A Meta Gaming Blog talking about How to Frame Narrative, Exploiting and Exploring Biases, and Using Work Productivity and Motivation tools in a TRPGs most of the time.
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To a Gamer - Ends Doesnt Justify the Means = High Technical DEBT means.
Sustainable Means (Low or No Tech Debt methods and principles) means I CAN KEEP ROLLING THE DICE - with lower critical failure. (minor setbacks and opportunity costs are acceptable risks).
A gamer with a grasp of statistics realizes that - ethical means - means no critical failure consequence. Then every roll without Critical Failure can move the needle a little bit more to a WIN with every roll.
the Min-maxer who will pursue OPTIMAL goals will pursue Low Tech Debt Actions (Ethical and moral actions) they can Afford to Do - creating as many opportunities to ROLL.
Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition FREE Quickstart
We had the game Last night, run by our GM beng (who also happens to be my gastroenterologist). I found the adventure well written. Very well written as I noticed its Clues (I love mysteries) were well placed. Of course the only problem was that we were 3rd Worlders (From the Philippines) and DYSTOPIC Police ABUSE is a well-known phenomenon. So well known with the Drug War in the philippines that all the abuses are formulaic ("nanlaban" is when the Police would say the victim "tried to fight" and they killed them. in the Philippine drug the International Criminal Court found so many red flags that the current president has decided to make the Philippines leave the ICC).
Suffice to say we played ourselves like Philippine Policemen (the Philippine National Police aka PNP). the lack of checks and balances, the lack of civilian oversight, etc... I'm sure Indian and African or any 3rd Worlder would relate. Which made several CLUES be prematurely revealed. When your police force act like THUGS and gangsters the adventure becomes different.
Still very well written, and even if we were thugs. there was a mystery - knowing there was no chain of custody, no paperwork, we had the excuse to act like Murder Hobos - able to kill and loot. Knowing that we all "watched each others back" - we got our story straight.
Even the GM - knows all these abuses and know what whats going to happen.
SPOILER.
There was a VERY one-sided encounter in the game. One that could result in the TPK which was a RED HERRING. Knowing it was a one-sided encounter - we all agreed given the type of policemen we were - We'd just turn a Blind Eye. Heck even if the VICTIMS were actually THERE, we'd still turn a blind eye - like many 3rd world Policemen and some in corrupt police forces in developed worlds.
We were all laughing as we imagined writing our "Police Reports." you can imagine the entire group rehearsing their lines and stories.
Laughing so hard about police corruption, incompetence, and abuse in a Dystopic Setting. They forget that "Dude some places in the Philippines are WORSE than this, imagine how much of the world is WORSE than the police in this Book."
My personal experience AUDITING a branch company and the abuses they did - plus the criminals it was involved with fuels a lot of my game and writing inspiration.
I'm aware of police abuses in the US but wait till you hear about the ones happening in the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc... 90% of the world.
Irony - in the Philippines a LONG running TV show based on a Movie "Ang Probinsyano" is about a Idealized Cop doing good deeds. Its hilarious because people would give death threats to the Villain Actors. its So crazy - in light of Philippine Politics (where we elected our Martial law Dictators Son as a new president and we have billions of govt funding for Propaganda).
So Playing Cops in a Dystopic Setting resonates strongly to 90% of the world where this is NOT FICTION but a fact of life. It ends up not being scary - because culturally so many MEMES have come out in their own cultures - Philippines have a lot of Police abuse memes - that it has become funny.
Would I play a Dystopic Policeman again?
Yes
Why? It's hilarious - roleplaying how they get away with everything - having second or third homes, wives and mistresses, and many illegitimate children (this is a Trope in the Philippines, i wouldn't be surprised if this is true in other developing countries). When You play as a Dystopic Policeman - you are playing someone who can get away with anything. Many cultures have processed such HORRIFIC things into comedy and humor.
It makes you realize that maybe Call of Cthulhu - existential dread and dark depressing settings - got it wrong. People are not in Asylums going crazy - they are hard drinking and hard laughing sorts of people who have accepted terminal human corruption and abuse. That human trafficking and sacrifice in Dark Noir Settings fail to capture the Memes that emerge - to make so many Jokes about it.
corruption and debauchery that becomes so predictable.
