Paper Golem!

Whelp, I've merged Dice Rule! Book 1 and Book 2 into a single document. Book 1 housed Chapters 1 thru 7. Book 2 housed Chapters 8 thru 12. I kept two books because it was easier to navigate the document in this fashion (both were under 100 pages). I'm now facing a 189 page paper golem!

The merge is a significant step forward to publishing, but there is still a long road ahead. My next step is what I call the "SNR Stage". SNR = Search and Replace (that lovely function of MS Word). While working on the books I kept track of any key terminology, abbreviation preferences, changes to rules, clarifications, etc, and logged them in the back of the book. For wegsample, is it "Cold Roll" or "Cold roll", and "Per Level Bonus" or "PL Bonus". Little stuff like that that ripples through the book. I also have a list of frequent typos to scan, like "their" for "there" and any place that three successive blank spaces appear. Real exciting stuff!

Post-merge I scan the full-bodied document from the top, going down the list one by one. It's an arduous and boring process. A complete necessity for overall synchronicity. Some folks might even call this step "copy editing".

This step let's me move the oversized golem to the door to get it on its way.

Let's hope the dang thing doesn't topple over on me in the process!

Chapter Wrasslin'

Back in September, I started the rewrites on Dice Rule from the top. With the busy summer con schedule, I couldn't find the time to focus on this final march toward copy editing, and the book needed one good read/re-write to get me there. When you lay aside a manuscript for a couple months, you are picking it up fresh with a new set of eyes. You see glaring errors. Your mind stumbles over all the incongruant sentences and trips across jumbled paragraphs. Your whole perception of what you thought you had written gets thrown up and the air and slammed down hard upon the surface of reality.

When you enter the ring with an unfinished manuscript, it is a wrestling match. You have got to know the strengths and weaknesses that your opponent (the manuscript) possesses. It's going to slam you hard with its brute strength and batter your ego. Every step of the way it's going to whisper to you that you don't have the strength to prevail and that you should just walk away. It wants you to leave it, as is, in the ring. That's the toughest part because, inevitably, this is true. You have to walk away from it.

The irony is that this beast is all of your own making. All of its power came from you, the writer. All of its weakness came from you, the writer. In the strangest twist of tactics, the manuscript's weakness is its most horrific strength, because they are your weaknesses. Despite all this, you have to squint at this beast through eyes bleary with too much staring at the screen and murmur that over-used heroic action line, "Let's finish this..."

I'm in a twelve round fight with this beast. Twelve chapters of nonstop slugging it out. And there's not a referee in sight.

Just me and a 180 page electro-imaginary beast.

Chapter wrasslin'...

The End of Cons

With no more cons on my plate for 2009, I've launched the first annual End of Cons sale on the GameWick Games website. I've slashed prices like nobody's business and will keep these prices in place until we announce our 2010 con schedule. It just seemed like a great way to celebrate the end of the convention season and the end of the year.

What's on sale is the second printing of Old Skool (the first printing sold out at GenCon this summer). The second printing has only slight corrections to it, mostly glaring typos found in the first printing. Typos like Stealt instead of Stealth. Not to mention that ever embarrassing synonymic juxtaposition in the Pirates of Penzance lyric quote, "steal" instead of "steel".

Odd how the two most glaring typos both featured the same word...

Never realized that previously. Must have been the dread Curse of Schwenk for using his lyrics to make a not-so-clever point...

Anyway, for all twelve of you who read this little blog...

The End of Cons is nigh!

The Skinny On Dice Rule! (Part XII)

With all cons behind me for the year, I've dedicated my "game time" to the next WEGS book, Dice Rule! Well, that and the next module, Minotaur Meat... And of course, the long overdue Minion of the Month... These are the big three on my plate right now.

Dice Rule! is the one that consumes most of the time, and last week I found myself in the never-ending cycle of reading, editing, reading, editing the final chapter in the book: Chapter XII, Adventure! This isn't the first time I've been through that process with this chapter - more like the VI-th. It's a chapter that just doesn't want to play well with the others. Come the end of the week, on the XII-th to be exact, I put the finishing touches on the chapter and put it to rest (once again). This doesn't mean that Chapter XII is done by any stretch of the imagination. It only means that I've gotten it to a point where it is drying. I'll rip it all apart again when I start layout and design. And that point should be coming very, very soon! Boxcars!

Ubercon XII Aftermath!

