A Terrible Idea

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.

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.

I’ve been mulling this idea over for a while. After wrestling with the particulars for too long, I’ve decided I’m just going to jump in. Here Goes.

I am looking for some Terrible Ambassadors.

As a Terrible Ambassador, you will take Shambles to your local convention or game store, and run a game. You’ll get an Terribly Official Ambassador’s Kit, which will include some cool things to help you in your duties, any promotional support I can provide, a profile here on the website, and some money.

Yes, money. It’s not a bucket of money, but enough to cover a convention meal or a couple drinks. And you’ll get it each time you run a game that fits some parameters that I haven’t fully hashed out yet (official convention games or open games in a game store, where I know about it in advance and can say ‘yes, I can afford this’, and where you get people at the table. something like that, anyway). This would be a great way to get a little extra money for that game you were going to run at the convention anyway.

This is a pretty experimental thing for me. I’ve got a rough idea for where I want this to go, but if I wait until I hash out all the details I’ll never get it off the ground. So I’m looking for just a few people for this initial program. You’ll need to be flexible and willing to hash this out with me, enthusiastic about Shambles, and able to run 2-3 games a year at least, with the strong preference being games outside the SF Bay Area (where I’m already covering most of the local cons).

If you’re interested, a hundred words or so about yourself and why you want to do this. If you have additional questions or comments, fire away below.

With less than 48 hours to go on the 60 72 Terrible Character Portraits Kickstarter project, I’ve added two new backer rewards.

The first one is for anyone who wants to support the project, but can’t go big.

Pledge $1 or more

Anyone (including any current backer) who has pledged at least $1.00 to this project will get to read all the stuff I write for the backer rewards. This means you’ll get to read the blank form letter said for the $5.00+ backers, the individual pieces of flash fiction I write for the $10.00+ backers, and the Terrible Character Backgrounds I write for the $80.00+ characters.

The second one is for that one adventurous person out there. I know you’re there somewhere. And there’s only of these.

Pledge $115 or more

The Mystery Of The Prize. We are $115 away from hitting $1050, which would add 12 more Terrible Character Portraits to this project, bringing the grand total to 84 Portraits! With less than two days to do, I’m adding in this special Mystery Backer Reward. Please read this carefully. If you back at this level, INSTEAD OF ANY OF THE PREVIOUSLY LISTED REWARDS, you will get a SPECIAL MYSTERY REWARD. This will be a reward package I create personally. It will be entirely unique. It may include some of the previous rewards, but there will be one thing in this reward package that no one else will get. Something I make just for you. Something Terrible. Something Awesome. There is only one of these.

Only two days left. Let’s push this over the $1k mark!

Are you just dying to play the 2010 ENnie Nominated Shambles? Want to see it in action? Feel like coming out and heckling me?

I’ve got a table scheduled for August 21st at Endgame in Oakland. I’m going to run a game of Shambles. If you’d like to play, comment below, email me, reply to me on Twitter, send me a carrier pigeon, or walk up to me on the street and sock me in the gut.

I’ll update this post as I get new totals. At this time I have six four three two seats available.

What’s the game going to be about? I haven’t decided yet. It will most likely be of the Fast Food Zombie Fun variety. Expect it to start at 11:00 and go for 5-6 hours.

Rather quietly, this site turned a year old a couple weeks ago.

Was it the year I’d anticipated when I started this whole thing? I’d be lying if I said yes. I’d intended to have Gremlin Persistent Malice or Enormous Intersected Automaton done by now (preferably both). But they’re in the closet. I’d intended to make GenCon and PAX and won’t make either. I’d wanted to have more product out, some Shambles supplements in the can, and I’m nowhere near as close to that as I want to be, even a year later.

Has it been a disappointing year?

Hell No.

A year ago, my trophy case was empty. Now it’s got 9 things in it. That’s nine different projects that I finished in the last year, some of which weren’t even on the table when the year started. I won a contest. I gave birth to an Obnoxious Howler Monkey. I contributed some text to a great game that you all know about, and finished work on a game I can’t even talk about yet. I wrote some stuff, made a board game. I wrapped up an RPG that got nominated for an ENnie! I awarded a Terrible Grant. I released an album. And somewhere along the line I took over an entire blogging network.

How can I look back on everything that DID get done this past year, and say that it was disappointing? Would I like to do more? Absolutely. I want to do everything. All of it. At once. And I hope that the next year brings even more projects to fruition.

What does this next year have in store?

Wrapping up another game I can’t talk about. Lunar Kitsch Missile. Saturday Matinee. Terrible Character Portraits. And that’s just the stuff that’s actively being built. If the past year was any indication, in a year I’ll have finished stuff I don’t even know about yet.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped me in any little way over the past year. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be surrounded by such helpful and supportive people. Here’s to looking forward to a trophy case that’s twice as full in a year’s time.

If you’ve been following the 60 Terrible Character Portraits project, you’ll notice that over the weekend we hit our funding goal, which is awesome!

But if you haven’t donated yet, you might wonder why you still should. Well, apart from the awesome rewards we’re offering, I spelled out how additional funds will be used on the the project in a project update this morning.

For every $75 we raise above the goal, we’ll add 6 more characters of a specific type to the project.

Let me break it down for you.

$825 – We add 6 Terrible Robots
$900 – We add 6 Terrible Zombies
$975 – We add 6 Terrible Steampunks
$1050 – We add 6 Terrible Cyberpunks

If we raise more than $1050, I’ll personally attempt a cartwheel, and then we’ll add more character types in another project update.

Furthermore, if you personally donate $75 or more to the project, you can choose what type of characters to add. Do you need half a dozen different wizards? Donate $75 to the project and you can say “I want to see 6 Wizards.”

Your additional donations will only grow the number of portraits on the project. We might end up releasing 72, 90, 120 or more Terrible Character Portraits using this project. And you can have a direct hand in determining what some of them are.

So don’t let our hitting the goal stop you from donating. We’ll still put your donation to good use. You’ll help support a great artist and you’ll help us put out some great Creative Commons content.

Fundraising is SCREAMING along for the 60 Terrible Character Portraits For Creative Commons Release Kickstarter project. In less than a week we’ve raised $660 bucks – that’s 88% of our goal! I’m tremendously excited to see this project take shape, and Jeff Preston is chomping at the bit to get down to it.

One of our great backers has a project of his own going called to raise funds for a printing of an Aruneus main book. You should go check it out. It’s a neat project, and one I think some of you ZFB’s will enjoy.