Well, aside from blogging a couple of times, the Domesday newsletter is being finished up this very weekend! A few people commented on the nice front page look of the newsletter I posted a couple days ago and I want to thank all the kind words I have received concerning it. Sure, it won't be long (a dozen pages or so) but it's a necessary first step in getting this back on track and, more importantly, to ensure that this particular ball doesn't get dropped again and that it adheres to a constant release schedule. Once this one is out, we'll start looking towards the Fall issue.
The Arcana Creations website should finally get the attention it deserves and get a complete facelift. Now a few people had expressed some concerns about the BHP forums being consigned to oblivion in early July and I do think forums have a place despite the predominance of social media. Particularly when it comes to things like product questions and community support. While I don't expect it to be used regularly, I have decided to pursue the creation of basic message boards under Arcana Creations. The will be primarily focusing on products AC releases as well as some affiliate support for other BHP lines like X-Plorers. Unfortunately, I won't be able to migrate any of the old material to the newer and smaller forums but people will be welcome just the same. I'm looking at archiving some of the material from the old forums as a sort of PDF though... more on that on a later post.
Aside from these two things (Domesday and Website), the C&C module, 'Hide in Plain Sight' will see more attention as I push to get primary layout complete. Artwork still hasn't been officially commissioned but only because primary layout and edits need to get done. And I really need to get these done because Ballista and the line I'm building for it needs some serious focus.
M
What I'm Backing on Kickstarter:
After Winter Dark Campaign Setting
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Appendix N Kickstarter: 3 Days Left !!
Hey folks,
There are 3 days left to the popular 'Appendix N Adventure Toolkit' which Brave Halfling Publishing is putting out for the DCC RPG. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do because some of the inherent value might be worth a look. In short though... for $20 you get 6 printed adventure scenarios (soon to be 7 as the kickstarter closes in on the final bonus objective) *and* a box to keep them in. These are digest sized products but shipping is included! It's definitely a sweet spot! Naturally there are other pledges that might be of interest... for $10 more, you basically double up what you get for $20.
Bottom line: This kickstarter has MET its objectives and several bonus goals. It is approximately $1000 away from the final objective goal and I expect it to be hit sometime within the next couple of days. And, as cool as the Frog God Games kickstarter is, this one is a heck of a lot more affordable.
http://kck.st/KTjazi
Thanks!
M
PS -- Comparing the Rappan Athuk Kickstarter with this one is truly like comparing apples and oranges and both are equally awesome for different reasons. I've pledged to both. ;)
There are 3 days left to the popular 'Appendix N Adventure Toolkit' which Brave Halfling Publishing is putting out for the DCC RPG. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do because some of the inherent value might be worth a look. In short though... for $20 you get 6 printed adventure scenarios (soon to be 7 as the kickstarter closes in on the final bonus objective) *and* a box to keep them in. These are digest sized products but shipping is included! It's definitely a sweet spot! Naturally there are other pledges that might be of interest... for $10 more, you basically double up what you get for $20.
Bottom line: This kickstarter has MET its objectives and several bonus goals. It is approximately $1000 away from the final objective goal and I expect it to be hit sometime within the next couple of days. And, as cool as the Frog God Games kickstarter is, this one is a heck of a lot more affordable.
http://kck.st/KTjazi
Thanks!
M
PS -- Comparing the Rappan Athuk Kickstarter with this one is truly like comparing apples and oranges and both are equally awesome for different reasons. I've pledged to both. ;)
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Forums for Brave Halfling Publishing are Closing!
Just about three years ago, John asked me to setup a new message board for Brave Halfling Publishing and it was my pleasure to do so. Things got off to a good start there and things for BHP and AC were looking up. Of course, John and I have had to overcome a series of challenges over the course of the last 3 years and BHP is probably stronger than ever now. Looking at the short history of BHP would certainly be fascinating but instead, I want to talk about those forums.
Talking to John last week, both he and I had come to similar conclusions about the relevancy of those forums today though he was the one that broached the subject. Between our websites, blogs, google+ and facebook, was there a need to keep the message board going since there was hardly any activity there anymore? I mean, there used to be, but there is so little of it now.
Personally, I like the idea of having them but I know I don't have the time I would like to have to turn my focus towards it. Presently, I frequent a couple regularly and sometimes check into a third. These are the C&C forums that TLG owns, an fan and support forum for my Android Tablet, and occasionally, I pop into Dragonsfoot. Honestly, I only manage it because there isn't that much activity I'm interested in on any of those three either these days so I expect it's just a general trend.
