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Dead Inside, 2nd Edition
Posted on January 5, 2012 | Make a CommentHey, long time no LJ post! Anywho...For those of you who don't follow Twitter, I've started brainstorming ideas for a new edition of Dead Inside (my first RPG) with a group of folks I've dubbed "the Utter Bastards" because they finally convinced me, ki... -
Writer’s Dice Prototype Ordered
Posted on October 14, 2011 | Make a CommentYou've heard me talk about Writer's Dice before, but I decided this week I'd bite the bullet and launch a Kickstarter in November, hopefully with enough time to ship out the dice in time for the holidays.Above is the design for the prototype. As you ca... -
Evil Acts DVD Extra!
Posted on September 6, 2011 | Make a CommentIn the interests of wordcount, page length, and not overwhelming GMs with too much information, here's some material that got cut from the free Evil Acts scenario for The Dresden Files RPG. This of this as sort of a "DVD extra"!Something Wicked This Wa... -
Chadtoberfest 40 Redux
Posted on August 10, 2011 | Make a CommentSo, as an update to my post on Chadtoberfest 40, I do know what I'll be doing for my birthday. . .Working.This month, I'm behind on bills, so I've been scrambling for more freelance work (my existing gaming-freelance gig and online game sales really wo... -
Boned
Posted on May 25, 2010 | Make a CommentOriginally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there.
So, The Bones. It’s a fitting follow-up to Things We Think About Games from the Gameplaywright gents, in the sense that it’s about gamers looking at the games they play. Honestly there aren’t enough books of that sort in the world (though Green Ronin’s 100 Best series offers fine entries to the form). This time around, The Bones gives us more heft: six in-depth articles including “A Random History of Dice” by Kenneth Hite, and 19 essays, one of which is mine, in which I talk about how playing diceless for years made me love them bones. (Added bonus: the table of contents is a set of random-roll tables. Surprise yourself! Let the dice tell you which essay to read!)I bring this up because the special-edition hardcover is available for pre-ordering right now. It’ll stay available to order until June 6th or until they hit about 100 copies ordered, whichever comes first (which for all I know could come fast). The special-edition is being printed to order, come June. It’s available only direct through the Gameplaywright folks, and costs $27 + shipping. As an added benefit, folks who preorder the hardcover will get the PDF within 24 hours of placing the order. Details and purchase widgetry to be found hyunh: http://gameplaywright.net/?page_id=958
If you’d rather wait (why? why?!) then no worries — hang around a while and wait for the softcover edition to go on sale. I’ll holler atcha when it does.
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Mechaphor
Posted on January 15, 2010 | Make a CommentMechaphor noun. A game mechanic acting as a metaphor for a concept in your game's setting, philosophy or general theme. Example: In Space: 1889, the system uses cards instead of dice because cards are a sign of more civilized culture than the thuggish... -
[Do] Coming in for a Landing
Posted on December 31, 2009 | Make a CommentI just submitted Do to Ryan Macklin's editorial wizardry. The writing portion of this project is now mostly out of my hands for the next few months. Here's the letter I sent out to the Evil Hat crew explaining the voice of the text and some other aspe... -
[Do] Sniffles. Boo.
Posted on December 28, 2009 | Make a CommentRemember that scene in Neverending Story where Atreyu's slogging through the swamp and his horse drowns from sadness? That's what my sinuses feel like right now. I came down with some kind of sniffly bug during the holiday weekend. That means the four... -
[Do] The Naming
Posted on December 9, 2009 | Make a CommentAt a whopping 100,000+ words, the unedited playable draft of Do is complete and can be found on Google Docs at here and here. In other words, the setting chapter, character creation chapter, how-to-play chapter, and a healthy chunk of the play advice ... -
[Do] Words and Arts
Posted on December 2, 2009 | Make a Comment
It's amazing how much you can get done when you're on vacation. We're up to 87,928 words, folks. Mostly finishing up examples of play on Step 5b and creating more consistent formatting for Steps 5c and 5d.
The word count would have probably been higher, but yours truly thought it was a good idea to pre-fill examples of play with Lorem Ipsum text. Deleting that filler copy made a word-deficit that had to be overcome first. So though I probably wrote about 3000-4000 words today, it only raised the word count by half that much. No worries, still making progress. Every 100 words in this draft translates to one good word in the final cut.
Oh! In other news, Liz Hooper is working on another art for the book. She wanted more opportunity for faces, so I broadly outlined this crude sketch for a "Big Heads" movie poster treatment. I doubt it helps her, but makes me feel useful. :P
(Click link for annotations describing what's happening in these chicken scratches.)
Speaking of arts, I guess once I send this beast of a draft to Ryan, it will be time to get back to work on that long-delayed cover. Remember that?
Oh yeah, definitely looking forward to this.
