E20?

[Benjamin]

Drow Totally a German word!

Wut? Which one?

[Username17]

Drow Totally a German word!

Wut? Which one?

Also spelt "derrow". And "dro" and "derro". Basically old Germanic word meaning "svartalf". Differ in different stories, but black skin is pretty common.

Yes: the "Derro" and "Drow" appear as black skinned dwarves and black skinned elves respectively, even though those are mythologically the same thing (and linguistically the same word) because "elf" and "dwarf" didn't really mean something different until Tolkien made them different.

It's like how Basilisks, Cockatrices, Gorgons, and Catoblepases are four different monsters in D&D, even though mythologically that is only two different things.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

It's like how Basilisks, Cockatrices, Gorgons, and Catoblepases are four different monsters in D&D, even though mythologically that is only two different things.

Kobolds and goblins too, huh? I thought koblold was a German word for goblin.

[Username17]

It's like how Basilisks, Cockatrices, Gorgons, and Catoblepases are four different monsters in D&D, even though mythologically that is only two different things.

Kobolds and goblins too, huh? I thought koblold was a German word for goblin.

Sort of. Kobolds are more like Knockers or Gnomes. They are little people who are helpful or do mischief to or for the working man. They are blue and live in cobalt mines (among other places).

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Ahh. Of course, my knowledge came from my high school German-English dictionary. I saw the definition of kobold was goblin, so that was the extent of my research.

[Benjamin]

Ah, this kind of German. I can stop wonder now.

[PhoneLobster]

It's now time for my suddenly semi regular e20 watch thread necromancy ritual.

Yes. That time is here, again!

Of course it's entirely possible that August will roll around, e20 core rule book will so surprisingly not have been cobbled together from whatever Sarli manages to write or shake out of the cracks in the lounge at his relatively inactive forum, and they just run more "e20 demo games" using a bunch of "e20 lite" rules that exist largely in peoples imaginations, and then start collecting sucker money for e20 splat books without delivering ANYTHING.

I'm not saying that WILL happen. I'm just saying that has an alarmingly high likelihood of happening.

Looks like that is what happened. Pretty much.

GMSarli has been unusually active on his web site. The news page from oldest to newest goes something like...

Oldest Post - All the time in the world to reveal his secrets of as yet not completed success!
A 4214 word essay on how to dupe people out of their money with a vaporware RPG kickstarter project. Might actually be of interest to any aspiring RPG authors and general con men reading this forum.

Yay! Gencon Post!
GenconGenconGencon! Details, Booths, Things! Boring bullshit!

Industry acclaim for vaporware project! Yay!
Hurray! GMSarli has been selected as an RPG Industry Insider GUEST OF HONOUR for an Industry Insider panel of some form at GenCon. Because he is just soooo professional and such a big producer of speculative as yet fictional RPG products!

Uh Oh, Woopsie Post!
OH NOES! GMSarli has sad news. Core Rule Book may not be available for Gencon! It isn't HIS fault, oh no, see what happened was the printers sorta confused him with lies or partial truths or something, and what he THOUGHT was total turn over time for printing was ACTUALLY just the time it would take to print it, not all the other stuff like approving proof copies, and see because he left it all to the very last minute he won't actually have time to print it for Gencon! (le surpriz). Cause see by the time he realized he had 12 hours to finish "layout" he actually thought he was going to have 4-7 days, but then he didn't! BUT DO NOT WORRY! Patrons will be able to download their PDF version BEFORE Gencon starts and will recieve the only slightly delayed printing almost immediately after Gencon!

LATEST POST! SUPER OH NOES! LE SURPIZ EXTRAORDINARE!
GMSarli has WORSE news. As it turns out uh, layout took longer than he thought, so the um, 4-7 days he had thought he had and then did have, because he missed that deadline, weren't enough, and then the remaining week or whatever that he had after that before gencon ALSO wasn't enough and "Layout" wasn't completed by Gencon, and then when he DID get to Gencon he was TOTALLY going to finish it AT GENCON, but then, le surpriz, Gencon was just... haha, sooo hectic, what with the guest of honour industry insider thing, well you know, so there he was AFTER Gencon, and NOTHING was ready!