Way, way back in the fall of 2005, WEGS Copper was unveiled at Ubercon VI. Six cons later, this little con holds a special place in my old gaming heart. It's the kind of con where you get to know everyone that volunteers, and can recognize all the folks who wander about the gaming areas. It's got that hometown feel (if your hometown is Geekville, USA).

I always have a blast hunkering down to game here. The rpg room is a mid-sized conference room, half of which is dedicated to the mysteriously important RPGA activities (a partition is put up so they have their own private playing space). The other half (the non-D&D-ers) holds about eight tables hosting a mix of classic rpg events and small press games. A good chunk of the events are run by game designers or small press publishers. It's one big mix of gaming goodness. There are plenty of other rooms jammed with misc. gaming activities (card, board, minis), but I tend to stick around the arena I know.

I ran three WEGS Old Skool events: Tale of the Trojan Pig, Minotaur Meat (the next installment of the Badderlands series) and WEGS Sucks! (a vampyric event). Trojan Pig is an intro level game whereas Minotaur Meat steps up the role-play aspects of the game. WEGS Sucks! is a short and brutal scenario designed to be a total party kill (destroy all players), which we clearly state before the game begins. You gotta set expectations in a TPK setting!

All scenarios were a blast to run with a great mix of new/returning WEGS 101 players. Not suprisingly, WEGS Sucks! ended 1.5 hours early. Once the Vampyr Lord appeared with his soul draining sword and started pounding on the Goblin Warrior, the other players ran off the battlemat...

Shortly thereafter, the Goblin Warrior was no more.

A great end to the con!

The Skinny on Dice Rule! (Part 2)

This past weekend, I split my time between reviewing the second half of Dice Rule! and watching some classic horror films, heavy on the Vincent Price. It was, after all, the season for the fiendish master of Poe. It's been a while since I've seen VP in all his glory and thoroughly enjoyed his brilliance in Tower of London (gotta love Richard the III stories) and The Haunted Palace (gotta love a movie set in Arkham even if it is a monster mash of Lovecraft storylines credited as a Poe story). I was also able to sneak in the final installment of the Blind Dead quadrilogy, Night of the Seagulls. More on these movies in a later post, though.

As noted in the post below, the second half of Dice Rule! is composed of five chapters and now comes in at text-only 88 pages. The bulk of the content focuses on the rules for minions (aka monsters), so it fit in well with the running weekend theme. I made it through 4/5ths of the book and knocking off the final chapter this week. Chapter 12 details adventure construction and includes topics on wave play, chapter play and campaign play. It's probably the biggest chapter in the book, which is the one dilemma I have right now: page count. I did not imagine that the book would grow to the size it is, but as the chapters unfolded, one topic led to another and another. Much of the content and rules covered in Dice Rule! was birthed at our convention game tables over the last five years. It's amazing to see how much WEGS 101 Old Skool has spawned.

It kinda creeps up on ya...

Just like Vincent Price...

The Skinny on Dice Rule! (Part 1)

Way, way back in the early part of this year, I began composing the notes on the next WEGS book, titled Dice Rule! The subtitle was "How To Run A Wicked Game" and the book was to be a resource for all players. It was to include all sorts of tips/tricks for playing the game and also advanced options for Players (Arks), Kreators and Minion Masters. The content was primarily based on all the stuff we've been throwing down at our con games the last four years (stuff that isn't in (or excluded from) the Old Skool rulebook). I won't go so far as calling Dice Rule! an "advanced version" as I would a "companion piece". The advanced version is called WEGS Copper, and that ain't seeing the light of day (again) for a couple years.

By April, I had the first 7 chapters done in rough form. I was figuring the book would end up around the same number of chapters as Old Skool (twelve). There was, however, much more content in these first chapters than in all of Old Skool. I was looking at approx 80 pages of text. Way back in April I knew that this was going to be a big book! Now, the first 7 chapters dealt with the "bones of the system": the dice rules, the Ark Kard mechanics, spoints and skills. Stuff applicable to all players. The remaining chapters were dealing with much different topics: minion rules, encounters, tactics, and adventure design. The second half of the book was playing primarily to the Kreator side of the table (but it's stuff players should bone up on if they want to have an edge on the house).

By mid-summer, all 12 chapters were complete in their raw text form and weighing in at about 160 pages. This original manuscript was given a thorough drubbing by the Platinum Warlock and The Professor (two highly experienced WEGS mavens who know their way around the battlemat). Since then, I've been revising the content and getting it ready for its final death throes: layout, design, art and the final proofing. Once this process begins, it will probably be a couple months to a finished product.

