Friday night, I handed off my duties as the quads’ soccer coach to take Marty to see Sylvia Earle accept the Roy Chapman Andrews Award. She is an amazing woman who’s done incredible things, and her presentation was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Marty and I were both fighting colds, so we bailed out before the absolute end of the …
Gamers for Haiti Update
A couple weeks back I wrote about the efforts of DriveThruRPG.com and many of its affiliated publishers to raise money for Haitian relief work. This included selling a huge bundle of RPG products worth nearly $1,500 for only $20. The promotion is over now, and it was a stunning success. I’m told that DriveThruRPG.com will be cutting a check for …
South Sandwiche Islands Update
Back in November, I mentioned that James Taylor is using Kickstarter to help fund a game he’s creating and selling as part of his college education: The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands. I’m pleased to report that James smashed through his fundraising goal for the game and will be going to press soon. If you’d still like to order …
Cubicle 7 Needs Artists
Here’s an open call for my artist friends out there. The fine folks at Cubicle 7 are looking for new freelance artists. In addition to publishing several excellent RPGs, including the new Doctor Who game, they recently announced that they have the license for a new RPG based on The Lord of the Rings, so this could be a lot …
Happy 126th, Roy Chapman Andrews!
Today would be the 126th birthday of Roy Chapman Andrews, the legendary archaeologist upon whom Indiana Jones is supposedly based. Andrews was born and raised here in my hometown of Beloit, WI, and he lies buried in a cemetery only four blocks away from my home. He’s one of Beloit’s most famous offspring–although this week that honor probably goes to …
Free Kobolds!
My friends at Kobold Quarterly (a D&D/d20 magazine ably edited by my Alliterate pal Wolfgang Baur) are giving away free PDFs of issue #10 for the next week. Until January 31, 2010, you can grab one for yourself by entering the coupon code KQ10Free at checkout. As Wolf’s lovely wife Shelly (a.k.a. Kobold Minion #1) tells me: Issue #10 features an interview …
Gamers Help Haiti
In the wake of the Haitian disaster, my friends at DriveThruRPG.com offered to match any donations of $5 or $10 made through their site to Doctors Without Borders. They managed to raise a couple thousand dollars that way in a few days, but that wasn’t enough for them. DriveThruRPG.com sells PDFs of tabletop roleplaying game products. They carry games and …
Pledges for Tu Publishing
Stacy Whitman–formerly one of the editors at Mirrorstone, the YA fiction imprint at Wizards of the Coast–is planning to start Tu Publishing to bring multicultural science-fiction and fantasy stories to kids of all ages. To launch this new effort, she needs some seed money, so she’s put up a page on Kickstarter.com. So far, the effort is about 63% of …
Holiday Music in Beloit
We’re about to get slammed with snow here in Beloit, so I spent some time this morning putting up the Christmas lights, trading out bicycles for sleds, and making sure the snowthrower is in working order. I also ordered tickets for the Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra‘s “Home for the Holidays Family Spectacular.” The concert is held December 20 at 2 …
Games as Art
As we hurtle toward the monster consumer frenzy that is Black Friday, I thought I’d take a step back and mention three different efforts to create tabletop games that qualify as art. At TAGIE last week, I met a USC graduate student named James A. Taylor. He’s creating a board game as part of his studies at the School of …