You see "Layout" took longer than anticipated! By a week or more, because well, see he hadn't ever done layout on a document THAT BIG before, and much to his shock it turns out to be HARDER than a small document!

Also he mentions that hey those patrons he roped in to writing portions of the rules, they took longer than expected, because they were mere amateurs (unlike his own professional conduct). He had INTENDED to "help them out" a bit more, but see, he was too busy with that embarrassing (but entirely professional) deadline blow out on the "layout" even including all the extra time he got from the printing deadline blow out that is apparently better forgotten one post later.

So he couldn't help them because he was busy on the layout, but then he says he couldn't even start the layout because they didn't finish, because he didn't help them, because he the layout, the one he couldn't start yet, was taking too long, because he couldn't start it, because he couldn't help them, because they weren't finished.

Which then for those with elephantine memories (and mouse scrolly buttons) that recall the immediate post prior where he talks about how he didn't have time to finish the "layout" before the misunderstood printing deadline... gets even more confusing, because did the infinite loop of not helping Patron Contributors because he couldn't start the layout because he couldn't help the contributors mean that actually his entire "oops I missed printing deadline" post actually turn out to be largely shifting deck chairs on the titanic because hey, actually even weeks later he was still in the infinite loop and it's lingering consequences!.

NO OTHER POSTS YET!
That last post was on AUGUST THE NINTH. There has NOT been a promised post since saying. "Yay! Project completed! Books in the male, PDFs on the web site!".

It is now September 20th. Apparently, e20, still not completed. But hey his twitter chat box has him bantering with friends about his enjoying Speak Like A Pirate Day in full pirate costume, so clearly not feeling any deadline pressure here.

Need I remind you even the Gencon deadline was well past intial promises, by like a year or something.

And need I remind you that my interest in this all began when the morons on Brilliant Gameologists defended D20Modern by telling me that all the Kool Kids who lurved D20Modern were now ALREADY instead playing the far superior version from the same creators... E20! The game WHICH IS STILL NOT OUT FOR ME TO MAKE FUN OF PROPERLY.


But in his KickStarter advice GMSarli DID say he regularly searches on google for communities talking about e20 and engages them in conversation and such. And he CLEARLY isn't exactly forgoing the internet social media what with a dozen twitter posts about pirates and sith and apologies for not reading his email or finishing E20 every single day. So.

GMSarli WHERE ARE YOU? More importantly where is this E20 all the D20Modern KoolKids were already playing with time travel?

...damnit.


PS

In the meantime if anyone would like to fund my project to make fun of these vaporware rules feel free to contact me by throwing money at your computer screen.

I will then get to work on the "layout" of the vaporware rules making fun of as soon as the vaporware rules are complete, which I would totally help with completing but I can't because the making fun of is eating up additional time because as it turns out it can't be started until the vaporware rules themselves are complete, which I can't help with, because of the blowout in the deadline of the making fun of not being started yet...

[hogarth]

That last post was on AUGUST THE NINTH. There has NOT been a promised post since saying. "Yay! Project completed! Books in the male, PDFs on the web site!".

So he's actually sodomizing men with a copy of the rules as we speak?

It is now September 20th. Apparently, e20, still not completed.

Okay, now I'm confused: did he say that the PDF is available on the web site or not?

[PhoneLobster]

So he's actually sodomizing men with a copy of the rules as we speak?

Only promising too. He never delivers.

I'll be honest, I saw that spelling error after posting, but was too lazy to fix it. Anyway, it's an awesome spelling error.

Okay, now I'm confused: did he say that the PDF is available on the web site or not?

