The Blog Has Moved...

I'm moving the blog off of Blogspot. I haven't had any problems here, but Blogger has a really poor selection of apps for the iPad (where I create 90% of my posts). The Blogger app from Google is lame, and Blogsy, the strange but workable app I've been using went under this week. (Even Google's Blogger has vanished from the app store in the last few days).

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, I've moved things back to Wordpress, but this time on their servers. I've been quite happy using the Wordpress app for my family blogs, and it's great to have everything back under one roof. So hopefully I'll be posting with just a bit more frequency than my recent lame rate. :)

The new address is: https://purplesorcerer.wordpress.com

The Carnival of the Damned Now Available!

At long, long, long last, I'm thrilled to announce the availability of David Baity's The Carnival of the Damned in both print and PDF!

David has created something special: polished at conventions like Gary Con and Dragon Con, the adventure sports 143 digest-sized pages of clown-filled creepiness that can be used for DCC tournament play, as source material for many standard funnels, or as a massive pool of nightmare encounters that can be unleashed individually on any old-school campaign.

Featuring an awesome Doug Kovacs cover, the adventure is filled with incredible art from Simon Todd, Stan Reed, Danny Prescott, and Todd McGowan. I think you'll love the look.

In addition to the main book, a separate printable appendix is filled with goodies including every pic from the adventure in easily printable form to use as handouts, patron spells, and paper miniatures.

Pick up a copy today from RPGNow, or the Purple Sorcerer Games Store! We truly appreciate your support.

 

Black Friday Weekend Sale

This afternoon I noticed a very nice burst of sales, and couldn't figure out why... turns our there is a 25% off sale at RPGNow, and my stuff is included! So take advantage of great prices on many different DCC titles while the sale lasts. :)

See the deals at RPGNow

You can of course also purchase Purple Sorcerer Adventures at the sale prices through The Purple Sorcerer Store.

Happy News

Hey Crawlers!

A couple happy bits of news to share: first, I'm beginning to recover from the effects of the bell's palsy. I can blink my left eye, and I'm starting to get some movement in both my eyebrow and the left side of my mouth. I'm thrilled that such good signs are appearing less than two weeks after all this weirdness started. :)

Secondly, The Carnival of the Damned has been approved by the Dark Master, and I'll be starting the print proof process this weekend. With luck, the print version and PDF will be available within 2 weeks. (As always, with print items you learn to expect the unexpected, and each round of proofs adds 10-14 days to the process. But I'm feeling lucky!)

Take care everyone.

A bit more quiet I'm afraid...

Earlier in the week, after a morning believing I was experiencing an allergic reaction, I suddenly realized the left side of my face was sagging, and I could no longer close my left eye. After eight hours in the hospital, two MRI's and many additional tests, in the main it seems I've been struck with Bell's Palsy, and as a result, the left half of my face is completely paralyzed: I can't close my eye, expressions are strange, and eating and drinking are a grand adventure. :)

There's no way to know how long this will last. For most, the effects fade within a month, but can reoccur occasionally throughout life. The gentleman across the hall from me in the hospital has dealt with his for 71 years. I'm surrounding by a loving family and an understanding employer, and I'm beginning to adjust just fine. But reading and editing and doing work is challenging. (I picked up an eye patch today, which is a huge help, but using touch-devices is now a bit of a hunting and pecking adventure.)

I'm sure I'll get back in the swing of things shortly, but on top of the other physical challenges I'm dealing with, I imagine progress will be slow. Thanks to everyone for your understanding.

Take care,

Jon

 

All quiet...

I apologize for the silence of late: health issues continue to slow things to a crawl. Using a mouse in particular has been a challenge. Cursed little blighter! ;)

I've switched to a new arthritis med, but these things take a while to get revved up: it will likely be another six weeks before any improvement is expected. For the third time, fingers crossed.

The Carnival of the Damned is just a good days or two away from completion.

As always, thanks to all for your support,

Recent Tool Updates

Here's a roundup of recent small updates to the DCC Tools:

1) The cover sheet image for the Sorcerer's Grimoire has been 'inverted' so you can print out a cover sheet using much less ink. (And I'm working on adding additional images.)

2) I've added Terry Olson's Tatterdermalion's Tampering super-funky dice methods found in this year's Goodman Games GenCon Guide to the zero and upper level character generator dice-methods, and his 'Emerikol' rolling method to the Mercurial Magic Generator and the Sorcerer's Grimoire. (Which makes it much less likely to roll a 'no mercurial magic' result.)

3) New occupation sources for the character generators include Mark Hunt's Drongo, Zine lists for Black Powder and Black Magic and Crawling Under a Broken Moon, and Andrew Trents Food-Suin list. (Which are now described in the new occupation list description page linked from the character generator pages.)

Happy crawling everyone!

 

Carnival of the Damned

Just wanted to let everyone know that David Baity's Carnival of the Damned is still amazing! We'd hoped to have things wrapped up by this point, and any and all delays have been directly related to my poor health over the last few months. David's text is complete and edited, there's only a couple pieces of art to polish off, and I'm in the process of creating the first proof to go out to my loyal army of readers.

