Hey, everybody!
Today is the last day for the Scion AMA! If you have any questions you want to ask any of our characters (check out this post for the rules, if you missed them), now is the time! After tonight, we'll send the questions we have on to the players and start posting their answers.
I know there are a few people who told me they were working on it that I haven't heard from yet, so feel free to chime in. :) The players are excited and we'll soon have a window into these characters' minds!
Showing posts with label blog stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog stuff. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
The Scion AMA!
We're keeping this post pinned to the top of the blog for a week so folks can find it easily - if you're looking for new blog posts, scroll down!
Okay, everybody! After this post last week garnered a good amount of interest, we're going for it. We're going to do an in-character Scion AMA (Ask Me Anything), and you're all invited to participate!
While we considered several platforms to do this, in the end we decided that we would probably keep it on our blog for the safety and comfort of players and question-askers alike, and that while we do love the "here's three hours, go nuts" form of Reddit AMAs, we have too many folks around the globe in different time zones to make that as feasible. So here's what we'll do: starting today, please email us any questions you want to ask a character at ampstorytellers@gmail.com. We'll keep them in a running file for one week, and then send them on to the players. And finally, we'll post all the answers, and you guys can go nuts in the comments. :)
There are a few ground rules, as there always are with AMAs:
1) Be respectful. Most of you guys normally are so we don't anticipate any problems, but it still needs to be said. The players are real people, even if their characters aren't.
2) The players reserve the right to refuse to answer. Hopefully they won't - after all, answering questions is the whole point! - but if your question's answer would reveal something that is still a secret in-game or they just aren't comforable with it, they may have to say no. (They might be able to provide teasers, though!)
3) You can ask questions of any Scion that has been a PC in our games, living or dead, in any universe. In the very rare case that the player is not available to answer (there are only a few that would fit this criteria), John or I will do our best to answer instead. NPCs are out of bounds.
4) Remember that you're asking the character a question, and you will receive an in-character answer. Don't ask personal questions of the players themselves.
5) Questions are unlimited - you can send in as many as you want and email as many times as you want! That said, try to make questions unique and interesting. We probably won't follow through on any "Ask this exact same question to every single character!" requests.
6) If you can, please send questions in to our email rather than commenting with them here. It'll be easier for us to coordinate. If you can't email for some reason, you can drop it in a comment on this post instead, but please give email a shot if you can!
And that's all we've got. :) We've spoken to several players already who are totally excited about doing this, so now's your shot, everybody. If there's something you've always wondered about a character, a question you have about their thoughts and motivations or just some situation you'd like to hear them explain in their own words, they are at your disposal.
Okay, everybody! After this post last week garnered a good amount of interest, we're going for it. We're going to do an in-character Scion AMA (Ask Me Anything), and you're all invited to participate!
While we considered several platforms to do this, in the end we decided that we would probably keep it on our blog for the safety and comfort of players and question-askers alike, and that while we do love the "here's three hours, go nuts" form of Reddit AMAs, we have too many folks around the globe in different time zones to make that as feasible. So here's what we'll do: starting today, please email us any questions you want to ask a character at ampstorytellers@gmail.com. We'll keep them in a running file for one week, and then send them on to the players. And finally, we'll post all the answers, and you guys can go nuts in the comments. :)
There are a few ground rules, as there always are with AMAs:
1) Be respectful. Most of you guys normally are so we don't anticipate any problems, but it still needs to be said. The players are real people, even if their characters aren't.
2) The players reserve the right to refuse to answer. Hopefully they won't - after all, answering questions is the whole point! - but if your question's answer would reveal something that is still a secret in-game or they just aren't comforable with it, they may have to say no. (They might be able to provide teasers, though!)
3) You can ask questions of any Scion that has been a PC in our games, living or dead, in any universe. In the very rare case that the player is not available to answer (there are only a few that would fit this criteria), John or I will do our best to answer instead. NPCs are out of bounds.
4) Remember that you're asking the character a question, and you will receive an in-character answer. Don't ask personal questions of the players themselves.
5) Questions are unlimited - you can send in as many as you want and email as many times as you want! That said, try to make questions unique and interesting. We probably won't follow through on any "Ask this exact same question to every single character!" requests.
6) If you can, please send questions in to our email rather than commenting with them here. It'll be easier for us to coordinate. If you can't email for some reason, you can drop it in a comment on this post instead, but please give email a shot if you can!
