National Novel Writing Month
National Game Design month
It's a writing exercise.
NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing "competition" where you challenge yourself to write a 50K book in the thirty days of November. There's a web site and forum where people share and support and try to drag each other through the month. Winning entails completing the 50K. That's about it really. I did it last year and "won", although the book produced was very much "book one - part one" and very much a draft.
NaGaDeMon is the game-centric version. I don't think it's affiliated though.
Thanks guys. I was getting the basic idea from the conversation, but wasn't clear on the format and structure of the exercise.
I'd love to be part of a collaborative project like this. I think a great way to approach a collaborative Ars project would be to look at some of the ideas that have proposed on various threads recently that many seems interested in, but that those folks intimate with the company have stated are extremely unlikely to get the full book treatment, do to lack of sufficient projected sales.
If the group hasn't yet settled on a framework for the project, much as I like the "cities" idea, may I suggest the "regiones" idea proposed on the "ars books suggestions" thread?
And once we settle on an idea, is it "cheating" to start researching and working now?
I thought the loose framework was "The Roman Tribunal Revisited", not specifically "Cities of the Roman Tribunal", or even cities for that matter. You could certainly do regiones of the revisited Roman Tribunal.
We aren't going to have time to cross-check and cross-reference each others' work. It's going to be a mad dash just to post something everyday. At least it was from me, and I bagged out before November's end.
Maybe coordinating the effort is too grandiose an idea. Maybe we should declare what we want to write and then see if there is some common thread we can pull together. Maybe we just should try not to step on anyone else's toes. If humboldtscott wants to write a regio a day, then I won't. Someone else suggested a Verditius item a day - a grand idea - so I'll shy away from that, too.
Right now I don't know what I want to do, although I want to do something. (Story of my life.) I'm committed to projects until mid October, at which point I'll decide what I want to do, probably based on what others are doing and if anyone comes up with a workable loose framework idea. If I have a brilliant idea I'll share it with the group. Currently, I don't. I don't even have a bad idea for a combined loose effort.
Matt Ryan
Nope. NaNo rules: you can do all the research, plotting, pre-planning you want before you begin...you can even sketch out some scenes and do character development. But any words written before the clock strikes midnight on Hallowe'en don't count toward your 50k.
If people take the Italy book project seriously, an idea could be the "each one does one area" approach. What would need to be coordinated is what covenants are around and a rough sketch of them all, so people can cross reference the covenants in their area to the covenants in other parts of the book with major affinities and antagonists across the tribunal. Major areas I can think off:
- Corsica and Sardinia (Verdi)
- Sicily (Palermo! Syracuse! Messina! Etna!)
- Kingdom of Naples (Naples, Magvillus, Salerno and the amalfi coast, Vesuvius and Pompei)
- The Papal States (Rome, Vardian's tomb, stiff official IIRC as per HOH:S)
- Milan & Lombardy (Harco)
- Genoa
- Firenze (Florence) and maybe Pisa
- Pisa and Siena as a potential minor area?
- Bologna
- Venice & Padova (keep the hermetic free city?).
And you can always put there the issue of Trieste, a hard fought contest of tribunal ownership.
So quite some stuff in your dish 
In fact, I think it could work. Either as a NaGaDeMon project or as a Sub Rosa special feature. And of course then we will have the official Rome book in 2 years time and it will all go down the sink, but hey
Just some random ideas.
Cheers,
Xavi
Salerno and the Amalfi coast!
Sounds like you want to do the part on Naples and environs? 
Edited the previous message to include your (very relevant) references.
Part of me wants to, but then I'm pretty busy with playing and running sagas. If I were doing a Rome saga, I think I'd want to base a covenant here.
I'm still grokking how this whole thing works, so don't let my comments dictate the flow...
But I like anything involving islands and seafaring, so I'd be happy to take on one or more islands and/or the aquatic environment in one or more of the seas around Italy.
Yes, I think any large project like a tribunal could be tackled by divying up the project into parts. In this case geographically seems logical.
That's the only bummer with this idea for me. If I'm going to put major effort into a collaborative project pumping out a lot of ArM5 fan content for the community, I'd rather it NOT be something that becomes irrelevant a short time later (that's only 8 seasons away, after all, and this project sounds like it would be my seasonal activity for the fall.)
I'm not sure it would become irrelevant, although I do take your point.
I would say embrace the challenge, enjoy the experience, and be proud of what you get out of the process. And you never know who might be taking note of promising work.
bumping the topic as we're only 16 days away from November. I have decided I will do "a Verditius item a day" and have some decent ideas waiting to be written up and given full levels for, so I should make it at least half way this year. I had a couple of ideas which wouldn't actually make a large contribution, but could form something but those can wait.
I need a muttley icon. 
Have been thinking along the same lines.
OK. In true Verditius fashion, shall we go for the full one-up-manship version of the vendetta?
(Where we try to outdo each other's previous day?) 
K.
This may be the three days of no sleep (insomnia), but i now have the idea of two verdi with the virtue that lets you cast using a mundane activity as the W&G...
"Let the Verditius item-off commence!"
Waaay too many bad youtube dance off videos in the last few days.
K.
Maybe if I get ambitious, I'll post a Sanctum Trap of the Day in November.... 
I'm having trouble getting myself into the right place mentally to write...a bit of medical stuff, some work stuff, nothing big but enough to knock me off kilter.
I have an adventure set near Naples, but I don't want to steal Naples from someone else who wants it. Then again, if two of us did do Naples, a person wanting to write up a game there could just go "Oh, Christmas!" and steal from both sets of data.
I might have to pass. I've got a few other writing commitments at the moment, and one is proving especially persnickety. I'd rather spend time on a commitment I've already made than start a new commitment and drive myself batsh*t when I don't hit either goal. There is a chance that my persnickety knot will smooth out in the next few days; I'll have to see before climbing aboard.
Matt Ryan