Quincunx Public Archive

[Vulpinoid]

I just thought I'd share a site I've been working on recently to set the premise for my roleplaying game of supernatural hunters and reality television.

The Quincunx Public Archive.

It's a bit scattered at the moment, because I've been working on some other projects.

The only thing I'd ask if people do look around...please visit the first interactive page, the supernatural activity map. I'm trying to get as many hits on there from around the world as I can.

As I finish developing them, the game rules will be presented in the form of short pdf files scattered around the site (no more than 8-10 pages each). One for general game mechanisms, one for character generation, one for developing story concepts...then specialised ones, if you want vampires in your game, print out the company's pdf files about these creatures, the same for werewolves, fae, demons, golems, etc. If you want insanity rules in your game, check the archive's history of insane operatives and what happened to them, then print out the brief rules subset.

A single page will also have a link to all of the files available so far.

Have a look, tell me what you think so far.

V

[whiteknife]

Interesting site.

The map is cool. The name is weird, but at least its memorable. The gray on black text is somewhat annoying, but it does fit the dark theme your going for.

Be interesting to see what it's like once its finished.

[dauvis]

I think that the text can be lightened up a little.  I would go with white but a lighter shade of gray might work.  The title in the header is a bit difficult to see.  Other than that, I think it looks interesting.

[Vulpinoid]

Thanks guys, that's the kind of basic feedback I need.

I'll be continuing to add details to the site over the next couple of months, particularly regarding game mechanisms and methods of interacting with the ongoing storylines.

V

[MacLeod]

I was going to suggest a different name for it... but then I saw that Quincunx is an actual word.

[Vulpinoid]

Yes it is an actual word, it's the configuration of dots as found on the pips of a 5 on a d6.

*		*
	*
*		*

And is often linked to the five traditional mystic elements in their configuration...

	Water
Earth	Void	Air
	Fire

Since this is the configuration of the five most famous operatives in the organisation, it's a natural fit as a word. Even if it seems like a strange and exotic term.

What I'm mostly interested in producing in this website is something a bit more globally interactive than most games. Instead of simply designing a game and sending it out into the big wide world for isolated groups to interact with it completely separate from one another, I'm trying to develop of consistent world that links very closely to the mythlore of all different cultures. Local groups tailor the game to their local towns and cities, providing feedback to a central repository of data that gradually evolves and sets into motion wider storylines. More active cities affect the global storyline in more significant ways, but the danger grows in these cities as well.

I'll be setting up a series of algorithms and background procedures in the site to monitor this sort of thing.

I've only encountered a couple of groups who have really implemented this sort of thing at a decent level globally, White Wolf's Camarilla Fan Club and the SCA. But anyone who's belonged to either of these groups will have noted flaws in their implementation.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but this interactive wiki website is my attempt at making a start.

V

[DWeird]

I am watching this project like a hawk. Or at least a really determined goose.

Granted, there's relativelly little on the little game/big game interaction yet, which are pretty much the main reason for this interest... But the stable progress makes me happy.

Regarding the website itself, the category names [Chapter2 in Field Manual and so on] and clickable items  [Classifications in FM] are of the same colour, which leads to moments of my mouse hovering over the category name just waitin' for it to turn into a link. Colour change, underscore, something like that would pro'lly be good.

Also. Given enough time, and I will singlehandedly turn my surrounding area into a playground for the supernatural...

Warms the heart.

[Vulpinoid]

It's always good to hear that someone's watching your project's development.

I'm currently working on a project called Rajah Spiny Rat, which is going to be used as a testing ground for a lot of Quincunx theories/mechanisms/concepts.

A copy of that should be available shortly since it's being developed as a part of a contest (it'll be made freely available for the duration of the contest, then I'm thinking of charging a dollar for the pdf...or something like that. I might just keep giving it away for free, we'll see.)

Aspects of the big game are pretty much ready to start uploading over the next couple of weeks...aspects of the "little" game are currently the source of the experimentation and playtesting.

My biggest issue here is that I tried to get the twin games happening at GenCon Oz this year and I was basically told that people would have to pay $48 to play a board-game over the course of the weekend (due to the multiplication of session duration and cost per hour for participation in an event). Personally I don't think a player would fork our almost $100 to cover convention entry and game cost to taken a risk on an independent game (especially when they don't walk away with anything at the end of the event).

But that's just my little rant about bureaucracy...

The game is still pushing ahead.

V

[Jasper Flick]

Interesting, nice atmosphere.
I consider the h2 tags not nice for the eyes, the holes and space between characters gets lost. I'm on OS X by the way, which has different standard font rendering than Windows.

[Vulpinoid]

That might be a function of the wikidot server I'm using. It does some annoying things with formatting.

I'm gradually trying to weed out the issues in the CSS and build the site into the format I'm actually after.

I've been trying to eliminate issues by viewing the screens in Firefox (my preferred browser), Chrome, Explorer and Safari (pretty much in that order).

Thanks for the tip though.

V