Tuesday, April 30th

The Daily Report

So, yesterday I put up the draft version of the A Wilder World Character Guide. I've had so many jitters about this since I've never come close to publishing a roleplaying game product before and it feels so rough and unfinished, but I know it's not going to get better if I keep it hidden in the dark. I'm not saying this to fish for compliments/reassurance, it's just... interesting. I used to feel this way about the idea of showing people my fiction.

There have already been two minor revisions to the draft: I added page numbers after it was brought to my attention that the online viewer doesn't show them (makes printing specific pages inconvenient), and I fixed a problem where the cost of Magic described in chapter 3 didn't match with what it said in the overview. There is a changelog at the back of the document documenting the changes in each version; I put it at the back so it won't change the page numbering for the rest as it grows, but I think the next time I revise it I'll put a link to it from the front.

So, if you're interested in AWW or in roleplaying games in general, please click the link. Read it. Play around with it. Tell me if anything seems hinky, tell me if anything seems awesome. Make some characters and tell me about them.

Now that it's up, I'm going to be working on getting the gameplay rules in working order.

The State of the Me

I might have to rethink my work week now that we have a full house again and it's getting to be too warm to work up in the attic all day... I just can't count on getting as much done over the weekend or Monday as I've been doing. I have a couple of ideas in this area, but they'll probably wait until the high summer, since I'm only going to be here for a few more weeks and then it's off to Hagerstown again.

Plans For Today

I'm a little short on sleep, so my main focus is going to be on the Tales of MU chapter that's due today.

AWW: Basic Character Guide update.

It was pointed out to me that the text in chapter 5 (Details) conflicted with the overview and got the order of steps wrong... this was a result of some last-minute rearrangements and then not remembering where all the references that would need to be changed were. Since this actually impacts the character creation process (characters made following the instructions in the overview will be different than ones made following the instructions in the text), I've revised it and made the change live.

Note that the original link still points to the revised file... the link should stay live through the whole process. If you've downloaded the PDF, you'll need to download it again to get the new version.

(Here's the link again, for reference.)

Also, due to the popular demand of a majority of the people who've given me feedback, here's a PDF of just the character sheet. It's not every day you can please two people at once.

AWW: Spellcrafter's out, Magic-User's in.

I wasn't expecting to put out a major revision to the BCG so soon, but I've received more feedback sooner than I expected, and a lot of the early feedback has centered around the presentation of the Magic system and the Spellcrafter Quality, which is the first glimpse into that system that people get reading the manual from front to back.

One person felt the whole thing had "too many moving parts", one person thought the Spellcrafter was a weird and unnecessary throwback to D&D's eccentric handling of magic, and one person lamented the lack of a basic or entry-level wizard Quality.

I wasn't really satisfied with the execution of the Spellcrafter concept myself, so I've pulled it and replaced it with a more straightforward "utility wizard", simply called the Magic-User/Mage/Archmage. I think this version does a good job of capturing the flavor of the D&D wizard without any of the headaches that go along with stapling overtones of Vancian magic to a flexible and freeform system.

I think there's a lot of promise in the Spellcrafter concept, but it's a more complex idea and it's going to take time to get it right. So for now, it's out, and the Magic-User is in.

I'm also going to be streamlining some of the concepts in the magic system, like Magic Burn, which will require minor revisions to the Gear section. It won't change what wizardly options are available or what they do in general terms, but the allusions to how they play out in game terms will need updating.

That's for later. For now, I've just replaced the Spellcrafter with the Magic-User. If anybody out there really thinks the Spellcrafter was incredibly awesome and is disappointed to see it gone from the test, I can work on re-working it before the gameplay testing, but I think people more people are likely to be happier with the Magic-User.

(Updated PDF.)