Get Your Game On(line): Google+ RPG Gaming and Events

Indie+ is an online indie RPG convention to be held in mid-July 2012 on Google+. It is an opportunity for small publishers, bloggers, podcasters and others to work together and raise the profile of independent gaming.

When: July 9th – 15th
Organizers: Chris Tregenza, Brent P. Newhall, plus many others.
More Information: Wiki

Unlimited Adventures – Limited Commitment

The aim of Unlimited Adventures – Limited Commitment is to encourage both DMs and Players to try new games. Not in a one shot, see ya later sort of scenario, but over 2 to 3 sessions. Long enough for players and GMs to feel they hopefully gained something from the experience.

When: Continuous
Organizers: Erik Tenkar, Michael Garcia
More Information: Goal Statement, Other Postings and Game Calendar

Gameplay is a playtesting network where members can playtest games and have their games playtested. It’s an online-only group that uses Tabletop Forge with G+ Hangouts to organize and play games.

When: Continuous
Organizers: Unknown
More Information: Google+ Page, Calendar

Not enough to flll your plate? There are also some FLAILSNAILS games happening. Many of those are flagged under the ConstantCon effort. ConstantCon also has a calendar of games.

I would be remiss not to mention Tabletop Forge. Many of the games being run utilize this great Hangout Application.

Tabletop Forge is a Google+ Hangout application that lets your play tabletop roleplaying games inside of a Google+ Hangout. It includes things like dice rolling, whispering, and map functions.

The developers (Charles Jaimet, Joshua Owen, et al.) of the application are running a Kickstarter campaign to make an excellent product even better.

Brew & BBQ #2

Friday is my second hosting of the Brew & BBQ club. Initially, I wasn’t planning to brew any beer but it seems we are short 1 brewer so I prepped an Oatmeal Stout. Oatmeal beers are one of my favorites and the supply is getting a bit low. In addition to my brew, another fellow is going to run his first all grain batch through my gear. He’s waffling about the exact recipe but its his so whatever the end product is fine by me.

I’m going to toss a pork butt on the smoker for the BBQ portion. Wacked up cherry, apple and crabapple wood tonight. Green wood isn’t very friendly to saw but it is far better than old dried up crap sold in bags. To get it done, it’s going on the fire on Thursday night. Had to call my bbq consultant down in Missouri to make sure I wasn’t going to jack it up. Tips, he had ’em. Thanks G.

Three different brewers will have beers to sample. It is going to be a fine day.

May Sales and Milestone

During the month of May, Mithril & Mages delivered 34 non-free products consisting of 19 copies of Old West Names, 9 Medieval Forenames, and 6 Medieval Surname books. Fifty three additional free products were delivered (Labyrinth Lord Treasure Book on Demand). In total, the 87 product deliveries grossed $28.61 resulting in $18.60 of revenue.
Namespace: Wild West Names had fixed expenses of $7.95 for the royalty free clip art image on the cover. Net revenue was $10.65 for the month.

Sales did exceed my goal of 31 books in May. The drop was dramatic from April (62 non-free, 185 free). Why? Names from the old west fulfill a smaller niche than medieval names. The initial prices for the medieval name series reverted to full cost from the introductory pricing. The Medieval Forenames also dropped off the top-100 small press list during May from its peak of #34 in April. No significant promotions were undertaken leading to less exposure. May also saw the first reviews of the products posted. Both Wild West Names and the Medieval Names bundles were given 5 star reviews by Margaret E. (Thanks for the kind words, Margaret.) The Treasure Book on Demand also received a 5 star rating with no review posted.

May also was the first month the website surpassed 100,000 page views topping out at 101,752 with a record 10,334 visitors. A small fraction of those visitors were generated from product views on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. The visitors originating from Google+ also saw an uptick. I posted a couple of times with site links. I was also significantly more engaged with a number of individuals who enjoy gaming.

I sincerely appreciate everyone who has visited or purchased one of the PDF’s. If anything would improve your experience, please feel free to let me know.

Quick Thoughts: Welcome to Mortiston, USA

I wrapped up reading Welcome to Mortiston, USA over the lunch hour today. Overall, I was quite pleased with the work.

78 pages, Available June 8th

Mortiston is first and foremost a modern setting supplement. While it is billed as a generic zombie apocalypse setting, the zombie element is not significant. If you are looking for detailed zombie apocalypse back story along with the uprising as a focal element, Mortiston will fall short. In fact, game masters can easily ignore all mentions of zombies and just use the locale as a setting for any modern apocalypse setting. Just shift the zeds to some other invader or group and the supplement will work out of the box.

The author, Mark Cookman, focuses primarily on people, interesting places, and the shifting dynamics within the small city. He strikes a great balance of detailing important personas and locations while allowing the GM to add as much detail as desired. The non player characters are presented in detail. Each and every major survivor has a good history with interesting hooks. The trope of skeletons in the closet is a bit overused but doesn’t detract significantly from the focus of the work. Mortiston supports five different systems. Stat blocks are presented for each NPC for every supported system inline with the text. While the multi-system support is admirable, I would have rather seen the stat blocks for each particular individual in an appendix rather than inline. About 1/3 of the page for each character is devoted to statistics.

