Stuff... and Things

So, What's on my mind? I could talk on any number of subjects today, but I will limit myself to a few odds and ends.

Mad Science Update

The Mad Science sourcebook is in the final edited and ready for layout. There is a slight delay, however. The esteemed game designers over at Modiphius had a brilliantly successful kickstarter for their Achtung! Cthulhu game. First off, I have met several of their designers and they are all brilliant people doing excellent work, and I highly recommend you check them out. The problem is that we share an artist (the irreplaceable Dim Martin) with our British brethren, and they have first dibs. As I would never dream of violating the ancient and rarified rules involved in the system of dibs, I must wait until they are done with him before he can make our art. This pushes the PDF for Mad Science into the June timeframe, and means we just might get the print version in time for Gencon.

History
RPGs turned 40 this year. Holy crap! Personally, I have been gaming for a little over half of those years. I look back and remember things like the satanic panic (summarized here),  the rise of White Wolf, the Magic card explosion, the D&D collapse, the Wizards resurrection, 3rd Edition, the OGL, the indie movement, the backlash to the indie movement, the war between Paizo and 4th Ed, and a million more little changes and details. Time is weird.

Winter

As a Canadian, it is my duty to complain about winter. This one has been brutal. It's supposedly "spring" but snow lingers like the creepy weird guy that hangs around the game store who doesn't buy anything, but never leaves. As a protest, I ceased all winter snow removal activities. I stopped shovelling my driveway, and just rammed my Mazda through the snowbanks instead. I am sure that my neighbours think I am some sort of lazy slob (I'm not saying I'm not), but I am acting on principle, dammit! Winter is done. It's supposed to be spring. You know what, screw this. My day job is sending me on an exchange position in Florida for a few years. I am getting away from this winter insanity.

Titanfall

It's time for a giant robot aside. As a person who designed an entire game about robots beating the shit out of each other, I feel as though I should comment whenever a new piece of giant robot media makes waves. This time it's Titanfall. It has a story... but it's neither good nor engaging. It has first person shooting... it's nothing special; I'd rather play Halo. The big deal is that it has giant robots that beat the shit out of each other. Titanfall's robot combat is fast, brutal, tactical, and incredibly addictive. It's not perfect, and at times it can be frustrating, but I keep loading up to play another mission. There are hundreds if not thousands of Titanfall reviews out there so go check them out, and then figure out if you want to give the game a go. So, to summarize:

Cons

-Terrible Story

-No Single Player

-So-so first person shooting

Pros

-Giant robots with guns and missiles and stuff

-See above

Other Projects

I said I was working on other stuff. That stuff will become more apparent as time goes on. Some things are being shuffled in the schedule right now, and I will see what will be done when. Something just fell onto my plate recently and it requires immediate action.

The rumours of my demise have been greatly exagerated

I swear I'm still alive. It's been 6 months since I wrote anything, but my existence was not snuffed out. I have some announcements listed below, but lets start with a question. Where the hell have I been? It's complicated but I will attempt to answer.

First off, that con plague I had turned into full-up bronchitis and persisted for over a month. It wore me down like an old set of brakes. At the same time, my day job reared its ugly head and saddled me with far more extensive duties than I was expecting. My days became longer, and I was burning out pretty badly. There were dozens of times that I tried to write, but I froze every time and just stared at the blank page on my computer.

Not writing is bad. Even worse is when I get into the habit of not writing. I procrastinate and put things off again and again. Weeks of not writing stretched into months, and next thing I knew, Christmas was fast approaching. When December rolled around, I was heavily distracted by another of my many chronic issues: physical fitness.

My day job is military. Even though I work at a desk, I am expected to maintain a certain level of physical fitness. Those who know me know that I am not the most fit/athletic of people, and this is made worse by some long-standing knee problems that required surgery two years ago. I had a fitness test to do in December, and I was officially "freaking out". I should not have been so worried, I passed the test without issue, hooray! With that out of the way, I thought I will totally write over Christmas break! Nope.

Turns out, passing that fitness test put me in the running for a software job down in the States. They let me know about it the day before I left for vacation, and I immediately lost two months to the incredibly elaborate, immensely complex, Canadian Forces Foreign Posting Screening process. I have spent the last few months doing meetings, appointments, training, and it culminated in getting a wisdom tooth ripped out on Tuesday.


Mad Science
Now you would think that being that busy would preclude me from writing at all, but for some reason, it didn't completely. As the screening process neared its end (still not quite done) I found time to sit down and type out all of my ideas for a Mad Science book that had been knocking around in my head for the better part of a 8 months.