And that's all we've got. :) We've spoken to several players already who are totally excited about doing this, so now's your shot, everybody. If there's something you've always wondered about a character, a question you have about their thoughts and motivations or just some situation you'd like to hear them explain in their own words, they are at your disposal.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Duke It Out
Question: Why are so many people interested in your take on a 'who would win in a fight?'? I don't get it. It seems like an pointless question. Out of Scion, it's pointless, and inside the answer should be "whichever makes for a better story in your game"... in my opinion, at least. I suppose asking for auxiliary problems of it makes some more sense, but other than that... also this stopped being a question. I'm sorry. Uh, thank you for doing site stuff? Yeah. Let's end with that!
I think it's probably just because it's a fun topic for a lot of people to think about. Gods getting into god combat is pulse-pounding and exciting! Anything could happen! How could would it be if X God got into it with Y God, especially if they're from pantheons that have never interacted in mythology and therefore this could never have happened before?
But, you know, our answer is always the same - "I don't know, there are way too many variables to make a guess and gods can do way too much crazy stuff, plus it's pretty unlikely that any of them would get into a straight-up fight that way anyway unless things were already bananas." So we're never much help.
But thanks for reading anyway, you guys, and enjoying stuff we do. :)
I think it's probably just because it's a fun topic for a lot of people to think about. Gods getting into god combat is pulse-pounding and exciting! Anything could happen! How could would it be if X God got into it with Y God, especially if they're from pantheons that have never interacted in mythology and therefore this could never have happened before?
But, you know, our answer is always the same - "I don't know, there are way too many variables to make a guess and gods can do way too much crazy stuff, plus it's pretty unlikely that any of them would get into a straight-up fight that way anyway unless things were already bananas." So we're never much help.
But thanks for reading anyway, you guys, and enjoying stuff we do. :)
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Secret Scion: The Spoils of Battle!
Happy holidays, everyone! The Secret Scion gift exchange was a huge success, and we had an awesome time doing it with everyone! To spread a little cheer this morning, we have some pictures from our friends who received their gifts and are excited about them!
To everyone else who participated, pictures or not, thanks for throwing down to be part of this awesome experiment - we all had an awesome time and lots of people have sent us emails about how much fun they had hunting down gifts for their secret recipients. We're thinking about maybe making it a tradition and doing it again next year, because if it was fun once, we bet it'll be even better next time.
Have an awesome holiday, those of you who celebrate one at this time of year, and have a rocking awesome Wednesday for those of you who don't! We'll keep updating this post as new pictures come in.
Iry got this awesome wood engraving of Hera and Prometheus, kickin' it old-school style!
Marcel is incredibly excited about this awesome book about Zeus and his bad decisions!
I got this awesome necklace...
...which you can see in close-up is the Aztec sun disk, so I can wear Tonatiuh about town and safeguard the sun!
Bryan got this sweet annotated translation of the Norse Edda!
Griff is all excited about this neat book on Santa Muerte...
...and he also loves these jaguar-themed stickers...
...but he was not prepared for the bad Aztec B-movie selection, it looks like.
Glenn got this rad wood-backed custom art of his favorite totem gods - Ishtar, Hermes and Quetzalcoatl!
He says the detail is even more awesome in person.
Tom got this adorable plush nisse, a household spirit common Denmark...
...and a sweet explanation of all the things it might do to him if he fails to properly appease it.
Alex also received a nisse!
Which now occupies pride of place on his mythology bookshelf.
And John, who was pouting over his gift not arriving, now has his very own chac mool for household sacrifices.
Yes, that's a fat stuffed bat and spider back there, just adding to the theme.
His excitement knows no bounds!
To everyone else who participated, pictures or not, thanks for throwing down to be part of this awesome experiment - we all had an awesome time and lots of people have sent us emails about how much fun they had hunting down gifts for their secret recipients. We're thinking about maybe making it a tradition and doing it again next year, because if it was fun once, we bet it'll be even better next time.
Have an awesome holiday, those of you who celebrate one at this time of year, and have a rocking awesome Wednesday for those of you who don't! We'll keep updating this post as new pictures come in.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Heroic Holiday Greetings!
Hey, folks!
We asked everyone to do this in the vlog we recorded this weekend... and then of course we still haven't been able to get it to upload, so it remains unhelpfully stored on John's iPad. Someday we're going to get it loaded, probably a week late, and then it will make no sense.
Anyway, we're going to post all the awesome photos we got of everyone with their Secret Scion gifts tomorrow morning! If you got your gift and you'd like to be included, just shoot us an email with a picture of the gift or you with the gift, and we'll add you to the festivities.
Don't get too drunk tonight, y'all. Unless you're celebrating the Dionysia, in which case, bottoms up!
