As I may’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been adding some prose (story) at the beginning of each chapter. Today I wrote one for the Encounters chapter, which features creatures and other things that go bump in the night. I can’t say I’m completely happy with how this little story came out, but it’s not too bad hopefully. ;-)
The tunnel opened into an immense burial chamber. The explorer shined her flashlight around the room. The beam cut through the dusty air, landing on columns encrusted with cobwebs and ancient writings. The light fell on a sarcophagus in the center of the room. She stepped closer. Remains from a cave-in covered the stone coffin, but the explorer had no doubts about what lay underneath. She had spent years searching and now, finally, she was inches from her goal. She brushed aside the webs and stood with eyes ablaze with discovery. The red eyes of a giant spider glimmered almost as bright as it slowly descended from above, its jaws awaiting another meal.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Playtesting Adventure
The epic adventure called playtesting continues . . .
Right now I’m working on draft 0.3, incorporating most of the changes found by playtesting so far. The biggest change, from a headache stand point, has been re-alphabetizing the abilities. I had the descriptions split up into groups (ie: General, Combat, Psionic, etc.), but one of the playtesters said this made looking up abilities difficult (unless you knew which group it was in). So, I spent a couple of days doing a lot of cutting and pasting in Word until they were in the correct order. While I was doing that, I corrected some inconsistencies in my naming conventions too. I think it’s a lot better now.
I’ve been trying to use Google Docs to get new drafts to the playtesters from a centralized spot, but my PDF is just too big apparently so I was getting server errors. I discovered today, however, something called Google Sites which is a website editor. From there I’m able to upload docs and have others download . That seems to be working, so I’ll try to use that from now on. It also has a place for adding comments and announcements, which may prove useful.
Right now I’m working on draft 0.3, incorporating most of the changes found by playtesting so far. The biggest change, from a headache stand point, has been re-alphabetizing the abilities. I had the descriptions split up into groups (ie: General, Combat, Psionic, etc.), but one of the playtesters said this made looking up abilities difficult (unless you knew which group it was in). So, I spent a couple of days doing a lot of cutting and pasting in Word until they were in the correct order. While I was doing that, I corrected some inconsistencies in my naming conventions too. I think it’s a lot better now.
I’ve been trying to use Google Docs to get new drafts to the playtesters from a centralized spot, but my PDF is just too big apparently so I was getting server errors. I discovered today, however, something called Google Sites which is a website editor. From there I’m able to upload docs and have others download . That seems to be working, so I’ll try to use that from now on. It also has a place for adding comments and announcements, which may prove useful.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Playtesting Begins . . .
Over the last week I’ve been talking with people interested in playtesting the Imperium Chronicles Role Playing Game. I posted an open call for playtesters on several Pen&Paper game forums and so far several people have shown an interest. I’m not sure what the best number of people would be, but I’m happy to get as many as I can.
The process begins by sending each person a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). I’m not a lawyer (and can’t afford one) so I did a web search for a generic NDA and then modified it slightly to suit game testing. I emailed the NDA to each participant and they emailed it back with an electronic signature and a statement that they accept the agreement.
After getting the NDA, I emailed them the draft PDF of the rules. It’s a big file so we’ve had some issue with people’s email provider rejecting such a big file (over 9 MB). I saw today, however, that Google Docs allows uploading a PDF up to 10 MBs, so I’m testing to see if I can distribute the rules that way. It would be better because it offers a central location and the ability to upload the newest version as it gets done. My only concern is privacy since I believe Google shows the email of everyone who is eligible to download the file. I’ll have to make sure each playtester is okay with that, or I’ll need to continue emailing PDFs to those individuals.
I continue to be apprehensive about playtesting since I don’t know how much will need to be modified. I’m just crossing my figures. ;-)
The process begins by sending each person a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). I’m not a lawyer (and can’t afford one) so I did a web search for a generic NDA and then modified it slightly to suit game testing. I emailed the NDA to each participant and they emailed it back with an electronic signature and a statement that they accept the agreement.