Given that the Philippines can charge people for Libel even if the statement is factually true - we would never share the recorded session. But a bunch of friends roleplaying Corrupt Policemen and their shenanigans is truly horrifyingly hilarious.
I want to know the Memes in other cultures about police abuses. It would be a source of "Holy Shit REALLY!?!" It would be a mix of horror and surprise and seeing the various flavors of resigned "We're fucked"
maybe developed countries may have good policemen, and some in developing countries. but definitely those in developing countries spend more of their time avoiding doing evil and minimizing doing evil - which itself is hillarious. Imagine your forced to keep choosing the lesser evil.
I'm a fan of Seth Skorkowsky, and really like being prepared while being very much open to what the PCs have in store.
What I would like to happen when I run a game is the following.
Its hard to Write a project management type adventure - and not do it or be involved with it everyday.
I like doing this (Writing about Project management type adventures), but I also like teaching OJTs from many different
schools and all the many courses to test how adaptable I can be (and
fall on my face). I like doing my job - despite the ambiguous complex
social conflicts and the incredibly scarce resources - I think I cannot
write without these really hard problems plaguing me.
What! I want to push this kind of adventure AND make it hardish scifi. Crazy right? Why cant the adventure be "Set up a Mining Facility in the Brown dwarf found between the gulf of space between Sol and this system." - Freaking RPGs made many assumptions on how Fleets, Armys and KINGDOMS are run - what is the Operations of a Mining Facility in a Point in time that can change and may have different SOPs from different Corporations?
I guess you have to be so practiced in Writing Problem Statements and Summarizing Challenges and the Chief resource Constraints (Theory of Constraints) its not a terrible chore - but like a normal bodily function.
I want that someone reads another persons' problem statement or report and sees it as an adventure and can imagine the feelings people were going through (How to write non-Fiction from the great courses). They see - they feel the problem, the stakes, and the weight - and know the risks and odds. They know the scarcity of attention and resources - and how much its rolling the dice - but you cant see the dice results.
My family biz is mostly construction and furniture, BUT my dad got his start around the time my younger brother was born in 1981 - with an electronics company making transformers for the emerging data centers and mainframes that began to be used in the Philippines. He got a bunch of Electronics and Electrical engineers and with the Middle-class money of my grandfather who sold Roast Pig (called lechon) borrowed, traveled, and unembarrassed got the technology from America to bring it to the Philippines. Dad was basically like a traveller character, going to a High Tech world and trying to sell it to a Low tech world. (dad was in his late 20s).
Now the family biz eventually became a Data Center Designer company - a strange BASTARD of IT and Construction. Mom was an accountant set aside proper fiscal management of my dad's selling - and technology. Strangely we were geeks and science nerds because my moms father was a Hacienderos (Plantation Owner) son who was a Total nerd - where we got our nerd trait from.
Dad's company had heights and falls, its still a kind of a big deal because most IT professionals who are over 50 had to rely on the UPS, power protection, and services to set up Data Centers. Track record and Gov't experience (Admin and Streetwise Rolls)
most Gamers I know are in IT or have a strong IT background. I cant help but notice Rottenlead is using a rasberry Pi in his video and Mark Knights and many of the gamers who were playing in 2013 in Google Hangouts were IT.
While I'm a scifi nerd - I like applying what I learned and one of the things I realized is that we are in the cusp of Micro Data Centers. If you have assembled your PC -then you realized the modularization of the components. The CPU, GPU, storage, Cooling, RAM, cards etc... NOW Micro Data Centers have scaled it up.
So basically whats happening in my real life is that I'm trying to partner with schools so that we can solve the Precision Airconditioning Unit (PACU) problem of the Philippines - that the Philippines uses 60Hz and needs to import the components that are needed for the construction of Data Centers. From 90-120 Days its now 180+ days to Import PACU - guess how are you going to SUPPORT that if the supply chain makes it that difficult!!! especially now that Regional Conflict has made it ideal to be the back up of Taiwan's data centers if things dont work out with China.
