Newt

In case you missed my IndieGoGo.com backer update, the latest OpenQuest 2 full draft is available via OpenQuestrpg.com in the Member's area.

To access it log on to the site first and then go to the page. If you've not accessed the site before, and have forgotten the password I sent you previously, go to the login page, click on remember password and enter use the same username or email as you did on IndieGoGo and the site will send you a new password.

Any problems please contact me at newt@d101games.com.

For people who missed the pre-order, the game should be available next month to buy.

This is a copy of the Update that has just been sent out to people who Pre-ordered OpenQuest 2

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Ok reached a major milestone a couple of days ago

OPENQUEST 2 IS LAID OUT

Its going to 'internal check' with Simon Bray (art) and Paul Mitchener (who did the proof of the new content) tonight. This will be a quick check, which should be complete by Sunday night.

Which means a draft version of OQ2 with be with you on Monday morning (GMT)

The Draft will then be checked by a team of people who've already volunteered, a process that can take up to two weeks before I send it to the printers. I reckon Mid May - Early June for the final printed book.

Meanwhile I'll be putting Savage North and Life and Death together this weekend. Neither book are the huge marathon that the core book has been, so those of you who preordered them should have draft pdfs in a couple of weeks.

After this I'll be laying out HBD and putting OpenQuest Basics together.

Hopefully I'm aiming high to get all the books out as one bundle. Realistically I'm preparing for separate mailings on a monthly basis. I'll kept you informed on how this is going to work.

Some work has been done on OpenQuest Adventures this week, with Art being commissioned and line up of content being decided. Next week I should have some news on what form it should be taking.

Hi all

Thought it be time to keep people updated with what's going on with the D101 family of D100 games.

OpenQuest 2

This is my absolute priority at the moment. The core-rule book is nearly laid out and the Pdf should be with the people who pre-ordered next week. Work has started in earnest with the expanded supplements (Life and Death + The Savage North) and Here Be Dragons is art complete. So looking at Corebook in May with Supplements either being delivered the same time or one every month until July. Its turned out to be a crazy big project which has been held up by family illness, so I thank all the people who pre-ordered for their patience and good will. ETA Late spring 2013

River of Heaven

We have a full text draft, which had a bit of last minute tweaking done to it to iron out a few kinks in the rules. Currently in the Art Commissioning phase, which has been lengthened by the original artist's style not really fitting what I have envisioned for RoH. So a new search commenced, which took longer than expected because RPG Sci-Fi artists are few and far between. Finally have a candidate, but currently in mid-test drive. The big road block of course is OQ2, so once I've got the OQ2 core book in pre-orderers hands I'll be happy to start a Kickstarter campaign for RoH. No point in starting a RoH KS before OQ2 has been fulfilled However thanks to feed back here we've got a very good idea of what we are going to be doing for stretch goals (hint: Adventures and more gameable content ) ETA Summer 2013.

The Company

We have stuff ready to go, "The Red Book" companion and some adventures, but Rik (the Author) is currently recovering from a pretty major illness. So I've taken the decision to wait until Rik is completely right and happy to return to have an active role putting the books together. In the meantime I'll continue to promote and support the rulebook, with the possibly of other supplements being developed by other authors. Both me and Rik are very happy by the number of you that have already picked up the rulebook.

Cthulhu Rising

Once River of Heaven is done we will be starting on this one in earnest. Currently I'll be doing a big review of the content we have to play with. This includes not only the rule system (OQ2/River of Heaven), and old monographs but also the wealth of supplements that used to be on the old CR website.

One caveat to all of the above. D101 is essentially me working part time in my spare time plus a couple of helpers, so our release schedule is subject to delays due to personal issues.

At the moment the game is done. Its gone through proofing and had a final edit. I'm currently looking for an illustrator, and then once OpenQuest 2 is sufficiently advanced (i.e. the pdf is with the people who pre-ordered it and its well on the way to the printers), i'll have some time to work on RoH final release, which is looking more June/July for the final release, with pre-orders getting the pdf before then.

Mythic Russia's website is here Mythic Russia | Heroic roleplaying in a mythical medieval Russia

and theres a whole page about how to get the game, either via Amazon or POD from Lulu.com

Buying the Firebird’s Wares | Mythic Russia

Mythic Russia is often called HQ 1.5 , and is a very neat tidy up of the system without being the complete rewrite that HQ 2 is.

Regarding the AP Contest system, I mainly used Chained Contests myself in the numerous years I ran it at home and at conventions. Out the five or so times I actually dared to have a go with the AP bidding system it only worked for me once.

I've just invested in a Nexus 7, which is a replacement for a Kindle and Netbook. Ultimately I want to go digital with my rpg books, so its a longer term goal to go digital for D101 releases as well as having print releases. But with the currently D101 release schedule there won't be time to do this for RoH. Therefore I'm going to state up front doing epub / kindle releases is outside the scope of the RoH KS even as an after the main part of the project, the core book has shipped.

