Re: Forwarded from Eric Mona

Heya gang,

        Since my name is being thrown around, I thought I should make my
stance on this clear.  No need to have people fighting my battles for me. :)
Then, people can continue to discuss it until Leroy kills this thread.

        As I've mentioned before, I'm kind of excited about this article
that will be released.  I hope it covers enough to make make our choice
of conversion to 3e easier*.  If not, it leaves us no worse off then we
are.

        How I feel about the all-important topic of "why didn't they
contact the Council?" is quite simple: I don't really care.  We're a
small niche, and a disorganized one at that.  They're a business, and
are also going through some hardships.  We're probably the last thing
on their minds.  I don't take it as a personal attack.  (Though, why
does the link in this list's footer still point to the old URL**?
They've known about the change since mid-December. *shrug*)

        I run the site as a hobby -- though my friends sometimes call
it my habit :) .  I don't get paid for it, but I have no deadlines.  With
the 10-12 hour days I've been working of late, "no deadlines" is enough
to make it a relaxing diversion.  I run the site for the SJ community
and my love of the setting.  Even if I wasn't the official site, I'd
still have an SJ fansite.

        Well, that's enough from me.

* After tossing it around with some of the other council members, we've
decided to base our conversions on the system from "Seas of Blood" by
Mongoose Publishing.  Except for miniatures, it's the closest system
to the way SJ was handled in 2e.  Work will continue as soon as the
article comes out.  Hopefully the ship to ship part will be handed to
us in a nice, neat package. :)

** The new URL is "www.darwkood.org/sj/", and it shouldn't change again.
It's also the preffered URL, in case you want to link to it, since
I rearrange my pages all the time.  The new URL will always point to
the official site, no matter where on the server it actually lives.
Why do I move the site around?  Ease of organization.  The site's
enormous, and anything that makes it easier to maintain is a welcome
change.

-Static

p.s.  I've been thinking a lot recently about the "purity" of SJ, all
that talk of canon and such.  I dug up the paperwork from WotC and reread
it.  Here's the important bit I think everybody's been argueing about:

        "[Official sites must] portray the intellectual property in a
        manner consistent with its positioning. This means that you
        can't kill of major villains or heroes, alter the surface of
        the world, or otherwise damage the product line. If Wizards
        were to return to the line in 10 years, fans shouldn't be too
        shocked to see the revised setting."

        SJ has no vilains or heroes.  Our only major NPC is Andru.
We have no "surface of the world" to speak of.  (Well, maybe Bral.)
And I really doubt we could damage the product line without removing
wooden ships crewed by swashbucklers flying through space.  The
upcoming d20 SJ article will be getting rid of SJ's "wonky" physics,
so I guess that's not something we can destroy.

        What does this mean?  Well, I don't know yet, but I'm planing
on adding "Varient Rules" sections to handle cool rule mods that I
didn't want post to the official site before.  The Varient rules are
quite common in 3e, from what I've seen, so as long as they're marked
as such, articles on such topics as Manasails, cheap helms, and alternate
physics models are all valid and not "world destroying".  That means
they can show up on the site. :)

        The new submsission guidelines will cover this in more detail.
I've got something eating up my time for the next few weeks, but we'll
be opining the doors to submissions soon. :)  I think you all will be
pleased with the new guidelines.

--
 "No no no, it's an omen.  It's a higher power
  trying to tell me through bunnies that we're
           all gonna die.  Oh god."  --Anya
    --==<< http://www.darkwood.org/ >>==--