Quote from: Zachary The FirstThat might be a good idea--under born, you could put (flourished [fl.] 1706-1745 or whatever).  A possibility, though dates in the bio might also furnish that.

yeah, that will work.

So, how do we get started? I think the first step would be outline in point-form a general guideline of what each book's format will be.

Ie.
1. General (very broad) historical overview. Here we detail what the time and place was like, in general.
2. Timeline: an overall timeline of the years the book covers.
3. Historical Personalities: here we detail each historical personality with the following template:
a. Name
b. Lifespan (ie. 17xx-17yy)
c. Significance: why this character was important, what he was known for.
d. Stats: Mental Ability, Physical Ability, Leadership, Charisma, Military      Capabilities. Each rated on a scale of Terrible, Poor, Fair, Average, Good, Excellent,  Legendary
e. Important character details: ie "spoke with a stutter"
f. an outline of where the character could be found, and what he was doing, at different years of his life.

4. an appendix with some general conversion guidelines to various popular systems.

Anyone have any different ideas?

RPGPundit

Let's reformat that to make it easier to read.
PDF of Outline

Quote from: RPGPunditSo, how do we get started? I think the first step would be outline in point-form a general guideline of what each book's format will be.

Ie.
1. General (very broad) historical overview. Here we detail what the time and place was like, in general.
2. Timeline: an overall timeline of the years the book covers.
3. Historical Personalities: here we detail each historical personality with the following template:
a. Name
b. Lifespan (ie. 17xx-17yy)
c. Significance: why this character was important, what he was known for.
d. Stats: Mental Ability, Physical Ability, Leadership, Charisma, Military      Capabilities. Each rated on a scale of Terrible, Poor, Fair, Average, Good, Excellent,  Legendary
e. Important character details: ie "spoke with a stutter"
f. an outline of where the character could be found, and what he was doing, at different years of his life.

4. an appendix with some general conversion guidelines to various popular systems.

Anyone have any different ideas?

RPGPundit

I would rearrange and add the following:

1. General (very broad) historical overview. Here we detail what the time and place was like, in general.
   a. Resource paragraph - Further reading
   b. Timeline: an overall timeline of the years the book covers.

2. Historical Personalities: here we detail each historical personality with the following template:
   a. Name
   b. Life details
       i. Lifespan (ie. 17xx-17yy)
             ii. Important character details: ie "spoke with a stutter"
             iii. an outline of where the character could be found, and what he was
                doing, at different years of his life.
   c. Significance: why this character was important, what he was known for.
   d. Characteristics  
             i. Stats: Mental Ability, Physical Ability, Leadership, Charisma, Military        
                Capabilities. Use Mike's Fudge Scale.
             ii. Skills and Abilities: Using Mike's Fudge Scale. This would be any
                 extraordinary abilities or skills like Oration, Deception, Military Planning.

3. an appendix with some general conversion guidelines to various popular systems.
       a. Stats Conversion
             i. D20
             ii. Fudge
             iii. Iridium
       b. Skills and Abilities
             i. D20
             ii. Fudge
             iii. Iridium

I would add maps as needed but not as part of the outline. So, we might have a second appendix or we might put it in the flow of the text.

Bill

Pretty straightforward.  I'll set to working on it!

Quote from: HinterWeltLet's reformat that to make it easier to read.
PDF of Outline

 I would rearrange and add the following:

1. General (very broad) historical overview. Here we detail what the time and place was like, in general.
   a. Resource paragraph - Further reading
   b. Timeline: an overall timeline of the years the book covers.

3. Historical Personalities: here we detail each historical personality with the following template:
   a. Name
   b. Life details
       i. Lifespan (ie. 17xx-17yy)
             ii. Important character details: ie "spoke with a stutter"
             iii. an outline of where the character could be found, and what he was
                doing, at different years of his life.
   c. Significance: why this character was important, what he was known for.
   d. Characteristics  
             i. Stats: Mental Ability, Physical Ability, Leadership, Charisma, Military        
                Capabilities. Use Mike's Fudge Scale.
             ii. Skills and Abilities: Using Mike's Fudge Scale. This would be any
                 extraordinary abilities or skills like Oration, Deception, Military Planning.

