September Update and Future Plans

Hey everyone,

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be running 3 No Man's Land events at Gamer Conclave at the end of September.  I'll be running an open event Friday and Saturday evening, and Sunday afternoon I'll be running NML08.  I'll even have some prizes supplied from PEG (Savage Worlds Publisher), which is awesome.  Hope to see some of you there.  I'm not sure about any conventions in October or November yet.

I've made a few tweaks to the main book.  Some of it is additional lore or minor changes (such as a history of Halfling's name as a race, or how the government around Skyholm operates), but the biggest one is after playtesting the updated PEG Shaken rules change, I'll be using the updated rules effective immediately.

As characters begin to head towards Seasoned, I'll probably start adding a few more advanced things in the book for Seasoned and Veteran.  I want my edges, powers, and creatures to not only offer interesting options, but also help build the world and it's unique setting, so I hope to introduce a few interesting fighting styles, special training edges, and magic edges and powers.  I'm even open to submissions from the outside if there's something you're angling for.

Thanks to an ambitious player turned writer, I'll end the year with at least 13 modules.  I'm excited and looking forward to not only writing more modules and world info, but encouraging more players to get into writing and helping me build a fun world to explore and enjoy.  I'm glad players are having fun with the adventures and if I inspire someone to write something, then that's awesome.

- Tim

Next Con: Gamer Clonclave (September 29-October 1)

I just submitted events to run at Gamer Conclave on Saturday night and all Sunday.  NML08 will make it's public premier there, and I'll be running two other open games.

Gen Con Wrap Up

Gen Con was an amazing experience.  I felt No Man's Land was well received by players, and I hopefully snagged a few new followers, as well as made some new friends. I also had a talk with Pinnacle that may lead to some exciting news, but I'll leave you just with that tease for now.

One major but minor change I've made in light of the con is the Orc race has been renamed the Orcan race.  I was already using Orcan as part of racial ownership, and it makes sense to separate my Orcans from the more common fantasy Orcs that they have nothing in common with.  Beyond that, I made a minor change to remove a few Fantasy Companion edge descriptions comply with the Fan License after a clarification from Pinnacle.

I've got some stuff on paper for NML08 already, and I hope to finish the year with a total of 13 NML adventures at minimum. Possibly more, depending on how creative my other write and I get.

No news yet on my next public con appearance.  However, after Labor Day Weekend I plan on creating a chart listing all players, their character, and what modules they've played in so they can reference that here when registering for a con.  Know a Con I may enjoy attending?  Message me and let me know.

- Tim

Gen Con Ho!

Having just wrapped up generating new templates (I'll have 34 unique templates to choose from if you don't want to make your own character), rule change notifications, and the crafting sheet (complete with crafting chart), I've got everything printed and ready for Gen Con next week.  I did find a few minor errors in the book after I ran the printings, but nothing major, just a few typos, missing word or two, and the like.  The PDF is up to date with those changes, but it's not worth a reprint to fix anything specific.

Excited to craft stuff?  The table will make an appearance in the book soon enough, but for now it's on the crafting sheets where anyone who needs it can see it.  My general hope is that Crafting will be something interesting enough that it's worth doing for some, but not so powerful in that everyone will need to do it. To that end, keep in mind that crafting exceptional items will not be cheap, nor will it be easy, and even a dedicated craftsman will only be able to benefit from so many items.  This may spur on a player based economy where craftsmen sell items to other players, which would be cool  But don't worry, there will be other ways to get cool items too.

