We got our print run. 100 copies, some for preorders. Some for Gen Con. Some for other stuff.
What does this mean for you? It means if you are getting the softcover, it’ll be in the mail tomorrow. If you haven’t, and you want to buy the print copy, you can for 29.99, including shipping within the United States. In fact…
Resources
This isn’t a Machine Age Production, but I thought you might be interested. Invite Only is a supplement I wrote for Vampire the Requiem, set in White Wolf Publishing’s World of Darkness. It’s about 80 pages of vampire goodness, talking about parties, social interactions, places vampires hang out, all that. The last couple of pages are a truncated version of Chuck Wendig’s social combat rules from Danse Macabre.
You can buy it over at DrivethruRPG for a modest $8.99.
In specifically Machine Age news, you can check out some of Chuck Wendig’s fiction for Maschine Zeit over at Flames Rising.
Now, it’s time for some contests.
We’re going to have a blog carnival. Here’s the trick, the whole thing is going to be in-character. If you don’t have a copy of Maschine Zeit, you can download the timeline and basic history Timeline and Blog Entries. That should be enough to get you started. The blogs should be written by SLClemins. SLClemins, as you know or will when you read the history, is a moniker used by journalists in the machine age when talking about the space station hauntings and conspiracies, to protect themselves from reprisal.
A couple of things on the blog posts:
1) They should be about a haunted space station. Here’s one little sample. They should be in-character, attributed to SLClemins. Think independent journalism in a world where ghosts might very well be real.
2) Posts should link back to this page so it tracks back. I will repost them at the SLClemins blog page (I’ll credit them, of course, and link back to you.)
3) Keep them in the 250-1000 word range if you could. If you have something cool and/or profound, you can go beyond those guidelines.
4) Post a link to the Maschine Zeit PDF. Use this link: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=81873?affiliate_id=270525
5) Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I’m giving until July 9th for this contest. July 10th, I’ll look over all the entries and post a winner ASAP. The winner not only gets recognized as a supercoolawesome person, but gets a supercoolawesome prize. By that, I mean a piece of original art from the game. This would be one of Ruth Lampi’s character pieces (you can find samples posted earlier on this blog.) I’ll send it within the US for free. Outside the US, you’d have to cover shipping.
Any questions? Toss them in the comments. But this is pretty simple.
The year is 2110. In 2105, over a tenth of the world’s population died when a number of space stations orbiting Earth went dead. The radiation that killed them had an unexpected side effect: The victims now haunt the halls, possessing machinery and threatening anyone that dares travel inside.
Maschine Zeit is a sci-fi/horror RPG from Machine Age Productions. The game’s mechanics focus on movie logic, encouraging dramatic behavior and offering players control over most of the narrative. The game emulates the conventions of such genre works as Alien, Pandorum, Event Horizon and Dead Space.
The game comes with a ZIP file, which includes an HTML version for ease of use on your netbook, iPad or other device.
Maschine Zeit is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Maschine Zeit can be now purchased in PDF.
We’ve released a short adventure called Ephesus Abbey to coincide with that, you can purchase the two together for only a dollar more here.
“Dude, that game of Maschine Zeit was so badass, it slowly walked away from an explosion, never looking back.”
Tell me that’s not the best quote ever? It makes me wish I hadn’t already submitted the cover. There’s always room for a second edition.
That would be the reaction Jared Axelrod had. He’s the writer of this great comic called Fables of the Flying City. Check it out.
-41o N, 49oW 2109, Probably Friday
Polaroid snaps the image, can’t capture the smell
or taste in the air. The feeling it left in the air.
Eight foot from floor to ceiling, the figure hunches
and fills the hallway from shoulder to shoulder.
Identify the parts you know, arms and head, legs
feet and a body. Only it’s rearranged and mangled.
Two, three torsos together, seven arms in all directions
reaching and groping independently, frantically.
A head off side, displaced, and functionless
at the awful angle of the hanged-man. It does not
lurch when it moves, too fast, intent to bring you into the
collective. The zeitgeist of the dead.
Polaroid holds the image, won’t capture the smell
or taste in the air. The feeling it left in on your skin.
You shoot, it looks flesh and it’s coming your way.
Pale, rubbery flesh blows free from the body but
does nothing to slow it. It howls from many mouths
you can’t see, a noise that’s only radio static.
It does what it must, gathering the bodies of your
fallen companions as it comes, making them a part.
