Heretical DnD Update

You’re going to be hearing less about this, because I’m in full-on writing mode. I’ve got enough to write up a real set of rules, and thanks to the SRD, this can really be made into something cool.

Where am I?

I’ve got an outline. I’ve got a title for the rules that I don’t think has been used before.

I solicited and received an offer for layout help, and it’s going very well. He’s using the project as an excuse to learn InDesign, and I’m digging the process of getting my head into a D&D product for real. This is going to look like a D&D5e cousin – recognizably from the same gene pool, but definitely not the same direct parents. 

I’ve got about 2,600 words down so far, and the writing is, thus far (and dare I say it?) easy. It helps that I’ve written a bunch of it before, and extending my concepts to the SRD is proving fairly easy.

I’ve got a “productization” strategy in the works, too. I think it’ll please people.

I’ve also got a good group of trusted playtesters, game authors all, who have volunteered to play this when I’m ready. I’m not going to take that long to get to a test, either. A bit more transfer of concept to the page, and we’ll probably start a game and see if the rules survive first contact with the enemy. This is a closed group for now – I can rely on them to play the game “as is” for a while, rather than try and overwrite my authorial intent immediately. That won’t prevent them from saying “I don’t like X, it sucks.” They will let me know this. But they will soldier on and play it as written, and then play it again with tweakage. At some point, I’ll ask for people to try it out with their own groups, because not everyone gets to play the game with the system designer at the table.

But for now, I’m quite pleased.