Beat me to the Punch!

For a long time, I've wanted to post a Work-in-Progress of a map.  I thought that it would be cool to show how I go about drawing my maps.  Then I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I posted a series of maps that showed the evolution of a cave or dungeon?"  NOT a Work-in-Progress but the actual expansion of a cave system, dungeon, or dwarfhold over time?

I think that that would be really cool.  Haven't done it yet, but I'm going to try to do it one of these days.

But back to the Work-in-Progress idea: Because I haven't done it, of course, others have beaten me to the punch.  Slightly annoying, but then again, it was by two mappers out there who I am sure you are all aware of.  And I can't be upset, because I hold both of them in high regard: Matt Jackson and Dyson Logos.  (Of course, I just realized that the link to Dyson is just his Google+ page so if you want to see specifically what I am referring to, look for 29 Jan 2014 and what he posted at 3:35pm.)

I really dig both of those.  A lot.

A long time ago, there were a lot of people posting One Hour Dungeons.  You know-- post a picture on your blog of a dungeon that you drew in one hour or less.  A lot of people did it, and it was a lot of fun to see what people were up to.

Perhaps with matt and dyson leading the way, there could be a new event where people post WIPs of the maps that they are working on.  It would be great if they were animated, like those above, but it would be cool even if they were a series of pictures.

I'll try to see what I can come up with over the next few days.

Anyone else up for it?

The Great Blog Roll Call

The title says it all.

I don't know who Charles Akins is, but he has done a great service to readers of OSR blogs everywhere.

Check it out.

World Engines (My Own Part Three)

First off, yes, it's been a long time since I've appeared here.  I apologize.  Honestly, I've been passing this way almost continuously since you last saw me--I just didn't stop to say hello.

So.  Hello.

Okay. On to the topic at hand.

So Dave (here or here) and I have long talked about coming up with a system for a DM to generate a world (continent, region, kingdom, whatever...) history in a relatively short period of time using a set of random charts, similar in concept to the Events Charts from the AD&D Oriental Adventures.  We have talked about it and discussed it for a long, long time.  (A dozen years or more?)  We were talking about it just a few days ago, in fact, the last time that we spoke.

It turns out that others are talking about such a system as well.  They have, in one small way, gone a step further than us--they've given the system a name.  World Engine.  I have to say that I like the sound of that.  Anyway, first go here for Part One of the talk.   Then, go here for a little commentary on Part One.  Finally, go here for Part Two.

I don't have much to say on the topic today, but I wanted to dip my toe in the water and grab a spot at this bar.  I will have more to say in the coming days.  I hope that those others do as well.

"Thanks!" and "WTF Blogger?!?"

So I asked a question in my last post about dungeons in fiction and I received some replies and I wanted to say thanks to those guys for answering my question.  They definitely provided some things for me to look into.

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why is he thanking them in a new post?  Wouldn't it make more sense to just throw a comment and thank them there?"

The answer to the second question is, yes, of course it would.

But that brings me to part 2 of this post.

WTF Blogger?!?

You see, for some reason that I am unable to fathom, I cannot see any specific Blogger blog post with comments.  I can read a blog and read the last X number of posts, but if I try to click on a specific post to read the comments associated with it, nothing.  My IE opens a new tab and then refuses to put anything into it.  That goes for any blog post, my own included.

(Now I know that many of you scoff at the fact that I use Internet Explorer, but I do.  It's never really bothered me before now.)

I guess the question is, is this an issue with Blogger, an issue with IE, or some other issue?

Can anyone help me?!

Names, Names, Names

Speaking of names, what he said.

Also, thank you, Brendan, for pointing me toward this.  A handy little name generator that, based on my initial playing-around, works nicely indeed.

Star Clans - A New Blog Worth Paying Attention To

Here's a new blog that might be interesting to people.  I'm not sure where it is headed, but I know the author really well.  He is a whiz at world creation, and I'm sure that this new project will produce lots of interesting material for use in your own campaign or just to get your creative juices flowing.

Sounds like it might be a science-fantasy setting, but perhaps not.  He's been known to include elements of science fiction into the origin and background of the setting that never actually make their way into the world that that players see.

Gotta Love those Random Tables

Aeons & Augauries is one of my favorite old school blogs.  I absolutely love JDJarvis' work.  Recently, he has been posting a collection of random tables to help characterize various standard dungeon items (think statue, fountain, etc.).

Well, quickly glancing through those showed all sorts of goodness.  But then I thought, mmmmm, what else has he posted with the same label (random table) that might be of interest?  And this is what you find.

Pure win.

I wonder if he's ever thought about including all of those in a nice pdf...

Been a Long Time, so Roll a D6

I've been gone from these parts for a long time now.  I'm hoping to slip back in and start posting soon.

Came across this and had to link to it.  If only so I won't forget about it.

