NPC Interactive

The last thing I want this blog to become is a constant selling platform for the interactive system I'm developing.  But if any of you out there have ever started a business, staged a play or organized an event, you know it becomes increasingly difficult to think about anything else.  Part of that is due to guilt ... thinking that I shouldn't be doing this, where there are all these other things that need to be done:  "If you're going to waste time writing a blog, Alexis, at least write about something important."

It's a bad habit to get into.  Writing a blog is a pleasurable habit for me.  Each bit and piece of D&D turned over and discussed, rules rationalized or debated, new ideas put forward and either shot down or established.  This has been the focus of the blog from the beginning: to get my world and my ideas into print.  I would remind the gentle reader who has read one too many posts about the IMech, the development of the system was done right here, deconstructed as part of a blog post where I was saying that something like it ought to be created.

But if it ceases to be fun for me, and if writing the blog starts to be a marketing chore, then I am thinking about this process all wrong.  This system may, at the moment, have my full attention, but it is not the last leap forward in D&D that I intend to make.  The pinnacle of my game development does not begin and end with a group of cards.  This is just the flavour of things for the moment.  In six months, or a year, I'm going to come forward with another post that talks about something else, saying, how the hell exactly does this work?  And some other idea is going to evolve from that post, too.

I ask the gentle reader to please be patient.  I'm enjoying myself and my little venture, and I'm proud of the work that's being done.  Like being the father of a little child, I want to talk about my offspring.  That's all.  The thing will grow up and get on its own feet and won't need my tender care - it'll be a strong entity in its own right and will do its own talking.

Yes, I am going to talk about the system.  I mentioned a few posts back that I had created 87 unique cards; this has been reduced to 82, as we've decided not to include five cards in the original deck.  We expect the box will contain something like 180 cards (accounting for needed duplicates), but that number isn't written in stone yet.

32 of the cards are NPCs ... individuals depicted in order to give a sense what sort of cards that non-players might possess, to show the DM how he or she could assign NPCs interactive skills.  And one of my favorite cards is the pirate I talked about yesterday.  Sadly, the picture has been stolen off the internet; but it would be real nice to have someone draw something comparable.

The reader will notice that nothing whatsoever is mentioned about Arrah's level; that is because the system does not consider her level to be directly important.  Yes, she's lived long enough to accumulate the cards she has ... but the actual physical strength is left up to the DM.  If it's wanted for her to be tougher, then it only requires that more cards be added to those listed above.  But remember - she doesn't have much of a wisdom or an intelligence; it might be intentional that, while she's a very dangerous woman with a sword, she's easy to overcome if you get a chance to speak.

I'll let it go; I wanted to post something about the NPC cards.  I've done that, so I can lay this to bed for a week or so, and use the blog to talk about other things.