A look back, before making a stronger attempt to go forward

So, looking back at somethings I've posted, I suppose it's time I should re-visit several of them.

I'm gonna touch each subject based on its current progression, my changes in attitude towards things, and at least note if I intend to talk further about any of them in more detail in a later post.

So here we go:
The Realm Sheet: This, believe it or not, is still progressing. It's been on the back burner for a while but I'm picking it back up for two reasons. 1, its split into two projects. A Realm "Sheet" which will look much like my The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Settlement Sheet, and a "Booklet" which'll look a lot more like the later per-release versions I've posted.

I'll definitely be covering this more.

Adobe and Scribus:
I still use scribus, and I'm still mad at Adobe for their heavy handedness, however, a legal copy of Acrobat Pro 9 is now in my possession, therefore I have used it to finish pdf forms. I still start in something else though (scribus or libreoffice). This will get more coverage, but only as updates (or better software choices) come up.

Pen & Paper Games, Obsidian Portal, and the like:
Well, these have still been very useful websites. I pay for OP now, and even have one "campaign" there that's just templates for certain pages.P&PG hasn't been as useful lately, but by no fault of their own.

This'll get more coverage as I finish new templates, and interesting things come my way.

Gimp:
They're still on 2.7 (2.6 if you want the stable release) and the dev release has very little pull in the windows users. There's been a little pace pickup in the last few months, but if that continues, who knows. Still great software, and once 2.8 hits I'll definitely be talking about it.

Maptool:
Wow, they were hopping b60 would be the release. Turned out to be b84, and its still being "patched" which is kinda keeping 1.4 work suppressed. Trevor's kinda stepped down, and Azhrei has picked it up. So it still progresses, but like Gimp, is kinda behind what I expected by this time...


I'll probably talk about this more once 1.4 has an alpha to play with, until then its all bugfixes anyway.


Kaidan:
Well, Gameprinter got some good luck and got everything he needed to continue on this project back. Now his first three modules released through Rite Publishing. I have all three but still have yet to play them... I'm probably gonna have to retire before I can get all the gaming I'd like in. Sigh...


If he produces more, I'll post about it.


Kubuntu:
Driving me nuts with some KDE issues that I don't see in other distros. But I'm 95% linux now at home! 4% is a pfsense firewall (technically freeBSD) and 1% is a XP virtual machine on my linux box, one of its tasks I'll be moving over to linux soon, so it's sole use will be to run Adobe Acrobat Pro, and only as long as I need it.


I don't know which distro I'll try next, but when I pick one, I'll post about it.


Forgotten Realms Drow Game:


This has halted due to some WICKED drama. It will not continue, sadly. The only bright side is it no longer cuts from time I can spend in the Pathfinder universe, or my own.


Pathfinder Fiction (Now Pathfinder Tales)


This has gone a long way. I'm liking some authors, and not liking others. I need to set down and set time to read and especially review all the stuff I've purchased. So eventually you'll see more of this.


David Weber's Universes:
The Mad Wizard Weber's had some real crummy luck in trying to write a new Bahazell book, and he's side stepped the honorverse for a time. I'm past the withdraw phase and into the "silently watching" phase.


If he finishes anything... I'll post about it.


Region 3 Game Day:
This is now less than a month away... it's gonna eat all my spare time until its done. Then, if we're asked to do next year's we'll probably be a lot better prepared.


I'll say how it went in after it happens.


Krenna:
Snakes Among Us continues, slowly, and I now have another story idea to go with it. Some of you have even been given a extremely vague hint.


This is related to most of my projects. It will get a lot of attention here.


Abilene:
Still sucks, but not nearly as badly. I have a few things to keep me entertained here, but if one of them goes the way I expect... I won't really have all that much to keep me here. December will tell more.


Sintel:
Someone wanna send me a EUR 40 present this christmas. The movie was cool, and I still wanna play with blender myself.... but life gets in the way a lot.


If they do another one, I WILL post about it...