Man, it'll be nice to have something new to sell at next year's conventions!

GenCon Everafter...

Haven't posted since the end of Gencon, which pretty much summarizes how much the summer con season takes out of ya (physically, mentally, monetarily)! Gotta add even more conventions to the schedule next summer and see what kind of recovery time that incurs!

Since August, I've been working on the next book (Dice Rule!), the next Badderlands module (Minotaur Meat) and the next minion (Trolls). In order to make some headway, I went light on the fall convention schedule, details of which will be posted soon.

I'm back in the game, baby!

Gen Con 09 Aftermath!

The summer con tour came to its exciting conclusion at Gen Con, as did the stock of the first printing of WEGS 101 Old Skool. We returned from Indiana with the last remaining copy of the original print run. We're pretty happy 'bout that! The rest of the con is a blur of waking up, walking over to the exhibit hall, working the booth and demoing, quick dinners and then the evening WEGS game. Rinse and repeat. Once you plug into a con, you don't unplug until the booth has been dismantled and all the stock is in your car ready to go home. Cheerfully, we had a lot less stock to go home!

We only had a single 10 x 10 booth, and that took some getting used to. Me and the Wegshogs are used to a double booth for our set-up and demos, so it took us a little time to get used to this new flow. After the first day of bumping into each other, we decided to totally reconfigure the booth , just to make it work better. At best, we could demo a game for four players no matter which way we configured the space. And that was probably best as it made us focus on quick demos for small groups.

We were surrounded by some hopping booths: Luke Crane and the Burning Wheel team were on one side and Crazy Egor was on the other. Diagonally across from us was Goodman Games and Wizards of the Coast. Directly across from us was a custom leather boot and jacket dealer, Son of Sandlar, selling some awesome renn-faire ware.

Not a bad neighborhood at all!

Q: Do You Want To Make A Small Fortune In The Gaming Industry?

A: Start with a large one!

This little bit of professional advice was given to me at Origins from a seasoned dice professional. Given the expense of attending summer conventions alone, either as a game company or just an individual, this should be fairly apparent. I read this week that the average per individual cost for attending Gen Con was estimated to be around $900 (a real loose estimation). Travel, hotel, food, admission and purchases sure add up quick. I'd think it would come in more toward $600 (a sixth of that being admission fees/event costs!). Keep in mind, vendors typically get there a day or two before the con for set-up (one more day of expenses).

Anyhow, I've been a bit delinquent with my posting here. This was just a ping to let all twelve of my faithful readers know I'm still alive and rolling. The summer con season did not kill me, and what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger...

Gen Con Aftermath will be posted soon!

I Know I'm A Geek 'Cuz...

Somewhat related to BoG, there are just things that make the inner geek tingle. Like knowing that a two handed sword does 3d6 damage in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And that such an item costs 30 g.p. (at least that was the going price back in 1978). Lots and lots of games geeks can spout out much more on the damage and cost of items, but I'm more surface level. I just know what appealed to me when I was introduced to the game. I have no clue why my brain has deemed that info important enough to retain...

As hinted in the earlier BoG posts, the inspiration for the Badge of Geekness material came from a little gem of knowledge from my travels with Tolkien. That's why those prior posts had the Hobbit and FotR depicted. It is simply this:

Chapter 1 of The Hobbit is titled: An Unexpected Party

Chapter 1 of The Fellowship of the Ring is titled: A Long-Expected Party

Tolkien begins both books with a party, of sorts. The unexpected party is the Dwarves who show up at Bilbo's doorstep thanks to Gandalf. The long-expected party is Bilbo's self-planned 111th birthday bash. Both mark points of departure from the Shire for Bilbo.

I just think that's cool JRR trivia.

And it only took me three posts to get that brain nugget out...

Badges of Geekness, Part 2 or 3

Based on the last post(s), I'm guessing that there's going to be a need to define the different Badges of Geekness that one can acquire. Off the top of my head, there's got to be one for "The Order of the Ring" (Tolkien) and "The Society of the Elder Things" (Lovecraft). These are two authors who have been embraced by gaming geeks en masse thanks to the various incarnations of their works/themes in role-playing games. We can also add "The Pittsburgh Assemblage" for Romero and his monstrous zombie efforts. There's plenty of other badge categories, but these are the ones that I personally would have a shot at wearing.

