Bloodline Powers Expansion

[Osprey]

I have to say that sorting through magazines and websites for piecemeal information is very tedious and mind-numbing, and represents my least favorite way to digest information. I'm still a big fan of edited, formatted supplements that I can print out. If it is easiest to do through piecemeal contribution, that's fine.

But it leaves the big question: what, ultimately, is considered "sufficient" in quality, compatibility, etc. to be posted. Who decides such a thing? A team of editors/designers? A poll on each addition (democratic, but [/I]slow[I]...)?

Not having been here when the BRCS was put together, it was never clear to me how such things (such as the design team) were determined, so perhaps there is already established some protocol I am unaware of. But the question remains...

[Mark_Aurel]

I'm not a big believer in quality control by democracy - it tends to lead to compromises wherein everyone gets their stuff mixed into the soup, there is no clear vision, and you wind up having to wade through the whole product to find those parts which suits you, or are written by the authors you trust. For assigning quality control for a type of Birthright official submissions site, I'd want to pick people that are intimately familiar with D&D and d20 rules and understand game theory in general, so they know when an attempt at a new rule is a bad or a good one - and are also familiar with the Birthright setting, and know to weed out inappropriate materials and proposals. The standard should be professional, or as close to professional as possible - depending on how you define professional, this is either an easy or a hard task. I would much rather have quality than quantity, however. Quantity is everywhere else on the internet anyway. If you want a boatload of new feats, try out the Netbook of Feats - I'm not sure whether they still decorate it with footmarks or not. If you want feats and other materials that fit Birthright, you should come here to Birthright.net instead - and I want people to know that when they download something from here, they are getting quality materials, not a soup of components randomly thrown in.

In fact, an interesting submission angle might be to not just make the game mechanics, but also a short article explaining how those game mechanics fit into Birthright, and how the author thinks to take best advantage of them, or how they are supposed to work better than existing mechanics.

For the Birthright team, the people on the team were chosen from among the people that had actually put together a 3e conversion manual of their own at some point and posted it - and thus had some proven track record of putting materials together, rather than just talking a good book.

[Birthright-L]

> But it leaves the big question: what, ultimately, is considered "sufficient" in quality, compatibility, etc. to be posted. Who decides such a thing? A team of editors/designers? A poll on each addition (democratic, but [/I]slow[I]...)?

>

> Not having been here when the BRCS was put together, it was never clear to me how such things (such as the design team) were determined, so perhaps there is already established some protocol I am unaware of. But the question remains...



Very few of us are aware of the answers to that one, and those that are tend

to regard it as a very touchy subject.



But in my original post, I was kind of assuming the BRCS team would be

handling all that. If they don`t want to, that`s another story altogether.

But in general, as the BRCS team keeps reminding us, they are only human and

they don`t seem to want to develop on ideas other than their own. It`s very

difficult to develop a system from soemone else`s ideas, and they`re

attitude toward blood abilities has been "if you have a complete detailed

system ready then we`ll consider it" rather than considering developing a

system off anyone else`s ideas about how such a system should be built. In

fact, most such suggestions, seem to be frowned on. Again, this is

understandable. It`s hard enough to write your own system, let alone

someone else`s.



Ideally, I think the BRCS team (or a different BRCS team or sub-team) should

be willing to develop systems based on suggestions from the list, but this

team has a track history of not doing that so another team may be needed for

independantly created systems such as these. Likely, a few people would be

chosen for each `netbook`, perhaps from volunteers/nominees off the

list/board with all of their work approved/vetoed by the BRCS team.



-Lord Rahvin

[Birthright-L]

> I`m not a big believer in quality control by democracy - it tends to lead to compromises wherein everyone gets their stuff mixed into the soup, there is no clear vision, and you wind up having to wade through the whole product to find those parts which suits you, or are written by the authors you trust. For assigning quality control for a type of Birthright official submissions site, I`d want to pick people that are intimately familiar with D&D and d20 rules and understand game theory in general, so they know when an attempt at a new rule is a bad or a good one - and are also familiar with the Birthright setting, and know to weed out inappropriate materials and proposals. The standard should be professional, or as close to professional as possible - depending on how you define professional, this is either an easy or a hard task. I would much rather have quality than quantity, however. Quantity is everywhere else on the internet anyway. If you want a boatload of new feat

> s, try out the Netbook of Feats - I`m not sure whether they still decorate it with footmarks or not. If you want feats and other materials that fit Birthright, you should come here to Birthright.net instead - and I want people to know that when they download something from here, they are getting quality materials, not a soup of components randomly thrown in.





Well, that`s all great in theory and you`re cleverly phrasing your opinions

in ways that make anyone who disagrees with you sound bad, no where in there

did you answer the original question about who would be writing such

expansions.





> In fact, an interesting submission angle might be to not just make the game mechanics, but also a short article explaining how those game mechanics fit into Birthright, and how the author thinks to take best advantage of them, or how they are supposed to work better than existing mechanics.