And that brings us to 2011 which is almost over. I've taken over the PFRPG Bleach stuff... there's an Obsidian Portal Campaign called Bleaching the Path. The 7 player game died, drama + rl schedule interference. I plan on doing more and better OP templates, and Paizo sent me paperwork which I have now filled out, that once they process means I can upload my settlement sheet, and my character sheet, for sale!!!! They won't cost much, and probably won't make me much, but if they make enough for me to pay for one or two things for some krenna stuff, then some of that will be ready to put up for sale... then that'll pay for more stuff, and you get the idea.


Well, that's about it. 2012 isn't here yet, but if the rest of 11 moves at half the pace it has so far, it'll be over in no time, and 2012 looks to be a good year, a year where I can do some of the things I've really wanted to do.

Pathfinder Obsidian Portal Templates: Redux Amoung other things.

Due to minor frustrations with browsers/websites parsing code... I'm re-posting the templates I've made so far as links to text files in the public area of my dropbox account. So grab them here:

Character Sheet -- My latest addition, It has some issues and is freaking huge, but unlike the dynamic character sheets on OP, this one prints well if copied to a word processor software.

The item sheet No changes, just saved as a text file.

Settlement Sheet

On a side note, I'm working on a completely separate from Obsidian Portal Online Character Sheet. Right now all I've got is what it looks like, nothing functional. You can look at it here. This page was a huge project, even with no dynamic properties. I still need a place to host it once I get something more functional put together.

Other than that, If someone's got a simple Prime Directive D20 scenario I can run at game day this October, I'd be grateful!

Another PFRPG Template for Obsidian Portal

This one comes from me needing a way to describe the properties of an outfit for bleach characters. It's a work in progress.

Here's What It Looks like
Here's the Code


_Fluffy description_

*ITEM TITLE*
*Aura* _aura_; *CL* _caster level_
*Slot* _body slot_; *Price* _value in gp_; *Weight* _weight_
*DESCRIPTION*
_A sentence or two about the item's abilities_
*CONSTRUCTION*
*Requirements* _feats, spells, materials_; *Cost* _price for creation_


This, and the fact that paizo's shipping 110USD worth of stuff is about all I've got to yap about. Thanks to the sibling for starting a new game, and sorry to the players of my games who've had to come to a halt due to my crazy life.

Mac Rants, Obsidian Portal Deeper Review,

First a rant about Mac's and Adobe Reader.

A while back I built and posted a Extended Reader Feature (Form you can save) Character sheet. It was huge, but all was well. My groups have been using it, and a few others have used it and said that things went well with it.

Well, one of my younger players was building her character on the little macbook her school supplies her. All well and good, until we loaded the files later from a cd she burned.

The sheets were blank, on windows and 'droid it was summer so we didn't have her mac.

Also the files were half the size. So we figured bad saves. Luckily I'd also had her save it to a pen drive I had on me the day she was making the character.

Dig that out, throw it in my nix box. Blank sheet WTF? Show forms. All the data's there, except it won't show when you hide the forms... Okay, copy to a new sheet manually. Saves just fine.

So somethings funky about the way macs save Extended Feature Files. Anyone else see this.

In brighter news. I've been using Obsidian Portal for a few games now and I like a lot of the stuff works. There are a few frustrations, some of the textile syntax are badly chosen for the situation, and there's no escape syntax so that one can use quotes in the adventure log or forums, but otherwise I'm happy.

I've got some more Krenna ideas running around in my head, and hope to continue a few of the local games that've been sitting soon. Paizo keeps sending stuff through the subscriptions, and I'm behind on looking at half of it, but real life is starting to calm down so with luck I'll have more time.

PFRPG Settlement Template for Obsidian Portal

So I've started moving non Krenna games to Obsidian Portal for two reasons:
I have players who aren't even on the same continent.
It looks like a good way to keep notes on local games and back up info that's currently in unorganized piles on my desk or random folders on my computer.

