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!

Perils of the Sunken City at RPGNow

In addition to being on sale for just $.99 for the next day, I've updated the download bundle of Perils of the Sunken City with new updated color and mobile versions! 

All existing customers should be able to download the latest files from their RPGNow accounts.

Patrons added to Sorcerer's Grimoire Beta

OK, patrons have been added to the Sorcerer's Grimoire beta. (Thanks again to j. rodman for his super work helping me get the data ready.)

When you select a patron, the script will automatically select Patron Bond and the appropriate Invoke Patron spell, as well as add a page describing the patron along with its Patron Taint and Spellburn details.

We are working on adding more patrons from a variety of sources. For now, give it a spin, and as always, let me know if you notice anything strange. :)

Crawer's Companion Beta Testing

It's been a while, but I've just posted updated Beta versions of the Crawler to the Beta Page.

If you're an Android user, just download the the apk using the instructions on the beta page.

iOS users will need to download and install the latest mobile provisioning file along with the new ipa file.

(If you're interested in beta testing for iOS, follow the instructions on the beta page. There are a few slots available. I'll be sending out an email to all existing testers to see if we can clean out the list a bit for next year.)

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.)

Note for folks running the Crawler's Companion on an iPad 1

Apple has made changes of late that require apps published to the app store to support 64 bit magical whimsy. Apps that are currently in the store (like the Crawler) have a small window where non 64-bit updates will be accepted, but that will be closing soon.

Unfortunately, when I update the Crawler with a new SDK to support 64 bits, all versions from that point on will no longer support iPad 1's. Version 1.4 will be published in the coming weeks using an older SDK, and will likely be the last version of the Crawler to support iPad 1's: future versions will be incompatible and invisible to iPad 1's when you visit the app store.

You should still be able to install and run version 1.4 'forever' on your iPad 1 by accessing your 'Purchased' tab in the App Store. (If I understand the madness of Apple correctly.) So if you haven't purchased the free app yet on your iPad 1, do so quickly, as I believe it will (maybe, perhaps, who knows?) be invisible to you once we go 64 bit.

Version 1.4 runs fine on an iPad 1, and represents the cleanest, most feature rich build so far, so at least we'll be sailing away on a high point. Regardless of my explanation, my daughter, who uses the iPad 1, is displeased she won't see future updates. Conversely, she was also unaware that the Crawler was in the app store and used by thousands of folks outside the family, which scored me some cool-Daddy points. :)

If you have an iPad 2 or later, or a supported Android device, you will not be effected, and future 64 bit versions of the Crawler should appear and work as usual. (Already tested on our creakiest test device: the original Droid phone.)

Sorcerer's Grimoire

Argh! The utilities I create always seem to require much more time fixing all the fiddly bits than in implement the major functionality in the first place. But I'm happy to announce that the Sorcerer's Grimoire is available for testing! 

During last year's pledge drive to help support the free Purple Sorcerer Tools, folks voted on which tools they'd like to see me work on in the coming year, and the Sorcerer's Grimoire was the clear favorite. The Grimoire creates dynamic DCCRPG spellbook PDF's for you to print out, adjusting text size and spacing on the fly so that every spell fits on a single page. You can choose the spells yourself, or have the tool randomly select spells based on your caster's level and appropriate stat. You can do the same with Mercurial Magic, or have the script ignore MM altogether

Many design decisions have been made to conserve space since the number one goal of the project was to keep each individual spell on a single page. I played with lots of fancy layouts, but eventually ended up with a simple look to obey this prime directive. Physics dictates that really wordy spells require pretty small fonts, but hopefully folks will still find them readable.  :)

If you notice any strangeness let me know: particularly spell results that run on past the available space. 

As many of you know, I've struggled with health issues of late, but my trusty iPad allowed me to keep working during the worst stretches. (This is the first project I've completed from beginning to end using my tablet and beloved bluetooth keyboard.) 

I am a bit beat pushing this out the door, so I might be a while before I update things, but Patrons are on the way, including patron-specific Invoke Patron results and spells.

As always, thanks to the amazing folks at Goodman Games who support community tools like the Grimoire.

Take care everyone.  I hope you find the Sorcerer's Grimoire useful!