I finished the draft last week, and Cait edited it immediately. It is now in Patrick's hands for copy-editing and proofing, and we are working on the art plan. The book did grow a little in the writing. What was originally going to be a little PDF expansion pamphlet expanded into a full-fledged supplement, complete with some rules expansions, NPCs, places, organizations, gear, creatures, and more.

The plan right now is to send out the PDF to everyone who backed us, and then make it available for Print-on-Demand at DriveThruRPG.com. Give us a bit of time to work on art and layout, and the book will be ready soon.

Other Plans
I have some other ideas on the go. Nothing solid, or confirmed yet, but once I figure out a direction, and solidify it somewhat, I will chat about it here. I will say that I hope to make another book before Gencon this year, but I am not quite sure what that book will be yet.

Plague, Hacks, Odds, and Ends

The Con plague lingers. I am almost over it, a full 2 weeks later, but I have managed to pass it to my wife and daughter who are none too pleased with me. I wonder if the illness was worth the trip to Gencon? EVERYONE in my house is miserable right now, our Labour Day long weekend consisted of us sitting around being sick.

Hacks
Warbirds is doing well. People are buying it and stuff. That is good news. What I think is great news is that people are already hacking it. I started my game design adventure hacking games over a decade ago, and to see people to the same thing with my stuff is really exciting.

If you go to the thread, they are using Warbirds to hack Macross/Robotech. Now if you have been reading the blog for a while, you know I have a special place in my heart for that weird, flawed, anime. However, the license for producing Robotech RPGs is firmly in the hands of Palladium. I have criticized their work with the license before, but it is theirs, and they also have a history of litigation, so as much as I want to contribute to the hacking, as a writer I choose to err on the side of caution, and keep my fool mouth shut.

Keep hacking, guys. I am waiting for a Top Gun hack (be sure to include rules for shirtless volley ball).

Odds and Ends
I recently fired off emails to everyone who bought stuff at Gencon. I had to deal with more than one mailer daemon telling me I had the wrong email. I was able to fight through most of them, but there are still a few that stumped me.  If you are reading this, and you were supposed to get PDFs, leave a comment and I will sort it out. Next year, people will type their email addresses into my laptop.

In other news, I have a few return to sender books that need to be re-sent out tomorrow. After that, all Warbirds commitments will be met... except for Mad Science. Still got mad science to do.

My work is never done.

Con Plague

First off, my plan to blog each day of the con fell through. I was up late at parties and social events, and my need for sleep defeated my need to blog. Now it's a few days later, we've done the 16 hour drive home, and things should be back to normal.

But now I am suffering from a severe case of con plague. Lack of sleep + improper diet + close quarters with thousands of people = one very sick armoured writer.

Still, I feel obliged to deliver a Gencon After Action Report. So here we go:

The Company
Outrider Studios did very well at Gencon. We sold a lot of games, met a lot of fans, and made some new industry contacts. Cait, Derek, and Desi all worked tirelessly to promote our products. We did a few book trades and came out of them with some very interesting products.

Business cards were exchanged, and deals were struck. We submitted Warbirds for next year's Ennies (you never know), and Indie Press Revolution agreed to start carrying the book as well. Our Broken Lands supplement also did very well. We sold all but 2 of them (out of 25) and those last 2 are now for sale at the Kingston Gaming Nexus (a game store that I have been frequenting since college). Our custom dice, always a favourite, sold right out, and we plan to have more for next year.

All told, Gencon was a huge success for Outrider Studios. Hooray!

The Haul
We managed to buy a few things despite our time spent in the booth. While there we picked up:
-Iron Kingdoms RPG
-Star Wars - Edge of the Empire
-Victoriana
-The new Firefly RPG
-Achtung Cthulhu
-Cards against Humanity
-Call of Cathulhu
-Other stuff I haven't gone through yet.

The Downside
While the company did great, I did not. I spent most of my time on the dealer floor in our booth. The only game I played all weekend (other than 5 minute in-booth demos) was a 2 hour Warbirds demo. I didn't spend much time wandering the halls or finding fun pick-up games. It was far too much of a business trip and far too little of the gaming pilgrimage that it has been for me for over a decade. I woke up exhausted, and went to sleep even more burned out. I ate on the convention floor (bad idea), and considering my physical state, I am not at all surprised I caught the con plague.

Cait experienced similar issues (minus the plague), and we've agreed that next year we are registering for more events. There are 4 of us at the booth (plus a few friends now and then) and we can afford to not be there for every hour of every day, So next year will be about fun, in addition to selling stuff.

What's Next
First off, my lungs have to stop trying to drown me, my throat needs to stop feeling like it's on fire, and my head needs to stop hurting. Once we have those sorted out, I have to send out drivethru coupons to all the people who bought at the Con.

After that, I have a ton of writing to do. I also have a full-time job, and a 1 year old daughter to manage... I may have to give up on sleep for a few months.