He said he would be making it available for download, and missed several different promised deadlines for that, including before, during and immediately after Gencon. Some of those deadlines were also supposed to include physical copies for sodomizing purposes. Also missed.
He even promised would be simply making an announcement soon about WHEN it would be available for download, as soon as he knew when that would be, which what with only having to do the "layout" he surely would... over a month ago.

His Tweets seem to indicate that hey, still hasn't even got all the material in from the "Patrons" as of Yesterday, so mere "Layout" issues a month ago my book free ass.

But it's all just a run of bad luck on everyones part, apparently, not like, incompetence or lies, and as soon as he stops dressing up like a pirate it's bound to be completed any day now...

Edit: And just to be clear, that means No there is no book, there is no PDF all there is are the same utterly incomplete and mildly disturbing "Sample Rules" there always were.

[Daztur]

But still, publishing this would be an act of evil genius. Getting people to pay him to write the rules for him and then pay him to buy them is just too perfect

[PhoneLobster]

In theory all the ones who paid him to write it also bought books, and pdfs, with that initial money. And it is as yet unclear whether there would be any significant customer base outside of the chumps that invested in this already.

And along with the purchase of those books and other junk they purchased apparently the obligation to write it themselves. When they get around to it... and if they don't? Well GMSarli isn't gonna help them, he totally would, but the layout, THE LAYOUT! It needs so much work, which can't even START until the paying patrons finish their share of the thing they purchased!

[hogarth]

He still sounds way, way more organized than Nick Logue with his "Razor Coast" supplement for 3.5/Pathfinder (originally due out in August 2008; now in a sort of perpetual limbo).

[Maxus]

Okay, PL, what the hell. I'm used to picturing you as this scowling bearded figure, possibly slightly inebriated as he puts more potent venom than...than...well, take your pick of five really nasty Australian animals. Yeah. Worse venom than that.

By comparison, your tone when you recount the update posts sounds like someone poured liquid sunshine and snark on your Weet-Bix.

Please, this confuses my American brain. I do not like having to reassess my opinion of someone.

And ARRGHH I just remembered the "Favorite Edition is second edition" thread. I've been wrong all along!

[Josh_Kablack]

PS

In the meantime if anyone would like to fund my project to make fun of these vaporware rules feel free to contact me by throwing money at your computer screen.

***Tapes a $5 bill atop monitor in support of such a project****

[MGuy]

My money just bounces off...

[RobbyPants]

My money just bounces off...

I'm having similar problems. Please advise.

[PoliteNewb]

My money just bounces off...

I'm having similar problems. Please advise.

Your computer must not be configured to receive US currency. I advise you to mail me $50 and I'll set it up for you.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I'm a Nigerian prince, exiled in a royal coup de'tat.

If you send me your debit card and PIN numbers, I'll give you a new computer, made of solid gold, once I've reclaimed my throne.

That should support this initiative.

[PhoneLobster]

Micro update.

GMSarli appears to be hiding from his own website and not updating the status of the project, because if he doesn't put up news about it it won't be so horrendously late right?

But he can't stay away from his twitter, which he has on his website. It's full of utterly inane gibberish. I mean, hey, it's Twitter, that's the kind of stuff (and people) that it is for.

But did you know...

And I can tell you, it's *not* easy to have a productive day of game designing w/ unchecked major depression and ADHD.

[PhoneLobster]

Maybe I'm following this too closely now.

But is it just me or is it hilarious that this guy is now spending his time dressing his pet Guinea Pig up and throwing parties for it?

I mean. You couldn't make this stuff up.

[Korwin]

Found an link in mine Spam-folder http://j.mp/vTx74S

Here's the short version: The *e20 System Evolved RPG*Universal Rulebook will be published no later than mid-December. Book printing will take a couple of weeks longer once the PDF is sent out to patrons and all who have pre-ordered, and my goal is to get the physical books in your hands before Christmas.

