Strange Goings-On

I was unable to sleep this evening, which sucks, but it did allow me to do some timely browsing: while visiting the Sorcerer Speaks I was greeted by a flurry of strange pop-ups in iOS when I clicked on the links in the right hand column: apparently good old Wordpress was hacked. (Despite having the newest version installed...)

So I've spent the last 3 hours basically rebuilding the blog up from scratch, which seems to have taken care of the problem. I'm finally off to bed, but if you notice any continuing strangeness, let me know!

I'm just not up to this sort of crap anymore. ;)

Adventure Updates

We're making excellent progress on The Carnival of the Damned! David has created an extraordinary amount of useful content, but with great word count comes great responsibility, and the sheer volume of text has required me to keep my editing nose to the grindstone. Happily, the major initial editing pass is now complete.

Now that I've poured over every word, I'm more convinced than ever that judges will find it a useful toolbox of ideas for their campaigns. Yes, there's enough content for days of tournament play, but it's trivial to carve out your favorite bits to fill whatever time window you have available. David's final task is to compile tips and tricks for utilizing the adventure in a variety of circumstance: knowledge that could only be picked up on gritty battlefields like GaryCon and DragonCon. I think judges will find the information very useful.

Finally, David has just signed up to run The Carnival at GenCon under the Purple Sorcerer banner! Now I'll have another reason to be depressed while watching all the fun in my Google+ stream. He hopes to see as many of you there as possible: the goal is to have print copies available at the event.

---

One reason I'm excited to get The Carnival of the Damned into the proofing and printing stage is that I'm itching to complete Against the Vortex Temple. The graphics, cover, and page designs are all complete; all that remains is to finish writing the darn thing! All my recent editing has fired me up to get back to writing myself. I have a good feeling that things will come together quickly.

I'm looking forward to an exciting summer!

Everyone Needs a Little Smile Now And Then...

I'm thrilled to announce that Purple Sorcerer Games will be publishing David Baity's twisted The Carnival of the Damned, a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure designed for both 'next serf up' tournament style play and as a traditional 0-level funnel!

Players who have experienced the adventure at conventions like GaryCon and DragonCon know it's packed with surreal horrors: characters find themselves trapped in a mist-shrouded carnival in the dead of night, tasked to rescue scores of village children who vanished after returning home from a magical day at a seemingly innocent carnival. Nightmares come to life as players move deeper into a mad environment ruled by a dark power, struggling to survive corrupted versions of carnival oddities like the Hall of Mirrors and Tunnel of Love.

For judges, the adventure can fill many needs: David has crafted over 30 intricately detailed encounters and dozens of random threats. There is enough content for days of tournament play, or judges can select a smaller collection of favorite dangers for a quick funnel session. For sandbox-style play, judges have the option of extracting individual encounters whenever a twisted challenge is needed. There's even a haunting backstory for those looking to integrate the adventure into an extended campaign. 

Illustrated with a host of creepy images from artists Todd McGowan, Danny Prescott, Stan Reed, and Simon Todd, the 96+ page digest-sized adventure has entered layout and final editing and should be available in print and PDF this summer. I think you'll love it!

And there's clowns. Lots and lots of clowns.

(You can learn more about the adventure, David, and tournament style play by listening to the latest episode of the awesome Spellburn Podcast.)

It is finished...

...at least the images and maps for Against the Vortex Temple. I love the sepia look on the maps but will be reverting to b/w to match the print version: I'm not that gassed about maintaining different sets of images for screen and print. :)

Now off to finish the text: setting phasers on maximum creepy. Barring craziness with work/health I hope to be playtesting in 2-3 weeks.

Mapping

I'd guess my most persistent role-playing-related passion has been mapping. Even during the years when I lacked an active group I would happily crank out maps, some of them massive affairs on 17x22 paper. I've spent endless hours trying out new techniques on paper and the computer... and never got tired of the process.

But I think I might have just completed my last elaborate map. I had finished a simple top-down city map for my next adventure, but it just didn't look right, so I embarked on something more demanding. But detailed maps require countless strokes, and about halfway through I realized (yet again) that's something I just can't do anymore. There are still a million details I want to add but the will required to do so has long fled the scene. I think my hands are going to ache for a week just getting this far!

I'm sure I'll figure out something artsy for future efforts to try and paper over the lack of pen strokes, but as with noodling on the guitar for hours on end, I will miss sorely my happy hours fashioning maps.

But I do have a cool mental image for the dungeon map... and I'm sure after a couple days rest I'll feel much better...

Against the Vortex Temple Art

Having a pretty good time whipping out some interior pics for the next adventure. It's so much more pleasant when I finally land on a vibe that I like and can produce relatively quickly: I'm just not a patient drawer. ;)

Here are some sample pics... the feel is somewhat different than most things I've done before, which has been fun.