Locations, like characters, are well represented. Each location is detailed on an individual page containing not only a description but also loot worth items across the timeline. Characters present in the locations based on the timeline are also discussed, which really helped pull together the people presented in the character section of the book. Many locations include a relationship table for the differing groups within Mortiston. However, the groups are not detailed until the subsequent section. As I was reading, I kept wondering why the table was present. It is a useful feature but I’d have preferred having the group dynamics detailed prior to the locations. What really left me wanting was the complete lack of individual location maps. No location is represented in map form. The descriptions are detailed but every GM is going to need to sketch out a set of maps to aid players.

The faction/group section of the supplement doesn’t show up until near the end of the book. Throughout the characters and location sections, factions are mentioned in passing but the linear reader has no idea of the general groupings in town. The section should have prefaced the characters and locales. Especially considering it is a brief 2 pages. Likely an oversight of editing with comprehensive knowledge of the environment.

The last major element of the book is both at the start and at the end — the Timeline. Day one is presented at the start of the book while Z+1 and subsequent events are not detailed until the end. For a reader, I understand the split because the initial Z-day timeline provides a great hook. As a game master, its bothersome because I have to flip between two discrete sections to correlate the details. Not a major negative but I’d have preferred it consolidated (even repeated) in one location within the book. Especially for the PDF — pages are cheap in PDF form. Not so much in a printed work.

I like the overall work but minor fiddly bits bothered me. The overall premise of Z-day seemed too busy. Four major events occur in one day. While they are correlated, I kept thinking it didn’t need to be so complex. The premise is one entry point. Absolutely nothing prohibits me from modifying the introductory events to meet my style of play. The author dictated on numerous occasions that the GM would need to fill in details. Shifting the introduction was not one of them but I’m certain he’d take no offense to changing it.

Zombies are almost completely absent in the book. For a zombie apocalypse setting, the token mentions are completely peripheral to the work. Odd? I thought so but the dynamics of the survivor groups make Mortiston more interesting. Survivors are the menace not the undead. Still, I would have liked to have seen more influence on the zombies in the overall work. Especially during the early days after the onset. My take is not the intent of the author. Early on he mentions zombies are just “icing”. Take that for gospel. Zombies are a very minor element.

Fifty Cent Sale — The Crazy GM Benefit Sale

May is coming to a close. Not to mention I caught at least five fish a day over my five day weekend. As I was catching up with all of my online pursuits, I discovered my friend, Michael Garcia, had run into unexpected medical bills. Michael has helped me out with CSS and layout issues on more than one occasion. I’d grumble. He’d tell me how to fix it. He never blinked. He’d just jump in and do it. So I’m going to return the favor.

From now until the end of May, everything from M&M is $0.50 over at DriveThru/RPGNow. All proceeds will be directed to aid him with the medical bills. If I sell 20 products in the next 2 days, I’ll extend the benefit sale through June. For $1.50, you can get over 30,000 historical names from the medieval and wild west eras. To make it even easier, you can buy the Crazy GM Bundle or any of the individual products below.

Yea Ole Ugly Zombie Mugshot in Print

A few weeks back, I posted the three pictures drawn by the masterful Byron Rempel as part of his 1000 Zombies project. Those drawings plus an additional 47 have been combined into his first book – 1000 Zombies: The first 50 zombies of the 1000 zombie art project. The first volume is available on Create Space as a printed work for $17.99 or in electronic format directly from Byron’s website for $3.99. Additionally, he has a select set of individual high resolution images available for sale as well. Still not enough options? He also has t-shirts available.

I picked up one of the first copies off the Create Space press. The quality of the book is fantastic. The layout is gorgeous. Not that I expected anything less from Bryon but I was beyond happy. Each of the individuals has a backstory along with the drawing. Wheels, Garrett, and myself are featured close to the end since we were rounding out the last portion of the first 50. I have no complaints. First time my ugly mug showed up in a book and I’m a MF’ing zombie. Sweet.

Prepare Yourself

Kickstarter Love: Mortiston, USA

I was aware of Welcome to Mortiston, USA: An All American Zombie Apocalypse as a project. I was not aware of it being a Kickstarter project until today. Mortiston is either a standalone or drop in setting for the zombie apocalypse. From the blurb…

“Welcome to Mortiston, USA” is a multi-system zombie apocalypse set in an “average” American town. The setting is licensed for five different RPG game systems. All game stats are included for immediate integration into any game of Outbreak: Undead, Savage Worlds, The Modern Path for Pathfinder, Rotworld and OGL Modern. Mortiston needs heroes who can step up to the challenge, or only the dead and the damned will walk the streets, or something far, far worse…

The Kickstarter project’s goal is to get the book printed not to develop and release it. The work is already completed — something quite unusual for a project. Plus it supports multiple systems out of the box including ROTWORLD, which I like but have yet to play. If you are familiar with any of the systems, it would be trivial to convert to another system you’d prefer for the game.

As of this writing, the project is a mere $89 from fully funded. The books will be released in June. A release date within a month is instant gratification in the project world. Like most, Mortiston offers many levels of support are available with oodles of extras.

If you’ve been considering a zombie game but holding off due to a lack of a setting, this project could be a perfect match. Give it a look.