Back into it

Yeah, it’s been a few months. I’m still hard at work though ^^

I’ve finished the first draft of the first piece of StarGazer fiction, and I’m hoping to get it edited soon enough, ready for release. Work on the actual StarGazer book has slowed to a crawl thanks too this and other things, but I’m still have plenty of ideas.

In other news, Adventure 3: Trillion Credit Squadron has been released! I’m so excited by this, because I’m the one who wrote it 😀 It’s really eaten up my time, but it feel so worth it to finally have a book published by a major company. i hope you’ll all go hunting it :D.

I’m still writing, constantly, on several projects. Hopefully I’ll have more news soon enough.

So long!

I’m still here

Wow, it’s been a while since my last post.

I’ve been working hard on projects for Gorgon Press (http://gorgonpress.wordpress.com/) which has eaten up pretty much all my time that I would otherwise have devoted to putting together more of Stargazer. 

Even so, I have loads of ideas running around my head. I still want to slim down starship construction, and I have several ideas to do it with. But, it’s going to have to wait.

I’ve been starting to get my head around the setting for this thing as well, properly I mean. I have so many plans, and quite simply not enough time to work on them. The main problem is that each project for GP is around 4 weeks work, followed by a release and therefore income. Meanwhile, Stargazer is going to take at least another 6 months solid work, at least. I’m not planning on this being done before a year. Maybe I need to look into recruiting assistance…
Anyway. If anyone is still following, thank you for your patience. I will be around..

Barnes

Online articles

My wife just published her first online article, on the subject of zombie survival plans. Please take a look if you’ve got a moment:

http://expertscolumn.com/content/why-everyone-should-have-zombie-survival-plan

On the subject of Stargazer, work is steadily going ahead. Character generation is either done or almost done. Still pondering the idea of talents…Might have a look at it….

How many times can it be repeated…

A busy day with StarGazer today. Re-wrote the starship rules today, still not completely happy with them but they are better. Will probably need some more work. Still, managed to throw out two ships in under twenty minutes, which was nice.

The vehicle rules also got a bit of work, as did the character creation system. I’m pretty sure the Char Gen rules are complete, and I’m very happy with those. Lots of archetypes, simply age modifiers, basic event system, etc etc.

I still need to work on the setting, but I’m thinking of finding some players and working out the setting like that. Would be more fun, certainly.

On another note, might have another person on board to work on the project. I could do with their input on the rules, and help me stop editing.

Barnes

In other news

Gorgon Press are pleased to announce that our first product has now gone on sale. Please visit the following link to purchase ‘Ship Book: Aegis Class Scout’.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/103652/Ship-Book%3A-Aegis-Class-Scout?

Please take a look. This is a full supplement for Traveller as published by Mongoose Publishing.

Barnes

I should really get back into this

I really, really should. It’s been so long since I looked at Stargazer that I have forgotten half of my stuff. Anyway, a quick list to get me back on track:

• Finish Archetypes in the Char Gen section
• Add drones and robots. I think they will be similar to NPC’s with slightly different stats, like integral armour and such.
• Complete example vehicles and starship, making the numbers of each up too ten or so. Should give a good range to the budding StarGazer GM.
• Most importantly, write up the setting for this beast of a project.

I certainly have enough work to be going on with, but it’s not far from being in a state that I can begin to look for playtesters to tear apart my lovingly crafted work.

So yeah. It’s good to be back.

Barnes

So…

Well… I’m finally back. My exams are completed, my essays have all been handed in, and my University course is finished. So now I can go back to writing things that are interesting.

Unfortunately, the break gave me time to think about what I was doing with this book. I think my initial plans were very, very optimistic. It was going to be a long, dense book full of tables, and I have changed my mind completely about that. I am going to be cutting down the setting to either just the Diaspora period, or both the Diaspora and the collapse. In addition, I will be removing the vehicle, starship and other design rules from the book, and will instead be presenting a collection of useful items. Civillian and military vehicles, and starships which range from inter-planetary freighters to tiny recon vessels to proper warships. Because of this I can go back to using my more advanced ship design system, giving more details on vehicles and vessels…

I do want to present both the design rules and the other settings at some point… but I think they will have to wait for this one to be finished and then I can see whether I can create new books, which would admittedly be nice.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me. See you guys soon.

Barnes

Back to the start…

Well, not quite, but I am looking over Archetypes all over again. Negative events, it turns out, are not something I want. Not getting the right roll you want affecting the later game… well, that could be a bad thing. So the new event tables change out a variety of things to add in more of the way of ‘backgroundy’ events. Fancy equipment, medals, praise from city officials and anything else I can think of.

Anyway, in addition to the change in events, there will be a new section which I mentioned earlier. Talents, or whatever I will end up calling them, will effect your character in a variety of slight ways to make them more… real. So both the soldier and the Sailor archetype will have the ‘Rank’ talent, making the character a serving or retired officer. It will give the character an advantage when dealing with people of their profession… Unless I decide that it allows the character to have followers of a sort. Still not sure about that. But things like Scientists will have ‘Field Researcher’ and ‘Lab worker’, one of which makes survival outdoors easier, the other one makes theoretical and practical research earlier or something similar.

Anyway, enough for one night. Just waiting for baby to go too sleep now…

Barnes

I return!

With one essay done, and being well in control of the others, I thought I would return to this.

While most of my recent work is in my head, with thoughts and ideas rather than writing, I have had time to do a couple of small bits. I’m adding to equipment and technology, with things like skill specialised tool-kits full of useful things for certain people, and cybernetics for no good reason other than the fact that I like robotic arms. I’m also thinking of extending things out into proper robotic construction rules, as a sort of miniaturisation of the vehicle and starship construction rules.

I’m also looking into expanding the character archetypes. I’m considering a set of ‘talents’ that each archetype could have access to one of. It further specialises the archetypes, meaning that even with three or four of the same type, you get differences… I’m not sure though. One to ponder I guess…

Anyway, here’s me signing off

Barnes

University blues

It’s essay time again. I’ve got a couple of weeks to write… a silly amount of words, like 7000 or so. So, I need to really get my head down and focus. In the meantime there is going to be basically no advancement with this unfortunately. Anyway, I’ll see you on the other side of my uni work.

Barnes