A LITTLE CATCHING UP MAY BE IN ORDER

I decided that it might be helpful to go over some of what goes on in the background as it may help shed a light on the next post of 'THE STATE OF DFG AS A BUSINESS AND WHERE TO GO', as well as provide some insight on where the hell has Mark been and why I have made some of the decisions I will talk about in the next post, or two or three…..

Some have asked if DFG is still in business, yes we are, and what you see available on the store is in stock and ready to ship. We did pull out of the supply chain late last year, which I will go over in this post and the next couple of posts. 

Some have said, that I should have kept my customers in the loop and posted about the good and the bad.

Yes, he's right... Hopefully the next few posts will help shed some light on that aspect.

What has happened since WGF closed its retail side. The last 2 years have been packed with educational opportunities.

 

Old news with some insight:

WGF shutters it sales end, I take over distribution, while this is in progress there were some talks with a company about taking over the line, this did not come to fruition. We simply ran out of time as the product needed to be in a new home before WGF closed out its US warehouse. There is some time spent setting up the infrastructure, warehouse, etc. Setting up Website interfaces for wholesale ordering, which was pretty much a waste of time as most wholesalers/Retailers would much prefer to send an order in, in whatever format their system kicks out.

Once the dust settled a bit. I started tracking sales closely, place a restock order for some products that are running very low and wait for the restock…and wait…. Eventually they arrive with a couple of new releases that I know will not have much of an effect on the bottom line or excitement. The molds had already been cut and it was a good test for a rather lackluster release to see what that looked like. This was an important test for me, I knew it was going to be a soft release and I knew that I had to plan for such releases to happen now and then. Its not that I wanted them to fail, I just knew they would not be big hits, as did the supply chain. This would give me a base line and let me know what was at risk form an investment standpoint if a release just did not take, I will just say, its not pretty and leave it at that….

Exploring possibilities:

Sufficed to say, there have been a LOT of false starts, exploring possibilities that eventually come to a decision not to peruse the opportunity This is often not anyone's fault, just two parties feeling out the opportunities and seeing if there is a way to make something happen. In the end it comes down to a dollars and cents business decision. Most of the time one party or both is simply not in the position at that moment to monopolize on the opportunity. Some explorations are covered by NDA and even those that are not, I will not be going into details about who and what, etc.

Between the time I took over distribution and now, I have explored with various entities many possible business opportunities, some of these took days, some, months. It just depended on where the conversation took us and what possibilities were on the table.

I am quick to 'pick up the phone' and chat with anyone about possibilities I am also quick to get down to remuneration, although this aspect often takes some time to work out details. End of the day, everyone involved needs to be compensated in one way or another.

Then we come to 2017:

I finalize a few files for production (StuG tank, Shadokesh and Ferals) and start exploring other manufacturing avenues… (more on why later) Finding a proper manufacture takes a great deal of time a load of back and forth and some minor testing to at least make sure each possibility is viable from a cost and quality standpoint.

That damn bottom line:

I had one last the opportunity to explore a partnership possibility with a very nice, energetic and competent individual, that honestly would have been a breath of fresh air. 

Still being in distribution, I had reservations about the profit margins and the ability to provide a fair return to the partner. Entering into that kind of arrangement needs to be good for everyone involved and I could not see a way to guarantee that individual a fair return on investment, so I thought it best not to proceed with that avenue.

I already knew that things had stalled a long time ago but looking at this from strictly a bottom line perspective after exploring the partnership possibility, the margin concerns, now brought into full view, cemented the path forward. I decided late in the year to remove my products form distribution, as I could not see a way to release new products at reasonable price to my customers and still satisfy the supply chain discounts. This was a rather painful decision as it meant leaving behind long standing relationships to try and forge a path forward.

When it comes to many of my retail customers, I have known many of these individuals for quite a while, corresponding with them and sending out marketing packets for releases, teasing products and sending out samples for review, etc. Some of the direct retailer contacts were the best experiences I have had…. They have all been very good to me and if I had the ability to do so and not drop into the red, I would still be selling to them. Having said that, I would not be talking so openly right now either, I understand promises, expectations and statements need to be tethered as you are in a business relationship that is mutually beneficial and that setting them up for failure you are setting yourself up as well.

