I spent the week trying to find time to go through the stuff I want to get done for 52 Weeks of Done. That was the only thing on my plate this week.

It took a little doing to actually find time to go through the list, things being what they are, but I did get through it last night. All open tasks I have to complete this year now have been prioritized, with estimates and schedules. This was a really useful exercise for me already, and I haven’t even gone through the list to do the fun part of the sorting.

First thing I learned is that I’m trying to do too much. Yeah yeah, we all knew that. But when you actually go through the list and do this kind of estimating with it, you get a really good view of just how much you’re trying to do. And how you really can’t do it all.

Second, I assigned multiple criteria that basically correspond to “How important is it to me?”, “How much time will it take to do?”, “How quickly do I need it to be done?”, and “Do I think it goes at the top of the list or the bottom of the list?” When I correlated on these criteria, this mass of tasks that I want to get done this year coalesced into a very clear image of what is really important to me this year.

I knew this exercise was going to be useful to help me get organized, but I didn’t expect such a clear picture for the year to form like it did. It’s kind of exciting. And I highly recommend you try this if you haven’t done something like this before.

I am trying to collect some data for a project I am exploring. To make the data collection process, I have put together a short survey. Six questions, multiple choice. It would take you less than a minute to complete.

If you are a game designer or someone who plays games, please take a moment to fill out this survey. This survey is only for game playing or game designing folk, please.

“But why should I?” you ask cynically.

Well, you’d be helping me figure out if the project has legs. And the project is for a good cause. And also because you might WIN SOMETHING.

If you provide your email with your survey response, you will be entered in a random drawing for one of two prizes, either $25 worth of Evil Hat PDFs (special thanks to Fred Hicks for that) or a $25 Moleskine Gift Pack courtesy of yours truly.

Winners will be notified by email, and all participants will be emailed with a follow-up survey. The email address won’t be used in any other way.

I’m keeping the survey open for only a few days, or until I get 100 responses, whichever comes first. Don’t hesitate, do it now. And please spread the word.

Thing 5 is, basically, to get things in order.

Thing : Estimate, Formulate and Slate
Type : Organization
Size : Scattered
Description : I have 125 things on my To Do list for this year. I am not going to get 125 things Done this year. Some of them are small and high priority, some of them are big and low priority, and some are in the middle. But they aren’t in any kind of reasonable order. So I need to go through the list, size each task, and put it into some kind of priority so that I can set reasonable expectations for myself.
S.Q.U.I.D. Test : This Thing will not be Done until all open tasks in my task management system have:

1. An Estimate for how long it will take to complete the task
2. A Priority for each task, ranging from 1 (Mandatory) to 7 (Disposable)
3. A Schedule for when each task will be completed

All three of those things are going to be incredibly fluid – estimates are rough, priorities are approximate, and schedules shift according to needs. But this isn’t an exercise in precision, it’s me trying to get an order in place so that I can work a little more sensibly.

This should have been Thing Two. But I wanted to dive right in. If I keep trying to work this way I’ll go crazygonuts. So I’m going to fix it now, so that I stand a better chance of getting things done down the line.

Thing Four, my game prep for Dundracon, was scheduled to wrap up by last night. Let’s see how I did.

My tasks were :

1. Watch both the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai for inspiration

Complete. I didn’t get the long sit-down time to watch them in one go, but I was able to put them up in the background while I worked.

2. A Writeup of The Putrescent Seven from which I can run the full 6 hour scenario

Complete. I had wanted the finished product to be in better shape than it is now, but I generally run games off less material than I have prepared currently. And there are no gaps.

3. Printed character handouts, including name tents with portraits, character sheets, and Shambles cheat-sheets.

Incomplete, but I’m not losing sleep over it. The characters are created, but I haven’t put them to character sheets yet. I got an awesome cheat-sheet though, and I’ve handed off making the name tents to someone else. It’ll get done. I’m hoping to do a rev where I print the stuff on 3×5 cards, which will need a new printer. I’ve also got minis out to be painted.

4. Compilation of adequate soundtrack to cover the various settings in the scenario

Complete. I’ve got about three+ hours of suitable music. I already had a decent amount, but I’ve fleshed it out with a couple additions.

5. Re-assembly of the Awesome GM Box to make it suitable for convention use

Incomplete. This needed some supplies that I didn’t have on hand, and I lost my Sunday to injury. I took Saturday off for a nice long hike, and bunged up my foot somehow (no, I don’t know how yet. Yes, I’ll go to the doctor if it persists). If I don’t get it assembled in off-time between now and DDC, I just don’t bring it.

