Cycles-RPG

Some news from the project. You can't tell me I do this on a regular basis ...

Implemantation of systems has begun. Eero, a finnish collaborator, is currently preparing an adaptation of the solar system (TSOY) for Avalanche. As for d20, two friends of mine, who live in Montréal, should begin to make the characters sheets. So, only Fudge is left for me to find someone. It seems I need to update the website.

Linus is back (you remember, my first illustrator ?) !!! A small contract of fifteen illustrations, the follow up of the story he had already begun in the past. We'll see what the future will be about this collaboration, but this is still some good news, as Linus is a truly great artist. Otherwise, I should receive soon a lot of illustrations from the other illustrators. This is always exciting !!

Concerning the web development, we're beginning to be very, very late. No reasons to panic at the moment, as the illustrations, systems and texts are still being done. But, it is obvious that we won't be able to open the website at the beginning of the current year. This should be in fall, in the best case scenario. It seems I need to update the website.

Otherwise, the writing is still on its way and the first half of the second part (ie summer) should be completed soon and sent for translation and correction (french version). I'm trying to do a little bit of promotion, taking part in various forums, but until I have a second version of the teaser, this is not easy. As for the blog, I keep writing down informations that will be useful someday, in a near future.

As you can see, the project advances, quite slowly, at its own pace, but still, it advances !!!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Quelque nouvelles du projet, ce que je fais bien rarement.

Comme vous le voyez, le projet avance, lentement, à son rythme, mais il avance tout de même !!!

Now that you know all the secrets about the use of the structure of Cycles in the writing process, that you are familiar with the tricks to read it, let's talk about the use of this design for the DM's preparation, prior to a given session. I feel that you are ready for that.

A little note. I would like to put aside the initial launching of the campaign, a subject of which I will talk later, in another article. Now, let's get to the real subject.

Like any typical prewritten scenarios, it is not mandatory for the DM to know every details of Avalanche. However, Cycles being multi plots, the management of a session, concerning what is related to your players, might be a little bit tricky and is not done in a classical way. For a typical prewritten scenario for the rpg, things are quite obvious : you stop at one point and continue from it the next session. In the case of Cycles, you'll need to know three things, two of which are mandatories.

When a session ends, your players are at an exact location, be it, a town, a city, a stronghold or a region. They might even be moving. For instance : "when we will play again, you'll be in the forest of the moon, from the lake, in direction of Raijuvak. You'll still need a three days walk to reach the northen capitale." Whatever it is, your players are not out of space.

Also, you'll need to know the exact moment (also called metatime) when the session ends. That said, you'll always need that information, but even more at the end of a session for the preparation of the next one. For instance : " You are at the gates of Caennyas, early in the morning, we are the 18th of april." Your players may not be out of time.

Finally, but this is not mandatory, and it might be hard sometime to evaluate this last information, you need to know which story your players are following, in which plot(s) they are interested in. This is a good boundary for the preparation of the next session. For instance, if your players are following the plot of the stone of madness, you'll need to very careful about the preparations of the protagonists of this story. Note that this won't prevent your players from switching plotlines. So, keep an open mind while doing the preparations.

Now that you have those informations, you can start preparing your next session. You left your players somewhere in the space and time of the scenario. So, you need to approach the web, doing an extraction of it, based on those criterias. For instance, your players were arriving at Caennyas, on the third week of may, while following the plot of the villagers rebelling. No need to read what is happening in Raijuvak in the first week of april or in a future along ahead, as this won't concern your game. On the other hand, you'll need to focus on the events occuring in Caennyas at this precise time and a little bit earlier (as your players might want to know what had happened recently). Also, depending on the main plot your players are following, you might need to extend your preparations to other regions. For example, if your players stay on the villagers' plot, this will lead them to the hinterlands in about two weeks. You'll need to prepare those events for that time and space. But be careful : some major events are occuring in Caennyas, related to another plot, which, if your players change their priorities, would lead them in Raijuvak in ten days. You'll need to check those too. And never trust your players to stay on a given plot !!!

