For those of you who may have missed it, last week was a bit of a crazy one for me. The first half anyway. While resuming the hunt for full-time employment ate some more of my time after, I did manage some work on Streets at the tail end. This week, though, I’m all about the Streets of Bedlam and should have a much more impressive “done” list next week. My goal right now is to get the PDF out by month’s end.

My focus has been on characters: PCs, Major NPCs, and Minor NPCs. My thanks goes out to everyone who has submitted their Kickstarter questionnaire. Using your bases to add variety and personality to Bedlam has been a treat. I should be through them all by week’s end. That’ll be a big load off my plate and should put us in the home stretch.

Sounds of Bedlam
Ed sent over some tracks this past week and, lemme tell ya, they are so good. I’ll be sharing some samples later this week along with the final track list.

Five-Story Drop
I’m in talks to bring another writer into the mix for the scenarios. Nothing finalized yet but I’ll let you know how that goes.

In Sum
Not nearly as much as I hoped but I’ll be pushing along hard this week. Speaking of which, today is a full-day workday for me so I best get back to it. Talk to you later this week!

The initial plan, as listed on the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter, was to release the corebook in April. As it is now the first weekday of that month, let’s take a look at where things stand.

Text
The text is going well. As of today, the parts of the book are in the following state:

Introduction (Premise and Basics): Written, Edited, Laid Out—COMPLETE
Chapter One (Setting): Written, Edited, Laid Out—COMPLETE
Chapter Two (Characters): 75% Written, Initial Stages of Layout (To give some context, this is a BIG chapter. It covers all the Archetypes.)
Chapter Three (Setting Rules): 50% Written
Chapter Four (NPCs): 20% Written (Still compiling backer data, speaking with high-level backers to get more info. This will go smoothly once I put my back into it.)
Chapter Five (Plot Point and Orphan Stories): 0% Written (But the backbone is there.)

Art
Shawn continues to crank out images. They look great. Being the only artist on a book carries a heavy burden but Shawn’s taking it in stride. All the character archetypes are in, along with most of the chapter intro images, about a dozen interiors, and a handful of “filler” pieces (standalone images for end-of-chapter white space).

In sum
That’s the state of the book. If the unfinished parts look scary to you, please don’t be alarmed. I’ll have a lot of time the next two weeks to focus on this book. I plan to finish both the writing and layout for Chapter Two and Three this week (I tend to do those stages in tandem) and get them over to the editor. I’ll knock out Chapter Four in a weekend, which will leave me with Chapter Five. That should take another week or so.

I wish I was farther along but some medical issues (including a broken elbow/sprained left wrist/bruised right hand following a fall and an outpatient surgery slated for tomorrow) and a sudden influx of job opportunities (one of which I accepted) pushed me well off-track. I’m not offering these as excuses, just a look at what’s happening behind the scenes.

Once the PDF is up, I want to give folks a week or so to find all the typos and errors that escaped our attention and make the corrections to the corebook. The corebook will take about a week and a half to get to me in print. I’ll ship them out immediately. I’ll keep everyone abreast of that process as well.

Soundtrack
The tracklist and intent/mood/tone of all the pieces have been finalized. We’ve gone over the broad strokes so now it’s on Ed. He is currently working his magic and I hope to have some preview tracks up this month.

Five-Story Drop
The first supplement is slated for June but I will try to pull it forward, if at all possible, so that I can get it out before my impending move (see “accepting a job” above). I will begin that immediately after finishing the corebook. If that experiences any hiccups, I will let you all know immediately.

Next Update
I will update again next Monday to let you all know how things are going. I like to be transparent and honest with folks so nobody’s wondering or making bad assumptions. I’ll keep updating as the book wraps up so everybody knows their money isn’t vanishing into thin air. In the mean time, if you have any questions, please get a hold of me at jasonlblair@gmail.com.

Good morning! It’s all Streets of Bedlam all the time for Shawn and Ed and I (well, at least for me) so I don’t have a lot of time for updates. Still, I want to get you all something, so let’s take another look at what I’m spending all my time doing:

I hope you dig what you see! It’s really exciting seeing this all come together.

