Cycles-RPG

It is common practice to "open" a rpg book with some kind of literature, describing the world from a main character's voice. Well, this may turn out to be useful and informative to the reader. So, here we go (note that this text still needs editing) :

Preface

Ethernya. This is a dark land. As far as history can tell us, as only fragments of the old time remain, all the realms were united under the authority of the Empire. A despotic power, ruled by Aldor, the one and only true god, the deity of good, truth and justice. His truth and his own interpretation of justice, of course. Not much is known about the downfall of the Empire, except maybe that it was due to Aldor’s madness. I remember being born in those times, on the cold ashes of the Empire. I remember the short peace that follows, my ascension as the god of hope, fairness and reconciliation; unwilling to take any power into my own hands. And then came the black orcs, demons expelled from the Outer World, the blood moon that oversees us, home of the undead, the wretched and the wicked. The orcs first slaughtered the dwarves, then the humans; enslaving them all, spreading like a black disease. Is there still hope in such a dark place?

Ethernya. This is a land out of time. As the humans made their last stand, united with their allies, against the upcoming demons, most of the human and black orcs’ heroes were banished in the course of the battle, to the Outer World. The exact reason is unknown to me, but I was part of the exiled. Following this, Gulmther, the black orcs’ god of chaos, began a quest to bring back his allies. But dealing with such matters is pure folly; he should have known better. Creating a breach in time and space, all the great heroes seem to move from one space to the other, from one time to the other. Gulmther’s madness might well lead us to the destruction of our world. Or, maybe to our own madness.

Ethernya. This is a land of unwritten past history. As I revisit various moments of the history of the world, the hands of Gulmther is upon me and Ethernya. Things have changed; there are not the same anymore. Black orcs appears and plot a new course for the history. To bring back the exiled, the god of chaos needs to alter the events of the past to his favour. History is not granted and it is still to be written; new chapters echoing in the future.

Ethernya. This is a land of one self discovery. I can’t explain it, but each travel in time, each new version of a chapter of the history of Ethernya comes with its burden. Glimpses of my conscience seem to emerge from time to time, but memories of my own identity, as the reincarnation of the hope bearer, has somehow dissolved. Who am I exactly? This question arises each time and the answer is never granted. Actions should define who I am and only through them can I claim the legacy of my name. But those are hard choices. Every time. Choosing reconciliation over violence, fairness over justice and hope over indifference is never easy. But I can’t fail.

Travelers, if you meet me over your voyage, let’s hope that we shall cross words instead of steel. But remember, I have chosen stakes for which I am willing to die.

Supposedly written by Theobald.
Location and time unknown.

Cross posted at story games

Seeing this great video from video from TED (and you should go check it to understand the rest of the post), I bought the book Start with Why from the speaker and read it last week. A very moving and inspiring book I strongly recommend. And this reading will have a direct impact on my project.

A little history
I've been working on my project for eight years now, always having a gut feeling toward the reason it was designed that way. And then, by about four years in process I discovered the Forge and various communities of indie publishers. When presenting my product, people asked me "what I am supposed to do with this?", to which I answered "I don't know". Most of the participants told me I could not answer that way. So, I worked on a better answer, exchange with people who really helped me. I now know how to describe, in great lengths, the main difference between what I'm doing and what's common on the market. I can explain those differences, the main advantages, the type of players of might be more inclined to buy it.

This is very rational, and don't get me wrong, very useful. It took me a long time to know this and a lot of help. And that's the kind of things one needs to have in a business plan, so the process needs to be there. But, that's kind of odd : it has only been one year that I really know WHAT I am doing. I have putted so much efforts in finding it out, I thought I would really use it.

Promotion
I intend to release a first pdf version of Avalanche this summer. We're currently working on the promotion/marketing plan. We have a good idea of the part of the market we want to target. We also know, how to describe the differences between our products and our competition. This is a little bit lengthy, but it is quite understandable. Armed with those tools, we are ready to launch a product with a strong promotion strategy.

