Archived News and Announcements News Archive - 2007 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008

 

Archived News and Announcements

News Archive - 2007

 

January 2009

 

• 1/12/2008 - Updated/modified the Convention History page a little; I'd forgotten to include Mikomicon 2008 in the line-up. One of these days, I'm going to have to get around to doing the write-up for each of the conventions we had back in 2008. =P Now that it's a new year, Dundracon will have me re-focusing my efforts to get ready for the downhill-charge through the first half of this next year's conventions.
• 1/12/2008 - Don has told me that he'll be at Dundracon this year, and that he'll be at the DEEP SEKH Tournament on Saturday. This will be the first time we've both been present at Dundracon since our first year there. Should be a blast! (We haven't seen each other since Anime Expo last July.)
• 1/12/2008 - The DEEP SEKH Tournament has been confirmed in the Dundracon 33 schedule! The game will be held on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 (Valentine's Day) and will run from 10 AM to 4 PM (6-hour time slot). When I asked the players I had last year what they thought the reason was for the low attendance, they told me it was probably due to the length of the game -- last year I was set up to run 12 hours, which they thought might be too long. This year will take half that time, so hopefully I'll get more people interested in playing. I was apprehensive at first, but I'm a staunch believer in giving people what they want, and always leaving them wanting more. =P

 

December 2008

 

• 12/31/2008 - The "Mediterranean Plotluck" campaign ended in October, but a new Plotluck campaign began in November, entitled "Rumors of War." The new campaign is partially being used to generate new content for the purpose of enhancing the setting for the DEEP SEKH Tournament.
• 12/31/2008 - There are two major types of qualities -- character qualities and faction qualities. Character qualities will remain the same in virtually every game that uses the same system as DEEP SEKH. Faction qualities are inherent to DEEP SEKH characters, and are part of the faction struggle which is the theme of the DEEP SEKH Tournament. The reason for the "yet another overhaul" of the feats and talents is to take into account the qualities specifically in terms of enhancing interaction between rules items and creating better fluidity throughout the system.
• 12/31/2008 - This last month has seen yet another overhaul of the feats and talents. I made the design decision to create a separate category of effects called "qualities" which are inherent to each character and essentially describe the basic rules of the game. The most important ones are "Aggressive Action" and "Defensive Action" which specifically define how attacking and defending operate in the context of the game, "Conveyance," which describes movement, and the crowning quality of a hero (as opposed to an NPC) is "Reliable Execution," which grants actions to a Player Character.
• 12/31/2008 - Lots of exciting developments behind the scenes with DEEP SEKH. First, the next convention for DEEP SEKH may or may not be Dundracon 33. I hadn't originally intended to attend, however an email from the coordinator changed my mind, and if the DEEP SEKH Tournament makes it on the schedule, you can bet I'll be there to run it! Don may also make an appearance, though this hasn't been confirmed.

 

November 2008

 

No news this month.

 

October 2008

 

• 10/27/2008 - Most of what's being worked on right now is all background stuff. Geography, racial history, deities, organizations, and so forth. Still looking into printing options for the cards.
• 10/25/2008 - Went to Anime Banzai today. Volunteered to sit on the judges' panel for an event in the morning called Otaku Have Talent. Helped out with various other panels. Sat on the judges' panel for Anime Idol auditions, and then in the evening, played the role of "Simon" for the actual Anime Idol program. Apparently my "Simon" sucked. I was too nice. In my defense, I've never watched American Idol.

 

September 2008

 

• 9/4/2008 - Lots of stuff going on in the background right now. Checking out options for printing cards. Tweaking feats and talents and races and classes. All kinds of work going on! We're getting prepared for Mikomicon, and there are only a couple weeks to go!

 

August 2008

 

• No news for the month of August.

