Cliff Hanger!!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 08:20:28 AM

It is November 1940 and a small Section D team is in Nazi occupied northern France. Former Royal Marine William Hopewell, Archaeologist Arthur Schimm and defected Russian spy  Anya Valtaya, are meeting resistance leader Axelle Grise in a remote farmyard near Amiens. Their mission, to investigate a newly constructed German airfield a few miles away.

Suddenly, the stillness of the night is shattered as the farmyard comes alive with the sounds of diesel engines and shouting soldiers. Abruptly, a voice comes over a loud hailer, speaking in English but with a heavy German accent. “We have you surrounded. Come quietly and there is no need for trouble.” Arthur opens the door of the farmhouse to find half a company of Panzergrenadiers surrounding the farm. That’s about 120 heavily armed troops, plus vehicles. They can’t fight their way out of this one.

Cliff Hanger!

I love play testing! It's great when a group of players gets to experience the Section D setting for the first time and really love it. It's also great when those players give honest feedback about an adventure and even better when they've really enjoyed it. This happened a week or so ago when I ran the adventure I plan to include in the book, The Shopping Basket of the Gods. It's a loose follow on from Trouble in Tripoli, the adventure in the Taster Edition, and sees the Section D agents reacquaint themselves with an old enemy.  

The honest feedback I received was that the opening scene didn't flow very well. OK, I can take that. I've tried it a few different ways, pitch battle, flashbacks etc but still hadn't nailed down a balanced way to make it work. So after a discussion with the players, I had an idea, and set about creating some new Setting Rules for running Cliff Hanger situations. 

Cliff Hangers are a staple of the Pulp genre and always involve a set back for the heroes followed by some sort ingenious or miraculous escape. The heroes always seem to come out of those situations slightly better off as well, often due to a villain's monologue. So I came up with a simple set of conditions allowing GMs to set a Cliff Hanger as a scene, which the players then resolve using narration backed up with existing Savage Worlds tools. 

GMs will find the new Cliff Hanger rules an excellent tool for driving plots along, introducing bad guys and injecting some urgency into an adventure. Players will, I believe, find the rules to be good fun with great opportunities to role play, earn rewards and clues to solving the adventure. Yes there's a set back in there as well, but isn't that just an occupational hazard for a pulp adventurer?

Stay safe folks, and happy gaming,

Allan.

Delivery update
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 09:09:32 PM

Hi everybody,

Those of you who backed this project know that I originally intended to deliver the core book for The Secret Files of Section D in June of 2021. I'm sorry to say that this cannot be the case and there will be a delay in getting your backer rewards to you. 

Generally speaking, I am not a person who gives or accepts excuses and I am not going to start now. There is a difference between excuses and reasons though and I would like to explain why there is a delay in you fantastic people receiving your rewards. 

Firstly, as a lot of you know, Imaginarium Games is basically just me. I am well supported by some great people for art, play testing, proof reading etc but I am responsible for pretty much everything else. The Secret Files of Section D is my first commercial project and I totally underestimated the time required to do all the things I want to do to make this a great product. As it stands, there are a couple of sections to finish in terms of writing and editing, one of the processes I underestimated time wise. I'll say with absolute honesty that I have revisited some of the stuff I wrote a long time ago that is now not fit for purpose as other parts of the book have evolved. So as well as editing, extensive re-writes have also happened. I've also added some pretty cool stuff that wasn't in the original plan. 

In the spirit of complete honesty, the impact of the Covid pandemic has affected my work rate. I found myself home schooling an eight / nine year old little girl while the schools here in the UK were closed for many months. It's distracting at best and totally consumes your day much of the time. I now have an extra level of respect for all teachers! 

And then there is my favourite subject of Brexit. I have absolutely no intention of making this update a political rant but I am going to say that I was against the UK leaving the EU and it has caused problems. Suffice to say though that I have extremely high confidence in my distribution partner and I know they have taken great steps to ensure all customers get the best possible deal. 

So here's the bottom line:

I expect to have the PDF of The Secret Files of Section D ready for release by the end of July 2021. When it's done, I'll release the PDF to all backers but I will be holding off on ordering the print run until we know for sure there are no issues with the book. Let's be honest, sometimes it's the customer who spots the typos and it's always a customer who asks for a new rule to be clarified etc. I'm working on two weeks for spotting any issues that proof reading and editing might have missed, or rules that need tweaking, and correcting them. That puts us ordering the print run for the hardbacks in mid August and I am told by my supplier that the lead time is six weeks from order to receipt at the distributors warehouse. So distribution of the hardbacks will commence at the end of September or early October. 

Stretch goal PDFs will follow quickly once the main book PDF is complete. The promised adventures are all written and much of the artwork and maps already done. Further play testing is now ongoing for the adventures and those backers who are due to have NPCs with their likeness in the Better Latte Than Never trilogy will be contacted soon. 

The Backerkit pledge manager will be launched when the PDF is ready and we are certain that no further import / export surprises await us. 

I know I'm likely to draw some criticism and scepticism from some backers for this, all I can do is apologise and promise that I am working hard to get an awesome product out to you guys. I want to be honest and also realistic about when things will happen. Better to do that with a longer timeframe than multiple short delay messages in my opinion.

Should you feel the need to contact me directly on this, please feel free to message me via Kickstarter, the Section D Facebook page or the new Section D Headquarters server on Discord: https://discord.com/channels/851033258712104981/851033258712104984

I really hope that you lovely folks appreciate my honesty and I thank you for your patience. 

Allan.

Invite to the Section D Discord server
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 01:37:09 PM

Hi guys,

It looks like I've made a rookie error with the link to the new Discord channel I put out yesterday. Those of you who are interested should be able to join the server using this invite link:

 https://discord.gg/5hzj7Djy 

I look forward to seeing you there. 

Allan.

Playtesting
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 03:12:52 PM

Better Latte Than Never gets bigger!

What a few weeks we've had!

Independent playtest sessions on Better Latte Than Never generated some great feedback. The result of which is that the adventure now has two play modes for the first act and it's all a lot tighter. I also had great fun writing a new prologue so GMs know exactly what's gone on before the action starts. New artwork is being created as well. Fun times.

Now it's on to the adventure that will ultimately end up in the book and is a follow on from Trouble in Tripoli from the Taster Edition. I have a full house of players for it for SavageCon on Saturday.

What would you do with The Shopping Basket of the Gods?

Happy gaming folks!!

Allan.

Section D Backerkit launch timing.
almost 5 years ago – Wed, May 12, 2021 at 03:45:51 PM

Hi all,

This is a very quick update regarding the backerkit / preorder system for The Secret Files of Section D. 

A few people have asked when this will be launched and the simple answer is, I'm not sure just now. 

As I'm sure many of you have seen, the UK's exit from the EU has caused issues with deliveries, taxation and customs hold ups and this effects us because our print partner is an EU company and there are EU backers as well.

I want to reassure all backers that our fulfilment partner is working very hard to make sure we do everything correctly and within the new legislation. What this means is that until things are all sorted out, we won't have exact costs for shipping. The last thing I want is to overcharge, or indeed be left short when the time comes.  

On that basis, the backerkit will only launch when we are absolutely confident that, no matter where you are, shipping charges are accurate, fair and without any nasty surprises. Hopefully, this won't be too much longer. 

Take care and happy gaming,

Allan.