With all due respect, it`s only been very recently (like the last few days)

that the BRCS team has even shown any consideration for how other people fit

new mechanics to fit their Birthright games. The BRCS team has made it

clear how high they regard existing mechanics and their disdain for adding

any more mechanics, official or otherwise. The statement above seems less

like "quality control" (as you coined it) and more like an appeasement to

satisfy the group while shutting down an idea you don`t like.





> For the Birthright team, the people on the team were chosen from among the people that had actually put together a 3e conversion manual of their own at some point and posted it - and thus had some proven track record of putting materials together, rather than just talking a good book.



I`m just really curious at this point.

By "3e conversion manual of their own", you mean specifically a "Birthright"

book, right? Surely, someone who`s compiled and posted previous

Birthright-related materials was what was being looked for, or should be

looked for at this point, rather than someone who posted 3e materials in

general or for other campaign systems. Right?



-Lord Rahvin

[Mark_Aurel]

Well, that`s all great in theory and you`re cleverly phrasing your opinions
in ways that make anyone who disagrees with you sound bad, no where in there
did you answer the original question about who would be writing such
expansions.

Well, the answer could be as simple as: I don't know. The Birthright E-Zine was Ian Hoskins' project, and I'm not sure about the current status of that. In general, I think I'm going to try and organize something along the lines outlined previously - a regular compilation of new Birthright mechanics. Anyone would be welcome to contribute, of course - though if I'm organizing it, I'd also do my best to make sure that quality is the far more important consideration over raw quantity. I don't want to come here and say "yeah, this month, we have another 43 half-ass prestige classes. Yay." I'd much rather go "and this month, we have two new excellent prestige classes." Let's just say we're still in the realm of ideas here, thus exchanging thoughts on how to best structure a project like this is more constructive at this point than trying to inquire about specific details.

To illustrate better what I meant earlier about releasing the material:

1. The "magazine." A compilation of all new material for a given month or whatever time period is appropriate. Much easier to manage for most people, I think - it also has that synergy thing going. This is where you see what's new.

2. The "archives." All past articles sorted by category. Feats in one neat folder, prestige classes elsewhere, spells in one place, variant rules systems in one place, etc. This is where you find everything in a specific topic easily.

With all due respect, it`s only been very recently (like the last few days)
that the BRCS team has even shown any consideration for how other people fit
new mechanics to fit their Birthright games. The BRCS team has made it
clear how high they regard existing mechanics and their disdain for adding
any more mechanics, official or otherwise. The statement above seems less
like "quality control" (as you coined it) and more like an appeasement to
satisfy the group while shutting down an idea you don`t like.

Actually, I'm pretty sure most members of the BRCS team are very interested in different mechanics and ideas. The point of the BRCS isn't to include three new hit point systems, or five different domain systems, or a classless fantasy variant, or seven different flavors of elf or dwarf, however. No one holds alternate mechanics or ideas in "disdain" - nor do I believe any of us adopt uppity attitudes about the rules as they are; if it ever seems so, that is probably a poor presentation on our part, or misinterpretation on the reader's part. The BRCS, by virtue of being supposed to set the "official" baseline for 3e Birthright, can't stray too far from the default D&D rules. Even though I personally might like to tinker with the system for epic spells and turn that into a more generic spell system for lower-level characters or whatever, that's a personal house rule, not a rule for the BRCS. It is, however, things like that that might go into the variant section, if it has specific Birthright merit, or the BR magazine thing, if that ever happens.

I`m just really curious at this point.
By "3e conversion manual of their own", you mean specifically a "Birthright"
book, right? Surely, someone who`s compiled and posted previous
Birthright-related materials was what was being looked for, or should be
looked for at this point, rather than someone who posted 3e materials in
general or for other campaign systems. Right?

Yep. By "conversion manual," I referred specifically to those that had put together something to convert Birthright to 3e rules. I'm not sure whether we caught everyone that did that, and if we didn't, I'm sorry.

[Mark_Aurel]

Ideally, I think the BRCS team (or a different BRCS team or sub-team) should
be willing to develop systems based on suggestions from the list, but this
team has a track history of not doing that so another team may be needed for
independantly created systems such as these. Likely, a few people would be
chosen for each `netbook`, perhaps from volunteers/ nominees off the
list/board with all of their work approved/vetoed by the BRCS team.

Do I sense the presence of someone who would volunteer precious hours of their life to such a thing, or who would at least submit something of their own make?

If so, I want an alternate Encumbrance system on my desk tomorrow morning at 9!

[Birthright-L]

> If so, I want an alternate Encumbrance system on my desk tomorrow morning at 9!





Okay... :)

Should it be written for Birthright or D&D?

I need to know how many Bags of Holding will be in a party.



-Lord Rahvin

[Raesene Andu]

It is important to remember that the BRCS was never meant to the final word on BR rules. It does not, and will not, include every blood ability, realm spell, house rule, etc that you might like to see. Instead it is meant to provide a set of core rules that can be used as a base from which new material can be created.

