Cosmological Map In T-Shirt Formation

Is it April 23? I guess it is, but from the temperature in my apartment you would never know it. It's frikkin freezing.

Anyway that aside, I have been toiling away here on another small leg of the project (mostly because I'm so chilled I can't really work on anything that requires deep thinking or analytic computations) ...

Yup... you guessed it.

The Elthos T-Shirt Store!

Now suppose you are curious what your Zodiac Sign relates to in terms of Tarot Cards ... well, until now, that's actually been something of a difficult question to answer. But for Elthos, after many years of plodding along and thinking about it, drawing correspondences and thinking about it some more, and then doing more research and ... ok, you get the idea... finally there is a Correspondence between the two.

Why was this so hard, you ask? Because (and yes, I'm so glad you asked!) it's not as straight forward a question as it might seem.

For example, you'd think that because there is a Traditional Tarot card for the Sun, and the Moon, and all the 12 Zodiac Signs, that there's be a nice and neat correspondence between Tarot Cards and Planets and Zodiac Signs... right? Well, not so fast, there padre. It ain't quite that simple. Let's take a quick look.

Lets do the obvious ones:
MOON --- Moon
SUN --- Sun

Right. Those are the only two really really obvious ones. Now lets do the ones that are kind of clear, if you think about it a bit.

VIRGO --- High Priestess
JUPITER --- Emperor
LIBRA --- Justice
LEO --- Strength
SCORPIO --- Death
GEMINI --- Lovers

Ok after that it starts getting a little dodgy. Ok, quick quiz for you. Which of these remaining cards go with which Zodiac Signs and Planets?

Magician ...?
Empress ...?
Hierophant ...?
Chariot ...?
Hermit ...?
Fortune ...?
Hanged Man ...?
Temperance ...?
Devil ...?
Tower ...?
Star ...?
Judgment ...?
World ...?

Not as easy as you thought, eh?

For those of you keeping count, you might notice that the number of Planets and Zodiac Signs may not match the number of Tarot Cards. Lets count.

Tarot Cards in the Major Arcana - 22. That was easy.

Zodiac Signs - 12. That was easy.

Planets - 5 or 7 or 9 depending on your cultural references. Lets look at Planets for a moment. At this point things get pretty confusing. If you hunt around for any kind of official Table of Correspondences for Planets, Zodiac Signs and Tarot Cards you're going to notice pretty quickly that there is no consensus on the subject. This is because the number of planets doesn't quite match the Tarot Cards, unless you decide to go with 10 planets. In which case yup, then they match. But still... what planets go with what cards? There's some agreement on some of the slightly more intuitive ones...

MERCURY --- Magician
VENUS --- Empress
PLUTO --- Hanged Man
CAPRICORN --- Devil
MARS --- Tower
SATURN --- Judgment

Beyond that, it's pretty much been a guessing game, and there's not even firm agreement on all of the ones I just listed. In some cases, the game wasn't even quite fair... for example one I found from the middle ages that only used 5 planets and so had Venus and Saturn used twice, among other incongruities.

At any rate, for the Elthos RPG I needed (or wanted, rather) to have a clear and concise system that I could use as the basis for a rational Alignment System, something I'd been working on since the 1970's. In the end, after much hemming and hawing and hobbnobbing and reading and pulling of hairs and so forth, I settled on this configuration:

MERCURY --- Magician
VENUS --- Empress
TAURUS --- Hierophant
AQUARIUS --- Chariot
NEPTUNE --- Hermit
ARIES --- Fortune
PLUTO --- Hanged Man
CANCER --- Temperance
CAPRICORN --- Devil
MARS --- Tower
URANUS --- Star
SATURN --- Judgment
SAGITTARIUS --- World
EARTH --- Unicorn *
ELKOR --- Dragon *

You'll notice that there are 12 Planets. That's because I added the Earth (which most astrologers never counted as a planet, but of course it very much IS a planet), and I also added Elkor, otherwise known as Planet X, the World of the Elkron. This gave me 12, which I needed. Why? Because I wanted 12 Planets to go neatly with 12 Constellations of the Zodiac, of course.

But wait! There's only 22 Tarot Cards in the Major Arcana, and there's no way that 22 Major Arcana are going to match with 12 Zodiac Signs and 12 Planets. So if my premise was I wanted one Planet per Zodiac Sign (and of course, who wouldn't?), then I would have to have 24 Celestials (what I refer to as the collective body of Zodiac Signs and Planets). After all most Zodiac Signs have a corresponding Planet... but not all of them... which is why the whole thing has been a mess for centuries.

Ok, so how to solve? Naturally, in my infinite wisdom as Gamemaster of Elthos, I took the only logical expedient. I created two new Tarot Cards The Dragon and the Unicorn.