Now my knowledge of those topics above isn't very broad. The shards of information I possess on those topics were gained from my casual exposure to that particular genre. I have not spent hours memorizing every nameless horror introduced to this world by H.P., or tried to understand the Elven language of J.R.R. In fact, I've only read the Hobbit once and LOTR twice. I base my badge credentials on this one fact alone:

I can sit around a gaming table with a group of complete strangers and mutually enjoy the banter that flows forth from any one of the topics above.

A Badge of Geekness is like wearing a t-shirt from a place you've visited. You've been there, done that and want to share the excitement of the experience with other folks. Problem is that there aren't too many folks who have been to Middle Earth, Miskatonic U, or even to shopping mall chock full of zombies.

Geeks go to places that don't exist.

And all we get are these little badges...

Badges of Geekness

As noted in the earlier BoG post, there's just some things that game geeks know. I'm not talking about the stuff that floats freely about the spheres, but that which bubbles below the crust of the Geek world. The stuff that's above the crust tends to be non-worthy of a BoG (like knowing the names of the secret identities of the most popular superheroes). This is the stuff that even the non-geek surface dwellers find out, thanks to summer superhero blockbusters, etc. That kind of pop culture stuff is all above crust. No more badges handed out for that info!

Anything of "ours" that has been jammed into a digestable movie format or tv series just ain't that special anymore. When most of the residents of a retirement community know that Bruce Wayne is Batman, it's over for that super. Ask them who Hawkman is though, and you'll get the normal glazed over stare...

But this post isn't supposed to be about supers. That's not the angle of my geek. It's just that supers have probably made the most cross-over to the surface, and so provide the easiest examples. There's not a whole bunch of sword-n-sorcery stuff that has made this journey. I'm hazarding a guess that if it has, it has gone from novella to comic to movie (like Conan), the exception being The Lord of the Rings. Surface dwellers were exposed to Hobbits, Middle Earth, the Ring and the Fellowship, thanks to P. Jackson and Co. This knowledge will be reinforced when The Hobbit is released as a blockbuster, too. So, some of the special warmth of our coveted secret knowledge will be sent to the ether for mass consumption.

This just means we have to dig deeper for our sword-n-sorcery badges of geekness. Now, this post went nowhere to the point I was trying to make, which was about my BoG for my limited Tolkien knowledge. And, as this post is on the brink of blather, I'll bail out pronto, quoting some Gandalf...

Keep it secret!

Keep it safe!

(And I have no clue who Hawkman is...)

Dexcon Aftermath!

Part two of my summer con trilogy has come and gone! Dexcon marks the halfway point between Origins and GenCon. Unlike those other two cons, this one is located in NJ and too, too convenient to attend. It's also a great rally point for all our home hogs.

Dexcon was the most successful con to date from an event standpoint. Thanks to all the support from The Prof, Willy the Too and Spointer, we were able to run three WEGS sessions simultaneously, marking the most number of players to be WEGS-ing it the same time (17 players). Sure, someone might be throwing down WEGS for mass amounts of people somewhere else on the globe, but I haven't heard of it yet (and if they are, let me know so I can sell them some rulebooks!).

At Dexcon, the WEGS arena is set-up at the hotel side entrance in front of a cascading wall of water. The area is just big enough to fit three large tables, the WEGS banner and the product table. It's a great area for passing traffic, but standing in front of a waterfall for twelve hours is enough to bring down a SAN% test. Luckily, some non-con attendee decided to take a swim in the pool late Sat. night, resulting in the waterfall being turned off all day Sunday.

The con ended with yet another amazing game: 99 Low Level Orks! This was the final WEGS event on the schedule, and, truth be told, I thought there wouldn't be any player turn-out for it. Sunday con games are usually a bust. Not the case this time! Thanks to The Prof's tireless recruiting tactics, we had to set-up two tables side-by-side and run the game for 9 players. The game took us all the way up to the close of the con (6 pm).

As you can tell from the tardiness of this post, it took a little longer to recover from this one!

Next stop, Gen Con!

Origins 2009 Aftermath!

Origins, the first of the big three summer cons, has come and gone! Thus the gap in my postings: a couple weeks prior to the con is prep time, a couple weeks after is recovery! Two remain, though: Dexcon, NJ and Gen Con, IN. The hardest one to prepare for is the first, after that it's routine pretty much.

