I am not a speedy writer. Some people can sit down at a computer and bang out five thousand words a day, finishing a hundred thousand word novel in under a month - two or three months, once they dive back in for proofreading and editing. My wife, for instance, is very much like this type of writer. She's succeeded at every NaNoWriMo she's attempted, completed a number of novels, and can output 10,000 words in a single sitting. Me, on the other hand, well... writing is torture. I stress and fuss over every word, every sentence, and often end up going back and rewriting whole paragraphs just to force them to make sense to me. Because of this, I've never been able to put out more than about 2,500 words in a single day, and most days end up at closer to 1,000 to 1,500. Like today. Still, I write. Slowly. Plodding away. My current project is a LitRPG that has yet to be named. I'm only about 4,700 words in - that's three days of work - and I'm thoroughly enjoying the process. The prologue is done. Chapter One is complete. I'll update this thread as I complete whole chapters, so expect to see something new posted here once or twice a week, at most. Hi-ho, Silver, away!
I haven't had nearly as much time as I would like to work on the story this week. This update only has an extra 2300 words to add to the project. EDIT: And now both the story and the series have a title. The series is The Aegis Saga. Book One is Artifex.
This weekend was a bit of a bust. No time for writing. I did, however, start working up a map of the game world in which the book is set. I probably should have spent more time thinking about the game system The Realm utilizes before I started writing, but it's coming together nonetheless. Also, mind mapping is a lot of fun. Way too much fun. Much better than boring old outlining.
I've just about completed Chapter Three, but I won't post a word count until I do. In the meantime, is anyone willing to read 26 pages of mediocre first-draft writing (Prologue, Chapter One & Two)? I need someone with a little experience with the genre to reassure me that I'm going the right direction with this.
I've been doing a lot of thinking on the game system for Allegiance, the game world in this story. I'm modelling it on my first MMO (Asheron's Call) and my favorite tabletop RPG (Genesys). I figured I wanted a game system that worked, so it was easier to modify something pre-existing. Player characters (and, for that matter, NPCs and Monsters) have six characteristics, taken right from Genesys: Brawn, Agility, Intellect, Cunning, Willpower, and Presence. Each one is connected to certain skills. Brawn, for instance, covers melee combat skills, athletics, and physical resistance, while Presence includes most general social skills, like negotiation and leadership. There's no limit to the number of times characteristics and skills can be raised, but the higher the number goes, the greater the effects of diminishing returns. PAIN & FATIGUE Rather than Hit Points or Health, characters within Allegiance have a Pain Threshold. This threshold determines the limits of what a character can do before being overcome by Pain and incapacitated. The Pain Threshold is determined by Brawn + the character's racial bonus. Orcs, for instance, start with Brawn + 12 for their Pain Threshold, while Quicklings start with Brawn + 7. Weapons and other attacks generally cause Pain. A character's total Pain starts at zero and works its way up to the Pain Threshold as the character is injured. Pain heals naturally at a rate of 1 per hour, but can be affected by healing potions and magical healing. The character's other limiter is their Fatigue Threshold. Fatigue represents how worn out a character is, both physically and mentally. It is the fuel for just about any strenuous action a character can perform, from swinging a sword to crafting a piece of armor to casting a fireball spell. The Fatigue Threshold is determined by Willpower + the character's racial bonus. Reaching one's Fatigue Threshold does not cause a character to become incapacitated, like the Pain Threshold. Instead, all actions increase in difficulty and begin to cause Pain rather than Fatigue. Fatigue heals naturally at a rate of 1 per minute, but can be affected by stamina potions and magical healing. Both Pain and Fatigue Thresholds can be increased by improving their connected characteristics or by Talents. SKILLS Skills start out as Untrained. At character creation, the player will have twelve skill points they can use to move skills into the Trained or Specialized categories. It takes one skill point to go from Untrained to Trained, then two more to go from Trained to Specialized. Characters earn an additional skill point every ten levels. The advantage of Trained and Specialized skills is simple: they cost less XP to advance. An Untrained skill costs twenty times the value of the skill rank to be attained. Thus, the costs look something like: Rank 1: 20XP Rank 2: 40XP Rank 3: 60XP Rank 4: 80XP Rank 5: 100XP ... and so on. These costs are cumulative, so going from Rank 0 to Rank 5 costs