November 2nd

Summary:

Overview of the job - keeping this updated as I go along.

November 2nd

Colin_Fredericks 02 Nov 2014 15:46

Edit: I'm keeping this updated as I go along, with strikethroughs for completed items.

Let's take a look at what I need in order to publish:

• Add small amounts of connective and introductory text
• Attribution page, especially for the Society emblems. Some are from game-icons.net and I don't want to miss the attribution.
• Change to portrait layout
• Table of contents and index
• Page references fixed up
• Final review and check

Here are places I need to write more examples:

• Basic Actions, probably 5 more
• Conflicts, probably just one more - one where people are using guns rather than having built-in tech.
• Projects, say 3
• I have enough examples for Themes, happily.
• Taking complications. Call it 10.
• Sublight could use more plot seeds

Here are places I need to go over with a fine-toothed comb:

• The Optional Rules section
• Technology descriptors.
• Make sure the Transcendentals and the Patent Office are not inseparable. They also exist in To The Stars and The Powder Keg, in very different roles.
• The Advice section. This will need the most attention; I'll probably spend a week here. The Describing Plots header is empty!
• Gender and race representation in the book as a whole. I did a quick search for he vs. she, him vs. her, etc. and found about 40% female and 60% male. It's not awful, but it could improve. What I care about more is not having accidentally put my male or female characters in the same roles all the time, or having put (for example) white characters in different roles from black characters on a systemic basis.

Minor things:

• Thinking of adding a "loud" descriptor for tech that can be detected over large distances (e.g. wormhole transits), and maybe a "quiet" descriptor for things like spy meshes that are hard to detect.
• In several places the word "setting" needs to get replaced with the word "universe".
• Man do I need a better term than "Other Setting Components". These are cool things; that term makes them sound dull.
• Add a page on how Capabilities work for groups with Infrastructure. City Stringtech is not giant guns.
• In fact, Infrastructure and large-scale Effects are a big enough deal that all of it needs to get collected in one place, preferably in Game Play.
• I should add the story of the 2nd edition at the end, but I can do that after layout.
• Improve the look of the character sheet. It's too bare-bones right now.

Things that would be nice but are not necessary:

• Wouldn't hurt to have another item in the "unique character backgrounds" section. Skipped it.
• I could use another piece of fiction or three specific to the Patent Office setting, but it's not a necessity. Skipped this too. I can always add one later, before the full-art version.
• A last pass of proofreading.

Things I'm not doing:

• The Stored, Builders, Daoine, Disciples, Gaians, Logicians, Tao, Mechanica, and the category civs (CC, OW, Spacer) all only have one piece of fiction. Weird. Eventually I should write more, but it's not a priority.
• Powder Keg and Divide have an Inspiration section, but the others don't. I think that's probably ok; their stories are closer to the stories we usually tell in media today.

Success! High-level overview achieved. That's a better to-do list. And it seems fairly doable.

Last edited on 22 Nov 2014 04:18 by Colin_Fredericks Show more

Re: November 2nd

Colin_Fredericks 02 Nov 2014 15:54

Here's one of the conflict examples that I had written up before and just added today:

The team must travel covertly to a remote mountain hideaway. Their opponents are high-tech; thus, wormhole travel and flight are too easily detected, so they are forced to travel by land. Their rivals have patrols out to find them. How does the group proceed?

• They could knock out the patrols before they send a message. This would be treated as combat against a group, using the Subtle Conflict rules (page xx). The most likely Capabilities would be Biotech or Stringtech, with Soldier being the most appropriate Profession. This approach will be difficult; the team will need to far outmatch their rivals in combat.
• They can sneak past the patrols. Nanotech or Biotech would work well, and Professions like Outdoorsman, Spy, or Stealth would apply.
• They can take a more circuitous route, around the other (more dangerous) side of the mountain. Biotech would be the most appropriate Capability, with Outdoorsman and Explorer being the best Professions.

Let’s look at the potential Complications in detail. What happens if the patrols choose on a Complication such as “we notice you and call in a warning?” If the Team’s intended Complication was “we sneak past without being noticed”, the rules on opposing Complications say that both sides would need to choose a new result. In such cases, the GM should not accept Complications from the patrol that still provide a warning (e.g. “You set off a rock slide that our home base can detect”). Their primary goal, that of alerting those in the hideaway, is off the table. Instead, the patrol might consider…

• You are forced into a meeting with us. (This might result in a fight, some bribery, a social situation, or nearly anything that doesn’t result in a warning being sent.)
• We take shots at you, but later think it must have been nothing. In reality, the shots hit several members of the team, who are now injured.

It might seem like the team wins by default in such a situation – their “without being noticed” referred to a message being sent to the hideout, and with the patrol denied the chance to send that message, the team achieves theirs simply because the patrol loses. However, the team might have just as easily wanted to attack the patrols, in which case both Complications would be valid. The patrol might have wanted to delay the team rather than detecting them, which would also have been compatible with sneaking past. Sometimes the conflicting complication rules end up in the favor of one group or the other; this is just how things go. Roll with it and be inventive when you come up with Plan B.

Re: November 2nd

TauCeti 07 Nov 2014 20:39

With respect to lacking a second story for the stored, the one I did here was intended to be available, if you wanted it.

Re: November 2nd

Colin_Fredericks 08 Nov 2014 00:16

I actually like that one quite a bit, and the Stored in particular could use one. Thanks!

Edit: All the stories in the book have a title. I'm naming this one "Lag" if you don't mind. If you prefer a different title just let me know.

Last edited on 08 Nov 2014 00:42 by Colin_Fredericks Show more

Re: November 2nd

TauCeti 08 Nov 2014 02:09

That sounds perfect. (The other two stories I wrote are also available for use, although I like the stored one the best out of them).

Oh, there's really no such thing as a baguette shop. Feel free to replace it with something else. (Pastry shop?)

Last edited on 08 Nov 2014 02:09 by TauCeti Show more