GameWick Games had a corner booth in the center of the exhibit hall and, thanks to our friends and fans, was rocking all the time. The Bride of WEGS (as she is called by the King of the TTG), Willy The Too and Spointer were all on hand to assist with the demos, allowing me to stay sane amidst a sea of gaming hysteria. And then there was the Witthogs, who showed up everyday for the WEGS Power Play sessions (from 2 to 4 pm). Wicked, wicked fun!

At night, we convened at 9pm for our official convention events: these are the events that folks register for. These events were jam-packed every night, so much so that on Saturday we had to add a second session of Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom (one session run by Willy The Too, the other by Spointer). I floated between the two tables as the disembodied Kreator/pit boss. I think that's the most players ever to wegzit in the same room, same time (just barely beating the single session at the Krystal Keep back in 2008).

All in all, a great way to start the summer con season!

Badges of Geekness

There are certain things that gaming geeks know; like that GenCon is one of the biggest geek conventions held in the United States. True geeks know that the convention's title is short for "Geneva Convention", so titled for the fact that the first GenCon was held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (1968). As a miniature wargame convention, the title also paid homage to those same historical conventions of Geneva, Switzerland. I wonder how obscure this reference is to the folks who now attend GenCon, as it no longer has strong ties to its historical miniatures foundations? Sure there are still tried and true wargamers heading to GenCon, but these are only a small fraction of the attendee population. The con's primary purpose is not wargames.

And so it was that from those hex-based wargames of yore came Chainmail, the small booklet that was one of the first to outline sword-n-sorcery wargaming. Then Chainmail begot Dungeons & Dragons. And D&D begot the whole pen-n-paper rpg craze. And then all this morphed into online rpgs and tactical warfare games. Now, this is a big, bruising summary of the industry and history of GenCon, which has not been held in any town called Geneva for many, many years.

My initial point was that there are badges of geekness.

Knowing that GenCon is short for Geneva Convention is one of them.

Wisconsin, not Switzerland.

200

Shortly after the last post and the comment about having a bean bag chair made of dice, I got a shipment of 200 dice delivered to my doorstep. This summer we're releasing the next wave of the WEGS Kreator Kit, which will include 5 dice per set. Dice are all stamped "Fabulous Las Vegas", appropriate for a night of WEGS-ing it up! The new Kreator Kit is pretty slick with an upgraded carrying case and heavier poker chips. It contains everything we use for our con games (pawns, markers) and will instantly let folks start playing along at home! It's everything a Kreator needs to get the game started in a jiff (and it's pretty handy for use with any adventure game). Folks might even just use the kit for their home poker games...

Play WEGS!

Dice Included...

At Wittcon this year, I ran a seminar on game design and publishing entitled Dice Included. The basic premise of the piece was how each and every little thing you do along the way of taking your game from an idea to a published product is as much of an adventure as a business venture. Once you turn that page and say that you're serious about publishing and selling, you've got to watch every single copper piece carefully (thus the title of the seminar).

To include a set of dice (2d6 and 2d10 for WEGS) would be an awesome addition to the Old Skool bag, but doing so would add about $1 more to the cost it took me to put the package together. While that's only .25 a die, it's also 25% of the retail price. Taking just a buck off the margin is a dicey thing to do for a small press endeavor. Sure I could get the dice much cheaper, if I ordered a thousand of each type, but I'm not ready to add two big dice-filled bean bag chairs to my tv room right now...

I read earlier this week on the Grognardia blog that when the D&D box set was sold over in the UK, the fact that the books came with dice caused the product to be taxable; adding dice established it as a game and not a set of books (books are not taxable). Supposedly stores removed the dice to increase sales. I say supposedly because this was only mentioned in a reply to a post and I can't verify it.

While adding dice would strongly establish the Old Skool bag as a game, I think the inclusion of the card deck has similar results (as does the beefy barbarian warrior chucking dice at you).

Dice Rule!

This month has flown by (and with very little posting). This due mostly to the summer con preparations and getting everything in place for the booths and promotional side of things (like advertising). This stuff sneaks up on me every year and though I might be smarter about these things, I don't know if I'm better at it.

The other thing that has been consuming most of my time is the writing of the next WEGS 101 installment: Dice Rule! (or How To Run A Wicked Game). Pre-Vegas it was 8 chapters big and 88 pages long (or 8/88 in WEGS lingo). Since then, I've added 4 more chapters and about 44 pages (4/44). So, this is becoming a healthy sized tome. It should be ready for a Gen Con release.

I'm obsessed with finishing the first draft of the book by the end of this month, just as I turn the page on another mortal year.

One week to go!