And thanks to joethelawyer for posting it first.

Away

I've been away for the past week or so.  Not away away, but not having the time to post here.  A couple of things have jogged me back:

1. Got a nice email from my best friend from the olden days that reminded me just how much fun we had playing D&D when we were younger.  Ah, memories.

2. There's this little thing about "three-hour islands" that I've heard about.  As a lover of maritime campaigns, this really speaks to me.  I need to draw one up!  But not today...

One of the reasons that I haven't found the time to post is that the results of the big sporting event that occurred this past Sunday evening were not to my liking.  Not one bit.  I'm still trying to come to grips with it all.  But let's face it: Life must go on.  There are an ever expanding number of maps that need to be perused.  I better get on it (in addition to drawing an island).

A Terrible Admission

This post is going to be an admission, but before I get to that, I have two points to make.

First, I typically don’t get too worked up by what I read in the blogosphere. You occasionally come across vitriol and bitterness in flame-wars and such, and my response is to usually laugh at that stuff. Yes, hurtful things occasionally get said. Yes, some people reveal themselves to be total pricks. But most of it just rolls off—at least for me personally.

Secondly, I know that some people really DO NOT like what he has to say. There is a vocal minority that seems to really resent his opinions and believes that he is a pompous A-hole. I am NOT one of those people. Typically, I am in agreement with James M on what he says; Grognardia is a site that I visit without fail. But his point here is one that I do not agree with.

So here it is:

My Terrible Admission

Currently, I am not playing any rpgs. In fact, I haven’t played any in years.

There, I said it.

...

I don’t have the time. With a career, three small children, and a wife who has interests of her own, I cannot support the time expenditure required. Does that mean that I should just hang up this blogging thing?

For me, I blog (and try to be involved in this online community) specifically because I don’t have time to play. Of the two, blogging takes up less time than playing would. If I made the decision to play, I certainly couldn’t play and blog at the same time. It would be impossible.

I am envious of those of you who play—more envious of you who write amazing blogs and still have time to play. But that is just not going to be me anytime soon.

Needless to say, I disagree with James’ assertion that people who write about playing should be playing as a prerequisite to writing about it.

One Year

So 2011 is off to a slow start--for this blog.  But I can at least say that it is now One Year Old!!

A year and a day or two.  It all started here.

Mmmmm...

What is it about people that makes us want to commemorate essentially pointless dates?

"Our EPT?"

Interesting post from the Windy City Wiz, but I'm wondering if I agree with him.

I think that there are new and original things being done that haven't been done before.  The Wiz claims that Raggi is an ass but respects him for what he is doing with his products.

How about Al's Warriors of the Red Planet?  (Yes, I know I linked to the blog, but, in case you are not aware, that blog is supporting a game that Al will be releasing (hopefully) this spring.)

I know that there are others out there, and a few are mentioned in the comments following the Wiz's post.

My feeling is that there is a lot of stuff going on that is interesting.

2011!

Yes, it has been for several days now.  Crazy, how that works.

But since the last time that I posted (over a week ago), Christmas came and went, New Years came and went, and my latest birthday came and went.  Yup, a year older.

During that time, I checked out of the blogosphere almost completely.  Not only that, I was on my computer only a little bit each day.  AND there were days when I didn't check my email at all.

Usually, when I sit down to write a post, I do so after reading throughout the blogosphere.  I get good ideas; I get inspired; I find good maps.  I haven't done that today.  I'm assuming that there were a lot of 'resolutions' posts from various bloggers about the new year, so I'm going to offer some of my own:

- The Fantasy Cartographic will release at least two new products this year for sale.

- I'm going to jump on the geomorph bandwagon and begin posting geomorphs here on the blog in the same format as Dyson Logos, Risus Monkey, and Stonewerks.

- I'm going to work on updating 'My Daily Read' (which you'll find if you look to your right) so that it actually again matches the blogs that I follow on a daily basis--and includes ones that actualy post with some regularity.

- I'm going to work on a few other writing projects, that have been sitting on the backburner for WAY too long.

And that wraps up my first post of 2011.  A few more days will mark the One Year Anniversary of this place.  Perhaps some sort of retrospective is in order.  Then again, perhaps not.

Hottest Blogs

Thank you to Cyclopeatron for his continued ranking of blogs.

I suppose that I am luke-warm?  Better than being cold.

Encouragement for rpg Blogging

Most of us had one: That person who introduced us to rpg's back when we were younger.  For me, that person was my older brother.  He owned the LBBs; he owned the AD&D books; he owned a bunch of modules; he owned a bunch of miniatures.  He taught me to play at a very young age--or maybe not, seven or eight I think.

Anyway, we were typing back and forth the other day at each other.  The conversations went basically like this:

Me:  You said that you were looking at some old notes and got excited again. Anything good?  How about you type up some of your old notes into a formal adventure, I draw the map, and we publish it? The Fantasy Cartographic could use some new products...

