Highmoon's Ponderings

Inspired by Fred Hicks‘ many posts on the behind-the-scenes of running Evil Hat Productions, I’m gonna be taking a shot at “thinking out loud” about Highmoon Media Productions, at least from time to time. Starting now. 

Earlier this year, Bret Boyd queried me on an idea for a new series of products. These would be interesting, and sometimes quirky, locations in a world-neutral format and usable for a variety of games. I liked the idea so I told him to send me a small number of location blurbs, just to get a better grasp of what he had in mind, and what he sent totally sold me. When it came time to settle on the format of the series, we instinctively went with d20 because that’s just what we both do most. At some point, one of us mentioned the idea of going systemless, just having the products be all narrative (fluff, if you will) and letting the GM provide the stats. The reason was that, even though this conversation was taking place early this year, the scent of D&D 4th Edition could be felt in the air, even if we didn’t know what the smell was for sure. Green Ronin had already announced that their new Freeport book would be systemless with optional rules companions sold separately, admittedly in order to safeguard against a new edition announcement, and this gave us both a confirmation that the idea had merit and was worth pursuing.

Fast forward to yesterday, Nov. 1st (through no fault of Bret, for he sent all his work in months ago): the Domains of Adventure series from HMP launches with the first release, The Museum of Infamous Heroism. The main ebook release is 100% narrative elements, a series of descriptions of the location inside and out, with no stats whatsoever. In addition, we released the Rules Appendix – d20 for the Museum, which includes an area-by-area rundown of relevant stats for d20 wherever the main release alluded to a possible game mechanic (for example, adding stats for the building, describing a magical item, and the stats for the main NPC). My desire and hope is that we will be able to put out Rules Appendix for other open rules systems for each release in the series, thus widening the appeal of the product. Recently, Adamant Entertainment also launched Star System, a systemless series to support space opera-type sci-fi games, citing very much the same reasoning for the decision (though they aren’t doing rules companions of any kind, last I checked).

I’m no stranger to risky products; my “flagship” line is Targum Magazine, a periodical targetting the ancient world and supporting three campaign settings by Green Ronin, probably the epitome of a niche-within-a-niche product. I also envisioned and commissioned DaVinci Labs, a d20 Modern/Future series that was supposed to be grand and vast, and has barely done well enough to warrant the prep time that was put into it, let alone the production time, money and effort. This is all fine and dandy to me, because these are products I would have liked to buy myself, which is why I went for them and continue to support them. Domains of Adventure falls in the same category: it is a risky product, but one I would have liked to see as a consumer. Domains, however, is the biggest experiment we have done so far, and has both the potential to be the most labor-intensive one, though the most successful line we do as well.

I mean, let’s be honest here, if it fails, all we’re out is a few hours of work; there has been just a minor financial investment in the product (for the map), so it’s not like I’ll be out on the street. It’s all about the idea, though. I’m really hoping that it takes off, that customers see the benefit of a systemless product that they can adapt to their own needs, and that, to boot, comes with free rules addendum that they can use if they are using a particular system (which is why d20 will always be the default and always be available immediately upon release of a new product in the line). I’m also hoping that I can get people involved and have a fan do a Rules Appendix for a rules system I do not have yet available, like RuneQuest or True20 (even though I can’t use the trademarked brand), or even some of the indie systems, like The Shadow of Yesterday’s Solar System (fully available for free online) or FATE (though this is a bit harder since although there is a FATE 3.0 SRD taken from Spirit of the Century, there is no FATE 3.0 Core System yet to standarize how to use FATE in a fantasy setting, though it is coming). I’m a bit realistic (pessimistic?) and I know this level of fan involvement is unlikely, at the very best, though once can always find that one person who is really passionate and wants to help (very much like I found Mark Gedak).

So, here’s hoping that Domains of Adventure does well enough to warrant more releases in the series. I really would like to see that happen, not only as the publisher, but also as a fan. I hope to see fans embracing the concept and sending in Rules Appendixes for their favorite systems, including some of the indie ones, so that we can foster cross-pollination and unity.

It’s that time of the year again: my favorite month is here, Autumn is in full swing (at least somewhere other than in Miami), Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and NaNoWriMo arrives to drive me crazy with getting 50,000 words written in 30 days. Yep, it’s November.

