[horror] Format

#1

Design will take care of itself over time. Working on it after Christmas now that the logo is about done. We will use that fancy first option from the logos somehow in the ebook so that will be sweet.

But on to the format. I took a look at these for examples of kind of what I am envisioning.
http://www.enginepublishing.com/files/Masks-1000-NPCs-Preview.pdf
http://www.enginepublishing.com/files/Eureka-501-Adventure-Plots-Excerpt.pdf

And you have probably heard me mention the Flying Buffalo Citybook series that is my initial inspiration. I have a few of those to reference.

So what I have found and decided is that we need a standard format to put all our stuff in and it is going to have to be manipulated. I think this is so for obvious reasons. I think we saw how handy that is during the RPT quest when we had the

* Awesome Name
* Appearance
* Benefit
* Drawback
* Lore
* Twist

Simple, easy, and still allows a great deal of creativity.

Not sure we can find an all encompassing format for all the different subs but each type needs to be in an identical.

This format is fairly generic, holds all the normal meat we are used to on the Citadel and gives an easy way to read for those maybe not familiar with the site.

And, yes, all the submissions are going to have to be reformatted to this style (or one we come up with).

Name/Title:
Summary: Will have to be limited to one line.
Appearance
History/Background
Magic/Cursed Properties
Secret/Twist
Hooks
Category 1
Category 2
Freetext We may adopt a chunk of freetext to use as standards instead of the odd ones. Thinking more for a type index with the categories (which I can pretty much autocreate through the website)
Author / Link to original

The Secret is basically that. I read somewhere, probably a novel writing book, that everything should have a secret and I like that idea a lot.

The categories will change depending on the type. W could start a quest type thing for all the subs that we need more information for. All authors with citationsput on their idea. Or something like that. To be determined as we start putting it together.
Example:

Cavasinthas, The Rotting Trees of the Damned

Hideous creatures, they stand motionless and filled with intense sorrow at their existence.

Appearance:
Cavasinthas generally stand about 8 feet tall, but range in height. They are human-ish in shape, but not quite humanoid, for they are too unformed, like a tall, thick body whose legs are unseparated and whose head emerges like a column from it’s shoulders. Their long, thin arms extend stiffly away from their bodies at bent angles. But generally, an observer is too sickened by the rest of them to be concerned with this body shape. They appear to be composed, entirely, of rot, like hideous trees made from piles of bulbous warts and pustules, masses of stinking veins and webs of clawed, pulpy arteries, crusty, antenna-like extrusions, flacid sheets of muscle that hang, apron-like, bulbous fingers of fungus, long taloned tentacles; the whole creature is slick and shining with slow ebbing, crimson blood. Parts of their long arms are clad in shards of sticky, yellow-dripping bone, and their fingers are long, twisted, irregular things made from flaking, dusty crusted chitin. Where there face should be there is no face, only a simple porcelain funeral mask, smiling stupidly and palely amidst a head of oozing, pustulant horror.

Cavasinthas have no capability to move from beyond where they are planted- their legs are fused together like rotten trunks, and their feet are clawed roots that grip savagely at the ground. When they speak, it is a foul sound, not the sound of a voicebox, but of hideous muscles and impossible organs squelching and splattering together to form words.

History/Background:
The Rotten Trees of the Damned are the children of Tzakhli Boyajh, the Tree With Flowers of Blood, a vast, forsaken god who takes the form of a hideous tree and who rains blood down over the land as it crawls ponderously on giant tentacular roots. The blood splashes to the floors of Hell, and there takes evil root, growing rapidly into the horrible and hideous beings which are the Cavasinthas. Cavasinthas typically are found growing in stands where several drops of Tzakhli Boyajh’s blood have spilt, extending arms mournfully and sending forth an outrageous stench of rot and blood. Standing in these Groves of Fear, they share the pain of their existence, which is infinite and incomprehensible to beings who have their innards on the inside, and compose sad and pain-filled prophetic dirges, which they sing out across the madnesses of Hell. They sing of the day when Its Shadowed Resplendency will explode forth through the membrane between life and Hell, and of the day when the sky will fold upon itself and die, and when the Gods will fall ill in a great divine plague and crash down from Heaven to rend the land, and when humanity will cease to be and the world shall finally, in paroxysms of fear and pain and fury, die, die forever, and the pain of the Cavasinthas will be extinguished forevermore.

