Project Tome of Heroes - WIP

[Doaheem]

So! TL;DR at bottom you lazy bastages

 

I've been meaning to put this up for a long time but quite frankly had been a bit nervous about it since I didn't want to try and fail but screw that. That's what being a Hero is all about.

 

Inspiration!

I was playing Skyrim and Morrowind one day after reading through a few blog posts from NF about Real Life Roleplaying and Character Classes among other things and my mind created a sweet link. I'd always liked the idea of playing a hero in the video game setting doing epic things: Masterchief stopping the Covenant, Snake preventing countless wars, Ramirez Doing Everything, and, of couse, the Dragonborn saving the world. Thankfully there isn't a genocidal alien alliance trying to kill us, or numerous nuclear robots trying to blow everything up, or annoying sergeants telling us to do everything. . . and that's kinda where my point is coming from. There isn't necessarily an obvious great quest being shoved onto us from some old dude in a robe with way too much time on his hands. There really isn't a rite of passage for most of us and for me personally the only difference between being a Teen and an adult has been the readily available quantity of alcohol and a lot less time on my hands with work. . . so that kinda blows.

 

So Doug! What are you trying to say? Sounds pretty bleak!

 

To which I say how do you know my name!? *Ahem* Not at all because that's where I'm coming in!

 

The idea I had spawned from the sweet tracking system that the Elder Scrolls games use. A dedicated collection of screens to track your Gods, blessing, characteristic development, skill progression, current quests, and a journal of events. Everything about your character is right there readily available showing your progress and what your aspiring towards (Oh only 10 more one-handed skill before I can whatever!). I've seen guys at the gym toting around three ring binders stuffed beyond the brink with workout journals including the proper technique and form for each exercise, I've seen nerds like me at a table with a small book worth of character development to play out their level 12 paladin.

 

Why not you and me?

 

Now this is the good part.

 

My idea was to create a focal point for a persons day. A 'tome' composed of Heroes for the aspiring to become more than they are so that they can slay the dragon of losing x pounds, gaining x muscle, learning x skills, developing x habits, and ultimately living a more awesome Heroic life. This is accomplished by combining multiple elements from workout journals, and RPGS both digital and pencil/paper (and maybe more!) to give a person a really sweet central point of reference to track the progress of their own Heroic aspirations.

 

I had this idea before joining the forums and after seeing multiple topics on the matter here joined to learn, share, and participate in this community. Fortunately some people (Thanks Teros and Leeroy!) have been kind enough to point out similar things in place right now such as Fitocracy, Habit RPG, Super Better and other things designed to track progress with nerdy inspiration. I like to think my idea is a bit more unique and will gladly draw on them for more inspiration and ideas.

 

This will be not be for sale, when I sat down and decided to do this I realized it's born from nerds, for nerds, and nerds embody freeware. I will post progress here as it goes on and will ultimately share the final product here with you all (which may be a looooong time)

 

If anyone wishes to ask questions or offer assistance I've followed this topic and will check it regularly. Futher a direct line for me would probably be Skype since I'm always seemingly logged in at zhnthebox.

 

 

 

TL:DR

I'm making a Tome of Heroes that I hope will be a focal point of reference for personal development and growth in all areas of life. Not a guide to do it mind you, more of a tracking system so you can say "I gained a point in Speak Language:Spanish today!" or things like that.

 

Thank you for bearing through my ramblings!

Douglas

[Teros]

Thankfully there isn't a genocidal alien alliance trying to kill us, or numerous nuclear robots trying to blow everything up, or annoying sergeants telling us to do everything. . .

...yet

[jaex]

...yet

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

I think this sounds pretty cool if I'm understanding correctly. To oversimplify, it would offer a nifty/badass/awesome way for those who know their goals and steps to record and catalog them, and a centralized/organized structure of suggestions for those who aren't sure of goals? The tools that currently exist are mostly about where you're going, but this would also be a way to track where you've been?

[Thom Stépan]

I like the idea. It could be a fun way to track what your doing and give you an idea of where to head next in the quest of awesome.

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

And video game-style achievements?

 

Achievement Unlocked!

Abs of Steel: Held 24 hours' worth of planks.

Abs of Mithril: Held a week's worth of planks.

Abs of Adamantium: Held a month's worth of planks. Just think about how many pylons you could have built with that time.

There and Back Again: Walked/jogged/ran 3404 miles. You have walked 500 miles and you have walked 500 more just to be the nerd who also walked the Ring all the way to Mordor.

[Doaheem]

I suppose I wanted this to be more of a way of tracking what you'd already done and a way of gauging your overall progress. For example since graduating aside from wiki hounding I haven't had much dedicated intellectual growth despite the fact I'd like to learn new hobbies and languages. It would be a way of measuring how well rounded I am at the moment and where to go from here.

 

Truthfully I'm also trying to use this to feel out the best direction and purpose to gear this toward so yeah. It's a bare package at the moment but I hope to make this something truly special.

[Steppinon D'Arrows]

Looking forward to seeing the actual finished product and considering whether I will also use it.