A face, your lover, pressing out from the collective
She’s screaming only static and you pray there’s no
Immortal hand here behind this fearful asymmetry.
Polaroid holds the moment, won’t capture the smell
or taste in the air. The feeling that fills your mouth.
Back to the door, it’s closing in, and no force in
the universe can bring your last bullet back.
Anything but being another part of the hulk.
Anything but an end like that, another piece.
Metal sounds like screaming when it rends.
It smells like electricity and oil when it pulls itself
from the surface of the door and cocoons around
you. Your last thoughts are absorbed instead in the
station itself, your meat bonded and drawn into
the hull. Your skeleton will be left only half absorbed
but at least you aren’t in that thing, howling static.
A Polaroid lays in the hall where you took it,
But that won’t warn anyone in time.
We’re this close to completion. Way behind schedule, but that happens. We had a little snag with layout, but we’re getting into the final stages. I expect final proofs by Sunday. The ‘wiki’ version of the rules isn’t a traditional wiki, it’s an HTML page that’s HTML5 compliant, and works on pretty much every browser and device we tried. We’re hammering out a couple of little kinks in the next day or two. We have recorded an amazing theme song for Maschine Zeit (wait and see…) We have an adventure for release date with all text done, edited and laid out, with cover almost complete.
Since we can’t get hard copies in time for Origins, we’ve done a second print run of flash drives, these look a little different. We’re also making CDs for the convention. If you’re at Origins, and are interested in picking up a copy of Maschine Zeit, these are going to be your options:
1) Buy a CD. It comes with the PDF, some music, game art, the HTML5 version of the rules and a free adventure. This version is $10.
2) Buy a flash drive. It’s a 1gb flash drive with the Maschine Zeit logo emblazoned along its front. It comes with all the goodies from the CD version. It’s $20.
3) Buy a hardcover. We’ll ship it as soon as we get the print run in. In the mean time, you get the CD version for free. This version is $40.
Note that every single version comes with digital entitlements. If you buy it, we back it up. We’ll provide you with additional downloads of all the material at any time you need.
While we don’t have a booth proper, we’ll be at the convention all weekend. Toss me an email, we’ll hook up and make it happen. If you want a demo before buying, we will make that happen.
There’s the state of the Machine Age. We’re doing fun and exciting things. There are minor setbacks, but we’re still pushing ahead forcefully.
Have you heard of Will Hindmarch’s anthology The Bones? It’s a book about dice, our love of them, and the cool things they’ve done for us. Will’s one of the people I can say influenced my decision to get into game design professionally. The book contains essays by a number of outstanding authors, including Jason L Blair, Jess Hartley, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, Jeff Tidball, Monica Valentinelli, Chuck Wendig (who contributed to Maschine Zeit,) and Wil Wheaton. Will’s doing a blog carnival in promotion, so I thought I’d participate.
We’re going to do a little exercise. Bear with me.
Got that? Good.
That’s a simple introduction to chakras, a Hindu concept. Depending on your beliefs, there are a number of explanations for that feeling. Science says your nerves are firing off, your physical senses are telling your fingers that they’re close to one another, and you’re particularly sensitive to it because of your slowed breathing and direct focus. The Hindus believe your body has connection with a second, spirit-body. It doesn’t really matter what’s correct; either way, it has everything to do with connectivity.
Now, it’s time for exercise two.
Look back on your experience with dice. It could be in roleplaying game form. It can be in Yahtzee form. It can be craps. Think back to a favorite experience playing a game using dice, particularly when those dice were in your hand. Close your eyes. Envision the context, where you were, what it smelled like. Once you’re there, focus on the dice in your hand. Were you on your last hit points, one critical away from slaying the dragon? Were you at the end of a winning streak in Vegas, one good roll away from the best vacation of your life?
As you mentally roll those dice, can you feel the resistance? Do you feel the near-identical tingle in your arm, do your fingers twitch and fight as your mind lets go of the dice? Congratulations, you’ve found your dice chakra.