PDF is really designed for printing and not reading on a (small) screen. I have this little E-book reader gadget, that sadly—due to manufacturer neglect—has not received the much needed soft-/firmware upgrades that would allow it to reflow the text in PDF-documents to make them more easily readable on the device. Therefore I would very much like to see River of Heaven—and all other RPG books—released in a format more suitable for such devices, such as EPUB.

.

I hear you on this one. I pretty much leant Dungeon World from the Kindle version I had on my phone courtesy of the Kickstarter they ran.

Problem with D100 system books, and River of Heaven has this, that epub/kindle doesn't handle the multiple large tables that such a game contains well. There is also an associated cost in software and my time to make this happen, which would delay significantly the release of the book.

Hi all,

Thanks for all the feed back. I'm hearing you loud and proud about having actual content (adventures/extra supplementary info) vs gimmicks. I'm not a fan of the latter as customer myself.

Ok some interesting points coming out of this so far.

Early PDF copy - Definitely up for this. The whole game completely laid out sans art so you can play as soon as you pledge. In return I would encourage bug reporting

Adventures as stretch goal - confirmed with John over lunch that he has 4-5 adventures already written

Sandbox adventure book - I'm a big fan of this style of play myself which is why I insisted on a large 'Friends and Foes' section in the core rule book. This is an interesting possiblity, since John did say that he could do an expanded setting chapter. I'm thinking more a supplemental sector here designed for groups who like to wander around around in a ship from planet to planet.

Ok folks, as soon as OQ2 has shipped current estimate early-mid March, I'm going to be opening up a Kickstarter for River of Heaven, to raise funds for the copious amounts of internal art that I want in the book.

At this stage I have the complete proofed and edited text , layout templates and cover - so this game is not vapor ware

Myself and John have batted around a few ideas for perks and stretch goals, but I thought it be interesting what you the good people of BRP central.

Basic pledge levels so far

1. Pdf only

2. Softcover + Pdf

3. Hardcover +pdf

Things we've come up with as perks + stretch goals: large printed maps of the setting system, T-shirts of the front cover, a cut detailed Ship-ship combat system, a book of adventures.

Remember the point of the KS is to raise funds for the art and for a lesser extent art for future books in the game line, and there are associated costs for me (shiping, and KS fees). If the KS fails, then the book will still come out but it won't have as much art. For example I'd like pictures of all 20 or so character types, if the KS fails I'm only going to be doing 1-4.

Putting my IT Hat on did you get any form of error message?

I've prememptively raised it with my hosting provider, but they will need some detail to fix.

Finally please try again, since connectivity issues seem to be occasional in nature.

The first twelve pages of the book are now up over at OpenQuestRpg.com in glorious colour!

OpenQuest 2 Preview | OpenQuest Roleplaying Game

A work in progress, subject to change and final review, but I wanted to give folk a sneak peak of the game

A bit of a long update this month, mainly for backers of the pre-order.

OpenQuest 2 Feb update | OpenQuest Roleplaying Game

To confirm, none of the OQ2 changes are in the current OQ Developers Kit.

Howdo

Now that we are getting closer to the game's release, I'll be posting monthly updates.

Current status as of Dec 2012. The game text is written and ready for layout.

We plan to run a Kickstarter in early Jan/Feb 2013 (after OpenQuest 2 has gone to pre-order backers), to raise funds for art. The game will still be released if the KS fails, but obviously with much much less art.

Read the full Introductory chapter (note: layout and art will change in final release)

River of Heaven pre release preview Dec 2012 -Pdf

OK progress has slowed somewhat due to Real Life™ pressures, but I still thought I’d share with you how far we’ve got since November’s update.

Here be Dragons Cover

Jon Hodgson has come up with the goods here, with a cover that sums up nicely the Ray Harryhausen meets Weird Fantasy vibe of the setting.

Here Be Dragons cover, by Jon Hodgson

Divine Magic

This has been my focus lately, since as a fantasy game OQ stands and falls on the quality of its magic rules.

• 40 new spells have been written up so far.
  
• Updated guidelines on how Divine Magic users regain their spells.
  
• Otherworld Questing guidelines. Not HeroQuesting from Glorantha, but some simple straight forward guidelines of how characters travel to the Halls of the Gods, how they adventure there and return!
  
• Generic cults. If you are familiar with RuneQuest 3, there was a listing of Generic Cults (Sky God, War God, Earth Goddess etc.) that you could use straight out of the box or as the basis of your own creations. This is what I’ve created here.
  

Mass Combat rules/guidelines

OpenQuest is a roleplaying game not a War Game, so first and foremost there will be some guidelines on how to put your player characters in the heart of any battle. If you do need some rules to resolve battles with a single dice roll, Dr Mitch (co-author of Here Be Dragons ) has come to the rescue here.

