My plans for new TSOY products
Eero Tuovinen:
A while back Clinton R. Nixon, the creator of The Shadow of Yesterday and other fine games, decided to curtail his involvement in the online rpg scene. Here's the thread about it. As I understand it, the reason was a wish to move more towards being a hobbyist and less a semi-professional game writer. I asked Clinton about his future plans, at which point he told me that he's hoping to find somebody to continue publishing TSoY for him - keeping it available has value in itself even while Clinton doesn't feel like continuing to support the game personally.
Now, as some of you might remember, I've been hot to trod with TSoY for a while, now. I proposed to Clinton (actually, he might have been doing the proposing, can't remember) that I might well be interested in publishing TSoY and answering any rules questions and such people might have about the game. My only reservation was that I wasn't particularly interested in doing the faithful custodian bit if it meant doing a lot of publishing work and putting out my own money - if I were going to edit and print a new version of the game, I wanted to do it solely according to my own vision, without looking back to how Clinton'd do it. Clinton didn't have anything against this, large-hearted individual that he is, so we decided to proceed with the plan.
The news
I'm going to publish a new edition of The Shadow of Yesterday in two parts. The first part, Solar System, will be a generic rules-set for dramatic adventure, detached from any particular setting. It will include a slightly generalized and updated version of the Solar System as we know it, as well as methodology and advice for adapting the system to different settings. The current plan is to make the Solar System a cheap-ish saddle-stitched booklet in letter size, but we'll see how it develops in writing. The production schedule is a bit tough, as I'm planning to release at Gencon, but I'm confident that we can make it, as I'm not exactly a stranger to the rules-set.
The second part of the game, The Shadow of Yesterday, is the campaign setting of Near after the Skyfire, familiar from Clinton's edition. I'm going to expand the text in different directions, add rules and setting writing and do other kinds of interesting things with this. I'm currently visualizing this as a 100-150 page perfect bound letter size book, but we'll see how expansive it needs to be to fulfill it's primary goal of providing a ready-made array of background and situation suitable for numerous campaigns set in the same world. This is a considerably more ambitious book than Solar System, above, so I'm really anticipating it for Christmas at the soonest. Who knows, though, how much time I have for writing this stuff as the year progresses.
The reasoning
The reasoning behind the above plan is many-fold. The agenda in separating the rules and the setting into separate books is simply that I'd like to see if I could encourage others to publish their Solar System material as well in greater droves than before. Perhaps a separate rules product will make that easier. Another angle is that the relatively cheap Solar System booklet is easy to get for new players - we'll see how cheap I can make it, but I'm kinda thinking of selling it in bundles so every player can have his own.
From the setting side of the equation removing the need to have the rules in the same book means that the book is easier to use as reference; people don't usually need to refer to the Solar System rules while playing, so for reference purposes the rules stuff is just in the way when you're trying to find anything in the book. The reason for making a larger book than indies normally are is here as well: I'd like to sort the setting book into a layout that allows easy flipping and finding pertinent spots as necessary. I'm a bit non-happy with the format of the game in this regard as it currently stands.
Questions
If there's some fatal flaw in my overall plan here, by all means point it out. I like the idea of doing separate books and rewriting the text to better fit my vision, but I can imagine how some might consider that sort of updating unnecessary - there is nothing fundamentally wrong with The Shadow of Yesterday as it is, so in many ways my new version might not be that much better. I'm hoping that I will be able to add more depth into the game due to having several years of collective experience to tap on at this point, but the results remain to be seen.
In practice I'd like to communicate a lot with other TSoY fans about my writing, just to validate my thinking and to find out what others would like to see in books like this. I'm planning to start a number of threads about the topic here at the Forge this month, but I'd also appreciate any hints anybody might have about interesting work others are doing or have done with TSoY. For example, I seem to remember that Matt Snyder was doing something with the Solar System a while back, but I haven't heard anything of it lately - if you happen to know about other interesting activity, I'd love to hook up and compare notes with others.
OnnoTasler:
The idea sounds good! Will you offer a logo to show compatibility with Solar System, so that Setting designers can easily reference it?
Steve Segedy:
Eero,
I think this is a great direction, and I'm glad to see you taking the lead on it. I'd be happy to offer suggestions on breaking out the core rules from the Near setting, and expanding them to work best with a variety of settings. Jason and I have done a lot of setting work with the TSOY rules, so its very possible that some of that material could be tightened up and published along with your changes.
From a product point of view, I'd suggest trying to match the two books in terms of form factor and style- perhaps even making them perfect-bound with a spine title, if the page count allows for it. It would be nice if they looked like a set (possibly along with other setting books), in much the same way that the Burning Wheel books go together.
rafial:
I think this is great news! I've been wanting pure system book for the Solar System for a long time. I agree that it would be nice if the the system book and the setting book formed a visually coherent set, although I could certainly live with out it. And Eero, don't waste a moment of regret over editing and polishing the system to bring it in line with your vision. There is nothing sacred about the rules as they stand, and compromising your vision will only lead to a purer product in the long run.
oliof:
Let me join the choir: Cool!
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