Your dice chakra does the same thing your hand chakra does. It gives you a little sensation, a little tension. If you focus properly, it’s really rather intense. If you want to approach it from a spiritual angle, your dice chakra is your connection to the spirit-body that is your story. The dice have this great role to play. They’re pure tension, then they’re pure release (be it good or bad.) Alfred Hitchcock famously described the difference between surprise and suspense as:
“We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”
In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
The dice are your bomb. You can hold them as long as you’d like. At a certain point, the tension’s bound to become too much. If you’re playing a good game, you will need to let go and release that tension. It might explode. It might be a dud. Regardless, you need that answer. This is the purpose of your dice chakra. When you’re at the edge, peering over, needing to know what comes next, your dice chakra is the little push that doesn’t quite resolve, but instead teases. You’ve brought tension to the highest point you can alone. Your dice chakra turns it up to eleven, before allowing release. The reason your dice chakra is successful is that it’s out of your control. When you make the conscious decision to release those dice, you’ve said you’ve had all the tension your conscious mind can take. The dice chakra pushes just a little bit further. It elevates that tension beyond the conscious, into the spiritual.
Embrace your dice chakra.
Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been busy. So I thought I’d give you a bunch of new info to make up for it.
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Maschine Zeit is a game about ghost stories on space stations. A Perfect Wasteland isn’t. Or at least, not exactly.
A Perfect Wasteland offers new angles on Maschine Zeit’s universe. From deadly reality television, to a former mining ghost town, to 1960s space race paranoia, to a supercomputer that pulls characters’ minds into a virtual hell, A Perfect Wasteland takes expectations about Maschine Zeit and turns them upside-down. As well, it gives detailed advice for developing and running Maschine Zeit stories, and bits of information on the game world, ready to plug and play in your games however you see fit.
A Perfect Wasteland is the first full expansion for Maschine Zeit, tentatively slated for a Fall 2010 release. It’ll be released in hard copy format, as well as PDF, divided into a series of setting kits for ease of printing. Featuring writing by Jennifer Brozek, Duane O’Brien, Eddy Webb, Rick Carroll, Mark Truman and Alasdair Stuart, primarily developed by David A Hill Jr and Filamena Young.
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Station M8G-3T0 was lost. It’s been found; it shouldn’t have been. Your salvage mission is in for more than it bargained for; the station is filled with the hungry corpses of a terrible experiment gone out of control. It’s grace that brought them safe thus far, and grace that will lead them home.
The Serpent and the Station is the first full adventure kit for Maschine Zeit, scheduled for release at the same time as Maschine Zeit. A mad scientist Cataclysm survivor has turned alien radiation into a tool for creating zombie slaves. It’ll be available as a landscape layout, printer-friendly PDF exclusive. Written by Bart Bechtel and developed by David A Hill Jr.
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On the topic of Maschine Zeit, layout’s almost done. It’s going a little slower than expected, we ran into some kinks. But, we’re almost done. Book’s still coming out in August, preorders should be ready right around the end of May. We’re at Origins this year. If you’re going to be there and would like to play a demo, let us know. Filamena and I are also doing Design an RPG in an Hour and Worldbuilding in an Hour. At Gen Con, I just found out I’m going to be present as a guest of honor. So I’ll be doing a handful of panels, in addition to Filamena and my Design an RPG in an Hour and Worldbuilding in an Hour panels. We will be running demos there as well. We even have some minions that’ll be running demos. Let us know.
In addition to the two listed releases, we have two more in the pipeline, not yet ready to be announced. We have another in the very earliest conceptual stages. And I’m working heavily on the next Machine Age game. It should see light of day around this time next year. Expect more soon. Long story short: The Machine Age is a busy age.
We did this thing. We do it frequently. It’s called Design an RPG in an Hour. At PAX East, we had a particularly awesome time. We made a game called “Scoop! A Game of Cold-Blooded Journalism.” Basically, you make dinosaur journalists. Awesome, right? It was featured on The Escapist and Kotaku. Before that, I did a truncated version of the process for The Escapist.
Here’s our material. Included is the outline, it’s pretty basic, but it’s there. Also, there’s a full audio recording. It’s a Rapidshare link, so let me know if you have troubles with it. The site doesn’t handle big downloads, so I couldn’t find an easier way to do it.
Excuse my annoying laugh. The audience questions aren’t very audible, but you should be able to pick them up from the context.
Listen to it! Let us know what you think!
(And if you have a convention you’d like us to contribute to, drop us a line. We’re considering schedule additions currently.)
This got a little long when I was writing it as a comment to Chuck Wendig’s blog post over at Terribleminds. So, if you want a little foundation,read here first.
I recently purchased the new NOFX album. They were selling the CD for $8 on their website. I was at the mall, Hot Topic had it for $8.99. I got it there. It was convenient and cheap. I had a talk with my wife on the way home, so I didn’t listen to it. I checked, the FYE was asking $8.99.
