What I Learned And Should Have Remembered About Kickstarter

I am the Warden!!

As I write this, it is the Wednesday before Killshot: The Director's Cut PDF goes on sale to a murderous public and I'm just waiting to hear back from my editor for review notes and last minute changes and corrections to the book's final layout. Once they're made and the final export sitting on my desktop, the culmination of six months of blood, sweat, and tears comes to a head. OK, so there's still completing the upload to OBS, sending out backers' copies, review copies, and some other stuff, but my point still stands.

Perhaps you're dying to know how everything went as I've been very quiet this past few months, especially compared to before. In a word: outstanding. I'm so ecstatically happy with how this book has turned out so far (and there's still the print copy to look forward to, which may be my favourite part of this entire experience). Did it all go according to plan? Hell no. Did I learn something from the process? Oh yes. Will I share it with you? Guess I better, seeing as I went to all this trouble leading up to it.

Presenting a list of the 5 things I've learned - for better or for worse - about the Kickstarter experience.

2012 ENnie Nominees Announced

I am the Warden!!

These are the nominees for the 2012 ENnies!!

As with every major award ceremony, there is a dominant nominee and this year it seems to be Pelgrane Press with 8 nominations, including multiples in certain categories (they're up for 3 in Best Adventure alone). Major congrats are in order to them.

As I had hoped and expected, the Marvel Heroic RPG got a nod for Best Game and Best Rules and I have no shame in sharing my vote for this game.

Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple has also received a nomination for Best Game. I have to admit, I'm hearing so much about this game that despite it being a bit out of my norm, I'm seriously considering giving this a look over.

This is the first year in quite a while in which I haven't clicked to this list eagerly waiting to see if any of my products were nominated (I did have the good fortune for the 2010 awards to see Combat Advantage #15 listed under Best Free Product). With Killshot literally days away from its release, I can return to that anxious state once more at this time next year.

Online Roleplaying Sucks!

I am the Warden!!

Read the title again and prepare yourself for a bitch fest. I hate playing my RPGs online. Hate, despise, loathe, dread, rue, and curse all at the same time. And when I say my RPGs, I mean my regular weekly games where I am but one player in a party.

For close to two years, I've been stuck with using Skype as my only means of continuing the quests in my D&D, Pathfinder, and monthly independent games. That's right, the accident. And while I'm physically and (mostly) mentally able to make the trip to Ottawa, my driveway does not have a car to park and neither do I have one to make the commute to Ottawa. So I use Skype, but it's just not the same as sitting at the table as part of a group.

Traumatic events in your life give you a lot of moments to reflect and can eventually teach you a lot about who you truly are and what gives your life meaning. While I already knew how much I loved playing and running these games, I had no idea how valuable they were as my social outlet. Everything I avoid and deny in everyday life - hanging out in large crowds, meeting strangers - is easily corrected when RPGs are involved. I won't even wait in a line of more than 5 people because I think it's too crowded, but happily walk into any convention with hundreds, if not thousands, of people. In the past two years, I've learned the value of these games to my well-being and so have my doctors and therapists who prescribed RPGs to assist with my recovery. I shit you not.

Attending these games is the problem and so I must resort to the Internet to fill the gap.

A Random Idea: Player vs Player Killshot

I am the Warden!!

Right now, I'm rested across a couch in the cabin listening to the rain fall. It's a rare time to do nothing but reflect in peace and quiet and obviously my mind wanders back to Killshot.

I played a game last night with one of my latest recruits. As always, it's going well and because we're playing next to the beer fridge, everyone else up here takes turns checking out what we're up to. A major scene of the game involved being chased down by a helicopter and this got a lot of the lads interested in what we were up to. The more they saw and learned how it worked, the more intrigued they became until someone shot out this idea.

"Could you play PvP with this like Halo or Call Of Duty?"

It only a second before I answered with "Fuck yeah!"

Werewolf Fever

I am the Warden!!

Over the weekend, I received a very cool surprise: a signed DVD and poster for a horror movie called Werewolf Fever shot here in Renfrew. I'd heard about it right after moving here in 2010 and it never came up again until my buddy handed it to me on Sunday.

Last month, I was supposed to attend the Ottawa Comic Con and had to bail at the last minute due to car troubles (which was really ironic because I barely have access to a car for one to be busted). Turns out the cast and crew had a booth promoting the movie and my good, good, goodgood friend got them to sign a copy of the DVD and poster for Chelsea and I.

First off, it's by no means a great film. Or good. But it's not trying to be. It's just goofy horror fun. Almost 95% of the movie takes place at Odi's Kingburger, a drive-in burger joint just on the edge of Renfrew, and simply knowing where it was shot made it a kick to watch. Tell you the truth, I've actually watched the movie twice. And went to Odi's for a burger afterwards. This must be what people in Hollywood or New York feel like (if either city only had 8,500 people and no one ever wrote songs about them).