We asked everyone to do this in the vlog we recorded this weekend... and then of course we still haven't been able to get it to upload, so it remains unhelpfully stored on John's iPad. Someday we're going to get it loaded, probably a week late, and then it will make no sense.
Anyway, we're going to post all the awesome photos we got of everyone with their Secret Scion gifts tomorrow morning! If you got your gift and you'd like to be included, just shoot us an email with a picture of the gift or you with the gift, and we'll add you to the festivities.
Don't get too drunk tonight, y'all. Unless you're celebrating the Dionysia, in which case, bottoms up!
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Share the Love!
Hey, everybody!
By now, everyone participating in the Secret Scion gift exchange should be starting to get their gifts and wallow in their awesome Scion-related holiday cheer. (Don't panic if you didn't yet, though - give your secret benefactors the benefit of the doubt, post offices are a pain in the butt this time of year!)
If you have gotten your gift, we'd like to invite you to show it off. Send us a photo of yourself with the gift (or just the gift, if you're camera-shy) and we'll post them all here later, so we can ooh and aah and have a fun time together. We've already gotten a few photos of folks with their holiday swag, and we're all excited by proxy!
Back to your game mechanics and dice, everyone. :)
By now, everyone participating in the Secret Scion gift exchange should be starting to get their gifts and wallow in their awesome Scion-related holiday cheer. (Don't panic if you didn't yet, though - give your secret benefactors the benefit of the doubt, post offices are a pain in the butt this time of year!)
If you have gotten your gift, we'd like to invite you to show it off. Send us a photo of yourself with the gift (or just the gift, if you're camera-shy) and we'll post them all here later, so we can ooh and aah and have a fun time together. We've already gotten a few photos of folks with their holiday swag, and we're all excited by proxy!
Back to your game mechanics and dice, everyone. :)
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Progress Marches On
Question: Is it just me, or has the Secret Project been swallowed by Fiction?
Question: Secret Project color bar's gone again... just FYI.
Question: New Titanreams progress vanished again.
Question: Project Progress bars are acting up again.
Question: Progress bar's acting up again.
Question: Fiction bar's lost its color again. When stuff like this happens, do you get flooded with emails mentioning it? If so, does it get irritating?
Yes, last question-asker... yes, I do get flooded with emails.
I'm pretty sure the bug in the progress bars has to do with caching rather than the bars themselves; basically, they're just images that change when I update them and which are housed offsite, so sometimes, depending on what that other site is doing, they might lose their progress or accidentally display a different bar at random. Sometimes only a few people even see the bug, while to everyone else it looks normal.
Those bugs normally sort themselves out within an hour or two, even if I don't catch them first, but not before I get a ton of helpful people telling me that they're glitching. And I love y'all, I really do, but you don't need to email me every time the progress bars have a tantrum. They'll get fixed soon, I honestly promise.
Since these things are such a pain in the butt, I'm thinking about coming up with a locally-hosted version of them to replace these soon, but so far I haven't really wanted to spend the time and effort on it instead of other stuff. I'm sure we'll get a better set of progress bars going soon, but in the meantime, we'll all suffer together.
Sorry!
Question: Secret Project color bar's gone again... just FYI.
Question: New Titanreams progress vanished again.
Question: Project Progress bars are acting up again.
Question: Progress bar's acting up again.
Question: Fiction bar's lost its color again. When stuff like this happens, do you get flooded with emails mentioning it? If so, does it get irritating?
Yes, last question-asker... yes, I do get flooded with emails.
I'm pretty sure the bug in the progress bars has to do with caching rather than the bars themselves; basically, they're just images that change when I update them and which are housed offsite, so sometimes, depending on what that other site is doing, they might lose their progress or accidentally display a different bar at random. Sometimes only a few people even see the bug, while to everyone else it looks normal.
Those bugs normally sort themselves out within an hour or two, even if I don't catch them first, but not before I get a ton of helpful people telling me that they're glitching. And I love y'all, I really do, but you don't need to email me every time the progress bars have a tantrum. They'll get fixed soon, I honestly promise.
Since these things are such a pain in the butt, I'm thinking about coming up with a locally-hosted version of them to replace these soon, but so far I haven't really wanted to spend the time and effort on it instead of other stuff. I'm sure we'll get a better set of progress bars going soon, but in the meantime, we'll all suffer together.
Sorry!
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Stupid Technology
Question: Is it just me, or has the Secret Project been swallowed by Winona Fiction?
