Category Archives: News

The Player’s Handbook has been updated for the 3rd edition rules, I have the art needed to replace the pieces I took and put in the core book. Now I’m trying to think of a cover. One that screams “Player Character”. I have a few vague concepts that float in and out of my head from time to time but nothing has gelled yet.

Now I’m starting to think of something more radical. I want to combine the Engineer’s Resource with the Player’s Handbook.

Pros: This will bring the information in the Engineer’s Resource more to the center of the player’s experience. There’s a lot of world information in there that informs the players of behaviors that they can encounter.

It makes a bit more sense to have the Comm Officer’s Guide and the Engineer’s Resource in the same book.

It also means fewer books, which is helpful if a new player is looking at picking up the game and playing it. There’s less confusion.

I only have to make one cover.

Cons: Nearly a third of the new Player’s Handbook will be engineering information. Now that’s mitigated by the fact that a good amount of the information could be considered general use. Another factor is that a good amount of the rules in the Engineer’s Resource are now covered in the core rule book and Tech Challenges.

It’s also going to take a lot more time to put out the Player’s Handbook. The Engineer’s Resource is a hairy beast of rules and pointy things when it comes to building vehicles. I’m hoping that it can be simplified a bit as Tech Challenge rules are applied to the process but it’s still a lot of effort to get it right. I was going to do it eventually anyway but now it affects the handbook.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

We’ve talked about doing this for ages, and I just got around to doing it.

If in doubt Dodge!

The Artifact Banner on a T-shirt and Chezbah on the back

NPC = More equipment for my PC

Big pointy teeth!

And unrelated fun stuff. . .

Yes I’m a mad scientist, don’t hassle me, I haven’t exploded anything today and it’s making me Grouchy!

Averagezombie & Fitch, fashion zombies!

Be a Bacon Genius!

There’s lots more so check out the rest of the store. If you want something that you don’t see, give a shout out in the comments and I’ll try and make it happen.

I promised to revisit the download files and get a smaller version out there. I got the time this morning to fiddle with the files and got the whole thing down to an astonishingly small 11.8 Megs. I think that’s as small as my original, first edition download.

The internal links are intact and I was able to add chapters to the file for your navigation pleasure.

Come and get it! The Artifact RPG

You can also get a softcover for yourself.

They’re finally here! You can order your very own 3rd edition softcover book here!

I got my proof today and it looks great. The wrap around cover looks good and there were some interior corrections to make. Interestingly, this proof is the full 8 1/2 inches wide. The first one was 8 1/4 inches. Maybe the last book was trimmed by the new guy? The trim job is also cleaner than the last one. Maybe someone was having a bad day.

So what’s up next? The Player’s Handbook is nearly updated for 3e. All the rules have been updated but there are two pictures that I used in the main book that had been in the handbook. To avoid redundant pictures I’ll have to do some new ones (I know, I said I wasn’t doing any new art for the handbook, oh well). The other thing that I’m debating is changing the cover. All the books before this had a consistency to their covers, with art in the center and a border of a solid color. That’s changed now.

I’ve re-opened Tortuga, there are still some textual updates to do but they’re minor. Again, it’s the art that needs some attention.

We’re running a game now that I would like to make into an adventure. It fits into Tortuga so I think I’ll build it into that document. I don’t want to say anything because my players might read this. Shhhh!

I have some ideas for posts about the Chezbah (that would eventually go into a sourcebook about them). Particularly more nasty toys for Priests.

I want to re-work an old adventure that I wrote a while ago that delved into the Chezbah and their culture. I really liked it but it was too railroady but I didn’t know how to fix it. Now that I’ve written more adventures and studying some other people’s, I think I can do it justice.

There’s a third adventure that I set down so I could concentrate on 3e. With that done I could also work on kicking it out the door.

So pick up a softcover! You know you want to!

Not just yet, soon though. I made some corrections to the interior and made a full wrap around cover. I just didn’t like the spine text that came with CreateSpace’s cover designer. I just got notification that the new proof is shipped. I should have it before the end of next week and if all goes well then the books will go up for sale.

I’ve been playing with the files and their sizes for the downloads. I did get one copy to shrink down to 56 Megs but some of the text got garbled in the process. I’m still trying to preserve the links in the document while shrinking it but that isn’t working so far. I can re-add them after shrinking the PDF but that’s a slow slog that I’d like to avoid.

I’m also working on The Player’s Handbook and making progress. I’ve worked my way through most of the document but I’m still hung up on viruses. I know where I want to go with them but I’m not exactly sure how I want it to work. Mainly I want to have a solution that feels natural to the system and so far I haven’t quite gotten there. I can do simple but it still doesn’t feel right. I’ll keep at it.

I also need to rework some of the existing art for Tortuga so that can be released. I also have several adventures that I’m working on that showcase some of the deeper mysteries of The Artifact.

I also have an idea or two for Chezbah Sourcebook material that I can put up as blog posts.

*Sigh* Busy busy.

Today I got the third edition proof for The Artifact in the mail. Very exciting! Overall I’m happy with the book, the pictures look great and the text is crisp.

Before now I’ve gone with Lulu as a POD provider. I like Lulu as a company and they make good books. They also charge nearly double that CreateSpace charges. After getting my proof copy I think I understand why. The book from CreateSpace seems sturdy and the printing is well done but Lulu’s quality is better. Instead of making vague statements, let me break that down as to why I say that.

The paper that Lulu puts into a book is a better quality. The pictures in a Lulu book are glossy so it’s strange for me to see the CreateSpace book with matte pictures.