After getting the NDA, I emailed them the draft PDF of the rules. It’s a big file so we’ve had some issue with people’s email provider rejecting such a big file (over 9 MB). I saw today, however, that Google Docs allows uploading a PDF up to 10 MBs, so I’m testing to see if I can distribute the rules that way. It would be better because it offers a central location and the ability to upload the newest version as it gets done. My only concern is privacy since I believe Google shows the email of everyone who is eligible to download the file. I’ll have to make sure each playtester is okay with that, or I’ll need to continue emailing PDFs to those individuals.
I continue to be apprehensive about playtesting since I don’t know how much will need to be modified. I’m just crossing my figures. ;-)
Friday, May 30, 2008
Game Diary Summary - May
5/2/2008
My wife the Editor has proofread the Introduction and Chapter 1. She's starting to proofread Chapters 2 and 3 today. Her comments have been very good so far: it's great to have another pair of eyes with suggestions on how to say things. That's one of the most important parts of being an editor, not just to find mistakes but to also suggest clearer ways of writing.
Beside the misc stuff, I'm also working on a new landing page for the website. I did a render using Poser today as the main graphic and worked on the text describing the game. I'm really very happy with how the image came out and relatively satisfied with the text. It'll be some time, however, before I can use it: have to play test first!!
5/4/2008
I added the damage and ranges for starship weapons yesterday. Although I think the ranges are fine, I'm not confident in the damages. This will need to be tested fully to make sure they don't do too much or too little damage.
Chapters 2 and 3 continue to be proofread. Since my wife isn't a gamer, it's slow going.
5/6/2008
I wrote the beginning prose for the Robot chapter. After several drafts, I'm very happy with how it turned out. I still have several more chapters that need prose, although I'm debating whether they all need to have that. I'd like to be consistent, but I don't want to force it or settle for prose that isn't very good (not that my writing is Shakespeare).
5/8/2008
Chapters 2 and 3 are done being proofread. I need to go over Chapter 4 (Combat) before having the Editor proofread that. Last night I added the resistance nanos to the rules and looked over my To Do list to see what's left. I've been trying to estimate how much is left before I can have the game play tested. Right now I'm thinking by the end of May it should be ready, but I've been wildly wrong in the past, so we'll see.
I've been thinking that, once the game is published, I'll stop writing the game diary. Since this has really been an exercise to capture the creative process of building the rules, there much reason to continue it after that process is largely over. Of course, there are tweaks to the rules and future additions I could talk about, but I doubt I'd need to write about it that much.
5/11/2008
Friday and Saturday weren't very productive, but today I've been able to get some work done in the Starship and Star System chapters. In the former, I added info on making FTL jumps (and went back to the Skills chapter and modified the Starship Navigation skill somewhat). In the Star System chapter, I worked on the Commodities section a bit, trying to make it more understandable. Although I used a fairly simplified system for trade, it's still pretty complex and I think a little confusing. I'm hoping what I did today will make it more clear.
I did some research on playtesting. I think I will have an open call on some of the forums and MySpace toward the end of May, assuming the rules are ready by then. I probably should have a NDA as well, but not sure how I'm going to do it. I'm nervous about the process since I'm don't know how others will react to it. I'm worried I'll have redo large sections of the rules because the playtesters will hate it. We'll see.
5/13/2008
I added a new robot (Deranged Loggerbot) and a new faction (Gaia Brigade) to the rules last night. I'd like to add another couple of robots perhaps before the game goes to playtesting. Speaking of which, my former coworker Mark has agreed to play test my game. He's played several PnP games before so that's good. It's also good to have someone I know well to playtest.
5/14/2008
I created another two robots (SpiderBot and Heavy AssaultBot), but haven't added them to the rules yet. I still have three other robots that I did awhile ago, but I have to confirm match with the current rules (since it may've changed since I wrote up the robots). My Editor has finished proofing chapter 10 so we need to go over that. Next I'll have her look at the Star Systems chapter. Obviously we're not going in order; she's just looking at chapter that are basically finished.