Whats funny is that its NOT Impossible, its very hard, but not anymore Impossible. The main problem was the Plastic Circuit boards to Consolidate all the Sensors and Control the Airconditioners Performance - so that it will maintain its targetted climate control conditions (my mentor was the Mech Eng Manager before he retired and we talked at length about this) - Andruino, Single Board Computers (Rasberry Pi and the many SBCS that arose), and of course, Indian microcontroller vendors are now available for us to make a Prototype.
You know what OPPORTUNITY opened up to make it more real - Right to Repair, Privacy Violations (De-google and De-Apple you tech), FUTO and Next Cloud
One day I'll witness another Louis Rossman Closer to home (probably Indian or African), someone who can empower a lot of people who thought they were powerless in my part of the world. Their work will make our world a little more Scifi- IN THE NON-DYSTOPIAN way 😅
If only Investors were scifi nerds Lolz - then they wouldnt be investors - theyd be professionals not getting caught up with power plays and high finance issues (or they would be like the Founders of FUTO which is super rare. Altruist millionaires on a technology bent).
To do Scifi TRPG Fulltime In need 15000 sales per year from 3-6 products - not impossible but very unlikely. Like me taking 10/12 kills in a Mechwarrior Quick match - even with my best mech.
Today our book (with Nicco Salonga) qualifies for Copper Tier (Selling 50 copies)! 250/5 = 50 copies sold. (my brain cannot believe it I think i did the math wrong or I failed to understand the metal tier list).
As a Milestone - will be adding 3 Systems - Bernard's Star, HSC 1110 and Proxima Centauri. 3 Systems 1-2 Jumps away from Sol (get Near Space from Stellagama Publishing as it is Pay what you want) with Procedurally generated content but detailed and formatted for ease of running.
We hope to release it by Mid September at the latest. As a free addition to the book.
Future Milestones
we want those who can invest 20-30mins to try our tutorials and use our template files to be able to prepare these kinds of splash pages (According to the wiki Rigil Kent made this, Not including the GIMP and the Rendering time). We want anyone can make this for their games. When you set the scene for your procedurally generated Star system - Players will find it memorable. 
These are my scifi notes when ever some new interesting technology arises as well as demographic shifts. Like population declining as a country becomes developed, and India and Africa being the largest economies in the 2100. Basically when I learn something new I adjust my assumptions - and change my mind. Eventually I will grow too old to update it and Keep it Open source so that someone who can reuse all the work put it as a way to build their Fiction, their Game or their Setting.
Game in the Brain - making games in a way that makes it easier to make games. Learn from our mistakes or help us learn from our mistakes. Help us improve the tools that make it easier for people to produce more quality material cheaply. *
Thanks for your support!
*My background is in Quality Management, standardizing and systematizing is just an extention of what we do as Game designers - but scaling it in Game prep, material development, and presentation to players and other gamers would be really nice to do good in.
Pivoted the Sales Report to find out if we had any Customers who liked the product enough to try the Variant Combat Rules! Thank you (I don't know who you are since its anonymized)
Feel free to contact us for Support.
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I found that the Aliens are here for our Water funny learning more of what I learned in making this book. Jupiter is 317 earth masses. 0.0025 or .25% of Jupiter is Water = 0.79 earth masses while earth has 0.05% of its mass (0.0005 earth mass) is water. There is more water on Jupiter and Saturn and the Ice Worlds of Neptune and Uranus than on Earth!
Also that Water is a powerful greenhouse gas - that Jupiter may have pockets of heat that allows for life. I’m on the camp that puts life on Jupiter (jelly fish like, micro organisms like flying water bears, or manta rays who can fly above its crushing atmosphere) at 90%. It’s not a matter of if it has life but how much.
That Jupiter and human mining for metallic hydrogen and super dense ice will have creatures that will prey on our mining ships. Not only is finding the orbit and deltaV to handle its gravity so difficult - there is a chance the equipment sent down will be PULLED along with its ship. A great premise is that 100 years passes and people later discover the giants of Jupiter.
Our part of the galaxy will have a lot of a kind of life. That our Gas worlds with sufficient conditions will have certain amounts of life.
