Behold my Necromancy!! [Revives Detarame]

Is it dead yet? [Pokes with Stick]

Apparently not. But, since I’ve been working in my new job for 7 months now, I think I gravely miscalculated the amount of time I’d have to blog. I’m sure you know the drill. It’s a classic, cliched excuse I realise, but quite often I get home and all I want to do is zone out with a book or game, since I’m often sat at a screen all day these days. And then, when we’re in a weekend, I’m typically keeping social.

Anyways, I’m no longer making any guarantees about even the regularity of anime season analysis posts. Frankly, they don’t get all that much use in any case, especially when my compatriots in blogging often put alot more effort into it than I do!!

Well, thats enough about blog-no-mancy. What’s happened worthy of note in the last few months?

Lets start with Aniventure EX, shall we? Originally the goal of that was just an amalgamation of v5 and its expansion, Shimaihen. But over time, I’ve ended up tweaking this and that under the hood, and it has ended up being pretty much an entire re-write based on all the feedback I’ve received over the years, sporting a whole host of new mechanics!!

Version 5 was the first version I felt really worthy of public consumption, but I’m now really quite excited for what EX can do. It is now approaching an early alpha test. Assuming that goes well (and it doesn’t flop like Aniv v4 did to me all those years ago), then creation of the beta will continue and is probably around 3-6 months away, followed by the final version in about 6-9 months. These are also fairly optimistic estimates, so take them with a pinch of salt.

As for the changes, well the biggest is that I’ve finally dispensed with percentile rolls entirely, adding a second dice system all my own to system. We still have Aniventure 5’s Stacks in there, since they are very cool for opposed actions and always have been, but the new roll, which is currently called the “Base Roll”, replaces percentiles for rapid task resolution. As it provides a foundation for the stacks to work off too, ‘Base’ seemed like a good moniker, though its open to change right now. All of it still uses D10’s exclusively.

Anything else?

Well, I’m also rather excited for Wildstar giving me a fresh perspective on MMO’s again this year. I haven’t done much online wise since Guild Wars 2, which I went into for the same reason, but which somehow kind of flopped since there was no real motivation in that game to party up, and often it felt like you were playing alongside people, rather than with them.

Wildstar seems to have a whole bunch of new tricks that are interesting to me. Notably, the Dark Souls esq. combat system; with telegraphs, seems well thought out. Breakout from CC’s too. Nobody likes to be stunned and useless for 3 seconds in an MMO, but now button bashing can save the day! Procedurely generated boss content is a great plan too if they go ahead with that.

The Starbound beta has also grasped me recently, though I’ve given it break for new content for awhile now. It really has potential to be Ultimate Terraria IN SPACE.

I think thats about it for now. Perhaps I’ll return to doing more bemusing philosophy posts like I did in the days of yore, but we shall see.

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Aniventure Forum Opened

Yes indeed, there is now a forum for the discussion of Aniventure.

I’m taking a much more community open approach to the release of Aniventure EX, so this is good first step towards that. Over time, I will be posting up previews of features that are being worked on so that the community can comment and make suggestions, or outright shoot down my ideas and postulate their own homebrew. Post cool ideas and you will probably get mentioned in the next edition if your idea makes the cut!

It should, with luck, also increase community awareness of my books. I’ve got a fairly solid crowd of supporters already with Aniventure, but more can never hurt, eh?

Also, its a good place for me to directly answer people’s questions about the game and answer errata and rule questions for GM’s and players alike.

Finally, its a place where anime and gaming geeks can congregate and just have a good natter, and run online forum roleplaying games if they so choose.

So, if you’re an Aniventure player, or are just interested in anime and/or roleplaying and are looking for a new hangout, give it a shot. The full address is the fairly easy to remember: http://www.aniventure.boards.net/

Check it out, and cya there.

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The Drayke of Draskalmory

Well, I started a new full-time job recently, so apologies for any lateness of my posts; chances are I’m not going to get around to a full 2-week summary for this season (besides, its already 5 weeks in now, ain’t it?). I’ll just say that you should be watching Attack on Titan, Gargantia, Devil Survivor, Hataraku Maou-sama, Railgun II and Nyaruko II at the least. There’s actually alot of quality out there this season, its all good.

A friend also pointed out to me that I’d foolishly forgotten to add Shimaihen character sheets despite promising to do so on the Aniventure page. This is now fixed. They’ll be on that page, and also HERE, for your Aniventure usage. It’s a vastly upgraded version of the original sheet incorporating alot of the things I’ve learnt and had suggested to me to improve the layout, so even if you don’t use Shimaihen but do use the original, you should still upgrade your sheets to these ones.

Anyway, as for the rest, here’s another artwork for you:

It’s Susie Drayke, the Princess of Draskalmory. Susie was an NPC in my second Retoria Dungeons and Dragons campaign; and one who was universally reviled and hated by my players. A massive ojou-sama type; arrogant and self-important, you know, the classic princess. Moreover, she was after another NPC (who was also the love interest of one of PCs), Prince Darien Silverscale.