[PhoneLobster]

Seems like he has a big horrendously depressing post about being so depressed and ADHDed that he couldn't write, that he lacked experience writing RPGs from scratch that he missed a deadline and spiralled into panic and despair (dressing up like a pirate, dressing his guinea pigs up and throwing them little parties, generally chatting it up with the yawningly typical "mad cap" Internet geek role on Twitter) and so on.

The only moderately funny part being that despite all that a large part of his strategy for finishing the project on time had hinged on him massively over estimating the RPG rule writing output of his patron/customer/contributor/E20Fanboyclub.

I mean hey, he could barely bring himself to so much as LOOK at his project, he was daunted and confused by the concept of having to write his own independent RPG rules set and generally didn't know what he was doing. But he was TOTALLY sure that effectively randomly selected members of the Role Playing Gamer public would TOTALLY have things in hand.

Has he not MET us random members of the Role Playing Gamer public before? Did he not look in the mirror for five seconds and think "What kind of people would depend on ME to write their RPG rules? Are they REALLY the kind of people I should rely on to be better at writing RPG rules than me?"

Aside from that all depressing mental disorder excuse. Possibly entire true, but definitely depressing EITHER way and certainly god damn stupid. And now I have to wait until E20-MAS before I can make fun of the E20 patrons gathered around the E20 tree unwrapping the empty boxes that their E20 Presents were SUPPOSED to be in and cursing their ADHD Depressive GMSarli-claus.

[OgreBattle]

This makes me appreciate more the amount of talent and effort it takes for Kevin Siembieda to do what he does with Palladium and fans.

[PhoneLobster]

Well hey, as you know E20 was completed and shipped during "Mid December" for paying customers to receive by Christmas after a touching moment where anonymous fans chipped in to buy the creator motivational drugs and he admitted his unfortunate condition and was thus able to move forward. All that remains now is for me to somehow acquire...

Here’s a quick update on where we stand with the e20 System, since we obviously did not get it finished in time for Christmas.

Just as I was finally able to work near full capacity again and I was plowing through material at a really high pace, the developer — senior patron Jack Hale — had an epic collapse almost as bad as mine after Gen Con. Like me, he has some significant mental health issues that can seriously impact his work, and he has even more serious physical problems on top of that.

So to get this straight. The plan was. "I shall receive a lot of money to attempt a project I have never attempted before despite the fact that I am significantly inhibited by disability from completing it, in order to help me I will employ individuals MORE significantly inhibited by disability with LESS experience than me to help."

I didn’t even realize how much trouble he was having until a couple of weeks ago (when more and more of my work was having to be put off because I needed the sections he was working on to do them), and it quickly became apparent that we couldn’t hit our current deadline.

Ah, so once again the dreaded "I would do your bit but I am busy not doing my bit because your bit isn't ready!" conundrum.

If only there were some sort of solution to that infinitely regressive barrier to all progress!

I put off announcing a new deadline, though, because for a while I thought we might be able to at least finish the PDF by Christmas; even that turned out to be wishful thinking.

Yes right up until two days after Christmas it required only a little optimism to believe that the product would be completed and shipped to customers by mid December. So it would be ready. For Christmas.

Well. It must have been CLOSE though I mean this thing has been literally DAYS away from completion just before Gen Con. During Gen Con. After Gen Con and then again in "Mid December".

So, I’ve now taken stock of the work that needs to be done and figured out how long it will take me to do them completely on my own. Unfortunately, it looks like I can’t possibly finish the whole book myself before the end of February 2012. Patrons and pre-orders would receive their PDFs at this time, and the printed books wouldn’t be delivered until somewhere around mid-March 2012.