5/15/2008
I've been slowing adding the prices of various items, mostly in the Gear chapter so far. It's time consuming because I want the prices to make sense, although I'm not very confident about them: playtesting will need to see if they're too high or too low.
I went over Chapter 10 with the Editor tonight. Next she'll be looking at Chapter 9.
5/18/2008
I've completed most of the prices now in the Starship and Robot chapters. Although there were a lot of them, it went faster than I thought it would. I went through for the robots and added up their total costs, and the prices were about right I think.
5/20/2008
The Editor completed Chapter 9 last night. Next I'll be giving her the Robot chapter to read, although I need to add another few robots. I've also added prices to the commodities list: however, there are so many of them, it will required some testing to see if the prices make sense.
5/21/2008
I changed my mind and gave Chapter 5 Gear to the Editor to proof. The robot chapter is almost done, but I wanted to add another couple robots and didn't want to rush it.
5/23/2008
Besides misc stuff, I've been calculating the costs for the starship based on their components. Doing it after the fact, is time consuming to say the least. The end amounts, however, seem reasonable to me which is good.
The Editor continues proofing the Gear chapter. We're going to be out of town most of this weekend, but I'll be back to work on the game some more Sunday night and Memorial Day. Of course, I'll take time out to grill stuff too!
5/27/2008
I was out of town Saturday and Sunday, but yesterday I was able to complete the cost calculations on all the starships in that chapter. I'm told that the Gear chapter is going to be done proofing today, so I'll be giving the Robot and Starship chapters to the Editor to proof. Since there's still another two chapters to proofread as well, I'm probably going to give a current draft of the rules to the first playtester by the end of this week or beginning of next. At this point, the proofreading process is just to find typos, etc., not technical errors in the rules themselves. With that in mind, I'd like to get the game into playtesting as soon as possible and just update their copy as the final chapters get proofed.
5/28/2008
The Editor finished the Gear chapter last night and I gave her the Robot and Starships chapters to do next. I also worked on adding notable NPCs to the Encounters chapter last night. I had left that section blank previously. I created stats for Prince Alexander, Lefty Lucy, and Durant Blixx. Next, I'll do the Magna Ambassador and Smitty Gurkin which will be all of it.
5/30/2008
I wrote prose for the beginning of the Star System chapter yesterday. I ran it past my wife and she liked it! I also went through Chapter 10 last night and corrected a few things. I want to go through and correct the final touches before handing the rules over for playtesting this weekend or perhaps early next week.
By way, I added all the notable NPCs except Smitty Gurkin. I decided to leave him off for space reasons, but I can always add him later if I need to.
My wife the Editor has proofread the Introduction and Chapter 1. She's starting to proofread Chapters 2 and 3 today. Her comments have been very good so far: it's great to have another pair of eyes with suggestions on how to say things. That's one of the most important parts of being an editor, not just to find mistakes but to also suggest clearer ways of writing.
Beside the misc stuff, I'm also working on a new landing page for the website. I did a render using Poser today as the main graphic and worked on the text describing the game. I'm really very happy with how the image came out and relatively satisfied with the text. It'll be some time, however, before I can use it: have to play test first!!
5/4/2008
I added the damage and ranges for starship weapons yesterday. Although I think the ranges are fine, I'm not confident in the damages. This will need to be tested fully to make sure they don't do too much or too little damage.
Chapters 2 and 3 continue to be proofread. Since my wife isn't a gamer, it's slow going.
5/6/2008
I wrote the beginning prose for the Robot chapter. After several drafts, I'm very happy with how it turned out. I still have several more chapters that need prose, although I'm debating whether they all need to have that. I'd like to be consistent, but I don't want to force it or settle for prose that isn't very good (not that my writing is Shakespeare).