Skills/Abilities:
Cavasinthas possess the power to grow fruit of blood and rot, which, when burst, release horrible diseases which may instantly slay the victim. In addition, they can, if a being is pushed into their surface, envelope and digest any who are inside them. These unfortunates become forever a part of the Tree, and their anguished faces scream out from the Cavasinthas’ trunk.

Secret/Twist:
Cavasinthas are never pleased, except by their own destruction and extinguishment. Sorcerors who, for whatever reason, summon the Rotten Trees of the Damned, can appease them and break them to will by promising instant obliteration and release from a life of eternal pain.

Hooks:
Needed

Type: Third Kingdom / Flora
Habitat: Any
Freetext: demon

Author: CaptainPenguin // http://strolen.com/viewing/Cavasinthas_The_Rotting_Trees_of_the_Damned

Re: [horror] Format

#2

Looking through the horror links, I am seeing that this is going to be much tougher than I thought. Especially trying to get everything to fit together.

Wondering if we should take on something more bite size like simpler "101 Locations to fit into any fantasy campaign" type thing.

Either way, still need to lay down the law on the format!

Re: [horror] Format

#3

I don't think we should necessarily convert all the old submissions to a new format. Those that are easy to convert, sure. But others aren't going to be so easy to convert, and I think in the case of a few (especially plots and locations) they will be seriously harmed in their presentation if we try to squeeze them into an arbitrary mold. I understand that our purpose is to provide usable resources for other GMs, but presentation is just as much part of the content as the NPCs and plot hooks, and in some cases provides the example for how to use the submission in a session.

As guidelines for future submissions, sure, I'm all for it. But there simply isn't ever going to be a format that applies to every single submission ever (except freestyle, obviously).

I derped. I read this before I read the update to the Netbooks thread, and didn't think to look at the forum it was located in. Gah! Presuming this is only for the netbook submissions, and not the main site submissions, I'm all for it. Yes, explicit formats for the eBook! Standards standards standards!

Re: [horror] Format

#4

Further thoughts on this. While my previous post was mis-guided, it also contained some good points about formatting. Mainly, I think that we should have a format specific to each category. After all, the important pieces of a plot aren't the same as the important pieces of an NPC.

With that said, and working off of the category suggestions I made in the Content thread, I propose the following format for Creature submissions:

Name:
Summary:
Appearance:
History/Background:
Habitat:
Skills/Abilities:
Hooks:
Twists/Secrets:

The name is obvious, as is the appearance. Summary is a one-line description of the creature. The history/background should give some indication of origin; where it came from (was it created by some entity, or did it evolve naturally?), significant events in the past involving it (whether publicly known or not), and cultural legends and myths about it (true or false, the myths add verisimilitude, and provide a good way to build fear; players won't be as scared of a monster in the mines if they haven't heard anything about it as they would be if the entire town nearby is full of miners whispering tales of The Vorack and it's flesh-rending nightmare claws). The habitat should cover preferred environment, living conditions, and diet.

Skills and abilities are by necessity a bit more freeform; any special characteristics would go here. Acid blood, dimensional phasing, the ability to fart thunder and piss lightning, et cetera.

Hooks are ways to incorporate the creature into a scenario. Not all hooks need to involve the players directly interacting with the creature; remember that one of the first rules of horror is to not let the players get a good look at the Threat, because then it becomes Just Another Opponent, especially in a fantasy RPG.

Twists and secrets are just that; little bits that spice up a submission, make it more interesting, add some flavor to it. They're the things that players may or may not ever find out, the things that just by existing add depth and character to the whole.

I've left out the administrative trivia (Author, Freetext, Link), since I presume those would be incorporated into every submission entry, and this format is supposed to be a guideline for the authors, not the editors.

Re: [horror] Format

#5

Well, the only thing that I see that really changed was Magic/Cursed Properties to Skills/Abilities. I think you will find with every main category, the basic outline can remain pretty similar with only a couple tweaks. I went through them all and was writing a separate template for each one and found that they were all almost identical. Small changes like you made will be required on each one so, yes, absolutely we will change some of the headings to make more sense for the major type.