Remember: If you are a Kickstarter backer, be sure to make sure you double-check your name as it appears on the credits. See this post here for details.

As some of you may know, I took a bit of a tumble on Monday and seriously (though the prognosis is temporarily) injured my hands. Still, I continue to write and layout the book, though at a slower pace than usual. No project is without its hurdles and this is one of the bigger I’ve had to endure.

Anyway, I’m toying with the layout on some special sections, such as the Archetype spreads, and thought I’d post a preview of one of the spreads as a work-in-progress. I dedicate four pages to each Archetype, leading in with an overview then going into common personalities, edges+hindrances+skills, and then a sample character who’s ready to play. Of course, each Archetype is illustrated by Shawn Gaston as well.

While I’ll reveal new stuff later (though soon), I thought I’d stick with a classic this first time. Here’s a look at a defining character option in Streets of Bedlam, the driven-and-deadly wall of muscle called a Monster.

If you squint, you can get a peek at some of the other spreads as well.

I hope you like what you see. This isn’t final but it’s a good start as I further define and refine the look of Streets of Bedlam.

Final Call for Surveys
Just a quick note to those backers who haven’t completed and submitted their Kickstarter surveys: If you could get your questionnaires to me by the end of this week, I’d really appreciate it. I want to make sure everyone gets proper credit and I have the information I need in order to send you your rewards.

Book Update
Despite some unforeseen bumps in the road (they come with every big project, guaranteed), the Streets of Bedlam corebook is on track for an April release. I’ll start doing previews of the corebook starting next week so stay tuned!

I’ve talked a lot about the people, some about the rules, a bit about the location, and now I want to show you what you can expect to find inside the book itself.

My initial estimation was the Streets of Bedlam corebook would be 192pp but I’m confident now the final will far exceed that (I am looking at quite a few NPCs that need to be in there). The book will be generously illustrated by Shawn Gaston with plenty of examples, fiction, and story seeds that I hope inspire your own episodes.

As for the organization of the book, I used the traditional structure found in other Savage Worlds books as a starting point and then infused the structure found in my other games. I came up with the following:

Introduction: Life in the Big City
The intro breaks down the basics: what the game is, what its goals are, what inspired it, what the setting is (in brief), and how the whole thing came to be. It also lays out what each of the chapters cover.

Chapter One: Invisible Lines
This is all about Bedlam as a setting. The history of Lamrose and Bedford, the current state of things, the major areas, personalities, and a street-level view of the world it represents. This chapter is divided into main sections: one focused on Bedford; the other, on Lamrose.

Chapter Two: People in Trouble
Now we get into the heart of the stories: the characters. I include advice on creating compelling characters, guidelines for play at the table, and the 13 Archetypes. These Archetypes are important to me—I feel they really nail the tone and perspective of the game—so each one gets a four-page spread. This spread includes a bit of fiction, an illustration of a key character fitting that Archetype, Edges, Hindrances, and Abilities unique to that type, and a sample character.

Chapter Three: Need to Know
This chapter includes all the new rules, such as Rep, Interrogation, Investigation, and Roles. It also includes my two cents on game prep as well as a look at the different basic types of stories that fall within SoB’s purview.

Chapter Four: The Hands on the Wheel
We dive back into the world, this time with an eye toward non-player characters. The power players, major NPCs, local color, as well as a crowd of people on the street (including a whole lot of NPCs thanks to the game’s Kickstarter backers!) are in here. This chapter touches on a lot of the power struggles and conflicts in Bedlam.

Chapter Five: The Things We Do For Money
Named after the Plot Point Campaign found within, this chapter also includes a bunch of Orphan Stories (standalone episode seeds) and a look a the world of Bedlam following the completion of the campaign.

Then comes the back matter: index, system cheat sheet, character sheet, and investigation sheet.

And that’s pretty much it! Of course, this is subject to change through editing but that’s the basic form. As I said, the original spec was 192pp but I can see this going well beyond that. (Not a bad problem to have.)

I’ll talk more as April approaches and the book becomes available for sale in print and pdf. I’ll also start talking about the first supplement, Five-Story Drop: A Collection of SoB Stories. For now though, back to work!