“Game of Choice,” my latest column for the High Adventure section of The Escapist, is up and ready for you to enjoy. In it, I write about how I decided to run my son Marty’s first at-home RPG using Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. There are lots of great RPGs out there, and I’d guess that Marty will get around to playing all sorts of them, but this is where we’re going to start.
TAGIE and ChiTAG
I’ve been asked to be a speaker again at this year’s Toy and Game Inventor Expo (TAGIE). I had to back out at the last second last year due to a family illness, but I had a great time at the show the year before. The convention is held on Navy Pier in downtown Chicago on November 19 and 20.
If you’re an aspiring mass-market game or toy designer, TAGIE is a fantastic introduction to that industry and provides a crash-course on what you need to do have a shot at succeeding in it. Hasbro is the lead sponsor this year, and that means you can expect to see top folks like Mike Gray and Mike Hirtle there among many other luminaries.
I’m also going to attend the TAGIE Awards ceremony, which honor the top creators in mass-market toys and games. This is slated for the evening of November 20 at the Adler Planetarium. Even if you can’t make it there, there seems to still be time to nominate people for Toy Inventor of the Year, Game Inventor of the Year, Rising Star Inventor of the Year, and Young Inventor of the Year. Reuben Klamer, who designed The Game of Life, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Leslie Scott, who designed Jenga, will be one of the presenters, along with actresses Daryl Hannah and Hilary Shepard, and Tim Walsh, designer of TriBond and Blurt.
If you love toys and games but don’t want to see how they’re made, come out for the Chicago Toy and Game Fair (ChiTAG) instead. It’s held on Navy Pier too, but on the two days right after TAGIE, November 21 and 22. It’s all about seeing and playing the latest and greatest toys and games instead. I’ll be wandering around the show that Saturday, soaking up all the fun. If you’ll be at either event, be sure to say hi!
Ann on TV
My wife Ann is a school social worker for the School District of Janesville, Wisconsin. Her main job is to serve as the homeless student liaison for the district. In this role, she’s spoken at conferences across the country, and just recently she’s been on local television twice.
Tonight, she also hauled herself out of her sickbed to appear on the Janesville Area Council PTA-Family Network show. This appeared on the Janesville public access cable channels (96 and 993) at 6:30 PM. Sadly, I can’t seem to find any archives for this show.
However, back on October 26, Ann appeared on Newsmakers, a production of WisconsinEye, our state’s version of CSPAN. If you scroll down to the second show on 10.26.09, you can watch or listen to the entire show, in which Ann discusses the increases in the homeless student population in Wisconsin, along with her counterparts from Milwaukee and Madison.
Be an Angry Robot
My friends (and publishers) at Angry Robot have helpfully provided a solution for all your Halloween costuming needs: the Angry Robot mask. Just print, cut, strap (or staple, glue, weld, etc.), and you’re all set to scare the simpering souls out of your fleshy, free-willed friends.
Better yet, the Angry Robots promise the nebulous award of “prizes” for the best photos taken that include Angry Robot masks. That’s over and above the fun from playing with/wearing/fearing the mask itself, I think.
[By the way, if you’re interested in review copies of Angry Robot books, plus a shot at other prizes, be sure to join the Robot Army too.]BNW Proof-of-Concept Trailer Online Now
Late Saturday/early Sunday, the folks at Reactor 88 Studios launched a new website for Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Revolution.* This includes the proof-of-concept trailer that debuted at Gen Con 2009 and also was shown at Geek.Kon this past weekend. If you missed those events, this is your first chance to see it in all its explodey glory, so be sure to check it out!
Weekend = Halloween Party and Geek.Kon
I had a jam-packed weekend. I started off by taking Ann down to the High Voltage Software Halloween party in Hoffman Estates on Friday night. This is held in a motion-capture studio–essentially a wide-open warehouse–filled with dozens of wildly creative people competing to come up with the best costume. Ann went as a geisha girl–a.k.a. ninja momma–while I broke out my tux and went as everyone’s favorite British spy, complete with a name tag that read “HELLO. MY NAME IS Bond, James Bond.”
Bring on Geek.Kon!
This weekend, you can find me at Geek.Kon, the all-geek-matters convention in Madison, Wisconsin. I’m one of the guests of honor, along with Bill Bodden, Aaron Pavao, Kyle Herbert, Chad Corrie, Sandeep Parikh, and reps from Raven Software.
I’ll be wandering around for a good part of the show, but my confirmed schedule includes “Gaming Publishing” at 1 PM on Saturday, another showing of the Brave New World film proof-of-concept at 4 PM on Saturday, and “Professional Writing” at 10 PM on Sunday. I will likely also be at the mass signings at 3 PM on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
If you’re in the area, come on down and join the fun. I hope to see you there.
Taking Gaming by Swarm
Mike Bohlmann caught one of my seminars at Gen Con this summer. Afterward, he introduced himself and explained his idea about sourcing new RPG projects by tapping the collective gaming hivemind. The result is bySwarm.com.
It all seems like a solid plan and an engaging way for players and designers to be involved at every step of the process. As Mike points out, this is aimed mostly at new designers and artists hoping to break into the field. If you’re interested in getting in on the ground floor, the RPG setting concept contest has already started.
BySwarm aims to tap the gaming hivemind to develop viable, self-improving projects that can help launch careers. Can it work? At the very least, it’s a grand experiment, and I’ll be watching to see how it all turns out.
The BNW RPG Character Sheet PDF
This summer, AEG and DriveThruRPG released my Brave New World Roleplaying Game line in PDF format. However, some fans of the original in-print edition asked if they could get just the character sheet as a PDF, as photocopying it from the middle of the hardcover rulebook isn’t all that easy. That’s an easy enough request, so here it is! Print to your ink or toner cartridge’s content.
Ongoing Loremaster.org Interview Launched
Matt James at Loremaster.org asked me to join him in an ongoing interview with him and the members of the site. We just got started, so if you have any burning questions to ask me in front of lots of other people, skip on over to the forum and give it a go!