Monday, July 2, 2012

Blood & Treasure ... I'm Kinda Done


Over the weekend I finished writing Blood & Treasure. Yippee!

Up next is the final editing, which I'm beginning now (I also have a few illustrations I'm waiting on - and thanks to Jon Kaufman and Ndege Diamond for their work in this area, and of course Tanner Yea for his editing prowess) and hope to finish in about a week. After that, I create some PDFs and begin selling them while I wait for a hard copy to review - I'm trying to use the thinnest margins possible to keep the overall page count of the books as low as possible, but if the result is hard to read/use, I'll have to fix the layout.

Anyhow, I though that people who are interested in the project might like to the a quick and dirty version of the table of contents (note: not actual TOC - I can't really do that until I have something physical to work out the page numbering) for this beast:

I. Getting Started

II. Characters
Ability scores
Races (human, dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc)
Classes (assassin, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, duelist, fighter, magic-user, monk, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, thief)
Multi-Classing
Changing Class
Feats (optional rule)
Equipment
Henchmen & Hirelings
- Adepts
Character Details
- Alignment (3-fold and 9-fold)
- Alignment languages
- Personality and description
Strongholds
- Selecting a domain
- Clearing a domain of monsters
- Designing a stronghold
- Establishing your rule (includes random events)

Web spell by Jon Kaufman
III. Magic
Arcane Spells
Divine Spells
Spell-Like Abilities
Arcane Magical Writings
Spellbooks
Spellcasting
Magical Research
Spell Descriptions (627 spells)

IV. Rules of Play
Time
Movement
Encumbrance
Saving Throws
- Item saving throws
Survival
- Starvation and thirst
- Light
- Falling
- Disease
- Poison
Conditions
Heroic Tasks
- Bend Bars
- Break Down Doors
- Balance
- Climb Sheer Surfaces
- Decipher Codes
- Escape Bonds
- Find Secret Doors
- Find Traps
- Hide in Shadows
- Jump
- Listen at Doors
- Move Silently
- Open Locks
- Pick Pockets
- Remove Traps
- Riding
- Survival
- Swimming
- Tracking
- Trickery
- Skill Points (optional rule)
Encounters
Combat
- Initiative
- Combat Actions
o Melee Attacks
o Ranged Attacks
o Hitting in Combat
o Charging
o Fighting Defensively
o Tactical Advantage
o Special Attacks
o Fighting with Two Weapons
o Running Away
o Mounted Combat
o Underwater Combat
o Turning Undead
Damage and Death
- Hit Point Damage
o Alternate Dying Rules
- Ability Score Damage & Drain
- Energy Drain
- Healing
Mass Combat
Naval Combat
Example of Play

V. Adventures
Dungeons
- Mapping
- Dungeon Walls
- Dungeon Floors
- Dungeon Doors
- Dungeon Rooms
- Dungeon Corridors
- Other Dungeon Features
- Cave-Ins
- Slimes, Molds & Fungi
- Traps
- Running Dungeon Adventures
- Random Dungeon Chamber Generator
Wilderness
- Designing a wilderness
- Wilderness encounters
- Wilderness movement
- Wilderness combat
- Wilderness dangers
- Random Wilderness Hex Generator
Civilization & Settlements
- Vistas
- To map or not to map
- Goods for sale
- Rulers
- The long arm of the law
- The dogs of war
- Notable citizens
- Random encounters
- Urban adventure hooks
- Random Settlement Generator
The Planes
- Planar traits
- Elemental and energy traits
- Alignment traits
- Magic
- How planes interact
- One possible cosmology

VI. Monsters
Monster Size
Monster Type
Monster Intelligence
Monster Organization
Other Stats
Special Attacks and Abilities
Making Monsters
- Reskinning
- Modifications
- Creating a new monster
Monster Encounters
Monsters as Characters
Xaoc by Ndege Diamond
Monster Descriptions (538 monsters)
A – Aasimar to Azer (31 monsters)
B – Baboon to Burrawog (35 monsters)
C – Cecilia, Giant to Cyclops (32 monsters)
D – Dark Creeper to Dwarf (79 monsters)
E – Eagle (Hawk) to Eye of the Deep (15 monsters)
F – Flail Snail to Frost Worm (6 monsters)
G – Gargoyle (Kapoacinth) to Grue (41 monsters)
H – Hag, Annis to Hyena (26 monsters)
I – Ice Giant to Iron Cobra (8 monsters)
J – Jackalwere to Juggernaut (3 monsters)
K – Kobold to Krenshar (2 monsters)
L – Lamia to Lynx, Giant (27 monsters)
M – Magmin to Mushroom Man (19 monsters)
N – Naga, Dark to Nymph (15 monsters)
O – Ochre Jelly to Owlbear (9 monsters)
P – Pegasus to Purple Worm (23 monsters)
R – Rakshasa to Rust Monster (16 monsters)
S – Sahuagin to Sylph (50 monsters)
T – Tarrasque to Turtle, Giant (21 monsters)
U – Udoroot to Uvuudaum (5 monsters)
V – Vampire to Violet Fungus (5 monsters)
W – Walking Slime to Wyvern (14 monsters)
X – Xaoc, Achromatic to Xorn (9 monsters)
Y – Yeth Hound to Yrthak (3 monsters)
Z – Zombie (1 monster)
Templates – Beastman template to pseudonatural template (12 templates; 40 sample monsters)