Thanks to everyone that has expressed excitement over its release, and we hope to have it in your peasant-crushing hands as soon as possible. :)

Jon

Occupation List Descriptions

I've added links from the 0-Level and Upper Level character generators to a new page with descriptions of the various occupation lists that are available. A number of folks have requested this over the years. :) 

Occupation List Descriptions

Christmas in July Sale

All Purple Sorcerer Adventures are 25% off through July 30th in both the Purple Sorcerer Store, and at RPGNow!

A host of DCC titles from Goodman Games, Purple Duck, Thick Skulls and more are also on sale at RPGNow.

 

Blasted Clerics and their Healing Sorcery!

I'll be going in tomorrow to have surgery to blast away some kidney stones. I'll likely be out of action for a few days and unlikely to reply to any queries during my recovery. :)

Before dropping off the grid, I've added a checkbox on the 0-Level generator so you can create blank versions of any of the 4-character and tourney style options. I've also fixed a few minor irregularities in both the 0-Level Party Generator and the Sorcerer's Grimoire. As always, if you every see anything that doesn't look right, let me know.
Take care everyone.

Updated Character Generators

In in the closing moments of what will surely become known as The Great Kidney Stone Explosion of Mighty Tools 2015, I'm pleased to announce the release of new versions of the Zero and Upper Level Generators with some very cool new features:

Tourney Character Sheets are now integrated into the 0-Level Party Generator

Just select from a growing list of tourney styles in the style/format drop-down, and the generator will create 0-level characters in the '1 serf per page' tourney style. I've done some minor graphic work so all the tourney sheets have been touched up with their own individual flair.

Create Multiple Characters in a single PDF

Yes, you can now create multiple characters in PDF format with a single click! For weary judges looking to assemble a stack of standard 4-character or tourney sheets, you can create up to 50 character sheets at a time. In testing, I believe these 50 page PDF's are actually easier on the server than creating dozens of individual sheets, and a 50 page sheet is scarcely larger than a solo sheet since the background graphic (the main file-size contributor) is embedded a single time for all the sheets. Give it a whirl!

Streamlined code makes it easier to add specialty features

For example, John Carr requested an occupation list that would start each character with zero beginning funds. Previously this would have involved updating codes in lots of different places, but the recent code streamlining simplifies processes like this considerably. It's also much easier to add new occupation/equipment lists: it's basically as easy as dropping the new files onto the server, so expect a number of new lists in the future! :)

Continuing Support

As this Kidney Stone Marathon has gone on, I've been reminded how much I enjoy working on these tools. But it's your support that makes them available to the community, paying for hosting and publishing costs, as well as helping to purchase new devices and tools to both test and develop the utilities.

With no formal pledge drive this year, this will be my final call until 2016: If you feel inclined to support the free tools, any and all donations will be warmly received.

http://purplesorcerer.com/support.php

I truly appreciate and thank everyone who has supported, and continues to support, Purple Sorcerer Games!

 

New Web Tools

While battling a kidney stone of late, I've hurt a bit too much to sleep, but have had a clear enough head to get in a little coding. So I whipped up web versions of the Mercurial Magic, Demon, and Dragon generators. My pain is your gain! ;)

So here are the newest web tools:

• The Dragon Generator
• The Demon Generator
• Mercurial Magic Generator

One final reminder
Even though we raised enough last year that I'm not doing an official fund raiser for 2015, if you feel inclined to continue supporting the free tools, any and all donations will be warmly received. Thanks to everyone who continues to support Purple Sorcerer Games.

 

Happy Happy Fun Fun

If you've tried to contact me in the last stretch without success, I apologize: It's happy fun fun kidney stone time! I deal with small painful stones fairly frequently, but this is shaping up to be a stone of the "please let me die" variety, and outside of writhing in agony I tend to not get much accomplished. ;)

I had a similar stone 4 years ago and it required surgery: we'll find out tomorrow morning after my cat scan if we need to do so again. Until it's resolved things will be quiet in Purple Sorcerer Land. Take care everyone.

Tools Year in Review

Last summer we had a very successful yearly Purple Sorcerer Tools Fundraiser. I can't tell everyone how much I appreciated not having to worry about hosting or app store publishing costs over the last 12 months: my health has impacted the family finances and your kind support truly helped! Thank you.

And despite the challenges, I'm pleased we managed to make some nice progress on the tools front in the last year:

• Launched the Sorcerer's Grimoire spellbook creation utility (the #1 requested item from last year's donor poll)
• Added Mercurial Magic to the upcoming Crawler's Companion update (A stand-alone web version of the MM generator will be arriving shortly.)
• Posted numerous updates to the Character and Tourney Generators. (The Tourney Generator will be receiving its own page so you will be able to easily select from the growing list of tourney style adventures out there.)

