Remember Secret Project Update Club?

Yeah, I know, it’s been months since I provided an update. Five of them in fact. But, it’s relevant. Because I had something on there for a while called Codename : Pandoran Apothecary Chest – and it was on the list since October 2009

The deal is, I had someone who was going to develop the idea for me. And then they got busy. Really busy. So it kept getting pushed off due to them doing silly little things like earning a living, and I set the idea way on the back-burner because I had Other Things To Do.

But about a month ago, I got kicked in the head by the proverbial muse, so I did some design work and sent the prototype off to get cut. The pieces came back in last week, and I spent the weekend assembling it. It’s still a prototype, but I’m ready to show it off a little. Because I freaking love it.

Codename : Pandoran Apothecary Chest (Now that it’s no longer under wraps, I need to give it a name.)

Looks neat, huh? Cold be anything in there. But let’s take a look at it when it’s open.

So this all started with a portable desk I bought on eBay a long time back. I thought it was a great piece (some of you saw it at Steamcon), and it made a great side-table piece for running games, but it was too tall to use as a GM screen, and the bays and slots weren’t done with RPG stuff in mind. What I wanted, was a box that I could open up, set on the table, and have everything I needed to run a game right in front of me. One box – not a bag that I unpacked and set up, not a box and a couple books. I wanted to be able to open it up, and go. And when I was done, I wanted to be able to close it up, and walk away.

In the middle, there is a large bay and a small bay. The left one holds anything up to a file folder in size, which includes most gaming books. It’s deep enough to hold about 3 of those. On the right side, standard digest books, or half folds – like 2010 ENnie Nominee Shambles!

Each wing consists of an accessory bay, and a set of 6 slots to hold 3×5 cards. The slots also work good as holders if you fold a card in half, to indicate status, leave notes, and so on. There’s a little room under the 3×5 slots to hold a few things.

Each wing includes a cover that slots into place, to keep things from getting jumbled around. The covers are engraved with maps – one hex, one square. In addition, I got a bunch of hex tokens cut. In the picture above, I’ve used them to mark a fireball , some gold, a pool, and a little rise up to a tree.

Here is the square map, with the tiny wizard squaring off against a couple of orcs, near a forest, next to a river and a shed. I marked it up as I needed it. Marked it up with what?

Wet erase markers. The whole thing, inside and out, including the tokens, is dry/wet erase. I can write in the stats and charts I WANT, rather than needing all-purpose charts and lists.

Here you can see one of the mini-maps being slotted in as a cover on the left wing. The mini-maps are blank on the backside – which is also dry-erase.

Here’s a shot with both min-maps docked. The squares map makes a great grid for keeping track of things like character statuses, and so on.

Looking down from the top, you can see some character names and statuses. I marked them along the top according to seating arrangement. An especially useful thing when running convention games with new players – something I do a lot.

Here’s the whole thing from the Player’s side. It’s a beautiful white canvas, ready for marking up or stickering. I could also engrave this side, but I left it blank for now as it is just prototype.

I still have some kinks to work out of the thing. Assembly wasn’t as smooth as I’d like it to be, and there are design improvements to be had. But I’m really very excited about this. I’ve always wanted something like this, and to see it take shape is very satisfying. They dry-erase thing was a late change. Originally it was done in wood with a dry erase panel, but I like being able to write all over the thing in non-permanent ways.

Am I overly-excited? Is it as cool to you as it is to me? If you signed up for a convention game, and the GM came in with that, would you know you were in for a good time? Got a great name for this thing?

Tell me what you think. Sound off below.

Like many of you, I have a lot of projects in various states of Done. Some are nebulous ideas, some are half written, some are well formed thoughts that haven’t been Done.

I have scads of gaming related projects in various states. Supplements. Adventures. Website improvements. Tools. Props. Scripts. And none of them are getting Done. Some are getting worked on. Many are being ignored.

I’ve been thinking about Done, off and on, for a while now, ever since I first stumbled on that whole Cult of Done thing. And while I can’t get behind everything in their manifesto, one thing stands out among all the others as being, at the very least in my case, unquestionably true:

Done Is The Engine Of More

I have a lot of things I want to work on, and I can’t work on them because there are other things that aren’t finished (or in some cases, started). And I want to do More.

So, next year, at the start of each week, I am going to pick one thing. And at the end of the week, that thing will be Done. That might mean completed, or it might mean abandoned. But at the end of the week, it will no longer be a thing I’m not doing, or a thing I’m working on. It’ll be a thing that is Done.

Conceptually, this is more of a new years kind of post. But I’m trying to avoid thinking of it in terms of ‘resolutions’ – because we all know those never work. And this isn’t really the same thing as Secret Project Update Club – I may still post those updates, though the SPUC is more or less down to me holding meetings in the living room with some beer and the cat.

I’m putting out an open call, for anyone else out there who is in the same sort of boat. If you’ve got a lot of things that you’re “working on” that aren’t getting Done, and if you want to do More, then join with me next year for 52 Weeks Of Done. If you’re serious about it, you’ll want the next couple weeks to prepare – clearing some space, booking some regular time, etc. You may also want to lay out some principles that will help you get things Done. I have opted for 5 Principles, because they will fit in one hand. Yours may be different. These are mine:

1. I cannot get things Done without a Space. A Space for getting things Done will be made. Making this Space will be the first thing that is Done.
2. I will Post at the beginning of the week, to say what will be Done at the end of that week, and again at the end of the week, to demonstrate that something was Done.
3. I will Limit what is being Done to what could sensibly be Done in the time I have allowed.
4. I will Applaud when something is Done, regardless of the outcome. Mourning does not get anything Done.
5. I cannot get things Done without Time. I will set aside an inviolate block of Time, daily, in which to get things Done.

Space, Post, Limit, Applaud, Time. SPLAT. This is by design.

I will be blogging about this here. If there are relevant updates for Twitter, I will use the tag #52WoD

If other people do this too, we will all get a lot of things Done. And we can encourage each other to stay the course. If you don’t have that much to get Done, I hope you’ll rally us on.

This post is Done.

It’s been a while since the Terrible Character Portraits Kickstarter closed, and while Jeff or I have posted irregular updates over at Kickstarter, I wanted give you all a glimpse of something I just got in the mail.

These aren’t finals, but they are inked, and scanned. Jeff is going to pretty them up a bit before we full on release them into the wild. Please consider these a work in progress.

And – Enjoy!

[Edit] Worth noting, these images aren’t released with any particular license – we’ll release the finals with appropriate license information when they’re Done.