Darn glitchy bars! That should have fixed it. We like to celebrate fiction progress, but not to the extent that we throw other things we're working on away. :)
Darn glitchy bars! That should have fixed it. We like to celebrate fiction progress, but not to the extent that we throw other things we're working on away. :)
Monday, October 7, 2013
Photo Finish
Question: How do you determine when a poll is finished?
Aha, I bet you're watching that crazy three-way seesaw that the next pantheon poll has going on, aren't you? I like tuning in each day to see how it's doing. Go go all three options!
A poll is officially finished and closed when it's time to start on the project it was voting on. That means that voting remains open until the bitter end and everyone has a chance to vote right up until the minute the previous project goes live and we switch to working on the next one. In the case of the current pantheon poll, as soon as we post up the Polynesian pantheon we're working on, we'll close the poll and whomever is in the lead then, even if only by one, will be the official winner.
If there happens to be a tie - which hasn't happened yet, but you never know - then we'll figure out a tiebreaker method, probably an extra one-day poll to decide between the tied choices. Once we have a winner, we'll update the poll for the next round and post it, fresh and ready for your votes, as we embark on our new project.
I don't mind telling you guys that I'd guess we're only a couple of weeks away from finishing this current pantheon beastie... so get those votes in before the deadline!
Aha, I bet you're watching that crazy three-way seesaw that the next pantheon poll has going on, aren't you? I like tuning in each day to see how it's doing. Go go all three options!
A poll is officially finished and closed when it's time to start on the project it was voting on. That means that voting remains open until the bitter end and everyone has a chance to vote right up until the minute the previous project goes live and we switch to working on the next one. In the case of the current pantheon poll, as soon as we post up the Polynesian pantheon we're working on, we'll close the poll and whomever is in the lead then, even if only by one, will be the official winner.
If there happens to be a tie - which hasn't happened yet, but you never know - then we'll figure out a tiebreaker method, probably an extra one-day poll to decide between the tied choices. Once we have a winner, we'll update the poll for the next round and post it, fresh and ready for your votes, as we embark on our new project.
I don't mind telling you guys that I'd guess we're only a couple of weeks away from finishing this current pantheon beastie... so get those votes in before the deadline!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Poster Incognito
Question: Are you going to keep the 'Anonymous' posting option? I hope so. I try my best, but I don't want to be recognized as someone who posts stupid things and then gets attacked by John. :(
Aww, don't worry, friend. John is a scary bear, but he's just passionate. And opinionated. And loud. And large. But he probably lives far away from you, so there's really only so much he can do.
We like having the option to comment anonymously, actually! It can get kind of confusing when there are several anonymous people talking in the same thread, but we don't want to make everyone jump through the registration hoops of Blogger just to participate in the conversation, and sometimes folks are more comfortable being anonymous when talking to a large audience of strangers, even if they could use a screen name.
So we have no plans to disable anonymous commenting right now! The only reason we would do that is if people started abusing it to make things hostile for others or fill it up with spam, that kind of thing, but you guys have always been pretty good about being respectful, even when things get heated.
Continue to enjoy your superhero masks! If we ever consider making a major change to the blog's running, we'll let you know first.
Aww, don't worry, friend. John is a scary bear, but he's just passionate. And opinionated. And loud. And large. But he probably lives far away from you, so there's really only so much he can do.
We like having the option to comment anonymously, actually! It can get kind of confusing when there are several anonymous people talking in the same thread, but we don't want to make everyone jump through the registration hoops of Blogger just to participate in the conversation, and sometimes folks are more comfortable being anonymous when talking to a large audience of strangers, even if they could use a screen name.
So we have no plans to disable anonymous commenting right now! The only reason we would do that is if people started abusing it to make things hostile for others or fill it up with spam, that kind of thing, but you guys have always been pretty good about being respectful, even when things get heated.
Continue to enjoy your superhero masks! If we ever consider making a major change to the blog's running, we'll let you know first.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Progression!
Question: Why do the project progress bars keep changing colors?
Because they're glitchy, honestly. Occasionally they randomly lose all their progress and show at zero percent, even though they're set correctly and nothing has changed. Going in and changing the color causes their progress to reappear, so whenever one drops I go in and change it to a color that isn't already being used.
There's no secret symbolic significance to the Polynesian pantheon project turning from red to blue today... it's just that red stopped working so I had to replace it.
Because they're glitchy, honestly. Occasionally they randomly lose all their progress and show at zero percent, even though they're set correctly and nothing has changed. Going in and changing the color causes their progress to reappear, so whenever one drops I go in and change it to a color that isn't already being used.
There's no secret symbolic significance to the Polynesian pantheon project turning from red to blue today... it's just that red stopped working so I had to replace it.
