RPG rules I created a long time back: Story Hooks and Passions
- Upgrade and package the current thedeadone.net theme (maybe)
I was re-reading my notes that I had jotted down for the upcoming work on LH and I came across this:
Why Roll?
- Part of the hobby
- A character can “do” what a player can’t
- Resolve a conflict of interest
- Because it’s fun
I wondering how much truth are in those four reasons. What do you think?
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In one of my recent posts, I was talking about a Fudge RPG project I’ve been silently working on and said:
Some thoughts about it though have pushed me to consider releasing it as an indie or even free project.
I foresaw two major problems to producing a decent quality RPG:
- Lack of decent tool for layout (I don’t have thousands to spend on some Adobe product)
- Artwork
First I find Scribus; an open-source Desktop Publishing Tool. Quite complicated and a bit of learning curve, but free. Along with OpenOffice and the Gimp, all the software is there.
For the second, while I can draw, I can’t draw to a professional or high quality level. But then I came across a blog post on design and found numerous photo and illustration sites, where you can buy artwork for use in your projects: sotck.xchng, istockphoto and veer.com (and there is always flickr). Just a quick browse I found pieces I could use. They aren’t on point but would do. If I add my own skill I’m sure I could generate some pieces based on what I found.
So yea it’s actually doable, I mused. (There is actually another issue but I’ll talk about those at the end.)
Then I catch this post from Fred Hicks in my newsreader about actually not publishing and doing your RPG for free. Did Fred Hicks read my mind? Probably not I thought but his advice hit the point. I had considered putting aside a small budget for the project, just enough that I don’t care about making any back. I also read the posts/blogs he linked to in that post. Both were completely relevant to my train of thinking. For me, getting something published was more about a personal milestone or goal than gaining audience or making money (both would be nice but not crucial).
I’m still not convinced but it’s not that important. I still have to do the new version of LH first before I actually need to decide. The content comes first before all that fancy stuff.
I’m certainly not averse to doing it for free. Just take a look at TDOMF my plugin for Wordpress. I’m making a small amount of money on it, not enough to write home about, but it’s a nice feedback. I get bug reports and feature requests every week and I try to respond to all. But that leads me to my last issue that turn me off giving an RPG away for free. With TDOMF, I’m releasing into an existing community who will use it. I have, therefore, an extended “play-testing” user-base that will tell me concisely what’s wrong with it how it works. They are also willing to download upgrades and keep up to date. Releasing a free RPG, there is no community there to release to. It’s a discussion that’s floated around the Irish gaming community for a while. Releasing into a vacuum is the same as copying a file to /dev/null. It goes nowhere and is pointless. Of course, maybe I’m just ignorant of a community out there that would be interested (please inform me!). I’m also acutely aware of the “pluggers”, people who register and logon to forums expecting people to be interested in your project but have no “credibility”. This is something I don’t want to do. I did it for the Irish Gaming Wiki and got slammed down many times. I don’t want to spend time promoting myself and playing the “status game” either. I mentioned in my previous post my “narrow creative bandwidth” and part of that would have to be spent on doing that and everything else would suffer. I’m also aware that the success of free media (RPG being a specific type of media) is dependant on luck and popularity.
Maybe I’ve gotta wait till the Internet starts shouting at me, before I really listen…
I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like. It’s certainly not from lack of material but simply time-constraints. Such is the life of a working father. I do have a narrow bandwidth to work on personal projects (i.e. not work or family) and recently that has been consumed by my Fudge Reboot work and TDOMF. Blogging has come in a weak second to these projects.
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Today I discovered White Wolf’s newest line “Scion: Heroes”, (thanks to matt’s accidental discovery of it).
From the White Wolf’s web page for it:
Find your Destiny
The savage Titans have escaped their eternal prison to wage war with the Gods once more.
Their battles in the Overworld have spilled over to ours.
Armed with abilities and weapons granted by their divine parents, the Scions stand as humanity’s only defense.
Sounds great huh?
I’m not saying White Wolf are evil, don’t get me wrong. It is just that my big RPG project (LH) is based on scarily similar themes. (I’m not accusing White Wolf of stealing my ideas, I’m not paranoid and there is sufficient fundamental differences in my work and what I have seen so far of White Wolf’s). The issue for me is emotive, even if my LH ever does get out there into the wild, it will be compared to it and I, full-time working father, cannot compete with an army of freelance writers, fanboys, artists, editors, etc. and a company that knows how to market. It’s enough to nearly give up the game.
But I won’t. Not yet at least.
What makes it so tempting to quit, back up the files, and focus on other things, is how frustrating my “time management” is these days. It’s hard to get a big enough gap of time to sit down and write. Even when I do, I often have to stop and run off to do something for five minutes right in the middle, breaking the precious flow. But that’s to be expected. With a new baby only two months away… I guess my passion these days is my family. Gaming takes a second place, will always take a second place to that. (Well actually third, our Nintendo Wii is coming in second these days).
I’ve made a terrible mistake. But there’s no going back. I hope to god it’s one of those “good mistakes”.
I’ve started to write a novel.
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What’s going on? This is my second post in one week. Have the immortal Watchers woken up from their vile degradations? Have the secretive Authorities kicked-started their master plan? Have the walls of the world cracked and the Nameless one’s non-defined tentacles stretch out into our world?
Ehhh, no.
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