2002-12-31 - 2:33 p.m.
Yes, I'm still alive. The last few days have turned out to be a lot busier than expected (in a good way), though, so I haven't had much time for on-line stuff.
As you may have guessed from the above, I have a new game offering for everyone. It's not another massive book, this time, though -- just a quick little three-pager. Some of my local gaming crew and I decided to try using building blocks to create mechs and battle vehicles for a simplified war game (I won't mention the type of blocks, to avoid trademark issues, but it's LikEly you'll Guess which Ones I mean). I decided to whip up some rules to support our efforts, and Battle Blocks is the result. The system is quick and simple, but it works quite well, so I figured I might as well release it to the public. If enough people are interested, locally and on-line, I may add more stuff, such as special abilities (flight, force fields, etc.).
You can get either a .doc or .pdf version of the game in the Systems/Miscellaneous section of RPG Hoard, as usual -- or, at least, you will be able to once I get them posted. Personally, I prefer the .doc version, as it is much smaller, once zipped, and otherwise identical. In fact, since it's only a bit more than 12k, I'll email a zipped copy of the .doc version (only) to anyone who is interested. Just hit the Contact link on the left and ask me nicely. ;-)
In non-game-related news, I just saw The Two Towers and was duly impressed. In fact it would be easier to describe the couple of minor problems I had with it, rather than list the many things that I thought were wonderful. The comic relief with Gimli was pushing the envelope, a bit. The lines were actually funny, but I know that some Gimli fans found this to be a sore point. The movie also felt a little more disjointed than Fellowship, but that isn't really surprising. Since the novel tends to segragate each group's adventures, to a large degree (a pattern that would not really have worked in a movie), I can see how converting all of the story elements into a script would be very tricky. That's about it for my major gripes.
A few people have complained that the scenes related to Aragorn getting separated from the group were not in the book and unncessary, but I can't, in all good conscious, include this in my list of complaints. At the risk of annoying the purists out there, I have to say that I kind of liked that whole incident. It brought Arwen back into the story and focused on the plight of the elves -- a melancholy note, which is carried through the books but which could have been easily ignored in lesser movie. Ditto for the elves showing up at Helm's Deep. Some purists disliked that, but it made a lot of sense, really, especially to people who have not read the books (some of whom, I know, were wondering what the heck the elves were doing during all of this trouble). It also made for some cool elf-related scenes.
Anyway, practically everything else about the movie was just plain neat. The cinematography was at least as good as in Fellowship -- maybe better. Some real high points, in my humble opinion:
- Gollum was just awesome. Effects-wise, he was one of the best CGI characters I have ever seen. Dialogue-wise, he was a wonderful mix of the horrifying and the pitiful (especially the scene where he was arguing with himself while the hobbits slept nearby). And, best of all, he finally looked right. A lot of artists, animators, and such seem to like turning him into a frog, and they almost always forget that he was once a hobbit-like creature. Clearly, Peter Jackson's crew did not forget this very important point. His appearance brings home just how dire Frodo's situation is, given that he is repeating Gollum's horrid journey.
- The ents were great, in general, but I especially liked the scene where they were marching down to Isengard. Very Gaian. Very mythic.
- It was only a couple of seconds long, but I just loved the initial long-range moonlit shot of the valley, just before Faramir pointed out Gollum to Frodo, at the forbidden pool. I really, really want that scene as a desktop wallpaper...
- The external sets for the hall of Theoden and Helm's Deep were simply magnificent. The production crew would have my undying respect, even if those were the only two cool sets in the movie -- and they very definitely were not.
Anyway, I could continue gushing for quite a while, but this is neither the time nor the place for that. In a nutshell, if you haven't seen the movie, yet, give yourself a late Christmas present and do it now. You won't regret it.
2002-12-21 - 11:23 a.m.