a total of 300XP. Trained skills, on the other hand, costs ten times the value of the skill rank to be attained. Going from Rank 0 to Rank 5 is going to cost a character 150XP, half the cost of an Untrained skill. Specialized skills cut that cost in half yet again, so 75XP to go from Rank 0 to Rank 5. (Again, there are no limitations to the number of ranks one can attain in a skill. I'm just using Rank 5 as an example.) When a character earns enough XP with a given skill, the skill becomes eligible for upgrade. While the XP doesn't apply directly to the skill, only skills that have been used can be upgraded via XP. Thus, when the character has used their Melee (Light) skill enough, it can be upgraded to the next rank using XP. One cannot raise a skill that has not been flagged as eligible for upgrade. Thus, XP earned from combat skills cannot be used to improve social skills. CHARACTERISTICS Characteristics - the base stats for each character - are a little different. At character creation, each characteristic starts at 2. Players receive twenty characteristic points, which can be used to modify their stats, and may opt to reduce up to two additional characteristics to a 1 in order to gain one additional point each. The cost to raise a characteristic is equal to the rank attained in the characteristic, so going from a 2 to a 3 costs 3 points, while going from a 2 to a 4 costs 7 points. After character creation, the only way to earn additional characteristic points is to buy ranks in the Devotion talent. TALENTS Talents are special abilities that further customize a character, either by improving an aspect of a character or by providing new options for using existing skills. Some basic talents include Tenacity (increases a character's Fatigue Threshold), Resolve (increases a character's Pain Threshold), Inspiration (boosts allied characters when a character makes a successful Leadership check), and the aforementioned Devotion (grants characteristic points). Talents are purchased in a pyramid, meaning that in order to purchase a Tier 2 Talent, a character must have two Tier 1 Talents. Likewise, to purchase a Tier 3 Talent, a character must possess two Tier 2 Talents (and, by extension, three Tier 1 Talents). There are ten tiers of Talents. The cost of a talent is five times the tier of the talent. Talents are purchased with XP. There are no limitations to how XP is used to purchase Talents. I'll post more as I hash things out.
This has turned out to be a pretty active week for me. I know 6000 words is a day for some of you more prolific folks, but getting that much done in a week is absolutely astounding for me. I'm at 16003 words as of right now, just over 10% done with the book. TITLES Unlike most MMOs, Allegiance presents the players no stock classes with predetermined power progression. Instead, players select skills to train and specialize in (as discussed above), allowing for a broad variety of builds. As a character progresses, experience earned along the way can be used to improve skills and purchase talents, leading to further customization. Then there are titles. Titles come as a character earns status within their allegiance, wins achievements, or completes arduous tasks. These titles unlock new talents and abilities. The Summoner title, for instance, unlocks portal magic, which allows them to call allies and creatures to their aid, banish enemies, and travel long distances with a single step.
I ended tonight with 22715 words, an increase of almost seven thousand words. There is still such a long road ahead! Eighty pages in and I'm just now getting to character creation.
This last weekend was spent moving, or at least moving stuff around. With the last of the children out of the house (empty nest syndrome, here I come!), we're rearranging things a little. Unfortunately, that meant little writing time this past weekend, so my word count is only 27,500. I was really hoping to hit 30k before this update. Ah well. Still moving forward! Also, the "real life" story in the book just became a murder mystery. “According to gaming news sources, he received a promotion to Vice President of Deployment,” Aluma said. “When?” “One month after you entered the LAC program. But it appears he is no longer employed by ARES or any of its subsidiaries.” “What's he doing now, Aluma?” “Decomposing,” the AI deadpanned, “I assume.”
Thanks! I’m still refining it a bit, but it helps that I’m basing it around different systems I’ve enjoyed.
It has been a couple weeks since I've posted anything. This week, I got hit with Writer's Blah. It's like Writer's Block, only instead of keeping you from thinking about what to write next, it inhibits the desire to write. Instead, I worked on a cover for the book, as some people might have seen in a different thread or on the Discord server. It's a bit minimalist, and while I'd like to say I'm definitely using it, the jury is still out. After all, I'm not a professional artist. Here it is: Also, I hit 37,000 words tonight. Like I said, I haven't written much... and I'm slow. But it is coming together!
