Post by Timeon on Apr 13, 2016 21:19:10 GMT
Eclipse ended many months ago. Now Pathfinder is over. Grit and Glamour, the new Changeling the Lost campaign, rises to take its place. And rightfully so.
My fingers, however, itch to write something. My thesis has been a monumental effort. Though it's capped at 24 pages or so with an 11 Arial font (about 13,000 words) I ended up writing about six times that amount overall - I just had to start over again plenty of times. Now my thesis is almost done, and will officially be completed in 12 days. With my education out of the way, I'll return to Malta and probably be more or less chilled for a while, with or without a job. I will have plenty of creative energy, at least.
Changeling the Lost will use a lot of my creative energy. But I want to use the rest of it. Before my thesis cropped up, I was going to do an Eclipse sequel - but then the thesis happened. So I did not have any time to be creative anyway. And now that's changed.
I will definitely continue Piero dala Vachio's story with renewed ideas and passion, too.
-
What I learned GMing Great War, creating Shatterbridge collaboratively and writing for it, playing Pathfinder and then writing for Eclipse, as well as Utmost Land and a few other experimental side projects:
The best way to get a creative project off the ground and see it to the finish line is that everyone needs to be more or less equally invested in it for best results.
Great War was successful because: Familiar setting allowed quick investment and ease of access.
Eclipse was successful because: The unit creation was incredibly interactive and the constant use of maps and room for tactics also provided immediate reward for what was a low amount of effort on the part of the players. Eclipse had certain faults, like the setting being difficult to get into for those who hadn't written for it before, and there was a sense of inevitability surrounding the fact that the final confrontation was more likely to go down in the throneroom of Radiance.
Pathfinder's main strength was the solid friendship that was its core. It required a massive investment of time, but it wasn't really a problem to ask that of people because we wanted to hang out with each other and play with each other. So we now have that asset. But Pathfinder was also a creative project we all invested in from the beginning. We made the setting together. Even Mike got to define the south of the God's Teeth and his character's religion, and none of us could imagine Sa Vard now without Solarin, Keshan, the Gnomish Colonies and Turnia. (And for my part, Charlie's Atarite state-in-exile of Sanctuary)
-
Therefore, my aim with this new hypothetical writing project is for us to define it together. A major mistake I made when trying to plan an Eclipse sequel was that I had too rigidly defined an idea for what I wanted to do, personally. I think that was an overall limitation for Eclipse from its inception. There was too much me in it, not enough everyone else.
So, let's toss ideas about.
One idea I had was that the Pathfinder sequel I'd like to see happen could be a Forum RPG, but Zula was not in favour of the idea, preferring for us to wait until after Changeling for that. That was, after all, the original plan. And I am fine with this.
I'd like to see a setting taking a lot of inspiration from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura. This is a setting I've introduced Mario to, and he became a fan. Devius already played this game and shares my love of it. The central idea to it is that an industrial revolution has changed the face of an otherwise typical fantasy world. But it has changed it drastically. Victorian-era style Gnomes run a steampunk republic known as Tarant, with orcs slaving away in terrible conditions in factories for a pseudo-London. In the south, the Kingdom of Cumbria was once a shining beacon of feudalism and chivalry. Now its capital, Dernholm is a decaying mess after a war between Cumbria and Tarant. In the war, the shining Hussar-esque Knights of Cumbria rode proudly, undefeated, against the gunpowder battle-lines of Tarant. The result was predictable. In Arcanum, exposure to technology makes magic flutter out and die. The Knights of Cumbria was massacred. Very much the End of the Age of Chivalry. But it limps on. Here's the wiki. The Gnomes of Sa Vard are eerily similar to Arcanum's Gnomes. Rolstein's portrait is taken straight from Arcanum.
This is the atmosphere I'd enjoy going for. Admittedly, it's the atmosphere I'd use in a Pathfinder sequel, in which an industrial revolution is beginning, the rules of magic are changed in an unexplained crisis and colonialism is kicking into full swing.