 

July 2008

 

• 7/19/2008 - Even as I got on the plane for Anime Expo, I was already at work revising feats and talents. So in the next week (maybe even tomorrow) I hope to release a new feats/talents document with all-new feats and talents, updates to some of the originals and hopefully more overall cohesion.
• 7/14/2008 - Tinkered with the map some today. I got a couple hints on how to do the text *way* easier, so now the maps should take significantly *less* time to craft. I'll have a new version of the map ready for print Wednesday, at which point I'll make a couple that I can send out to adoring fans and the like.
• 7/14/2008 - Working on the cards. I've set up part of the framework that I'm going to use for this set and future ones, and I came up with the theme for the first set of cards. Woo!
• 7/10/2008 - Working on rebuilding feats and talents, adding new ones, and tinkering with old ones. My basic design philosophy at this point is that "if I wouldn't use it, why should I expect anyone else to?"
• 7/8/2008 - Another fantastic year at Anime Expo, and by far the best convention for DEEP SEKH yet!
• 7/2/2008 - Here are the files for everyone who wants to build a character for Anime Expo!

Basic Rules

 

Race

Arcana

Sign

Class

 

Feats

Talents

 

Character Sheet

 

June 2008

 

• 6/30/2008 - Most of the pre-gen characters are now available for viewing before the tournament. Character Binder
• 6/24/2008 - Working on statting out Signs and Arcana. Once those are done, and classes are done, then I'll release all the information for character creation. A shiny new form-style, character sheet is pending.
• 6/24/2008 - Working on adding several new classes and wrapping up feats and talents. Spent the last two weeks working on feats and talents, and let me tell you, there are a bunch. About 10 feats per skill (18 skills = 180+ feats).
• 6/23/2008 - I've finished the skill checks for "Street Encounters" in the city of Media. I'll be spending most of my time today and tomorrow finishing up the map for printing this week.
• 6/23/2008 - I've finished the vital statistics for races, and that information will be made available on the wiki tomorrow.
• 6/10/2008 - A successful attack roll shall be defined as: "an that deals full damage." This statement implies that an attack might still do damage, even if it "misses." The official word on this, for the time being, is that a "failed" attack deals half damage, a successful attack deals full damage. A "botch" (natural 1) deals no damage, whereas when an attack "explodes," you add another attack roll to the equation. This secondary attack may add half or full damage, may botch, or may very well explode again, depending on the luck of the one rolling the dice.
• 6/10/2008 - I spent most of last week working on revamping the website for my Mediterranean Plotluck DEEP SEKH campaign. This week will see more updates here at DEEP SEKH, including previews (and actual views) of stuff that will be appearing at Anime Expo 2008.
• 6/5/2008 - I'll put information about the structure of DEEP SEKH characters on the website over the next week or so. Observant visitors may be able to locate the page before I even put it in the Sidebar.
• 6/5/2008 - A finalized character sheet for Anime Expo will appear in the upcoming week. After that I'll convert the characters once more and put them on their respective character sheets (thankfully, it's a much smaller change between this version and the last, but there should be more marked diversity between the character types. I'll be cutting down on the overall number of pre-generated characters for three reasons:

1) Players will now control only a single character, so the high number of pre-gens will be unnecessary.

2) Player-built characters will be allowed in this year's tournament.

3) I intend to make fewer individual characters and increase the amount of "character" per character. (Wizards of the Coast would refer to this as "traction.")

• 6/5/2008 - Tons more behind-the-scenes type work going on, of course. I'm working on tightening up the system and hammering out the details of the character sheet. I'll tell you that with no small amount of certainty, the game will continue to evolve after Anime Expo. I'm currently in the process of tying up loose ends with the version of the system that will appear this year.

 

May 2008

 