Against the Vortex Temple

It seems I've been working on my upcoming adventure Against the Vortex Temple for just about forever. (Looking back on very old posts, at one point I mentioned I wanted to have it ready for the DCC launch in 2012... HA!)

The primary hold-up has of course been health stuff and competing projects, but also frequent stops and starts as I searched for the right feel, which triggered reorganizations of the premise, structure and encounters. Since the completion of the Sunken City Omnibus, I've felt an even stronger desire to do something a bit different than what I've done before.

Happily, over the last couple weeks it seems at long last I've settled into a groove that works. Progress has picked up remarkably, and I'm hopeful the end is in sight. :)

The format is b/w 6x9 digest, which for a variety of reasons is easier on my hands (my biggest physical barrier), saves me the trouble of creating separate mobile versions, and provides the least expensive print options. (Plus laying out and prepping Nebin Pendlebrook for print was an absolute joy compared to the full-color, letter-sized Sunken City Omnibus!)

Description: Against the Vortex Temple is a DCC adventure designed for 1st level adventurers, containing both city and dungeon sections. The city portion consists of a number of concise encounters that can occur in any order, along with a selection of random tables that can be used to add spice and provide clues about the dungeon portion.

The meat of the adventure is the dungeon portion, which will contain notes on how to run it without the city lead up to make it usable for demo and convention play

The goal is to make the whole thing as creepy as hell.

If you're interested, you can read the new introduction to the adventure.

If my health and lucky streak hold out it should be finished in the next 4-6 weeks.

Three Years as a Sorcerer

It's hard to believe that it's been almost three years since I got word that the DCC rulebook had been sent to the printers, and as a 3rd Party Publisher I could begin the long nervous wait for things to 'go live'. I remember the sheer terror of clicking  'submit' on May 22 to publish my first adventure Perils of the Sunken City at RPGNow. Would anyone buy it? Would anyone like it?

I recall feeling overwhelmed as I watched the adventure relentlessly climb the top seller chart until it rested at number one for almost a week. Obviously, being one of the only available adventures for a hot new system accounted for the sales bubble, but it still felt great. After 30 years of daydreaming about being a game writer, I was actually doing it.

So much has happened between then and now that those early days seem shrouded in mist. On reflection, I'm happy that after all this time I still love the system, but happier still is that I've been able to meet (and continue to meet) so many awesome folks in the community. Being able to intereact with all you is a privilege, and the reason I continue doing this stuff.

All this nostalgia has inspired me to dig into the logs, and do some analysis of sales/traffic over the years. Here are some interesting Purple Sorcerer Facts from our first three years:

Tools

• The character generators are still churning out about 500 new characters every day, day in, day out. (I've pretty much lost track, but I think we're beginning to creep close to 1,000,000 characters created.)


• The new Sorcerer's Grimoire has already spit out over 1400 spell books in the first three weeks of the beta. 


• The Crawler's Companion is currently installed on about 5000 devices.

Adventures

Thanks to you, every title has achieved some type of popular metal status at RPGNow:

• Perils of the Sunken City is now Electrum (top ~1% all time)


• The Sunken City Omnibus, The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, and Nebin Pendlebrook's Perilous Pantry are Silver (top ~6%)


• A Gathering of the Marked and Lair of the Mist Men are both Copper (top ~10%)


• The Sunken City Omnibus just passed Perils of the Sunken City as our most profitable title. Thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy!

I'm also happy that I've managed to give away over 800 adventures to spread the DCC love, many as convention prizes and as free gifts to active military personel.

Again, thanks to everyone who has supported Purple Sorcerer Games. These first three years have been a real joy, and I hope to fill our fourth year with exciting new adventures and tools!

GM's Day Sale

Through sheer laziness, I forgot to sign up for the GM Day sale at RPGNow. 

Seeing all my DCC publishing chums taking part filled me with shame, so I just marked everything down 30%. And since March 9 is my birthday, I've also marked down Perils of the Sunken City to 99 cents!

All sorts of great stuff on sale from Goodman Games, Purple Duck, Thick Skulls and more. And don't forget the amazing variety of zines. I have pretty much all of the them and they're packed with useful material. 

The sale ends March 9.

(And of course, all the prices have also been reduced in the Purple Sorcerer Store.)

State of the Sorcerer 2015

Health issues continue to bedevil the Sorcerer, and unfortunately things have gotten progressively worse over the last year. I'm excited about some new approaches we'll be taking medically, but I'll be going through a few months of testing before really kicking thinks off with my specialist.