The design of Cycles allows to really pinpoint what concerns excatly each of your session, in an easy and fast way. In my opinion, I would recommand to prepare two weeks of events adjacent to the time of your previous session. In all cases, a good preparation should not take too long and required, at the most, the reading of twenty or so pages.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Maintenant que vous connaissez tous les secrets entourant l'usage de l'archectiture de Cycles lors de son écriture, ainsi que toutes les astuces pour user au mieux de sa structure lors de la lecture, abordons maintenant son utilisation lors de la préparation du DM préalable à une partie. Je vous y sens prêts.

La structure de Cycles vous permet de réellement cibler ce qui concerne chacune de vos séssions, et ce, relativement rapidement. Personnellement, je recommanderais de préparer au moins deux semaines d'évènements du calendrier pour un futur adjacent à la fin de la dernière séssion. Dans tous les cas, une bonne préparation devrait être courte et ne nécessite que la lecture d'une vingtaine de pages, tout au plus.

About the context : the design of Cycles was completed, the specifications of the site were written, as were the first 300 pages of Avalanche and I had started to playtest this campaign with a group of friends. I had no illustrators, but a couple of readers (which didn't have a clue what were rpgs).

And then, one night, about one year and a half ago, while drinking beers with some friends of mine, as the alcool was beginning to take over us, Edouard (yeap, him again !!!) talked to me about my little project :
- You need to take a look at "the forge"
- The forge ? What are you talking about ?
- It's a website ... a forum where some people talk about rpgs. They create rpgs under 24 hours, publish them in pdf .. This is where things are happening !!!
- A forum ? I dunno ... I'm not a big fan of those. And what "exactly" is happening there ?
- Publishing of indie rpgs. Go take a look. What do you have to lose ?

A couple of days later, I was googling "forge" and "rpg" ...

Without extending this post to the exact details of my opinion about this site, I'd like to mention that I learned a lot from it. First of all, I have had never participated in any kinds of forum before. So, I discovered the "world" of rpg forums, be them in french or in english. And there are many !!!

But, starting with the forge as some disavantages. Well, let's say that this site is well reglemented, in the sense that it is a working place. People who take part in this community do so to work, not to chat. It is serious. For instance, you can't edit your posts, which I find normal. But, this way of doing things, this attitude, is not frequent on forums. And I was thinking this was the norm !!!

The possibility to discuss with other creators, to discover their difficulties, but also their realisation, was a great help for me. When you discover what "success" means for the indie world, you lose some of your illusions. The market and public are not easy. But rpgs have changed a lot in last years, and I wasn't aware of it.

And there is the forge's theory. Quite honestly, what I found the most interesting about it, was to learn "where I stand" with my project, what exactly I had to offer. In fact, as long as I was at home, discussing this project with close friends of mine, I could not be aware of the difficulties to explain what I was doing. After a couple of (hard) months on the forge, I knew how to present Cycles, I was conscious of its limits. When I discovered this site, my design was already too advanced to really change, but I learned I could do even more with it than what I had in mind at first.

Finally, I'd like to mention the generosity of this site. The forge is a serious site where the answers, even if not numerous sometimes, are always accurate about the topic. If some people answer your threads, it is that your project, somehow, interest them. But, of course, not everything is possible on the forge : this is not the good place to relax, nor to ask for a poll. To conclude, I'd like to say that a creator needs to assure a presence outside the forge (which I began), but still, in my humble opinion, it is a great ressource for all creators of independants rgps.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Petite mise en contexte : l'architecture de Cycles est complète, les spécifications du site sont écrites, plus de 300 pages d'Avalanche sont terminées, j'ai commencé à tester cette campagne avec un groupe d'amis. Je n'ai toujours pas d'illustrateurs, mais quelques lecteurs (qui n'y connaissent d'ailleurs rien aux jeux de rôle).

Finalement, j'aimerais souligner la générosité de ce site. The forge est un site sérieux où les réponses, même si elles sont parfois peu nombreuses, relèvent toujours d'une acuité que je n'ai pas encore trouvée ailleurs. Si des gens vous répondent, c'est qu'ils s'intéressent à votre projet. Mais bien entendu, tout n'est pas possible sur the forge : ce n'est pas l'endroit par excellence pour se détendre, ni le lieu pour tenir des sondages. Et pour conclure, il faut être présent à l'extérieur de ce site (ce que je commence à faire), mais, dans mon humble opinion, il demeure une ressource précieuse pour les créateurs de jeux de rôle indépendants.