6. Gaming and convention supplies packed and ready for the trip

HA! Yeah, right. I sorta have everything in one place, but I’ll still be frantically packing the night before.

So, on the whole, I’m declaring victory. I did prep for Dundracon. I hope to have time between now and then to iterate over what I’ve done so far to make it better. But I’m more prepared now than I typically am this far ahead of the con.

I’m feeling pretty good about The Putrescent Seven, to tell you the truth. I’m hoping it runs well, and that I can turn it around into an actual scenario that I can offer to interested parties.

As you may remember from last week’s wrapup post, I extended the deadline for Tales From The Table pitches by a week to give people a chance to get their pitches in. I said after that week, I would make a decision on the project.

With the deadline now passed, I have not received enough submissions for me to want to pursue this project. I still think it’s a great idea, and I believe it could be a fun project, but I I’m well shy of the pitch submissions I would want before pulling the trigger on this one. I’m sure I could get them if I actively sought them out rather than taking the passive approach, but I don’t have that kind of time. More accurately, I have way too any other things to do, and this one won’t bubble to the top.

But, rather than just kill it, I’m going to offer something else.

If you want to take the project and run with it – gather pitches, do the legwork, pull it together, edit it, basically take over the project entirely, I’ll connect you with a layout guy, the people who sent me their pitches so far, and I’ll offer advice, promote it, and help raise the funds. In essence, I’d move from Director to Executive Producer. Just so long as in the credits it says somewhere “This Book Was Originally A TERRIBLE Idea” or some such. With a link.

So, if you really like the idea of the project, and want to jump in and take it from here, and we’ll talk. I’m not going to throw it to the first person who raises their hand, but I will throw it to the ONLY person who raised their hand, should that be the case. If you want to but don’t think you can, just email me. Because you can. It’s a good idea, you should do it. I’ve got too much on my plate to see it through but I’ll help in any way I can.

And boy do I have a couple of pitches of my own to send YOU.

I caught news this morning that Tom Vasel from Dicetower lost his infant son.

If you want to read all about this, you can find some info from here and there’s plenty out there to read. I’ll warn you ahead of time, it’s a hard read. My heart goes out to Tom, though I don’t know him personally.

A games auction has been organized to raise funds for the family. Please review it participate if you can.

I don’t really have anything suitable to add to the list, and have instead submitted an item of One Custom Game.You can read about my entry here.

If you’ve never been in the ICU with your child, it can be hard to imagine what that feels like. I can’t imagine losing a child.

This weekend I finally got a chance to run a game using my Awesome GM Box. I thought some of you might be interested to hear how it performed in the wild.

I was running my irregular Paranoia game. Something about being behind a large block of White made it feel all the better – more ominous.

Purely as a screen, it of course did the job. I really liked being able to write character names on the top of the box, corresponding to where the players were sitting. I liked it better than name tents, as those tend to get knocked about. I used Squares map as a chart to keep track of treason, commendations, fines and so on. The card slots were great for holding notes that had been passed to me (as folded cards, so they hung in plain sight). The Hex tokens were used a couple times for chairs and such, and I liked having the hex map out there for drawing quick rooms. All these things were really great.

However, I had to laugh when one of the first things I did was open up my stock Paranoia GM screen to look something up. I did this on more than one occasion. I also found that on the whole, I didn’t make much use of the whiteboard on my side of the screen, save for the Squares map. The glue I chose for the whiteboard wasn’t so hot, which made it a little frustrating in light of the fact that I was hardly using the whiteboard overall. And the strap harness I put together to carry the box feels a little unwieldy.

I think the box in the current form would work great to the side of the gaming table, as more of a supplies depot for handouts and such. I’m mulling over ways to revise the design to make this even better, but my gut feel is that I may want something smaller for the GM screen proper, using the bigger box to hold handouts, props, supplies and the like. Redesign stuff is brewing. I’ll let you know how this goes.

Thing Four in my 52 Weeks of Done project is a preparation push for Dundracon.