• 5/28/2008 - I've two threads on the Anime Expo forums; one for DEEP SEKH, and one for Final Fantasy Brawl, which is debuting this year at AX.
• 5/28/2008 - This Sunday begins the home stretch ... "crunch" time before Anime Expo the first week of July.
• 5/28/2008 - CONduit was a flop. No players in attendance.
• 5/21/2008 - Successfully finished the map and printed last night. I'll be using the new map this weekend at CONduit.
• 5/21/2008 - Completely redid the map overnight to incorporate sweeping changes in "random" encounters. Let's see if I can finish it in time for CONduit...
• 5/20/2008 - I've finished an early version of the Character Sheet that will be used for future tournaments. (You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to view the character sheet.) Look for an fillable form version in the next week or two!
• 5/15/2008 - Updated the races in Rules of the Game. These are the races that will be available for players to use when building original characters for the tournament. Pre-generated characters will continue to use the races previously defined in the Monster Mash release.
• 5/14/2008 - An interesting thing to note is my decision to make additional skill-oriented talents as well. The concept of most talents will revolve around granting bonuses to specific skills or activities, such as the "Powerful Build" talent, which grants a +2 bonus to weapon damage and the Athletics skill. Thus far, talents are allowed to certain characters based on race, class, weapon, armor, or skill.
• 5/14/2008 - Racial talents help define the boundaries of what makes one race different from another. Class-based talents help define those things that set character classes apart from one another. Weapon- and armor-based talents include tricks that may be utilized with particular types of weapons or armor, respectively. Skill-based talents often grant bonuses based on the particular types of characters associated with that skill.
• 5/14/2008 - Thievery is probably one of the best examples of a skill aided by the inclusion of a set of talents to define it. A particular race may generate more thieves than another, many members of a particular class may turn to thievery, but nothing really defines a thief so much as the skill itself. Other skills may necessitate sub-sets of talents, such as Persuasion-based Command talents, or Nature-based Companion talents. Some talents require specific feats, notably the way Weapon- and Armor-based talents are keyed off of their respective proficiency feats.
• 5/14/2008 - I've continued to work on feats and I've also been working on talents. Today I retouched the character races that will be available in tournaments, and expanded the list slightly. Available races for original tournament characters include:

 

• 5/13/2008 - Now that I've got about half of the local encounters done, I'm working on making sure the map is ready to go for my demo next Monday. I'm also putting the finishing touches on races, classes, and feats and refurbishing my character sheets for players to use. I'll have filler material for those districts that don't have completed their local encounters. Making sure the game is playable is currently the highest priority.
• 5/13/2008 - I've been working on refurbishing the feats. There are 54 feats available to 1st-level characters, and an additional 15 feats available to 2nd-level or higher characters. Many feats from the previous release (Winter 2007) have been remade as Talents, due to the changing nature of feats/talents. Feats are increasingly being used to grant new options to characters, whereas talents are being used to grant substantial bonuses to attack, damage, or skills. Talents are also used to grant additional actions, or to allow unique uses of certain feats/skills.
• 5/9/2008 - Finished the encounters for the "Civic Center" District today. I'm not too far under 50% finished with basic encounters in the city.
• 5/6/2008 - Finished the encounters for the "Average Residential" district today.
• 5/5/2008 - The setting for the DEEP SEKH Tournament for the duration of the "Everything Can Be Eaten" season will be the fictional city of Media, based in mythological Ancient Greece, some time after the Trojan Wars.
• 5/5/2008 - It has been hard to make notes of all the individual changes that have been taking place in the game so far. Some interesting developments include in-game character advancement, the shift to an all-urban environment, the inclusion of district-level random encounters, and a much broader range of character types. There are many different ways to be successful in the DEEP SEKH Tournament now, which don't necessarily involve killing other characters. The team structure is also under development, and though the intent is to keep the game team-based, it should now be possible for a player to successfully advance, even without aid from her teammate.
• 5/5/2008 - Character Advancement in the DEEP SEKH Tournament is represented by gaining geras (plunder), rumors, and kudos (fame). Each of these is represented by a card from a standard deck of cards, and they serve both as the means to increase you arete (character level) and to help you survive day-to-day encounters by simultaneously serving as Action Points. A player is limited to using just one card per turn to boost any d20 roll, adding the value of the card to the roll.
• 5/5/2008 - Insofar as character creation is concerned, players will be allowed to create characters using any of the standard races for the tournament, which at this time primarily include those considered "core" for D&D, with the addition of kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins. Certain races will be held as "exclusive" to pre-generated characters, and mainly include those that have previously participated in the tournament, including aasimar, bladelings, bugbears, drow, goliaths, sharakim, thorns, and tieflings (most of which have been renamed and re-envisioned for the setting).
• 5/5/2008 - I've finally heard back from the gaming coordinator from CONduit, and I will be attending this year. Woo!
• 5/5/2008 - Though this may sound like a repeat of old news, most of the work that's been going into DEEP SEKH has been behind the scenes the last couple months. Some things will be available on the wiki soon, such as updates to Game Setting. A demo of DEEP SEKH will be at Purple Dragon Games two weeks from today, on Monday, May 19th. More information to follow.