Gas world mining - extracting metallic hydrogen as it is the Primary Fuel for Interstellar Travel in MNEME ship designing book. I hoping my Networking Skills (as I partner up with schools) Help me find Physics Graduates who can help me do the Math for the Energy density and help me go through Atomic Rockets (winchel Chung). Like Kerbal, Simple Rockets, and Various other games - these are theoretical values that are known and its a matter of applying them to the game and “packaging” them to be easy to handle for the players. The way in Mechwarrior an AutoCannon 20 is a Class of Autocannons that for all intents and purposes deals 20 damage - here the engines Game stats are a particular kind - and some Quirks individualize the models.
Hydrogen and Methane and of course Oxygen is still key for most logistics. Well keep it simple - one of the things I learned in my Job is to Compartmentalize the systems. Adapt to the end users - not all the things - but the main thing that makes them like the change process.
Costs reflection
The kind of company who can Afford the software development to accompany their products - is a company that sells 20,000 5usd copies per year IN PHILIPPINE wages (that’s about 3 million pesos a year). Developed world equivalent would be 5-10x the cost. This is with GODOT and training Fresh Grad IT who dream of Game development from scratch with GODOT for the next 3 years. (None of these factor any compensation to myself, I’ll still be handling the family biz but I’ll be more SANE as some dreams are proven to come true. 500 employees are affected by the family biz in a market as callous and corrupt as the Philippines - I don’t mind dying from the stress to help these people hoping that one day someone smarter and better comes along to take this burden away from me - for that person to only buy time for the next sacrificial lamb comes along, until social progress improves enough that these sacrifices are unecessary). (What ever price mentioned assume 5% inflation annually. So in 5 years 25,000 copies of 5usd per year)
2,000 at 5usd copies per year would pay 6,500usd = at 57php per usd = 28,500-30,875php/mo. Taxes would consume about 10-20% and that is barely at a salary of an employee who has 15 years of experience or a supervisor. Enough to hire 10 such would not hire 10 such, it would get freelance services because its a business that is not guaranteed to survive.
Nicco and I both want to make a GODOT software that makes GMing easier. The smallest would be automating our world generations and map generation. Next is ships and Stations. And then refining and polishing this so that people can generate Assets to SELL - create the platform to sell assets - create the tools to make products. Remove the more and more of the overhead - that even WE become obsolete. That a kid will build a game for his friends with assets and tools we could have only dreamed of growing up. That the STRENGTH of the community determines the success of the game and not tied to a Corporation - that the Community transforms into an Institution - and talent and output and good comes from the Community.
I need to sell 110 copies per month to at 5usd per copy to have the ability to get someone nearly fulltime on this. That's just 1 aspect: there is marketing and product management and development. For this person to really really do well in this I have to sell 1500 copies of various Products per year.
1500 copies = 6-7 Electrum Tier Products. Why Electrum tier? Because we believe we have a niche and that we need to produce more stuff for our Niche.
To make something to sell every 2 months. Nicco and I have to produce a lot of tools and products every two months.
Right now I'm investing in better gear for Nicco. Particularly drawing tablet and a more powerful computer. A friend lent me his gaming desktop, left it in my house, and let me use it and we will use Anydesk so nicco can render stuff his Laptop cannot. So we have a tools we need to be ingenious about - Nicco remote desktop a PC to render complex scenes and I plan and project management the goods.
What would be sustainable is Product Development 2 (Nicco + 1) + Marketing 1 (who makes the marketing and documentation materials. Keeping a wiki and dealing with customer support. ) - I end up being an investor for start up capital and get a good return (better than inflation) after a few years.
3 people would mean 4,500 copies of 5usd products per year at the very least. But most probably it would mean 10,000 for the freelancers at breakeven: programmers and software development services that we will need. 20,000 would be ideal - but as of now I cant see as realistic. TO be realistic is having forums of customers going "we like your product and this is what we want to see in the future." "This saves me X amount of time and my players enjoy Y so much. We'd like to see more of Z."
20,000 sales of 5usd - where products are continuously updated and milestones means polishing the product even more.