Thing : Dundracon Preparations
Type : Game Design, Writing, Making and Organization
Size : Scattered, Smothered, Covered and Chunked
Description :Dundracon is a local convention that takes place during President’s Day weekend in San Ramon. I’m running an official game of Shambles that riffs off The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai. The game is called The Putrescent Seven. Not only do I need to write up the game and do my normal game prep, I need to revise the assembly of the Awesome GM Box, and pre-pack any standard con supplies in advance (business cards, props, flask, etc).
S.Q.U.I.D. Test : This Thing will not be Done until the following tasks are complete:

1. Watch both the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai for inspiration
2. A Writeup of The Putrescent Seven from which I can run the full 6 hour scenario
3. Printed character handouts, including name tents with portraits, character sheets, and Shambles cheat-sheets.
4. Compilation of adequate soundtrack to cover the various settings in the scenario
5. Re-assembly of the Awesome GM Box to make it suitable for convention use
6. Gaming and convention supplies packed and ready for the trip

With almost a month to go until the convention, it may seem a little silly to be doing all this now. But there is a method to my madness.

For one thing, I may be almost out of crappy business cards, but I won’t know until I try to pack them. If I am almost out, I want to reorder, preferably some better ones.

Also, I have a tendency to go into games unprepared. I want to knock this one out of the park, especially given that I’m drawing from such excellent source material. If I have the prep done this far in advance, I can tweak it more, or spend a little time making it Better or adding some shine.

Then there’s the Awesome GM Box. I used it this weekend for the first time when running an actual game, and I have some assembly issues. I’d like to resolve those before the Convention. If this requires a re-cut of the box, I want plenty of lead time.

Finally, there’s the whole stress factor. If this is all Done well in advance of the con, it’ll be one less thing to cause me stress in four weeks.

So, off I go. I actually cheated a little, as I spent some time this AM in a coffee shop, making notes on The Putrescent Seven ahead of this post. But that’s not really cheating Kids. That’s working ahead.

If you want to sign up for the game, it runs Saturday at 6 PM, in Room 151, and goes for 6 hours. Obviously it’s for a hard 7 Players – no crash spots.

So, Thing Three, previously codenamed “Playground Supervisor Dispatches” was outed on Thursday as Tales From The Table

I indicated on that post that I would receive submissions until Sunday night, 8:00PM, at which point I would determine if the project was a go / no go.

I also indicated in the KIckoff Post that I’d Kill the project if I didn’t get at least 24 statements of intent, or if I didn’t detail how the project would be brought to fruition.

After discussing all this with some fairly intelligent people, I’ve decided to break some of my self-imposed rules. Specifically, a couple people made a pretty good case that extending the submission deadline would was a pretty good idea. To that end, I am amending the Done qualifiers to extend this project for a week, to Sunday the 30th, 8pmish PST. There are a couple caveats:

1 – If you want Tales from the Table to happen, either because you want to read it or you want to contribute, I need you to spread the word. Pimp it on Twitter in your own blog, on a podcast, in your favorite forums, wherever you think interested people might be.

2 – For the purposes of 52 Weeks of Done, I’m Done working on this one – I’m just not making the Launch It / Kill It decision until next week. That means I’ve got the details for bringing the project to fruition pretty much worked out.

I think that covers it. I’m still calling it a success – I did what I wanted to do, which is get the idea out and measure interest. I’ll decide next week if there’s enough to proceed.

Comments, questions below.

Gaming table horror stories – we’ve all heard them, some of us have been there to see them: Players going legitimately crazy at the table, GMs showing up painfully drunk, fist-fights over who gets the elf girl, players hooking up loudly during a break, and of course, that time an in-character argument abruptly turned into a screaming match over who paid for the pizza last time.

As players and GMs, we see a lot of crazy, real life stuff when we’re sitting at the table. I think it’s time we shared some of those stories with each other.

I’m looking to put together an anthology of the most bizarre things ever witnessed at the gaming table. I want the funniest, weirdest, most uncomfortable or just plain scariest things that you’ve ever personally witnessed. I think there have to be enough stories like this to make a great read for players and GMs alike. I want to know if I’m right.

Think you’ve got a story? Shoot me an – I’m looking for 75 words or so that convince me you’ve got something horrifying or hilarious, and that you can tell your tale in an interesting way. If it looks like there’s enough potential material out there, I’ll formalize the project and ask for the whole story. If your story makes the cut, you’ll get paid a flat fee (SFWA rate of $.05 / word).

I’m setting a tight deadline for this phase of the project : Three days. If I don’t have a sense for the potential for available material by Sunday Evening Sunday Evening, Jan 30th (Call it 8:00pm PST), then I’m moving on to work on something else. So don’t put it off. Jump in now.

You can comment below if you have questions or just think it’s a cool idea, but I’d really like to hear from people who are interested in participating, buying a copy, or backing the project.

Know someone with a good story? Know some people who might be interested? Please spread the word.

Update : A couple smart people have convinced me to extend the deadline by a week. I’ve modified the date above to reflect this.