Yeah. Thats right MONTHS. I don't know which is crazier here. The "we will complete this by mid earlier this month, oops actually two more months! Damn optimism!" or the alternative consideration that Sarli was rating a guy with MORE inhibiting disabilities as himself as capable of completing this thing seriously YESTERDAY when he personally with his LESS inhibiting disabilities will take two more months.

edit: Also, I would pull out the "You pay peanuts you get monkeys" line but it doesn't actually apply, because actually the scenario for monkey selection here is actually to find the monkey dumb enough to give YOU the largest amount of peanuts in order to have the HONOR of working on the project they are ostensibly paying you to promise to provide to them. I mean at THAT point the "you get..." end of the transaction exceeds the limitations of monkeys and moves into the realms of people who post on Brilliant Gameologists talking about how they have been playing a game that still won't be written until two years later as a defense of a game they don't know the rules of that was abandoned by anyone who ever played it at least five years in the past.

Since things are taking so long, I’m trying to think of ways to make it up to everyone who graciously provided so much support so early on.

Wasn't there some sort of "get what you paid for on deadline or money back" thing on this project. I mean clearly there should have been but I sorta vaguely remember, ah who cares it's not like I put anything in this legless horse race.

But what about the guy who is buying the motivational drugs here? I'm pretty sure the traditional way for a man to reward a man who buys him his drugs is male prostitution, I would hate to think he isn't getting his appropriate rewards...

One of the first things I thought of was re-integrating the last two chapters of the book, which detail the settings of Fallen Gods (dark fantasy) and The Hollow Sky (space opera with a horror twist).

Oh... so the extra reward... will be completing the project... as originally planned instead of some cut down version that... didn't make the deadline or ever exist anyway?

there’s now time for me to get in touch with those chapters’ authors and see if they’d be willing to do some revisions & expansions to flesh out the chapters a bit.

NO! ITS A TRAP!

This is CLEARLY bait laid by the insidious "I can't help do your bit because I am busy not doing my bit which I can't do until you complete your bit!" monster!

Also wait. So you cut two chapters apparently because the paying chumps who wrote them didn't write enough material on time. You are having deadline problems because the paying chumps writing chapters for you (and you personally) cannot write enough material on time so you decide to ONCE AGAIN include the unwritten materials and wait on two more guys who already have a proven track record of not completing their work on time... and have not since completed it in the large amount of extra time since then... BRILLIANT

I have some other ideas to hook up my patrons with a little extra — some bonus PDFs, most likely — and I’m hoping to make an announcement about that in the next several days.

So assuming that this comes out at the "end of February" which I mean CLEARLY it will... the reward for waiting for the PDF they paid for... is to wait for some other PDFs they didn't even ask for?

And an announcement in a few days? Well its been a week and going on previous few days announcements... I expect delay apologies on the bonus "Um yeah this is totally a real product" PDFs being delayed to appear once every six months WELL into 2015.

At the very least, patrons will get an early look at some of the laid-out chapters of the Universal Rulebook before the final PDF is assembled.

This system is totally fucking real, trust me!.

Thanks again to everyone for being so understanding about this and for your kind words about my last post on the subject.

Kind words? Is that what the kids call that these days?

Any game publisher would be blessed to have such a devoted and supportive fan base

In all fairness the "fan base" claim to have been playing this game for TWO YEARS now. So they are getting... something... back after all... somehow... presumably involving time travel... and at this rate alternative future time lines that never happen.

But hell any game publisher would, apparently, be blessed, as would say, a conman or I dunno, anyone who is looking to get paid for not producing a product.

[PhoneLobster]

Hey hey.

E20 was released in PDF form at the end of last month and will shortly be out in printed book form this month!

...predicted GMSarli in the past.

But the triumphal updates about the long awaited successful PDF release... aren't there. The only sign of anything unusual is that about 33 days ago his god damn annoying twitter feed went dead baring one horrendous Gygax quote 3 days ago.

So presumably after all these years I'm going to say that GMSarli HAS in fact now clearly STARTED working on e20.

Considering the project has been claimed to be respectively 2 days, a week, or minus half a month away from completion at various points it cannot possibly take him long now...

... but he clearly missed his most recent deadline AGAIN and clearly is delaying and prevaricating about giving any actual status report until well after that deadline. AGAIN.

Waiting on this game is getting increasingly annoying.