OpenQuestrpg.com

Very basic so far, but over the holidays I’ll be adding more content. I’m also lining up subscriber only content, so if you backed the pre-order you’ll be getting a sneak peak of some upcoming OQ2 and OQ Powered releases in early Jan

Overall

I’m looking to be content complete by the very end of the holidays, with a very quick proof read shortly afterwards. Since I’ve already got the art and layout templates ready, I’m quite confident that I’ll have a pdf version with you by mid January 2013 of the core rule book.

Apologies if I've been quiet since the pre-order campaign ended. Its been a question of drawing up mundane To-do lists and knuckling under and getting the work done. I'm planning to do at least monthly updates from now on.

The big big huge news is that OpenQuest 2 is going to be in colour

Just before the pre-order campaign ended, literaly in the last couple of days, I received an email from OneBookShelf who run Drivethrurpg.com/RPGNow.com saying that their POD printers now support what they call 'standard color'. This new printing option works out a couple of pounds/dollars more expensive than black and white. Pending a successful print proof, this means that we can do OQ2 in colour. Certainly the PDF. So I spent an exciting couple of days emailing artist Simon Bray and discussing the practicalities with him. Turns out he had the time to colour in all his existing work and the new pieces he's done for OQ2 and due to your generosity during the pre-order the cash was there to pay him. He has now completed for 60 or so pieces of art in OpenQuest 2, see the example below

I'm now working out if the money is available to colour Savage North, Life and Death and Here Be Dragons, within the deadlines that I've set for getting the books out to you. A bit of a rethink on my part, so bear with me while I sort it out.

Progress in other areas

New introduction has been written, Character generation has been tweaked and clarified and Battle magic now has 40+ new spells. Next up is new spells for Sorcery and Divine, as well as more example magic items. My overall plan is to get the updated core rules done by the end of this month, get the new material proofed and then update the adventure books. Layout should commence for OQ 2 in early Dec.

I like to keep you all on your toes with a slow drip drip of info when it suits my diabolic processes

Joking aside Mr Clarke is not wrong, I've not made a formal announcement because we are still up to our necks with River of Heaven/OpenQuest 2/The Company/Other D101 stuff, and both me and John are double dads with a young family and hectic real lives . I didn't want to promise something we couldn't deliver or give release dates that I can't meet (I got my fingers burnt with River of Heaven on that one )

The current plan is to a self contained core book sometime in 2013 and see how it goes from there.

You need to read the rules on p46 for Close Combat skills greater than 100%, those rules apply only to Opposed Rolls. Combat which is not an opposed roll is handled differently.

Logically the effect is the same.

Rurik with a Close Combat skill of 120% always hits if he chooses not to split his attack (see p46) , unless his skill is modified down by situational modifiers. So logicically he's only rolling to see if he rolls a critical.

A bit ambiguous I know ( and perhaps something I'll look at in OQ2 ) but that's how it is.

Yup this is on the OQ 2 list of things to fix.

The second sentence will get stuck in a highlight box right in the intro chapter, with the title "OpenQuest Rounding Convention", and the note against Constitution (and any other place where my frazzled brain has put an erroneous reference) will be removed.

The Q&A thread has been closed for some reason,

That thread was for questions during the Pre-order campaign, which is now over. I should have perhaps noted that sorry. I'll probably start a more rulesy Q&A thread after next weekend when I start looking at the document critically myself. But for now here is as good a place as any.

but I'd like to ask a question here if it is ok.

How will OQ2 be handling opposed skills over 100? Will you be trimming the larger down to 100 and reducing the smaller skill by a like amount?

Example: Attack 130 v Defend 90 equals Attack 100 v Defend 60

Thanks

I'll be sticking with the current rule which is

From Page 28 of current OQ rules

Very High Skills

Character’s with Skills over 100% are considered Masters in their fields and under normal circumstances do not fail and quite often perform tasks that are considered

impossible by normal people.

Very High Skills and Opposed Tests

In opposed skill tests characters with skills over 100% are already considered to have succeeded. Therefore to be beaten his opponent needs to score a critical success. Of

course the Master may also roll a critical, in which case the highest roll wins.

For example

Grazum The Blackheart, an evil Orc Warlord is a Master Wrestler with an Athletics skill of 120%. Rurik recklessly challenges him to an arm resting contest. Rurik, who has an Athletics skill of

60%, will automatically lose against Grazum unless Rurik rolls a critical success (6% or lower).

Ten hours left, only $70 till we hit the last goal

The pre-order is now in the final day, at time of writing $320 off OQ Adventures Book, the last stretch goal.

At time of writing this we are just inside one day left of the pre-orders’ end

I’ve added an Upgrade Perk for those of you who want to Upgrade their Perk. This perk upgrades Initiate to Runelord, or Runelord to RunePriest, or RunePreist to Hero . If you are going from any other perk, just put the extra funds in with your pledge, and I will contact you after the campaign has ended to confirm what level you want.

I'll have a word with the author Rik, about this, since he will be able to better answer this question.

Yup, I'm up to my neck in doing OQ2 and other D101 bits at the moment + as usual real life has mugged me big time