Add the normal life things, a home remodel performed on the cheap by yours truly and other such things and the year slipped on by before I had a chance to say hello to it.

Well Sir? Are Your Sappers Done ?

Yes sir! Ready as ordered. You may commence your battle sir.

 No more marking off one third of my table. The trials have been done and done, a decision has been made, tested, tested again, and again, confirmed, and finally carried out.

4'x4' or 9x9 5" squares with a narrow border

If/when I want a larger table for a special game or to test a convention game at home, I'll add a temporary extension.

Now for a game or three!

Planet's Edge: Two Seasons

The Moonbase commander congratulates us on retrieving one of the eight artifacts.

           

As several commenters have noted, Planet's Edge has shaped up to have a real Star Trek feel, with the quest titles obvious analogues for episode titles. In fact, it's safe to say that without budget constraints for things like costumes and special effects, Planet's Edge's scenarios are considerably more imaginative and innovative than the typical Star Trek episode (particularly the Original Series). Like their counterparts on Starflight II, the authors here clearly don't believe in convergent evolution. We've seen aliens based on birds and plants and lizards, some with no mouths, some with multiple arms, although all exhibiting fairly human-like personalities and flaws. I just wish the game had given us more portraits for these creatures; there's only so much you can tell from the icons.

I remarked last time that their stories were "a bit silly and trite," and I'll back off a bit now. At the time, I was thinking primarily of the princess looking to escape her arranged marriage, but the subsequent stories have been a little more interesting.

But while I concede that this game could be fun and interesting, I still don't like it. There's nothing in it that I particularly like about RPGs. A certain quality of narrative and variety of quests are important to me, yes, but only when accompanied by meaningful character development or tactical combat. Still, I think the thing that bothers me most about Planet's Edge is not what it lacks but rather a particular quick unique to me: I don't like to know exactly how long something is going to last, or exactly how much time I have left. When I have to do a long, boring chore, I typically find a way to hide the amount of work I have to do or how much time I have remaining. For instance, when I decide to walk on the treadmill for two hours, I put a magazine over the display so I never know exactly how much time I have left. If I have to clean 200 data records, I'll write a process that feeds them to me one at a time without showing me my overall count. I prefer the unknown even when making it unknown makes a task longer or require more effort. If I have to drive somewhere, I'll often take a longer route with an unknown time rather than stick to the empirically shortest route. Yes, I know I have issues. Irene tells me all the time.
             

Planet Edge's sin was telling me that I had to recover exactly eight pieces, then giving me a map that shows the galaxy divided into eight roughly-equal sectors with similar numbers of stars, so that I know each part is going to require about the same amount of time--and that means a 40-hour game at least. I want to know I'm facing a 40-hour game at Hour 37, not Hour 10. This is why I always insists that quests that are about assembling n parts of something always vary the length and difficulty of finding each part. Some you should just be able to walk up and grab. Ultima VI did that particularly well.
           

I had to get rid of all my weapons just to get six cargo units on board.

         

My final complaint, though, is that I don't particularly enjoy blogging plot-heavy games. It's a bit exhausting. If I ran The Adventure Gamer, I probably would have given up already. There's always a question of how much I should include and how much I should summarize. Challenge of the Five Realms was a recent challenge; in blogging that game, I erred on the side of describing nearly every plot point. Other times, I've tried to summarize large sections of plot. My readers don't seem to have a strong preference either way. I'll try to take a middle path here.
               

When I left off last time, my crew was in Sector Algieba, where we managed to get ourselves appointed as emissaries from the Magin to President Ishtao. The president was on Ishtao station, orbiting Algieba, and I couldn't even scan the planet until I'd paid 6 cargo units to the orbiting platform. I had to go back to Moonbase, remove all weapons from my ship, and load up with cargo.

Upon my return, I donated the units and the crew was able to beam down to an episode titled "Inauguration Day."
          

On television, this would have been a two0-parter.