4. an appendix with some general conversion guidelines to various popular systems.
       a. Stats Conversion
             i. D20
             ii. Fudge
             iii. Iridium
       b. Skills and Abilities
             i. D20
             ii. Fudge
             iii. Iridium

I would add maps as needed but not as part of the outline. So, we might have a second appendix or we might put it in the flow of the text.

Bill

You don't have a point #2, though I suspect that was meant to be the "timeline" which you accidentally listed as "1b".

Finally, if you want to use the "fudge scale" for attributes (without actually using any other aspect of the system), that's fine. Even then I don't see the point, because I certainly won't obey whatever the context of those abilities are supposed to be in the Fudge system, I'll just pick the one that sounds right for the character in question based on the common english meanings of the words, and NOT the Fudge mechanics. But as soon as you start adding "skills" and other shit, then you're already writing a fucking FUDGE sourcebook, and I have no interest at all in doing so, and will bow out.

I mean frankly, some of you are pushing very hard to turn this into a FUDGE book without saying so openly, because it suits your (personal or ideological) purposes. I won't be party to that.

Maybe you all decide that you don't want my participation in this project, and that's fine. But if I'm in, the books have to be generic, not a "FUDGE sourcebook by any other name". Fuck that. I'm not writing fucking statblocs, much less for a system I don't even like.

NO "SKILLS AND ABILITIES". Its just shoehorning the whole thing.

RPGPundit

You know, if this is an issue, I think skill and abilities could just be extrapolated from the bio quite easily. But I'll go either way, as I tend to be pretty easy-going.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstYou know, if this is an issue, I think skill and abilities could just be extrapolated from the bio quite easily. But I'll go either way, as I tend to be pretty easy-going.

Pundit is correct. I think skills and abilities should be written in as part of the text. Different games have different skill lists, and trying to mix n' match is a losing proposition.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmicePundit is correct. I think skills and abilities should be written in as part of the text. Different games have different skill lists, and trying to mix n' match is a losing proposition.

-clash

Exactly. You want to say that Hadrian was a good horseman, you say it in the comments, you don't need to write up a fucking FUDGE statblock to do it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYou don't have a point #2, though I suspect that was meant to be the "timeline" which you accidentally listed as "1b".

No, but I fixed it. It should be right in the PDF outline.

Quote from: RPGPunditFinally, if you want to use the "fudge scale" for attributes (without actually using any other aspect of the system), that's fine. Even then I don't see the point, because I certainly won't obey whatever the context of those abilities are supposed to be in the Fudge system, I'll just pick the one that sounds right for the character in question based on the common english meanings of the words, and NOT the Fudge mechanics. But as soon as you start adding "skills" and other shit, then you're already writing a fucking FUDGE sourcebook, and I have no interest at all in doing so, and will bow out.

First off, I do not appreciate profanity. Let's try to do this with a modicum of professionalism.

Second, I did not say use fudge skills, just the ranks. Sorry if that was unclear. I like the rankings Mike mentions because it is a finer grade. Also, we need to agree on the scale because if we all run off writing to our own scale, the usefulness of the book will decrease. So, whatever your game of choice is, say d20, you (meaning all the writers in the project now and future) will have a common reference for the stats of a persona.

Quote from: RPGPunditI mean frankly, some of you are pushing very hard to turn this into a FUDGE book without saying so openly, because it suits your (personal or ideological) purposes. I won't be party to that.

What?!? I am looking to make a book that is useful to gamers. Having a reference in the back of the book to aid in the translation of these npcs to systems is a very useful idea. I envision no text related to a specific game system outside the appendix.

Do you understand you are not being constructive?

Quote from: RPGPunditMaybe you all decide that you don't want my participation in this project, and that's fine. But if I'm in, the books have to be generic, not a "FUDGE sourcebook by any other name". Fuck that. I'm not writing fucking statblocs, much less for a system I don't even like.

NO "SKILLS AND ABILITIES". Its just shoehorning the whole thing.

RPGPundit

Where did we get stat blocks? You suggested as part of your original outline.

To help out with the understanding of what I meant about skills and abilities since it does not seem to have come across.  

I am not talking about formal skill lists. I am talking about extraordinary abilities and skills of people outlined int he book. An example:

"JFK had a strong presence and powerful charismatic manner of speech. His oration was superb."