And NOW I have 12 Planets that correspond with the 12 Constellations, and all of those corresponding with one, and only one Tarot Card.

And to make things even spiffier, I embodied the entire system on a Tarot Deck created for me by Jason Moser... and put it all on T-Shirts.

Please don't ask why they are on T-Shirts. The answer is just too painfully obvious.

So here you are... enjoy!

PISCES --- Fool
MERCURY --- Magician
VIRGO --- High Priestess
VENUS --- Empress
JUPITER --- Emperor
TAURUS --- Hierophant
GEMINI --- Lovers
AQUARIUS --- Chariot
LIBRA --- Justice
NEPTUNE --- Hermit
ARIES --- Fortune
LEO --- Strength
PLUTO --- Hanged Man
SCORPIO --- Death
CANCER --- Temperance
CAPRICORN --- Devil
MARS --- Tower
URANUS --- Star
MOON --- Moon
SUN --- Sun
SATURN --- Judgment
SAGITTARIUS --- World
EARTH --- Unicorn *
ELKOR --- Dragon *

The Elthos RPG T-Shirt Store!

:) 

A Few Thoughts on Mini-System RPGs

I'm going to cobble this together as a Blog Post for the record because I think it's an interesting point regarding Mini-Systems.   Originally this was intended to be a response to a blog post, but Google+ posted it as a new thread to my public stream.  Mmm... okay.   So here's the google+ post for reference:

https://plus.google.com/109710694905703914607/posts/G3jHBWDJ6EL

 

The responses were interesting.  I want to encapsulate and paraphrase the main points here.

 

Naturally, it is an each to his own hobby.  

 

That said, what I like about my Elthos RPG Mini-System is speed of play.  

 

Bannister commented that he doesn't like Low Stats Systems ... "I can't fathom a character in a distilled system that can match anything except generic Hero Archetypes...  most players don't like to use it for character creation. too bland."

 

As far as it limiting players ability to define their characters, we've found to opposite to be true here.  My players enjoy the flexibility of loosely defined non-critical attributes, and role play their characters based on their personality and goals, rather than attributes and class.  The speed of play aspect is of such a benefit that I feel that the advantages far out-weight the disadvantages.  But again, each to his own.  I would say this is not the game for those who are very focused on technical rules of the game, but rather for those who enjoy a certain amount of gamism, but also, and possibly a little bit more, enjoy the story aspect.  The system leaves a lot to the creativity of the players by keeping the rules flexible and simple.  When questions arise, the GM adjudicates.  That's the nature of it, and it works well for my group.  Nothing at all against your group or your style of play, of course.  It's all good, as long as people are having fun.

 

Nuff said.  Just wanted to record this for future reference, least it get lost in the Great Google+ Miasma, since I think its' an interesting point.  

Professional GameMaster Society - Progress

Wanting to focus on achievable goals, our fledgling Professional GameMaster Society agreed that we should concentrate as a first order of business on the plucking the low lying fruit.  That has been to create a package of materials for Pro-GMs to use in the pursuit of one of our easiest to generate business models, which we're calling "The Glorified Game-Sitting Service". 

In this model the GM sets up shop with a local Community Center, Library, School, or group of parent's to host a game for young people, probably between the ages of 11 and 14.  The fee structure is based, loosely, on a sliding scale depending on the number of participants, with the minimum being 4 (salt to taste) and the maximum being 12 (ditto).  The pay ranges from $12 / hour / Player for 4 to $8 / hour / Player for 12.  Of course the more Players the more money, even with the sliding scale.

For the Package I created a set of documents that can be used by the Society Members by downloading them and replacing the <Item> bracketed items in the document with whatever is appropriate.  For example "Welcome to the <Name> Game Club" where name might get replaced with "Elthos".   The documents include:

1. A Cover Letter intended as an introduction to the Community Center Administrators, or Library Staff, or whomever would be appropriate, and simply introduces the concept and asks if there is interest.
   
2. A Proposal Letter which goes into some more detail and provides additional information, and works towards setting up a program.
   
3. A Game Club Rules document for the Parents which explains the basics that they need to know about the Club, and provides additional information about pricing, location, and the benefits of the Club for their kids.
   
4. A Pricing Calculator Spreadsheet for GMs to use to work out how much they wish to charge.

All of the documents have the Professional GameMaster Society Logo, and include a link to our Website, as well as a link to our individual Google+ Professional Gamemaster Society Profiles.

At this point the documents are pretty much completed, but I'm waiting to hear from our members on any suggestions they may have for changes before finalizing them.  Other than that I may add a poster or two as examples for help with marketing the local games, possibly.  Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results.  I see this service as particularly useful for High School and College age students who wish to earn extra money GameMastering for young people.  While I don't expect this to become a means by which anyone reasonably expect to get rich, it can serve as a nice way to make supplemental income.