        
It was the best scenario so far. The Algiebians are a reptilian race fond of extra-long "s" sounds in their speech, which would normally make them evil, but they don't seem to be here. They were in the midst of a celebration for the second inauguration of their president, Ishtao. The festivities had been infiltrated by the Geal A'nai, the Algiebian faction that had also tried to kill the princess in my previous session. They also plotted to cripple Ishtao's space yacht and drive it into the sun, killing all of the visitors to the inauguration, and using a body double of Ishtao to give the order. It was a complicated plot. There were signs that the Geal A'nai may not in fact be the "bad guys" of the scenario, and that Ishtao had been mercilessly persecuting them, but it wasn't fully explored.
          
I ended up on the yacht almost immediately after entering the palace, owing to my order of exploration, but I think the events could have been done in any order. The inhabitants of the yacht were obsessed with a card game called, probably, "Chasqua." I say "probably" because the natural speech of the Algiebians put a variable number of letters "a" and "s" in the name. It involves a group of five cards, each aspected to a particular color, which must be inserted into a number of slots in a defined order--specifically, red, yellow, green, orange, and blue. The problem is that there's no objective way of telling which card goes with which color. They all look the same to humans, I guess. You have to show the cards to other denizens in the station and get their opinions. They look at them and say things like, "I'm pretty sure this #2 card is blue," but they give no indication how they're coming up with that information. In any event, they're often wrong, so you have to take notes to whittle it down and go with the highest probability.
          

I'm going to get a second opinion.

         
In the midst of this exploration, a bomb went off on the ship, crippling the engines and the electrical system. The engineer explained that to fix the doors and teleporters, he needed a "gravity bar," which happens to be the prize for winning Chasqua. President Ishtao's doppelganger came over the P.A. and announced that he had ordered the yacht to plunge into the sun so that the Geal A'nai saboteurs would die, trusting everyone else would be willing to sacrifice themselves for such a noble end. The ship's captain, shaking his head at such an out-of-character moment for Ishtao, begged us to get the ship's engines back online and return with the command code so he could override the order. Meanwhile, the fake president demanded the command code for himself.

In due order, I figured out the Chasqua sequence, gave the gravity bar to the engineer, used the now-functioning teleporters to move around the otherwise-inaccessible parts of the yacht, and got the engines back online. Re-starting the engines involved inserting Chasqua cards in a particular sequence; one of the NPCs remarked that the game had been "designed by engineers as a mnemonic for complicated tasks."
       
Although a bit more of an adventure game than an RPG, at least Planet's Edge doesn't put you in a lot of "walking dead" moments. There's a lot of backtracking, sure, but I've found that if I simply stick to an exploration pattern, talk to everyone, and search everything, I'll eventually get what I need.
      
There were several battles with Geal A'nai during the exploration, and combat isn't any more exciting than it was last time. A lot depends on luck. So far, I haven't found a battle that wasn't easy enough to win by reloading. I've found a few weapon and armor upgrades, which I've been distributing according to skill. It also makes sense to keep a couple of different types of armor on you because certain armors defend better against certain weapons. Each item comes with a detailed item description, incidentally, which is something that few RPGs have done thusfar in my chronology.
          

A description of Reflec Armor.

          
Once I had the command codes, I tried both potential endings. If I gave them to the fake president, he continued the ship's course into the sun, rejoicing that, "News will soon reach Algieba IV that a ship full of innocents were killed and they will believe that Ishtao was responsible!" Giving the codes to the commander saved the ship. Either way, my party was allowed to escape in a pod. I decided to go with the "good" outcome (save the ship) because it's my natural tendency, but it occurred to me while writing this entry that 90% of players probably do that. Since I'm not really that excited about the game anyway, why not spice things up by taking the evil path? Maybe you'll see that reflected in the next entries.
           

The party gets the command codes after inserting more cards in those slots.

           
Anyway, the Geal A'nai weren't done. They had also infiltrated the kitchen staff and other key positions in the presidential palace and had plotted to kill Ishtao through a mechanism I completely didn't understand. It somehow just involved pulling a lever. I found a Geal A'nai in a prison cell, and when I showed him one of the amulets I'd looted from a corpse, he thought we were part of his faction and told us where we could find the "sixth key" in a crate in the kitchen. Using it on the lever somehow resulted in the president's death--which I tried, then reloaded.
            

The causal mechanism escapes me here.