[Teros]

Any updates?

[Doaheem]

Truthfully not a lot. I've been seeking out people that I'm familiar with that are experienced in building pencil/paper RPGs to try to find a way to track / display progress which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had intended it to be haha. That combined with a deceased cat, a car in the shop for recalls, and a busy week at work and I'm just sitting over here trying to maintain the challenge.

[Steppinon D'Arrows]

Oh, I'm sorry about your cat.

Well, making up a new system isn't easy. All those numbers... I'm sure the people who made D&D had an equally difficult time coming up with all the rules.

[Doaheem]

OK! So I'm attempting to commit about a half hour every morning after my routine finishes to working on this and I currently am now. I'm working on the Strength section as of this moment and am going to backburn the skeleton until I can get more information to make it worthwhile. Now I'm going to have to contact one of the Warriors about this because in terms of building a workout logger I'm just in the black but I'll display what my current plans are for this section as I work it out and we'll all do this fun blast holes in it and fill it with  other shtuff.

 

Probably one of the bigger problems I've been having with this before even getting started was the problem of which attributes are necessary. I always hated RPGs with like 8 dump stats and stats that made no sense whatsoever to me. I'm sure there was some reasoning there but it never dawned on me so I'm torn in how to proceed.

 

Firstly the core attributes have been reduced to Willpower, Strength, Intelligence, Stamina, and Charisma.

 

However, It'd be somewhat easy to lump Strength and Willpower together, Intelligence and Charisma together, and Stamina last bringing us just Strength, Intelligence, and Stamina which would arguably be easier to keep straight. I'll have to come back to this later.

 

Anyway! For the individual section I decided it might be easier to start with Strength which I divided into Strength of body and Strength of Mind to encompass physical strength and strength of spirit/will. I originally had planned to have a section for every one of the core attributes first listed but a couple of the sections. . . ok just willpower I couldn't figure out what the point would be to give it it's own section.

 

---

 

Now for the actual Strength of Body section.

I had intended for this to (obviously) cover physical strength / muscle development

martial prowess (fighting prowess and skills known?)

New skills being learned in all of them

This would also be the section that would encompass a workout log.

 

The section would be preceded by a brief prelude on the topic.

 

Now another problem I've run into is that if I plan to do this like a Heroes progress then how would I gauge what a Heroes current level is? My original plan was to just declare everyone a level 1 and call it a day but my cohorts in this have wisely pointed out that that's a damn foolish idea and screws it all up. A couple of them have offered bizarre formulas for gauging leg strength and torso strength but I was REALLY trying to avoid making this that complicated. Halp?

 

---

 

Anything you guys feel like I'm forgetting or overlooking?

[Thom Stépan]

I like the idea of focussing on three primary areas. It is the whole mind, body, spirit concept. Mind being intelligence, and spirit can encompass not only religion but also meditation and strength of will. and body is pretty much obvious. 

 

Of course there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is knowing how to change a nappy, Wisdom is doing so at 3am and not getting pissed on in the process. Which can happen if you do not know what you are doing.

 

But how to gauge these things and create a system of comparative stats? On that I lack both the wisdom and the intelligence.

 

With the strength of body, one must surely have to take things like age, gender, physical limitations into account.  For example one pull up for me would be pretty bloody awesome as a fortyone year old obese male. But for a US Marine in their 20's that one pull up would be pathetic. So how to grade such things? I am not sure. Although I am aware that the US Marine Corp does have a sliding scale based on age and gender that they expect their marines to achieve. So maybe something like that could help for data. 

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

I think that trying to gauge Wisdom would be pretty difficult; you're often not sure how much of it you have until you need to use it. I would argue that Intelligence is similar. And a look at standardized testing (in America, anyway) leads me to conclude that coming up with an objective, comparative system for measuring the mental stats would be very difficult.

 

I wonder if something with percentages would work for the mental stats. Maybe have people rank themselves with the percentage of time they feel like they're utilizing their Intelligence and Wisdom. I know you're working on Strength right now, but I wanted to get that down before I forgot it.

[Teros]

I think the 3-pronged idea is best. Intelligence/Wisdom, Willpower/Consitution, Strength (Possibly endurance as well?)

 

Broken down that would be how to emotionally handle issues and also show charisma- having a positive attitude, meditation, selflessness and helping others etc.

 

Willpower/Con would be sticking with routines and always having persistence. Eating right would be categorized here.

 

Strength would be the actual workouts in terms of which strength you want. Endurance/Cardio, Heavy weights, parkour/bodyweight, or an all-around mix.

 

"A couple of them have offered bizarre formulas for gauging leg strength and torso strength but I was REALLY trying to avoid making this that complicated. Halp?"

 

Go by total amount moved in an exercise. benchmarks = a level.

 

For example, in the average workout; how much do you do lifting with your arms?  (50 pound dumbbells x 20 bicep curls = 1,000 pounds moved.)

