Arawareru

Never Have I Been Prouder

I just finished watching the Livestream of the Curiosity landing. NASA, JPL, and everyone who made it a possibility should be damned proud of themselves. I just want to put it in perspective. They landed a nuclear powered rover the size of a small car on a planet 154 million miles away, by lowering it on a crane, suspended from a spaceship that took 8 months to get where it was going. 

If you don’t think that’s the coolest thing in the world, you’re an idiot.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

The Silent Ruins of Earth Post-Mortem (Artistic Interlude)

I have always been a very visual person, and have developed a deep and abiding love of concept art over the years. One of the main limitations I found as I wrote Ruins was that many of the fantastical ideas I was putting to paper were going to be difficult to adequately represent, especially as my budget for miniatures and props was virtually nil. As a result, I wound up pulling concept art from a variety of sources in order to help my group visualize the worlds and creatures of the game.A small selection has been reproduced below. Please note that each image has been provided in the highest resolution available. All due credit has been provided where possible. Consider this post a a welcome break from the walls of text. 

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And now for something completely different...

The Silent Ruins of Earth Post Mortem (Part 11)

A problem I ran into while portraying large areas (planets, orbital structures, megacities, etc.) was the propensity of players to go exploring outside of my expected boundaries. Given any given area, the players will look at the map, find the least detailed area, and then demand to go there.

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The Silent Ruins of Earth Post-Mortem (Part 10)

As Ruins went on, the list of locations grew dramatically. From thriving metropolises to dead worlds to long forgotten relics, the group travelled the length and breadth of the galaxy seeking adventure. Before the game even began, I had a long list of locations with brief descriptions. Many of these went unvisited over the course of the game.

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RELIC

The Silent Ruins of Earth Post-Mortem (Part 9)

In this installation, I’d like to talk about the role of Dungeon Master Player Characters, or DMPCs. I’ve mentioned the vessels my group had access to, but I’d like to expand on why that became so important to the development of the game.

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The Silent Ruins of Earth Post-Mortem (Part 8)

When I was writing the story for Silent Ruins of Earth, I knew very early on who and what the main antagonist was going to be. My idea came from a lengthy period of considering the nature of player-NPC relationships. Why do some villains succeed and others fail at eliciting an emotional response?

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