My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by Scalenex, May 17, 2019.

  1. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    I just got back from the Origins Convention in Columbus, Ohio. I had a nice long sleep in my own bed, not a hotel. Tomorrow it's back to work. :meh:

    I haven't been on a real vacation in a very long time. I spent a lot of time and money on this, but it was very very much worth it.

    I learned a lot. Next year will be even better.

    I am a champion class procrastinator, and I am the sort of person that cannot be simply told, "the stove is hot, don't touch it". I have to at least hover my hand near the stove once to feel it's warmth.

    It is counter intuitive, but for an event like Origins, it helps a lot to pre-plan stuff. I didn't pre-plan much. I had still fun. But I faced several inconveniences. It was harder to find a hotel than I thought. By dumb luck, I got the last hotel room a 20 minute drive away from the convention center. Next year, I plan to reserve a hotel adjacent to the convention center. Those hotels are quite expensive, but it would save me time and aggravation by being closer to the convention and let me go to more events. Also, I would save a lot of incidental expenses by being closer to the convention.

    There were hundreds of events to choose from and I went to many fun and informative events, but I was shut out of some events that I wanted to do by not signing up in advance far enough.

    Gen Con is four times bigger than Origins and twice as crazy. It's a month away. I can't get a hotel remotely close at this point. I decided to skip Gen Con in 2025. I need to be more on the ball for 2026 if I want to go to Gen Con.

    I also networked with some indy authors and indy RPG creators, so I learned some things.

    I also learned that running a game at a convention is a different animal than running a game anywhere else. For Origins 2026, I plan to host an event or at least co-host an event.

    Most gaming events at Origins are 2 hours or 4 hours. But that has an asterisk. It's always 1 hour and fifty minutes or three hours and fifty minutes, officially. But someone is going to be ten minutes late, and it will take about ten minutes to get settled and started in most cases. So really, if i want to run a Scarterra demo, I need it to be self-contained in three hours and thirty minutes.

    A while ago, I ran a self-contained Scarterra adventure at my local gaming store for a bunch of stranger, about four hours and some change and I thought it felt fast. I need to go a little bit leaner if I want to get in on the convention circuit.

    Getting into Gen Con as an exhibitor is really hard and you need to have a network or some name recognition, but it would not be difficult for me to get a slot in Origins 2026. I just need to submit an application two to three months prior.

    I can either host an event under my own name and banner. Or I can join a group such as Games on Demand. Games on Demand had several events with 4 to 6 tables, each with a different home brew RPG demo.
     
  2. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    World Anvil has their 2025 Summer Camp going. They are releasing 40 assorted prompts in batches of 10. And if you write 8 you get a copper badge, 16 a silver, 24 a gold, and 32 a diamond.

    I am a completionist so I'm going for diamond. Probably not going for all 40. You only get dubious bragging rights.

    Besides the digital badges, every one of the 40 categories has a small prize. Each category has a single judge who can use whatever subjective standards he or she wants. If I win a prize, neat. But the real prize for me is getting more eyeballs on my website.

    As of the time of this writing, 20 prompts are revealed, and I have written articles for eight of them. The World Anvil Summer Camp Home page is here. My personal Summer Camp page is here.


    I am not going to post all my Summer Camp article links here, but I'm especially proud of my article on priests and priestesses. I put a lot of effort into that because it's a major part of Scarterra's lore.
     
  3. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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  4. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Summer Camp 2025 is over. I wrote 33 articles this month. You can find them all here.

    These are my three favorite articles

    Priests and priestesses

    Draconic Idioms that permeated human vernacular

    Psions


    I have various irons in the fire on new Scarterra things. We'll see what I end up finishing first.

    I have recently hired some IP lawyers that have actually worked on RPGs before and are gamers. You might say they are literal rules lawyers.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2025
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  5. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Zeta Gardner continues to produce excellent work.

    Here is the finished version.

    [​IMG]

    Here is the same artist's illustrations of two ollums. Ollums of course are gnome cannibals.

    Dibbrist the ollum is a less mutated ollum, so he can still pass for a gnormal gnome, he works as a gong farmer which is handy because no one scrutinizes gong farmers too closely.

    Besides moonlighting as a cannibal, he acts as a spy and smuggler for criminal cartels. I haven't used Dibbrist in a story yet, but Dibbrist can be adapted as a spy or minion of whoever the Villain of the Week happens to be assuming the Villain of the Week is urban.

    Ollums are stronger than they look. Notice that the small gnome is pushing a human sized cart without difficulty, but again no one scrutinizes a gong farmer too closely.

    [​IMG]

    Collme is a more deformed ollum that cannot pass for a gnormal gnome except in very low light. Collme eventually fell in with a pack of morlocks as a scout, but when captured, she sold out the morlocks. She was an NPC in an adventurer where the PCs used her to show them where the morlocks were.

    [​IMG]

    The extremely fancy blade is on purpose. Collme was part of the gnomish minority in a dwarven city and she stole the blade from dwarves. Dwarven blades have great craftsmanship.
     
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  6. Aginor
    Slann

    Aginor Fifth Spawning Staff Member

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    Yay, I see that my suggestion from years ago did help giving a cool character a part of their backstory. :)
     
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  7. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Two characters, only one has an illustration though. A middle aged kalazotz woman is quietly using the gong farmers guild as a front for criminal enterprises.

    Now that I think about it, I could use a third character. I should probably introduce a gong farmer who is actually a good person.
     
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  8. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    I don't if any of you guys while away happy time scrolling around my website. I have a new friend who is a professional web designer. He is giving me tips on CSS code and website layout. On this front, I have progressed from "baby" to "kindergarten".

    My buddy has strongly sold me on the notion that a 1920 x 500 header is best at the top, but more vertically oriented pictures are good in the body of an article. He used the "metaphor" of the header the appetizer and the portraits are the
    "meal".

    On a computer screen a 1920 x 500 will take up exactly a third of the screen, which is a nice visual but it can let readers start reading the article.

    I love this zodiac wheel

    [​IMG]

    But when it's used as an article header, it less glorious.

    upload_2025-9-4_10-32-57.png

    Now I have this picture of the Nine in 1920 x 500 format

    [​IMG]

    It looks a lot better in article preview mode.


    When I mention the Nine in the body of an article rather than the header of an article, I will still include the full zodiac wheel.



    upload_2025-9-4_10-35-56.png

    On smart phones, the 1920 x 500 format is less visually appealing. According to Google Analytics, roughly 40% of my website traffic is on smart phones and 60% is on computers.

    The search bar will obscure the header. But my new friend gave me a CSS code to move the search bar on smart phones and only smart phones.


    Right now, preview mode of articles with portraits shows the middle third of most portraits which basically means "Here's the torso! Look at the torso! LOOK AT IT!"

    I can fix that, but I have to do that one-at-a-time, and I have hundreds of portraits. I will alter the headers one at a time if necessary, but if there is a CSS short cut to make this quicker, I will find it. In the meantime, I can use the Nine's 1920 x 500 header on like dozens of articles, so I'll do that first.


    Hopefully more incremental improvements will follow. If any of you guys have suggestions for further improvements to make my website easier to navigate, let me know.
     
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