VII. TreasureCoins
Gems
Art Objects
Magic Items
- Using items
- Size and magic items
- Charges, doses and multiple uses
- Creating magic items
- Magic Armor
- Magic Weapons
- Potions and Oils
- Rings
- Rods
- Scrolls
- Staves
- Wands
- Wondrous Items
- Intelligent Items
- Cursed Items
- Artifacts

21 comments:

  1. Looking forward to it. Man a lot of people are putting out a lot of stuff recently. What's your price point for it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good question. I've been requested to produce a two different versions of the game. One will be the entire rulebook (400+ pages) all together in one package, the other a two book set, each about 200 pages.

      Now, the PDF's I'm not sure about, but probably $10 for the two book version, $15 for the one book version. I'm not swearing to this, but I think that's what it will be.

      In paperback, I'm guessing $20 a pop for the two book version, $30 for the one book version - again, not positive. I want to make about $5 a book because, well, I'd like to get my money back on the art and maybe a little something for my time.

      A few people have sworn they will buy a hard cover version - as near as I can tell from the Lulu book calculator, they'll need to be about $30+ for the two book version, $45+ for the one book version.

      Again - all estimations at this point. I'm not completely sure about the page count yet until the layout is finalized.

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    2. Thanks for the info. Nothing wrong with making a little dough. I can only image how many hours you've put into developing the books. Either way, I'll be seeking them out, probably in hardback myself, when they come out. Tons of luck with your project Matt.

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    3. If I can break even on this one, it will be a miracle.

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  2. Duelist, eh? One of my favorite classes form Dragon back in the day. Looking forward to it.

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  3. Are you going to be re-packaging any/all of your NOD content for modules and/or campaign settings?

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    Replies
    1. I'm going to talk more about supplement plans (since people seem to want supplements) later, but I can say that I want to produce a NOD Companion for B&T that will collect and convert classes, some of the unique races and a few other odds and ends. Most of the hexcrawls and adventures, since they are written for S&W are compatible with B&T, so I don't think I'll revamp them - I'd rather spend my time writing new material.

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  4. I anticipate buying a one book hard cover version. Any chance of getting a free pdf with the purchase of a hard copy?

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    Replies
    1. I'd like to try to make that happen. With Lulu it's really not possible - there's no way to bundle things, and I don't have access to the identities of people who buy my material. I'm going to look into putting my material on RPGNOW.com, finally, and I think they might be able to handle that kind of bundling. So - I can't promise it, but I'll look into it. I can promise that I'll sell B&T for as little as I can and still have a slim hope (very slim) of breaking even on it.

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    2. In the past when I've purchased hard coppice of material from lulu, I've sent. a copy of my lulu order to the publisher, and the publisher has sent a copy of the PDF, but RPGNow would seem to be the most efficient option for bundling. They use the same printer as lulu, so the quality will not diminish.

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    3. That's a good idea. I can definitely make that happen.

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  5. Great news! Really looking forward to picking these up!

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    Replies
    1. And as a play tester, you'll have free PDFs coming your way soon.

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    2. Really? That's great! Though I feel I don't really deserve any such perk as I dropped out so early on.

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  6. To be honest, I'm FAR more excited about this than I was about DCC or ACKS.

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  7. Did you decide to go with unified XP for advancement?

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    Replies
    1. Kinda. I have a few different XP advancement schemes - sort of a "low", "medium" and "high", and then a fourth for multi-class characters. I agonized on this one a bit, and may live to regret it (and may even change my mind during he editing process!). So, not a different chart for each class, but not all classes use the same chart, if that makes sense.

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  8. As a compromise you could keep the different advancement charts as being optional if you decide you don't want to make them core.

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  9. All i can say is WOA!! It's great !! ^_____^

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