Wasted...

Had a lot of mental static last night, so Loq and I went to friend's house and they proceeded to get me a touch inebriated. Truth be told, though, it really took no arm twisting on their part. Once I got started, I was pretty much downing everything in front of me.

As a result, I wasted a potential productive evening and a potentially productive morning due to self-induced idiocy. Yeah, I kind of needed it, but the timing was way less than perfect. Looking back on it, I need to not do something like that again for about six months or so.

Tonight, I am doing laundry, leafing through the new Iron Kingdoms RPG, and am hoping to sit down and get some background stuff put together to get a game up and running withing the next few weeks. Before anyone gets too hopeful for an Iron Kingdoms thing, I am looking at putting the game system-in-progress through its paces. I have a number of potential guinea pig players on deck, and things look to be go whenever I get up to speed.

Go Go Gadget Game Designer...

-- GopherDave

(Re-)Workin'...

Okay, there's a theme currently in my life, and it's called "reworking".

We reorganized how we displayed/sold MtG singles at the store, and from an organizational standpoint, it worked beautifully for us who work here. From a sales standpoint, it has cost us. See, we pretty much did away with all binders but Standard, and threw the rest into 4-slot boxes in alphabetical order to make it easier for us to search for something. You ask us for a specific card, we check and see if we have any in relatively short order. That's great, but it pretty much leaves the browser/impulse buyers out in the cold, and we have noticed the drop in sales.

So, we are in the middle of a revision. We're still going to have the 4-slot boxes with alphabetical stock for overstock, but we are also putting together a series of binders that will have rare cards in alphabetical order. If we have the card, it will be in the binder. If you need more than one, we'll check back stock to see if we have them. If we don't have the card, we'll have a placeholder card in the binder pocket that let's us know that we are out, and if you have something, we'd be interested in trading for and/or buying it from you.

We are also going to combine the common and uncommon cards into one big alphabetical mess. In addition, we are getting rid of the idea of selling common/uncommon cards just in playsets, and going to a slightly different pricing structure for them. That part is still in the works, though, and having the kinks kicked out the door as fast as I can find them and deal with them. Stay tuned for that one. It's proving tougher than it should be.

The next thing I've been reworking is the magic system for Dicebag/Tai'eres. This will be the third one I've done, but probably the first one that actually jibes with the world background. None of the systems have been all that different in how they work, just how they were presented and implemented.

Magic in Tai'eres is controlled and channeled through the use of "spell shards". Don't have a shard for a specific spell, then you cannot cast it. Simple.

Initially, I had divided up the spells into three different "schools", mana-shards (magical), god-shards (divine), and spirit-shards (nature). Using any of them required specific gifts and skills, but kept things relatively controllable and flavorful from a world standpoint.

Eventually, I added two more "schools" in void-shards (darkness) and blood-shards (blood magic), and I had various enchantments doing the "cross-class" thing where, for example, there were healing shards available for all schools, but if it was a god-shard it would be easier to use than if it were a mana-shard or blood-shard, and void-users had no hope of all of healing. Again, flavorful, and let folks focus on their magic-type, but I had forgotten one core concept of the setting... All of the shards came from the same place and all were absorbing the same type of background energy used to power their effects.

Hence, there should only be "shards". No void-shards, or mana-shards, or what not... Just spell-shards. So I found some older notes when I first wrote the system, compared them to what I had currently, and dove-tailed it all together into fitting that core concept.

Finally, I'm at the store where I am waiting for FedEx to bring us a lost box they say they have for one of our shipments. When that gets here, I'll need to change some item properties in the POS system to make sure things jibe with the stop-gaps I put in place for this particular order where we received one half, but not the other. Sigh...

It never ends until your dead, and I woke up on the correct side of the dirt today, so...

Toodles...

-- GopherDave

Still Bleah, But Not As Much...

I'm still sick, but not nearly as much as I have been. I basically bailed on the store Friday and Saturday (Loq covered) and curled up on the couch with juice, soup, and grilled cheese. I am back in the store for Sunday evening, and I am basically waiting for things to wind down so I can work on some game stuff.

