Happy 40th, D&D!

Today is, as declared by Jon Peterson of Playing at the World, the 40th birthday of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s impossible for me to say how much this game changed my life and set me on the path to my career, but the best part about that is how many people I know that can say the same thing. For that, I owe a great deal to its creators: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, along with the team of brave creative souls who joined them to help bring their game to the world.

IMG_4540Jon has a great video called “A History of D&D in 12 Treasures,” which reveals a lot of the background behind how D&D came to be. It’s well worth the watch. In that same vein, I thought I’d share some images from my own Players Handbook for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 

The Players Handbook became a great treasure of my childhood, and I brought it to my first ever convention, which was held in my hometown at Beloit College back in 1982. My friends and I played in a D&D tournament and somehow managed to win it. (While you can’t really win a D&D game at home, you could manage to triumph in a convention tournament by doing better than the other teams of players.)

I met Gary there for the first time, and he signed my book, as you can see. As our prizes for winning the tournament, my friends and I won memberships in the fledgling Roleplaying Gamers Association (RPGA), which came with a subscription to the Polyhedron magazine. (Polyhedron #9 saw my first published game design work: a gadget I designed for a Top Secret RPG contest, which came in as a runner-up.)

IMG_4539I brought that same Players Handbook to my first Gen Con (XV, later in 1982) and hunted down more autographs for it. Jake Jaquet, then editor of Dragon magazine, signed it on the title page too. But the list of names on the frontispiece (which was just a blank page before the title page) is even more amazing. It includes an all-star cast:

(There’s another one there below Phil’s, and for the life of me, I can’t make out who it’s from. If you have any idea, please let me know!)

It stuns me that many of those names–the ones that stuck with the industry, at least–are now my peers, and I’m honored to call at least a few of them friends. I’ve had a wonderful, lucky run as a creator myself, and games and the people who make them have been a huge part of that.

I turned fourteen just before that first Gen Con of mine, and I’ve kept going ever since. I had my first booth at Gen Con, selling a fanzine called The Quill and Scroll, when I was seventeen, and this summer will be my 33rd year in a row. It’s my favorite time of year: a family reunion, summer camp, and marathon of fun all rolled into one.

(Pre-registration for Gen Con badges opens today, by the way. Grab yours before they sell out, and join me there!)

I could–and maybe should–write a book about how D&D has changed the world in just four decades. It created a new art form and a new way of thinking about entertainment that will outlast every one of us. It’s seeped into just about every part of our lives, whether we realize it or not.

And it’s so much fun.

Happy birthday, D&D! And thanks to Dave, Gary, and all the other wonderful people who made you, continue to create (and recreate!) and play you–and the multitude of games inspired by you–to this day.

D&D and More for eBay

Late last year, I hauled a few boxes of things out of my father’s attic and discovered a whole horde of gaming treasures. My eldest son, Marty, is now putting many of them up on eBay for me a few at a time. While some of them have sentimental or historical value, if I didn’t miss them for the ten years or more they were in storage, I don’t think I’ll miss them much now, and I’d love for them to find homes with people who will treasure them.

The latest batch includes a Fiend Folio, Monster Manual II, Dark Sun: Dragon Kings, and Unearthed Arcana for Dungeons & Dragons, plus a Deadlands book and the core rules for The Babylon Project. If there’s anything that strikes your fancy, make a bid, and keep your eyes peeled for more fun stuff soon. 

Quick Bundle of Holding Encore

27R03Novels-MontageYou might recall that the Bundle of Holding ran an encore presentation of the original deal back at the start of the year. Two weeks later, they’ve now brought the Bundle of Holding +3 back too. This includes a number of fantastic stories by game designers, and it includes my own Dangerous Games: How to Play. This bundle expires at the end of the day, so be sure to check it out now and grab it fast.

If you’ve been following me for a while–or if you backed the Dangerous Games Kickstarter, or grabbed this bundle the first time around–you may already have a copy of How to Play. Since all the books in any Bundle of Holding are DRM-free, you have my blessing to give that extra copy away to a friend. Share the love!

