Maps from the Revision, UVG 2E (Patreon)

Dear Heroes,

Hello once more. To those in the USA also a happy thanksgiving.

I've wrapped up about 98% of the work on the new edition of the UVG. I knew it would take some work to make it all ship-shape and pretty, and I estimated the amount quite correctly ... and yet, even without rewriting, just adjusting, tweaking, making more space for art, I ended up working 20 days straight reassembling the files.

There were upsides and downsides to the crunch.

On the upside, I got it done, and I didn't fall to the temptation to add content to avoid finishing. I also got a good overview of how to wrap up the seacat system book and where to take it forward.

On the downside, I'm very tired and I am willing to bet there will be brand new typos.

On the upside, I look forward to sharing the whole thing with you soon.

Right, right, stop there. Repeating yourself.

I'm quite happy that all the art is now finally big enough to enjoy without a magnifying glass. And that header piece for this post? Well ... I needed a new piece here and there. This is one of them.

Nifty, huh? :)

I've also revised the game sheets - for characters and caravans - to make them simpler and a bit easier to use. If still a bit techie. I hope you enjoy them. :) See attached.

Where Next?

I've got a bit more work on the UVG 2E, but that's more technical and behind the scenes stuff. Fix up the cover title, prep some promo visuals, get the ISBN there, nip and tuck the updated index, check colors with the printer. It's all really a bit of tidying up.

The next big thing is to prep up BIG SEACAT for print.

I've already mentioned that I'm planning to fork the project. Returning to the UVG has been crucial for that, because it let me see the parts of the UVG that I really loved, the parts I was a bit meh on, and the ones that really didn't do it for me.

I've gone back to basics about what I want it to be.

Natural language: less jargon, more descriptive. Some jargon is inevitable, but there'll be less [+]/[-] and +ha and -qwerty. I got carried away with this ... I'll explore why I got carried away in another post.

Anticanon: this is a big one: I want the SDM to generate unique settings for each game group. This leads directly to a part I want to write:

Locations: I loved doing locations for the UVG, this time I'm going to add several location generators for specific places and parts of the setting. I've got a nifty idea for turning prep into a game, based on a simplified version of the Monochrome Rainbows pdf I released earlier this year. I hope to share a sample of that idea in a couple of weeks.

Generally specific: I am going to try and ward myself from the temptation to make a generic rpg system. BIG SEACAT is generic enough -- SDM is going deeper into the Vastlands setting (yep, UVG). Some of the implicit setting is going to be explicit.

Less explaining: For various reasons, I spent a big part of BIG SEACAT explaining why and how things work. That's fine, but it took up a lot of the book. Less of that.

More art-first: Art is going to do more heavy lifting. Going for a more of a graphic novel, bande dessiné style to things.

Now, this is fluid and subject to change, but the way I've come to these principles is by returning to the vision of the game. I had this written down way back in 2019, but I somehow lost sight of it through 2020, '21, and '22 ... I wonder ... was this due to some event that happened? Something that meant I didn't get outside and see the forest for the trees? Could be.

Anyhow, the UVG helped me see this too. It's got a strong vibe, and it's a kind of game I like: the big long trip.

But it's not the only kind of game I like: I really like mini-series adventures. Story arcs that are loosely linked, connected by characters and locations more than a single journey. You know, like Tintin or Asterix.

A few weeks ago I ended up re-reading Tintin and the Picaros, and Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaohs and realised that ... they capture perfectly a certain vibe, structure, or arc. Each Tintin is a journey there and back again, a picaresque adventure, where the Rogue Tintin and his accomplice Black Haddock venture forth from the Grand Tower of Marlinspike into the Reaches of the Undying World, have an adventure, then return. Sometimes other characters join in, like the Wizard Calculus, or the Knights of the Law Thomson and Thompson.

By way of the Dying Earth, Wolf's Severian, Valerian and Laureline, Planet of the Apes, and other bits of accreted pop art, we're going to take a trip to a Long Long Ago, before the Great Forgetting, perhaps before the UVG was even ultraviolet. A history trip to ...

... I mean, I mentioned I was working on this trimmed down version of the ruleset, right? After I finish the classes, it should be ready for an alpha release.

But ... what adventures could one have in a golden age?

So ... d'you like the sound of a 64-page graphic-novel rpg rule book? I hope you do. 'Cos it looks like that's what wants to write and illustrate itself ...

Well.

That was a Caturday. Take care everyone, good people all, good weekend to you!

—Luka