Adjustments and Circles

My Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins East Marches rules (seriously need to rename that if I want to release it to the public*) have just undergone a small revision. 

I originally had 8 classes: Cleric, Fighter, Kensei, Magic-User, Sohei, Thief, Xia, Yakuza. 

Then I dropped it to 5: Cleric, Fighter, Magic-user, Thief, Xia.

Now it's back to 8 again (with some adjustments to the three that were dropped and re-added). 

The archetypes just seem better as their own classes instead of weird multi-class combos. 

Oh, and I've scrapped the multi-class system and did not add in the dual classing system I blogged about a few days ago. For now, I think I'll add those as options in a DM's book that I need to get around to heavily editing and completing. 

I did a mock-up of layout, including public domain art. Printed it out, and it looks pretty good. Still needs a cover. As of now, it's just got a title page on the front, and the character sheet reverse as the last page. 

Options: 

a) Convert the title page to a proper cover. Don't worry about a back cover. Keep it simple as an ebook. 

b) Add in cover (front/back) and back cover (front/back). Turn the 40 page document into a 44 pager, with the two blank pages on the reverse of the cover pages. Can be easily printed as double-sided. 

c) Leave it as is for the ebook version, but create a proper print version with a cover. Cheap looking, but easy.

Of course, I still need to figure out bookmarking. No matter how many times I tried, and how many tutorials I watched, Scribus will not save bookmarks in Chanbara's PDF. So now I'm not bothering with Scribus, and am simply doing the layout and PDF export from LibreOffice. Gotta watch a few LO tutorials for bookmarking PDFs. 

Oh, and the TSR-E Monster book is sort of ready. The text is ready, anyway. I've got a big host of monsters, plus treasure tables and lists & descriptions of magic items. The only problem is, most of the pages are crammed with monster stat blocks and descriptions, without any art at all. If I want to add art, I'll have to sort through my public domain folders for good images (or pay some artists to create new art) and reformat it from the ground up to include the artwork. It'll take some time, but the text is sound so it probably won't be too onerous. 

The only big thing left is that pesky Game Master book. Since I know the Classic D&D system, I don't really need it at the table as a reference most of the time. But other people could definitely use it, especially if I want to include suggestions for things like multi/dual class PCs or suggestions on creating a game with the right feel. 

What I do have keeps drifting between the sort of thing you'd write for a complete newbie (introductions, careful explanations of the systems and why they are the way they are), and bare bones rules with little explanation (reference for experienced DMs). I really only need the bare bones one to run the game. But other people might want/need the more expansive version. Maybe I should make both, a rules reference and a game master guide with lots of (questionable?) advice and suggestions and explanation. 

Anyway, the players book is something that I could release soon. And with a bit of editing, the monsters & treasures book could follow soon after.  

*Current thoughts on renaming: copy Pokemon games and use something like TSR Ruby (standard Euro/Tolkien D&Disms version) and Jade (kung fu/samurai/wuxia version). Potential future releases could be TSR Marble (Greek/Roman myth inspired), TSR Bone (prehistoric), TSR Steel (Arthurian/Carolingian romance), TSR Uranium (rockets & rayguns retro sci fi), etc.