Ok, Mick and I are still very very early in our design process, but I am impatient type of person and I want to start playing/playtesting NOW.

My questions to the faceless void are: Is this too early to playtest? Will we get any useful information out of it? Is playtesting this early really just playing for my own amusement? Is that even a problem?

If you even read this, let me know.

Popularity: 27%

It is simply amazing how much you can get done with a simple phone call (or Skype call). Mick and I talked about Vegas After Midnight for an hour after another conference call for the After Serenity Shindig at this Gen Con 2007. We have been emailing back and forth, posting on our design forum, and communicating with just text in general.

The Skype call, similar to a phone call a few weeks before, accomplished so much. We communicated more of how VAM works, Mick’s vision for it, and my vision of his vision (luckily they are similar), in that one hour than we would have in twenty pages worth of emails or posts. The forums and email are definitely helpful, but getting esoteric concepts down requires a constant back and forth dialog that is just not there on forums or even IM. You lose the nuances of vocalization, and you lose a great deal of time when talking over forums, email, and IM.

I am looking forward to making these calls more frequently, since it gets us on the same page design-wise, and it also has the added side benefit of reinvigorating our enthusiasm for this project.

Popularity: unranked

I’ve been playing and GMing rpgs for a long time, not quite 30 years. Although I have written my own campaigns, my own game worlds, and have made house rules since the beginning, I am finding it different and challenging to write in someone else’s setting. Mick is furiously writing up some setting and a framework of things about Vegas After Midnight, but he hasn’t had the time to finish enough of it to share yet. Mick is the creator, he is the project lead, so what he says will go, but he has given me permission to write anything that comes to my mind. He trusts that I have a good vision of the VAM setting that is in his head.

Here’s the problem. I’m stuck. There is just too much, it’s too open for me right now. People work at their most creative when they are constrained, and I really don’t have any. This project is as close to a blank slate as you can get without just having a blank page in front of you. So while I could add anything I wanted to to the setting, I can’t think of anything.

So I’ve written a few pieces of fiction to keep the momentum going, but I don’t think they will make it into the final draft. They need more work if they would. I need to set constraints for myself. Limit myself to a particular location or faction, some aspect of Vegas After Midnight that doesn’t encompass everything. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Popularity: unranked

For the last two days, I have been completely jammed with work and had little (4 hours) sleep. Tonight seems no different. However…

I was able to take some time at lunch to put out a some more VAM fiction vingnettes. This time about a man named Mouse, a member of the InterFaction Coalition.

I’ll be talking with Mick to see if we will be releasing some of this fiction prior to releasing Vegas After Midnight.

Popularity: unranked