5/8/2008
Chapters 2 and 3 are done being proofread. I need to go over Chapter 4 (Combat) before having the Editor proofread that. Last night I added the resistance nanos to the rules and looked over my To Do list to see what's left. I've been trying to estimate how much is left before I can have the game play tested. Right now I'm thinking by the end of May it should be ready, but I've been wildly wrong in the past, so we'll see.
I've been thinking that, once the game is published, I'll stop writing the game diary. Since this has really been an exercise to capture the creative process of building the rules, there much reason to continue it after that process is largely over. Of course, there are tweaks to the rules and future additions I could talk about, but I doubt I'd need to write about it that much.
5/11/2008
Friday and Saturday weren't very productive, but today I've been able to get some work done in the Starship and Star System chapters. In the former, I added info on making FTL jumps (and went back to the Skills chapter and modified the Starship Navigation skill somewhat). In the Star System chapter, I worked on the Commodities section a bit, trying to make it more understandable. Although I used a fairly simplified system for trade, it's still pretty complex and I think a little confusing. I'm hoping what I did today will make it more clear.
I did some research on playtesting. I think I will have an open call on some of the forums and MySpace toward the end of May, assuming the rules are ready by then. I probably should have a NDA as well, but not sure how I'm going to do it. I'm nervous about the process since I'm don't know how others will react to it. I'm worried I'll have redo large sections of the rules because the playtesters will hate it. We'll see.
5/13/2008
I added a new robot (Deranged Loggerbot) and a new faction (Gaia Brigade) to the rules last night. I'd like to add another couple of robots perhaps before the game goes to playtesting. Speaking of which, my former coworker Mark has agreed to play test my game. He's played several PnP games before so that's good. It's also good to have someone I know well to playtest.
5/14/2008
I created another two robots (SpiderBot and Heavy AssaultBot), but haven't added them to the rules yet. I still have three other robots that I did awhile ago, but I have to confirm match with the current rules (since it may've changed since I wrote up the robots). My Editor has finished proofing chapter 10 so we need to go over that. Next I'll have her look at the Star Systems chapter. Obviously we're not going in order; she's just looking at chapter that are basically finished.
5/15/2008
I've been slowing adding the prices of various items, mostly in the Gear chapter so far. It's time consuming because I want the prices to make sense, although I'm not very confident about them: playtesting will need to see if they're too high or too low.
I went over Chapter 10 with the Editor tonight. Next she'll be looking at Chapter 9.
5/18/2008
I've completed most of the prices now in the Starship and Robot chapters. Although there were a lot of them, it went faster than I thought it would. I went through for the robots and added up their total costs, and the prices were about right I think.
5/20/2008
The Editor completed Chapter 9 last night. Next I'll be giving her the Robot chapter to read, although I need to add another few robots. I've also added prices to the commodities list: however, there are so many of them, it will required some testing to see if the prices make sense.
5/21/2008
I changed my mind and gave Chapter 5 Gear to the Editor to proof. The robot chapter is almost done, but I wanted to add another couple robots and didn't want to rush it.
5/23/2008
Besides misc stuff, I've been calculating the costs for the starship based on their components. Doing it after the fact, is time consuming to say the least. The end amounts, however, seem reasonable to me which is good.
The Editor continues proofing the Gear chapter. We're going to be out of town most of this weekend, but I'll be back to work on the game some more Sunday night and Memorial Day. Of course, I'll take time out to grill stuff too!
5/27/2008
I was out of town Saturday and Sunday, but yesterday I was able to complete the cost calculations on all the starships in that chapter. I'm told that the Gear chapter is going to be done proofing today, so I'll be giving the Robot and Starship chapters to the Editor to proof. Since there's still another two chapters to proofread as well, I'm probably going to give a current draft of the rules to the first playtester by the end of this week or beginning of next. At this point, the proofreading process is just to find typos, etc., not technical errors in the rules themselves. With that in mind, I'd like to get the game into playtesting as soon as possible and just update their copy as the final chapters get proofed.