To sweeten the pot, if you do that, be sure to let me know about it. Just drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com, and I’ll send you a code to download a copy of the second Dangerous Games novel–How to Cheat–for free. If you want to tag me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me who you gave the book to, that would be even better, but don’t put yourself out if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Either way, the offer stands until the end of January 17, 2014, so don’t wait too long. 

As a reminder, the Bundle of Holding +3 features:

That’s a lot of reading for not much cash, and better yet, a portion of the proceeds goes to two organizations that promote freedom of speech: PEN International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Ironic bit of trivia: Allen Varney – the man behind the Bundle of Holding – is also a murder victim in Dangerous Games: How to Play. He not only agreed to have his fictional self get killed but then helped revise those bits to make sure I did it right. Here’s what he has to say about the book:

“In How to Play, Matt Forbeck writes a blood-soaked love letter to Gen Con and the roleplaying hobby. If you enjoy seeing famous game designers brutally slaughtered (and who doesn’t?), Dangerous Games is your victory condition.”

– Allen Varney, with the Lead Pipe in the Dealer’s Room

The Bundle of Holding Strikes Back

24R01Original-MontageAllen Varney launched the first Bundle of Holding earlier this year, featuring a bundle of novels and fiction collections written by renowned game designers. I helped him out with executing his ideas, even going so far as to run some of the payments systems through my own accounts until he could get his business banking properly set up. The whole thing launched in February and ran through March, ending while I was still in Shanghai (working on an iOS game for Ubisoft).

It did all right, but Allen worked hard and set up several more bundles. Some of these featured novels again, but others included packs of indie roleplaying games that sold even better than the fiction. Each time he launched a bundle, he studied the results to see what went well and what went wrong, and he devised ways to improve it all, dressing up the site better, polishing the backend, and turning it all into a well-oiled machine.

Now, less than a year later, Allen has a fantastic site that’s built a wonderful reputation for delivering excellent entertainment at phenomenal prices. And to celebrate that, he’s now offering a revamped version of the original Bundle of Holding once more. If you missed out on it last time around, here’s your chance to get stories by:

Go stop by the site and snap up that bargain. You get some of the books for the low price of $4.95, and you snag the rest of them if you beat the average price. The prices tend to go up as the drive goes on, so get in as early as you can. The deal ends on January 2, 2014.

My book in the bundle is Hard Times in Dragon City, the first in my Shotguns & Sorcery series. Coincidentally, I have that book (as well as Brave New World: Revolution and Dangerous Games: How to Play) on sale for only 99¢. 

Because of that, I understand if you already have a copy of Hard Times in Dragon City. Still, I want you to be able to grab this bundle and feel like you got your money’s worth. Since all the books in any Bundle of Holding are DRM-free, you have my blessing to give that extra copy away to a friend in the spirit of the holiday season.

To sweeten the pot, if you do that, let me know about it. Just drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com, and I’ll send you a code to download a copy of the second Shotguns & Sorcery novel–Bad Times in Dragon City–for free. If you want to tag me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me who you gave the book to, that would be even better, but don’t put yourself out if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Either way, the offer stands until the end of January 2, 2014, so don’t wait too long. 

I’ll warn you now though. Bad Times ends in a bit of a cliffhanger. You read that, and you’re going to want to grab End Times in Dragon City soon after. But that’s a fine problem to have, and I hope it helps you have a Happy New Year!

The Great Heffalump Exchange

Earlier this week, my pal Mike Selinker–the head of Lone Shark Games–asked a bunch of the people he regularly works with to join him in a holiday gift swap, something often called a white elephant exchange. Being Mike, he had a few twists on it.

  1. Since few of us live in the same city, we’d do the exchange virtually.
  2. Since this was short notice and meant for fun, we’d trade imaginary gifts, things we made up that didn’t cost us a thing.
  3. We’d do it in public, on Twitter.