 

April 2008

 

• 4/15/2008 - Lots of work is going on behind the scenes, hence the lack of updates on this site.
• 4/15/2008 - The DEEP SEKH Wiki is now 1 year old! Happy birthday to us!

 

March 2008

 

• 3/18/2008 - Working on contacts as well. Got most of the way through one so far. Will hopefully get more of these done faster in the future.
• 3/13/2008 - Working on encounters. Got one district hashed out (1/30). It's only halfway through March and I haven't started testing for game pacing yet. Hopefully that'll be able to happen soon.
• 3/13/2008 - Busy week at work. Making sure the rent and the bills are paid. Filing tax return. Ugh.
• 3/10/2008 - I've grabbed some great quotes from people expressing their sadness at the passing of G. Gygax.

 

"Seriously though, I'm flying my character sheet at half mast for you Gary."

"Now that the DM has arrived, God can hand over the dice and go take a coffee break."

"We will definitely miss you, Gary. Although most of us would look the other way if you wanted to roll up another character and continue playing the game..."

• 3/4/2008 - There is an ongoing campaign set in the new world of DEEP SEKH. It has its own wiki here:

Mediterranean Plotluck: http://plotluck.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

• 3/4/2008 - I have emailed CONduit about attending this year. I've yet to receive confirmation.
• 3/4/2008 - Updated some stuff in Deities and Mythos. Just a little here and a little there. Added the Blinding of the Godseye to the mythos section at the bottom.
• 3/3/2008 - Finished a preliminary version of the map. Things are changing all the time, of course, but once I've solidified things a little more, I'll make the map available on the wiki. I've got concepts for several more NPCs now. Pretty solid ideas to work from.
• 3/3/2008 - Making progress on the game board. I have districts planned out and I have a number of ideas for "campaign" story arcs. I've come up with maybe a third of the NPCs that I'll need, and I have some scenario ideas. Progress is probably about average, considering I'm advancing in all areas.

 

February 2008

 

• 2/29/2008 - An idea that I've had for some time that may be in the future of DEEP SEKH, is to create a simple, modular adventure-type game that centers around developing low-level characters. We'll see.
• 2/29/2008 - Currently working on the map, as promised. I've developed the basic layout of the board, and using secret alien technology I'm creating all the various "locations" that will figure prominently into the new game.
• 2/21/2008 - As part of the revisions to the various races, I will likely rename the Saagen race 'Argives,' after the city-state of Argos, mostly for their non-participation in most of the major wars of the time (notably the Greco-Persian wars).
• 2/21/2008 - Finished assigning the gods to the various major arcana. Four of the arcana are shared (The Lovers, The Hermit, Death and The Tower) between two or more gods.
• 2/21/2008 - Updated Deities and Mythos -- now all the Oceanic deities have descriptors telling what they represent. Made some progress on the tarot deck this morning.
• 2/20/2008 - Started working on a DEEP SEKH tarot deck.
• 2/18/2008 - The names of a couple things are going to change, particularly some "defined game terms," as I am going to seek a d20 System license and publish DEEP SEKH as a "fantasy d20 System game."
• 2/18/2008 - Dundracon 32 was an exceptionally fun convention again this year! Although there were a number of snags (not all characters completed, no rules document, fewer sign-ups than anticipated, etc.), the DEEP SEKH Tournament went ahead. There were very few (read: zero) complaints about the new system from any of the participants, and all the players seemed very receptive to the changes.
• 2/15/2008 - Sadly, neither the Thorn nor the Umbra characters will be available at Dundracon. I simply didn't have enough time to finish converting them. They will definitely appear at Anime Expo, however!
• 2/15/2008 - All saagen characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/15/2008 - All goliath characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/15/2008 - I got a lot done today! Hopefully I'll get even more done in the few hours of light I have left.
• 2/15/2008 - Less than 12 hours before I leave on a plane for Dundracon! It's been more than 4 months since my last convention, and I can really feel the acute stomach-butterflies that I get before another convention. Here's to getting things done at the last minute! (And there was much rejoicing. Yay.)
• 2/13/2008 - Currently converting goliath characters to DEEP SEKH. They likely won't need to be revised once I've got them done, because I'm really getting the hang of making characters in the new system now. Let me tell you, the Acrobatics/Athletics, Discipline and Tactics feats are really powerful! You can't overlook the others, however. Initiative has some great feats, too.
• 2/13/2008 - I got a lot done today! Hopefully I'll get even more done in the few hours of light I have left.
• 2/13/2008 - All bhelai characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/13/2008 - All drow characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/13/2008 - All bugbear characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/12/2008 - Blank Character Sheet
• 2/12/2008 - All aether characters have been revised and finalized! They're on the character sheets I made and are ready to be printed for Dundracon 32!
• 2/6/2008 - Once I've completed the character sheet form, I'll put it on the website and make it available for anyone that wants to submit a character. Once the various character-creation bits are a little more solid, I'll also put them online too!
• 2/6/2008 - The new character sheets are nearly finished. Most of the different parts of the sheet were designed in Adobe Illustrator and I'm creating a PDF form out of it using Adobe LiveCycle Designer. Not the most in-depth (or even interesting) program, but I imagine I could create all kinds of neat forms with it.
• 2/4/2008 - Don, Jack, Brian and I held our first video-conference D&D session on Saturday. Despite experiencing some rather fantastic technical difficulties, we all had plenty of fun.
• 2/4/2008 - Working on the character sheets using CS3. I'm finally getting a chance to work with some programs like Illustrator and InDesign.
• 2/4/2008 - Only about a week and a half before Dundracon 32! This is a convention I've really been looking forward to.