I'm going to be off-line and out of touch, for the next few days, so I may be a little slow in responding to email and posting here. Things should be back to normal by around the 28th or 29th. That being the case, this seems like as good a time as any to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
2002-12-18 - 10:23 a.m.
I just received the revised .pdf conversion from Ian Jukes. Boy, what a difference! The zipped file size dropped from about 720k to around 385k (including the ReadMe). The font looks just a bit cleaner, too (no more annoying spaces after the apostrophes). Anyway, the new version can be found at Platinum Heroes, as well as RPG Hoard. Thanks, Ian!
So far, all of the feedback has been positive, and no one seems to have discovered any glaring errors or oversights, so, with any good luck, no errata will be necessary and the "1.0" can be considered "1.0 Final". Fingers crossed!
There is one question that I have been anticipating, which I might as well answer now: for those who want to combine P:A and d20 Modern, what are the Defense scores for the P:A classes? Here's the "official" answer:
Adept, Crafter, Psion: as per Smart Hero (i.e. 0/1/1/1/2/2/2/3/3/3)
Hunter, Psychic Warrior, Shaman, Warrior: as per Dedicated Hero (i.e. 1/2/2/3/3/3/4/4/5/5)
Scavenger: as per Martial Artist (i.e. 1/2/2/3/4/4/5/6/6/7)
2002-12-16 - 5:08 p.m.
With great pleasure (and no small amount of relief) I can finally announce that Paragon: Apocalypse is finished and ready for release. As usual, you can pick up the book in your favorite format at RPG Hoard. It looks like another site or two may be mirroring it, as well, but we'll just have to wait and see how that goes.
Ian Jukes, of Platinum Heroes, has already offered to do an improved .pdf conversion (i.e. smaller and a bit cleaner, font-wise), so those of you who prefer that format may want to wait a day or two to download your copy (the current version has a listed size of 719.7k, so, if you see one that is lower, you can assume that it is the updated copy). That's assuming, of course, that you are patient enough to wait that long. ;-) I'll keep everyone posted as to when the smaller version will be released.
Hope everyone enjoys their early Christmas present! For now, I'm going to take a breather in preparation for the inevitable rain of email that one of these releases always generates.
2002-12-11 - 8:22 p.m.
As you probably guessed, from the above, I have made some more progress on Paragon: Apocalypse. The critter section is pretty much complete, and I'm diving into the final (campaign-related) chapter. Since I don't envision it being especially long, I'm hoping that the book will be released some time next week (probably toward the end of the week, though, as it will need some editing and general clean-up). Guess it will end up being a Christmas present, of sorts, at this rate! :-)
2002-11-29 - 11:11 a.m.
Well, looking at the date on my last entry, I can see that I have been falling behind again. On the bright side, I have a real update, this time. I finally had some time to work on P:A, the last few days, and started making progress, again. The game mechanics section is finished, and I am well into the section on critters. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I really am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, it won't be an on-coming train, this time. ;-)
On a completely unrelated note, I just noticed that the good people at Hogshead have decided to pull out of the gaming gig, which is a real shame. Those who have been visiting here for a while know how impressed I am with Nobilis, which is their best -- and, apparently, last -- offering. It looks like Guardians of Order will be taking over that title, but, since I know next to nothing about them, I'm afraid that doesn't make me feel much better. (The fact that there is no mention of it on GoO's site doesn't exactly inspire confidence, either). I'm told that Big Eyes Small Mouth is decent, and I've heard mixed reviews, leaning toward the positive, about Silver Age Sentinels. Nobilis is a very different sort of game, though, so I'm not sure that the former two give a particularly meaningful indication as to how they will handle new stuff for it (assuming that they plan to do any, that is). Of course, in the unlikely event that any GoO folks are reading this, feel free to drop me a line and give me reason to hope. :-)
2002-11-14 - 11:42 a.m.