Social Media is a prevalent force, and while I don't think it's always a good thing, it's going to be sticking around for a while. For me, and Arcana Creations, blogging will continue but I know I'll have to set up my Facebook page for AC soon enough. My website will be revised and streamlined first though. Twitter, well, I've got less than 20 followers... so it's there but not being used effectively simply because there is no need for it. The BHP forums and my little corner of it is simply not being used. Nor do either John or I have the time to bother with it either.
Now, that isn't to say that I won't set something up down the line, even if it is to temporarily do some playtesting or offer product support amongst peers. But if I do, it will be very small in scale. I know John is looking at similar options and has done so in the past. As for the old Brave Halfing Publishing forums, it is time to bid them farewell.
If there is anything people want to grab, please do so because by the weekend of July 7th, 2012, I am pulling the plug. For those who frequent those forums every now and then, feel free to comment here or the BHP forums to suggest other places that people may want to check out for such things as X-Plorers and whatnot.
And to those who have participated in the past on those forums -- I do want to thank you for being part of that small community!
http://bravehalfling.forumotion.net/
M
Talking to John last week, both he and I had come to similar conclusions about the relevancy of those forums today though he was the one that broached the subject. Between our websites, blogs, google+ and facebook, was there a need to keep the message board going since there was hardly any activity there anymore? I mean, there used to be, but there is so little of it now.
Personally, I like the idea of having them but I know I don't have the time I would like to have to turn my focus towards it. Presently, I frequent a couple regularly and sometimes check into a third. These are the C&C forums that TLG owns, an fan and support forum for my Android Tablet, and occasionally, I pop into Dragonsfoot. Honestly, I only manage it because there isn't that much activity I'm interested in on any of those three either these days so I expect it's just a general trend.
Social Media is a prevalent force, and while I don't think it's always a good thing, it's going to be sticking around for a while. For me, and Arcana Creations, blogging will continue but I know I'll have to set up my Facebook page for AC soon enough. My website will be revised and streamlined first though. Twitter, well, I've got less than 20 followers... so it's there but not being used effectively simply because there is no need for it. The BHP forums and my little corner of it is simply not being used. Nor do either John or I have the time to bother with it either.
Now, that isn't to say that I won't set something up down the line, even if it is to temporarily do some playtesting or offer product support amongst peers. But if I do, it will be very small in scale. I know John is looking at similar options and has done so in the past. As for the old Brave Halfing Publishing forums, it is time to bid them farewell.
If there is anything people want to grab, please do so because by the weekend of July 7th, 2012, I am pulling the plug. For those who frequent those forums every now and then, feel free to comment here or the BHP forums to suggest other places that people may want to check out for such things as X-Plorers and whatnot.
And to those who have participated in the past on those forums -- I do want to thank you for being part of that small community!
http://bravehalfling.forumotion.net/
M
Monday, June 25, 2012
Weekend R&R: XXXI (Tell Qa)
Yes... I am really sorry about that. I recognize it is a massive oversight but, when I started into the hobby, it was with a small group of friends I made when my family were posted over on a Canadian Military Base in Germany (my father was part of the RCAF). In some ways, we were lucky, the small bookstore on the base carried some gaming material but 95% of it was AD&D and D&D. To be honest, I don't recall gaming material that wasn't put out by TSR. While I was able to get 1st and 2nd Edition books with relative ease, dice proved to be a bit of a challenge and other gaming publications were very rare. In short, I was never really aware of Judge's Guild and, admittedly, I somehow got the idea in subsequent years that if it wasn't 'Officially produced by TSR', it was crap.
What can I say? I was young and foolish all those years ago.
So, as it turns out, my first introduction to the Wilderlands was thanks to James Mishler -- a writer who I came to have a lot of respect for. A few years back, he started up a small company called Adventure Games Publishing and back in 2007, he released his first release (not counting the Free RPG Day contribution) entitled simple 'XXXI'. The title was in reference to the 31st anniversary of the founding of Judge's Guild. His plan though was a subscription based model to present a vision of the Wilderlands termed simply, the Wilderlands of High Adventure. Due to a variety of reasons, some of which I have discussed in the past, these plans simply didn't pan out.
