The Independent Insurgency

11:16 am - [Misspent Youth] Back cover art spec (real, non-hoaxy)

So here is a spec request I made to Jennifer Rodgers for art for the back cover of Misspent Youth. We don't have sketches done yet but I'm really excited about this so I figured I'd share it.

A gang of 3-5 kids, in silhouette (possibly pure black like something out of Sin City, possibly something with some surface to it that we can see, I don't know). These kids are in a tight knot together, maybe some are riding skateboards or (better yet) hoverboards. Anyway they're all clearly running from left to right away from something off-screen to the left. Maybe someone is shooting a slingshot backwards or something. I see an interesting tension between their bodies moving in one direction and their attention being in the other (even if they're not facing in that direction, something about the set of the shoulders). I imagine a street sign of some kind slightly ahead of them and a grubby street. I'm figuring it would run along the middle edge or bottom of the page and take up all or almost all of the width of the page and about a quarter of the height of the page.

10:38 am - Office Quote of the Day for Wednesday, May 7, 2008

From my Quote-A-Day calendar for 2008 for the American version of The Office:

"If I could menstruate, I wouldn't have to deal with idiotic calendars anymore. I'd be able to just countdown from my previous cycle. Women don't know how easy they've got it."

-- Dwight

05:59 pm - [Misspent Youth] AP on Virtual Play podcast

Mel White has an excellent Actual Play podcast (the only one I listen to) called Virtual Play. I was delighted to learn that in episode 28, he chose to include some AP from the Misspent Youth session he played with me at PoliCon (last month?). It was great to hear how the game plays outside of my own head and I'm really excited that clips from this game were used in this particular episode, since it was about making other players awesome. The fact that my game is relevant for that topic means that at least one of my design goals has been satisfied.

In particular, this focuses around the use of The Tag, which is a thorny bit of mechanics that I have at times considered dropping from the game because for some reason people have been resistant to it. Listening to this piece and hearing what Mel said about the mechanic helped firm my confidence in it.

The Misspent Youth stuff comes in at the 25:34 mark but I encourage you to listen to the whole (33 minute) show. It's quite interesting and he does a great show.

Thanks Mel!

06:55 pm - [Misspent Youth] Update to the cover post

I need to nip this in the bud before it goes too far! Apparently I was a little too subtle in my earlier post. That cover? Totally a hoax.

So here's the story: Jenn, Joshua, and I are emailing back and forth about the cover design. I mention Jenn showing us a sketch when she has the time and Joshua goes, "Well, of course you want a cock, right? That's why you picked Jenn?"

So Jenn shoots us an email. "This is a quick sketch I did."

I think, that's got to be a joke. Oh shit, what if it's not. I mean, I'm SURE it's a joke but if I say, "Is that a joke?" and it's not, I'm gonna feel like a huge dick. I fret. I call her. She laughs very long and very loud at me. I deserve it. I talk to Joshua. He does the same. I decide I should spread the pain.

So, yeah, no cock in the final game (although there's a surprising amount of cock in issues of Maximum Rocknroll, the 'zine I'm basing this on.

Voila.

01:35 pm - [Misspent Youth] cover sketch

As you may know, I've been working with Jennifer Rodgers and Joshua AC Newman on the art and layout for Misspent Youth. I'm happy to say that I have today a preview image to share with you of what the cover for Misspent Youth will look like.

09:16 pm - [Independent Insurgency] Episode 010: Vincent Baker on kill puppies for satan

In this episode, I interview Vincent Baker of Lumpley Games about his first published roleplaying game, kill puppies for satan. This was kind of a silly one, as many of the questions I'd ordinarily ask a little weird in this context. You'll see.

This episode is 01:01:48 long and 84.8 MB big.

Closing song is Bridge Over Troubled Squatter by the Hub City Stompers
Logo courtesy of Daniel Solis: http://danielsolis.com/

08:20 pm - [Bitch Goddess] Draft done

Despite my expectations to the contrary, I finished a first draft of my Game Chef entry, Bitch Goddess.

Off to proofread now. I didn't get to do any playtesting. Ah, well.

EDIT: Second draft.

03:01 pm - [Misspent Youth] updated manuscript

Mickey (aka Geek Girls Rule) was kind enough to run Misspent Youth ridiculously early for me, on last Friday night. She hit a brick wall trying to use the conflict system, for which I am sorry. I did some stupid things in the writing that didn’t make this clear or were downright confusion-additive. I’ve uploaded a new manuscript, this one in PDF form. All the changes have been in the conflict article entitled “Throwing Your Body Upon the Gears.”

