Ballistic’s Report: November 17, 2023

It’s been two weeks since my last report. Sedra is something like 90+% fulfilled. Turkey Day is next week. Lots of writing on Mission X Combat chapter.

• Isle of Sedra is currently at 90–95% fulfillment, and I got the cards and mailed off just about everything. There are two surveys that I’d really like to see filled out, and of course international fulfillment for AUS- and UK-hub is really “moving them to the staging point in those countries” rather than “parcels on the way.”

• Even so: This is a finger’s breath from being done.

• And with, that, late pledges are now closed. I’ll put the PDFs up on my website and DriveThru in the next few days. Physical books and remaining card decks before too long, but after most of the outgoing parcels arrive.

• Still working working working on Mission X. The Combat Chapter has been receiving the majority of my attention for a while, and continues to do so, as it’s central to the game. I have a few things—some of them nontrivial, like making multiple explosions simple to adjudicate—that I’m still working on, but generally I’m happy with the progress.

• Played more Felltower. Peter blogs the delve here.

• Still gearing up for the Mission X test campaign, but the GM has been slammed at work so it got pushed out slowly.

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

• Membership status: 70 paid patrons, 20 free patrons and $500 per month.

• Special Content in November:

  • All Mission X writing to date

  • Playtest invite for new rules

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

• Isle of Sedra is maybe 90% fulfilled

• I have all the books in my house; they look good.

• Cards are ready to print and actually with the printer as soon as their schedule opens up

• Surveys are almost all complete with only 4 pledges who require address updates or payment of add-on or shipping fees. Two of those are physical orders that need attention, the other two are failed pledges and no money has exchanged hands, so they’re in a zone where soon I’ll just cancel them and move on.

· That solo review by Geek Gamers on the four TFT/OSR solo adventures said really nice things. Have you seen it yet?

• The Isle of Sedra is no longer accepting Late Pledges. If you missed the Kickstarter, you’ll have to wait for retail.

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

Let’s see where we are on other things…

• Infinite Archipelago has taken its first steps, and making this one has helped define the next. Logical next step would be Elazar, the neighboring island to Sedra, plus of course moving Nordlond into the mix for TFT and other systems.

• Mission X: The for real writing continues apace, with Ch1–2 written, Ch3 (the super important Fighting chapter) maybe half done. Ch4–6 are key but those have a lot of pre-work done on them by virtue of being extensions of other works.

• Delvers to Grow Companion. Some new professions. A whole bunch of new disad packages. Epic Upgrades. Everyman Adventurer modules. This can’t happen in its planned form with only 425 backers. I just now had an idea of what to do with this, so I’m going to see what I can make of it. I think I’m going to turn this into Patreon-only content. It’s the right level of “get it done over time” and a solid reward for the Patreon community that can come frequently. But it also means it’ll have to push out in terms of any sort of public release; the market just doesn’t seem to be there right now.

• Let Us Rejoice!/Let Us Pray! Looking at my planned releases and the work required, this is 2024. Now looking at a two-book series, one on festivals, one on holy sites. Still in the “working on it, no news yet” stage but it’s being more actively worked than most.

• Inns and Taverns; Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. 2024 is likely, and I’m probably going to solicit new authors on both.

• Conversion Work: Existing settings and publications to other systems.

I actively encourage prospective authors to drop me proposals having to do with any of the above projects, but bear in mind that there are guidelines and strictures that must be followed to make a sale and move from concept to final.

I’m looking for contributions for the Infinite Archipelago. Authors must be detail-oriented, capable writers who can take on projects and deliver them to specifications while still respecting the constraints of both system and setting. Some “demesnes” have been mentioned in other works before and can be considered pre-approved for the right writer:

• Now that Sedra is rounding the corner from “thought” to “product,” I would welcome adventures and scenarios set there.

• A realm modeled after a mix of historical and mythological “ancient Egypt.” This could be an original homeland to what became The Scorpion Empire on the Isle of Sedra, or something similar. Known to be one of the origin places of the cat-folk mentioned in the Nordlondr Folk book.

• A realm loosely based on Kamakura-era Japan (or the region around Japan, Korea, and China which has so much game-adaptable history to it). Hints to this realm, called “Inthriki” in the Nordlond and Dragon Heresy materials exist, but could easily be altered to taste.

• The realm of Morevel, which was based on a mix of Hellenistic and mythical Greece with a focus on an uneasy period after totally-not-Philip-of-Macedon unified disparate states by force of arms. This one should probably be a set of idyllic, Mediterranean-climate island nation-states with lots of rowed galleys, phalanxes, heroes, and monsters.

• The neighboring nations – and we can talk about island or no, but probably yes – of Arnulf and Brionnu. These are “not Carolingian France, really” and “not Celtic Britain, we swear.” Arnulf and Brionnu were more or less created to give the Nordlondr somewhere to go raid and pillage…but that’s up for negotiation too. And “Carolingian France” is darn close to “Vikings, but continental” in their equipment and such, but the cultural differences are enough to make it quite interesting.

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• I’m in dire need of something to fill a gap in product flow between now and the end of the year. I suspect I need to convert something to something else…but not sure what.

• No matter what, Mission X is a hard bit of work. Still hard work. I like the results though.

• I have made it to Viking only once or twice in the last few months. Just too busy and my wife is traveling all the time, so I’m often on kid duty.

Information about things that move GB forward.

• Mission X combat chapter is nearly complete for the fighting subsections. Then I get to do long actions and chases, which will use similar concepts. The emphasis is 100% on “faster to the table, faster at the table” and so we’re trying to ensure that any rule we come up with fits certain concepts. No fun taxes for negligible gain. Don’t use three die rolls when one will do. If a penalty is small enough to ignore in most cases, it’s probably small enough to ignore in all cases (stop looking for +/-1 skill adjustments; they mostly just slow the game down).

• Felltower continues to be a good way to spend a Sunday.