5/28/2008
The Editor finished the Gear chapter last night and I gave her the Robot and Starships chapters to do next. I also worked on adding notable NPCs to the Encounters chapter last night. I had left that section blank previously. I created stats for Prince Alexander, Lefty Lucy, and Durant Blixx. Next, I'll do the Magna Ambassador and Smitty Gurkin which will be all of it.
5/30/2008
I wrote prose for the beginning of the Star System chapter yesterday. I ran it past my wife and she liked it! I also went through Chapter 10 last night and corrected a few things. I want to go through and correct the final touches before handing the rules over for playtesting this weekend or perhaps early next week.
By way, I added all the notable NPCs except Smitty Gurkin. I decided to leave him off for space reasons, but I can always add him later if I need to.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Game Diary Summary - April
4/1/2008
The character sheet continues to come along. I spent much of the day working on it, after taking a break yesterday. I added the combat, weapons, and armor sections, and rearranged the resistance section.
4/3/2008
I've completed the character sheet finally, although it's taken a long time it seems. The second page was easier, however, and I was able to hammer that out in only two days compared to the better part of a week for the first page. I can now switch to backfilling stuff in the rules that I didnt' get done the first time and revisiting parts that need to be reworked a little. One of the biggest sections I need to add features vehicle combat. I didn't do it the first time around, but I can't leave it out.
4/5/2008
Yesterday I started writing the vehicle combat section. I didn't get a lot done, but it was at least a start. I realized, however, that I didn't have a good game plan for writing the section, so this morning I wrote out an outline to better organize my thoughts. This is usually the best way for me to work, which makes you wonder why I don't do it that way more often.
4/7/2008
I completed the stunts section of Vehicle Combat. Although not a huge amount of content, it's still quite a lot, which makes me happy. I'm not sure how useful players will find it however, but we'll see.
4/8/2008
So far today I've added another nice chunk of the Vehicle Combat section. I also added a new page to the website so people can read the current newsletter without having to actually subscribe (in case people are concerned about doing that). As part of the change, I modified the main page of the site so you can access the newsletter. I also made it a little better looking (but only slightly).
4/9/2008
I finished off the vehicle combat section today, but I need to add some additional information: vehicle armor and force fields. I will include that in the Gear chapter.
I also decided to make yet another change (although a small one) to the Psionic abilities. I'm taking Detect Psi and Detect Aura and making them alone, instead of being prerequisites for other psionics. I'm also going to add three new ablities involving what's called a Tulpa, which is basically physical creatures formed by ones own mind (ie: mind into matter).
4/12/2008
The last few days I've been chipping away at misc stuff in the rules, including adding some skills and adding vehicle force fields and armor to the gear section. Speaking of vehicles, last night I realized that I forgot to include rules for crashing damage in the vehicle combat section. Again, having only one person working on something like this can lead to missing things. I'm hopeful that anything I may've still forgotten will be picked up during play testing.
4/14/2008
I didn't get much done yesterday. I've been struggling to get my wife's computer to work, which involved installing a new hard drive. Although it's working now, my hardware abilities suck so mostly i'm just frustrated, which doesn't help my creative flow to say the least. Grrrrr.
4/15/2008
By yesterday afternoon I was back on track and I got a lot done in the skills chapter. I was adding some new starship skills which also entailed making some changes in the Starship chapter. When I had originally written that chapter, I hadn't included the starship skills yet since they hadn't been finalized. This meant that starship combat didn't really involve too many actual skill rolls. Although such combat still doesn't, it does include some references to specific skill requirements to use certain starship systems, thus tying them together.
4/17/2008
Today I worked on redoing the Restricted/Black Market section of the Gear chapter. Along with that, I will add the Streetwise skill to the Skill chapter. While i had been working on planets in the Star System chapter, I realized that law levels as I had envisioned them wouldn't work so that meant going back and fixing it under Gear. I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out this time around.