The premise is simple: the employees of a late night drive-in (possibly during the 50s; it's hard to tell with the Budget rental cars in the background) are besieged by a werewolf trying to tear them limb from rollerskate. The only things keeping them alive are their wits, some roses, and a magic back door. OK, maybe just some roses and a magic back door. The kicker is the actual drive-in is located right next to a police station, making it high-larious for us locals as the employees try and come up with a plan to call for help after the phone lines have been cut.

In true schlock horror style, the acting is bad and the werewolf costume is questionable (looking like Sylvester Stallone suited up like Gizmo run over by an 18-wheeler), leaving most of the budget for make-up effects and squishy SFX. But I still had a hoot watching it. After pushing myself through Thankskilling sober, this is the good kind of bad. Good enough that I hope to actually meet the cast and crew in person to shake their hands.

It's easy to forget there are passionate, aspiring filmmakers behind these movies busting their ass behind the camera while trying to hold down a "real job." Especially when it's something many of us could only go so far as dream. So kudos to the cast & crew of Werewolf Fever - you've made a great piece of crap!

Extreme Juggling

I am the Warden!!

A call came in today from the vocational counsellor set up by my insurance company. A really positive, upbeat woman who's been a tremendous help going through the process of choosing a new career, school, program, and everything else in between.

Let me clarify something important, dear readers. Tabletop game design and publishing IS my new career, but it's not a choice the insurance company considers "economically viable." (Anyone remember that Michael Douglas film, Falling Down, where those words played a part?) But an essential element to my goal is graphic design and that's where I'm headed. With the proper training and up-to-date software, my games will stand a much better shot in a small, crowded market. (I should point out I'll be taking online classes, regardless of how all the pieces fall into place.) Plus, it's still an acceptable back-up plan should BRG fail and remains related to my previous field - press operator - so those 5 years of training and experience aren't thrown out the window.

Right now, we've submitted two programs and it's once again time for the waiting game. Or maybe not. Apparently, their goal is to get me cracking as early as July. That's next month, people. With Killshot nearing completion - yet far from wrapping up as a product line - it's going to get hectic all up in here.

It'll be a test of two skills: willpower and concentration. The former is rock hard, I have no concerns there, but the latter lies in the opposite column. My concentration is... how shall I put this?... as solid as that pretty bird sitting in the tree and now it's flying away, look how fluffy those clouds are, boy is it ever hot outside today, oops, I was talking about something else then got off topic and now I can't remember what I was talking about. An unfortunate side effect of the traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

My bulletin board (AKA the back-up brain)
as it is when I wrote this post.

During these past few months, I've had the good fortune of having nothing on my plate for long periods of time, allowing me consecutive weeks to work uninterrupted on a single project. Even that's never been 100% smooth sailing, but it's been possible for two reasons. One, I'm passionate about my work. Two, I get to make stuff up. I'm not bogged down by having to remember things because I'm building something of my own creation. And I have a giant bulletin board covered with notes to keep me on track, as you can see in the photo provided somewhere around here.

This will change once I get cracking on whichever course is chosen. (Likely the cheapest.) While my intention should focus on the course, it will always want to drift back to my work because it always does. The entire reason I've chosen this course is to aid my publishing career. Therein lies the real challenge: battling myself.

There's a lot at stake aside from grades. When I have trouble concentrating, I get "fuzzy," resulting in migraines, mood swings, and overall mental absence. Left unchecked, I'll be standing in the middle of the room staring at the fridge wondering how it opens. Or why it opens. That won't help anyone.

With all these concerns, I'm looking forward to the challenge because it's a chance to test myself in a more real-world scenario. It's one step closer to returning to normal, or as close to normal as can be. It offers an opportunity to gauge my abilities before and after through a series of challenges within my control. In other words, progress. And I love progress.

Hey, what happened to that bird?

Announcement: The Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers

I am the Warden!!

This is the Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers!!

Last week, a couple of other game designers were talking about a local comic book shop opening up a table for people like us to introduce and promote our games when the idea of "banding together" on a social site like Google+ was thrown out. The idea has now become a reality and over the weekend, the Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers page was launched.

While it's just starting up and features are on the light-to-nonexistent side right now, my plan is to feature many of the numerous aspiring and successful tabletop game designers in the Ottawa area as well as local artists, editors, and other freelancers plying their trade. Plus highlight stores and conventions where you can find these games as a kind of cross-promotion effort. With all the recent growth in gaming development and culture in Ottawa over the last couple of years, I've been surprised with the number of designers and publishers and would love to see this area become recognized for tabletop game production in the same way Montreal has become synonymous with video games.

So if you live in Ottawa or the surrounding valley, be sure to check out the page and follow away. Once we have an initial membership up and running, I'm looking to set up a Twitter feed and work on setting up contact with various retailers and conventions in the area.