Ballistic’s Report: What’s going on with GB – Dec 8, 2023

Three busy weeks since my last report. All packages for Sedra have gone out. Playtest of extant Mission X rules continues. I launched an OSE conversion of the Sedra sourcebook and companion adventures yesterday.

• Isle of Sedra has effectively reached 100% shipment, and mostly those packages have arrived.
• Time to get the TFT books up on my website. That sounds like a good “today” task.
• Mission X. I’m starting to go back to the earlier chapters and ensure they’re consistent with the later ones. The ideas that came up for explosions and suppression fire have been working great in play. Things paused this past week as we had some travel and…
•  …Launched the OSE version of the Sedra books yesterday. Will admit that I was hoping for more immediate buy-in, maybe even first-day funding, but that’s not where we are.
• Did some work chatting with new authors and old ones, trying to see if I can make it into 2024.
• Steve Jackson Games has launched a DFRPG Bundle of Holding sale that is a ridiculously good deal. As a collaborative promotion, Gaming Ballistic has put all of my DFRPG PDFs on sale at 50% off, and DFRPG Print-only and Print-and-PDF products at 25% off.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

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, 24 free patrons and $500 per month.
• Special Content in December:
  • Discord playtest of new rules
  • New MX draft in progress

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

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

• Isle of Sedra is fulfilled, with all packaged either delivered or on their way, even for the UK- and Australia-hub backers.
• Time to cancel and refund the two surveys for physical goods pending. Alas.
• That closes the TFT version of the Sedra Setting.

Media

• I will be joining Erik Tenkar on Random Party Generator tonight at 7pm Central. Look for a dedicated note on that with more details
• That solo review by Geek Gamers on the four TFT/OSR solo adventures said really nice things. Have you seen it yet?

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

• Old-School Setting: The Isle of Sedra is the Old-School Essentials conversion of the TFT books. It is currently funding on Kickstarter, having launched yesterday. It is, admittedly and unfortunately, struggling a bit out of the gate.
• Infinite Achipelago: The Isle of Sedra TFT campaign is closed.

In Development

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

Let’s see where we are on other things…

• Infinite Archipelago launched with Sedra, which continues with the OSE conversion. I have been chatting with several folks about a few new expansions of this, and just fired off an email to David about Elazar, the neighboring island to Sedra. I still would like to convert Nordlond to other systems, blowing it up a bit to fit the Archipelago model … but GB is in a precarious space right now. Even so, it might be a very good use of my time.
• Mission X: The for-real writing continues with Ch1-4 (of 6) having substantial work and playtesting underway. I took a break from writing to launch OSE-Sedra, but return each day to integrate the existing bits in Ch1-4, with occasional expansion.
• Infinite Archipelago: Two more island settings, both with a Far East flavor, have seen some discussion. One is fairly dormant, the other in active discussions. Both would be new-to-GB authors.
• TFT Specialized Bestiary: Another new author, looking into a short book focusing on one monster type. Lots of good discussions on this have improved the concept.
• 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.

Wish List

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.

Friction

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

• The conversion of Sedra, Monster Hunter Belladonna, and The Scorpion Labyrinth to OSE was a lot of rapid, hard work and it has launched with a wet thud, so far. Very disheartening.
• No matter what, Mission X is a hard bit of work. Still hard work. I like the results though.
• Exercise and time at Martial Arts have both fallen off. My Viking training budget was funded by my business, and that is basically out of funds as of this month.
• I put a boosted post on Facebook, and is all that’s gotten me is an ENDLESS stream of spam Messenger notes about violations of various “rules,” all of which come from a different sender, have the same logo, and include a link that has nothing to do with Meta or Facebook. It’s just a scam, albeit a compelling-looking one.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• Mission X combat chapter has gotten some really good playtesting, and the results are anywhere from satisfactory to “vast improvement over existing concepts,” especially where suppression fire and clustered explosions are concerned. For the rest, mostly what’s getting tested right now are the combat rules, so no reports.
• Felltower continues to be a good way to spend a Sunday.

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