4/19/2008
Originally, which social class a character picked didn't really matter too much except when it came to factions and reputation. Yesterday, I changed that by adding different skills that the character would get based on the class. An aristocrat gets one skill (Diplomacy Rank 4) and twice the starting money; a middle class character gets two skills (Computer Operation and a Craft skill, both Rank 4); and the underclass gets three skills (Bribe, Smuggling, and Streetwise, all Rank 4) but get only half the normal starting money.
Since social class is so important in Imperium society, I felt I needed to make it more important for each character players make.
Today, I also wrote some prose for the beginning of Chapter 3: Abilities. I'll run it by the wife first to make sure it doesn't totally suck.
4/20/2008
Good news: the prose I wrote for Chapter 3 passed the Wife test, so I guess it didn't suck too bad. Still, I don't think it's one of my stronger prose works.
The biggest thing I did today was add Software to the Starships chapter. I had left it blank when I did the chapter the first time around, so it was a gapping hole. I struggled with it a little bit because I didn't like how I was implementing it, but now I'm fairly happy with it. While I was working on the software for Starships, I also noticed i need to update the software section for the Robots chapter too.
4/22/2008
I spent yesterday adding ranges to the weapons in the Gear chapter. Unlike the d20 system, I don't use a set increment for ranges. Instead, I use five different ranges (point blank, short, medium, long, and extreme), each with its own modifier (+2, +0, -2, -6, and -10 respectively). Originally, I had mods of -4 and -6 for the last two ranges, but while working yesterday, I thought those would make it too easy to hit targets at pretty long ranges, so I changed them to a steeper penalty. Anyway, I was able to fill in all the ranges for the different weapons.
Today I filled in the restricted status of weapons and other items in the gear chapter.
4/26/2008 For the last several days I've just been working on misc stuff for the rules: for example, yesterday I fixed the formatting in the table of contents. It's been wrong forever, but I've never taken the time to actually fix it.
I'm going back to work on Monday (4/28). This means I'll only be able to work on the game in the evenings and of course on weekends. However, over the last few months I've been able to get a lot done, so there really isn't that much left to do before I can have people start play testing. I'm not quite there yet, but it should be within a few weeks maximum if not less. Of course, I also have to find people willing to play test. That's a whole other question altogether.
4/29/2008
This week I'm going to try and get some of the chapter ready for my editor (the Wife) to proofread. I still have work to do in several chapters so I don't want her to proofread those yet, but I can at least have you get started on some of the other ones. Once that's done, the rules should be ready for play testing.
The character sheet continues to come along. I spent much of the day working on it, after taking a break yesterday. I added the combat, weapons, and armor sections, and rearranged the resistance section.
4/3/2008
I've completed the character sheet finally, although it's taken a long time it seems. The second page was easier, however, and I was able to hammer that out in only two days compared to the better part of a week for the first page. I can now switch to backfilling stuff in the rules that I didnt' get done the first time and revisiting parts that need to be reworked a little. One of the biggest sections I need to add features vehicle combat. I didn't do it the first time around, but I can't leave it out.
4/5/2008
Yesterday I started writing the vehicle combat section. I didn't get a lot done, but it was at least a start. I realized, however, that I didn't have a good game plan for writing the section, so this morning I wrote out an outline to better organize my thoughts. This is usually the best way for me to work, which makes you wonder why I don't do it that way more often.
4/7/2008
I completed the stunts section of Vehicle Combat. Although not a huge amount of content, it's still quite a lot, which makes me happy. I'm not sure how useful players will find it however, but we'll see.
4/8/2008
So far today I've added another nice chunk of the Vehicle Combat section. I also added a new page to the website so people can read the current newsletter without having to actually subscribe (in case people are concerned about doing that). As part of the change, I modified the main page of the site so you can access the newsletter. I also made it a little better looking (but only slightly).
4/9/2008
I finished off the vehicle combat section today, but I need to add some additional information: vehicle armor and force fields. I will include that in the Gear chapter.
I also decided to make yet another change (although a small one) to the Psionic abilities. I'm taking Detect Psi and Detect Aura and making them alone, instead of being prerequisites for other psionics. I'm also going to add three new ablities involving what's called a Tulpa, which is basically physical creatures formed by ones own mind (ie: mind into matter).
