I had been working on something for a while (ever since one of our backers suggested it to me via our message boards) and I planned to have it finished by now, but unfortunately I came down with a nasty upper respiratory infection a couple of weeks back and I’m only just now recovering enough to get any serious work done. (Upon realizing we’d both caught the same thing about a week apart, fellow game designer Owen K. C. Stephens — who lives just a little ways north in Oklahoma — dubbed it “Southwestern Designer’s Fever,” and I hope the name catches on.)

Now that I’m back in the saddle, I’m hoping to finish a beta version of “e20 Lite,” a short document that will be available as a free PDF download. The goal is to provide a very basic preview of what I have in mind for the e20 System so you can see some of the ideas in action. It should provide enough information that you can see what a 1st-level character might look like (e.g. a sample of talents available at 1st level for each class), a handful of sample equipment, enhancements, and opponents, and some very preliminary glimpses of how the mechanics are adapted to different genres.

With any luck, I’ll be able to pick up the pace and have the beta version of “e20 Lite” available by March 1st, giving patrons and any other interested parties a full two weeks to look it over before the March 15th fund-raising deadline.