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February 27, 2006
Status Quo
In terms of news, last week fell short of the prior week's announcement, news, and revelations, but a lot was accomplished that is important, but not newsworthy. Kinda like brushing your teeth. You're supposed to do that. Sure, it's important, but not something you'd expect someone to read on a website.
Still, I appreciate each and every one of you that visits this site regularly and can see the growth (hopefully) of my writing ability. Here's how we brushed our teeth:
Editing continued on Orwell Industries.
Guns got figured out...okay, this doesn't count so much as brushing as flossing. I went round and round with a buddy of mine deliberating the whole conversion process of weapons for T20 AoO. I mean, how many guns need to be included...we could go the Ultramodern weapons way or the Spycraft way on one extreme to the less extensive lists in CoC d20 or something in between, like in Modern d20. Well, we settled on something in between at present in terms of quantity, but with quality, we wanted to express a world-spanning view, and I think we're definitely on that. Naturally, this will give way to some more relevant feats and other necessities to refine AoO and our need to make the mechanics match the setting. Just lightly tweaked. Oh, to that end, we figured out a nifty conversion algorithm that makes everyone here very, very happy.
Archetypes for Iron Dynasty are sketched out and an innovative approach is being taken to the setting. Although you may not have seen much of our stuff yet, you should realize that we shun the traditional paths with a lot of things and Iron Dynasty is being treated no differently. We're developing a setting that will have all the surliness of a saki-saturated samurai. Check that section of the website for more details, will ya?
Hmmm...what else? RunePunk...oh yeah. I integrated Clint's observations into the races. Good stuff. You see, Clint really gets RunePunk and is extending some of its scope and further enriching the embedded flexibility of it. So far. I'm happy. We'll see. ;)
Until next time. Get your game on!
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 03:46 PM
February 20, 2006
A Whirling Dervish of a Week
Looking back over the last week, like I do about this time each Monday, I can only wish I could've slept more. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the heck out of the work, but I couldn't get out of the house due to the ice and blech that we had over the weekend. A lot was accomplished. Let's review a few things.
John Rogers is on board for Agents of Oblivion.
Clint Black is making good progress on RunePunk.
The adventure generators for RunePunk near completion.
I got to see the silent "The Call of Cthulhu" movie.
I got Iron Dynasty underway...well, that technically counts as this week, because it was Sunday, but...
Julia Bax continues to astound me with her great work.
And I do believe I'll be adding a new editor quite soon to further streamline our processes. My biggest reservation in using an outside editor is that it'll be new to me. I talked about the editorial process with Ed Wetterman who assures me that it does take some getting adjusted to, but, ultimately, is worth all the pains.
I just take it that it'll be growing pains and if I can get all this stuff situated now. I'll be better prepared down the road. Multiple projects are reaching their completion points and it's essential everything stays on track. *sigh*
Sure, not the most exciting post, but I have to save something for my work, don't I? :)
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 03:52 PM
February 13, 2006
Snow days and Art Direction
Hello All.
We got snowed up on Friday and I had a deadline of Friday for the concept art for Agents of Oblivion. I had sketched out what I wanted, but I wanted to refine it and have a better go at it. I've learned the more comprehensive the directions you give to your artist, the better the chance it looks integral and cohesive rather than tacked on. I also know that my approach to direction is more esoteric than some folks and leans more to the comic book authors I've admired, Neil Gaiman chiefly among them.
You see, when I first wanted to write, I wanted to write comics. Not a great novel or a movie or a screenplay, but comics. The thing was, I had no clue how to do it, so I ended up getting some poetry published here and there and had a story placed for pay in a magazine called Dark Regions: Weird West Edition. If you run across it, let me know, I'll wince when I reread it, but I'd like to find a copy. Life sidetracked me from writing anymore and when I returned, I wanted to check out that comic thing again. The thing was, there were more books on HTML than comic book writing, so I ended up being a web developer or, as I posited myself in the day, a webmonkey. (Wired had this site called webmonkey back in the day. Man, Wired rocked.)
Anyway, I finally got exposed to Gaiman when I found out Dream Country had a script in the back. An actual friggin' comic book script, so I ended up snagging it so I could see how to write comics. The comic I studied and it wasn't bad. In fact, Gaiman's work was amazing and still is amazing. I've since gone on to read everything he's published, except The Anansi Boys, but still haven't had a comic written. Well, I'm not dead yet.
At any rate, what I did learn is that it's okay to send pictures and photographs and references and whatever to your artists. They won't get mad. Artistic freedoms are all well and good, but your sensibilities may not mesh with the artists and you may well lose time and patience awaiting reworks or settle for something not quite what you were envisioning. I especially like art that captures the composition I want in the illustration and then use that as a base from which to direct my artists.
Is this the norm? I doubt it. Am I happy with the subsequent art? More often than when I give NO direction at all. Additionally, the artists work more rapidly and with more confidence with this little trick.
So, at any rate, the way I spent the snow day and evening was putting together my art directions and finally eating dinner and getting a good night's sleep. Is it satisfying? Well, I won't lie and say it's my favorite part of the whole process, but I will admit that every time I get the first wave of art in on a project, it's very exciting, especially since, more often than not now, it's usually right on track with what I'm looking for.
This ended up being more of a diatribe on the process of developing art directions than what I did this past week. Probably because theory tumbles around my head every Monday now and it's a bit more exciting than telling you about my assorted complaints, concerns, and random maladies.
Maybe I'll play hookey from work the next snow day and crank up the PS2. :)
See ya next time.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 06:07 PM
February 06, 2006
What a Week
Greets.
I spent nearly every waking moment refining and improving Agents of Oblivion so I could get it into the "Ultimate Final Draft Mode." That takes some time, let me tell you. I expanded out Sanity checks, cleaned up the history, the Agency, and its rival organization, the Pandora Institute. All in all, despite this handful of inadequate words, it's greatly improved over the originally submitted draft, which I was content with at the time. That's the subjectivity of time and space, backing away from something a little bit, as often suggested in creative books, actually is magic. You can easily spot the gaps, goofs, and the unexplained phenomena occuring in your work like someone setting themselves on fire in the middle of a dark, moonless night- the only way you can miss it is to close your eyes and cover your ears.
I also got a copy of Grubman's sci-fi adventure to look over. I have a vested interest, since I fleshed out a couple of points for him. I'm just curious to see what made the cut. I haven't opened it yet. Remember, Oblivion?
I also spoke with Ed over the weekend about the 12 Hours to Midnight stuff he's working on in broad vagaries and I told him about the Scare system that I came up with for Agents of Oblivion and we shot the bull about horror, using big words like castigate. We didn't get to frisson. Writers, for some reason, are always supposed to use that word at least once per conversation when discussing horror. His plans for 12 Hours sound intriguing, demanding, and I wish him success on pushing the envelope. I'm sure it will rock mightily.
As far as pushing the envelope, I wondered aloud a bit about RunePunk. He actually brought up the ease it'd be to slide such characters as Merlin into the mix of the game. I hadn't considered Merlin until that moment, but it's true. I tried to make ScatterPoint able to handle about anything or anyone the GM wishes to throw into the mix, so bring it on! You hear that Arioch, Elric, Merlin, Uther Pendragon, Conan, Fafhrd? We got your City right here! Rackhir forget Tanelorn- ScatterPoint rules you all. ;)
One of my intentions is to keep up my breakneck writing pace from last week. With just a bit more sleep, it will be survivable and I'll be able to achieve my project milestones.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 10:52 AM