Well! I Never...

Last week I talked about the forthcoming Amaranthine RPG from Machine Age Productions. Their fund raising initiative with Kickstarter has surpassed the level required for the print run of the game. Now the additional funds will be put to use in producing an anthology of short fiction based on the game and setting. Meanwhile more information has come out regarding the game. Amongst the materials is an interview/discussion with David A. Hill Jr. on the Bear Swarm podcast. This interview covered topics and ideas that I did not get into previously. I wanted to point out a couple of items. The first was a line that showed up elsewhere discussing the game and the aspect David and I touched on regarding Amaranthine and success. The quote is "Amaranthine are measured on a scale of Batmen. The baseline is Batman." That's a pretty provocative idea.

The second item that came up in the podcast was in regard to a post on the Machine Age site called "Determining Facts" that describes a system of using declarative statements to outline the interactions between characters in the game as they happened in the past. The statements are broken into four groups with “I’ve always,” “I’ve once,” “I’ve sometimes,” and, “I’ve never.” This would cover relationships like I always kill you or I once loved you--and goes well with the Relationship Wheel. These statements can be used to structure current and future meetings between those characters. The article also talks about the story benefits of breaking these declarations, but I will let you read that over there. This framework of course is also be very useful in setting up how different characters will get along or not in your own works of fiction. Some authors have done this for years to varying degrees.

There is one other bit that I didn't cover from my discussion of the game with David. He told me, "One of the things Amaranthine can do is sort of enchant people and make them sycophantic. So, many Amaranthine have followers, and little mini-empires. This means that indirect war is just as likely as rooftop battles." This ties in nicely with a point touched on in the podcast regarding whether average people know about the Amaranthine. The short answer is mostly no, they don't. This is because the Amaranthine are just the famous and powerful in the world. Their past lives and their extraordinary abilities are just a part of that indescribable je ne sais quoi these people have, or the root of that mystique.

Just a heads up. I do not expect to post here for most of May. I'm taking my annual break for backend coding work on my sites, including this one. I may slip in one post or none. Follow me on Twitter to keep on top of when and where I post. I am @robertmale.

Mood: real.
Music: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper and Kiss From A Rose by Seal.

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