He called it the First Possibly Annual Lone Shark Games White Heffalump Exchange. Mike explains it pretty well here:

Read More

My Holiday Sale

Since we’re stampeding toward the year’s grand finale,  I want to do something to thank all of you for your support in 2013. In the spirit of the season, I just put the #1 books in each of my three trilogies on sale for 80% off. Until the end of the year–or whenever I recover from New Year’s Eve–you can grab each of them for only 99¢!

To get that price, you can buy them direct from me here, at DriveThruFiction.com, or at Amazon (click on the covers below). Each of these books stands alone and make for a satisfying read on its own, although if you like them, be sure to check out the others in the series too. Thanks!

BNW-Revolution-Standard-Edition-Amazon-cover   Hard-Times-Cover   DG-How-to-Play

Happy holidays to you all! And here’s to a fantastic 2014!

Monster Academy 1 Finished!

This week, I put the finishing touches on the first Monster Academy novel, I Will Not Eat People. This is for the last of the four 12 for ’12 Kickstarters I ran, and I’m finally getting around to shoving it out the door. (See the previous two posts for some of the reasons why.) My backers should start getting ebooks this week, and hard copies should arrive in their hands before the end of January if all goes well with the proofs and the printer.

After that, I’ll release the book for the rest of the world to read. I’m planning on that happening in February, and you should be able to get it through all your favorite ebook retailers, with print copies available through DriveThruFiction.com soon after too. To whet your appetite, here’s the wraparound cover.

MA1-Perfect

Read More

My-My-My-My-My-My Glaucoma

As I’ve mentioned, I was diagnosed with glaucoma back on October 30 of this year. I get a lot of questions about it, so I want to try to answer some of them here. Glaucoma.org is a fine place to dig a little deeper if you’re curious about it.

Glaucoma is a disease of the eye that usually involves an increase of the intraocular pressure. This pressure builds up over time and can damage the optic nerve. It happens slowly enough–and creeps in from the edges of your field of vision–that most people don’t notice it until it’s too late. By that time, you’ve already lost a good chunk of your vision. This is why the disease is called “the silent thief.”

Read More

Rest in Peace, Pat Kolinsky

Just yesterday, I finally sent out the files for Monster Academy: I Will Not Eat People, the first book in the trilogy. I’m running late on the series, of course, but my backers have been kind and patient about it. A good chunk of the delays came down to me having an overwhelming amount of work on my plate this year, including the new edition of the Marvel Encyclopedia coming out from DK on St. Patrick’s Day of 2014, as well as a pair of trips to Shanghai to work on a couple of iOS games for Ubisoft.

Some more personal issues cropped up. Notably I was diagnosed with glaucoma, and my father-in-law died. I haven’t written about these yet because I’ve been too busy dealing with the fallout, but now it’s time.

Let me take those in order of greatest importance.

Read More

Crossover Day!

As you may recall from last year, my pals at Zombie Orpheus ran a huge Kickstarter for their fantastic film The Gamers: Hands of Fate, which is mostly set at Gen Con, my favorite event of the year. As part of that, they asked me if I’d be interested setting up a crossover between the movie and my then-upcoming Gen Con thriller, Dangerous Games: How to Play. 

Right after I was through doing my happy dance, I said yes.

Since then, the film has been released to backers and has racked up the rave reviews. The Zombie Orpheus folks have also started to release the extended edition for free on YouTube, one bit at a time. Today, they released the episode in which Leo Lamb walks out of the film and into Dangerous Games: How to Play.

Better yet, Scott C. Brown, the actor who plays Leo, reads aloud the piece in which Leo appears in the book–and makes a horrifying discovery.

How cool is that? Better yet, you can watch the whole film online for only $10. And! You can still grab Dangerous Games: How to Play for only 99¢ for the Kindle. For now.

Many thanks to Scott Brown, Ben Dobyns, Matt Vancil, and the rest of the crew at Zombie Orpheus for making this happen.

Go, watch, listen, read, enjoy. 🙂