Monday, September 2, 2013
One More Time Now
Today, a quick marathon through quickly answered questions!
Question: The link to Tlazoteotl in the Aztec pantheon is broken - instead of linking to the proper god it's connected to Xipe Totec.
Fixed! Thanks for catching that!
Question: In Scion, which kind of creatures could be the guardians of the four directions,both in Japan and China? With this I mean Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku and Seiryu. Would they be Titanspawn or allies of the gods?
We've talked about the four sacred beasts before, so check out this post here!
Question: It's always somewhat of a headache for me figuring out how many dots a Birthright should have for any given effect. Think you could give a brief guide/list on how many dots a generic Cirthright effect could have?
There are tons of variables that make it very hard to try to give any generalized table of effects, so we feel your pain; we also have to assign Birthright dots pretty much on a case-by-case basis without having anything quick and easy to refer to. But we did put together a little PDF supplement on Birthrights a little while ago with a bunch of examples and a few walkthroughs of our upgrade progress, so you might be able to get some ideas of how we price things from checking that out!
Question: I might have missed out on something completely. Does one give out more XP than 1 per hour at some point? I could imagine Demigods getting more and then gods again. But where does one actually change it, and how much does one change it to?
Some old guidelines for assigning XP in our games are back here!
Question: I intend to check each blogpost to see if my question has already been answered, but given how there are well over 1000 posts, I'm going to send the question while I'm looking: How do you feel about a Band choosing to form their own pantheon upon reaching godhood and how would you go about doing such?
Check out this old blog post on the subject!
Question: What is the afterlife like for the Orisha?
And check out this post for our previous discussion on that!
What I think we're really learning here is that, despite the search function on the blog, folks are having trouble finding posts that we've already done about whatever they're most interested in. Since there's definitely room for improvement, we're going to try to dedicate some time in the near future to tagging all the blog posts, in the hopes that it'll be easier for all of you to find something if you can just click on a helpful link to get to all the posts about the Tuatha or Fatebonds or the Sun purview or whatever else comes up.
It'll be a slow process, so don't look for us to have everything indexed tomorrow, but I figure the least I can do as an imminent librarian is organize my own damned blog, right?
Question: The link to Tlazoteotl in the Aztec pantheon is broken - instead of linking to the proper god it's connected to Xipe Totec.
Fixed! Thanks for catching that!
Question: In Scion, which kind of creatures could be the guardians of the four directions,both in Japan and China? With this I mean Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku and Seiryu. Would they be Titanspawn or allies of the gods?
We've talked about the four sacred beasts before, so check out this post here!
Question: It's always somewhat of a headache for me figuring out how many dots a Birthright should have for any given effect. Think you could give a brief guide/list on how many dots a generic Cirthright effect could have?
There are tons of variables that make it very hard to try to give any generalized table of effects, so we feel your pain; we also have to assign Birthright dots pretty much on a case-by-case basis without having anything quick and easy to refer to. But we did put together a little PDF supplement on Birthrights a little while ago with a bunch of examples and a few walkthroughs of our upgrade progress, so you might be able to get some ideas of how we price things from checking that out!
Question: I might have missed out on something completely. Does one give out more XP than 1 per hour at some point? I could imagine Demigods getting more and then gods again. But where does one actually change it, and how much does one change it to?
Some old guidelines for assigning XP in our games are back here!
Question: I intend to check each blogpost to see if my question has already been answered, but given how there are well over 1000 posts, I'm going to send the question while I'm looking: How do you feel about a Band choosing to form their own pantheon upon reaching godhood and how would you go about doing such?
Check out this old blog post on the subject!
Question: What is the afterlife like for the Orisha?
And check out this post for our previous discussion on that!
What I think we're really learning here is that, despite the search function on the blog, folks are having trouble finding posts that we've already done about whatever they're most interested in. Since there's definitely room for improvement, we're going to try to dedicate some time in the near future to tagging all the blog posts, in the hopes that it'll be easier for all of you to find something if you can just click on a helpful link to get to all the posts about the Tuatha or Fatebonds or the Sun purview or whatever else comes up.
It'll be a slow process, so don't look for us to have everything indexed tomorrow, but I figure the least I can do as an imminent librarian is organize my own damned blog, right?
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Stories!
Sometimes change comes slow around here, but it does eventually come. For those wishing for an easier time digging around in the Fiction archives, things are now hopefully easier to navigate. Stories are organized by the game timeline/continuity they belong to and arranged in order, and if you're more interested in reading all the games as their timelines converge, the chronological fiction page is still available.