In a moment where they went back in time, they accidently altered the timeline so that she did in fact marry him and then spent several sessions figuring out a way to fix this; which founded one of my favourite mini-arcs. Nevertheless, her attitude was very fun for me to roleplay; and I felt she needed a re-drawing (an earlier version of her was found in the 2011 calendar, if you care).

Amusingly enough, I recently re-introduced her granddaughter, Arasia (or ‘Sia’) Drayke in the third campaign; I think she’s generally found more acceptance so far, probably due to her better personality (tsundere combat nut!).

Anyway, here’s the wall version:

That’s about it for today, but stay tuned.

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The Stormdaughter

Ho there. Been a bit of awhile again, eh? Honestly, though there’s not been much for me to report and I did take a bit of a break after releasing Shimaihen. However; over the last fortnight I’ve now started to compile some thoughts together for Aniventure EX, experimenting with a few new layout options and considering what could be upgraded for the joint book since just slapping the two together with some new artwork seems a bit of a cop-out option when I’m still hardly lacking in new and interesting ideas to throw in, and things (especially layout-wise) to improve.

If you’re an Aniventure player, please don’t hesitate to leave comments and ideas! I’m always looking for ways to improve the system and add things I may have otherwise missed.

In other news, here’s another new huge sketch for you, of Eryss Boltatt:

She’s from a short-lived mini-campaign of Aniventure I ran in January this year as a means to do a final test of the Racial/Mutational aspects ready for Shimaihen’s release. Sadly I had some grand ideas for the setting which kinda fell flat on their face and didn’t really work with my party that well, but alas. She’s the daughter of the Mayor of the township of Metamo, and the great-grandaughter of one of the five heroes of Zuway, Ririyanha the Stormborn. Blessed by the god Watson, she has powers over electricity.

Anyway, this is the first sketch I’ve tried scanning in from my A3 pad. Which honestly is a bit of nightmare!! She’s stitched together from 4 seperate scans! Not sure about how she turned out, actually. Someone observed her head somehow feels squashed and I guess that’s true. Nevertheless, I did enjoy adding in all the extra details and besides that I think it turned it pretty decent.

Here’s the wallpaper version:

This one was given a paintbrush filter after running a few processing passes in teh ‘shop. Looks kinda pretty.

Anyway, enjoy, and tune in again soon!

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Shimaihen is released!

Almost precisely two weeks to sort it out from the gold stage this time. I guess that wasn’t too bad. It’s a Valentine’s present, haha!

Anyway, the hardback book is out, and can be obtained here.

The PDF electronic version can be obtained here.

The webpage for Aniventure in general will also be updated shortly to reflect this release.

So, what’s next for the system? Well, the plan is to eventually combine the original and the supplement into a monster volume including both; and also getting one of my friends (who’s a better artist than I am) to provide illustrations for this combo version.

Of course, this is quite a way off. I’m taking a break from it for at least a couple of months; and the amount of formatting and re-formatting I’ll need to perform to get the two books to play together nicely will be actually quite staggering, especially since I seem to have lost the font I originally used for the first book, so its all horribly out of proportion in its source file now. On top of that, since I can’t exactly afford to pay my friend any commision for his art (he’s currently throwing things out for it since he really likes the system), I’m definately not in a position to impose any sort of time-limit on his work.

As a result, I can say with easy certainty that your shouldn’t expect “Aniventure EX” to be out this year. Nine to twelve months is a barely plausible timeframe.

Anyway, to decorate this post a bit, I’m also posting a wall-paperized version of the latest Mondaiji End card featuring Shiroyasha:

This, as you can imagine, has been my desktop for a few days. Still a darn decent show even if it’s protagonists are hilariously overpowered. In the end, considering I’m still following Tempest, Magi, Sakurasou, Robotics;Notes and Shin Sekai Yori from last season, I could only manage to keep watching Mondaiji, Sasami and Maouyu this season and that’s already quite alot to keep track of.

Well, in any case, hope you enjoy Shimaihen, and stay tuned!

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Aniventure Shimaihen Has Gone Gold!!

Phew, that’s right. Though a little bit over my initial schedule (ideally I wanted to get it out by the end of last year, but alas…) I’m still proud to announce that Aniventure’s expansion volume is now 100% complete and has gone to gold-draft today!

Here’s the front cover:

Featuring Itsuki from my current Aniventure Campaign in her fanservice-y pilot suit lounging around her specially modified 3-seater Kikka.

Shimaihen is intended as a massive expansion to the Aniventure 5 core system, adding a huge variety of new powers, archetypes and magics for the system, amending and updating the system with errata and expansion material. It also includes system mechanics to create your own race, craft wonderous items and summon creatures. All supported with handy table reference and a full bestiary of creatures.

It should be out as soon as I can confirm the quality of the draft, so hopefully that’ll be in about 2 weeks, possibly less. Chances are it’ll only be in hardback format, since the paperback of the original was a mere footnote compared to the hardback’s popularity (I guess most roleplayers prefer their books to be tough, which is fine and dandy I suppose).

If you’ve not picked up a copy of this rather bemusing Pen & Paper Anime RPG system yet, there’s no time like the present! If you’re skint, the PDF is still available for just £1.25 / $2, and will be now forever.

Stay tuned for more exciting news…

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