d30 Challenge Day 2

This is my 2nd entry in the d30 Challenge, which is a bastardization of an idea I first saw on Mark "CMG" Clover's feed. Now I'm a sucker for these things and I know some folks aren't so while I'm committed to answering one question about my favorite hobby each day, and putting together a d30 table before the end of the month, I know not everyone is so interested. I'll put the question & answer after the break, posting late in the day, and not promoting this on G+ so those who don't like this kind of thing should be exposed only minimally.

I think this is the best I can do....

d30 Challenge Day 1

This is my 1st entry in the d30 Challenge, which is a bastardization of an idea I first saw on Mark "CMG" Clover's feed. Now I'm a sucker for these things and I know some folks aren't so while I'm committed to answering one question about my favorite hobby each day, and putting together a d30 table before the end of the month, I know not everyone is so interested. I'll put the question & answer after the break, posting late in the day, and not promoting this on G+ so those who don't like this kind of thing should be exposed only minimally.

I think this is the best I can do....

Free GM Resource: SoundPad from Tabletop Audio

Astute readers will think this might be a re-post from 15 months ago and you might be able to classify it as a bit of an update, but barely.

Basically Tabletop Audio took their basic idea of a website of cool audio backgrounds and turned that idea from fair-to-good (depending on how much you liked the audio tracks) to frickin awesome.

How you might ask? By putting you at the controls to mix and match the various background sounds to create a customized real-time background track.

SoundPad is still at a beta 0.6 version, and takes a while to load, but once it does....pure genius. I don't know how general interweb traffic affects SoundPad, but I have a feeling as longs as everything downloads to your temp files you're good. I don't know if you need to be streaming data the whole time.

Anyway, if you want a customized audio experience, and who doesn't (?), you should really check out SoundPad.

Look at all the options!

Still Figuring Out How to Make me Some Books (Pt 2)

I lucked out and found a pretty cheap toner supplier on Amazon so I've been "wasting" a whole toner cartridge on printing out mini copies of some of my books:
          Dyson's Delves II
          Petty Gods (Revised & Expanded Edition)
          HackMaster Player's Handbook
          HackMaster GameMaster Guide
          HackMaster Hacklopedia of Beasts
          Dungeon World

Now the last four I went ahead and printed out, sliced & diced, and sent off to FedEx for coil-binding like I did with my original mini PHB and GMG. Since I'm learning a few things as I go along (hence the Work-In-Progress moniker) I've made mistakes here & there and there are some things I need to figure out.

Frugal GM Review: Don't Wake Dretchlor Player Map from Gamer Printshop (PWYW)

This review is a last-minute substitution because the item I was reviewing....well I'm not done playing with it yet.

Yesterday I realized I'd be short on this week's review and headed over to DriveThruRPG to buy something else to look at. In the "hottest" category was this map from Gamer Printshop.

I've been meaning to check out one of their offerings since I first heard about them a year or two ago. These guys do some large-scale printing I've heard good things about. Their few items on DriveThruRPG look pretty cool as well, but I hadn't pulled the trigger until now.

A Challenge (or 31) for June

Steal this graphic if your're in!

Mark, over at Creative Mountain Games, mentioned taking the "Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge". Well....he actually mentioned seeing some people taking it and was considering it.

I'm not sure how much he really is considering it, but this was the 1st time I've heard of such a challenge and the thought intrigued me. Partially because I'ma sucker for these kinds of thing, but also because I was just thinking on how I don't give nearly enough love to my d30's, which I barely got last year at the Origins Game Fair. Evidently somebody associated with some "live dungeon" tried to buy out every d30 Lou Zocchi had. Fortunately they missed two which are now mine!

I'm going to that con next week and this week I've been prepping some since I'm trying to travel a bit lighter than usual. I have a much smaller dice box to work with, and Sunday I did check to make sure there was room for both my d30s.

Anyway, I thought it'd be a good idea to answer these 30 questions (I'm using Mark's modified list) over the 30 days of June and cough up a special d30 table to give away at the conclusion. Heck I figured it I could convince a few people to try this out I'd even be willing to assemble the tables into a nice booklet/book form.

Does that sound like a plan? Have something worth posting every day in June, getting to know some folks in the community, and have another (free) d30 product to show for it?

Lovingly ripped off from Mark CMG Clover! (links to his post)

Feel free to take part and put the peer-pressure on Mark, unless he's going to Origins because I don't want him chasing me down.

Unexpected Surprise = Mind Blown

I usually try to remember to Google myself once a week, which sounds so dirty, but not much I can do about that.....

You'd think it was more of a vanity issue, and maybe it is, but I like to see if anyone is linking to the blog and/or if there are any review on the stuff I'm doing that I haven't seen yet.

This habit has helped me find some cool stuff to share as well, but sometimes I'm a bit taken aback by what I find.....

Today I was out with the Mrs. getting lunch and I did a quick search on my phone when she was..."unavailable" to talk to and I came across this little gem:

Oh that's nice.....wait, what?!

Today my last effort is #68 on RPGNOW's Top 100 list? I'm a bit surprised.....mostly because since I can see how many have been "sold"....I'm surprised I could even get on this kind of list. I didn't think it was that great an effort, although I did put a little something different in this one.....and I don't know how long this will last, but I'll enjoy it for today.....

Making a Far Away Land Adventure Book

Between a combination of DriveThruRPG sales and my Patreon campaign I've finally scrapped enough dough together to pick up the Far Away Land Tome of Awesome. To be fair, I've been picking up other RPG stuff which keeps whittling my funds down, keeping FAL a bit out of reach. I picked up the "standard printing" version because it is cheaper, but also because I really wanted to see the quality of that level of printing.

Since I'm going to be at the Origins Game Fair next week I figured I'd just have the book shipped to my hotel so I don't have to wait much linger to fully check it out. Yes, I have the PDF already, but it is harder to pass a PDF around to players at the table (don't get me started on "sharing" PDF files.....)

Since there is a chance I might get to run or play in some FAL at Origins I thought I'd print up some of the adventures currently available. I picked up the whole A series and the newly released D1. Now I could easily use these on my iPad, and still may, but I wanted to mash them together and print them up into a single booklet.

Easier said than done, but eventually I got it finished. The hardest part was just my usual dinking around to come up with a nice cover for the 1/8" booklet. The front cover and spine look good, but I had a goof on the back cover that I didn't catch until it was too late. Nothing too major, but I'm not re-doing the booklet.

I have a few other RPG items (games & adventures) I'm considering printing up in mini-book form. For one I'm dying to get a full set of mini HackMaster books now that the GMG is out. I had a real cool PHB and HoB made up, but I ended up getting them autographed by the D-Team and tossing them in the auction at GaryCon.

Since this was only my second book (here was my first post about making books with a jig), I'm obviously still learning. What I learned on this go around is that 1/8" is quite a bit small for the book and getting the spine fold for the cover is a PITA. Also, if I make thicker books I might want to use legal sized cardstock so I can trim things up right when I'm done.