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March 28, 2006
Call for Playtesters!
Hello All.
I'm looking for playtesters to scope out the Iron Dynasty Player's Guide and to provide feedback and other valuable insights. If this is you, please shoot an email to sean@realityblurs.com with the subject header of ID Playtester Inquiry. I'll be reviewing all applicants and will get back with you soon. Please include your experience with SW and so on. Hurry! There is limited space available!
Note 1: If you're unable to actually play, but would like to be an Active Reader, let me know that in your query.
Note 2: If you've done some stuff for us in the past, you still have to let me know you're interested, alive, and kicking, so shoot me an email.
Thanks,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 05:50 PM
March 27, 2006
Welcome Jodi!
Hello All.
I spoke with a certain new editor working for Reality Blurs last week about a few salient points concerning Orwell Industries when she suddenly asked me a question. "Sean, when are you going to put me on the website?"
"Ahhh," I replied. Somehow, in the chaos that is my life, I managed to overlook this. How was it possible? Easy. Thinking about the con, dealing with scroungers, keeping up with all kinds of other things. "I'll make sure you're featured next week."
Y'know what? I nearly forgot again! Sorry about that. Ahem.
Everyone welcome the lovely and talented, Jodi Thies Black! Her insights and efficiency are much appreciated. I love working with professional people and she definitely makes the grade. Jodi, we're glad to have you on board and I'm confident Orwell Industries will benefit from your contributions to the project.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 11:33 PM
MidSouth Con in Review
Hello All.
This past weekend was MidSouth Con and I've not been so tired since the end of Con Season last year. Late nights and early mornings can sure make a guy sleepy.
I was on some panels with nifty authors about Pitching Your Work for Publication and I did a pretty exhaustive SWdemo for a few locals, Jeff and Brandon, whom were at the con for illumination and exploration into other systems. They also gamed with me on Saturday with their buddy, Keith, who is also local and who is doing some work for Eden Studios. Small world, huh? We're going to be trying to get a game up before too long as there is also a new hobby store opening up. Yeah!
Saturday, I talked with the brilliant, Travis Taylor, who is a living, breathing Buckaroo Bonzai whom I exchanged some thoughts with about gaming, science, and his writing with Baen Books. As he's got numerous degrees in astronomy and physics and science and all kinds of other things, he'll be an invaluable resource for bouncing off my hypotheses. I look forward to reading his books, even though he can't beat me at pool. ;)
Sunday, I got to hang out with a former local, John Jacob Miller, who is writing the Knights of the Old Republic for Dark Horse. The set up is really, really cool and to talk about the intricacies of modern comics and graphic novels was truly illuminating. After breakfast, I checked out Adam Shaw's newest venture with his wife and friends, Delicious Elixer. They're working on a bunch of neat stuff, including Hip Hop Ninja, the Blue Faerie Detective Agency, and random madnesses. Adam, you may recall, did a bunch of the work for the upcoming RunePunk.
The highlight of the con for me was getting to sit on a panel with Rich Burlew of Order of the Stick fame and co-author of the Player's Guide to Eberron. He's a very articulate and pleasant guy with a keen sense of humor and a great imagination. We had standing room only, perhaps 60 or so people in the room? I'm not exaggerating. Also joining us was Jeff Crook, another local, who's written a lot for Wizards of the Coast, including multiple Dragonlance novels and work on RPG material for the Forgotten Realms.
The Panel's Topic was entitled "How to Break into the RPG Industry" and we hit them from top to bottom with facts about d20, the OGL, the state of the industry, options including licensing, working for corporations, working for middle and third tier companies and print versus PDF. We then fielded questions and shared what we could. Rich and I thought the panel went well and we had a pretty good rhythm going and either Jeff thought we handled it alright or we were too busy talking that he couldn't get a word in. If you're reading this Jeff, you'll have to let me know, won't you?
After the panel, I wanted to talk with Rich for a few, but I suddenly found myself barraged with a goodly number of people, five or six, that all were talking to me at the same time. I felt a bit overwhelmed and fielded some more questions and told them I'd be happy to talk with them for a bit longer, but we'd have to take it into the hallway as the next speakers were setting up.
So, I handed out flyers with contact information and spoke with a pleasant young lady of nineteen, M, who is preparing to brave the field and it's nice to see fresh faces and I hope I gave her some insight and direction. I also spoke with Jeff Crook at length from the panel and discussed the possibilities of getting together on a few things in the future.
I then joined Rich in the dealer room and talked to him for awhile, before I went to closing ceremonies whereby I convinced the convention coordinator to auction the last Red Bull off and he did. It went for $40, but with matching contributions and other craziness, they collected over $300 from me opening my big mouth. They almost skipped over Rich when announcing the guests and I had to whisper to the coordinator not to forget Rich. So, look at that, I added value and earned my keep at the Con.
