James Lowder‘s Hobby Games: The 100 Best made it to Gen Con, and I picked up my contributor’s copy there. It’s a great book and belongs in the bathroom of every fan of tabletop games. As I’ve mentioned before, it contains 100 essays from 100 of the world’s top tabletop game designers. Each of these is about 1,000 words, just …
Mmm… Donut
Jared Sorensen and Luke Crane, both men of the brilliant game design kind, have been teasing me for months with hints about their an upcoming game: Project Donut. This is the first game these two have worked on together, and it promises to blast the airlocks off RPGs. Sight unseen, you can sign me up for it. Here, so far …
Pre-Gen Con Goodies
Two of the books I’m looking forward to most at Gen Con are Hobby Games: The 100 Best and 40 Years of Gen Con. I had a tiny hand in each of them, just enough that I don’t have to pay for copies, but I’d be happy to hand over my cash for either. For the first, Jim Lowder collected …
Wolf’s Words
Fellow Alliterate and good guy Wolfgang Baur just opened up a locked post on his Open Design site about the writing process. The net is filled with these, of course, but rarely about RPG design. As usual, Wolf is spot on. Check it out.
Dansky Dares to Ask
My pal Richard Dansky just launched a new feature at his website, a series of short interviews with other authors. I’m flattered to be the first in the lineup. Rich asked some great questions, and I enjoyed responding to them as best I could. Be sure to check it out. Rich, by the way, is a true gentleman and a …
Kobolds and Baurs
My fellow Alliterate and friend Wolfgang Baur–he of the prolific RPG pen, including the innovative, patron-sponsored Open Design project–has just launched spanking-new magazine: Kobold Quarterly. For those of us who will dearly miss the about-to-die Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, Kobold Quarterly is like going to the funeral and running into a long-lost friend. Wolf spent many years at both TSR …
Laws on Writing
The latest issue of The Escapist features an interview with my pal Robin Laws about what it’s like to work on both your own material and licensed properties. Robin is one of the few people who does the same kind of work I do on many levels, and his answers are, as always, well considered and spot on.
Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms Hits Shores
My friends at Popcorn Press (fellow Alliterates Rob King, Lester Smith, and Steve Sullivan) have just released Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms, a fiction anthology edited by Steve and my friend Jean Rabe. I haven’t read it yet, but with a line-up of writers that includes Robert E. Vardeman, J. Robert King, Lorelei Shannon, Lester Smith, Marc Tassin, Kathleen Watness, …
Freelance Writing Tips
My friend Monica Valentinelli of Flames Rising fame (among other places and publications) just launched a blog aimed at giving freelance writers some of the tricks of the trade. Freelance Writing Tips is fresh and only now getting started, so stop on by and get in on the ground floor.
Wofford Shared Worlds
This summer, Wofford College in South Carolina is putting on its first Shared Worlds program. It proposes to teach kids entering grades 8 through 12 all about creating fictional settings for fiction, art, and games. Jeremy Jones, who sometimes comments around these parts, put it all together, and the lineup of teachers and speakers is phenomenal. It makes me wish …