I have setting stuff to work on and events to construct. I also have character sheets to do and other little play aids to work on. I suppose I could have worked on things while I was sick at home, but I was sick at home and did not want to do anything except watch TV and be miserable.

-- GopherDave

Bleah And Double-Bleah...

Slept by the power of Nyquil, here at work by the power of Dayquil.

Not much got done after I got home. Between being sick and my knee, I really did not feel up for much of anything.

Awakening in the morning, the knee is better but my sinuses are not happy. I am hoping that things can get better soon as there is too much work to do to be laid low for too long. Chief among it all is the reworking of the grand MtG experiment. What we had done made it easier for us, but it has almost entirely killed our card sales. So, we are going back to the drawing board and keeping what works currently while modifying things so we can rejuvenate the card sales once again.

As it goes, though, Loquacious is coming in after her day job and possibly relieving me. We'll talk about it when she gets here.

I may post more later, or I might just go curl up and die in bed... Not certain either way, yet.

-- GopherDave

Sick, Wobbly, But Still Going...

Last night, my left knee (the worse of the two bad ones) started giving issues. It wasn't stable, and many times the joint felt Daniel-san in the one-legged Crane stance on the dock post. Totally wobbly and just unsure of itself. Oh, and painful. Very, very painful. When I went to bed last night, I was hoping that some rest would help it.

The rest did help the knee, but it still hurts. Also, I woke up with the beginnings of some sort of head cold. Yay. So, basically, I'm feeling like crap, but I managed to drag myself into work today (though I did have Skribl on stand-by, just in case).

Looking over the ruleset that I've been working on last night, there are only a few more things to do before I begin working on the setting/genre modules. Most of what is left should be simple. As for the setting stuff, the hardest one I have to work on is pretty much complete as far a rules go. Fantasy that has any form of a magic system is typically the most difficult genre to lock in place in terms of rules. However, since the rules are being extracted from a fantasy game I ran a few years back, the bulk of the work is already done. I just have to fine tune it all. The western stuff should be easy as it is grounded in a "mostly realistic" outlook. The bulk of the modern-day stuff should also be a snap.

Really, the largest bulk of work will be the science-fiction/space opera thing I have going on. Work on races other than human (the fantasy world I have is totally human-centric), psionics, and vehicular space combat are the big chunks of work that will need to be done. I'm fairly certain I can get it all done. I just have to do it...

...And being sick doesn't help me get it done. Bleh.

Birthdays And Anniversaries...

Shipment day at the store was fairly easy today. We reworked the schedules at the store, and the way things are set, I am back to entering orders in by myself. I don't mind typically, as long as nothing major goes wrong (see Friday/Comcast) during the time. Today, it was pretty simple, if a bit slow.

Today was also the eleventh anniversary of, well... that. It was also my father's 73rd birthday. I called him and wished him a happy birthday, and we talked for a bit. It was nice.

As for the other thing, it started something that still haunts us. I wrote something a piece about it a year and a half ago. I can't say that my feelings have changed much in that time. For some reason we are still involved in a conflict that can have no clear winner.

Zero-sum games are never productive. Take it from someone who sells games for a living...

-- GopherDave

Wandering Monsters

Things are what they are. Sundays at the store tend to be slower, and today was no exception. Did meet some new customers in the form of new university students who said they had no difficulty finding the place. That's always encouraging.

Once I get some of the store business taken care of, I will spend some time working on game stuff. How much I get done will depend entirely on my motivation level and brainpower. Currently, things are good, but that is always subject to change.

I received an e-mail from Comcast customer service in regard to our issues on Friday. It's more of an invitation to open dialogue for there really isn't much left to fix. about the only thing I can see is the internet seems slower than it used to be. Part of that may be the new wireless router I installed as part of the "repair". I'll check with Ranger (our main tech guy) tomorrow and see what his opinion is.

Beyond that... nufin'.

-- GopherDave