          
The "good" path involved getting to see Ishtao by pretending to be reporters (one of his minions assumed we were and gave us a press pass). He wanted proof that the Geal A'nai had infiltrated the palace, which we provided in the form of the amulet. He then wanted us to find the sixth key, which apparently isn't just a key, but the "holiest of relics from the ages of darkness!" Fortunately, we already had that. He rewarded us with an amulet that would grant us passage to the depository on Koo-She Prime.
           

The party enables the president's self-destructive war.

        
I had originally thought I would finally find the sector's quest item--Algiebian Crystals--at Koo-She Prime, but they actually turned up as the result of an innocuous side quest in the presidential palace. One of the rooms housed a museum of Algiebian history--each of the exhibits making that history sound all the more brutal. The curator hinted that she was thirsty, so we bribed her with a bottle of wine we'd received from a bartender. She wandered away from her post, allowing us to throw the switch that controlled the force fields over the exhibits. By now accustomed to searching everything, I searched each exhibit and serendipitously found the crystals in one of them. To solve this quest if you already knew where the crystals were, you'd just need to beam down, get into the palace, and kill the curator.
             

Search everything, kids.

              
Koo-She Prime kicked off an episode called "Solitaire." Shortly after we arrived--and got in with the presidential amulet--we tripped a trap that caused three of the party members to get beamed away and held in stasis. William had to solve the area by himself, some of which required referring to clues from random NPCs back on Algieba. There were a lot of traps, hostile beasts, and reloading. After puzzling his way through a series of caves, he arrived in a science facility, where he had to switch bodies with a four-armed creature to operate four levers at once. Ultimately, he released his friends and found some technical plans that allowed for better weapons and ship parts back at home.
   
Back at Moonbase, Commander Polk congratulated us for getting the Algiebian Crystals and suggested we explore Sector Kornephoros next. I was unhappy with being told where to go, so after I scrapped the Ulysses for an upgraded ship--which the game named Calypso--I headed for Sector Caroli for no other reason that it was clockwise from Algieba.
              

Outfitting my second ship.

          
Caroli had a lot more stars than Algieba, most with absolutely nothing to do, not even elements for my higher-capacity starship. One planet--Zavijava Prime--had an orbital platform occupied by those goons again, and it was here that I fought and (badly) lost my only attempt at ship combat this session.
          
I stumbled on the sector's quest at Alula IV, in an episode called "Desolation." It soon transpired that Alula IV was the agricultural planet of a species called the Eldarini. I never found a description of them, but the species apparently goes into hibernation for long periods of time and then awakens ravenous, killing and eating anything nearby if there's no other obvious source of food. Alula IV and its "Iozam" grain was supposed to be that food, but both the harvester and the transport ship had broken down. The place was also swarming with hostile carnivores that we had to kill.
             

The alien explains what's going on with his species.

        
We had to get the local boss, Agricol, to take us on as field hands before we could explore the place. This involved a puzzle where he put us in a room with seven items and said they could all easily fit into a pack, but I should select the one that he wouldn't want to take with him. They were an industrial badge, a levitator, a stone, an assault laser, a gold wire, ceramic armor, and a rifle. I chose the stone because it was the only item that had no real utility, and it turned out I was right. I'm just not sure I was right for that reason. As he welcomed us aboard, he gave us tickets for the "life gallery" on Merak I.
     
Solving the quest required us to go to two other planets--Denebola IV and TK--for the parts for both the vehicles. Denebola IV was the Eldarin homeworld, and its episode was titled "Forsake the Wind." Exploring the area, we had to be careful not to brush against sleeping Eldarins, or they would wake up and try to kill us. The surface of the planet was filled with hostile sandworms erupting from pools of lava. They occasioned enough reloading that we were definitely here a bit too early. Still, I pushed through.
          

These worms were no fun at all.

        
We had to solve a variety of navigation puzzles not worth recounting to get the part for the harvester. Returning to Alula IV, we fixed the harvester, which promptly went out of control when we turned it on and bashed through a fence. This allowed us access to a new area and ultimately the station commander, who gave us the requisition form to take to Oortizam Labs on Cor-Caroli Prime.
          

The next episode.

