AWW: Latest revisions.

Okay, version P.21 of the Basic Character Guide is up. This one mostly just clarifies stacking bonuses from multiple pieces of Gear.

There are two changes to wizards' implements, one of which was suggested by two different readers and one was suggested by no one and might make some people unhappy. The trait "Powerful" has been replaced with "Boosting", which only applies to one check per scene.

The reason for this change is that the Powerful trait allows a wizard even at the outset to effectively boost their Magic score into the same maximum range of other attributes, which undercuts the point of having a lower cap on Magic and turns it into more of a Green Lantern ring situation. Barring the penalties on Instant Checks, having an effective Magic score of 6 makes the wizard as good as everyone else at everything... the other things that contribute penalties to spellcasting are usually things that would impair others, as well.

I'm walking a fine line with magic, trying to keep it useful but slightly dangerous to rely on but not so limited that you run into the problem of wizards blowing their wands early on and then being useless, or doing nothing until the climactic scene. There will probably be multiple rounds of change to how spell checks and magic burn work during playtesting.

Thursday, May 9th

The Daily Report

I'm thinking about charting where and how I do my writing (i.e., what motivational methods I'm employing), because I'm starting to notice patterns about things like what kind of errors I make and with what frequency they happen. I've known for some time that I'm more likely to make homophone errors when I'm speaking as I write. I seem to get weirder errors when I'm listening to music in a playlist rather than an instrumental piece on loop. It would be interesting to see if I get different results writing on the floor vs. in the bath vs. at an actual... <LITTLE MERMAID VOICE>what's that word? Oh, desk.</LITTLE MERMAID VOICE>.

Without any pushing behind it at all, the first tales of MU ebook has made about $10 in royalties this month so far. This is pretty consistent with its performance of the past couple weeks, where it sold a copy about every other day. It's way too early to call this a trend, but if it keeps going at that level... well, a dollar a day isn't a fortune, but it's three times what I had been making on Amazon before, which is an average of $10 a month, period.

My expectation is that if I don't do anything else then that number would peter out over time, though what the rate of decay would be, I can't guess. My other expectation is that continuing to release ebooks will help sustain the rate of recurring sales for each one in the series.

Before I started getting into the meat of the commentary, I was optimistic that I would be able to get the second ebook out before I leave for the con. Now I think that June is possible, but I'm going to officially aim for July because my life/schedule for July is more predictable. Either month beats my initially pessimistic estimate of "Spring 2014".

I'm thinking the price of book 2 might be a bit higher than book 1. The text of the book is longer, the text of the commentary is going to be longer even in proportion, and there's more work going into the commentary. It won't be more than $3.99 or $4.99... what I'm going to do when I get to the end is figure out exactly how much longer the end product is and then make my decision. I'm suspicious of the notion that the absolute value of a book is in its length, but it's hard to weigh effort.

The State of the Me

Doing well.

Plans for Today

This afternoon is a writing day.

AWW: small change of plans.

So, I was thinking that I'd get the Advanced Qualities integrated back into the Basic Character Guide before focusing on getting the ruleset finished for the playtest, but during a lunchtime brainstorm, I realized that the Advanced Qualities, way more than the Basic ones, are heavy on the minute details of the combat system (that are likely to change with testing) and will also likely be subject to re-balancing.

Between that and the fact that Advanced Qualities aren't even an option for the initial levels of gameplay, I'm going to call the Basic Character Guide "beta ready". Although there's one final change to the process I'm strongly considering. Looking at the sample characters that have been submitted, I feel like I erred on the side of generosity with Detail/Gear allotments. I want people to be able to realize a character concept at level one, but I fear I've made it too easy to get high-quality equipment right off the bat and prevented anyone from having to make hard choices there.

Here are the measures I'm considering:

1. Taking away one Detail and one Gear Point from starting characters.
   
2. Getting rid of the initial "twofer" on the Gear Details. This would make the Luxury Gear option currently redundant as there's nothing Luxury Points can buy that Gear Points can't buy.
   
3. Making weapons, armor, and implements more expensive.
   
4. Eliminating some of the traits that Luxury Points can buy, notably the "Extra" trait for weapons. It's not that I want Luxury Points to be worthless, just better for signaling "look at me, I have nice things" than "my weapon kills harder than yours". Actually, I think what I'll do here is make it so that the Extra trait can only be purchased with LP for traits that can be purchased with LP.
   

I'm pretty sure at this point that I'll be implementing some combination of those changes, but I'm not sure which ones.

AWW: More updates about updates.

So, this weekend I'm going to be putting up what I call the "game balance revision" to the Basic Character Guide. There's going to be some version of the aforementioned Gear and Detail changes, and a change to how high Attributes are purchased. I'm also revising the Folk Qualities a bit to change some of their ranked abilities into static ones. My thought in giving them so many was that choosing a Folk Quality should have more impact on your character than choosing other Qualities, but that wasn't the way to go about it. Some of the Folk Qualities I've made since those first three have provided me with a better model.

On that note, I'm going to rolling a few more Qualities into the update, including two or possibly three folk types. One of the two definites is Gnomes. These Gnomes will be recognizable to MU readers, because I'm sticking with the idea of Gnomes as the best generic for Hobbit. To people who just tuned in for the roleplaying stuff, you're probably thinking, "Wait, what about Halflings?"

Here's my rationale for avoiding using Halflings: first, the name is an insult. Just look at it. What people are going to define themselves on the basis that they're about half the size of "normal" races? In the original Tolkien, "halfling" was what humans called hobbits, and it's hard to imagine it being flattering. The name "Hobbit" is out of bounds because it's trademarked by a litigious estate, but that doesn't make "Halfling" make any more sense in-world.

The other reason I avoid it is because years of memetic drift within D&D-style gaming have changed Halflings from being Hobbits with the serial number filed off into being their own thing. Years of people playing them as adventurous burglars has turned them into a people made up of adventurous burglars. "Gnome" still has the power to conjure images of tidy sub-urban/terranean domesticity.

So, that's Gnomes.

The other definite is Zirakul. The Zirakul (the word is both noun and adjective, plural and singular) are vaguely humanoid spider folk. I made up the name off the top of my head because it was my intention that they not have a name that recognizably means "spider" to human players, because why would it? I'm still working on their lore, but their abilities include having an extra pair of arms (no, no bonus attacks, but more flexibility in gear and some bonuses to wrestling-type attacks for effect) and legs (added resistance to some effects), and obviously climbing and jumping bonuses though not as much as you might expect because that kind of spider-stuff doesn't scale up well without actual superpowers, and Perception bonuses keyed to movement.

The Zirakul have an option that makes their face and demeanor difficult to read for non-Zirakul, which gives them a bonus when it comes to lying and hiding their emotions but a penalty when it comes to persuasion. Skipping the option would indicate that the individual has spent time learning the art of facial expressions as other folk recognize them.

The Zirakul are native to forested mountains, but they're known as traders and travelers. They regard themselves as patient and rational in comparison to other folk. Visually, I picture them as being taller than a human and fairly big across the thorax, and hairy, and with a fondness for big billowy silks (what else?). In their own culture, the typical garments consist of elaborate wraps, but they know how to make things that resemble humanoid clothing for their own forms.

The point of the Zirakul (and the potential sixth Folk Quality that would be in the Basic Character Guide) is to offer options other than the standards. The shapeshifting Goblin being based more on various folklore than the D&D cannon fodder somewhat fits in that category as well, while being less wholly original.

The other additions to the guide will revolve around the bard archetype.