I have many things that are slooooooowly simmering in the fire, so expect a burst of activity when I get back on my feet. Two (perhaps three) new adventures, an update to the Crawler's Companion, and a beta release of the Sorcerer's Grimoire are all waiting in the wings. I'm really looking forward to sharing these fun new creations with the wonderful Dungeon Crawl Classics community!

Last Days of 30% Sale

The Too Lazy To Update Prices Sale will run though the weekend. Act now: once I go to the trouble of restoring the regular prices everywhere, it will likely be a good while before we run another sale! :)

Purple Sorcerer Store
RPGNnow

Sale Extended

I don't feel like changing all the prices, so I'm extending the 30% off sale until January 1st.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season!

It's quiet... too quiet

Excepting a 5 day span of feeling gloriously sort-of OK, I'm still mired in a 3 month stretch of depressingly un-glorious ill-health. So no real progress to speak of of late.

I will soon be posting some updates to the 0-Level party generator, hopefully by the weekend. And I'm dying to start stitching all the various bits of Against the Vortex Temple together. The whole point of this exercise is to share and interact, and a part of me is just dying while everything lies fallow.

On the hopeful front, we'll soon be trying some new approaches in my health-care battles, and I'm praying most earnestly we'll see a change in direction so I can get back into creative fighting trim. :)

Hope everyone is enjoying the start of this fall/winter festive season.

iOS 8

If you are a daring soul running iOS 8, if you have a moment to try running the Crawler's Companion, I'd appreciate a quick report. :)

I haven't tested the Crawler's Companion in the new OS yet as a number of apps I absolutely rely on are not yet compatible. I'll be sacrificing my son's iPad 2 for testing when I'm ready to release the next update, but in the meantime, if you're running iOS 8 and the Crawler, any reports would be greatly appreciated. :)

Crawler Data Tools should be working

I fixed some permission issues this afternoon that should allow folks to create and update their party and adventure data. If you've had issues, let me know if things are still not working for you.

Crawler Database Issues

There seems to be continuing problems writing new data to the Crawler database. I apologize for my lameness in resolving these issues quickly. I hate, hate, hate have unresolved stuff like this hanging over my perfectionist developer head, but the grim reality is that my productive hours have been pretty meager of late because of health issues.

I appreciate everyone's kindly patience as I slowly work to get things back into shape. :)

Helloooo...

If you've contacted me over the last week, and it seems I've been slow in responding, I do apologize! It's been a very bad 'hands' week and I went three days where typing was pretty much not gonna happen. Feeling a bit better so I hope to get to a number of things Saturday. :)

Progress Report

Rate this week: Glacial ;)

Web Tool: Sorcerer's Grimoire
The script is now able to access all the spell data, and I'm currently formatting the spell results. The major work involves figuring out the best way to squeeze everything onto one page. I'll likely be moving the misfire, corruption, and manifestation info to the back of each sheet, so each spell will be two sided.
Next: The spell selection screen for non-random spellcasters. Linking mercurial magic results to the sheet.

Mobile: The Crawler's Companion
I'm currently fixing a number of screen anomalies on hi-res devices and an export bug in the generators.
Next: Opening up the fixed version for testing before updating the app on the stores.

Adventure: Against the Vortex Temple
Finishing up the first draft of the adventure, and making final decisions on how it will be formatted. I'm pretty sure which direction I'll be taking, but if you haven't taken the format poll, let me know which format you prefer!
Next: Announcing the format, and beginning creating the print draft for my proofers.

Beginning to format the next adventure...

Trouble with arthritis in my hands is forcing me to carefully evaluate how I’ll be formatting/constructing my future adventures, since some approaches require less fiddling/are less stressful than others.

I'm beginning to lay out Against the Vortex Temple, so the moment of truth is at hand. Please let me know what size/color choice you generally prefer so I can factor that into my decision. Thanks for your input!

[yop_poll id="10"]

Argh! And Lamentations!

The database that powers this blog was corrupted somewhere along the way in the past year, only crashing completely when rebooted. Since the server hadn't been rebooted in almost a year, it allowed the corrupted files to be backed up over and over again, and also caused a separate database backup function to fail without error.

My last 'by hand' backup was from almost a year ago... so it appears that I have lost the last 11 months of posts. Egad, I am in shock.

Crawler Data The Crawler database wasn't effected, but the WordPress accounts that let folks access their data were. So if you created an account in the last year, and you are unable to access your Crawler data, you'll need to recreate your account. Then shoot me an email with examples of the adventures/parties you created, and I'll go in by hand and reconnect your updated account with your old data.

Sorry about the troubles. I'm a bit stunned right now as I had multiple methods in place to keep something like this from happening, and every one of them failed. Oh well, onward and upward.

There might by strangeness in a number of places on the site over the next week, as I've had to completely rebuild it from scratch. We'll get it all worked out eventually. Thanks for your patience.