Over at Cinerati, Christian Johnson explains all the in-jokes (and mistakes) in Stephen Colbert’s recent bit on Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Hear Me Blather with Paul Tevis
When I was at the GAMA Trade Show last week, Paul Tevis grabbed me, sat me down, and interrogated me about all sorts of things. The recording of this somehow turned up on Paul’s excellent podcast, Have Games, Will Travel. (I suppose the large microphones should have been a clue.)
Give it a listen, and you can hear how I sound after staying up for more than 24 hours, grabbing two hours of sleep, and then holding a seminar on freelancing in the gaming industry. In other words, how you’d find me at most game conventions.
Winds of the Wild Sea Sailing for Shelves Near You
In today’s mail, I got my copy of Winds of the Wild Sea by my pal Jeff Mariotte. This is the second in his Marauders trilogy set in the Age of Conan series from Ace Books. I act as the Conan guru for this line, and it’s amazing how easy authors like Jeff make it to do my job.
The book should be on shelves in a bookstore near you next week.
Marvel Battle Dice Organized Play on the Way
Playmates Toys is launching an organized play program for Marvel Heroes Battle Dice at the end of the month. As usual, you can get all the details, including which figures will be available for prizes, at MarvelBattleDice.com.
Patronize Wolfgang Baur
Wolfgang Baur, one of my fellow Alliterates, is taking a shot at using patronage (the ancient model for financing art) as the means of producing a d20 fantasy adventure (read: D&D module). It’s a kick of an idea, and I hope it works out for him.
What differentiates this from Greg Stolze‘s ransom model is that Wolf hasn’t started work on the project yet. Also, the patrons (those who donate to the cause) get to have some say in what he produces–before he types even the first work.
Wolf’s a fantastic adventure writer, so I’m sure the final results will be wonderful. If you’ve ever wanted to feed ideas to a professional game designer–a a cut rate–here’s your chance.
Stephen Colbert Tells You About His Character
On a recent episode of The Colbert Report, show host (and confessed ex-roleplayer) Stephen Colbert tells us about his D&D character and what impact the advent of D&D Online may have on our society. It’s hilarious.
Origins Awards Nominations Announced
The Origins Awards nominations were announced at the GAMA Trade Show this past week. See the full list after the break. Congratulations to all the nominees!
(Things I worked on didn’t receive any nominations this year, but that’s not too surprising as I had little in the way of games come out last year. Also, the fiction category (in which I had several releases) apparently got cut due to “insufficient submissions.”)
Read More
GTS 2006 Report
I made it back from the GAMA Trade Show (GTS) late Wednesday night, while the show still raged on in Las Vegas. For those who are interested, you can read the details of my trip after the break.
Read More
GTS Moving
The GAMA Trade Show will no longer be held at the Riviera. Next year, it’ll be at Bally’s instead, and a month later in the year to boot. Perhaps not too coincidentally, this moves it away from the inaugural Games Expo, which will be held in Las Vegas also, near GTS’s traditional dates, but at the SouthCoast.
See the full press release after the break.
Read More
State of the Freelancing Industry
The latest issue (#169) of Comics & Games Retailer, a trade magazine for two tightly bound industries, concentrates on the state of the gaming industry. Along with the regular doom and gloom, editor James Mishler commissioned an article from me about how the industry looks from a freelancer’s point of view.
The answer in short: confused but hopeful, with an option to go to PDF publishing if traditional work-for-hire isn’t working for you. Pick up a copy if you want the long version, please.