This will be my last update before Gen Con.  Looking forward to seeing everyone there.
- Tim

Final update before Gen Con

I am happy to say I have put in my final major edit prior to gen con.  There's lots of stuff, including changes based off of feedback. but here's the highlights:

• All NML major setting rules spelled out.  Healing, skill rolls, and a few other classifications are now all details in the book.  I'm sure I'll end up adding more as I come across them, but putting them in one place means there's a reference on rulings.
• A few major skill updates. 
•  Throw has been merged into Shooting (which should be called Ranged, but I don't want to be any more confusing than this already is).  Any existing character with Throwing may re-spend those skill points/advancements elsewhere. There weren't many of them. 
• Lockpicking has been expanded into Skullduggery.  This encompasses not only lockpicking, but pick pockets, palming, disarm traps, and other such manual dexterity skills.  No skill changes required, and all other references to Lockpicking effect Skullduggery.
• A minor adjustment to magic that allows most mages to gain a power when they gain a rank.
• A bunch of QOL updates to make the manual easier to read and more useful, such as edge descriptions in the tables.
• Refinement on Crafting (Crafting Tables will be added to reference sheets by Gen Con)

It's been a lot of work, but the book looks nice, and shouldn't need any major rules updates for a while (though there could easily be some background/world updates coming soon).

I've turned off the mobile site so mobile viewers can also see the campaign document.  As always, it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/NMLCampaign.

Looking forward to seeing some old and new faces at Gen Con,
- Tim

Major Campaign Doc Update

As I spelled out earlier this month, I wanted to do some major updates to the No Man's Land document. And I have completed a large number of them, including a few I know some players have been waiting for.

• I've implemented a crafting system for people to craft items.  I still need to build the table of what will be allowed based on skill and rank, but know that unskilled crafters can still save money crafting some basic items, while a highly skilled craftsman will eventually be able to craft high quality equipment.  Not a crafter?  Well, if you befriend one, maybe they'll make you something.  It should balance putting the skill points into the skill without making it a skill everyone needs to have.  There may even be some crafting edges down the line.
• I've added a few items that were requested.  Some, such as the Gnome Bow and Halfling Recurve Bow are also now detailed in the equipment section, while others were just added to the list.  The idea is to give players some interesting options.
• Added descriptions to all the hindrances and edges so you can get an idea of what they do at a glance.  I trimmed the lists a bit, limited one hindrance to Half-Elves, and added a Natural Linguist edge for those who wish to learn more languages easily. None of these changes should have effected any current character.
• Detailed how to buy off hindrances and what hindrances can be bought off.  Nothing surprising here, but it turns something that could be a bit ambiguous into something pretty straight forward.
• Added a more comprehensive list of campaign rules.  Some of them are simply affirmations of current rules, some address FAQs or addendum Savage Worlds Deluxe has made, and some are my campaign's spin on the rules.  Let's face it, too many rules can hurt a game, but I want to make sure NML games are as consistently run as possible.

So far, that's 7 new pages of information I've added to the document.  And I have a few more to go, as I need to create the Crafting charts for Novice craftsmen, as well as start on some Seasoned crafting options.  I'm also working on fixing any editing errors I've found in the document.  I'll admit, that's been slow going simply because it's hard to accurately edit your own writing for most people.

I hope everyone's excited about what's coming to No Man's Land, and I look forward to writing and bringing more of it to everyone.

- Tim

Gen Con impending and the future.

With Gen Con about a month away, I have some work ahead of me.  I need to revise any issues I've  found in the previous modules, which I just completed this weekend, and I need to revamp the book to make it a bit easier to use.

The Modules: At Gen Con, I now have module 1-6 correctly scheduled, as well as an open spot where I could run 7. I have module 8 in the works (a fun little concept module called Hush), my festival to plan (which may turn into 9 or 10), and a few other ideas for advancing the story. I may even have modules written by people other than myself eventually.  One can hope.

The Campaign Book: The book, as is, is good, functional, and has lots of interesting information.  I'd like to add a section that summarizes the campaign rules and changes, or at least points out where to find already existing explanations.  I also need to add a description to each edge and hindrance as they were originally removed in order to not cause any license issues.  As a licensed fan publication, I can now put the descriptions in the tables, making them a bit more useful to reference for people who aren't familiar with them.

I want to thank all my players and friends who have encouraged this.  The positive feedback I've gotten from this campaign has kept me driven to continue to expand it.  And while I can't promise that everything is perfectly balanced, perfectly edited, or even run perfectly (everyone reads the rules differently, I try to be consistent when I can), what I can promise is that I'll do my best to make the game interesting and entertaining.

- Tim