Contest in the Works

I made a wee suggestion a few weeks back to Erik Tenkar of Tenkar’s Tavern. The discussion centered around Dyson Logo’s new book Dyson’s Delves. Dyson is, of course, the crazed mapping genius over at Dyson’s Dodecahedron. Dyson is chipping maps on stone tablets doing what he does best. He’s being watched. I think. Grumpy Dwarf isn’t the best overseer I’ve ever hired.

Details coming soon. You’ll have to work for this one.

By Request: 1E AD&D Character Attributes

Greetings! I want to thank you for your online AD&D generators. I particularly like the one that spits out a whole pdf of treasure results, that’s a great idea! I have a request if you’re looking for a project: a pdf generator for AD&D ability scores, Method IV (i.e. roll 12 complete sets of 3d6 in order, and choose one). That would rock. – Alex

Well Alex, you get part of the request. MethodIV is now available as a utility along with the 3 other methods. I have not made it direct to PDF yet. Still, you can use the PrintPDF button at the bottom of the results to create a PDF like all of my generators.

Hopefully that serves your immediate needs.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Woop!

I didn’t make 1.3 million page views. Around Christmas, I thought I would. Here’s the raw truth via screenshot from Google Analytics. This random generation stuff sure is popular.

2012 DriveThru/RPGNow Sales Report

The first products of Mithril & Mages were launched in April 2012. Over the last 8 months, a total of 779 products were delivered across the various OneBookShelf websites. Of those, 612 were freebies — 375 copies of zero cost products plus 237 promotional copies of for-profit works. The bulk of the promotional copies were delivered as part of the Indie+2 promotional bundle. Eliminating all the free deliveries, 167 products were sold for net-revenue of $73.10.

Many publishers also use the page view / sale metric provided by OneBookShelf.com as indicators of how their products are doing. All of the Mithril & Mages products are red — indicating the conversion rate is low. This meets expectations given the low amount of effort and expenditure on marketing, layout and cover design. Additionally, raw name lists are a very small market.

The product sales are spent on other RPG products. In fact, I spent more on games than I earned from sales. I do not expect that to change in 2013.

Dyson’s Delves — Limited Print Volume

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

I was stretched out on the couch, down with the Christmas Crud.
Somewhere amid my nap, there was a knock and thud.

The dear USPS lady brought me a wish direct from Lulu — Dyson’s Delves in hard copy. The book, nay tome, is a collection of Dyson Logo’s maps in both stocked and un-stocked variants. Now, I’ve seen many of his works previously so was expecting exactly what I received. With one exception. For the non-populated maps, he’s left notes pages to fill in the details. He really expects people to jot notes in a work with a broad red Limited Edition on the lower right corner.

His commentary (and I misquote) ranges from Use the hell out of it. to WRITE IN THE BOOK! Write in it! Write. In. The. Book. You know you want to. I shall not…yet.

What I will do is conspire with the artiste and that Tenkar fellow to host a contest next year. It will feature cool maps but the other details are still top secret. I could tell you but Grumpy Dwarf would have to silence you. And me. Cannot risk it.

BareBones d1000 Descriptors — Now Prettier

Thanks to Larry Moore for giving the raw data clean cool new look. The data is now d1000 enabled but you can also use it as a pure list. Onto the next 1000 — almost half done.

Download (PDF, 708KB)

BareBones 1000 Descriptors

People asked. It was already shared on Google Docs but here’s a PDF variant for consumption. Many entries are near duplicates but that works for my purposes.

Download (PDF, 65KB)

Making it pretty has been handed off to someone else.