Sometimes when I tell people about the 12 for ’12 challenge, they say, “Hey, that’s like doing a NaNoWriMo every month!” National Novel Writing Month is an annual challenge that writers can accept in which they try to write 50,000 words over the course of a month. It’s been happening every November since 1999, and last year over 250,000 people joined in the fun.

Since I’m planning on writing at least that much – and hopefully a lot more – this month, I figured I’d sign up this year myself. I’ll post my progress here in the sidebar so we can all follow along.

If you’re taking part too, let me know. You can even check out my page and add me as a writing buddy. We’ll have a fantastic month!

While I’m not running a Kickstarter of my own at the moment – and have no plans for one till at least the end of the year – I am involved in a few of them and am backing some others that deserve wider attention. If you want to keep up with what I’m looking at on Kickstarter, you can check out my profile there and even follow me if you like. Meanwhile, here’s an annotated list for you.

First, the drives I’m (at least) tangentially involved with:

• Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen: A fantasy roleplaying killer dungeon for use with Savage Worlds and Pathfinder. Creators working on it include my pals John Wick, Jason Engle, Jim Pavelec, and Aaron Acevedo. It’s already funded, but if it hits its $16k stretch goal, I’m writing a short story to add into the mix. Time Left: 3 days!
• IRPMUS: An improvisational roleplaying game from my friends Don Schlising and Jesse Theiler. It’s a fast and fun game with little prep time that mixes RPGs, LARPs, and improv. I’ll write the foreword for this one. Time Left: 10 days!
• Hillfolk: My pal Robin Laws’ new tabletop roleplaying game, featuring his also-new DramaSystem engine. Robin’s lined up a fantastic crew of creators to chip in alternate settings for use with the game at various stretch levels, including Jason Morningstar, Michelle Nephew, Ken Hite, TS Luikart, Jason Blair, Emily Care Boss, Chris Pramas, Rob Weiland, Steve Long, Eddy Webb, and more to come. My WW2.1 setting – time travelers stuck in the midst of World War II – has already been unlocked. Time Left: 23 days.
• One Shot: A dark roleplaying game about vengeance by Tracy Barnett. If it hits its $11k stretch goal, I’ll write a short story for a One Shot anthology including tales from Jason Blair, Jennifer Brozek, Hal Greenberg, Jess Hartley, Will Hindmarch, Josh Roby, and Ree Soesbee. Time Left: 24 days.
• Global Domination: A deck-building board game of dark futuristic warfare by my friend Dan Verssen. Think of it as a dystopian Risk with more meat to it. I wrote the stories and flavor text for this game a while back and had a blast with it. Time Left: 28 days.

And now, some cool things I have nothing to do with:

