No, it is not 1999 all over again. I am, however, doing a production blog for the next phase in creating the With Great Power, reimagined edition.
Why a production blog?
Because I have a busy life and have no project manager to nag me about getting stuff done. Also, it is months until my next game convention. Conventions always light a fire under me and I cannot afford to let this project languish that long. Being responsible to report to all of you good folks on the Internet will keep me moving forward. There are some other reasons, which we’ll get to in future weeks.
What’s the current state of the game?
The sessions I ran at DEXCON were great fun, and very productive. The process of play itself is largely working the way I want it to. The next step is external playtesting.
However, I have no text to send external playtesters. I have been designing through iterations of character sheets and rules summaries. I need to write the text of the game to get the information on how to use those character sheets and rules summaries out of my head and into other people’s heads.
What’s the projected timeline?
I am not the world’s fastest writer of game text. I’d like to have an external playtest edition of the game ready by August 31. That’s eight of these blog posts between now and then.
Won’t a production blog siphon off time you’d be using to write the game itself?
Not likely. I just put in several hours and am starting to lose focus. It’s time for a break, so I bang this entry out, as the first part of the break.
Okay, so what did you do this week?
As I said, I ran the game twice last week at DEXCON. I got lots of great feedback from players, and my own observations. However, it was scattered on character sheets, rules summaries, origin cards, and my trusty notebook. I reviewed all of that, fixed the things like typos that were quick to fix, and compiled the more involved changes into a worklog.
I also reviewed the textual outline that I had been neglecting, brought it up to speed, and started to write the text for the Hero Creation section. I also made a list of sidebars I need to write. Oh, and a list of topics for this #WithGreatProduction blog.
What are your goals for next week?
I’d like to be able to finish the text for hero creation and villain creation. Anything extra would be bonus.
See ya in seven, True Believers!