Gencon Adventures Day 2

Fridays are always slow for sales at the con. But while sales are slow, lots of other stuff happened today. Let's review:

-Visa! That's right, we got Visa working for the first time ever. Hooray! This has made sales way easier. Thanks random customer who suggested stripe.com!

-Fantasy Flight games: seriously guys, I want to buy your stuff. Stop with the half hour+ lineups so you can shut up and take my money!

-We talked to our artist cousin Chris, who wrote Achtung Cthulhu. He has some brilliant ideas and nothing beats WWII Mythos. Our Warbirds artist, Dimitris, works for Chris as well.

-We chatted with Kevin of 2gms1mic. He ran a Remnants game for 5 months for the podcasting team. He rocks, and they rock.

-Monte Cooke. We met him. he promised to sign my copy of Numenera. That is all.

We watched the Ennies for a bit, and then took a trip to Steak n' Shake. We ended the evening at the annual party hosted by our friends over at Gamer Concepts.

There is a little photo evidence on the day:

Even though sales are slow, I ran a lot of demos on the day.

Pilots Derek and Duffy looking sharp.

I wandered a bit and found this dangerous alien. He talked, moved, and threatened the local con goers with extermination.

Gencon Adventures Day 1

Well, day 1 of 4 is done. Sales were good, the fans were many, and people seemed to like our new game. Highlights of the day:

-We almost made sales equal to our last Gencon total. That's the old 4 day total. In 1 day. Tomorrow I am handcuffing the team to the booth. Sales are best when they are all there.

-Strange man thinking I would trade him one of our custom dice for a business card for an Indian restaurant. I do not understand.

-A customer cried in front of Cait because he loves gaming that much. He has real passion and we applaud him for showing it.

-A visit from the awesome podcasters 2 GMs 1 Mic. They bought some Warbirds stuff. They played Remnants last year, maybe they'll start up a Warbirds game...

-The valiant comrades from Indie Press Revolution agreed to carry and distributeWarbirds. Yay!

-Wil Wheaton! So the patron saint of geeks everywhere happened to walk down our aisle. Desi squeaked and elbowed Cait. They both froze in awe. I, strangely emboldened, jumped up, grabbed a copy of Warbirds and planted myself in front of the man and gave him a free review copy. I hope he likes it. I got him to wave to the team. I think it might have been the highlight of their weekend.

I hope tomorrow will be as awesome as today was.

Gencon Adventures Day 0

Today was a good day, but maybe a little too long.

So last night's budget motel made sleep difficult. I didn't fall asleep until 4:00, and Cait woke up at 4 and couldn't get back to sleep. It was an uncomfortable night. The morning brought a quick trip to Target for supplies, a stop at the McDonalds for breakfast, and some navigation to get to Indy itself.

We checked in, grabbed the boxes that the Holiday Inn Express graciously held for us, and then went to the convention center for booth setup. Cait's organizational skills once again made this a relatively quick and painless process. By 1 pm the booth was ready to go:

That is our daughter's Duffy bear dressed up as a fighter pilot.

We spent the afternoon wandering the halls of the convention center and the streets of Indy. It took longer to find a place to buy shampoo than it did to set up the whole booth. After dinner at the pub next door, we came back to the hotel room. Derek and Desi headed back out to a party, but Cait and I are exhausted, and bedding down for the night. Cait is asleep next to me, and I will be going the same way soon. 

Tomorrow is day 1 and I am excited to meet fans and sell a few books. I will let you know how it goes.

Gencon Adventures Day -1

So we began our annual pilgrimage to Gencon today. Our team consists of myself, my lovely wife Cait, The Great Derek Breedon, and the wonderful Desiree Barlow. Unlike previous years, where there was always some sort of insanely early morning start combined with some sort of transport calamity, this year Cait planned the routing and the stops, and the trip is going smoothly thus far.

We began at the leisurely hour of 8:30. We left little Alanna with her grandparents, and then picked up the team. Traffic was light, highway speeds were high, and we passed the day arguing Breaking Bad and Doctor Who theories, among other things. We didn't quite get to Indianapolis today. We are actually in the town of Anderson, about 45 minutes outside the city, and we won't venture into the city proper until tomorrow morning.

Our hotel in Anderson is... interesting. The staff is very nice, but we immediately witnessed an "altercation" at the front desk with an angry octogenarian from Arkansas who didn't want to pay full price for his budget room. We then discovered our extremely lumpy beds, 70s-tastic ambiance, and the decorative used condom in the parking lot. We locked the car up tight.

The good news is it's one night. We are moving to the Holiday Inn Express tomorrow, and this should be a little nicer.

The high point of the day was dinner. Our motel is right next to the Red Lobster, and it was amazing. We ate far too much, and our server, Jason, was top-notch. Here's some photo evidence:

Cait and I with all of the ocean's shrimp.

