Home.

Whew. Visiting Bristol, Bath, Weston-Super-Mare, Cardiff, and London... now home.

Dragonmeet was cool. Met and bugged several people within the industry, including but not limited to Angus Abranson, Gregor Hutton, Chris Pramas, and Operation: Kenneth Hite had a successful Phase 1. Ask me in April or so if there will be a Phase 2 or 3. Was interviewed for I think Yog Radio. Met a lot of fans and hopefully new fans, and met a literally card-carrying member of the Gardening Society. (speaking of which, one of the members has created a Facebook page exclusively for the Gardening Society...)

Best thing about England? BOOKSTORES WITH OODLES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKS! Ordering things online is OK if it's the only option but going to an actual store and buying things is better. The comment was made to me that I should look around to decide what I want in the physical bookstore and then buy it cheaper online... I don't consider that being a "smart consumer," I consider that being a skinflint prick., but I'm told I have archaic manners in such areas. Anyway, this is what I bought in England:

Conquistadors by Michael Wood
The English Civil War: A People's History by Diane Purkiss
Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War by Peter H. Wilson
God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland by Micheál Ó Siochrú
Inquisition: The Reign of Fear by Toby Green
The Mammoth Book of Horror Comics
Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490 - 1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Renaissance Florence on Five Florins a Day by Charles Fitzroy
Vlad the Impaler: Son of the Devil, Hero of the People by Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill

What else?

ALL OUT OF BOXES FOR SURE DEFINITELY NO MORE NOT EVEN IF YOU GIVE ME 500€ DO I HAVE ONE.

Oh, am I yelling? :D I did have a couple left from Dragonmeet but I came home and within the 300 or so emails I've accumulated over the week (about 35 real, the rest are Viagra spam) lo and behold... taken!

(Well, OK, I've got *my* personal play/convention display copy that I'll sell you for 500€)

Details about the next printing tomorrow.

Now to see if the VCR correctly recorded those two programs I wanted to see from last week...

The Quality of Names

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Off to Dragonmeet!

I'm off to England Sunday morning Helsinki time, so this is the last you'll see of me for a week.

Once again I travel and will be cut off from the world!

I have a table at Dragonmeet in London on the 27th, so stop on by.

You'll see a couple blog posts while I'm gone... don't panic, it's not a ghost, they're pre-loaded.

And with that... toooodles!

I Didn't Want To But I Can't Resist

I wanted to wait until I got back from England before showing anything, but... whew. This is a detail of an unfinished piece of art from Cynthia Sheppard. In proper monster movie tradition I've been referring to this as "The Flame Princess versus the Slime Monster."

Those of you stopping by at Dragonmeet will see another new piece of art as I've had a couple of new banners made to hang up behind the table.

I apologize to the Gardening Society members for making them wait but the mailouts will happen tomorrow. My wife is going to be doing the writing on the certificates (she's got actual penmanship) and she's been super-busy lately.

The new LotFP webstore has been commissioned.

I leave on Sunday for my English vacation (my wife has ordered NO WORK while there... not bloody likely!) and I'll have a table at Dragonmeet on the 27th (see?). I won't have net access while there, but don't worry. I've got a few of blog posts pre-loaded for the 25th (musing), 28th (promotion) and 29th (my promised rant which will surely leave you disappointed what with all this advance hype).

Busy busy busy lately.

What Else is Out There?

In the back of the Referee book of Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, there is a list of other OSR type publishers and recommendations.

This section will have to be updated (the Swords & Wizardry situation has changed as well as a couple of other things).

Who should I include there that's not there now?

The Damned d12

I want to give the d12 some function in the game. It can't be too important a function as to really screw around with the basics, but it needs something to do.

I have some ideas, but chances are I'd do better to steal one of yours instead. So give me ideas to steal.

Won't Be Able to Afford Her For Much Longer...

LotFP cover artist Cynthia Sheppard is one of Illuxcon's Artist Guests.

Check out who she's got for company here.

Proposed Changes to the "Common Activities" Section of LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing

One of my goals with the skill system for Weird Fantasy Role-Playing was to get all of the "common activities" of the old games which have associated mechanics and get them together without really creating a proper skill system.

After reviewing some customer comments, I realize that keeping just about all the abilities and skills from the classic games is maybe a bit too faithful for a subsystem that changes a bunch of percentile skills to d6 skills.

I think it might be a good idea to do some changing around for the second printing in order to clean it up and clarify it a bit. Let me know what you think of each of the following possible adjustments:

• Eliminating all the subskills. Do halflings really need separate "Stealth Indoors" and "Stealth Outdoors" markers? Just give them some plain stealth! Why would an elf find secrets doors better but not generally search better? etc
• Eliminate "Detect New Construction" and "Detect Shifting Passages" since they're very limited and create a new skill in their place called "Underground Expertise" that could be used for such general engineering topics. By the same token, changing Foraging & Hunting to Outdoor Expertise as it basically was covering outdoor survival anyway and this changes a specific activity to a more general thing.
• Eliminate Find Traps and have that function fall under the general Search. Why should the finding of traps be something different than the finding of other secret or hidden things? Extra emphasis that this isn't a generic spot check, that a player must be specific about what his character is searching and that this represents a thorough search and in-game time is always spent doing it, would be part of this.

Finding some better names to represent the skills than "Underground -" and "Outdoor Expertise" would be great too. :P

Mini-Rant

The Edition Wars are real.

Not in a "internet fanboys push their method of organized make-believe as better than other fanboys' method of organized make-believe."

Not even in a "micropublisher decides to focus on one version of a game and damn the rest straight to hell as far as the publisher is concerned" kind of way.

But in a "Real business make real business decisions based on these things."

For all the talk of death and doom in the RPG industry, money does move around in amounts substantial to any small business. The bigger OSR publishers push tens of thousands of dollars around annually. Each. And we are small potatoes in this biz. As you move up the ladder, the dollar amounts get much bigger. And not-so-small businesses pay attention to that. And that's the kind of way Edition Wars exist in substantial form, just back-door enough to smack you in the ass when you least expect it.

Standing up and being noticed and recognized as an existing and vibrant thing matters.

Wow... Thanks!

First Snow Day Sale 2010 was a huge success!

I'll be shipping out this monster pile of boxes tomorrow.

Thanks to you guys from the US, Australia, Finland, Germany, Spain, France, Sweden, and the UK!