Week Ending Update - 9th May 2016

Another family focused week, with a bit of this and that done mainly over the Saturday and Sunday -

• Tapped away on a The Esoterrorist idea I had. I'm guessing it'll be a long time before I get around to doing anything more on it...
• Completed the May article for DCtRPG.info. I'm quite proud of this one...
• A first for me - I banged out some very simple sci-fi wargame rules as well. My eldest son and I are going to play test these tonight.

Week ending 4th April 2016

Two months down, and I'm still going strong with this Marcus Writes blog!

A quiet week for me after Easter's massive update, but, shock and horror, I got side tracked reading an actual physical book! Will wonders never cease!

• Did more work on my Dark Sun based Fantasy Age setting. It's pretty much ready to go...
• I posted a post up on Marcus Muses - my thoughts of games where the setting and system fail to match.
• I revisited an old Dark Conspiracy scenario idea, and once I got my head around some of the structure it is looking good. As part of this I got side tracked with another DC idea... but fortunately I wasn't distracted for too long.
• Finally, my Esoterrorists adventure - The Breeders - got some work. I have to say that writing in a book seems much easier than typing up the notes - I have some sympathy for someone like Tolkien now :P

[Update] Long weekending 29th March 2016

It was a long week this week, with 4 days off for Easter. I have achieved a huge amount of writing (near on 10 thousand words in my estimate) across a number of projects, including some that actually saw the light of day! I think that is the real benefit of this blog so far, the number of 'things' that I've started to actually complete. Sure I've still got years of half done writing still sitting on my Hard Drive, but at least now something is getting done with it.

So what did I do this past week?

• Completed an article for my darkconspiracytherpg.info fan site - this is an examination of The Pale, one of the major antagonist races in the game. 
• The biggie, I released A Night on the Town, a demonstration scenario for Pelgrane Press' The Esoterrorists. Designed as an introduction to the GUMSHOE system, is comes complete with sample characters and a bit of gaming advice.
• Talking The Esoterrorists, I also updated the page covering this game on my Unbound Publishing website. I've also popped up all the bits and pieces I've produced for the game, and am surprisingly impressed on just how much I've written for it over the years.
• As you can imagine, releasing a product really gives you a shot in the arm for similar ideas, and so I spent some time working on The Breeders, a longer Esoterrorist adventure (I've previously mentioned here).
• I also got the map from my friend Domagoj for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure I started a while back. As a result, I ended up rewriting a whole swathe of changes to improve the background elements to the story (i.e. actually have one :P).
• Finally, inspired by an actual play podcast, I threw together a quick background for a Fantasy Age version of the old D&D setting Dark Sun. What started out as a simple conversion morphed into a similar but different setting. Unsure what, if anything, I'll do with it, but I'm definitely in the mood for some Fantasy Age gaming.

Update - Weekending 21st March 2016

I've found that websites take a lot of effort to update and change, and more than one evening this week has been taken up with editing just one section of my Stormbringer site.

That being said, this week I:

• Updated the Catalogue page of my Stormbringer site.
• Created a page here on this blog summarising the various websites and fan pages I support. I realised this is the first time I've attempted such a summary, and I'm sure I'm missing things (in fact I know I've not noted my Mini Six fan site!)
• I've picked up an old Stormbringer adventure (I've run a couple of times) and started editing it. 
• I completed the full draft of my The Esoterrorists Demo adventure - A Night on the Town. This should be up on my Unboundbook.org site later this week. 

Getting Things Done - Week Ending 14th March 2016

If you could sum up last week in a few words, they would be, 'review and reflection'. Looking back on my writing over the past 7 days, I have to say that I achieve a lot more than I had first thought, and, if nothing else, it demonstrated to me just how many projects I start without guiding them through to completion. Again, on of the purposes of this blog is to ensure that I focus on some of these 'products' and see them through to to some sort of result.

So this week I:

• Wrote a post over at unboundbook.org summarising the status of a number of Call of Cthulhu scenarios I've mentioned over the last decade. Suffice to say the related thread over at Yog-sothoth.com raise the idea of Patreon again... 
• Completed an article for my Sundered Skies blog, and posted that up on the site. Heir to the Throne, is a scenario idea that I've previously run for my Skype group, but this was my chance to put on paper.
• Finally move forward on an old The Esoterrorist adventure. For the longest time I've been inching my way through a demon scenario - much like the one for Ashen Stars - designed to introduce new players to this specific style/flavour of GUMSHOE. Over the weekend I settled on a completed draft, and have received some great feedback from my editor-in-grief - (i.e. Emma, my wife).

[Update] 29th Feb 2016

One of those quiet ones this week, where family and gaming took priority over writing. When I did get to write, my focus was on older material I've previously started by not seen through to completion (who'd have thunk that from me :P).

• I added quite a bit to one of the Conspiracy X adventures I planned out a few years back (and ran at Kapon 2015). 
• My Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure continues a pace, with it now being called ' the Oldest Tower'. A map is being produced by a mate of mine, and while it is a rather simple adventure, I like where it is going. 
• Finally, I discovered my old The Esoterrorist folder (which I had thought lost in the great Hard Drive Collapse incident of 2015). As is my want, I charged head first into reviewing and rewriting some of these, and I've a hope they might see the light of day soon.