02/01/06
Hmmm. Lets see. Where to start this week? Probably at the play test, so I don?t get in trouble again.
Things went well. They covered a lot of ground and finished act two of the adventure. There were a couple of moments that creeped them out, and that was good. One of them I didn?t expect at all, so that was a pleasant surprise. They got to the climax about four and a half hours before the deadline, although they think (until reading this, at least) that they got there just in the nick of time. No problem with that.
So next week we finish the third adventure, for better or worse. Big act three fight, should be fun. I?m curious to see how it all plays out and if they do anything that will result in total party kill.
On the writing front I went through and assigned all the major world stuff to various countries. This includes things like wonders of the world, headquarters of church orders and demon cults, secret societies, and colleges (the ones that I know about at any rate. There are universities that will be general places of learning that will come up as I write the individual nation descriptions.) Then I wrote up the first two nations. This was a bit of a breakthrough because I?d dreading it but it actually worked out to be pretty fun. At the current average word count, the gazetteer chapter will be 40-60 pages. That might be long enough that I don?t have to use a butchered history chapter.
But that couldn?t last. LTUE (Life the Universe and Everything) is coming up at BYU. I need to run demos there, so I spent Monday night putting that together. I think it will play pretty well, but I?m still a touch concerned about the ending. The demo is actually the teaser from the first adventure and it has gone over gangbusters in playtest, but in the first adventure you get to the end and then segue straight into Act One. (Like with a television episode, after the commercial break). The people discover everything that is going on slowly, sometimes painfully. As it stands at the end of the demo, I just had to write a little speech that explains it, otherwise, the cliffhanger at the end will leave them wondering what just happened (great for a cliff hanger, terrible for a demo). I?m not sure if that will have the same dramatic impact. Still, I don?t have a better idea for the demo, so we?ll see how it plays out. It will be alright, I just don?t have the same level of confidence as I do of the first adventure as a whole. Might take a rewrite or two before I get it just right.
That was the RM version. I?m almost done with the HARP conversion (I just have to design the one new monster in HARP). That leaves me with d20. After doing the d20 Shadow World conversion, I could do that in my sleep. I?ve turned it over to my business partner to do the conversion to our fourth license, the one I haven?t been able to announce yet, and he assures me it will be done in plenty of time.
Speaking of that, Tuesday morning was a good day, so good in fact that I couldn?t sleep until after 2 in the afternoon. In the morning, we received approval on our fourth license. As soon as our contracts are cut I?ll announce that. I also received a pass from the profantasy people on my world map. I was waiting on this because they were hesitant to do any cross promotion until they saw if my mapping skills sucked. Evidently, they didn?t.
I wasn?t worried on this one about the approval, I?m a mapping savant,
I just was afraid that with CC3 in the works I wouldn?t get approved until WAY too late to do any good. There are a lot of CC2 users out there. That?s a big market.
On a personal note, I had my best first rejection from a pro magazine ever (actually, it?s probably tied for best.) Hitchcock?s. So, things are happy in the old Defendi casa.
Hmmm. Anything else?
Oh! I found out that Costco has about the best printing prices I?ve ever seen (for single posters). Their photo department will print a 20x30 poster for 9.99. I need to get the main map printed by them in time for LTUE. I?d looked into other places, but there had been no one I could afford in the time allotted (I?m budgeted pretty tight due to travel costs and restaurants and demo disk production. I?m taking a fiction editor from WotC out to lunch, probably on the first day.)
Okay. I think that?s it. Unless one of the play testers tell me I?ve forgotten something.