The Dero interview me Via TELAUG

HUMAN AGENT WHAT IS YOUR STATUS? RESPOND! 
 

Well I’ve pretty much finished Veins Of The Earth I think probably.

SUSPICION. UNCLEAR. WHAT DO YOU HIDE FROM THE DERO? DO NOT LIE!

I think it’s done. I can’t think of much else to put in it. It needs a thing for large-scare area’s. The cave gen system needs hacking so you can produce different types of area. Drow and Duergar need some items or stuff. Some smaller races haven’t even been considered. Need hypothermia rules too.

HUMAN AGENT YOUR MISSION IS INCOMPLETE!

It’s 82,000 word though and I’m tired. Its big enough! It’s too big! The risk for a publisher is too great so it will never get made.

WHY DID YOU CREATE THIS THING HUMAN AGENT?

… I can’t even remember. Because I promised to? Because I started thinking about underground spaces and couldn’t stop?

I think I wanted to make the world a more interesting place so I tried to make a thing that would force the people who read it to become more interesting. Something that wouldn’t dissolve in their minds so they would have to carry a little piece of me around with them from that point on, like a brain egg.

THE DERO APPROVE OF THIS MISSION HUMAN AGENT. BY WHAT MEANS IS YOUR MIND CONTROL ENGAGED?

The first part is all about living organisms. Living things presence themselves in the mind more fully so if someone has a head full of these they won’t be able to shake them loose.

Also the bestiary is written in extremely dense and rhythmic prose designed to enter the mind in a smooth overwhelming flow, like a salmon diving into a pool or a syringe entering the skin. Then the animal is inside you and instead of looking at the book to run it you just run with whatever version implanted itself in your mind.

PEOPLE WILL BE ANGRY BECAUSE THAT MAKES IT HARDER TO LOOK THINGS UP.

Yeah.

HALF OF THE BOOK IS NOT MONSTERS. WHY?

That’s the Vornheim side. That’s all about playing underground for extended periods of time. Generating caves and complexes, climbing, starving, light and dark.

WHY IS STARVING TO DEATH AN EXCITING GAME ARTIFACT.

I am confident that my rules for starving to death are some of the most exciting starvation-based rules ever devised!

WHAT HUMANS WILL SHARE THIS OPINION

Not many. But! The whole thing is designed in a modular way so that the rulesets work well together but you can also strip them out and use them in pieces if you want to. It’s like the opposite of Torchbearer.

NERDS WILL NOT RESPECT A NON-TIGHT RULESET HUMAN BECAUSE THEY ALL HAVE ASPERGERS

I’m going to call it a Modual AK47 ruleset because like the AK47 its made of chunky resistant parts that can be easily replaced and that when in use, shake free the detritus and crap of the environment so its kind of self-cleaning and really the ak47  was a bad metaphor.

DO YOU HAVE A ‘DESIGN PHILOSPHY’ HUMAN. RPG NERDS LIKE A DESIGN PHILOSOPHY. SOME LIKE IT MORE THAN THE ACTUAL GAME.

I didn’t have one when I started but I suppose making a bunch of stuff reveals the philosophy encoded in the design.

I hate adding more than three numbers together.

I hate including negative numbers.

I hate DC’s or things where the world gets more or less difficult. I like flat positive numbers you can get in one roll. It looks like I have tried to move almost all the complexity off the roll itself and onto a bunch of tables that only come up when you need them

I hate things where in infinite amount of variation in the world it taken into account by adding or removing plusses or minuses from a roll.

Calculating. I hate calculating. I would rather just roll two dice.

I like living things. I made darkness a living thing. The cavern complexes almost have personalities. I turned madness itself into a monster that follows you endlessly.

Apparently I like art because there’s a fair amount of that in there.

I seem to like things and people going insane. There are about a million ways to go crazy in this thing.

Apparently I’m into slavery too casue there’s a fair amount of that in there.

THE DERO APPROVE OF THIS

Yes.

YET YOU HAVE NOT DONE SLAVERY RULES OR THE WEIRD TRIGGERY MISANDRY RULES YOU WERE THINKING OF FOR DROW

Too depressing My life’s hard enough already without thinking about that shit. You will just have to go on with the madness and starvation.

OH WE WILL HUMAN. YOU ALSO LIKE THE FUNNY DICE DO YOU NOT

Yeah, the d100 plays a big role. I started using it because it has more numbers so you can convert skill levels from other D&Ds to a scale of 100 without losing any granularity. The d6 LOTFP skills are still there if you want them. The 4’s 6’s and 8’s play a role in cave gen. The d12 is a bit left out, but then it always is.

HOW CAN AN UNDERDARK BE GENERATED HUMAN? IT IS NEITHER A CITY LIKE VORNHIEM IN WHICH EVERYTHING IS ACCESSABLE AND CLOSE, OR A WILDERNESS IN WHICH ALL IS DISTANT, SEPERATED BY MOUNTAINS AND TREEEEEEESSSSSSSS

It can’t really. I came up with some insane cryptic collection of systems that looks mental even to me. Maybe it works?

YOU HAVE FAILED HUMAN AS THE DERO KNEW YOU WOULD

Yep.

HOW HAVE YOU FAILED THE TEST OF INFORMATION DESIGN HUMAN

By just banging all the tables in wherever and bookmarking the pdf.

HOW HAVE YOU FAILED THE TEST OF MARKETING HUMAN

Well about 200 people read this blog, so if we assume 5% buy it, then 10 people will. Except a lot of them have already taken a look at it so they don’t really need to.

Oh I forgot

WHAT MEMORIES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM YOU HUMAN

The original thing that prompted me was that Noisms told me to do it in a comment

Patrick Stuart16 October 2012 13:58

I daydream about doing a Vornheim-style Underdark Book. Albino whales hunting phospherescent shrimp in hidden oceans.

noisms16 October 2012 14:49

Do it then. There is no time like the present.

And only two years later here we are and he hasn’t even finished his yet.

HAVE YOU ALSO FAILED THE TEST OF ART HUMAN?

Nah, Scrap did a load of good art and it looks especially good all compiled together and seen one after the other. More art may show up at some point.

HAVE YOU FAILED THE TEST OF SCHEDULING

I think I said I would have a publisher-viewable version for June? And I think I do? So no?

TIME ON THE SURFACE IS MERELY AN ILLUSION

I know, day and hours and months all merge into one.

WHAT HAVE YOU ACHIEVED SINCE QUITTING YOUR JOB ALMOST EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO HUMAN?

20,000 word module/adventure

40,000 word Medusa Maze

82,000 word Veins book

40,000 word book of.. essays? Rambling?

Some ok interviews on sculpture

AND YET NONE OF THESE THINGS EXIST IN REALITY HUMAN THEY ARE DELUSIONS OF YOUR DYING MIND

They could exist. They might exist

OUT OF COMPASSION FOR YOUR DYING BODY AS IT SLOWLY STARVES TO DEATH IN A LIVERPOOL DRAINAGE SEWER THE DERO WILL SET THEIR TELAUG TO SIMULATE A WORLD OF COMMERCIAL SUCCESS AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM.

Thanks!

REMEMBER HUMAN, THROUGH THE ILLUSION OF YOUR OPTIMAL LIFE, THE REALITY OF YOUR EMPTY DYING SELF IS STILL REAL. LOVE IS THE ILLUSION, PAIN IS THE TRUTH BENEATH ALL THINGS.

Can you set it so that layout for RPGs is made 10 times easier and faster?

NO. IT WOULD COLLAPSE THE SIMULATION. LIKE THAT BIT IN THE MATRIX WITH THE CAT.