The BLUEHOLME™ Prentice Rules (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109409/BLUEHOLME-Prentice-Rules?manufacturers_id=3982) have been out for a couple of months now, and I'm well into writing the BLUEHOLME™ Compleat Rules by now. I've posted a more comprehensive update of where I am and where I'm going with this on the Dreamscape Design website: http://dreamscapedesign.net/2013/03/30/blueholme-complete-rules/
(http://viletraveller.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/blueholmecompleatcover_color02_longfinger.jpg)
The BLUEHOLME™ Compleat Rules will be the last rulees-related product in this line for a while, because I will concentrate on Adventures in Blueholme once this book is published. These will be multi-system adventure modules with some setting background. I'm not a big fan of pure setting books and I much prefer the approach of, for example, the old Chaosium RQ2 boxed sets which presented background as part of a campaign of series of scenarios.
Last night I finished the first draft of Part 7: Treasures. That means I am now on the last chapter, Part 8: Campaigns. This chapter will be about designing adventures in the Underworld, the Wilderness, and the Realm. There will also be a slice of advice for referees on campaigns, house rules, character advancement, and the like. This, of all chapters, will be interesting to write because it relies very little on the d20 SRD or the original rules. It will, however, draw on Holmes's ideas on creating a fantasy life in a game without end.
Okay, before I get too excited, I know that the first draft is just the start of a lot of work – there is the first edit, the proofreading, the re-writing, the continuity checking – and that's even before we get to layout. But at least the end is in sight, and once layout is done I will be able to get quotations for artwork and see about setting up that Indiegogo for funding the same.
An in-progress shot of the sample dungeon map. Those with a long history in the game may spot some homages in there.
(http://viletraveller.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/blueholmesamplemazesmall1.jpg)
I've been working my way through the final chapter of the Compleat Rules, basically dealing with campaign design (Underworld, Wilderness and the Realm) as well as some miscellaneous referee advice. The original plan was to include samples of each of the three main elements - a maze (a.k.a. a dungeon), a regional map, and a base town. Unfortunately it looks like this will take the book beyond what I consider the "sweet spot" of around 100 pages. Not an issue while both are PDF, but when the Compleat Rules eventually become available in hardcopy, excessive page count becomes a problem. There is a solution.
While the rules and explanation will still form the core of the final chapter, the step-by-step examples will be extracted to form a (free) separate, stand-alone PDF. The logic being that, while this serves as an in-depth example as well as introductory setting and scenario, it is not something that will be referred to again and again at the table. I personally have never liked introductory adventures in the core book for that reason. The artwork for this "tutorial" module will still form part of the Indiegogo, with possibly stretch goals for a colour poster map and the like. In other words, the rulebook and the module will still be treated as one thing as far as production goes, but the final product will be in the form of two separate PDFs.
You can read about it here: http://dreamscapedesign.net/2013/10/20/the-sample-campaign/
Thanks to Zenopus's revelations from the Holmes Manuscript (http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.hk/2013/11/dungeons-dragons-for-beginners.html), as well as prodding from various quarters, I've decided to expand the list of character classes available to players in the BLUEHOLME™ Compleat Rules:
http://dreamscapedesign.net/2013/12/26/a-bit-of-this-and-a-bit-of-that/
I am now waiting for my print proof copy of the BLUEHOLME™ Prentice Rules perfect bound edition to arrive in my letterbox. It might be a while, so be patient - even if all goes swimmingly, it takes a while for things to wing their way to me across the Pacific.
If things don't go swimmingly, of course, it may be back to the drawing board for some serious reformatting ...
http://dreamscapedesign.net/2014/11/01/pod-people/
The print proof has arrived, and it looks nice. :cool:
You can now order your hard copies of the BLUEHOLME Prentice Rules through Lulu, in perfect-bound or saddle-stitched flavour.:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=1315830
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aogjcVVBomKjRVhIInUOM6_JltDavIAfnkM4As9JDP8=w220-h280-no)
Just kinda wanted to +1 this so to speak. I'm a fan, and as mentioned want a hardcover, eventually. :D
Quote from: Silverlion;805167Just kinda wanted to +1 this so to speak. I'm a fan, and as mentioned want a hardcover, eventually. :D
Are you sure you don't just want to wait for the Compleat Rules in hardcover? :p
Quote from: Vile;805179Are you sure you don't just want to wait for the Compleat Rules in hardcover? :p
Maybe? Possibly? Soon? :D
How many character levels does it cover?
Quote from: GameDaddy;805354How many character levels does it cover?
Prentice Rules covers 1-3, Compleat Rules will cover 1-20.
As I'm combing through the BLUEHOLME™ Compleat files with a microscope and a fine-toothed comb, I have decided the classes need some tweaking. Specifically the sub-classes as identified in Holmes, that is:
QuoteThere are sub-classes of the four basic classes. They are: paladins and rangers (fighting men), illusionists and witches (magic-users), monks and druids (clerics), and assassins (thieves).