 

Add all these up for each 'body' catagory; so the # for arms? # for Back? # for legs? # for core?  Just add it all.  That way someone that do lighter weight, but more often, can still be equal to someone that does a 5x5 workout. They're both equally strong, just in different facets.

[Shortgorilla]

If this is a thing you will be posting on the interwebs to share, and would like some drawrings, please let me know.  I can try to throw you an image maybe once a week, twice if I'm not too busy at work.  This sounds like an awesome idea. 

[Doaheem]

I come to you humbled and embarrassed. I haven't worked on this in a long time.

There's a whole gaggle of excuses to throw at you but they're just that and the point is I haven't done it.

 

A little under a month ago I started up an Alpha version for myself. It doesn't have any tracking yet or any of the great and noble ideas that were laid out. Rather it's just a 2 inch binder filled with information on a variety of topics relating to self improvement which is to say that it's actually started. I had an old like 4 inch binder that I was using and because of its sheer girth I never took it anywhere and neglected the concept but I've been carrying it everywhere with me. I'll keep you guys in the loop as things happen.

 

For the Rebellion!

Douglas

[fitnessgurl]

This. Is. Cool!!!!!

[fitnessgurl]

Ok I read over this a couple of times and here are my thoughts.

Willpower and strength of mind are related so keep willpower with strength.

Instead of intelligence and wisdom perhaps substitute scholarly pursuits?

I have more ideas but need to think about them more before posting.

[fitnessgurl]

Hi again. Not sure if this will help, but I used it to find my level when I first started NF.

http://darkfriends.fr/NFGenerator/index.php

[fitnessgurl]

Ok, I'm going to put this out there:

Sections:

1. Rituals/Routines: (excluding workouts)

Household chores, Hygiene habits, Journaling, Meditation

2. Fitness: Workout log, skills already learned, martial prowess, physical/muscular development

3. Current quest listing: compiled goal list

4. Success: set up like the Woot Room. A place to record success in any area.

5. Respawn: a place to reflect, redesign goals and start over

6. Scholarly Pursuits: to track expansion of knowledge/wisdom. Includes: Spiritual pursuits as well as academic pursuits

Please let me know what you think.

[fitnessgurl]

I wasn't sure what you meant by style; so I didn't mess with that.

[Doaheem]

I'd actually used that when I first joined! Hahaha it's a fun little program.

 

I'd been thinking on it and have kind of a working concept of where I'd like to take it. It had been tossed around earlier that a Body / Mind / Spirit setup would be simple and I'm doing that with my personal folder right now. I had envisioned it to be sort of like a professional planner in that they have sections that can be bought / used / and added independently of one another allowing for persons to use what they need and to discard the rest.

 

I'm working on the themes for each section to add to that 'a manual of heroes past' vibe and right now it's as follows.

 

---Body : The Warrior's Barracks (name in progress)

 Deals with

Physical strength

Martial arts

Diet

Willpower however that's going to be geared

 

---Mind : The Wizard's College (ditto)

Deals with

books read

languages learned

new skills being trained

knowledge and philosophy

 

 

---Spirit : NA (The Adventurer's something or other)

This is the hard one because going off the big 3 fantasy classes it should be Rogue but it encompasses more than that currently

It's sort of an Adventurer's guide covering travel, quests, religion,  meditation, success

 

So that last one is the struggle

EDIT!

 

So you've been blowing up muh thread!

 

Actually it looks fine I wouldn't change anything! At most just a reorder of sections for personal taste.

 

I wasn't aware that I did diddly in terms of explaining my existing set up.

 

Rituals / routines

I have notes regarding  daily routines that I'm trying to work on and implement, pretty self explanatory

 

Fitness - workout items, new techniques to try, journal, things like that

 

Style - Personal style with regards to clothing. I'm working on trying to create a functional minimalist wardrobe because I found that when I pare down on unnecessary things in my life that I'm generally happier and it helps me stop myself from buying something goofy like a Michael Jackson leather jacket hahaha

 

Success - quotes and stories from people like Richard Branson and Tony Robbins, systems and rituals they use that I can try to learn from

 

Finance - Honestly the most unnecessary section in my book. Covers articles on how to improve your economic wellbeing and what not.

 

[fitnessgurl]

Lol, yes, your thread is under seige! Jk. Anyway, that sounds interesting. For the Spirit section, how about Adventurer's Travelog?

What? No Michael Jackson jacket? Whaaat? Lol! Hmm, maybe do a color analysis test? See what clothing colors are best for your hair/skin tone/eye color?

[Doaheem]

This is just spitballing but maybe it'd be easier to split it slightly but keep things.

 

Body - Fighters / Rogues (strength regardless: Warriors, assassins, monks, Rangers, Scouts)

Mind - Wizards / warlocks etc remains unchanged

Spirit - Religion, meditation (perhaps druids and stuff like that)

Legacy or Destiny - where the quests, travel plans and logs, Epic Quests,   

 

Yeah I can't pull off read leather and zippers XD

Oh I meant more as in just having a small wardrobe of elements that are interchangeable and compliment one another so there are multiple ways to wear it. I'd done a bit of stuff like that before lol