It's so gratifying to see sheets from the tools showing up almost every day in pics from DCC events around the world. The 0-Level party generator is quietly counting up every sheet, and at some point in the not too distant future the one-millionth serf will roll off the line, complete with a special Willy Wonka style golden character sheet. :)

Continuing Support

Finally, even though we raised enough last year that I'm not doing an official fund raiser for 2015, if you feel inclined to continue supporting the free tools, any and all donations will be warmly received! Every $350 raised covers an additional year of hosting/store costs, and there's always another development tool/gizmo/subscription to swallow up additional funds. Thanks again to everyone who continues to support Purple Sorcerer Games!

 

Sorcerer's Grimoire Updates

I've updated the Sorcerer's Grimoire with all of the missing spells I could detect, as well as fixed a bug where cover sheets weren't being added to non-random grimoires.

Check it out: we should be close to pulling the beta tag off the thing. ;)

Sorcerer's Grimoire

Crawler's Companion version 1.5 Android Beta

For Android users comfortable side-loading their apps and walking on the wild-side, the version 1.5 beta of the Crawler's Companion is now available.

Updates include:

• Mercurial Magic Generators
• Online user data access removed, replaced by a simple copy paste system
• Four new dice colors
• Numerous bug fixes and graphical glitches resolved

As with all betas, proceed with caution. It should be as stable as previous versions, but updates have been known to erase existing app data like favorite spells and spell caster settings. If this happens to you, let me know. :)

The beta APK can be downloaded on the crawler beta page.

The State of Things

In my pre-arthritis/neuropathy days I usually put in 25-30 hours or so a week working on Purple Sorcerer stuff, spread across the website, adventures, tools, and social media. And I enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, a total of 25-30 hours of solid work in a week is now often a bit of a stretch. ;)

And though my capacity has diminished, my commitments have not. As a result, I've been researching task-management strategies to try and squeeze out as much productivity with the hours/strength I have. My initial evaluation of all outstanding tasks has made it abundantly clear that too many things are stacked up, making it particularly troublesome to deal with emotionally nasty things like the recent blog security problem that popped up out of nowhere. Things I can't effectively manage need to be set aside, so here's my high-altitude view of how things will be changing:

Adventures

No changes. I'm actually hoping that streamlining other areas will speed up my work here. I've got a nice stream of upcoming titles, and I love publishing new stuff!

Website

I currently have the Purple Sorcerer site, the blog, my Facebook page, my twitter account, a storefront, two store back ends, RPGNow, and my presence on Google+. I'm thinking there just might be something I can streamline in this mix. ;)

The insecure Wordpress blog on my site is gone, moved to Blogger. I'll let you know what else I decide to axe. :)

Web Tools

I don't see many changes here. The generators and Grimoire are easy to update, and I can even do lots of the work from my iPad. I'll probably be a bit slower about adding occupation lists and specialty character sheets, but I've already scheduled time to evaluate what the next tool will be once I'm caught up with all the planned updates for existing tools.

The Crawler's Companion

I've made no secret how deeply I loathe publishing to the Apple App Store: it literally gives me heart-burn, and updating the app in 3 different Android stores and on the web is no small endeavor. I've decided that the next update to the Crawler will be the last to add new features. Of course, the app already has more gizmos than I ever envisioned, and I will keep my eyes open and jump into the breach if a future iOS or Android update breaks the app. But as far as new features go, we're reaching the final stop.

Because the user party/encounter system used the old blog as its authentication system, I'm replacing it with a much simpler copy/paste method that doesn't require any outside data storage/access. Maintaining the database is just too big a cloud to have hanging over me at the moment, and the change will in part future-proof the app as a stand alone tool.

Can you do this...?

I'll continue to be happy to hear everyone's bug reports and ideas about what they'd like to see, but for the foreseeable future my plate is full and most new stuff/requests will have to wait until my current queue is empty.

Summing Up

I wish I had the verve I once had... I really do. I love communicating with everyone, and the interactions I've had wearing my Purple Sorcerer hat have truly eased the burden of this rotten health stretch. But I look forward to moving the crystal ball forward for years to come... only a bit slower and with a slightly more realistic scrying range. ;)

As always, thanks to everyone for your amazing support.

 

Crawler Data

I've made the difficult decision that the current method of accessing user party and encounter data will not be coming back. My health has limited my productive 'extra hours', and the worries of maintaining a database of 3rd party data that needs to be up 24/7 is a bit too much at this point. I'll be making updates to the Crawler and site to revert to a simple copy/paste method of letting folks streamline their encounters.

I'm bummed because building the current system required many, many hours, and I'm sad to see it go. But reality bites. :)

I'll provide more details about the new method as it develops.

As always, thanks to everyone for your support.

Crawler User Party/Encounter Data Not Available

Unfortunately, because of the Wordpress database issues I had last night, I've had to shut down all DB access on my server. Outside of the news, most folks won't notice a difference, save for the plucky few who are using the user party/encounter data in the Crawler's Companion. I'm so sorry such data is currently not available, and I'm not sure when that functionality will be restored. :(