Up to now I've simply had these all as separate classes. Sub-classes in AD&D have always been treated as such in all but name, as far as I understand - I admit I'm no
Expert on
Advanced! ;)
However, the more I look at it the less satisfied I am with this approach. 5E may have influenced me as well, with it's way of splitting classes into different archetypes at 3rd level. That's not something I want to do, but I do think the sub-classes should be more closely related to their basic classes than they tend to be BtB. So - and I apologise in advance for the inevitable delay this will cause - I've decided to re-work these somewhat.
First of all, I will re-order the text so that the sun-classes fall under their basic classes. At the moment all classes are listed alphabetically, which I've never been happy with from an aesthetic viewpoint - it doesn't seem right leading with assassin, or having illusionist as the first magic-user class type. Instead, each sub-class will now follow its basic class in the text.
Secondly - and this comes from the avowed goal of the BLUEHOLME™ Compleat Rules (BCR) as an extrapolation of Holmes Basic, rather than simply an expansion using OD&D and the supplements - I want to re-examine the sub-classes as really being more closely related to their basic classes. Taking the monk as an extreme offender, as written this is more a sub-class of the thief than a sub-class of the cleric. Sticking to the core principles of BCR I will work with what I have courtesy of Holmes - basically just the mention of "monk" on p.7, and possibly
Brother Ambrose from The Maze of Peril as an example - and the monk becomes more of a Friar Tuck figure than a Kwai Chang Caine.
In other words, the sub-classes will become variations of their parent classes rather than completely new classes with little or no relation to the basic class they spring from. This is another reason for re-organising the order of the text, because the sub-classes will no longer have separate advancement tables - they will have the same experience requirements and hit dice as their basic class. Saving throws and to-hit rolls may vary, e'g' clerics are now more martial than monks, and assassins are more martial than thieves.
Interesting. So the Blueholme monk will diverge quite a bit from the monk we are all familiar with then?
Quite a bit, yes. While the BLUEHOLME™ Prentice Rules will remain very near (or move even closer to) the Holmes Basic rules-as-written, Compleat is intended to expand on the spirit of those rules as well as the other material which Holmes wrote or was inspired by. This direction has evolved over the last 3 years since the publication of the Prentice Rules, partly as a result of the way people have played with and racted to those, and partly because the Compleat Rules shouldn't be just another close clone of OD&D + Greyhawk. Iron Falcon does a sterling job of that already, and Delving Deeper is a great clone of the first 3 LBBs. Holmes has always been a bit of an odd point in the D&D family, not quite OD&D and not even close to being the introduction to AD&D that TSR's last-minute editing of Holmes's manuscript would have us believe. I find the oddities are what differentiate Holmes from the OD&D + Supplements that came before and the D&D / AD&D lines the game split into later.
Specifically looking at the monk, the change is because the kung-fu monk (doubtlessly inspired by the interest in kung-fu spearheaded by Bruce Lee at the time) has never really fitted into the implied milieu, nor does it work with the game as BLUEHOLME™ appears to inspire referees to run it. And, as I mentioned, if anything it plays more like a sub-class of the thief. The character of Brother Ambrose, although probably a cleric in actual play, is a fairly detailed approach from Holmes himself that will guide the BLUEHOLME™ version of the sub-class.
Daww. :( I like the kung-fu monk.
But, yeah, it's totally understandable.
Out of curiosity, what do you think about Philip Meyer's version of the monk from the September, 1981 issue of Dragon Magazine?
Well, I'm sure someone will come up with an Oriental Adventures in BLUEHOLME™ supplement one day. ;)
I was poking through the earlier Dragons recently, but #53 is past the date I use as reference for BLUEHOLME™ (somewhere in the early #20s). So I looked it up! Seems like a good, minimally-disruptive tweak of the AD&D class that might actually make it playable - no-one has ever been able to explain why monks would have d4 hit dice, for example. It's still a kung-fu monk, though, and neither a good fit for a pseudo-euro-medieval setting nor close enough to the cleric to be called a sub-class of the same. Thanks for the pointer, though.
The Journeymanne text is done and laid out. There is a table of contents to do, and some page references, and proof reading, and an art Indigogo.
But the Journeymanne text is done. :eek:
(https://viletraveller.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/1-journeymanne-cover-front-small.jpg)
Neat! I like that blue.
Thanks! That's the Blueholeme Blue.
Quote from: Vile;922210Thanks! That's the Blueholeme Blue.
Who is the cover artist?
Quote from: CRKrueger;922364Who is the cover artist?
Jean-Francois Beaulieu: http://johnnybleuart.blogspot.hk/
A long-awaited (and long!) update on the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules:
https://dreamscapedesign.net/2017/03/18/journeymanne-the-art/
(https://viletraveller.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/journeymanne-003-bkm-lo-ks.jpg)
I have finally gotten around to sorting out the compatibility licence for BLUEHOLME™! It's pretty simple stuff, drop me a line if you fancy sticking a compatibility logo on your product.
https://dreamscapedesign.net/compatibility-licences/
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And the artists are done. The PDF is now complete and available through OneBookShelf. :)
https://dreamscapedesign.net/2017/09/30/the-journey-has-ended/
The Proof is in the Pudding! Now only a big red marker stands between backers and their hard copies of the BLUEHOLME Journeymanne Rules (and the updated Prentice Rules).
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