Tips For Freelancers

One of the GTS seminars I attended was run my Mike Stackpole, who is "a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books" (according to the opening line of his wikipedia bio). You can find out more about him via his personal site; he's done a lot more in the industry than that, being one of the early champions of D&D during its commercial demonization.

The seminar, titled the same as this blog entry, focused on how to find work as a freelancer in the gaming industry from a writer's standpoint (and a bit for artists, too). I don't have any plans nor the time for freelancing, but from a game company standpoint, it gave me some insight on how to navigate working relationships for future projects. Lots of good points and laughs throughout the seminar; two quotes I wrote down:

"When you enter the game industry, you take a vow of poverty; game companies will help you keep that vow every step of the way."

"Sufficiently advanced stupidity can sometimes be mistaken for malice."

Both are paraphrased, but the first quote illustrated that the game industry is notoriously impoverished (unless you create the next Magic The Gathering) and no one should delve there with prospects of getting rich quick (or at all). The second quote was just advice to not sweat the small stuff (like publishers who edit the heck out of your piece and strip it of all the cool stuff).

So much for my get rich scheme...

Beer and Peanut

Ever since I saw the news story on the NJ hit man who hid one of his victims under a hotel room bed (and the body wasn't discovered for a couple of weeks), I take a quick peek under the bed of any hotel room I stay in. Quirky precaution, but it reveals a world of info on just how thorough the rooms are sanitized (or not). So, imagine my horror when checking under my Vegas bed and finding an empty bottle of beer and a solitary peanut. It's not so much that they former tenant left the empty beer bottle, but what were they thinking about by leaving only one peanut?!? That's not even worth cracking the shell for...

At least it wasn't a pair of eyes looking back...

What's GTS, El Willy?

Glad you asked, man!

GTS is Gama Trade Show, a game industry convention that is a mix of seminars and exhibitors that spans four days in Las Vegas. Basically, game companies set-up their product lines in booths and attendees (mostly retail store owners looking to see game offerings from said companies) wander about and look at all the cool stuff. GameWick Games does not have a booth; with a single product (called WEGS 101 Old Skool for those of you who don't know) and no distribution, there's really no point in me shelling out all that cash (yet). This is the same reason I'm not even a member of GAMA (the Game Manufacturer's Association). I attend in my professional capacity as GameWick's Chief Gaming Officer and network the best I can with fellow CGOs and the ilk. Between industry seminars and exhibit hall introductions, I keep busy during the daylight hours in Vegas. The more time I spend at the con, the less time I have for the tables.

A win/win situation in my book.

Casino ala Kubrick

This is the second year that the GTS (Gama Trade Show) was held at Ballys, which has the strangest entry portal of all casinos. Like something out of Kubrick's 2001, this neon swirled entrance tube sucks people up from the Strip and eventually deposits them inside the belly of the casino. The first leg of the journey is via conveyor belt that ends abruptly at an escalator up. The second leg is via said escalator, up and over the main hotel and casino entrance (driveway/valet) to a sales pitch arena where you are effronted with the oft said lure line "Are you folks in town tonight and looking to see a free show?". Navigating this trap, you find another escalator down and into the casino lobby. The three-part journey takes about five minutes as the conveyor moves just slow enough to make you wish you walked.

Most folks don't realize that there are gardens to the left and right of the entrance tube with a secret sidewalk that leads directly to the front of the casino itself. The catch is that you have to walk the entire way (gasp!) instead of being mechanically casino-herded. The walk through the Bally gardens passes like warp drive compared to the conveyor belt attraction. The gardens themselves are a bizzarre shamble of poorly manicured hedge animals (think Kubrick's The Shining gardens that have gone to pot). There's just enough left of the plant to discern that it is in an animal shape; the only reason you are drawn to this conclusion is that there has to be some purpose to the chicken wire wrapped around the plant itself. I think Ballys had much grander hopes for the gardens, but as almost everyone uses the futuristic (for the 1970s) tube, no one ever sees these little topiary beasts. I saw plenty of them each day as I bypassed the tube.

The Land of Showgirls & Buffets

Well, I'm back from Las Vegas and happily return with some cash in my wallet. It is not my cash though, that disappeared somewhere past 1am last Saturday at a craps table at the Imperial Palace. No, the money that is in my wallet is my wife's, who managed to stay comfortably ahead of the house edge via her penny slots (disastrous when a table player has to concede victory to a slots player)! But I wasn't out there for the gambling or the craps or the pool or the drinks... I was there for the GAMA Trade Show (Game Manufacturers Association), the fine folks that bring the world the Origins Game Fair in Columbus. And I have a ton of restrospective posts coming all based on this strange Wegziotic adventure in paradise!