 

January 2008

 

• 1/31/2008 - Finished drow character conversions. Hit my deadline, working on the character sheet now. Plan to have PDF version of the character sheet early next week to start putting the characters "on paper."
• 1/30/2008 - Finished bladeling character conversions. Working on Drow, now.
• 1/27/2008 - Finished conversions of bugbear characters to new edition. Aasimar will need to be fixed again when I'm done (probably going to have to "update" all the first characters I convert at the end), as I'm still making changes to talents and feats as I go.
• 1/23/2008 - Several more fundamental changes at the race/class/talent/skill/feat level, particularly regarding interactions between weapons, armor, and feats. This is becoming a bad habit with me.
• "Practically playable at every level."
• 1/21/2008 - Nearly all former aasimar characters have been converted to the new system. I made a number of rather substantial changes when I realized an alarming sameness in all the aasimar characters... so I did my best to further differentiate them. I also changed several names to make them a little less lame, and a little more Greco-Roman. I plan to put PDF versions on the site when they are available.
• 1/18/2008 - Work has finally begun on converting the old characters over into the new system. I look to have all the original characters converted by the 31st, so I have enough time to make a nice hi-res map for Dundracon.
• 1/17/2008 - Finally added the Mountain-Con 2007 page. Not much too look at, though.
• 1/17/2008 - Completed the entry for Season 5 on the About DEEP SEKH page and created an entry for Season 6.
• 1/16/2008 - Unfortunately was unable to finish racial make-overs. I'm about halfway through them. Expect to see the new versions of the races as early as tomorrow morning.
• 1/16/2008 - I've got my airplane tickets for Dundracon 32, and I will be reserving my hotel room this week. The DEEP SEKH Tournament will run from 10 AM to 10 PM on Saturday, February 16th, so be there or be square!
• 1/16/2008 - Much of the system now revolves tightly around the race-class-skill-talent-feat selection. Spells are out, for the most part. Whether they will appear again at a later date is definitely questionable, as now all healing and restorative abilities are talent-skill-feat based. There are also minions, mounts and animal companions! They've been built into the character as bonuses, and are based on the Cultures, Riding, and Survival skills, respectively.
• 1/16/2008 - Revising all of the races again, to match up with other new changes. Some are getting new names again, and minor face-lifts. Though all will continue to bear a resemblance to their forebears and each race will continue to fill much the same niche that it did in D&D, none will be exactly the same. Hopefully at least half done (maybe done enough to go on the website by the end of the day?
• 1/16/2008 - Happy Birthday to me!
• 1/15/2008 - The various combat tactics (Total Offense/Defense, Fight Offensively/Defensively, Block, Parry and Riposte) are no longer granted to all characters. Instead, they have been made into stances and split between the Discipline and Tactics skills. This is one more step in the direction of creating a simpler, streamlined system.
• 1/11/2008 - Simultaneously working on converting my first adventure-module into the system. I've got a bunch of ideas about streamlining adventure formatting to make the game way less random-wandering and way more actual adventure.
• 1/10/2008 - Well, it was a short, fanciful romance, but the 3 extra ability scores are being dropped for simplicity. As cool as it would be to have Beauty, Cunning and Perception, they just seem less meaningful than they did before. And less useful. The idea is to make things less complex and more flexible, and 3 extra ability scores that have been poorly defined (in terms of game effect) from the beginning, just seem out of place now. *Sigh*