Because of this I've spent a while making a template for a Settlement page for the wiki section each campaign gets. Here's the code:


|/3. !http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZOCOMPATIBILITYE_360.jpeg!| Pathfinder Settelment Template|
|For Obsidian Portal|
|By Notsonoble|

<small>*GENERAL INFO:*</small>

|<small>*Name:*</small>|_Name_|<small>*Also Known As:*</small>|_AKA_|<small>*Is Part of*:|_Realm or Region_|
|<small>*Alignment:*</small>|_Align_|<small>*Setting:*</small>|_Setting_|<small>*Role:*</small>|_Role_|
|<small>*Type:*|_Size_|<small>*Danger*</small>|_Value_|
<hr />

<small>*MODIFIRES:*</small>

|<small>*CORRUPTION:*</small>|00|<small>*CRIME:*</small>|00|<small>*ECONOMY:*|00|
|<small>*LAW:*</small>|00|<small>*LORE:*</small>|00||<small>*SOCIETY:*</small>|00|

<small>*QUALITIES AND DISADVANTAGES:*</small>

|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|
|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|
|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|_Enter Quality_|
<hr />

<small>*DEMOGRAPHICS:*</small>

|{background:#ddd}. <small>*Government:*</small>|{background:#ddd}. _Enter Government Type_|<small>*Population:*</small>|_Enter Number and Race_|_Enter Number and Race_|_Enter Number and Race_|
|{background:#ddd}. <small>*Government Alignment:*</small>|{background:#ddd}. _Gvt Align_|{background:#ddd}. <small>*Population Alignment*</small>|{background:#ddd}. _Pop Align_|_Enter Number and Race_|_Enter Number and Race_|
<hr />

<small>*MARKETPLACE:*</small>

||<small>*MINOR ITEMS:*</small>|<small>*VALUE:*</small>|<small>*MEDIUM ITEMS:*</small>|<small>*VALUE:*</small>|<small>*MAJOR ITEMS:*</small>|<small>*VALUE:*</small>|
|={background:#ddd}. <small>*BASE VALUE:*</small>|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|={background:#ddd}. _Enter B Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|={background:#ddd}. <small>*PURCHASE LIMIT:*</small>|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|={background:#ddd}. _Enter P Limit_</small>|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|={background:#ddd}. <small>*SPELLCASTING:*</small>|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|={background:#ddd}. _Enter Spell Level Available_</small>|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
||_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|_Enter Item_|_Value_|
|<small>*NOTES:*</small>|\6. _Any economic notes Any economic notes Any economic notes Any economic notes Any economic notes Any economic notes_|
<hr />

<small>*NOTABLE NPCS:*</small>

|<small>*NAME*</small>|<small>*ROLE*</small>|<small>*ALIGNMENT*</small>|<small>*CLASSES & LEVELS*</small>|<small>*HP*</small>|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter C&L_|_Enter HP_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter C&L_|_Enter HP_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter C&L_|_Enter HP_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter C&L_|_Enter HP_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter C&L_|_Enter HP_|
<hr />

<small>*FACTIONS:*</small>

|<small>*NAME*</small>|<small>*ROLE*</small>|<small>*ALIGNMENT*</small>|<small>*LEADER*</small>|<small>*MEMBER COUNT*</small>|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter Leader_|_Enter Count_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter Leader_|_Enter Count_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter Leader_|_Enter Count_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter Leader_|_Enter Count_|
|_Enter Name as Character Page Link_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Align_|_Enter Leader_|_Enter Count_|
<hr />

<small>*LOCATIONS:*</small>

|<small>*NAME*</small>|<small>*ROLE*</small>|<small>*Description*</small>|
|_Enter Name_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Description_|
|_Enter Name_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Description_|
|_Enter Name_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Description_|
|_Enter Name_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Description_|
|_Enter Name_|_Enter Role_|_Enter Description_|
<hr />

<small>*REFERENCES:*</small>
_Enter any reference other reference page links like maps or stories here_


Feel free to use it and comment!