NDE & Taxes

Two things that can't be avoided in life, and thankfully, I'm only dealing with the latter of the two. Once a year, just about this time, I get to revisit all my prior year expenses for the game company and get it all down on the tax form. It's almost as much fun as rolling the dread NDE. Can't wait to get filed and back to the game table!

March Madness!

March was a hectic month and I was scattered all over the place on the WEGS map. The early part of the month I was wrapping up the summer convention schedule and also began work on the next Minion of the Month, The Blind Dead. The Prof and I went back and forth on the skills in a mad attempt to make these bloodsuckers worthy of zombie-dom, and it took a full month to get 'em out the door. Mid-month was Wittcon, a good, little con hosted by the Wittenberg University Role Playing Guild where I ran games and gave a brief seminar on game publishing (appropriately entitled Dice Included). The trip to WU ended on a high note as the Platinum Warlock and crew took me to an awesome gaming store in Fairborn (Ohio) Bookery Fantasty. The store is now a WEGS retailer! On top of all this, I've been focused on the content for House Rules! and trying to get the first pass done; at this point I find myself with at least two chapters to go before the first read-thru.

April is going to be another mad month!

The Gen Con Cut Off!

Today, the first day of spring, is the cut off for event submission for Gen Con. In the past, I was always excited by getting the WEGS schedule submitted early. This year, I waited until the last possible moment. Priorities have changed since we now run a booth there, and we pour all our energy into our convention floor demos. Last year we ran 10 events and had a total of 63 players jump into the fray; we also ran two after-hours games for inner circle 'shogs and 'shogettes. This year, sad to say, I've submitted just 3 events (Weds, Thurs and Fri, 9pm - midnite) and left Saturday night open for another invite only event (probably WEGS Sucks!).



Here's the three events:

• The Tale of the Trojan Pig


• Keep on the Badderlands: Minotaur Meat!


• Dwarf Walks Into A Bar

It's with regret that I've pulled Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom off the schedule; I could only run one repeat event given the abbreviated schedule, and just love running Dwarf Walks. Always have a blast with that one; never, never, never plays the same way twice!


And that's why Turdschmeer is featured in today's post!

B1 Hobgobble's Eve

Are you ready for wicked adventure?

After four months of rigorous playtesting, the first adventure module is launched: Hobgobble's Eve! As this is an intro to the WEGS Badderlands series, it's also lovingly called B1. This module is jam-packed with some great Old Skool art and tons of hobgoblins (like every intro adventure should be). To call it an intro is a little misleading though; it's going to be quite challenging for new players to "beat". There are only three chapters in the adventure, each one gets progressively harder. The module also contains its fair share of wacky WEGS lingo, and I'm hoping the casual reader will have their curiousity peaked by how different the Wickedly Errant Game System is from other sword-n-sorcery game systems.

Dreamation Aftermath!

Dreamation was like getting my own stimulus package for WEGS: the energy of the con and all the great games we ran got the creative juices flowing just in time for spring. After a long winter of limited play, it was fantastic to sit back and play one game after another after another. With The Prof as Minion Master, I was able to take the overlord position and sit on high watching the action go down. Mucho gracias to The Prof! From running through the final test of Hobgobble's Eve to throwing down the initial pass at Minotaur Meat, we were able to gather gamers for every WEGS offering on the schedule (with the exception of our Sunday Pirates of Penzantium demo).

We took some chances with new rules, like allowing folks to burn 6% Rank for a Phew! at the Spante*; this made the end game go on forever! This, though, is part of the fun of going full throttle at a con; for the House, it keeps the game interesting and also allows us to test out and tinker with enhancements. I'm all about trying to break the system, giving it too much gas and flooding the engines. The downside of this is that players may get caught in the crossfire and walk away with a different view of what the game is about. One big thing learned: keep the intro games intro (no tweaking rules one jot).

One last thing on Dreamation... awesome location. GameWick Games was given three tables at the hotel entrance in front of a cascading waterfall; it was like being poolside at the Flamingo. Word is that we're in same location for the summer con. It will be awesome.

*"burn 6% Rank for a Phew! at the Spante"... A line that only a Wegshog could comprehend!

All work and no play...