Near Term success right now is the following: Our Milestone Deliverables in 1 month. Mneme world generator took about 6 months, 8 months was SMASHING MY HEAD on the SHIPS problem. NO ONE WILL BUY A SHIP BOOK if there was NO place to adventure. Sure they get a Ship book but having no place to go - means people wont USE THE MATERIAL. I know I can get away with a PICTURE book of ships - that's easy - its easy to Kitbash a Ship.
BUT kitbashing a ship - without reason or logic of how its supposed to work will not differentiate us from the many ship products already existing. Polish MNEME world generator - Detail Near Space by Stellagama with procedurally generated worlds for a 2300-2500 timeline setting. Have up to 6 to 7 hex radius from SOL with sufficient detail. More detail than the current adventure books out there - a detail that GMs need to be ready to change direction when the players change their minds.
Then Produce the Ship Spreadsheets, Blender Model of Ships and SCENES - star port + down port, and the various Worlds we generated. Let the people who BUY the book HAVE THE MODELS - let them know how to render them, modify them, HOST sessions where we walk through fixing it up for a game. have a Ready Scene for rendering.
Nicco + Me can produce the milestone addon products, and the Ship generator. I need one more person in product development and maybe I can be marketing for a couple of years till it can afford a dedicated marketing.
Maybe the ship generator will take 6 months now that World Generator exists. Hopefully the Addons will get us to 250 - that means 15+ systems detailed and mapped for games. Then after the 15 star systems + we spend 6 months on the Ship generator.
I can Restudy Javascript and remember enough to teach someone then FORGET IT* as I get back to focus on my day job. I just need the Other Product Development person to be inclined to spreadsheets and javascript so that we will continue to make tools to go with our Books.
*At 40s to 50s skills are forgotten - I'm a project manager for IT and the Plant - these skills - my love for all this science is sustained by my scifi Hobby - I cant find others who enjoy it outside the hobby. Ive been focusing in having relationships with schools for my various open source projects.
If Nicco and I can make the ship generator we can make a LOT of detailed Cepheus Engine TL7-9 Ships. Ships with no Gravity manipulation - spin grav, ion engine, reaction drives, radiators...
We can make DRONE swarms, bomb pumped lasers, 100mm point defense chain guns, food vats - from bug vats, protein vats, to textured algae vats, etc... we can make many different modules - 5usd of exhaustive elements - from TL7-9 and how the practice and doctrine evolved.
We can make the gear, the Vacc Suits, with rigged models of the vacc suits. the firearms.
I want Ni No Kuni, Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact, Ghiblesque shaders and styling for the gear and characters. that Miyazaki artistry of grand scenes and slice of life - Cozy world-building. 2500 setting where several economic and technological collapses have occurred - with Ghibly orchestra playing in the back of my mind as the ship travels to strange and distance parts.
I want gigaton asteroid Homestead Innertia-Bank (spin tether) bases, families centuries old, hundreds of billions of humans, all the technological and cultural landscapes that can be imagined (see our d66x6 cultural table) - imagine designing habitats with Miyazaki whispering "tell a story with that machine, give it Life?"
all while make the science Accessible, people can pick and choose, and as peoples tastes change, so does the setting. As they GROW the systems grows with them.
Whats funny is that in a Setting so far in the future - its alien and familiar - the rockets that are so new to us - decades old will now be centuries old and so much will stay the same.
Answer: Yes.
The yellow cells are where the Dice Values go. The dice values are created by the javascript RollKeep function. You can overwrite this and Index match will pull the corresponding values.
I think there is a problem with some of the cells, I honestly forgot so much of this as this was made around May and its already August and I was juggling so much work at the time. Honestly I forgot so much of how everything works and I have to rely on my project documents to find my way.
the advantage is that I can afford to fail and sell it cheaply, the drawback is that I'm juggling a lot and cannot remember so much of this system.
Still we will fix it and we Keep meticulous notes - the whole book was written in google docs. It would have been published from google docs if our computers and google docs could handle it.
We'll try to include all the tools and raw files. Things that will allow the buyer to reuse and recycle the material to customize for their game. So we added the Map Files.