That said, the Society has come up with a number of wonderful brainstorming proposals on a variety of methods for achieving our longer term goals (which do include getting rich GameMastering) that I've also documented in our Google Share Folder.  That as well has been coming along nicely and we have some very interesting ideas on the table.  Some members are prototyping various concepts at this point.  I'm pleased to see it.

This has been a very thought provoking and interesting experiment thus far, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads in the future.   My next step will be to pick out, with the Society's help and advice, our most promising model and see what I can do with it, while encouraging our other members to do likewise.  Hopefully, if all goes well, we will have further progress and something of interest to the wider community of GameMasters to report.

If you happen to be interested you may request to join the Professional GameMaster Society via the Google+ site.

Elthos RPG Rules Book - WIP

The Elthos Core Rules Book is coming along nicely, and is in final edit.  I'm working on it with InDesign and I thought I'd post a few images of what it looks like so far... Here we go...

I wonder what people think of the look in terms of the style?  Any recommendations for it?  Thanks!

VBWyrde on Patreon

I recently heard about Patreon and decided that I should give it a try. I'm working full time on Elthos RPG, and while I'm not exactly bereft of funds at this point, I realize that I do need to refill the coifers so that I don't go broke in the process of development. I'm asking that anyone who is interested in seeing the Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine (Elthos RPG's comprehensive supporting Web Application), come to life and provide useful services to GMs, please visit my Patreon page and Patronize the effort.

VBWyrde on Patreon

For those of you who do not know what I'm working on - my Patreon page sums it all up rather nicely so I will quote myself here:

I'm working on advancing the 21st century art form known as Role Playing Games.. I will be producing materials including a web application called The Mythos Machine that helps Gamesmasters to create and run their own Worlds, as well as publishing Campaigns of my own design, artwork, Game-Stories in prose form, the Elthos Tarot Deck, and whatever else I think up to support this amazing endeavor using the Elthos RPG as the foundation of my work. Elthos RPG is a light-weight system geared towards story-oriented play, but with a strong (though optional) tactical element. It's a great system, and features an amazing web application to support GMs who use the Elthos RPG.

The Elthos RPG Rules book is in final edit stages now, and is coming along wonderfully.  The Game Test Stories are completed but I would like to polish them up a bit and put them in a nicely formatted series of PDFs. The Mythos Machine almost complete and is is soon to enter its Open Beta Phase, hopefully by the beginning of June.  Current testing suggests that it is 98% finished. We will be looking for a select handful of Open Beta Testers at that time, so please stay tuned to my blog if you are interested (or better yet, shoot me a message so I can put you on the list).  More on the Open Beta later.

Please help to support my efforts to bring Elthos and the Mythos Machine to life!

Thank you!

Edit:  Ok I got some really great feedback on this idea and my Patreon page from David Schirduan, and it seems that I'm kind of in an odd spot with Patreon.  David gave me some really insightful observations and thoughts about it.  In the end I conclude that it is unlikely that I can make Patreon work for me the way I need it to.  Which is fine.  It's better to try stuff and see what happens then to not try and never know.  :)

At any rate, as we were talking I realized that I can post some screenshots of the Rules Book while it is still a Work In Progress.  Here's how it is looking at this point:

 

Elthos Yellow Clay Story Map

Instead of simple maps that show what is in a given area, I like to superimpose over that the actual story as it's being played, with past, present and (possible) futures also represented. These story maps act as a memory device for me as the GamesMaster, and also provide the Players with an interesting representation of the game, and helps to keep the story in their memories. Those things that appear to them to be ambiguous and mysterious are just as well. I don't explain them. I simply keep them in mind while we are playing. If one of the 'possible futures' does transpire they can see it afterwards on the Story Map as a form of foreshadowing. And that works great.

These are wonderful little devices if you happen to have the time, artistic bent, and creative imagination for it. I love them. And over the years I've accumulated a neat stack of Story Maps that never fail to entertain me again long after the campaign has completed.

Edit: Venger Satanis (google+) mentioned this post and Story Map on his blog here. Cool. :)

The Rivalry Begins

For quite a while now I've been tooling together the Elthos RPG and it's associated web application, now called The Mythos Machine.   As it happens, and I've rather expected such a thing all along, a competitor has appeared on the horizon.  My first genuine rival.

My rival is The City of Brass by Ember Studios.  While it is not in production yet, and the Kickstarter for it will not even start until March 6, they have put out some videos on their product.  I have to say, when I saw it I was a bit overwhelmed, and came close to panicking.  The reason being that it is almost an exact duplicate of what I've been working on for the past ... oh ... um ... well, dang, has it been thirty years already?  Ok, well don't rush me.  I'm a slow poke.

