Since we are going to have monthly articles instead of weekly ones it seems, I'm going to need to change the theme weeks plans to theme months. Also, these need to be announced in advance...

So here's a tenative list for the summer - we'll skip April since it's too close.

• May:  HoL (If Nothingland was a campaign, it would be a HoL campaign. That is all).
• June: Pairings - Wizard & Familiar, Paladin & Mount, Things that come in twos in campaign settings.
• July: Rifts - Paladium's far future setting that folks either love, or hate, love to hate or hate to love.
• August: Gatherings and Organizations - what with Gencon in this month it might be fun to look at gatherings in game worlds.

Thoughts comments? Suggestions for future themes?

Quote from: PookaSince we are going to have monthly articles instead of weekly ones it seems, I'm going to need to change the theme weeks plans to theme months. Also, these need to be announced in advance...

So here's a tenative list for the summer - we'll skip April since it's too close.

• May:  HoL (If Nothingland was a campaign, it would be a HoL campaign. That is all).
• June: Pairings - Wizard & Familiar, Paladin & Mount, Things that come in twos in campaign settings.
• July: Rifts - Paladium's far future setting that folks either love, or hate, love to hate or hate to love.
• August: Gatherings and Organizations - what with Gencon in this month it might be fun to look at gatherings in game worlds.

Thoughts comments? Suggestions for future themes?

Perhaps a theme involving monsters that work together to achieve common goals, or where one is subservient(sp?) to the other.  Or, perhaps a trap theme, giving examples of wicked traps how to use them to evil effect.

Quote from: PookaSince we are going to have monthly articles instead of weekly ones it seems, I'm going to need to change the theme weeks plans to theme months. Also, these need to be announced in advance...

So here's a tenative list for the summer - we'll skip April since it's too close.

• May:  HoL (If Nothingland was a campaign, it would be a HoL campaign. That is all).
• June: Pairings - Wizard & Familiar, Paladin & Mount, Things that come in twos in campaign settings.
• July: Rifts - Paladium's far future setting that folks either love, or hate, love to hate or hate to love.
• August: Gatherings and Organizations - what with Gencon in this month it might be fun to look at gatherings in game worlds.

Thoughts comments? Suggestions for future themes?

Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by HoL?

Quote from: Pooka

• June: Pairings - Wizard & Familiar, Paladin & Mount, Things that come in twos in campaign settings.

Orc & Pie.

Quote from: McrowPlease forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by HoL?

Human-Occupied Landfill. It's an RPG with teh funney. Wikipedia will teach you more than me, as it is not my area of expertise. I'm rather on the other side of the brain.

Quote from: McrowPlease forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by HoL?

I'll point DirtmerchantTodd in here to answer that - the barkeep says he's the one to blame for it.

Quote from: Ottomsoh the ElderlyHuman-Occupied Landfill. It's an RPG with teh funney. Wikipedia will teach you more than me, as it is not my area of expertise. I'm rather on the other side of the brain.

Looks interesting, rather a post-apocalyptic feel.  Didn't know it has been around taht long.  But stuff published under the Black Dog label is over whelmingly high quality but it does a tendency to be rather harsh and definitely adult oriented.  Which in our case is a good thing.  

Hey All -

The wikipedia article is a pretty good synopsis - I'd check it out if you want the nuts and bolts.  The early history of the development is a little spotty.  

We actually (we being Dirt Merchant Games aka Daniel Thron, Chris Elliott, and myself) originally self published the book under our own "label" with money borrowed from Dan's Mom - it's the classic American success story.  We originally sold it at conventions in the New England area and some local stores.  After we sent some copies to GenCon with a friend (David, if you're out there give me a holla!) and received a lot of interest from several companies about publishing it, and signed a deal with WW.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, years pass contracts expire, book goes out of print.  Bill from The Cabil asks us if we have any copies lying around (I think we had a couple of cases) he sees there's still interest in the title and we sign another deal with him to reprint the books.

I've heard the "I like the book, but God I can't read your handwriting"  - trust me, my family is still incredulous anyone paid me to write anything.  Little known fact, if you've ever seen the "Vampire Diary" book WW put out, we actually did that for them as a "OK we'll do it on the cheap cause you're publishing our book" deal.  That handwriting is all mine baby!

Point being, I've always wondered how much interest there would be in say a revised edition of the book in PDF form that was actually typeset.

~DMT

Quote from: DirtMerchantToddHey All -

The wikipedia article is a pretty good synopsis - I'd check it out if you want the nuts and bolts.  The early history of the development is a little spotty.  

We actually (we being Dirt Merchant Games aka Daniel Thron, Chris Elliott, and myself) originally self published the book under our own "label" with money borrowed from Dan's Mom - it's the classic American success story.  We originally sold it at conventions in the New England area and some local stores.  After we sent some copies to GenCon with a friend (David, if you're out there give me a holla!) and received a lot of interest from several companies about publishing it, and signed a deal with WW.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, years pass contracts expire, book goes out of print.  Bill from The Cabil asks us if we have any copies lying around (I think we had a couple of cases) he sees there's still interest in the title and we sign another deal with him to reprint the books.

I've heard the "I like the book, but God I can't read your handwriting"  - trust me, my family is still incredulous anyone paid me to write anything.  Little known fact, if you've ever seen the "Vampire Diary" book WW put out, we actually did that for them as a "OK we'll do it on the cheap cause you're publishing our book" deal.  That handwriting is all mine baby!

Point being, I've always wondered how much interest there would be in say a revised edition of the book in PDF form that was actually typeset.

~DMT

Cool stuff. Yeah, I think there is definitely a market for this type of game ,maybe not in print but PDF for sure. Bill from Hinterwelt published a spoof game (Squirrel Attack!) originally to be a Gencon special and now it looks like it mightl become his best selling game line. Reading through the wiki it looks like it would be a blast.

The sodomy bikers claim that a lot of the book's spirit and fun is in the handwriting I think.  HOWEVER the mutant sharkboys in the diaherra sea state that an appendix with the major tables typed out for quick in game reference would be useful.

Quote from: PookaThe sodomy bikers claim that a lot of the book's spirit and fun is in the handwriting I think.  HOWEVER the mutant sharkboys in the diaherra sea state that an appendix with the major tables typed out for quick in game reference would be useful.

So for the first set of articles you were thinking of a campaign, "Nothingland", along the same lines as ToL?