Despite that, his enthusiasm and writing about the Wilderlands turned me onto the setting and caused me to seek out various Judge's Guild materials... I picked up the d20 adventure conversions by Goodman Games (there were 3), the material that Necromancer Games put out (one box set, one hardback, a softcover accessory, and an d20 conversion of an adventure). I also tracked down a whole bunch of original Judge's Guild material. I can't tell you how surprised I was when I saw how cheaply these would have been produced given the physical quality. But I just didn't care.
Misher's 'XXXI' though remains simply fantastic! It's jam packed detailing the town/outpost of Tell Qa which can easily be dumped in other campaign settings. It's got some history, details locations, npcs, new races and a new class and a cool map... The material spans 48 pages and I just love it. 'XXXI' was my first Wilderlands-related product but it was far from the last.
AGP, was one of the first 3rd party publishers to support C&C. The only other company at the time was Goodman Games who went on to do 5 modules (4 of them converted from the DCC line and 1 of them original). Sometime afterwards, Green Ronin entered the fray and (aside from the Arcana Creations and Brave Halfling Publishing partnership), only now is there a new 3rd party publisher attempting to release a product for C&C -- a conversion of 'Bluffside: City on the Edge', a d20 product by Mystic Eye Games released in 2002. AGP sadly is no longer around and it was closed down since its continued existence was not really financially viable.
The only good news is that the PDFs still are -- including 'XXXI' (direct link HERE) which can all be found under the Judge's Guild products up on RPGNow! The PDF is $9.00 which some may think a bit pricey for it but, I still think it's worth it.
I can only wonder at times what could have happened had AGP gotten a bit more support, and had AGP did a few things differently. I still don't think it was any singular issue but a few. James Mishler has acknowledged the mistakes he made with AGP but I think the way the direction the market was going as well as the economy did it's fair share of collateral damage.
M
The Return of the Domesday Book
I spent the majority of the day Saturday working on issue 5 of the Domesday Book and I am happy to say that things are coming along quite nicely. The Domesday Book is the title given to the periodical that the current Castles & Crusades Society puts out. Actually it was also the name that the original C&CS gave to their newsletter a few decades ago. Depending on how my day works out Monday (designated the Statutory holiday for June 24th in Quebec since it fell on a Sunday this year), I hope to have a lot more done.
Actually I would love to see it finished if I can at all help it. Honestly, I don't expect that to happen but most of the tricky work is done now. It's the layout and design which can be a bit time consuming when your are doing a particular project for the first time and a good chunk of the first day or work for this was figuring out exactly how I was going to go about it. Now that most of that stuff is settled, I am free to really just plug in the various accepted submissions. While I'm not certain if I'll realistically be able to wrap it up tomorrow, I can safely say that it shouldn't take more than a week to get it done and out.
I've also sent a 5-page preview to the this issue's Managing Editor and he basically gave it a thumbs up. With that in mind, here's a preview of the first page of the Domesday newsletter.
Please note that this isn't exactly final but any additional changes at this point would be very minor. Of course, the whole point is to get this newsletter going again and get it out regularly. Ultimately, it *is* a newsletter so the page count is purposely going to be limited (the original intent was 10-12 pages). Who knows though. This is a community effort and if we get more contributions, we might be able to do longer editions of the newsletter as things progress. We already have some material for issue 6 which will be the Fall edition of the Domesday Book.
M
Actually I would love to see it finished if I can at all help it. Honestly, I don't expect that to happen but most of the tricky work is done now. It's the layout and design which can be a bit time consuming when your are doing a particular project for the first time and a good chunk of the first day or work for this was figuring out exactly how I was going to go about it. Now that most of that stuff is settled, I am free to really just plug in the various accepted submissions. While I'm not certain if I'll realistically be able to wrap it up tomorrow, I can safely say that it shouldn't take more than a week to get it done and out.
I've also sent a 5-page preview to the this issue's Managing Editor and he basically gave it a thumbs up. With that in mind, here's a preview of the first page of the Domesday newsletter.
Please note that this isn't exactly final but any additional changes at this point would be very minor. Of course, the whole point is to get this newsletter going again and get it out regularly. Ultimately, it *is* a newsletter so the page count is purposely going to be limited (the original intent was 10-12 pages). Who knows though. This is a community effort and if we get more contributions, we might be able to do longer editions of the newsletter as things progress. We already have some material for issue 6 which will be the Fall edition of the Domesday Book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)