Sell WHY, not WHAT
Simon Sinek explains that people don't buy WHAT you're selling but WHY you are selling it. It is the key for innovators to build a strong fan base. He explains it in long length in his book. WHY is based on gut feeling, WHAT is rational.
We went into a lot efforts to describe our WHAT, and we were going to use it as much as we could. I mean, there are strong rational reasons to buy Avalanche instead of the typical modules. But, this doesn't really matter I think. And, to explain it takes time.
But, promoting Avalanche through the WHY "prism" makes so much sense. And it is so much easier. And, I always knew WHY I was doing this. So, we're going to change completely our promotion strategy.
I still need to think a little bit about it, especially about how to formulate it, but our WHY would look like :
"This is not a book where you are the hero, but a book where you are the author." "We need you to finish the book." "We value more the creative process than the final product."
This is our vision and this is what we should put in the back of the product; the first thing a customer should come across. They may like it or not, it doesn't matter. It is very simple and easy to get : it isn't rational.
And one of the most beautiful thing I find about this is that it all gets easier suddenly. If you come across a product stating "we need you to finish the book", it seems clear to me that I can't tell you what you'll do with it; otherwise, I would have finished the book.
For sure, someone who agrees with this vision, will come across, in the book, on our lengthy explanation on HOW we do the stuff we're doing. But this part should only reinforces our WHY. Using this filter, the WHY filter, our main differences is much more easier to "get".

Questions
Do you find Simon as aspiring as I do ? I do have the sense that the indie community did go in length explaining, with a lot of theory, the differences between story games and the others, but what about the WHY ? Finally, may I challenge you to tell me your WHY ?

I started writing everyday. I don't really have a choice : the informative pages need to be done by July. Well, anyway, it's fun to be writing again. And, although it is not part of the story of Avalanche, it is very challenging to write about it. So, I was supposed to present some of the stuff I wrote this week, but hey, this will have to wait. Why ?

Because I'd like to discuss the printing of the ashcan I made. I wasn't supposed to print that file, and yet, I did it, as it looked so nice !!! Having it in one's hand is quite different from a pdf. The "book" is not perfect, but, in my opinion it just looks amazing. Looking at it this weekend, we though that maybe, just maybe, we could make some adjustments and try to sell it on the local scene. And by the way, I'd like to address something : this copy costs me around 80 bucks. If I make three copies, each copies would be at 60. For twenty five copies, it goes down to 40. How about fifty copies ?

So, what's my point ? Thru a POD, which we would like to use, each copy cost around a hundred bucks. The book is not cheap for sure. But doing batches is far cheaper. Well, of course, we would need to "handle" each order, which is clearly time consuming and not fun, but we should give this some thoughts ...

Also, on the local scene, we would like to present this as a "collectable" item ; maybe signing and numerating each copy. Anyway, wish me good luck and I'll talk to you about it in the upcoming weeks.

Otherwise, if you have some spare time, I might recommend watching this great TED talk. Very inspiring and comforting for us. Can you tell our why ?

Lastly, we've got the system, well, at least the pattern. I should post it soon enough on the Forge for discussion. There is still a lot of work to do, especially naming everything (skills, secrets), but the toughest part is done.

A couple of things :
- You might know we had to find a new name and we will have to deposit a trademark on it and incorporate ourselves into a company. Well, that's some more money to spend and more work to do. That said, since we're late on the site, we decided at the moment to not use the new name and not incorporate ourselves at the moment. The work can wait. Anyway, the project is best known as Avalanche and since everything we have so far is under my own IP, we'll stick to "selling a book" and I will get money as an author. Simpler at the moment. We've got enough on our hands.
- I went, last week, for the company I work for, to a series of conferences, in Québec city. It was about intranet/extranet/web 2.0. They claimed to be the "elites" of the province concerning the subject. Don't get me wrong : this was interesting, but they mostly talked about the past and current situation. Not much about the future. Since we have seen our lawyer, we definitely came to dealing with some problems that don't seem to concern those guys. But I guess it will in a couple of years. It seems we are ahead of our time on this project.
- I'm building up the "alpha" version of Avalanche : no layout and no informative pages. That looks amazing !!! I wasn't supposed to get a printed copy of it, but it seems I changed my mind. Just waiting for the third map to be done.
- May, already. I need to start to writing and fast. Otherwise we will be late on schedule and I'll have no one else to blame but me. I'll keep you posted on this part very soon.

That's about it for this week.

I've received last week the last batch of illustrations from Greg Taylor ; some sixty illustrations.

We now have all the essence completed and the all the existence for the month of march. April and May are partly illustrated, some hundred illustrations missing. We're reached our goal for beta and I won't be buying out illustrations "from my pocket" anymore ; we shall pay the last missing illustrations from the revenue of the beta.

I've been buying art for the last six years, form different illustrators. This is really one of the best part of this project : finding the illustrator, contacting him/her, making the contract, introducing him/her to the project, identifying the part to illustrate, making the "extract" for the contract (but I won't miss this part !!!), reviewing the drafts and receiving the illustrations.

That's really fun. Who would have known ? Well, anyway, if we don't sell Avalanche, that's the last art I would buy ... So, I feel kind of sad ...

But, hey, let's try to be positive : this might only the beginning to buying new art !!!

And lastly, I've received the second map and the third map is on the way. Those are very, very nice !!!