This year, more than any other before, I feel very unready for NaNo. I have absolutely no idea, at all, of what I’ll write, and while some thrive in that, I personally like to have at least a concept to go on. I have a couple of first sentences floating about in my head, but I don’t know where any of them lead. No matter – on Nov. 1st, I will once again take part in NaNoWriMo and see where it goes. It should be a little easier this year since we won’t be traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday (for the first time in 5 years of marriage!).

As always I will chronicle my torment here, so stay tuned.

Last Thursday I went to check RPGnow.com as I normally do, and one of the new releases immediately called my attention due to the big Israeli flag on the cover. It was a d20 Modern Advanced Class from Skortched Urf Studios called Scion of Masada. I went to the publisher’s site, listened to the audio commentary (a very neat idea) and bought the product. It was just simply great: the class presented a special operative of Israel’s MOSSAD agency called Scion of Masada who, armed with very unique blades and esoteric Torah learning, could defend Israel against regular and supernatural enemies. On top of everything, the class demanded the character be an Orthodox Jew and stick to Halacha (Torah Law) lest he loose access to his abilites.

Dude, where do I sign up!

There were, however, some minor issues with the class where the abilities and description did not match with Halacha, so I sent an email to Skortched Urf’s Mark asking him if he’d mind me pointing these issues up. He didn’t, so I sent him a very detailed rundown of things that needed to be changed along with suggestions on how to implement those changes. Mark surprised me by asking me to write up the edits myself, and I worked hard overnight so I could send him the edited file early on Friday. My main objective was to simply change the little things that did not match Halacha to version of the same idea that did, because I though Chris A. Field’ idea was just brilliant. I think, in all modesty, that I achieved that goal, and already the updated file has been uplaoded to all the RPG e-tailers and sent out to all early buyers.

Thanks to Chris Field for writing such a cool class in the first place, and for making it be an Orthodox Jew specifically, and to Mark and Skortched Urf for publishing it. I am honored to have had a small part in the project. As an Orthodox Jew and a gamer, this product is dear to me and gives me something I can play at the table that fully allows me to bring in my heritage to bear.

In the end, I get to play an Orthodox Jew who gets to kick terrorist and supernatural ass in defense of Eretz Ysrael.

Argh. At the start of Week 3, and mid-point of the month, I am not quite where I should or wanted to be, though truth be told, I am not horribly behind either. Right before the stroke of Midnight, I managed to crack 23K (23,182 to be precise) but only after a really hard push since the day before. Sunday and Monday were not good writing days for a variety of reasons (those Real life things that actually do take precedence over NaNo and that there’s no way to account for) with just over 1200 words between both days. I’m about 2000 words behind right now, nothing that I can’t make up either by dividing those among all the remaining days, or with a really good writing day.

At the start of Week 3 I realize I am probably rambling a little too much. Almost at the half-point of the book, I am just barely getting to the second big point in the memoir out of 6 or 7 total. I am not worried about writing too much (if anything this assures I will not run out of stuff to write before reaching 50K) but I can already tell the Editor-Me is going to have a field day with this first draft. Still, chugging along, writing, writing, writing and leaving the editing for later on. The one good thing is that I feel my memoir technique is getting a little better. It’s a different form of writing, even if it somewhat resembles fiction, and I’m learning the rules as I go along, both from practice and from a book I’m reading, Writing Your Life: Putting your Past on Paper, by Lou Willet Stanek.

Back to writing now. At least I have some new music to help me out, but that will be another post.

Well, we have just begun week 2 of NaNo. Week 2 is described as being tedious because you lose the steam brought by the newness of NaNo, but you aren’t so far in that quitting isn’t an option. Last year I quit in week 2, but this year I will plow on.

Today I broke 13,000 words; after a very dismal word count yesterday, I came back and wrote 2753 words during the day, putting me back on track. I can’t slack off, though.

My book has taken an interesting turn.
I knew that fiction stories took on a life of their own, characters suddenly deciding to do things other than what you intended (and if you aren’t a writer, you think that sounds ludicrous), but I though a memoir was immune to that. I was wrong, it seems. Meant to be a combination religious journey/travel memoir, it seems the religious journey has taken center stage, with the travel an addendum to explain how I changed based on those trips. I’m gonna let it continue to lead me in that direction. If I need to take out all the early part about traveling that doesn’t fit with the other theme when I go over the draft then so be it.

This is very new to me, and I’m liking it.

Broke 9000 words tonight and I am beat. The words are flowing nicely, but tonight was a difficult night to write, as I had to relive very painful moments of my life to get those images from my mind onto “paper.” Still, I’m feeling very good about the book so far.