Well, against all odds, the last few days have turned out to be as bad as or worse than the previous few, before my last post. More poor health in the family, car trouble, unexpected and often unwelcome road trips, vandalism, etc., etc. Frankly, I'm starting to feel a little cursed. I just keep telling myself that there's nowhere to go but up -- and the universe keeps demonstrating how wrong I can be...
Anyway, I didn't pop in here to whine. I merely mention the above as an excuse for having another slow week, Paragon: Apocalypse-wise. I haven't really had much free time and have mostly spent what little I had watching movies, reading, playing video games, and indulging in other much-needed "stress relievers". Still, the game mechanics section just needs one more section, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel (hmmm... that sounds familiar...).
Actually, I didn't even really pop in here for that little "non-status" report, either. Rather, I'm here to ramble a little about the future of P:A and Paragon, in general, now that a certain industry-shaking book has been released. First I need to back up one step, though, to explain what triggered these thoughts...
I just picked up the d20 Modern book and have been skimming it. I haven't read it in any detail, yet; however, at a glance, I like what I see. It has definitely evolved in a favorable direction from the original, somewhat flawed Shadow Chasers module that appeared in the Polyhedron. In fact, we (that is, my local gaming crew and I) are already starting to get ideas for how we will be using it, over the next while.
The arrival of this book inevitably set me to thinking about its distant cousin, Paragon. For the most part, the two books are very compatible, which is hardly surprising, given their common origin in the Player's Handbook. Still, I am expecting to start receiving letters, any day now, from people saying, "Why does Paragon do X the way it does? In the d20 Modern book, it says..." So, to answer that question, in advance, for those who have not been here from the beginning: Paragon was written long before d20 Modern -- in fact, before WotC even had plans for the book. Also, it was never intended to be a d20 expansion but, rather, a D&D expansion. There is a subtle but important difference. In particular, it means that you only need one other book to play Paragon -- the PHB, which is certainly one of the most widely owned game books in the world. To answer the other question that is likely to arise: No, I have no intention of "updating" Paragon to make it more compatible with d20 Modern. In most respects, they are already compatible, and, in those few areas, where they work a bit differently, any change to increase compatibility with d20 Modern would decrease compatibility with the PHB. Not an option.
Anyway, the Paragon stuff is mostly old news. The real question is: How will this affect Paragon: Apocalypse? After giving it some thought, I have decided that it will have no effect at all. After all, P:A is a Paragon supplement, not a d20 supplement, so it would be a bit silly if it wasn't fully compatible with the former. Also, I'm having enough trouble getting this book finished lately without going back to page one and starting over again.
Having said all of this, d20 Modern and P:A will probably work quite well together. In particular, the equipment lists in d20 Modern will add even more stuff to the long list I have already built into P:A (although the DM may want to scale the weapon damage a bit). I just wish that d20 Modern had come out a little sooner, since it would have saved a lot of re-inventing the wheel, equipment-wise (all the more so, given that this was the section I least enjoyed working on). The section on psionics will also be very handy for those who do not own the Psionics Handbook, since P:A allows for their inclusion, in addition to Paragon's usual Powers.
Looking further into the future, I'm starting to think that P:A may be the last d20 book I will do, at least for a while. First of all the new book finally makes the d20 system truly generic, nearly on par with games like GURPs, so any future genre expansions will probably just be d20 Modern supplements, in effect. Secondly, I'm starting to get a little tired of worrying about d20 compatibility -- specifically, the fact that portions of projects becoming partially or completely obsolete whenever WotC decides to release a new book. To be honest, WotC's attitude toward d20 is also starting to wear on my nerves. They seem to like the legal control the license gives them and the fact that other people's efforts produce a lot of free advertising for them; however, they hardly ever make use of the license, themselves. I assume that most people noticed the blurb at the front of d20 Modern? "This Wizards of the Coast game product contains no Open Game Content." None. Zip. Nada. Which really puts the kibosh on creating compatible supplements for what is probably the most generic book WotC has produced. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though: as near as I can recall, the only true open game content they have ever released was a critter or two in the second Monster Manual. Kind of detracts from the whole spirit of the thing, doesn't it?