And speaking of fiction, a new poll is up on the right for the next story after the saga of Winona hits the site. In the spirit of experimentation, we're going to put up a vote for the storyline you'd like to see commence, rather than individual characters, and see if we like that way of doing it. Changes!
As before, here's a quick rundown of what you'll be getting for your vote:
Happy voting!
And speaking of fiction, a new poll is up on the right for the next story after the saga of Winona hits the site. In the spirit of experimentation, we're going to put up a vote for the storyline you'd like to see commence, rather than individual characters, and see if we like that way of doing it. Changes!
As before, here's a quick rundown of what you'll be getting for your vote:
- If you vote for Better Next Time, you're voting for stories from our ever-active, cross-cultural globetrotting band - Geoff Matheson of the Aesir, Sangria Tecuhtli of the Aztlanti, Mitchell Gozer and Sophia Archimedes of the Dodekatheon and Marcus James of the Orisha. They're currently dealing with safeguarding territories they never expected to be responsible for, attempting to right wrongs and walking the long, hard road of repentence.
- If you vote for Eastern Promises, you're voting for stories from the nineteenth-century band in a world of colonialism and industry - Leona Middleton, Samuel Vanderbilt and Paniwi Bayteru of the Pesedjet, Faruza Alinejad and Yadi of the Yazata, Mohini Misra and Padma Billingsworth of the Devas, and many more. They're currently fighting corruption among local authorities, learning what other cultures have to offer them and finding ways to survive no matter what the cost.
- If you vote for Gangs of New York, you're voting for stories from the modern-day miscreants of New York terrorist fame - Michael Chambers and Winona Nelson of the Anunna, Valentina Radic of the Pesedjet and many more. They're currently struggling in an entropic world, breaking and making law where it suits them and attempting to find their way around a strange new supernatural landscape.
- If you vote for Skeins of Fate, you're voting for stories from our frozen northern band - Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson and Will Nordstrom of the Aesir, Kettila Blomgren of the Aztlanti and Vivian Landry of the Orisha. They're currently handling the looming shadow of Ragnarok, the fallout of their parents' political decisions and their own personal desire to deviate from the paths Fate has set them.
- If you vote for Strawberry Fields, you're voting for stories from the wild-eyed Celtic band - Dierdre O'Riordan, Seamus McMann, Jude Shriver and Auggie MacDonough of the Tuatha de Danann and Alaina Bertrand and Ignatius Rex of the Nemetondevos. They're currently gearing up to challenge the combined might of the military and their shadowy puppeteers, while reaching out to their kinsmen around the world.
Happy voting!
Anne's Fiction Corner
It's that time again, and I hope you guys are all ready for this story, because our players definitely weren't. Today's story is The Fall of Tenochtitlan, starring Geoff Matheson with appearances by Sangria Tecuhtli, Mitchell Gozer and Marcus James, not to mention an insanely star-studded supporting cast. It is a tale of divided loyalties, devastating betrayal and events that change the world forever.
I just realized that for some reason I accidentally labeled the progress bar as Sangria Fiction this past round, even though it's technically Geoff fiction. But that's okay; Geoff may be the narrator and it may be his story, but you'd better believe it's Sangria's story, too.
Before I put up a new voting poll, I want to turn to you, the readers and players, for a little advice about how to plan for new fiction as we move on! John and I have been wondering if the current method of voting is really the best one, since it tends to skew toward always the same characters. I love all the characters, so I'm generally happy no matter what, but there are a few different things we were thinking of trying.
Or something else that you guys think of that I haven't. Or maybe nothing needs to change! I don't know, I'm very unfocused right after I finish something.
Winona won with some kind of crazy old woman wizardry, so she'll be getting the next story. Tell me what you guys think, and we'll put up a new voting poll soon!
I just realized that for some reason I accidentally labeled the progress bar as Sangria Fiction this past round, even though it's technically Geoff fiction. But that's okay; Geoff may be the narrator and it may be his story, but you'd better believe it's Sangria's story, too.
Before I put up a new voting poll, I want to turn to you, the readers and players, for a little advice about how to plan for new fiction as we move on! John and I have been wondering if the current method of voting is really the best one, since it tends to skew toward always the same characters. I love all the characters, so I'm generally happy no matter what, but there are a few different things we were thinking of trying.
- Vote for individual characters, just like we do now. Everybody votes for whomever they're most interested in, and life continues as normal.
- Vote for individual games - that is, Better Next Time, Eastern Promises, Gangs of New York, Strawberry Fields, whatever. Everyone votes for the storyline they want to see more of, and then I'll write the next story in that line, which might be from any of the characters involved.