I will edit my example above to Skills/Abilities.

For the Habitat, that is actually one of the Categories. If that gets more than a word or two description it should probably be History/Background. I am looking at habitat to be more of index type descriptor for quick reference similar to the categories on the citadel. So if somebody needs something for a forest or something, they can look in the index, get those quick references and page numbers to things that fit that area specifically. There can be multiple habitat's for each creature if necessary of course.

Re: [horror] Format

#6

If that's the way you want to do habitats, is there any reason that can't be rolled into freetext? Just roll the different habitats that coalesce over the various submissions into freetexts, then make sure to group them together under a 'Habitats' heading on the freetext index page of the eBook. We WILL have a freetext index page, right? Right?

Re: [horror] Format

#7

Personally, I don't see a need to actually discuss the habitat. Desert or Forest pretty much sums it up for me. I just don't think it is important enough to require much though. If I like the idea of the submission, I am going to make it work however I want so any extended environment discussion doesn't serve much purpose. I am expecting most of them to be "Any" anyway. I even debated about removing some categories all together but any extra refrenceable identifier can't hurt starting out. If it isn't useful we can change it later.

Freetext will be lumped in with everything in the index as another quick reference so will be available.

Re: [horror] Format

#8

I'm thinking that if we make freetext a specific identifier for submissions, we should have a specific index for it. It was worthy of denotation, it should be equally worthy of indexing (besides, that's kinda what freetext is for: cross-linking subs with the same freetext. If we clump it in with the rest of the index, how will they know which pages are subs and which are something else?).

Re: [horror] Format

#9

? Because they are all subs. Every freetext and category descriptor describes a sub? No idea what you mean.

Categories: Puzzles, Fauna, Mercantile, Religious
Freetext: Assassin, Dark Elf, Magician, Treasure

Categories or Freetext are simple one word identifiers for each submission. You could get rid of the "Category" label and call them all freetext. Point is, you generally don't have multiple indexes that do basically the same thing: Take a key word and point you to a submission matching it.

All this is great but for now, you can do anything you want to the book, add it wherever, edit it however. Important thing is to start filling it with content. Once it starts getting fleshed out then all this smaller stuff can be more easily decided on.

I don't mind other visions for the book, run with it and see how it looks. If it is a huge change, copy the current book and start a fork we can look at. Especially if it is a different format or something else. Experiment, go for it! Start doing what you want and we can evaluated it on actual usage and we will all win for the attempt.

I don't mean to squash any enthusiasm but I see these conversations going the way MoonHunter and I used to converse. We would vehemently support our own viewpoints trying to explain ourselves to infinitude but when it came down to the final actualization of our thoughts, we were usually pretty close together and it was a matter of POV and wording that made it so confusing.

So, go for it. Everybody! Grab some content and do you work to it and add it to the ebook. Make yourself a heading to differentiate your work and just go for it. If you want to do some changes to the entire book, fork it and go to town: share the link so we can see it in action and discuss it.

Bottom Line: This isn't "my" book. I may have a particular vision for it but if something better comes along, I can be convinced! I want to move to DO mode though and bounce out of the discussion. Lets get some ink on paper in different styles and take a look at it and make some decisions.

My biggest problem in the past is that I don't have a ton of submissions on the site. I moved to coder-mode awhile ago so am pretty hesitant about touching other peoples awesomeness. But I am going to get over that quickly and put on the editor hat and run a train on it. I am going to take posts and work with them and do what "I think" needs to be done with no apologies (well, maybe if they are truly upset by what I do). I suggest you do the same. Once we are moving (or during) we can get the authors involved with approving and/or helping us but without something moving it is all talk.

We are in the preliminary stages, ANYTHING GOES!

Re: [horror] Format

#10

Okay - can we get a list of those authors who are okay with inclusion? I understand some are not available based on prior comments.

Or should we focus on those of our own we feel suitable?

Re: [horror] Format

#11

No holds barred. Use it all! Anything goes.

Re: [horror] Format

#12

Should have a pdf example to us to discuss this weekend....