Him:  hhmm.... what say we publish a setting? We had started one several years ago.

Me:  Couple of thoughts:
- Settings are a dime a dozen. Unless it is a small area nicely detailed (a single island, single kingdom, single city), or a large area (typically nowadays mapped on a hex map) with numerous specific locations detailed in the text.
(Advantage of the small area is that it can easily be dropped into someone's existing campaign. Advantage of the large area is that any one of the specific locations that you choose to detail can, by itself, be dropped into an existing campaign.)
- Why not start with some thing easier--aka an adventure? (Easier in terms of length, complexity, just about everything I can think of.)
- How about start slow and (eventually) build up to a setting?

Him:  LOL... only because my mind doesn't work that way! I'll try to come up with an adventure, but don't expect anything soon... in a few weeks, though, I'll suddenly "remember" an adventure, along with an entire world. The difficulty isn't in the ideas, it's in the editing and pruning process.

When it comes to me, it's truly like remembering, bits and pieces, then whole swaths, then worlds. I've never written a novel, because it would come out more like an encyclopedia. Perhaps I could write a travelogue and have you map it... but I know that was done in Dragon years ago.

Me:  Well, if that's the case, why don't you start writing a blog with each post being about some aspect of one of the worlds? There are a great many such blogs with people just detailing their campaigns, and all the cool shit in them. They get widely read, too.

The advantage of that is that once you establish yourself in the blogosphere, you can THEN prune it into a nice, easily-digestible format and sell the setting. Since you're already known by your blog, you drastically up the sales that you will receive.

And if you don't want to start your own blog, you can guest-post on my blog.

Him:  I'd have to read some others to see how they're set up... any recommendations?

At which point I pointed him in the direction of some of the many blogs that lots of us enjoy that discuss all sorts of goodness.

But I would really like him to start a blog.  It could be incredible.  Anyone want to leave a comment for him to encourage him or otherwise comment on the blogging experience?  That would be nice.

Duh.

So my post here proves that sometimes I can be completely oblivious.  Because, as a matter of fact, Cyclopeatron already updated the listing of OSR blogs in not one post but TWO.

This one shows the latest rankings, by follower, of the OSR blogs.  (Yes... see his post for some caveats on that.)

This one shows the rankings as a delta of followers from one month to the next.  Nice.

Forty

Sometimes it's the little things that bring a smile to your face.  Today, I received my 40th follower.  Thanks, imredave, for being that guy.

Of course, what this really means is that I have become a Thinker.  That's a good thing, right?  Too bad there isn't a title for doodler or random-little-map-drawer--because that is probably more appropriate than 'Thinker'.

All of which reminds me of this nice post from Cyclopeatron from back in September.  I wonder how that list would look if redone today?  It doesn't really make a hill of beans, but it is interesting to watch trends and changes over time.

Followers?

This whole blogging thing...

...

Nice thought, eh?  SO much could be said to finish that sentence.  Excitement, misery, rejection, acceptance--all sorts of good things.

But for now, a mystery:  You see, it has been my common belief that a blog attracts followers over time by regularly posting interesting articles, opinions, views, etc.  'Interesting' is subjective, but it has to be interesting to someone.  My thinking went that, if you don't post, you don't attract followers.

But for some strange reason, the last several that have signed up have done so during what has been my slowest posting period since this blog was started.  I've posted very little recently, and yet a few people have still wandered in.  Don't get me wrong: I am thankful and flattered but also a bit flummoxed.

Of course, the whole 'followers' aspect of blogging is a strange beast in and of itself.  I mean, what does it really mean anyway?

And now to change topics entirely.  I apologize for not posting more often.  Life has been extremely hectic recently.  I find that when I enter the blogosphere, I spend the vast majority of my time reading what is going on out there.  There are so many good blogs these days.  And so many interesting topics to comment on.  So by the time I finish reading all of my favorites, my limited 'me' time is up, and I don't have time to post anything of mine.  I am going to try to rectify that--wish me luck.

A Third Post?!

Yes, I'm going to make a third post -- the third in a row -- that includes a link to the Bottom Feeder.

Today, Jeff Vogel wrote a good design post for his next computer game project, Avadon.  I am linking to it, because I think that it contains lots of good ideas for adventure/campaign design.

In the broad spectrum of ways to design a campaign, some people think about and decide every detail in advance, down to the Nth degree.  Others, like James leans toward the other end of the spectrum and, in fact, prefers to learn about his campaign world through play.  Regardless of where on that spectrum an individual DM falls, the post that I link to above has some good thoughts.  I recommend it.

And I'll try to post about something else next time.

I am not the only one...

...who has noticed Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Design, auther of the Bottom Feeder blog, of which I am a regular reader.

Indeed, apparently ChicagoWiz recently posted about him as well.  Nice.