         
Cor-Caroli Prime's episode was "A Small Matter." The core part of it involved the party being shrunk to microscopic size and having to navigate our way through the circuit board of some computer while battling hostile nannites. I either missed or didn't record the encounter text or NPC conversation that explained why or how this happened. We had to switch a couple of computer chips and pull a lever to get out. When we did, one of the items enlarged along with the party was the Gravitic Compressor, needed for the Centauri Device.
         

Navigating the circuit maze.

           
Eventually, we were able to get the requisition form notarized, at which point an engineer gave us the "ComNav" needed for the ship on Alula IV. We returned, got that ship repaired (thus saving the Eldarins from famine), and were given a note to give to the supervisor on Denebola IV. He in turn allowed us access to the "rare treasures room" and suggested he'd look the other way if anything went missing. The room held two more sets of technical plans.
           

Good. My newly-evil party is going to need better weapons.

          
Overall, Sector Caroli's quests were the first that didn't seem to have any "evil" or otherwise alternate options, except I suppose just killing everyone instead of actually solving the quests.
         
Before I ended this session, I was interested in checking out this "life gallery" on Merak I, also in the Caroli sector. But when I visited, I found it guarded by hostile blue aliens who killed me when I resisted, so we went back to Moonbase with our tail between our legs.
             

His assessment of our capabilities was, alas, accurate.

          
Expect a change in tone in future entries as my party loses patience with this increasingly hostile and irrational universe.
           
Time so far: 15 hours
 


        

Storium Theory: Questions And Answers

A while back, I wrote a post on making trouble: The technique by which players could elaborate on the dangers or problems their characters encounter as they wrote the story of a challenge, rather than just leaving the troubles to what the narrator initially established.


When you're writing on a challenge, you're writing not just your own character's story but the story of the challenge itself. I've already written a great deal on the need to write not just your character's actions, but the results of those actions, and how those results impact the challenge going forward.

I've also written on the need to leave things open for other players to use.

Today, I'd like to take another look at that, from a slightly different angle: Questions.

When you are writing any story, the thing that gets readers involved is questions. You establish questions early on, and as the story goes on, you provide answers to those questions. That's the cycle of a story. Create mystery or uncertainty in the early going, and provide truth and certainty later on. I think we tend to understand that in writing pretty naturally - it's easy to get the idea that for the story in general, for instance, I would be starting out a story asking the question of "Who can defeat Doctor Fear?" and end up answering it with "Bravery Man can defeat Doctor Fear!" by the end.

Silly superhero names aside...we get that part, right?

But smaller parts of a story follow the same cycle. Challenges, for instance, are all about questions and answers.

The existence of the challenge itself presents a question. Usually, the answer is in the form of one of the final outcomes of the challenge, as written by whoever plays the final card. But that isn't the only question and answer cycle that can be contained in a challenge.

As I've mentioned in prior articles, telling the story of the challenge is up to the players once it is established...and thus, the players have the opportunity to define further questions asked by the challenge, and to answer those questions.

This goes back, somewhat, to the concept of making your own trouble, but questions aren't always about trouble. They're about mystery, or about the unknowns of a challenge. They might be about what's going to happen next...but they might also be about what just happened. Why did it happen? What was the cause? Or, what is the consequence?

The early moves of a challenge are about questions. The later moves are about answers.

To put it another way, you don't want to get too definitive too early.

If you're playing a Strength card on a challenge, you want to move the challenge in a positive direction related to the Outcomes. That's fine, that's expected, that's what you should do. But you also want to look at where, exactly, you are in the challenge's story.

Is this late in the challenge's story, or early?

Should you be wrapping up challenge elements? Or is this the point where the story of the challenge is still being established?

If this is the second card play of a nine-card challenge, well, you're probably still more at the establishing point of the challenge's tale. Everything still feels uncertain, unclear. Even if you're moving the challenge in a positive direction, it shouldn't feel stable. The gains shouldn't feel firm.

There should be questions.

The gains made by Strength plays feel uncertain, perhaps even risky. There are open questions about how they can be maintained. The positive movement of the challenge feels tentative.