01:18 pm - Office Quote of the Day for Friday, April 25.

From my Office quote-a-day calendar:

"I never smile if I can help it. Showing your teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life." -- Dwight

11:58 pm - [Misspent Youth] First draft fully completed

The first draft of Misspent Youth is done. 11,717 words. I am happy.

08:49 pm - [Misspent Youth] Attention proofreaders!

I've had several offers by kindly people to proofread Misspent Youth. Well, I'm almost done with my initial pass and I'd like to take those people up on their offers. If you'd like, just email me at my gmail account, which is at rob dot bohl.

And thanks!

08:23 pm - [Bitch Goddess] Elevator Pitch

This is the elevator pitch for my Game Chef game in development, Bitch Goddess.

You are a woman who committed suicide, but something brought you back and you're different than you used to be. Now you can see and manipulate the Fabric behind reality. The people who you care about need you, and you can now make the world a better place. How will you take advantage of this second chance at your personal life while balancing it against your responsibility to make the world a better place to live in?

10:09 pm - [Misspent Youth] Drafts (and the rest. . . .)

Ok, this is the last of the “Misspent Youth First Draft” extravaganza posts. I have now written a first draft of every piece of text I anticipate the game needing. These last few pieces discuss how endgame works; suggested drifts for the game; a “mood and theme” piece which talks about the kind of movies, tv, etc., which are mood-appropriate for the game; and a game-influences and people-thank-yous piece.

07:35 pm - [Misspent Youth] Chapter 5 draft: Exercising Your Authority

This is a brief GM advice chapter for Misspent Youth. I figure on adding to this as I play more games or as people tell me there’s shit the game is missing.

Exercising Your Authority

04:54 pm - [Game Chef 2008] Bitch Goddess

I've got an idea for Game Chef. Here's my thread, I'll reproduce the first post here.

05:39 pm - [Misspent Youth] Chapter 4 draft: Conflict System

This is the last of the major-system piece first-drafts for Misspent Youth. "Throwing Your Body upon the Gears" describes the conflict system for the game.

At this point, I have very little left to write: an Authority advice chapter, a brief piece about endgame, and a section on optional rules. I might be done for today, I might not. Game Chef is calling me.

As before, this is a raw first draft. Please be gentle to it.

03:27 pm - [Misspent Youth] Chapter 3 draft: Episode structure

I've just uploaded two new files for Misspent Youth.

First we have the new rules outline document, which tinkers with the default claim numbers on the first few scenes. I found an inconsistency between what I said the scenes should be doing and the difficulty of the scene based on the numbers claimed. This is a small set of changes.

Much cooler, I have finished a first draft of the episode structure chapter/article, called Death or Glory? Just Another Story. This is probably going to be the biggest article for the game and has some of the stuff I'm most excited about in the game. I'm really proud of it.

As I've noted in earlier posts like this one, I have not even read this even a single time after it left my fingertips. I'll be doing so later. If you do read this, keep that in mind. Also, any comments or questions are welcome, provided you keep this whole "I haven't read this once" thing in mind

11:04 am - Spot illustrations decided-upon

Here's the list of spot illustrations (the thing I asked for help with on a prior post) I'm asking Jennifer Rodgers for. These are going to be little slug/icon thingies used to break up and punctuate text:

* gas mask
* STOP sign with "the pigs!" or "cops" graffitied on it
* cracked riot helmet
* raised fist with a spiked bracelet, maybe with the suggestion of a UPC  code tattoed on it
* cctv/security camera
* combat boots/Docs
* Molotov cocktail
* lit joint
* neck-tie noose
* spiked mohawk head in silhouette, maybe stylized, maybe with tape on mouth in white

I've asked Jenn to make sure that a slingshot appears on my back cover image because I'm so goofily enamored with them.

12:10 am - Episode 009: Michael O'Sullivan on Criminal Element

In this episode, I talk to Michael O'Sullivan of Full Motor Productions  about his heist game, Criminal Element (whose development version is  currently available as a free download). This is the first show I've done  from my home and I was very grateful to Michael for coming up to see  me and talking with me about his game.

This episode is 1:03:51 long and 87.7 MB big.

09:58 pm - [Misspent Youth] Chapter word counts

I noticed Office 7 has this nice tool that tells you on the bottom banner how many words you've got. Here're the stats for Misspent Youth:

Introduction: 405
Authority/World creation: 1989
Character creation: 1196
Episode structure: 1192 (so far, I'm only part way done with describing the rules for one of the 7 scenes the game has)