Writing for Writing Sake: Thinking of the Next Year

In the coming year these are the things I want to do with this blog:

• Complete the Asmor's Instant Dungeon series through 30th level.
• Create some more pre-generated characters from levels 1 to 30. (This will probably wait until Wotc finishes it's Character Builder application).
  
• Create actual test dungeons to run the Pre-gen's through.
  
• Improve my mapping Mojo so that I can produce maps efficiently and with a level of acceptable quality.
  
• Post NPC's with Stat blocks for 4E (that's kinda like the point of this site).
  
• Possibly explore NPC's of other systems (Traveller, Pathfinder, Dogs in the Vineyards, Call of Cthulthu) when I need a change of pace.
  

Enjoy what ever hollidays you care to enjoy,

Snork
--
Snorkey: Collating Links, though handy, does not an origional artical make.

Writing for the Sake of Writing

This is one of those times, A Sunday morning waiting for 4 step grand children to arrive, that I find my self stuck in my game writing. I will, more likely than not, as I already have so far this morning, spend it NOT WRITING.

I had the same problem on my "Snow day Friday", I took the day off from work and spend it NOT WORKING. Not Working is different from a day off, where I actually get stuff done. It is a day in which I get buzzed every 5 minutes by emails asking questions, or at least making statements that I feel the need to respond to. There were a large number of things I could have done during the hours between emails and meetings, but none of them were.

In the past I used to think that I needed large 8-16 hour blocks of time to work upon my games or blog, but In the last year I discovered that even as little as 5 minutes is enough to get something started (and possibly even finished).

So what do I want, both now and in the coming year:
1. Run my first 4E game: my Thursday group is currently world building using the Dawn of Worlds rule system to build a collaborative world. I want everyone to have a positive experience with 4E (though 2 of the players have strong opinions against 4E, they are willing to try).
2. Regular Posting: I started this blog to help my writing and help me improve my greatest GM weakness: NPC's. I also wanted to give something back to the gaming community. (I also wanted fame and fortune but I didn't really expect that to happen).

So my vow, starting now, is to:
1. Not NOT DO SOMETHING, either I am doing the thing or I am not. So If I am Writing, then I write. Mapping, then map. Programming, then program.
2. No regrets: I will enjoy what I do when I need to do it. I will try and jettison the Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
3. Schedule a time for writing. I find that at 4am to 7am is my most creative time, I think that I will go back to setting my alarm an hour earlier to help facilitate this.
4. When in doubt read. I have a habit of buying gaming books and never reading them, so it is back to the rule of Read 2 before I buy 1. This should keep me busy for the next 5 years.
5. Be happy: I set this rule for my self when I was 16 (too many decades ago), and have had a generally positive experience with it.

Snork
--
Snorkey: is not, not writing this post.

The Obligitory Excuse Post V00000000000003

I am placing "The Party of Six" character pregens on hold for a week as I am traveling on business.
I will try to post something vaguely interesting during this week but who knows.
I hope to pick the series back up Sept 1.

Thanks,
Snork

The Obligitory Excuse Post V00000000000001

Last night was setting up to be an excellent evening: I had a nice 4 hour block in which to write posts ahead for this blog. This kind of event doesn’t happen to terribly often, but it is not entirely a novelty.

So instead of turning on the music and digging in I decided to catch up on Gnome Stew where I found this very nice article “Making Challenges That Players Love To Beat”. This lead the ChattyDM’s article on “Mining Tropes For RPG Goodness: You Bastard” (I’m a sucker for any article that mentions BSG’s Gaius Baltar). Therein I found the link of “Ultimate Time Vacuuming” which led to my doom: TV Trops.org.

When I next looked at the clock it was 4 hours latter and I had spent the entire evening wiki’ng my life away.

So I decided to subscribe to a Blogging trope: The Excuse post.

Snork

--

Snorkey: wiki’s are Eeeevvvviiiillllllllllllll goodness.

The One Month Mark

WhooHoo! Today I am celebrating one month of postings to this blog. I know that you, the hypothetical reader cares only slightly less than I do, but given my previous track record of 12 posts in over 2 years: I see this achievement as more of a personal victory over my own procrastination than anything else.

The Future
In 18 days is the release of D&D 4th edition, to which I hope to post a review that first day. I also plan to post several NPC (with 4th ed stat blocks) shortly thereafter. It is my intention to make use of the generic base npc templates for quick characterization and plot incorporation.

Shortly I will to make several posts on a couple world ideas that I hope would be useful as starting points for peoples' new 4th edition games. They include:
Timeless
Clock world
Incarnate
Faithless
Fractured

All of the worlds will reflect the new "points of light" theme of 4th ed but will otherwise be system neutral.

I also plan to post some more generic NPC and Plots that are instances of the Base NPC's but are more tied to a setting. As well as additional suggestions on how to use the Base NPC and plots in writing and game design.

That is all for now.
Thanks for reading,

Snork
--
Snorkey: needs to create some more random generators

D&D 4th Edition Announced

This weekend at GenCon, WOTC announced that they would be releasing D&D 4th edition in May, June, July of 2008.
I was a bit surprised by this: I figured that they would wait until the release date was a bit closer so that they would not create an impression of "Obsolescence" for any and all upcoming releases.

I personally look forward to the new release with the hope that it will make NPC generation a less daunting task. I especially look forward to the online tools and "portrait" generation. (though I fear that they may be a bit to clunkey or archane to use). The price tag of $120 a year for DNDInsider (some day this link will actually go somewhere besides the home WOTC home page) seems a might bit steep, though I have spent more on RPG software that I don't use.

For the most part I feel that most of the books that I own would still be usefull for concepts, though the rules heavy books and spell book will be the first ones that are Obsoleted.

Now, to get on a regular schedule of NPC posting.

Snork
--
Snorkey: There are clouds on the horizon, a change is coming.