So there is no reason at all why new material can not be published on the web, in some form of e-zine (or whatever) if people want to write and release their own BR material. In fact, I would encourage this. There has been far too little new material created for BR over the past few years and I for one would like to see more. Even entirely new books (such as the examples earlier in this thread)

I would personally prefer to see an archive type setup, rather than a e-zine or netbook. It is easier to access the articles and sort through them to find what you are looking for. If you like I can set something up. I've a couple of old webpages I used to run that I can fix up, but the question is, is anyone going to submit anything?

As Mark_Aurel has mentioned I was going to run a birthright e-zine (published once a month) starting at the end of last year, but no one ever submitted anything to be included. It was planned to do exactly what you are dicussing now, release a e-zine with new material and have an archive of all old material that you could look through. Now I did toss up the idea of releasing the first issue with entirely my own material in the hope of encouraging others to submit something, but I wasn't sure how that would be received, so it never happened.

However, I'm still open to restarting the e-zine if that is what you would like to see. It doesn't take too much of my time to format some submitted articles into a short e-zine and publish it once a month (or 2 months). However, I would need to have something to include first.

Another option open to use, is a series of competitions to create something (say a BR prestige class). Someone can collect submissions, publish them and then let the member of birthright.net and the list vote on which one they like. No prizes for the winner of course, except the knowledge that people really liked your work.

[Mark_Aurel]

As Mark_Aurel has mentioned I was going to run a birthright e-zine (published once a month) starting at the end of last year, but no one ever submitted anything to be included. It was planned to do exactly what you are dicussing now, release a e-zine with new material and have an archive of all old material that you could look through. Now I did toss up the idea of releasing the first issue with entirely my own material in the hope of encouraging others to submit something, but I wasn't sure how that would be received, so it never happened.

Ah, so that was the problem - if so, I have a bunch of stuff lying around that I could touch up on and submit. Of course, it won't be appropriate for everyone, but what ever is?

[geeman]

At 02:25 PM 8/20/2003 +0200, Raesene Andu wrote:



>I would personally prefer to see an archive type setup, rather than a

>e-zine or netbook. It is easier to access the articles and sort through

>them to find what you are looking for. If you like I can set something up.



I`d like to see an "archive web page in e-zine style" if you will. At

least, that`s what I was trying to suggest earlier. If a web page looked

like the Table of Contents for a e-zine then it would satisfy both the urge

to have a constantly updated resource for materials and the desire to keep

those resources in a single place for those who don`t want to leaf through

gobs of magazines/files to find a particular bit of information. Such a

page could be broken up into various sections, and when those sections grew

large enough to merit conversion into a separate ebook they could be

compiled into such a document which would be put up on the "regular

download" page along with the BRCS and whatever other supplements get

written up.



Just to illustrate the point, the page could look like this (with due

formatting, of course):



THE BEASTS OF BIRTHRIGHT



The Blobman by Joe Contributor

"This amorphous awnsheghlien will slither into your campaign."



Nightmaid by E.M. Forster

"Evil femme fatale of the night or misunderstood protector of the innocent?"



The Furies by Able Cline

"This trio of awnsheghlien make prophecies of doom and despair. Can your

players face the challenge?"



SCIONS AND BLOODLINES



Bloodlines Using Points by Gary Foss

"This system of reflecting bloodline allows customization of blood abilities."



Bloodline as Character Class by Ernst Hemingway

"Level up your character in the blood of the gods!"



PEOPLE AND PRINCES



Prince Avan by Bill Falkland

"A 3e interpretation of this prominent Birthright character."



The Swan Mage by Silvia Plath

"A 3e interpretation of this Khinasi mistress of magic."



Things like that. The titles would be links to documents, the authors

names links to email address or their BR.net addy (should the author so

specify.)



Either of the above sections could then be placed into a "Book of..."

document when enough of them were contributed. I don`t know exactly what

was "enough" for such a document, but let`s just say that if there were 64

pages of material it would be suitable for conversion into a supplement

rather than individual articles on the "e-zine" page.



Aside from the way such a system could be used to develop ebooks in the

long run, another merit of handling it this way is IMO that if there`s a

lull in the amount of contributions to the page that doesn`t mean the

e-zine project itself will fall apart. The person who volunteers to edit

such a monthly (or bi-monthly or quarterly) document doesn`t then have to

appeal constantly for new material, nor do the contributors feel like they

have to meet deadlines--which is not something that volunteers feel

particularly pleased about having to do.



>I`ve a couple of old webpages I used to run that I can fix up, but the

>question is, is anyone going to submit anything?



I can think of several things I`ve seen in posts that would only take a

little editing to turn into an article suitable for such an e-zine

page. Off the top of my head there`s at least a dozen such posts that

would work. In fact, several would seem to require only formatting into

whatever standards the "e-zine page" adopted in order to be posted as

articles. I can`t speak for anyone else, but I have at least three things

in the works right now that would be appropriate for such page. All four

of the bloodline proposals would be apropos as articles for such a page.



Gary