UPDATES
What would 5 years of doing this success look like (we would both be 48, by the 5th year, many of our friends would be pushing 60)? Anything can happen - nicco and i can just get sick and wont have the time and attention to do this.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59348054
Against all the Gods Is an audiobook I'm currently listening to which is set in a FANTASY setting similar to the late Bronze age Collapse (1200 and 1150 BCE). Like Hard Scifi - the core skills in running such a game is understanding the framework of society and building the details.
I like it because it covers the earlier practices due to their material access and climate. That humans can still create sophistication and incredible techniques even with a smaller set of materials. This is a kind of setting I would like to run or play, or write about.
Discussing with Nicco about our milestones. Particularly making a Complimentary product to Near Space by Stellagama Publishing. Which are Detailed Solar Systems (ideally everything within 3 hexes from Sol).
One of the reasons I feel inspired by Hard Scifi is Andy Weir's Books. The Martian read by Wil Wheaton got me laughing so hard. Project Hail Mary also got me laughing and chuckling. Delta-V and my own experience at Work, and Gaming with friends in our own Projects as an Airsoft Team and now a MWO Team - showed the difference between cooperation in a work environment and a group of friends. So when we played Traveller, having a lot of fun, I wondered why not just play a bit harder scifi?
The way someone who has a loved book or material, converted to another medium: movie or show, and there were Layers or Details edited out - or a Professional seeing something important in their profession discarding in the fiction. The Opposite is that - a Book, Show, Movie or TRPG - Portrays an important detail in our profession, culture, and perspective and WE FEEL SO validated, seen, understood, and connected - the Idea that someone understands us and we understand them - this is the reason niches in TRPGs will exist and develop - as we all get to understand more about each other and the universe and we discover people understanding things the same way as us.
So I planned to make some material to add at Mneme World Generator, basically, Nicco and I will give a detailed example of creating the detailed solar system for Near Space. This means I'll be using the other features in Drivethrurpg ( Send Complimentary Copies and Send Email to Customers under Promotions; warning - we are figuring this out and will probably make mistakes).
Buyers of our existing Products (2 products only) will get the following -
Eventually, I will have to pay 10-40usd an hour for the skillset, every success of the trainees means they are at a new level and thus can command (and earn) more.
Of course them being at a starting level, means I have to invest time and help them develop. Paying for professionals to teach us some basics (40 USD an hour) or being so lucky to have someone volunteer to train them.
It was my first time handling a "Development Project" normally I'm on the client side.
This project went through a few Iterations.
Despite being Interns, since it was a personal project (even if Javascript helped the company because ERPNext uses javascript and the videos all helped us create more macros in Google Sheets) I paid for their services.
Eventually when I make my Ideal SHIP generator - I think it would cost about a few thousand of dollars and about 10+ months. My ideal ship generator is in GODOT or in Blender, generating a CSV/XLS file of the ship and Players can VISUALLY "Kitbash" or assemble a Ship. Basically Players and GM.
Of course I wish I can get a small group of people who are interested in a Cepheus Engine 3D Modeling Ship Generator - basically helping me determine what would be the Milestones that have a USABLE product.
I want it that every 80-100 hours worth of work Stakeholders has a Minimum Usable Product. (Probably just a simple 3d model of the ship). Note that this shipbuilding will default in Realistic - similar to children of a dead earth or Expanse.
Example: Lets say 80-100 hours each. what is the simplest usable tool? (This is wrong and i really need to talk to other GMs who have pain points in running hard scifi to be immersive).
Milestones.
Currently 23 people bought it (as of August 4). Ive some milestones.
I don't know what people want. I'm guess with our product and hoping its what I think it is. I'm using my pain points as a GM with very little time but who loves hard scifi is my guide.
We want people to really see everything before they buy. Self-interest wise its just easier to manage expectations when the buyer can fully inspect the product before any commitment. Anyone who can't afford it or would abuse it, is someone we cannot stop anyway and wont be happy paying for our wares.
I use the same psychology when I buy Cepheus Engine products - Buy and even Pay for the "pay what you want" ones. Of course its more difficult to manage expectations if I cannot inspect the product.
