Workshop Report 2023.09

When I decided to remake Genesis, I planned for two applications: "Commlink" (being the Shadowrun 6 chargen) and "Mondtor" (being the Splittermond chargen). Both would use an identical technical foundation and share common code whereever possible. Over a year I worked on both in parallel, but sometime in 2023 I decided to focus on Commlink to get it in a state where it mostly works, before I continue with Mondtor. That moment is now.

So, I picked up work on Mondtor - which was a bit demotivating, since it lacks basic functionality I was used from Commlink. The last weeks I spend on improving the existing UI, worked on the assistant that allows making decisions for modules (for you Shadowrun players: think lifepath modules) and implemented first elements of character generation. You can find some screenshots in this post.

I also reached one important goal that benefits Commlink as well: I managed to write a installable starter that also allows updating the application and by that eleminating the need to reinstall it again every time.  Unlike Genesis you won't need different starters for Stable and Beta versions, but can decide everytime you start the application.
As with a lot of things I am not visually satisfied by it, but it is sufficient for the moment.

Code Camp

This month Anja and me will be on vacation in a summer house at the sea in Denmark again. We do this every year and that is where Genesis started 9 years ago. The rented houses vary every year, but for next year we already rented the exact house where it all started.

Looking at the fjord (Okay, too bright outside - you cannot see it)

We are planning on redesigning the PDF export for Splittermond - if you have specific ideas, let us know in the comments or on Discord.

Shadowrun and others

I managed to squeeze an update release for Commlink between my Mondtor work in August.

The "Firing Squad" Roll20 module which I provided with data from my database should be released "soonish".

Pegasus Press is working on an updated version of "Sprawl Sites" (in german only, name is "Neo Asphaltdschungel"). I helped by providing 6e versions of the old archetypes. AAS was busy making new illustrations for everything over several months, designing battlemaps for 70 locations and such. I think the book will be great and I am a bit proud I helped at least a bit.
Having finished working on this book, AAS started working on commissions again and will hopefully start with the Infected soon.

I also got my Splittermond adventure module back for another round of editing, finished that and sent it back to the publisher.

And because I needed a "change  of scenery" I invested some time on writing a plot idea generator for Cyberpunk adventures (mission tag generator), based upon the "Cities Without Numbers" rulebook tools. Nothing releaseworthy, but perhaps if I find the time to explore how to make it a bit more useful for Shadowrun, this could be a thing.

Discord

I made some changes to the Discord server by renaming and adding channels that can only be accessed by having specific roles. There is a greeting/configuration page, where you can selected which topics(=roles) you are intested in. That way I don't need to use @everyone when I want to notify members for specific topics.

How many people are interested in a topic. Interesting fact: there are 700+ members on the server, but 20% of them have already selected roles.

If you are not on our Discord server yet, you can join here: https://discord.gg/RUrdjVwyxp 

That's it for now. I hope to have some pics more to show next month and will likely have some updates from our code camp on Discord.