Announcing S.C.A.R.E. for the Traveller RPG.

S.C.A.R.E. – Secrets, Contacts, Allies, Rivals and Enemies.  They are part and parcel of the character generation process, and provide endless opportunities for adventure, intrigue and complication. The S.C.A.R.E. line NPC’s are designed to provide maximum flexibility for the Referee as they can be used in several ways; either as a valuable Contact or Ally, or as a dangerous Rival or Enemy.  Secrets can be exploited for profit, patriotism or career advancement; and each could lead to danger, wealth or fantastic new discoveries. Multiple plot hooks and adventure ideas are also presented in each release, allowing easy integration into your game.

I have to admit, I would rather pay Anthony some hard-earned money and get an image like the above back rather than try to make do with stock art.  That image kicks @$$!  Once again Anthony demonstrates he is worth every penny I pay him.I have to do a final edit on the layout, and fax over the Mongoose licence sheet before I can post it.  I’ll do both tonight so the first release should drop either this weekend or early next week.

I also got a whole mess of stuff from Chris Field in my in-box this morning.   I need to get those ready for release; some Pathfinder stuff, the draft for Black Tokyo II and other things.

On a personal note, with my wife in school for her masters program she has essentially taken over my home office.  I’ve been relegated to either the kitchen table or a TV tray in the living room with my laptop.  No More!  I ordered two new monitors and a small form factor PC from Amazon today.   I am going to move her over and take back a dedicated work space in the office so I can get the release schedule back on track. More info soon.

I finished the 1st draft of a new PDF for the Traveller game.  I think the series will be well received, and am pleased with how the first one is shaping up.  I can also see plenty of options for expanding the line and doing a print compilation down the road.  I snagged a piece of stock art for this one which will work fine; but I am less than pleased with a couple aspects of the art I bought.

<Art Rant>

Why can’t stock artists show us a preview of every piece of art we are buying?  Showing me one image, and having all the others in the art pack being nearly useless does not inspire me to be a repeat customer.  Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to pay the full price for an art pack even if I am only going to use a single image; thats still always cheaper than having an artist do a custom image.  But I would like to know before hand that is the case and not hope/expect more images.  I was doing a quick layout last night and I go to insert the image I am actually using; turns out the character image is a whopping 0.579 inches wide by 1.57 inches high.  This is not a “head shot” but a bonna-fide full body head-to-toe character portrait piece of stock art weighing in at a whopping 200 dpi instead of the print-appropriate 300 dpi I’ll need if I ever want to print this for distribution.  WTF am I supposed to do with an full body image of a character that is less than two inches tall?  Sure, that will look great on an 8.5X11 inch PDF.  Would have been nice to list some of this information on the sales listing before I purchased.

</Art Rant>

That rant just made me re-think my stock art purchase.  I think I’ll email Anthony and pony up the money for something awesome.

Gen Con is fast approaching.  Can’t wait!

I am still plugging away on some longer projects, but miss the regular release schedule I had when we first started publishing.  We were reelasing almost two products a week then.  Time to step up the release schedule.

In conjunction with that, I came up with three seperate lines of PDF’s for the Traveller game today.  I hope to have one or more of them ready for release within the week.  I think Traveller players and GM’s will find them quite useful.

Played our Star Wars RPG campaign Saturday.  It was a blast!  I blew three destiny points in one combat, but took down the main bad guy in true Sith fashion!  (Three critical Dark Healings dealing 10d6 damage doubled and healing me the same amount of hit points.) Didn’t get home until 5:10am on Sunday.

Posted today at OBS:

Galaxy Command takes place in the Stellar Year 3476.
Galaxy Command is an all-analogue future, a sci-fi utopia where technology got better, but
society still resembles America, circa 1976.
Galaxy Command is a coalition of a hundred sentient races that governs the Milky Way
Galaxy and battles tirelessly against the evil stellar empire, WARSTAR.
Galaxy Command is an interstellar band of astronauts, scientists, police officers, galactic
marshals, military geniuses and diplomats, all banded together to make a finer universe.
Galaxy Command is a gleaming, plastic and polyester future where billowing Afros never
went out of style, and futurism takes a back seat to pulp flavored adventure.

I have a couple of new products from Chris ready to drop.  Look for it tonight or tomorrow; as well as new Free20 to go along with it.

Still plugging away on some longer releases I am working on.

In other news I turn 39 later this month.  (So does my twin brother!)  Gen Con is fast approaching, so I am looking forward to that big time this year.

I picked up the new Warmachine figures, the plastic Menoth knights, the other day.  Plastics have come so far since those beak space marines GW put out back in the day.  Those Menoth dudes have some serious detail.  The new GW plastics are also fantastc.  I don’t know why I keep getting figures, I never have time to sit down and paint them, let alone play games!

I scored a super-sweet deal on Craigs List the other day.  When I get some pictures up I’ll make a post on my other site about it.  (Since it really isn’t gameing related exactly.)