Meme-Free Zone

Forgot to mention that I've revised the PDF for Diana: Warrior Princess, adding the missing Science attribute to the character sheet and (more importantly) bookmarks and links from the table of contents. Anyone who downloaded it from e23 should be getting an automated notice to tell them the new version is on line but I don't know how quickly that'll happen.

Elvis: The Legendary Tours has made it to number three in the What's Hot chart for the last 30 days at e23, and looks like it may even have a chance of reaching number two - no chance of number 1, which has four times the sales, but even so it's an excellent result. Meanwhile Diana: Warrior Princess is back in at the bottom of the chart - presumably this is people who bought Elvis without seeing Diana first and liked it enough to buy the original game.

If they put the Flatland game out quickly I might end up with three games there - doubt it's likely, because something else will overtake Diana fairly soon, and of course there's no certainty that Flatland will do well - but that'd be a pretty good result.

...the Diana / Elvis military spin-off supplement, really isn't going to be happening.

( So I really have no reason to make this, do I? )

Except that it was fun.

Now on my second pass through the main rules and adventures, adding colour illustrations and extra twiddly bits and editing out some of the flab. I'm up to page 15 with the illustrations - a couple more to go in the first adventure, and four or five in the second - plus I plan to add the big "action figure" pictures I've previously mentioned, probably at an approximate 1:3 scale - that'd make the typical Square about 2" on a side, which will fit neatly into one column of a two column page. I may instead go for 1:2 scale, which would make most "figures" about 3" wide - the snag is that I couldn't use a double column page, but that isn't necessarily a problem - I can go to a single column page, though it means a damn section break, or use text boxes or something. I'll have to see what things look like at that sort of size.

Over the weekend I've also added some more recommended reading, films, etc., three adventure outlines, and more stuff on running the game with Forgotten Futures rules. I don't think I can really justify putting in rules for using it with Diana: Warrior Princess, though it's tempting; the genres are just too different.

I'm still waiting for stuff on using it with the Red Anvil Press Flatland game - the author has promised to send me something but not for another week or so, I'll have to see how that goes.

So at the moment I think I've finished writing 21 pages, and have finished the graphics etc. on fourteen of them, need to add a little more material on another three pages that are about 2/3 done, and need to add the cutout figures. My guess is it'll end up around 30 pages excluding titles etc.

I think I'll have a first draft finished (apart, possibly, from the Red Anvil Press stuff) by the end of the week, and will be able to put that on line for the usual suspects to comment later this week or next weekend. I won't be able to get it out for sale until the middle of next month, since the guy who puts things through Distiller for me will be away; I can create a readable PDF but without Distiller it won't work properly on every platform.

Meanwhile Elvis is off being distilled now, and I hope it'll be back and on line for reviewers etc. later in the week.

Still trying to persuade work to buy Acrobat Professional, which will let me do the distilling for myself. If I had the money I'd buy my own copy, but it's still ludicrously expensive in the UK.

Anyway, the last few days have been insanely productive - let's hope I can keep it up.

BTW, given it's the Flatland RPG, does anyone think that calling one of the adventure outlines Height Club is a pun too far?

I'm hopefully going to get Elvis: The Legendary Tours finished and out to e23 (and possibly other PDF sales sites) in the next few days.

Diana: Warrior Princess runs to 65 pages of text and sells for $4.99

Elvis is 50 pages of text, and should presumably cost a little less. I was originally thinking $2.99, but that was when it was going to be shorter and had no illustrations. Now it's illustrated, albeit mostly by me, and I think that it's now better value, so I'm veering towards $3.99 - on the other hand it might be better to set the price a little lower and hope that the value encourages more people to buy Elvis, even if they haven't already bought D:WP, and possibly go back and buy Diana if they haven't already done so.

Anyway, here's a poll. I don't guarantee to pay much attention to the results, but input and comments would be appreciated.

[Poll #720543]

As a sampler for Elvis: The Legendary Tours I want to create a PDF containing pages from the first, second, and last sections of the Word file (Word 2000) using the free PDFCreator software:

pages 1-3 (all of section 1)
page 4 (which is numbered as page 1 of section 2)
page 12 (numbered as page 9 of section 2)
Page 22 (numbered as page 19 of section 2)
Page 55 (the only page of section 4)

I've tried telling it to print these pages using commas etc., but what I invariably end up with is the first three correct, then pages 1-4 of section 2, then pages 12 and 22 of section 2. Page 55 doesn't appear at all.

For various reasons it isn't possible to convert the document into a single section. Anyone know a way around this?

Later edit: The answer turns out to be to print pages p1-3s1, p1s2, p9s2, p19s2, p1s4

Since I ended up with a blank back page I decided to add a back cover. Does this look OK? Fonts will be a little fancier, otherwise this is more or less what it will be like. I'm very tempted to quote from the infamous Diana review, but perhaps I'd better not.

( back cover blurb )

...is one of the articles in today's Pyramid, Steve Jackson Games on-line mag. Since it mentions Elvis, The Legendary Tours I really need to get my act together and finish the damn thing!

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid

As always the name of the game is conflation, sticking bits of two or more real-world people together to make a character for Elvis: The Legendary Tours.

This time I need a name for a villainess, currently known as "The Witch With No Name," who is coming across as a much too two-dimensional character. I've decided that she might as well be the Witch Queen of New Orleans, who has decided to move on to pastures new until the flood damage is repaired.

So I'd like a name with magical and possibly French-ish connotations but still some connection to the 20th century and rock & roll / pop etc. My first thought was something sounding like "Morgan Le Fey" but with either the first or last part replaced, not quite sure what fits the bill.

Any suggestions?


Also looking for a bit of public-domain or copyright released clip art showing a beautiful woman playing a harp, preferably in a simple line drawn monochrome style. Can't quite find anything that fits the bill, can anyone point me at anything that fits?

Later - ( Made a harpist of sorts )

The name of the game is conflation - I want to make one character out of two or more real people, or (possibly) a real and a fictional person. Good examples I'm already using are John Lenin, Billie 'Doc' Holliday, Bob 'The Builder' Marley, Prince Albert Einstein.

I've decided that the name I've given one of the Elvis characters doesn't quite work for me. He's currently called Elric Clapton; the character is a musician / shaman / martial artist type person, and his name doesn't really reflect any of that, or much of anything except an easy joke.

So what I want is a rock star name crossed with a martial arts and/or mystic shit name. Something like [rock star first name] [martial artist last name] or vice versa, where the the rock star's name is a little like the martial artist's. Male preferably, though I can probably work with a female equivalent with a little modification of the character details - and if the name is right it's often possible to turn a female star into a male.

Any suggestions?

Several hours later: Decided to go with Jean-Claude Van Halen, with a note that he "...isn’t the only martial artist with an interest in music. Several of the most famous Sudoku masters have a background in the art and incorporate it into their fighting styles. These include Obi-Wan Bonjovi, Joan Jet Li and of course the legendary Chow Yun Fat Boy Slim."

Many many thanks to everyone who made suggestions - apologies that I couldn't use them all.