Game Diary Summary - February

2/5/2008
I created a PDF of the first 4 pages of chapter 10 and posted them on one of the RPG forums. It shows some of the areas I've written about on Aldorus. I can't say I've had many people show any interest (and that's just my own family). ;-)

Today I was working on a map for the Palatine Mts. I was originally going to take a bump map and use it in Bryce, but I settled on using part of the Aldorus map (enlarging it slightly) and working with it in Photoshop. I still need to add locations, etc. but it looks okay so far.

2/8/2008
Yesterday I was working on the floorplan for the monastery in the Palatine Mts. If I had software (like from ProFantasy), this would probably be easier, but since I'm currently still unemployed, I didn't want to spend the money. So, instead, I'm just doing it all by hand in Photoshop, which is actually almost as good (almost).

Prior to yesterday, I was writing descriptions for some of the places in the Palatine Mts. This was pretty straight forward, although it came after a couple of days of not doing much.

2/9/2008
Over the last few days I've been spending a LONG time working on the monastery floorplan, but I'm almost finished. Last night, I was working on the basement/crypt areas. It took me over 3 attempts, but I finally got it to look more or less the way I want. As for the whole monastery, I plan to have it in a section called Point of Interest, which is basically highlighting a location on the planet that the GM can use for an adventure.

2/12/2008
I completed the Devil's Cauldron area descriptions, including the map. Since it's not as extensive as the other areas, it took the least amount of time. Next comes the Notable NPCs section . . .

2/13/2008
Yesterday I put a post on The Forge (www.indie-rpgs.com). I haven't gotten any real responses yet, but then it was just an introduction.

Today, I worked on stats for a couple of NPCs: Big G and Funkmeister Rik. I need to have a few more to fill out the section. At this point I'm not completely sure which other NPCs I'll be including.

2/16/2008
Today I was able to get a little done in the Notable NPC section, but not a lot. For the last few days, I've been in a creative malaise with little work done at all. It's possible I've been to preoccupied with finding new job and worrying about money.

2/17/2008
I was able to flesh out the stuff I did yesterday. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but it's better than nothing. I've completed two NPCs for the section, but I need to do maybe 2-3 more NPCs before I can move to the next section.

2/19/2008
This morning I wrote the description for Shakkar, the Duel Master. He appeared in Chapter 4 of Alexander the Prince. I wanted to include him because he has both some melee and psionic abilities. Next I would like to create the Abbot for the monastery, but I'm having trouble finding a good name for him. I did some research on Buddhist abbots, but none of the names worked for me.

This afternoon, for a change, I worked a little with paper miniatures. Using Poser, I did renders for the four sides of a character (and then the top as well). There are other paper miniatures on the market, but they all use either two or three sides. I wanted to try four, but I discovered that a four sided miniature wants to fold in on itself and isn't stable. Whereas the three sided one is much more solid feeling. Apparently this is why four sided paper miniatures aren't used! Anyway, I may create some of these (3 sided) especially for my game, including important characters, etc.

2/22/2008
Yesterday I completed the Notable NPC section by adding Kid Vicious and the Abbot. Next I need to do the Point of Interest section featuring the monastery. I'm unsure right now if I'm going to create some kind of adventure or mission around the POI, or just leave that up to the GM. I think the former is ideal, but I'm not sure if I have something good enough.

I've also been looking at the Skills the game offers, and I've concluded I need to add more, and slightly change a few existing ones. I've made a long list of Knowledge-based skills to add, and I've previously listed some others like Streetwise which I need to include. I think it would be wish to give the Abilities another once over as well since I'm sure there will be some that need to be added there.

2/23/2008
Although I took a break from chapter 10 today, I've been very productive. I written notes for 31 new abilities along with another 5-10 skills which I did yesterday. They're still in note form, however, so I still need to add them to the rules. While I was creating the notable NPCs for chapter 10, I felt that there weren't enough skills or abilities, so now I'm a lot happier.

2/24/2008
I wrote the rules for 20 out of the 31 abilities today, and will try to work on the rest tomorrow. I still have the skills to work on too, however, but I'm not sure when I'll get that done.

2/26/2008
I didn't work on the new abilities yesterday, but I was looking at some of the other sections of the game rules, in this case the Encounters section. I really need to add more creatures to the rules. Right now there just aren't that many, except in the Minor Race section. Also, in general, I'm seeing various typos and other mistakes which just shows that it will be very important that I proofread very carefully. I will have my wife proofread also, but some of the mistakes are how the rules are implemented (ie: which dice to use) which regular proofreading isn't going to catch.

Today I finished the rest of the abilities from a few days ago. I'm now pretty happy with the total number of abilities available.

2/28/2008
So good news and bad news: the bad news is that, for whatever reason, the rules file got corrupted and I've lost everything I did yesterday. The good news is that I had back the file up on 2/26 so I didn't lose that much (maybe a couple of hours worth of work, and nothing that major). However, this once again reinforces the need to back up every freakin day. Today, I also sent a backup copy to my email address so it's also saved off-site. I normally backup to my external drive, but if we had a fire or something, that would also get destroyed. By backing it up to my email, it's completely off site so it would be save from such a disaster.