It's January 31st in three hours, so this is a good time to take further stock on my activities.
Some of you may have noticed that I've been working on the sage studies for the sage field, Metalwork. These four links, delicate metalwork, metal armour, metalsmithing and weaponwright were a single sentence a few days ago. I've elaborated on each, just some, not for my players but because a patreon supporter took advantage of the $30 patreon tier that says I'll write a minimum of 1200 words on the wiki as a swap. It's a good deal for me. It may not be much money per word, but I do get to keep the words, yes? Anyway, for those interested in knowing how magical armour and weapons get made ... or at least the outline of that ... there's the information for you.
I have three more pages from the Streetvendor's Guide to publish tomorrow on patreon. I've decided that I'm also going to post a free paragraph a day from the book, on whatever I've written. I did so today and yesterday, about livestock today and about mushrooms yesterday. Feel free to glance over there to see what might turn up.
This brings us to maps. Seven readers requested maps on Tao's wiki this last month. These are, with their requests, Palant (Obukhiv), Discord (Michigan), Sterling (Maine), Maxwell (London), Vlad (Munich), Rec (Marseilles) and DM's Escritoire (Ohio). You're all free to add one section to any of these maps in February, and of course you can make your request known right now. It does not need to be the stub you started; feel free to add onto someone else's stub if you like. I only wish to limit you seven from starting another location. It's not so bad to get one started in Europe, where I already have the 20-mile map made, but these American map-starts are an absolute bitch. Just felt I should let you know.
I'll fit your request into my schedule somehow ... I've had a few late nights, what with having an actual job also, but I seem to be doing okay keeping up. Just now, I may add my own choice of section to each map stub, to give them each a little more momentum. We'll see.
So long as I'm able to work at my own pace, I have no worries. The days have been fun, the work highly addictive and progress is excellent. The book length is running at 15,000 words, with 16.5 pages done, after two weeks and a day of writing. Huzzah!
Finally have time to go over some of the streetvendor material. Sorry for not saying something sooner even though you took the time to email me during the Patreon kerfuffle.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love your decision to go all in on rich and informational text. It’s been a long long time since I used any published RPG material, from WOTC or from smaller publishers or from independent, because none of them know how to actually describe anything (because they don't know about the world, only about generic fantasy). They just give me a bunch of badly written cliche flavor crap I don’t need. I can open a history book and get 10 gallons of “flavor.”
So I’m excited for the street vendor guide: definitely think the basic premise of the material so far is filling a hole in the market, at least from the perspective of people like us, your readers, who want to play games that are rooted in managing and applying information about a world.
Second, I believe you’ve mentioned that you will be buying some illustrations for the book. If I may give my two cents: the way that splat books fuck up when using images is to give “evocative” character and scenery artwork. Sorry, artists, but the web offers more such pictures than I could ever survey. What’s harder for me to find, at least in a form that is trustworthy and useful at the table, are diagrams, blueprints, plans. not representations of people and places, but visualizations of information. It seems those kinds of material would fit perfectly with the SV Guide.
Third, could you please (when you have time) say a bit more about the relationship between your trade tables and the book contents? you mentioned in the draft of the book introduction that you are using your tables to generate the prices at a particular market. But I don’t think we’ve seen the design of the tables since 2018 or 19, so I’m curious , for instance, how many of the goods in the book already existed on your tables and how many will be new research. (I know all the writing is going to be new!)
Thanks for sharing your progress and the pictures! Great to hear it is flowing smoothly.
Regarding mapping: I'd like to see the Provence map extended -- adding one hex east and one hex north if that's alright.
ReplyDeleteThank you Maxwell.
ReplyDeleteIt would be simply impossible to try to incorporate an explanation of date from the trade system in a manner that would make sense here. I'll probably reduce the statement made in the introduction ... but I am drawing connections between the basic price of raw materials and how they affect the price of other things.
For example, working on cattle at present, I needed details on the price of oats, maize, hay and linseed to determine how much it costs to feed a calf and a steer/cow each day. This cost is added together to explain the total value of the cow itself. So I had to start with cultivated products to determine the cost of the animal ... which in turn computes the cost of meat, milk, cream, cheese and cow leather. A connection that the book is sure to make, even if the precise coin details are skirted over.
This is the only practical way I have of pricing anything. Unlike the publications you disparage, I have no intention of pulling numbers out of a hat. By starting with ridiculously small numbers like 3/4 c.p. per day per 100 lbs. of calf, I hope it gets across why, after 283 days, the cost of a cow winds up being 50 g.p.
As for how many goods existed in the tables that are going to be in the book, about 99% of them. New things, like how much it costs to hire a fruit picker, farmhand, stablehand or vet, or services like getting your cow serviced by a bull, will be new, and added as they occur to me.
Regarding the map request, understood Maxwell.
ReplyDeleteI think I got overly excited on your description of mushrooms and that common sense dictates mushrooms should always be boiled before being eaten. Common sense is derived from Wisdom, so it's fairly clear at least stat-wise which NPCs are at risk of food-poisoning if given raw mushroom for dinner.
ReplyDeleteCommon Sense is a nebulous concept of the best of times, but I suppose it would kick in at 11 or 12 wisdom.
For the Michigan map, please continue to the west.
ReplyDeleteRight. It'll come after the weekend.
ReplyDeleteAh, I'm late again...
ReplyDeleteCould you go towards Landshut, in Lower Bavaria ?
Sure.
ReplyDelete