- Vote for individual characters, but rotate the voting per game. This time we vote only on Eastern Promises characters, next time we vote only on Gangs of New York characters, and so on.
Or something else that you guys think of that I haven't. Or maybe nothing needs to change! I don't know, I'm very unfocused right after I finish something.
Winona won with some kind of crazy old woman wizardry, so she'll be getting the next story. Tell me what you guys think, and we'll put up a new voting poll soon!
Monday, August 5, 2013
Darn It!
Question: You have *Tourism and trafficking in Goa* messages popping up on your Twitter. Intentional?
Looks like Twitter's up to its old shenanigans again. It's been removed - thank you!
Looks like Twitter's up to its old shenanigans again. It's been removed - thank you!
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Testing, One, Two, Three
Question: Would it be possible to add a 'working on:...' somewhere on the blog? I kinda lost track of which projects you are currently wrestling.
Last time someone asked for this, we cried and said we were too busy and made a lot of excuses. But here it is again, and since it seems a few people would find seeing progress bars around useful, we're going to revisit the idea on an experimental basis. Over on the right, you will now find some progress bars, which will depress you with how not-full they are!
We're reserving all the rights to remove the bars at any time; if it turns out that they're too obnoxious to keep updated, or we hate using them, or we slump into drunkenly sad stupors every time we see how empty they are, we may remove them again and call it a day. But we'll use them for now, and who knows? Maybe they'll catch on, and we'll turn out loving it. It is always fun to have a way to say, "Hey, we accomplished something!" to the world, even if there's no finished product yet.
Of course, this will mean you can totally tell when we aren't getting anything done. But maybe it'll keep us motivated as well!
Last time someone asked for this, we cried and said we were too busy and made a lot of excuses. But here it is again, and since it seems a few people would find seeing progress bars around useful, we're going to revisit the idea on an experimental basis. Over on the right, you will now find some progress bars, which will depress you with how not-full they are!
We're reserving all the rights to remove the bars at any time; if it turns out that they're too obnoxious to keep updated, or we hate using them, or we slump into drunkenly sad stupors every time we see how empty they are, we may remove them again and call it a day. But we'll use them for now, and who knows? Maybe they'll catch on, and we'll turn out loving it. It is always fun to have a way to say, "Hey, we accomplished something!" to the world, even if there's no finished product yet.
Of course, this will mean you can totally tell when we aren't getting anything done. But maybe it'll keep us motivated as well!
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Representin' for North America!
Question: So, just a random question - am I the only one who noticed that almost no one was voting for the Inuit until the Navajo joined the poll, and now the two of the them have the most votes?
It's true, the Navajo and Inuit are doing awesome in the current poll, and I love it! The Inuit have been on the poll for a while, but they haven't managed to triumph over the Apu, Alihah, K'uh and Atua in the past four rounds of voting. And you're right, they weren't even getting very many votes compared to the frontrunners, until they burst onto the scene with their current commanding showing!
I'm not sure it's actually the Navajo being added to the poll that is making the Inuit also popular; that doesn't really make much sense. It's probably just the usual way ongoing polls work; the Inuit, having been around for a while, finally hit the point where they were the most popular option after the other ones had been voted in and removed from the poll. The Navajo are a happy surprise, but it's not that strange that they're popular - Scion's got a big fat blind spot in the lack of North American pantheons, and they're one of the most recognizable to most players.
I'm pretty much as excited as can be about the two of them competing for the next pantheon. No matter which one wins, we'll get some North American awesomeness, which is totally badass!
But will it be the American Southwest or the far northern reaches of Canada? Go vote! I am way too excited to find out!
It's true, the Navajo and Inuit are doing awesome in the current poll, and I love it! The Inuit have been on the poll for a while, but they haven't managed to triumph over the Apu, Alihah, K'uh and Atua in the past four rounds of voting. And you're right, they weren't even getting very many votes compared to the frontrunners, until they burst onto the scene with their current commanding showing!
I'm not sure it's actually the Navajo being added to the poll that is making the Inuit also popular; that doesn't really make much sense. It's probably just the usual way ongoing polls work; the Inuit, having been around for a while, finally hit the point where they were the most popular option after the other ones had been voted in and removed from the poll. The Navajo are a happy surprise, but it's not that strange that they're popular - Scion's got a big fat blind spot in the lack of North American pantheons, and they're one of the most recognizable to most players.
I'm pretty much as excited as can be about the two of them competing for the next pantheon. No matter which one wins, we'll get some North American awesomeness, which is totally badass!
But will it be the American Southwest or the far northern reaches of Canada? Go vote! I am way too excited to find out!