Save solid gains for later in the challenge, or especially for points where based on the Strength/Weakness balance of a challenge, it feels unlikely (or even impossible) for it to turn back to Weak. Late in a challenge, when there's three Strengths on it and only one Weakness with one or two cards left to go, that's the time to do something like managing to fell the enemy commander and drive the army into disarray, or find the one solid lead that gets you to the person who knows what you need to know - and all you have to do is convince him to share.


The same can be said of Weaknesses, too! When a challenge is in the early going, Weakness plays are about establishing the potential for things to become very bad. They're about putting your character into trouble, or having your character cause a problem that might become truly devastating in time. If the second card play of a nine-card challenge leaves the allied lines entirely routed, or leaves one of the player characters down and out...that might be pushing things too far. But towards the end of a challenge, especially when the Weaknesses have the Strengths outnumbered, well, those might just be exactly what is called for.

Depending, of course, on the nature of the challenge and the outcomes!

So...what you want, in the early going, are questions. Uncertain situations, things that are still a little up in the air. Maybe they're trending one way, or maybe the other. Or maybe, especially with neutral cards, they're totally uncertain. But...they're questions. They're situations that still need to be resolved. Mysteries that still need their truth.

When I say "questions," now...I don't mean literal, straight-up questions, worded as such. I don't mean that you write in, "Mighty Arnbjorg struck forth into the enemy lines and drove the defenders back, but has he dared too much? Will the enemy swarm in around him?" That's actually a great question to ask...but that's not how I'm suggesting you write it. If the end of your move leaves you thinking you should really tag on "Find out next episode!" you're probably being a little bit too direct.

Questions are things you draw from a story, not things the story shoves in your face.

So if you're writing that bit, instead, what you do is write about how Arnbjorg's attack drives back the enemy, and they are temporarily stunned and confused by the sudden ferocity of their foe. But the commanders are shouting orders, and the enemy ranks are starting to form up again. The enemy general is shouting to regain order, and pointing his sword at Arnbjorg. The enemy's attention is on him.

The question is understood. Will Arnbjorg's gains be able to be held? Or will the enemy swarm back in and put him in danger now?

And late in the challenge? That's when the answers start coming in force. The final few moves of the challenge introduce answers to the lingering questions of the challenge - the questions asked along the way by other player moves, and finally the questions that established the challenge in the first place.

When you're making moves in the latter half of a challenge, or further, that's when you need to take a good look at what is still out there to be answered. What doesn't feel like it has been resolved? If you aren't writing the final move, don't resolve everything, but maybe there are still some things that are lingering out there and you can wrap something up. Maybe earlier, Arnbjorg was shown fighting for his life and for the line against the enemy after he managed to break in among their defenses...and that situation still feels like it needs an answer. Now's your chance. Do your character's actions stabilize Arnbjorg's gains at last? Or does something go wrong in the attempt and lead the enemy to swarm in at last?

Transform uncertainty to certainty. This situation has now definitely gone right...or definitely gone wrong. There's no longer a feeling that this element of the story can go a different way. Arnbjorg and Skjoldis hold the line solidly, preventing the enemy from gaining access that way...or, Arnbjorg and Skjoldis are forced to withdraw, and the enemy breaks through and can't be driven back that way. An answer.

Now...there's nothing wrong with answering something earlier in the challenge, or questioning something later. This isn't a hard and fast rule. It's a guide. Early in the challenge, tend towards questions. Late in the challenge, tend towards answers.

The reason is...questions provide opportunities. They leave things open for other players. They give inspiration, so someone can further the story of a challenge. Answers, meanwhile, close doors. When a situation is resolved, the part it played in the story is over and players need to look elsewhere for inspiration. So: By asking questions early in a challenge, you provide lots of inspiration for other players to use. But late in a challenge, you don't want to risk leaving dangling plot threads or forcing the final player to wrap up every little bit of a challenge...so it's time to start closing some of the extra doors so that the final player only has the main challenge questions (or close to that) left to resolve.

This isn't the only way to think of a challenge's story, and I don't think it's something you should hold in your head as some kind of sacred, infallible rule...but it's a helpful way to think about how you can write on a challenge, and I think if you take a look at moves - yours, and others - and ask yourself, "What questions are asked?" and "What answers are given?" you will find your challenge writing feeling more like a full, cohesive story.