I got home, and I downloaded the whole thing. My car stereo, my biggest source of music, has a USB port. Carrying an 8gb USB flash drive is far easier than carrying the hundred plus CDs it can store.
Why didn’t I just download the album legally? I thought about it. I went to Amazon. Amazon wanted $9.99. iTunes wanted $9.99, and I was afraid Apple might raid my house or sue me. I’m not paying $10 for the digital version of something I just bought legitimately for $8. That would be stupid.
NOFX has declared that their albums are going to be sold in the $8 range for the foreseeable future. Why? Because they feel it’s fair. A CD only costs a dollar or two to manufacture. The albums cost about $40,000~ to record and produce. After all that’s said and done, they make a good living selling their work at that range, and they don’t feel they need more to keep making great music. In short, they’re not pissing on us and telling us they need the money to stay afloat.
In contrast, if I look for something from even similarly-sized indie labels, FYE is asking $14.99-$19.99. Those labels use the same distribution. Often, these labels share producers. They share sound engineers. You ask them, “Why so expensive?” They’ll give convoluted, abstract answers about how piracy hurts their sales, why it’s so expensive to market CDs, why blah, blah, blah.
Greedy people need to make money off of creative people. With major releases, a number of people have to become wealthy from them, or they don’t happen. When Lady Gaga releases an album, executives that don’t even know one of her songs have to make millions on their investments, or they won’t back another album. Maybe piracy’s hurting art. Maybe. However, as far as I’m concerned, greed is hurting art. I’m not paying twice the amount for something, just because a bunch of businesspeople want to get rich off it.
I’m a creative professional. If you know me, you know I’m releasing a game called Maschine Zeit in the very near future. In preorders, I’ve exceeded my budget. I’m still going strong with them. Why? A few reasons. One: I’m offering a product that people think is cool. People think it’s cool because I think it’s cool, and because I stand by it. Two: I’m giving additional value that can’t be offered in a PDF. I’m allowing participants to be personally involved in the process. I’m giving them ways to become invested in the company and the work.
I want money. I really do. I’m making it. I feel that if I’m passionate and hardworking, I will continue to make it. I am aware of the fact thatsome people will download my game. Are they thieves? Fuck no. They’re potentially devoted fans at best. Somewhere in between, they might buy a product, or they might post a review. Awesome! At worst, they’re not really costing me anything. I am not losing a copy of the book. If they weren’t going to buy it, that download isn’t going to change anything. If they thought about buying it, but only had $5 in their budget, and the game was $10, I’m still not losing anything. That downloader is still a person. They still deserve a modicum of respect, particularly since they haven’t cost me anything. I’m not going to burn bridges with a hateful attitude. I’m not going to send cease and desist letters. Because down the line, that person might buy something from the guy that wasn’t a total dick to them.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Back in 1995, a friend of mine had this really cool book called “Vampire the Masquerade.” He loaned me a copy. I couldn’t find it anywhere, this was before the advent of the internet and I was 13 and not quite as resourceful as I am now. The book wasn’t readily available to me, so I took a few dollars to the local library and I photocopied damned near the entire thing. I was an evil pirate, and I destroyed publishing. Now, those Vampire the Masquerade guys delivered quality stuff. I loved it. So, when I had the chance, I started buying their shit. That didn’t stop. I did a little mental math. Since 1995, I’ve purchased over 300 products by White Wolf. I’ve been a member of their paid fan club for eight years. This is numerous thousands of dollars in product. Had White Wolf talked shit on me for copying that book when I did, I wouldn’t have done that.
On the NOFX kick, I’ve purchased over 20 of their CDs. I’ve paid to go to numerous live shows. When I was younger, my friends and I taped their stuff and distributed it amongst each other. We ripped our CDs and copied them to CDRs when that technology became available. If they called me a thief, I would have called them assholes. I wouldn’t buy their product.
In summation: Charge a reasonable amount for your product. Create good shit. Connect with people. Be passionate about what you’re doing. If you’re doing those things, you probably don’t have a lot of time to whine and moan about people stealing your stuff. However, if you’re one of the many people that a) doesn’t create, b) doesn’t connect with people, c) have a passion for the product, and d) understand reasonable pricing, you probably have plenty of time to decry theft. If you’re not doing those things, maybe you should reassess your career in creative endeavors, because you’re an artifact of a time we’re leaving behind. I won’t miss you.