Friday, June 7, 2013
I'm the fellow who asked the 'How do the gods decide among themselves who is most powerful?' Question. I was not trying to troll you. I was not trying to get around your 'who would win' question ban. I did not know such a ban existed. I was asking an honest question. The 'perfect wording' to get around the ban is coincidence. I just wanted to make that clear. Thank you for answering my question. Have a great day. Eager to see Anne's project once its done.
Hey anonymous dude. We let our questions be anonymous, because this lets people feel free to ask questions without being embarrassed, or feel like we'll dislike them because of a question...but the flip side of that, is we dont know who is actually asking questions. Instead we just get a sea of questions, many of which are the same. We of course cant expect someone asking a question to have seen all our blogs/vlogs before, but its easy to get caught assuming that when you get so many of the same question that you've answered a couple times already.
So, to that, sorry for assuming you had heard us talk about this question before. We dont have a ban on questions, we just wont answer them, we really just get too many of em, and our answer will always be the same.
My Faux angry blogging is exxaggerated for film. Im not actually angry with you anonymous, although, hopefully you dont care if I was.
Hey anonymous dude. We let our questions be anonymous, because this lets people feel free to ask questions without being embarrassed, or feel like we'll dislike them because of a question...but the flip side of that, is we dont know who is actually asking questions. Instead we just get a sea of questions, many of which are the same. We of course cant expect someone asking a question to have seen all our blogs/vlogs before, but its easy to get caught assuming that when you get so many of the same question that you've answered a couple times already.
So, to that, sorry for assuming you had heard us talk about this question before. We dont have a ban on questions, we just wont answer them, we really just get too many of em, and our answer will always be the same.
My Faux angry blogging is exxaggerated for film. Im not actually angry with you anonymous, although, hopefully you dont care if I was.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Terra Incognita
Question: What is this site about?
Hey, there, internet traveler!
This blog (and the website that goes with it, John's Scion Resources) is dedicated to a roleplaying game called Scion, published by the White Wolf gaming company back in 2007. Players of the game take on the roles of modern-day demigods, children of the ancient deities of the world's bygone myths and legends, and forge their own new marks on the world, eventually becoming gods themselves.
This blog mainly talks about things relating to the game, from discussions on world mythology and literature to examinations of mechanics and house rules; the website has a lot of house rules, custom powers, fiction stories and information on our games and their starring characters. If you're interested in the game and want to find out more, we suggest grabbing a copy of the PDFs over at DriveThru RPG or saying hi to the larger Scion community over on the official forums for the game. We're not running any new games at the moment, but there are usually folks looking for new players for games both online and in person.
Thanks for dropping by, even if it was by accident. :)
Hey, there, internet traveler!
This blog (and the website that goes with it, John's Scion Resources) is dedicated to a roleplaying game called Scion, published by the White Wolf gaming company back in 2007. Players of the game take on the roles of modern-day demigods, children of the ancient deities of the world's bygone myths and legends, and forge their own new marks on the world, eventually becoming gods themselves.
This blog mainly talks about things relating to the game, from discussions on world mythology and literature to examinations of mechanics and house rules; the website has a lot of house rules, custom powers, fiction stories and information on our games and their starring characters. If you're interested in the game and want to find out more, we suggest grabbing a copy of the PDFs over at DriveThru RPG or saying hi to the larger Scion community over on the official forums for the game. We're not running any new games at the moment, but there are usually folks looking for new players for games both online and in person.
Thanks for dropping by, even if it was by accident. :)
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Progress Bar
Have you ever thought of adding some kind of progress bar to the site? It's help people that're new to JSR find out what you're working on, and it'd also reduce the number of "How long until you rewrite this pantheon?" questions.
Yeah we have. If we were a full on gaming company and did this for a living, we totally would. But realistically, doing that would just take away from the time we work to do other things on the site and for scion. And although Im sure itd be interesting to know how things were coming along, it certainly wouldnt make them come out any faster and updating website bars and writing java(or whatever internet wizardry is required to make bars) isnt the kinda thing we do for fun.
So yeah, we agree, progress bars would be super cool. But we cant swing it, sorry.
Yeah we have. If we were a full on gaming company and did this for a living, we totally would. But realistically, doing that would just take away from the time we work to do other things on the site and for scion. And although Im sure itd be interesting to know how things were coming along, it certainly wouldnt make them come out any faster and updating website bars and writing java(or whatever internet wizardry is required to make bars) isnt the kinda thing we do for fun.
So yeah, we agree, progress bars would be super cool. But we cant swing it, sorry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)