I know it has been a little quiet here on the Outer Dark this past week. I have been taking a break from writing and blogging as I try to decide what my next move is. Just to keep everyone in the loop, here are a few things I have been working on, and things I might be working on soon...
I made a minor change to the blog graphics this afternoon and put the header Dave Carson designed for me back in place. Dave is a great artist and an all around cool guy. I feel privileged that he has allowed me to use a few of his images here on my tiny corner of the 'net. If I haven't said it enough, thanks Dave!
I have taken the Zazzle storefront widget down for the time being. It is not fair of me to ask folks to help in a fund raising effort when I cannot say for sure where those funds will be allocated. Once I have a clear direction for myself I may open the storefront once again. For those that took the plunge and bought some items, I appreciate it more than I can ever convey.
So, what is my plan now? I have decided to take a piece of advice I gave Il Male™ when he was wrestling with whether or not to release his project for a specific set of rules, or to keep things generic enough that they can be used with any game system. I have decided that I will mainly be focusing on system-neutral material and I am out of the retro-clone business, at least for right now. I have a setting and several adventures that have been simmering for a couple of years now that need to see fruition, and I have been pulling together campaign notes preparing to find a way to present them in a cohesive manner. I have a few games that have my attention right now (OpenQuest, vs. Monsters, Mini Six and Call of Cthulhu), and I am not prepared to commit to just one to focus this project on. Once I have a better idea how all this will develop I may decide to use a specific system. I am not sure yet. In the interim I am calling this Project Star-Spore. Lets just leave it at that, shall we? ;-)
A smaller project I already have in the works is a spin-off game from vs. Monsters called vs. Sorcerers. As you can probably guess this will allow you to use the vsM Engine to run a sword & sorcery game. It is a very rules lite game, but that is exactly what I like about it. Being such a bare bones system allows for infinite expandability. The System Reference Document for vsM is only around sixteen pages, and the page count for vs. Sorcerers should not be much more. And before anyone complains, I will be offering optional rules to use dice in place of cards for the resolution mechanic. I will be using public domain art, in the same vein that vs. Monsters was released, and I have a specific artist in mind that is perfect for my needs. I think it will be a very cool little game when it is all said and done.
On a side note, Bat from Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets is also working on a vs. Monsters project. On top of that he is also putting together a Mini Six book. It looks like both projects will take the spells, monsters and magical items he has been obsessively blogging about these past couple of years and pull them all together to form a campaign guide for each respective game. I find this very interesting, especially given that his blog is focused more toward old-school D&D. Personally, I love the direction he has decided to take and I can't wait to see the fruits of his labor.
Another project I would like to launch soon is a sister blog to this one that allows me to explore some areas I am interested in beyond the Sword & Sanity concept. This could include: music and book reviews; discussion of philosophy, personal beliefs and politics; as well as present other roleplaying project that are outside of the scope of Swords Against the Outer Dark. Really anything I want. This may or may not see the light of day, depending mainly on time. Time will tell...
I don't want to spread myself too thin, so that is about it for now. Before I forget to mention it, I picked up a few more followers this week, which puts me over the 200 followers threshold. This is a great milestone for this blog, and I appreciate everyone's patronage. I also appreciate the patience and support I have received this past week. Thanks for hanging in there with me guys!
5 comments:
Do what you feel is right, Shane. We'll all benefit from the content you put out regardless of whether it's game-specific or system-neutral. Just don't stop, amigo!
Shane, I certainly can understand the project woes. I've been pecking at my adventure Sinister Sightings at Dustchapel Downs since 2006! I had originally intended it as an OSRIC release but went undecided. I've finally just commited my self into getting SOMETHING out there and then see how it goes. I really want to have at least one project finished this year. Hopefully that will give me the sense of completion and closure I need to move on with the rest. At any rate, I'm looking forward to however you decide to proceed!
Hope you'll find your way. However, I have no doubts about the fact that Swords & Sanity will be a pretty cool resource, despite being playtested or not.
*obsessively*
:)
And I will do everything that I can for Shane's projects and mine to mesh together. For .vs Monsters I want to keep the dark, bleak atmosphere of the original, so I am cutting out all of my gonzo material or mutating it so that you still don't want to run into it. Playtesting the different mechanics seems to be the most time consuming bit as, ironically for someone who writes a game mechanic every day, sometimes the ideas in my head sounds better to me than they do after they escape.
Of course I wish Shane all of the best because I will be conspiring with him.
System neutral sounds like the smart way to go if that's what let's you keep on chugging.
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