When I was working as a Systems Analyst, there was something we called the ten-to-one rule. If you divided the lifespan of the entire project up into seperate stages – concept/requirements, design, construction, and testing/bug-fixing/approval – every extra day that you spent getting an early stage right saved you ten days in the next step, every hour was ten hours saved, and so on. Like most rules of thumb, it’s not completely accurate, but close enough to be a guide to behaviour; I worked on some projects where the ratio was four or five to one (because they were simple) and some where the ratio was twenty or fourty to one (because they were very complicated, or sensitive to change, or mission-critical and HAD to be right). I have long suspected that the same concept holds more-or-less true in all fields of human endeavour – in motor racing, the equivalent is ‘you make your own luck’. Obviously, it also holds for blog design, especially when the blog isn’t to be used as a blog, but as a campaign planning tool.

I tried WordPress for my 4E campaign as a GM tool. I did not plan the categories and tags well, and soon after starting it I switched back to MyInfo. Love your ideas though, and with another year of blogging under my belt I know to do things a bit differently as well.

I also give a thumbs up to using Eureka as a PC background tool. Awesome idea.

I think it’s really cool that you and Johnn both used the book in different ways, and perhaps in different ways than most readers will. You both built on two of Eureka’s core themes, inspiration and the toolkit approach, and created some excellent tools.

I, too, hadn’t considered using Eureka plots as character background seeds, and I think that’s an awesome idea. Consider it yoinked. ;-)
Martin Ralya recently posted..Eureka is now available for preorder in our online store-

I would never have thought of using the plots as background for PCs– that’s an inspiring way to have characters that feel experienced from their first day in play.

Thanks for taking the time to review the book, and even more for taking the time to delve deeper and figure out what makes it tick!