But the truth is, I'm actually kind of a perfectionist, and working on this by myself as a hobby project after my day job work hours, and ... well ... yeah, its taken a long time.  A very long time.  But coming up with the concept, rooting out it's details, and figuring out exactly how such a thing should work... it's taken a long time.   It's always easy after the fact to look at some new creation and say "Ok, well that's kind of obvious", but the reality is - figuring out what's obvious can take a really long time.

Still though, the fact is, City of Brass has arrived suddenly (after they say only one year of development!) and happens to be almost an exact duplication of the Elthos Mythos Machine, with a slightly better interface (annoying as that may be), and one key concept that I was loath to tackle - they are willing to incorporate any and all of  the other existing RPG systems out there, such as Pathfinder, D&D, and, well, whatever floats your boat.  From the videos it looks like you can add any rules systems to the thing, and they intend to add as many as are out there.   Wow. That's awesome.  I'm dwarfed by that. 

When I stumbled across this on Saturday I spent a few hours in semi-panic mode.  I was like ... "OMG... my life long dream ... being run over by the mack truck of a software development team that is better, faster, stronger than I am... wahhhh... wahhhhh... wahhhhh...."

Ok, I realized pretty fast that panicking is probably not the best possible response.  I stepped back, wrote a couple of emails to my close friends about it, and then went on my normal daily routines (Kung Fu Class and then dinner with my girlfriend) and in the background of my mind thought about the big picture.  That was probably the best thing I've done for myself in 20 years.  It gave me a chance to step back and reflect.

After all is said and done, I think there is plenty of room in our hobby for all kinds of applications to automate Gamemastering tasks in a way that helps propel the art forward.

Despite the fact that looking at City of Brass seemed a lot like looking at a reflection of the Mythos Machine with a somewhat different interface, and with the addition of  an interesting multi-system capability, and being rather daunted by the uncanny similarities between my project and theirs... I came away in the end feeling that this may actually turn out to be a good thing for Elthos, and for the hobby as a whole. After all, we need tools like these to advance the art of Gamemastering for the 21st Century.  I've been saying that for quite some time.  So in one sense, I'm grateful to see others working towards the same ends.

My friends who have been working with me on this project informally as play testers for quite some time now immediately rallied and insisted that I not lose hope.  They said there's plenty of room for competition, and there's no reason to be dismayed by City of Brass.  The main thing is to perfect Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine to the best of our ability, and do our best to support a community of people who find it a valuable tool in their GMing utility belt.  I was touched and encouraged by my friend's responses.  They're great guys, and all I can say about that is that I'm incredibly grateful for their support and enthusiasm.

My girlfriend over dinner helped me to think about what this means for Elthos.  She came up with an encouraging point of view... "A rival is good for you.  It will spur you on to greater heights," she said.  I was happy to hear her say so.  It makes sense to me and gave me a new way of looking at my competition.   Rivals.  I like that. So I think she's absolutely right (and not just because she's my girlfriend).   Already I feel enthused and eager to engage the challenge!  I look forward to the competition, and feel that this engagement will benefit both of our companies by spurring us on to greater efforts and greater achievements.  And this in turn will help the hobby.  The more we compete, and the better tools we create, the more the hobby will benefit.

My hope, frankly, all along has been that I can help to advance and extend our wondrous hobby.  I've been working on Elthos since 1978 with the intention to do so, and I began working on the Elthos Gamemasters Toolbox in 1994 with the intention of automating GMing functions in a useful, coherent and compelling way.  In 2006 I created the "One Die System" which was a simplification of my original core rules system (Elthos Prime) in order to streamline play.  It's flexible, simple, and creativity-enabling.  I'm happy with it.  I think it's easy to use, fun to play and overall a wonderful RPG rules system.  And so, instead of being bowled over by the Mack Truck of Competition, my feeling is one of enthusiastic engagement.  Let the games begin!

And that's how it should be.  If you have hopes and dreams of being an entrepreneur in today's world, you have to maintain the high ground of your spiritual domain ... when challenges come, as they inevitably will, you have to immediately step back, relax, and look for the next way to go with the flow of the universe.   Don't let even devastating news daunt you for long.   There is always a way to turn negatives into positives, and it's your job to figure out how.

So I encourage everyone who has a dream, who has their heart set on achieving some great and seemingly impossible goal ... don't ever give up!   Remain calm.  Forge ahead.  And for those who persevere I believe there will be victory.  Embrace it.  Live it.  Breath it.  And keep pressing forward until you achieve it.

And if all else fails, and you find yourself overwhelmed by the astounding abilities of our rivals...  remember ... “Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird