Monday, December 31, 2012

The 2012 Roundup

Since December was yet again not another banner month of activity here at the Society and another year draws to a close, I want to take a moment to gaze back upon the last twelve months and summarize the accomplishments, both personal and professional, that occurred.

Amongst the OSR community, I believe 2012 will forever be known as the year Goggle+ achieved supremacy over the previous “go to” venues of the blogosphere and message forums for disseminating gaming-related information, material, and most importantly, avenues of play. The blogosphere and forums still have their place, but this year belonged to Google+, thanks to FLAILSNAILS, Meetup pickup games, and the ability to customize and control readership to fine tune your personal “signal to noise” reception quality. Obviously, Facebook isn’t trembling in its boots for fear of usurpation of its status as King of Social Media, but Google+ definitely found a place in the hearts of the old school role-playing community. Whether this is a flash in the pan development or not remains to be seen.

Speaking of flashes in the pan, Kickstarter got a big boost this year from the gaming crowd. Certain projects like Reaper Miniatures’ crowd-funding of their new line of plastic minis demonstrated that when a Kickstarter campaign works, it can work really, really well. But for ever success story, there are literally hundreds of projects that either failed to fund or proposed deadlines they couldn’t meet. And with these failures and delays, the backlash against Kickstarter projects seems to be building. Other bloggers than myself have been keeping a keen eye on Kickstarted RPG projects, so I won’t go into depth about this subject, but even a cursory glance at recent developments seems to indicate 2013 will see gamers being a smarter with their wallets and RPG publishers, especially established ones, are going to have to get wise to this trend and develop their goals and funding plans accordingly.

What were the big releases in the OSR community this year? To be honest, I have no clue. Professional responsibilities and personal developments meant I wasn’t keeping tabs on everything pumped out by gamers and publishers over the last year. DCC RPG hit the stores and demonstrated that it’s not another retro-clone, but a beast unto itself (and one well-received enough to hit the Top Five RPG Sellers’ List). Rappan Athuk made some waves with its Kickstarter campaign. Adventurer, Conqueror, King debuted. We saw the megadungeon trend continue in Barrowmaze and the next installment of Anomalous Subsurface Environment. Others were undoubtedly embraced by the community upon release, but it’s hard for a single person to keep track on what’s going on these days—even when you have the free time to do so.

On the personal front, I can’t complain about 2012. I’ve been busier than ever with projects and, as much as I occasionally gripe about the workload, I remain grateful to be able to continue doing what I do and get paid for it. This year saw my name show up in the DCC RPG rulebook, Goodman Games’ Free RPG Day release, and Emirikol Was Framed! I wrote a new game system for Goblinoid Games and finished up revisions for a new supplement to be released by Goodman in the coming year. I also had the opportunity to create my own 1920s’ historical horror setting (“Wildwyck County”) for Fight On! magazine, and I have plenty more in store for that series as publication allows.

This was also the year that I hit the convention trail in earnest, travelling to the gaming motherland of Lake Geneva, WI and moseying down to Texas for NTRPG Con. At those events, idols became colleagues, colleagues became friends, and people I’ve only known through online correspondence joined the ranks of my valued fellow gamers. I’m looking forward to 2013 when I get to do more new conventions and return to old favorites.

I’ve got a few announcements coming in the days ahead, but I’ll close things down for now as I’m battling an end of the year illness and need to get more rest. I’d like to wish you all a very happy, healthy, and productive 2013. May Chance favor the bold in the year ahead!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Curriculum Vitae (Current as of 2.16.14)

There is now an online index of Fight On! articles assembled by “elf23” from the Original Dungeons & Dragons Discussion forum. It contains a list of all the articles appearing in issues #1-#13 and can be viewed by issue, article, author, and other criteria. If you’ve ever wondered who contributed to what issue or what exactly appears in a magazine you don’t own, go check it out.

That’s the important part of this post and what follows is mere vanity on the part of the author. Upon examining the FO! index, I realized that it’s getting to the point where I don’t necessarily recall all that I’ve written for various projects and publishers. My body of work is not extensive, so I fear it’s my collapsing mental faculties that are to blame for this. To help combat this encroaching decrepitude, I’m listing my current oeuvre for reference and as a reminder to myself. I’ve got more irons in the fire for 2013 and look forward to expanding this list as announcements are made.

Author
"The Fane of St. Toad"
The Dungeon Alphabet (2009)
The Dungeon Alphabet Expanded Third Printing (2012)
Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls
Stonehell Dungeon Supplement One: The Brigand Caves
Stonehell Dungeon Supplement Two: Buried Secrets
Emirikol Was Framed!
The Sea-Queen Escapes!
The Croaking Fane
Frozen in Time
MAJUS RPG
The Tower out of Time
The Old God's Return
Intrigue at the Court of Chaos
The Adventurers’ Almanac (to-be-released)
A Single Small Cut (to-be-released)
The Chained Coffin (to-be-released)
Stonehell 2 (to-be-released)

Co-Author
Realms of Crawling Chaos (random artifact generation tables & eldritch tomes rules)

Magazine Articles
“The Dungeon Alphabet: Part One,” Knockspell #1
“Dungeon Oddities,” Knockspell #2
“Stealing the Histories,” Knockspell #4
“With New Old Eyes,” Silver Gryphon Monthly #4 (January 2009)
“Random Rooms,” Fight On! #4
“A Few for the Road,” Fight On! #5
“A Few for the Road, Part 2” Fight On! #6
"Old School Game Determination," Fight On! #6
“Sites to Seek,” Fight On! #8
“It’s All in the Cards,” Fight On! #12
“In the Shadow of the Catskills" Fight On! #13
"Gnatdamp: Sanctuary in the Swamp." Gygax Magazine #1
"The Wildwyck Gazetteer" Fight On! #14
"Artifacts to impart ancient lore" Gygax Magazine #3 

Contributing Author
Open Game Table: Anthology of Roleplaying Blogs Vol. 1 (“The Commonplace Book”)
Red Planet RPG (revised magic chapter)
Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game (additional spells)
Dungeon Crawl Classics Free RPG Day 2012 (“The Undulating Corruption”)
Fragments 1: The Way of Tree, Shadow & Flame (deities, encounter tables, and rogues’ gallery)
Tales From the Fallen Empire (additional spells & crafting magical items)
The Monster Alphabet (additional entries; to-be-released)

Judge
The One-Page Dungeon Contest (2009)
Mystery Map Adventure Design Competition (2012)

Awards
Three-Castles Award (2011)