Meme-Free Zone

Sales of The Original Flatland Role Playing Game, which is sold in aid of Doctors Without Borders, have been slow recently. I've decided to try an experiment; I've put the complete game rules and two adventures on line as a free download, omitting another adventure and some adventure outlines, the cutout characters, the wargame, the "serious scientific stuff", the novel, etc. I'm hoping that this will be enough of a "taster" that people will be tempted to buy the complete game. It's a bit over a megabyte download, accessible here:

http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/flatland_lite.pdf

I don't think that there are any problems, but I'd be grateful if people could check it out and see if they spot any; if so please comment below.

Thanks!

I got on faster than I expected this evening and now have the first draft scan of Hinton's An Episode of Flatland on line. As far as I know this is the first time the complete text has been put on line - this may be because it simply isn't as good a book as Abbott's Flatland, although the physical world described (at least in the introduction) is a good deal more scientifically plausible than the original. Unfortunately later sections tend to under-emphasise the peculiar nature of the 2D world. I still think I can do something with it for RPG purposes, though the next Forgotten Futures will come first.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/flat2/flat2-00.htm

I'd be grateful for comments before I put up links to it - there are probably lots of errors I've missed.

Yesterday's Dragonmeet was, as always, extremely good fun. Also exhausting, since I had a sore throat from the start.

I made a big mistake in the pacing of the first Flatland / Forgotten Futures adventure, which ended up lasting just under two hours instead of nearly three - the problem was that I originally designed it with a Forgotten Futures detective phase which given the time constraints would have had to be done entirely by NPCs; instead the players (as Flatlanders temporarily occupying 3D bodies) got to cross London, destroy things and frighten the horses, then rescue someone and destroy a nameless evil (with rugose tentacles). I think everyone had some fun, but it was a lot shorter and more linear than originally intended. I'll write it up properly when I'm a bit better. One possibility is that some of the players could run two characters, one human and one Flatlander, with the human leaving the stage in the second act.

I'd compounded my timing error by allowing an hour's break between sessions, instead of half an hour, so ended up sitting and talking to passing friends for nearly two hours between games. Fortunately doctor_toc is now resident in the UK and made it to the con, and helped me out by table-sitting while I got lunch and had a fast mooch around the dealers. Also saw Phil Masters, Mike Cule, pwca, karohemd and other familiar faces.

The afternoon Diana Warrior Princess session in which Diana and Elvis characters (through a bureaucratic mistake during a silly-season crossover episode) ended up in the afterlife - it went well, but I think the plot needed more work. It seemed to go down well enough, but I hadn't quite thought through some of the things the players might do, so a lot of improvisation was needed. Such as coming up with a version of Death - yes, with the scythe - whose idea of playing Rock - Paper - Scissors was to materialise a boulder over the head of the person challenging him. The Supreme Being (a John Cleese clone, of course) seemed to go over well, as did various undead barmen, talking lizards, etc. Again, I'll write it up eventually.

After that I nipped home and dumped my stuff, and got back in time for the auction where I singularly failed to get any of the things I bid on - I only had 50 quid left, and that wasn't nearly enough for the things I wanted. It raised £1600+ for children's charities, which I think is a record for Dragonmeet. Highest price was the last item, signed and dedicated copies of the recent Dork Tower cartoons about Dragonmeet - bought by Angus Abranson for I think £400. Unfortunately muskrat_john didn't make it over this year, so he'll have to wait on the transatlantic post. After that I was pretty shattered and ended up going home for an early night. Didn't even make it to the post-con booze-up today because I just didn't feel up to it.

Later edit - sorry, that was £450 for the cartoons, and it's Angus who'll have to wait, of course, since muskrat_john will be sending them from the USA.

My big disappointment was that all of my sales were Diana and Elvis material - none for Forgotten Futures or Flatland, despite lots of people admiring the plastic cutout characters for Flatland and apparently liking the game concept. Again, it would really help if the game got more publicity, higher ratings on e23, etc., so if you've bought it and liked it please say so. Remember that all proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.


I've been thinking about the long-term future of Forgotten Futures, and one possibility I'm considering is to make the core rules mechanisms (in the PDF version up to page 37) available on a free basis - anyone would be able to use them for their own games, add additional rules, etc., subject only to an acknowledgement of their source - and to allow anyone to write and sell worldbooks and adventures based on the complete rules (but not to print the entire 100-page rule book unless they want to pay royalties) if they don't want to develop their own game. I won't make money out of this directly, but Forgotten Futures is a reasonably flexible system and it ought to work reasonably well as an "engine" for most types of game, and encourage people to look at my material. At this stage this is still a "something I might do" idea, not a firm proposal, and I'd be grateful for comments.

I've printed the Flatland Cut-Out Characters tonight, 4 a4 sheets in a plastic wallet with title page, but I think I want to add at least one more sheet of stuff that isn't in the book to add value. Since I'm running a little low on coloured toner I think this may end up being black and white. So which of the following would be most useful:

A typical Flatland home (some assembly reqired)

Some character outlines - draw your own internal structure.

Scenery of some sort.

Something else.

I'm inclined to think that the home is most useful, but I'm happy to consider other ideas.

I got a royalties cheque from e23 yesterday which included my first payments for The Original Flatland Role Playing Game - I can't pay it in for a few days, but it seemed time to make my first donation to Doctors Without Borders. As near as I can figure it out my take so far is about 48 pounds, give or take a pound, so I've given the charity fifty pounds which with tax benefits will come out at about sixty going to the charity. Of course I'd like it to be more next time...

So if you haven't bought it yet, please take a look - and if you have, please give it a rating!

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=ROW003

Apparently there have already been more than fifty downloads of the FF PDF from e23, and I've been asked to PLEASE not make any more changes unless it's absolutely essential in case all of them download it again. I've also had more registrations than usual in the last few days; not a huge increase, but enough to convince me that doing this was worth while, and that putting more freebies on line occasionally, over and above the normal game releases, will also be a good idea if I can do it without overextending myself.

I'm vaguely thinking of an "advertising supplement" next, say 32 pages of adverts from Pearson's Magazine, Gamage's catalogue, etc., if I can find enough fun ones. Does this sound interesting?

I'm also going to look at freebies for Diana and Flatland; I'm not sure what they'll be, but I'm sure I can come up with something.

One of the reasons why I haven't been posting much is that I've been writing a Flatland article which I've just sent to Pyramid magazine - if they decide that they don't want to use it I'll probably put it on line on my own site. Basically, it's about the problems facing the Circles that rule Flatland, and some of their opposition. You don't need it to play the game, but it might be a useful source of ideas. I wanted to get it out quickly, while the game is still in the charts.

My next priority is probably going to have to be more work on Forgotten Futures, still some scanning to do, then I can start writing the next release. After that Gandhi, and if I have any odd moments more fanfic updates.

The Original Flatland Role Playing Game is now available for sale.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=ROW003

Let's hope it makes some money for charity.

I've put a Flatland sampler on line - I'd appreciate comments on whether it looks like a good mix of pages etc. It's about 650k.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/album/flatl_sampler.pdf

I just realised that I don't have any named female characters in The Original Flatland Role Playing Game. Not entirely surprising, given their rather limited status in the setting, but I might as well give a name to the big cutout figure. Here's her picture:



Lovely, isn't she...

My first thought was Linda Linear, and make her a relative of another character I have with that surname, but I think I'd prefer something else. Any suggestions?