Desi and Derek.

Tomorrow we go to Indie itself, and set up our booth. Tonight, we will make a valiant attempt to sleep. We may yet fail...

The Books Have Arrived! (And Other Stuff)

So, after much waiting, Warbirds has arrived in late July as promised! Photographic evidence follows, and there are some more notes below, so read to the end if you are curious:

The Fedex boxes in their natural state

Cracking open the first box to find the the Warbirds books inside.

We had 75 envelopes to fill with all the books and goodies.

It took me and Cait a few hours to pack everything up.

All 75 packages made up with our daughter's help.

Shipping Notes

It will be a few days before the books ship out, as I will probably have to take time off work to harass the Canada Post people for a few hours to get all these books shipped. Also, once you receive your package, please contact us if there is something missing, and we will send you a replacement via express post. 

Be careful opening your packages when they arrive; the ziploc bags holding the tokens for the Dogfight Tracker are right at the top of the envelope. Careless use of scissors might cause damage.

Electronic Products

The PDF version of Warbirds as well as the PDF for the WWII source book are done (we ended up with 25 aircraft in the source book). We will be rolling them out to backers next week, and will become available for purchase on DriveThruRPG on the 14th of August.

Gencon

We are getting all of our materials together for Gencon and we couldn't be more excited. We will be selling Warbirds, Edge, and Remnants. We have already set aside books for backers who requested a Gencon pickup, and your books will be waiting for you at booth 1653. If you drop by the booth, we will be happy to give you a quick demo of any of the games, and I will be willing to run a 2 hour session by request if there is enough interest. 

Final Note

We are nowhere near done the summer rush yet, and there will be more posts soon.

"Very exciting times."

                  -Tank

The Damned Map and Other Things

I know you are all hoping for more Warbirds updates, but things with printers move slow, so you're going to have to wait a bit more on that one. Sorry.

What I want to talk about today is the map for Remnants. When the game came out it had very little space for a map (that is one of the few problems with a 6x9 format). To make up for this, I spent a few hours in Photoshop labeling a high resolution map and then hosting it on our website.

My error, and it was a grievous one, was to host on my old website and then link to it from the far superior Remnants website. Things were OK until I forgot about my old site. It eventually crashed, and then the registration expired. The hosting company had the wrong email address for me, so I received no updates when it went down.

The first sign I had that something was wrong was when people started telling us that the Remnants map wasn't working. Confused, I looked into it, and eventually found the problem. I contacted the web host, renewed my old site, and discovered that all my old data was gone. I tried for a long time to recover it, but it's lost. Recently I thought I had someone who happened to download the map before it dropped, but no luck.

So, I finally went back to Photoshop and built a new map and hosted it in the right spot (with all the maps for Edge). You can take a look at all 2.6 megs of it:

Be sure to check out the full size map.

Going to Gencon

Cait and I are taking Outrider Studios to Gencon this year. We are bringing the Great Derek Breedon and the wonderful Desiree Barlow with us. We should also have Warbirds, Remnants, Broken Lands, and Edge with us. If you're going, you can come visit us at booth 1653. We'd love to meet you and give you a 5 minute demo of one of the games. 

Go See Pacific Rim

As a person who made a game about giant robots beating the shit out of giant monsters, I was pretty stoked to see a movie about giant robots beating the shit out of giant monsters. The movie exceeded my expectations. It was hundreds of tons of rocket punches, power swords, and armoured goodness. Go see it and watch the awesome.

Other Games

I backed Jason Pitre's Spark RPG and I have been reading through it. Jason has created a brilliant, intellectual game. If you remember my old Grognard/Warhol comparison, it falls squarely in the Warhol camp. It is a game designed around structured narrative building and examining deeply held beliefs. I have to admit, it is very different from the games I like to create. My games are about nostalgic wish fulfillment and focus on emulating a single concept in a fast and simple, but not too simple, manner (robots, dogfights, etc), and creating something beautiful in that narrow focus.

Jason is far more ambitious. He has created a setting generator that treats the setting as an expansive, powerful character. His pre-generated settings are full of contentious issues, moral dilemmas, and multiple layers of complexity. The characters reflect and are directly linked to the setting as well as each other. The mechanical system that pushes his game is simple and easy, and if you remember my previous posts about mechanics, his design hits all the high points. 

So, I am not in the business of game reviewing, nor do I intend to start, so I will not give Jason a score or any such thing, but if what I have said so far intrigues you, you might want to check out his game. Oh, and the cover art is pretty cool:

It took me 5 photos with my Iphone to get 1 that wasn't blurry

That's all for Now

I will update here the moment I have some Warbirds news for you.