Alternatively we could make a short list of skills with rankings like Oration: Superb. It does not have to map to a system list of skills as long as the system has a way to handle generic skills.

Am I off, Zach, as to what you envision this product being used for? I assumed a generic resource. Resource indicates you would want a quick, easy to use book with NPCs that can be plopped into situations and plots. It can be done without skills or abilities certainly. I just thought those would be useful.

Bill

Quote from: RPGPunditExactly. You want to say that Hadrian was a good horseman, you say it in the comments, you don't need to write up a fucking FUDGE statblock to do it.

RPGPundit

I guess you are missing the point here, noone is suggesting your write a "fucking fudge statblock".

In your own example "Hadrian was a good horseman" is the sam damn thing as just listing skills: Horseman=good.

The bottomline (IMO, of course) is if you don't make it easy to generate stats and convert to a given system, I doubt this thing will sell.

the levels (good, great, ....ect) are just a point of reference so you can gauge the different levels of competence between characters.

Example:

If you say Hadrian was a good horseman and george was a skilled horseman. who is better or what does "good" or "skilled" mean when generating stats?

Now if you use the scale above you can say:

Hadrian was a good horseman and george was a great horseman.
This easily translate into for goerge a +4 modifier in d20 or a 80% in iridium or just "great" in fudge. Wow, 10 sec convertion in 3 systems.

Heck even if you choose not to convert it atleast you know that George is better than Hadrian @ riding a horse. And you know they are both above average.

If you make GMs do all the guess work, then you are doing nothing more than republishing history articles. No, thanks I can read a history book myself and guesstimate stats without this product. Crap, I can google or wiki for my roleplaying purposes if thats the case.

I absolutely would like this to be a generic sourcebook, as useful to as many different gamers as possible! To that end, I think an appendix page with the quick conversions from the attirbute ranks on each NPCs would be fine! I wouldn't mind skills and ability ranks, only I think it could get cluttered very quick, and I think it would be really hard on some characters, what with skill systems changing so very much between systems.
 
As an example, I think what you wrote about JFK would be an excellent example of how easy it would be to extrapolate skills/abilities from the bio, without taking away from the product.
 
Mind you, I am below novice status on this, so I'll go either way. For me, it won't make or break the product. I think it might clutter it a bit more, but that's just my personal preference.
 
EDIT: As a compromise, how about in the text, having GREAT or FAIR or whatever the ranking in in caps, so it is easily recognizable?
 
Example:
 
"McClellan was an EXCELLENT rider, and even developed a new saddle. On the other hand, his GOOD intellect did not easily translate into military success, as he tended to be well-organized, but plodding".
 
Takes away from the flow, I suppose.
A brief list of Notable Skills, ala Gurps Who's Who, might not be too bad, but I definitely don't wish to shoehorn.  What to do, what to do...
 
And yeah, fellas, can we try to keep this quasi-professional? I think we'll be able to focus in and make this a reality a bit more that way.

My point, and I think Pundit's point, was if it's written up as a statblock, people will treat it as a Fudge statblock, in a Fudge supplement, not generic descriptors. Written in line, it looks much more generic. People tend to treat statblocks as written in stone, while in-line text is something to be interpreted.

-clash

Quote from: HinterWeltI am not talking about formal skill lists. I am talking about extraordinary abilities and skills of people outlined int he book. An example:

"JFK had a strong presence and powerful charismatic manner of speech. His oration was superb."

Yeah, see, I'm not going to do that. Its cheesy. It would make me sound like an idiot. I'm going to use my own adjectives and not FUDGE's, thank you very much. You guys work it out from there.

QuoteAlternatively we could make a short list of skills with rankings like Oration: Superb. It does not have to map to a system list of skills as long as the system has a way to handle generic skills.

NO! What the fuck is wrong with just writing it freestyle and letting each DM decide what system he wants to use, and what stats he wants to assign for said system of his choice based on what he feels makes sense? I mean, why the need to shoehorn?

QuoteAm I off, Zach, as to what you envision this product being used for? I assumed a generic resource. Resource indicates you would want a quick, easy to use book with NPCs that can be plopped into situations and plots. It can be done without skills or abilities certainly. I just thought those would be useful.

And I think these would not be, unless your goal is to turn a generic RPG resource into a book for a specific RPG system.

RPGpundit