4/12/2008
The last few days I've been chipping away at misc stuff in the rules, including adding some skills and adding vehicle force fields and armor to the gear section. Speaking of vehicles, last night I realized that I forgot to include rules for crashing damage in the vehicle combat section. Again, having only one person working on something like this can lead to missing things. I'm hopeful that anything I may've still forgotten will be picked up during play testing.
4/14/2008
I didn't get much done yesterday. I've been struggling to get my wife's computer to work, which involved installing a new hard drive. Although it's working now, my hardware abilities suck so mostly i'm just frustrated, which doesn't help my creative flow to say the least. Grrrrr.
4/15/2008
By yesterday afternoon I was back on track and I got a lot done in the skills chapter. I was adding some new starship skills which also entailed making some changes in the Starship chapter. When I had originally written that chapter, I hadn't included the starship skills yet since they hadn't been finalized. This meant that starship combat didn't really involve too many actual skill rolls. Although such combat still doesn't, it does include some references to specific skill requirements to use certain starship systems, thus tying them together.
4/17/2008
Today I worked on redoing the Restricted/Black Market section of the Gear chapter. Along with that, I will add the Streetwise skill to the Skill chapter. While i had been working on planets in the Star System chapter, I realized that law levels as I had envisioned them wouldn't work so that meant going back and fixing it under Gear. I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out this time around.
4/19/2008
Originally, which social class a character picked didn't really matter too much except when it came to factions and reputation. Yesterday, I changed that by adding different skills that the character would get based on the class. An aristocrat gets one skill (Diplomacy Rank 4) and twice the starting money; a middle class character gets two skills (Computer Operation and a Craft skill, both Rank 4); and the underclass gets three skills (Bribe, Smuggling, and Streetwise, all Rank 4) but get only half the normal starting money.
Since social class is so important in Imperium society, I felt I needed to make it more important for each character players make.
Today, I also wrote some prose for the beginning of Chapter 3: Abilities. I'll run it by the wife first to make sure it doesn't totally suck.
4/20/2008
Good news: the prose I wrote for Chapter 3 passed the Wife test, so I guess it didn't suck too bad. Still, I don't think it's one of my stronger prose works.
The biggest thing I did today was add Software to the Starships chapter. I had left it blank when I did the chapter the first time around, so it was a gapping hole. I struggled with it a little bit because I didn't like how I was implementing it, but now I'm fairly happy with it. While I was working on the software for Starships, I also noticed i need to update the software section for the Robots chapter too.
4/22/2008
I spent yesterday adding ranges to the weapons in the Gear chapter. Unlike the d20 system, I don't use a set increment for ranges. Instead, I use five different ranges (point blank, short, medium, long, and extreme), each with its own modifier (+2, +0, -2, -6, and -10 respectively). Originally, I had mods of -4 and -6 for the last two ranges, but while working yesterday, I thought those would make it too easy to hit targets at pretty long ranges, so I changed them to a steeper penalty. Anyway, I was able to fill in all the ranges for the different weapons.
Today I filled in the restricted status of weapons and other items in the gear chapter.
4/26/2008 For the last several days I've just been working on misc stuff for the rules: for example, yesterday I fixed the formatting in the table of contents. It's been wrong forever, but I've never taken the time to actually fix it.
I'm going back to work on Monday (4/28). This means I'll only be able to work on the game in the evenings and of course on weekends. However, over the last few months I've been able to get a lot done, so there really isn't that much left to do before I can have people start play testing. I'm not quite there yet, but it should be within a few weeks maximum if not less. Of course, I also have to find people willing to play test. That's a whole other question altogether.
4/29/2008
This week I'm going to try and get some of the chapter ready for my editor (the Wife) to proofread. I still have work to do in several chapters so I don't want her to proofread those yet, but I can at least have you get started on some of the other ones. Once that's done, the rules should be ready for play testing.
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