Anyway, with any good luck, my next post will be a little cheerier and will include some news of real progress. Cross your fingers...
2002-11-07 - 11:39 a.m.
I see there's been another long gap between posts, so this is overdue. Actually, there really hasn't been much news game-wise, anyway. I've been having kind of a lousy week and haven't really had much time to work on P:A, although I did, at least, manage to get the radiation section of the game mechanics chapter done. Hopefully, the next few days will be more productive.
Actually, I mainly popped in to post blog-related, rather than P:A-related, news, today. As you have probably noticed by now, the site is looking a bit different -- specifically, it has been simplified a bit. I had been thinking about doing this for a while to speed up loading time and prevent javascript-related problems that some people have. This thinking started after I had a few people write to me saying that the site looks great but can be difficult to navigate. The clincher came the other day, when I was in my brother's comic shop, though. We went on-line for a minute to grab an address off of my site that I had forgotten (from the links I gave a couple of posts back) and discovered that the Pad was a complete mess in his browser. He is using an older version of Netscape (actually, the newest version before the big AOL switch-over -- 4.7-something or whatever), so this probably isn't a frequent problem for most readers. Still, according to my stats sheet, a fair number of readers do still use Netscape, so I have to assume that at least some of them have been affected by this (which might explain some of the more puzzling letters I have received). So, to make a long story short, I figured I had better "dumb down" the site a bit to make it more compatible with as many browsers as possible.
Having said this, I don't know whether or not this is going to be a permanent look. I basically just grabbed one of Diaryland's normal templates and fiddled a bit with it. When I have more time, I may do a bit more tinkering or change it around completely. Just have to wait and see...
Oh, and here's my cool site for the day: Pokethulu!.
2002-10-29 - 7:51 p.m.
Just a very quick update, today. I have finally finished the equipment section of Paragon: Apocalypse and am moving on to the game mechanics section, which should go much faster. Barring unforeseen interruptions, I should be able to figure out some sort of schedule for completion soon. If nothing else, I think I can confidently predict that the book will be finished sometime before Christmas. :-)
Oh, and speaking of holidays:
Happy Halloween, everyone!
2002-10-24 - 6:04 p.m.
Well, long time no see. I figured I'd better pop in here for a minute, as it has been a while since my last post. It seemed well past time to "flip pages", as well -- I hadn't realized how many entries I had let pile up on the last one.
Anyway, there's not much news this time around. Due to Real Life stuff and the fact that I have been a bit under the weather, health-wise, progress on Paragon: Apocalypse has been kind of slow, this week. The fact that I badly underestimated the size of the equipment section hasn't helped my schedule any, either. It is already larger than the entire character creation section, and it isn't even finished, yet. On the bright side, I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I just have to figure out a bunch of resource and complexity values for a hundred or so miscellaneous items, which I have already written up the descriptions for, and this section will be complete. Assuming, of course, that I don't add any more sub-sections to it... I'm still debating whether to pop in some info on damaged relics here or leave that for the mechanics section.
No other Paragon-related news, really. That being the case, this seems like a good time to do something that I have been meaning to do for a while, i.e. toss out a few game-related links that I peruse regularly, myself.
John Kim's Free RPGs on the Web
I've almost certainly missed a few goods ones, but these should keep you busy for a while, anyway. :-)
P.S. If you are diving into this in the middle and feeling puzzled, make sure that you click on the Older button to check out the very first introductory post. The Paragon rules and Vancouver: 2020 sourcebook can be found at RPG Hoard, Platinum Heroes, or Complete RPG. If you want to comment on this page, just click here, or press the Contact Cwylric button, to the left, to send me an email. Remember that the kermode.net address listed in older versions of Paragon and Vancouver: 2020 is no longer active, so please use one of these two methods to get in touch with me, instead.