All of these ideas could be combined, and could also be combined with Kerrah's idea of a frontier exploration shindig. And in turn combined with other people's prior concepts. The idea is, what do you think would be cool? Then we mash it together in a way that makes everyone happy.
My fingers, however, itch to write something. My thesis has been a monumental effort. Though it's capped at 24 pages or so with an 11 Arial font (about 13,000 words) I ended up writing about six times that amount overall - I just had to start over again plenty of times. Now my thesis is almost done, and will officially be completed in 12 days. With my education out of the way, I'll return to Malta and probably be more or less chilled for a while, with or without a job. I will have plenty of creative energy, at least.
Changeling the Lost will use a lot of my creative energy. But I want to use the rest of it. Before my thesis cropped up, I was going to do an Eclipse sequel - but then the thesis happened. So I did not have any time to be creative anyway. And now that's changed.
I will definitely continue Piero dala Vachio's story with renewed ideas and passion, too.
-
What I learned GMing Great War, creating Shatterbridge collaboratively and writing for it, playing Pathfinder and then writing for Eclipse, as well as Utmost Land and a few other experimental side projects:
The best way to get a creative project off the ground and see it to the finish line is that everyone needs to be more or less equally invested in it for best results.
Great War was successful because: Familiar setting allowed quick investment and ease of access.
Eclipse was successful because: The unit creation was incredibly interactive and the constant use of maps and room for tactics also provided immediate reward for what was a low amount of effort on the part of the players. Eclipse had certain faults, like the setting being difficult to get into for those who hadn't written for it before, and there was a sense of inevitability surrounding the fact that the final confrontation was more likely to go down in the throneroom of Radiance.
Pathfinder's main strength was the solid friendship that was its core. It required a massive investment of time, but it wasn't really a problem to ask that of people because we wanted to hang out with each other and play with each other. So we now have that asset. But Pathfinder was also a creative project we all invested in from the beginning. We made the setting together. Even Mike got to define the south of the God's Teeth and his character's religion, and none of us could imagine Sa Vard now without Solarin, Keshan, the Gnomish Colonies and Turnia. (And for my part, Charlie's Atarite state-in-exile of Sanctuary)
-
Therefore, my aim with this new hypothetical writing project is for us to define it together. A major mistake I made when trying to plan an Eclipse sequel was that I had too rigidly defined an idea for what I wanted to do, personally. I think that was an overall limitation for Eclipse from its inception. There was too much me in it, not enough everyone else.
So, let's toss ideas about.
One idea I had was that the Pathfinder sequel I'd like to see happen could be a Forum RPG, but Zula was not in favour of the idea, preferring for us to wait until after Changeling for that. That was, after all, the original plan. And I am fine with this.
I'd like to see a setting taking a lot of inspiration from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura. This is a setting I've introduced Mario to, and he became a fan. Devius already played this game and shares my love of it. The central idea to it is that an industrial revolution has changed the face of an otherwise typical fantasy world. But it has changed it drastically. Victorian-era style Gnomes run a steampunk republic known as Tarant, with orcs slaving away in terrible conditions in factories for a pseudo-London. In the south, the Kingdom of Cumbria was once a shining beacon of feudalism and chivalry. Now its capital, Dernholm is a decaying mess after a war between Cumbria and Tarant. In the war, the shining Hussar-esque Knights of Cumbria rode proudly, undefeated, against the gunpowder battle-lines of Tarant. The result was predictable. In Arcanum, exposure to technology makes magic flutter out and die. The Knights of Cumbria was massacred. Very much the End of the Age of Chivalry. But it limps on. Here's the wiki. The Gnomes of Sa Vard are eerily similar to Arcanum's Gnomes. Rolstein's portrait is taken straight from Arcanum.
This is the atmosphere I'd enjoy going for. Admittedly, it's the atmosphere I'd use in a Pathfinder sequel, in which an industrial revolution is beginning, the rules of magic are changed in an unexplained crisis and colonialism is kicking into full swing.
All of these ideas could be combined, and could also be combined with Kerrah's idea of a frontier exploration shindig. And in turn combined with other people's prior concepts. The idea is, what do you think would be cool? Then we mash it together in a way that makes everyone happy.