The Monster MashUp Contest

In case you hadn't heard - Nevermet Press started accepting entries for a Monster MashUp Contest yesterday. The contest runs only until Monday of next week (April 26th) - so if you want to win some great prizes, simply answer the following question in 300 words or less.

What is this monster's story?

Illustration (c) Rob Torno. Used by permission.

Unconventional Dice from @Dicecreator Rock

Two weeks ago or so I started following @Dicecreator on Twitter after a tweet by Michael Wolf (from Stargazer's World). Anyway... this guy @Dicecreator makes precision hand-crafted dice that he inlays with brass! How cool is that? Check out and subscribe to his blog, Dice Creator.

He makes the coolest dice I've ever seen. Make no mistake, he's an artist. 

I won't mince words: You should support his guy and buy his dice. He's doing some really cool stuff. Go to his eBay store page, Unconventional Dice,  and buy some dice from him. Yes - they are more expensive than dice from Chessex or [insert other company here]. But these dice are made with BRASS. Also, his dice are usually a flat rate of around 8 or 9 Euros per die (~$10.50 each)  - and, there is an auction going for one very special unique set of dice right now (which I'm trying to win), but that's unusual. Typically the die are sold at a flat-rate.

Just look at some of his designs! The first design below I bought myself a pair and - after having them in my hands for night of gaming - these are incredibly cool dice. And, after rolling 1000 times (with the help of my 6-year old son - poor kid) - BALANCED TOO. Very nice work.

Steampunk Dice

Manga Dice

Watchmen Dice (not for sale I think)

TRON dice - also not for sale.

Honeycomb Dice. Awesome Sauce... 

Dr. Manhattan dice

FUDGE dice. Sweet!

I'm also VERY happy to mention that @Dicecreator will be working with Nevermet Press for some upcoming contests. So, head over there to NMP and watch for the details!

Have a great weekend!

100% PURE Awesome Sauce: The One - Page Dungeon Codex

Today, Tabletop Games released their FREE One-Page Dungeon Codex.

If this doesn't scream crowd sourcing awesome sauce out of the big blue blogosphere, I don't know what does.

This rocks!

From the sales blurb...

This impressive free product showcases the winners of last year’s “One Page Dungeon” contest. Instigators of the contest (and editors of the project) are RPG bloggers Philippe-Antoine Ménard (better known as the “Chatty DM”) and Michael “Chgowiz” Shorten.

The Codex presents the contest’s top three winners, six runners up who were ‘Judges’ Picks,’ and another dozen entries which were awarded honorable mentions. With 'dungeons' ranging from “The Barnacle Cave” to the Victorian setting of “The Horror of Leatherbury House” to the prize-winning “Valley of the Necromancer Kings,” there is something here of interest to nearly everyone. All locations are entirely system neutral, and each includes a map as part of the one-page description. In addition, the editors have provided a series of articles on the development of the “One Page Dungeon” concept, and how GMs can create one-page dungeons for themselves.

The ebook is 54 pages, which includes the articles and dungeons, and information on the contest judges and sponsors. The cover is by artist Mark Allen, and Mates Laurentiu of Avatar Art provided illustrations of the three winning dungeons. The entire book is in full color, but a button is provided (on page 2) to hide the color page backgrounds if desired. (This feature functions only in recent versions of Acrobat Reader, such as version 8 and later.) The dungeons, and the One Page Dungeon template, are all released under the Creative Commons Share-alike license. (See the ebook for more details.)

Thank You Justin Achilli

Well folks, I have some great news to report today!

I just received word from Justin Achilli that he has accepted our invitation to write the Foreword for Open Game Table, Volume 2!

Who is Justin Achilli? Well, for one he's a 20+ year veteran of the gaming industry and is currently the Managing Editor at White Wolf Publishing. He previously was the line developer of Vampire: The Requiem and Vampire: The Masquerade. Check out his LinkedIn.com profile if you are interested; but basically he is someone who really knows games. That he is willing to lend a hand to support the OGT project is a great honor indeed.

So, wholeheartedly, a big big thank you goes out to him from everyone involved with the project. I can't wait to read his viewpoints on the blogging community and the future of RPGs.

In other news - editing of the raw manuscript (all the final entries) continues. Hopefully I'll get back the edits from the other members of the OGT Editorial Board this weekend and we'll have a real working draft ready by next week.

Stay tuned!

Checking In...

I got an email today from someone asking me if this blog was dead.

Gods I hope not!

I'm just up to my eyeballs in projects and unable to find adequate time to blog - yunno - for personal fun. There's this review of Lunch Money I've been wanting to write, and a round up of all the Gaming Art blogs I read - but they haven't made it out of the drafting house yet.

What am I working on these days? Well - you probably already know that Open Game Table (vol.2) is in high-gear. The editors and I are busily grinding away at copy editing the manuscript, while I am working with the artists to get some illustrations done to accompany the book (more artists wanted!). Hopefully the copy editing will be done in the next week or so, and then I'll be able to focus on getting the artwork in that we want and get [someone unnamed] to write the Foreword.

In addition to OGT - I'm managing several parallel projects over at Nevermet Press which include three upcoming eBooks and three adventure campaign settings; as well as acting as the lead developing for one of them (Loaerth & Feywyrd). We recently actually had our first meeting - so NMP should perhaps be called something else - my business partner (the author behind Mad Brew Labs) drove some 600 miles to my place in MD to talk shop, sign paperwork (NMP is a "real" LLC now), and brainstorm about future projects and transmedia endeavors. It was awesome.

All this - plus the Jay O Bee - are kinda keeping TCM on the back burner these days. There's barely time for much else.

I'll be in touch soon - hopefully with something more interesting. Thanks for hanging with me!

(just broke a blogger rule: don't blog about having nothing to blog about. Barnacles!!! )