• 1/9/2008 - Further changes will be applied to all current and future classes. The idea now is to place a weapon-based talent tree, a supernatural/blessing-based talent tree, and a further "unique" talent tree in each class, to provide a certain degree of uniformity to the types of abilities that a player can expect from a given class. I've made some other minor adjustments to talents across the board, as well. Mostly in removing costs, adding benefits, and creating new "standards" for abilities, making them more consistent power-wise.
• 1/9/2008 - I will be applying some sweeping changes to the existing classes. First of all, all classes will now receive the same attack bonus, the same number of hit points, the same number of class skills and the same number of Trained skills. Further emphasis will be placed on variations on the race/class/skill/talent/feat choice level, since the idea is to make the playing field as clean and clear as possible and to promote 'creative assignment of abilities' rather than class advantages/disadvantages.
• 1/9/2008 - For Dundracon (and possibly Anime Expo), I will be using a system of Magic talents based on the revised schools of magic I created combined with Spell-feats. Basically, magic will work exactly the same as any other talent-feat or skill-feat combination. In fact, in order to "cast spells," a character (mind you, ANY character can take up spellcasting) will need the Magic Sense feat and Training in the Arcana skill.
• 1/9/2008 - I have added a slew of new feats to create new "trees" from class abilities that previously existed in D&D 3.5, and I expanded some ideas to embrace new concepts that exist in DEEP SEKH, particularly the idea that "no abilities, bonuses or tricks exist for a character beyond what's printed on the character sheet." Rather than serving as a limiting factor, this design theory is intended to benefit new and casual players with little or no desire in playing a game where Those With The Rule-Books Have The Power.
• 1/9/2008 - I have revised the skill set. There are no longer any Knowledge skills, all have been absorbed into other skills. There were previously 18 major skills + 10 Knowledges, though with further condensing and the elimination of the Knowledge skills, there are now only 17 skills total.
• 1/8/2008 - Created some Magic talents to help convert the warlock characters over. No guarantee they'll stick around. I think I'll probably also make some other temporary talents and feats to help convert some of the mages and healers. There's just not enough time between now and Dundracon to actually make up the spell cards and such.
• 1/7/2008 - Just a little more than a month until Dundracon 32! DEEP SEKH will be there and hopefully scheduling will be available by the end of the week.
• 1/5/2008 - In light of a number of design changes in the dynamics of feats, races, skills and talents, the current pre-generated characters in the DEEP SEKH Tournament won't be dual-classed, as originally expressed. First, attempts will be made to test the functionality of single-classed characters.
• 1/2/2008 - Couple things changing around in the races and classes. Favored class will now be based on pantheon, rather than individual deities. Also some updates to the Deities and Mythos page, notably the filling out of the Oceanic gods and the removal of Tarterian gods removed.
• 1/1/2008 - Normally I'd be worried about getting used to writing a new year on things, but since part of my job involves creating database entries based on the day's date (and updating other database entires to reflect 6 months from the day), I think I'll have no problems adjusting. Actually, I think it's already been 2008 for about 4 months now. =P