Lulu’s books are 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches. The CreateSpace book is 8 1/4 by 11. Not a big difference but it matters for layout. It didn’t hurt anything in my case but it was surprising. The odd thing, is that even though the third edition book from CreateSpace is much thicker than the second edition books from Lulu, the thicker book is lighter. I don’t know if that has to do with the extra 1/4 of an inch of material on the Lulu book or if the paper is somehow heavier.

I used CreateSpace’s cover designer to make the book’s cover. Apparently it’s still in beta, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much about this but the only adjustment you can make to text on the spine is the font color. The font that the text is in is the most boring font imaginable. You also can’t change it’s size or position. I found that frustrating.

The trimmed edges of the third edition book is rough. I’ve seen how books are bound and trimmed. There’s this big press with a razor blade that comes down and slices off the excess material. The blade must be getting dull because the edge of the pages show telltale tracks from the cutting. Although now that I look at one of my Lulu books I see the same thing only less pronounced.

As far as things to be fixed, I missed a few orphaned headings and tables that are nearly impossible to find when looking at a document on the computer but easy to see when dealing with a printed book. I’m unsure if I’d get it right if I try making my own cover to fix the problem with the spine font. I’m not sure what to think of that. There are two or three pictures that are too low of a resolution to look good. They’re old scans and I thought they might squeak by but no. Those will have to be fixed.

In the end, will I go with CreateSpace or Lulu? If I were just making a book to have my own copy of, I’d want the highest quality which would be Lulu. The issues I’ve brought up are worth the cost savings though. As it is I can offer The Artifact Third Edition for $39.99 on CreateSpace. If I went with Lulu the price would be near $70 for a full color 300 page book which is not reasonable for my purposes. I do remember Lulu’s quality improving over time, maybe the same thing will happen with CreateSpace.

So with a few minor tweaks, I should have hard copy books available soon!

It’s finally ready! A full file with pictures and maps, even a cover! Weighing in at 303 pages! Tons of new and updated art!

So why grab this edition?

Third edition is a giant upgrade. On the one hand it sticks to core concepts and mechanics of previous versions but then amplifies them.

This is a game that really hands a huge number of mechanical options to the players and lets them explore them. Options like, do you want the basic concept of what someone is saying in a foreign language or the literal translation? Do you want to hit a weak point in armor or change the hit location? That’s just to name a few.

Like it was mentioned, new art!

Something I haven’t talked about much in this version but really deserves more of a spotlight, there are a couple of interlocking pieces in this game that come together as the Extra Effort rule. This is really a bigger deal than the paragraph that describes how to use it. This Extra Effort rule means that a character never has to miss an important roll. Think for a moment about the implications to that. That’s not just for PCs mind you, what’s good for the PC is good for the NPC. This rule also helps to tell the story of a hero that expends every ounce of energy they have to reach their goal and then finally collapses. You always wanted to tell that story, right? Now you can.

The Artifact is getting a Creative Commons License with this document. Something a little overdue.

This is likely to be a “living document” for a while. I have no illusions that all the editing is done. We’ve done our best to make it read well and keep things consistent but it’s a big book. Errors are inevitable, bear with me. I’d also like to shrink the file size down more but that might impact the quality so I’ll say, be cautiously optimistic about a smaller file.

What’s next? There will be a host of changes to the downloads page in the next few days. I’m going to order a hardcopy of the book and sanity check it. Then I’ll make the book available for purchase so you can get your own!

I’m putting up two links to the files for now. One has links in the document in the table of contents and when there’s a reference to another section of the book but the file is larger. The second is a smaller, more optimized file but I don’t have links in it yet.

Edit, the new file with links and chapters has been uploaded.

The Artifact 3e

Sometimes a good thing can be taken too far. In my last post I talked about improving the old art in the book for the new edition. It has slowed me down from finishing layouts but better looking art is a better looking book right? Absolutely.

At a certain point working on the art is counterproductive. I started work on the KS-10 picture and it was a three day project and it’s still not done. I’m trying a different technique that looks nice but takes a very long time. This is a minor image for the book, working this much on it blocks progress. I set it down for now to keep working on the rest of the layout.

A second tipping point I’ve reached, has to do with the number of pages in the book. I’m trying to maintain at least one picture for every four pages but this book is much larger than the old editions. This spreads the distance the pictures have to cover. Many of the pictures are of specific subject matter and they need to be next to the description of that subject or their reference value is greatly reduced.

What has happened is I’ve gotten all the way to the skills section and since I haven’t made pictures topical to the skills, there are very few images left to season the seventeen pages of text. I should have five pictures for this section and I have three. I’m working on a fourth now but I may leave it at that.

Once past the skills, the vehicles and equipment sections already have pictures so they should go quickly.

I’ve been busy. The layout of 3e is underway, and I’m just about to the GM’s section.

Most of my time has been spent touching up and improving existing pictures. I’m putting the new art next to the older art and I’m having a hard time not wanting to improve the old pictures.  That’s been slowing me down but it’s a good kind of slowdown because it’s making this a better book.

I’ve updated so many pictures that I forgot that I had already updated a picture and did it again. I like the first one I did better.

Then I lost a picture that I swore I saw on my drive. I eventually found it but it just shows how many files and versions of those files that this is getting to.

Something that’s going really well is that I’ve learned how to layout elements that used to take a lot of manual steps and automate them. It’s making this process far easier.

What’s scaring me is my file sizes. I’m using higher resolution graphics than I have before and that means much larger file sizes. Right now I’ve got my working files in sections to reduce the load on my computer so it’s not a big deal that way but I hope the file isn’t too big to send to the POD printer. I’m sure the printer can handle the file, it’s just a question of sending the file through my tiny internet connection.

All that said, I’m happy with the progress and I’m going to go update a picture and paint two new ones.