I look forward to Origins now and am going to hit it much harder tomorrow.
Regards,
Sean
P.S. I also am really hammering out the Iron Dynasty Player's Guide and I'll be posting up some other nifty RunePunk facts very soon!
Posted by razorwise at 11:06 PM
March 20, 2006
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Reality Blurs and 12 to Midnight have forged an alliance to provide quality support materials for Agents of Oblivion, the new modern suspense setting from Reality Blurs. 12 to Midnight's existing premier product line of horror and suspense adventures will be tailored specifically for use with Agents of Oblivion. New scenarios are also already in the works.
"The mood evoked by 12 to Midnight's RPG titles go hand in hand with the Agents of Oblivion setting, so it's a natural fit," said Sean Preston, President of Reality Blurs.
Agents of Oblivion is a a modern horror-espionage setting in which players take on the roles of the covert agents of Oblivion, a black ops organization battling terror and terrorism around the globe. Agents of Oblivion was recently announced as one of four settings chosen by publisher Green Ronin to be included in their True20 setting book Worlds of Adventure. The setting will also be released for the Savage Worlds system.
"We are really excited at the prospect of some of our work being re-imagined as part of Agents of Oblivion," said Preston DuBose, President of 12 to Midnight. "It's the kind of thing we might have written ourselves, so working our titles in support of the setting feels very natural. It won't require a lot of rewriting or stretching of the concepts."
12 to Midnight has published eight RPG titles to date, including Last Rites of the Black Guard, Weekend Warriors, and Bloodlines.
In celebration of this announcement, both companies are pleased to release their first joint project, a free download for the Savage Worlds system. Modern Martial Arts is a selection of options for characters wishing to focus more heavily on melee combat. Modern Martial Arts was penned by the multi-talented Clint Black.
Be warned: this is just a taste of things to come!
Posted by razorwise at 07:16 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2006
True20 Forum is now up and Other Observations!
Hello All.
Green Ronin's support website for True20 went live yesterday evening and being the kind of guy I am, I've already put up a bit of info for newcomers about Agents of Oblivion there.
If you're interested in talking about True20 with me, that's definitely the place to go. I know a lot of Savages visit this website and I was asked Saturday by MightyCthulhu himself to contrast True20 with Savage Worlds. Seeing as how I didn't have my Elder Sign handy, I complied with his request.
For your edification, I made that the focus of this week's razorwise report.
Something else I'd like to mention is Chris Pramas' announcement about the direction they are going with Freeport, their oldest product line and the first one I saw with that little Green Ronin on it. If I may quote from his website...
"The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport is a pure background book. It will not have game stats of any kind, but will instead spend all of its 256 pages detailing the people, places, politics, and perils of the City of Adventure. From the beginning Freeport has always cast a wide net. We used to say it was useable with any d20 fantasy setting. Now it will be useable with any fantasy setting and any fantasy RPG."
Wow. Very interesting stuff. I recall over the years seeing other companies attempt this, but none with the momentum and quality of Green Ronin. It'll be very interesting to see how this works out and if this is a sign of things to come. I applaud the boldness and wisdom of this move.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 06:41 PM
March 06, 2006
The Beast Within: Creatures of RunePunk
Hello All.
This past week I spent detailing out the Bestiary Section of the GM's Guide. First of all, a quandry existed about how to make sure it was comprehensive enough for the GM's needs. You see, while RunePunk is designed to accomodate any creatures you care to put into it (and I do mean anything), I wanted to make certain that both the GM and players got to appreciate the uniqueness that sets RunePunk apart. To that end, I finally decided upon a flexible approach detailing out a number of creatures and providing the GM with a set of options they could use to further personalize the experience without leaving them at sea. I couldn't just end with creatures however, because there are a lot of denizens in ScatterPoint and there are two distinct environs- the City Districts and the Barrens. To that end, I opted to detail out a handy array of common types of races and archetypes for the GMs perusal as well as including the normal Wild Cards that appear throughout the story line. All told, I'm pretty happy with them. The list came together quite well from compiling multiple notes and playtests of things. The usual thing any GM does anyway. All the descriptions have been complete and I'm about half-way through statting them all out. Luckily with Savage Worlds, knowing is half the battle, and assigning specific statistics and abilities is a lot of fun. A weird thing that I've come across is the handy way I've been referencing my own creations in the work more and more, such as Creature X may use (insert racial edge here) at well. The spiral is rapidly closing.
What's left? I give a close scrutiny to the Plot Line again and make sure to flesh out anything that may appear a bit vague or sketchy.
All in all. I've learned a great deal from this journey that I'll carry forward as I continue to develop for both RunePunk and various other projects in the future.
I intend to talk about some of the finer points of creating a bestiary in the next few weeks after this section of the book is finally put to bed.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 04:20 PM