• The Coriolis Defect: A time-travel roleplaying game by Jay Little. You actually get to rewind your actions in the middle of a game and try again. Time Left: Ends today!
• Six Guns Lasers: A supplement for the Twilight Sector campaign for Traveller. Time Left: 2 days!
• 12 Days: A beautiful holiday-themed card game designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker and published by Boyan Radakovich, all pals. Time Left: 3 days!
• Project Eternity: A video game roleplaying game from Obsidian, the folks behind Fallout: New Vegas and many other excellent games. My friend Chris Avellone’s one of the designers and is writing a novella for this. It’s up over $2.5 million already. Time Left: 5 days!
• Beyond the Sun: A science-fiction anthology edited by my friend Brian Thomas Schmidt, featuring stories from Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and a host of other excellent authors. Time Left: 7 days!
• GoldieBlox: An engineering toy for girls. My daughter’s a bit too old for this, but it looks cool without being condescending. Time Left: 7 days.
• Decode DC: A 30-episode podcast about Washington DC from Andrea Seabrook of NPR fame. Essentially it’s public radio going straight to listeners for funding. Can’t be cut by people who may or may not like Big Bird. Time Left: 8 days.
• Fireside Magazine #3: A great new fiction mag follows up two successful Kickstarters for the first two issues with a third. Brian White does a great job editing these. Time Left: 11 days.
• Ammo Trackers: Chits to track your ammunition use in all kinds of games, from my friend Jeff Valent. Time Left: 14 days.
• Dark Sci-Fi Maps and Deckplans: It’s just what it says, suitable for use with all kinds of games. The art’s by my friend Jeff Preston, so it’ll look great. Time Left: 17 days.
• Geek-A-Week 4.0: The latest expansion to Len Peralta’s fantastic set of trading cards for geeks of all stripes. This one features my pal Richard Garfield, plus there’s a fan set too. The only real problem is I’m not in these – yet. Time Left: 19 days.
• Lust: A prose/comic/art book by Steve Niles and my friend Ben Templesmith, the team behind 30 Days of Night. Time Left: 20 days.
• Restless Dead: A zombie-fighting roleplaying game by my pal Matt Grau. It’s designed to be played at home or via the Infrno virtual tabletop. Time Left: 21 days.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition: The latest edition of the now-classic roleplaying game. This time around, it’s being published by the Onyx Path (a.k.a. White Wolf 2.0), and my pal Rich Thomas is heading the drive. It’s already at over $170k! Time Left: 21 days.
• The Monster Hunter International Employee’s Handbook and RPG: My pals at Hero Games turn Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International novels into a roleplaying game. Time Left: 21 days.
• From the Sea: A charming animation project about a creature named Cthulhu who’s trapped in a dark carnival run inside the belly of a whale. Time Left: 21 days.
• Castle Dice: A massive dice-building worker-placement game by my pal Luke Peterschmidt. He actually ran demos of this at the Diana Jones Award party at Gen Con, and people loved it. Time Left: 24 days.
• King of Crime: A new card game about gangland battles in the 1920s, from my friend Dan Smith (a.k.a. Smif), who worked on Silent Death: The Next Millennium with me, ages back. Time Left: 24 days.
• Timmy and the Moon Piece: The first children’s book written and illustrated by Mike Kunkel, who created the utterly charming Herobear and the Kid graphic novel. Time Left: 24 days.
• Shaker: A video game roleplaying game by Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall, a pair of industry legends. Time Left: 24 days.
• An Unforgiving Land, Reloaded: A series of stories and essays about life in the Black Rock Desert, by my friend Jason Waters. Time Left: 24 days.
• A Tragedy in Five Acts: A Shakespearean roleplaying game from my friends Michelle Lyons-McFarland and Matt McFarland. Time Left: 25 days.
• Alphabeast Soup: A children’s book about a wizard gathering ingredients for a potion, written and illustrated by my friend Andy Hopp. Time Left: 26 days.
• The Settlers of Catan Gaming Board: A very cool and officially licensed game-tiles holder/board for Settlers of Catan. Comes in plastic or wood, with an aluminum board stretch goal. Time Left: 39 days.
• Star Trek: Renegades: A fan film from the team behind Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, directed by Tim Russ, who wrote a foreword for my Star Wars vs. Star Trek book. He also acts in the film, along with Walter Koenig, Garrett Wang, Robert Picardo, and Ethan Phillips, among Star Trek actors. Time Left: 46 days.

I had a great time chatting with fellow author and tabletop gamer Anton Strout on his Once and Future Podcast yesterday. The conversation ranged all over the place, mostly covering games, fiction, and other kids of geeky fun. You can listen to the entire thing at your leisure. 

My son Marty is saving up for some cool things, so he’s ransacked my closets once again, looking for good gaming things that I don’t use anymore to sell. He has twenty things up there now. They’re mostly Dungeons & Dragons 3E stuff, including a pack of Eberron books, as well as the Forgotten Realms setting book and some system add-on books like the Spell Compendium, the Manual of the Planes, and the Psionics Handbook. He also tossed in an older edition of Warhammer 40,000 and a copy of Smallville, some Star Wars books, and even some Conan RPG books, among other things. Go check it out. My closet’s loss could be your gain.