Sagas News

On twitter the other day I teased a little bit about updates for Sagas of the Icelanders, so here I'm going to say a few more things about what I'm planning for the future.

1. Last week, a bunch of ideas just suddenly clicked together for me. I realized where the game's true strengths were, what needed work. I realized where sticking to the Apocalypse World framework was holding me back and where it was really helping me to do things. What this means is basically this: the game is taking a pretty final form in my head right now. Within the month, I'm going to take the beta down and do a massive rewrite of the material, which I will then publish as a "gamma" or release candidate version. I plan to leave this pdf on the internet for virtually forever, only updated with vital errata if needed.

If you're curious, here are a few bullet points:

• a much stronger focus on the community and its dynamics
• better support for relationships
• a complete rewrite/redesign of the "scrape together a living" subsystem(s)
• less crossovers between classes and genders, more individual moves for each class
• a "seasons" subsystem

2. Once I have the gamma doc, I'll ask Vincent for permission to publish. I intend to print 24 copies (plus a few proofs) which I'm going to call the Futhark Edition. Each booklet will come in a hand-sewn cloth/linen bag, together with a runestone, character sheets and perhaps another goodie or two. Each of the 24 books will be marked with one of the runes of the futhark alphabeth, and will thus be entirely unique. I don't plan on reprinting, ever. Any profit from the sales will go into funding future RMG projects.

2.1. Art and Layout - I suck at both. I think I'll be able to handle the layout myself and I'll ask a few friends for proofreading/editing favors. Art remains a problem. Even before this was an AW hack, I had a vision of a very sparse, landscape-oriented layout/design with minimalistic, pale watercolours and I still want that. Problem is, I don't really know anyone who does that kind of art and I'm not sure I can presently afford it, so I'm still thinking this over (the pdf will be art-less in either case.).

3. Shortly before I sat down to write this, I was made aware of this video, in which people from the videogame studio CCP describe how living in Iceland has influenced their work on EVE Online. There are some interesting (if very vague) parallels with what I'm doing here (except I don't live in Iceland, sadly).

Anyway, going to work on it now*.

*soon-ish