Feb's been a busy work month for me, thus the first posting happening mid-month. There was some headway on the WEGS front in the fact that I was able to launch the first Master Minion, Mushpot the Great! The first WEGS module, B1 Hobgobble's Eve, will arrive on the wegsite later this month. And speaking of work... The Origins and GenCon event schedules are due this month, too. Hard to believe that it's that time of the year already! I always forget that Feb is a big push month for getting everything lined up for the spring and summer cons (this stuff just sneaks up on you). On the game front, the first convention of the year is hitting this week: Dreamation. Looking forward to throwing down some WEGS this weekend; it's the first chance I'm going to get to sit back and have fun in some time (and hopefully sell some product, too)!

Hobgobble Cover Art!

For all twelve of you who read this blog, there's some exciting news for our first adventure module: Jim Holloway is the cover artist! Jim was one of the original artists for TSR (the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons for those of you who aren't geeks). Check out his site and all his contributions to the hobby. His art has filled the pages of the early D&D modules (the B series) to AD&D covers for the Desert of Desolation, Oriental Adventures, Spelljammer and lots of interior stuff for everything in between. Outside of D&D-land, he's illustrated Boot Hill, Gama World, Star Frontiers and Gangbusters, too. If you spent any time perusing the shelves of a game store in the 80s, you know his artistic mettle! Hobgobble's Eve drew a lot of inspiration from the early TSR modules that shaped how most of us think of the sword-n-sorcery adventure game; having an Old Skool Master like Jim involved has really made this inaugural launch of the WEGS Module B1 very exciting!

And the cover is just amazing!

The Hobgobble Update

So, about two months ago I started working on Hobgobble's Eve, the first official WEGS 101 adventure. It went through numerous playtests and revisions, and then some more playtest. While all this was going on, I began contacting artists to illustrate the adventure. Three of the artists are from Three Headed Troll Art Wurks; guys who specialize in the old skool art form which is perfect for this module (check out the 3HT site). I came across their art while attending Con on the Cob, a con with a very heavy artist attendance. Tony Steele, who did some illustrations for Pirates of Penzantium and who also attended COTC, jumped into the Hobgobble fray as well. All the art is complete (with the exception of the cover which will be the topic of next post). I'm really thrilled with each artist's work; this module is jam-packed with cool art!

So, after two months, the first pass at the concept/playtest/art/layout/design is done. In my humble opinion, the end result is gonna be pretty fantastic. I've had a bunch of fun with the design on this, and the layout is inevitably for landscape, three-hole punch format (so you can throw it in a binder after you print it at home); the landscape design also takes up less table space during the game.

One more pass at text revisions and layout and this sucker is done.

This module is gonna ooze the old skool spirit that WEGS 101 is all about!

Playtesting: Hobgobble's, Chapter 3

We concluded the Hobgobble's Eve playtest with the good folk of the Garden State Gaming Society last night; the final chapter of the soon-to-be-released adventure is going to be a brutal one for players! I jumped in as a player, letting the Professor run the newly revised minions for this encounter. We had four players to face-off against his eight minions; with no Warriors in the mix for us, the odds were stacked against us. It was a struggle all the way to the final inning (14 innings!), but we managed to survive. We missed hitting the eigth inning "sweet spot", but my thoughts are the chapter could have concluded sooner if we had one more player on our side of the table. We're officially sticking a fork in this module, 'cause it's done (from a playtest standpoint)! We ran this adventure twice, as did the Platinum Warlock (thanks for the notes, A!). Time to start layout and design on the pdf. Hoping to publish this sucker before the end of the month for the whole darn Wegsworld to enjoy!

Time To Start Rolling!

With Christmas, New Years and all those other sweet gatherings in the past, it's time for GameWick to start looking at what's in store for '09; the clock is ticking away already! By the end of this month, the con schedules for GenCon and Origins will need to be in place, as will the schedules for any cons we plan on hitting before then. Even more important than that is getting a couple of new products out the door before the summer cons hit (that WEGS 101 book is getting awfully lonely all by itself). Our goal for 2009 is to get three new products out the door:

1. House Rules! The Kreators Guide for how to run WEGS.
2. WEGS 202 Pirates of Penzantium (yar!)
3. Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom (mini wegsventure for 101)

Plus, we're hoping to post a monthly freebie wegsventure, the first of which will be Hobgobble's Eve! toward the end of January. Details on all this stuff will be blogged about in my next posts.

Health and Happy Gaming to all of you for the New Year!