Lulu.com has the next Worldbook by High Forest Games & Books ready to be enjoyed. I still need to go back and re-do the cover, and add more 'blurbage' though, but that should be done by tonight, or tommorrow.
Nevertheless, you can buy it now if you can't wait.
Its 35,000 words approximately which makes it considerably shorter than Worldbook: Nine Alternate Realities. Both have seven worlds, and nine settings however. Lets cover those, shall we?
1. Jon Quick: Boy Genius offers you the chance to join in the life and adventures and home of the most brilliant teenager in the world as he invents all manner of gadgets.
2. Movie Science/Mal-Science is a Parallel World in which it is easier to invent, but harder to avoid disaster. In both worlds, the Men In Black suppress knowledge of inventions deemed problematic. But in one world, this is wisdom, and in another this is paranoia. This world deals to some degree with the question of: When are our fears justified?
It opens with an unusual 'monster' which the verser is better qualified to deal with by his nature, and then opens out into many other possibilities for weirdness.
3. Time War: Invasion gives the player a chance to 'esp', to fight a time war against a mysterious enemy, to visit strange but familar worlds, to perhaps get into a fight in space as one of the first space warriors of this world, and to fight a desperate battle against an unending array of kamikaze cannibals.
Yeah, thats a lot. This is a world the player could easily be in for a couple years of real game time.
4. Possibility Wars is a very challenging world for GM and for player. There is a Time War going on...with thirteen sides to it. Some are decent, and some are terribly evil. It also offers (more than the mind-boggling complexity of a multi-sided time war) a new design for a Dimension. Ordinary dimensions are Narrow, with only one band of reality. This dimension is Broad, with a Bell Curve of Probablity energy, and only one Active Actuality amongst many Probabilities.
This design offers an ingenious solution to the Sawtooth Snap, and has an interesting effect on the nature of a Time War which kills off worldlines, and thus 'unmakes' billions of souls in what could be considered the grandest act of genocide short of vaping dimensions entirely.
5. Rocky Mountain DMZ is a What If? story. What if Germany and Japan won WW2? What if Germany conquered the US to the Rockies, and Japan conquered the US on the other side of the Rockies? And in the middle the two exhausted, but still paranoid empires created a Demilitarized Zone. And what if, in the midst of that zone, versers kept arriving at the same spot, at a house used by the Resistance?
Its a chance to meet other versers. Its a chance to go on missions. Its a chance to go hunt down Nazis and Japanese militarists, and 'gently' explain to them that you want them to Leave Now!
6. Mischief of Maidens: Its an anime world where the male verser might think himself very happy. After all, there is a lot of gorgeous girls who thinks he's the cutest thing around. But they want his attention, at the same time. The Superspy Next Door, the Minor Goddess, the Ninja Girl, the Time-travelling Supercommando, the Alien Snail Multimorph Girl....and of course, the evil Black Dragon girl who really will try to destroy the world right after her date....with you. Cause you're very cute. Run fast is my advice.
7. Through the Valley of the Shadow is the most realistic and sobering of these worlds. Its a place much like here, and a time much like now. And a madman has decided to inject himself with smallpox, and come to your convention city, breathe the Red Death on them.
Can you save the world? This starkly realistic look at just how easy it would be too destroy civilization is a must read for those who don't mind nightmares.
Its a gather world for many versers if you like, and a contingency world since its quite likely you won't succeed, and the world will be 'destroyed'. But some few will survive the Red Death. Very few.
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Later, I hope to come out with a Fantasy Worldbook which is mostly done already, and to add a few sketches as suggested by my players, and some appendixes dealing with vampires and weapons.
It may take a bit more time to come out with Worldbook: Grim Futures.
I hope you enjoyed,
Eric R. Ashley
Eric, have you done any more with Music Wars? I'd really like to continue working on the Beta world. Scott and yourself are the ones that were working with me on it. Any new ideas?
Those all sound like cool worlds. Rocky Mountain DMZ sounds a bit like Red Dawn.
I'm going to try to put out Wb: Fantasy (which is something like 98% done or better). And Wb: Grim Futures (which is nearly done). After that, there are some solo worlds which might be done, and there are some solo worlds like Music Wars that have a lot of work done in them (Starship Connetticut Yankee, and First Contact/First Murder, and Pyramid Puzzle, and Psi-cyclone Station might fall into the Music Wars category as well.)
I also have a two or three Mary Piper's as well.
Basically, I'm trying to focus right now on things that are basically done. After I clear the backlog, I may or may not do more heavy weight game designing. Finishing Starship, and First Contact, and Music Wars would require a LOT of work.
I'd personally like to see you help me finish Music Wars Alpha. However, even if you instead finish Beta, and I don't finish Alpha, I can publish it in one of my Wb's if you like.
The only 'new' idea I have is the same old idea. Focus on making it simple as possible, and getting it done.
And yes, DMZ is probably a lot like Red Dawn. Which is good, cause Red Dawn was a popular movie (except with liberal critics...)
Eric
All of my work for Music Wars, and I mean both worlds, is here on the site somewhere. Should I try to dig it out?
In view of this:
I still need to go back and re-do the cover, and add more 'blurbage' though, but that should be done by tonight, or tommorrow.I'm going to wait until I hear from you that it's finished before tacking it on to your page at Valdron's support site. I trust that's acceptable.
--M. J. Young
Feel free to post it now. And thanks.
http://www.lulu.com/content/2020197
And yes, John, I'd like to see you dig it out.
Eric
ok
I have added the link to the page as it exists on my hard drive, but I don't yet have the FTP client configured to access the site.
Working on it, along with a lot of other things.
--M. J. Young