New Books Available!

There is still (probably) time for you to order PoD from Amazon and still have it arrive by Christmas, and I’ve just put out 3 new books you can get there.

Home? (2nd Edition) – A revised and corrected version of my novel “Home?” featuring a new cover in a smaller, easy-to-carry size.

RPG LTE: Swords and Sorcery – BETA – A print version of the beta available on the “Downloads” page for those who prefer that or would like to support the idea with your dollars (though it is basically being sold at cost because it is a beta)

Stickies: The Collection (10th Anniversary Edition) – All 250 Stickies comics (and even some fun extras) collected together in glorious full-color for this volume on the 10th anniversary its inception.

If you like what I do, please consider buying a book; I love it when physical copies can reach new places.

(If you are short on cash because of the holidays but still want a book, you might want to wait until early next year when I hopefully {it’s not like I usually over-commit myself or anything} will be setting up an online store separate from the Amazon one where not only my books, but many of the other cool ephemera I have created will be available.)

-Austin

RPG LTE Supplements – 7-14-17

8 supplements, covering areas from item shops to spells, for RPG LTE S&S are now available at the download page, and can be found below. These supplements were previously only available in the printed Beta book, but are now here for everyone to try out!

Remember RPG LTE is still in beta; let us know what you think here: rpglte@dragoncompany.org

Animals, Vehicles, and Hirelings [Supplement 1] (PDF) Beta

Merchants and Stores (Expanded) [Supplement 2] (PDF) Beta

Potions and Liquids [Supplement 3] (PDF) Beta

Spells (Expanded) [Supplement 4] (PDF) Beta

Character Classes (Expanded) [Supplement 5] (PDF) Beta

Character Races (Expanded) [Supplement 6] (PDF) Beta 

Defining Key Terms (Expanded) [Supplement 7] (PDF) Beta

Empty Monster Stat Blocks [Supplement 8] (PDF) Beta

RPG LTE: Swords & Sorcery Beta Release

I have written a small Role-Playing Game. RPG LTE: Swords & Sorcery is a light, 5-page (for basic rules), easy-to-learn, and hopefully very intuitive fantasy Role-Playing Game. I’ve made a few posts already about how and why I ended up writing this game, so this post is simply the “official” beta release. The game is fully playable and working, but not every aspect has been extensively tested. Certainly any feedback would be appreciated, and updates will be forthcoming.

Core Rules (Beta) (PDF)

Game Mastering (Beta) (PDF)

Monsters (Pre-Made and Made) (Beta) (PDF)

Character Sheet (Beta) (PDF)

I hope anyone taking a look enjoys the game, and if all goes well the system can be adapted into more themes and genres as time progresses to allow it to be enjoyed in as many ways as possible.

-Austin

Book Review – How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps (By: Jared Blando)

How to Draw Fantasy Art & RPG Maps: A Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans is a book with quite a long name that is aptly described by said title. It’s a “how-to” art book detailing the creation of fantasy or “medieval” maps for use generally with role-playing games. I picked a copy up mainly to get some inspiration from the included examples and not to actually get any solid drawing information from, as my in experience most “how-to (art)” books I’ve read don’t provide any real benefit other than that (the worst being the “Step 1: Draw a circle, Step 2: Perfectly draw a bunny then color it” kind). But does this one break the mold?

All first impressions indicate that this is a fairly standard, if nicely produced, how-to-draw book. The almost 8½ x 11” size is nice and fitting while the 128 page length is right in the middle of books of this type (most good ones at least). The cover stock is decent and the inside pages are heavy and well coated. The image quality is phenomenal; it’s all nicely printed and well laid out (and meant to look old on the covers. meaning the damage to the corners caused by shipping doesn’t show up as much)

The actual content of the book is where it seems to lose purpose. Not necessarily the art, which is very good if a bit overly specific, but in the writing, which spends most of the books length telling you “now sketch/draw/fill in X” without giving any real hints, tips or tricks. And sometimes I get that, maybe there aren’t any “tricks”, but at that point the text could just be omitted. It seems like the author was only writing most of the book because it was supposed to be a “book” and not show-and-tell, but I’m not necessarily against show-and-tell, especially in this context. The worst part is that even with all of the unnecessary text there are constantly little blocks like pop-up ads in book form that “inform” the reader of “free content” on the publishers website (that I’m sure will be around for as long as all physical copies of the book last). I personally haven’t looked to see (now I have, it’s not much) what’s there but they are used frequently enough (to fill space I’m guessing) that it almost seems like there’s a second book online I should be looking at (there isn’t, just wallpapers).

Still, there is some good stuff in the book; scattered around are helpful “aside” boxes that have useful information (generally better than the regular guidelines) and most of the information and images are on a solid foundation. The shield chapter is particularly nice (if short) one where many examples and color palettes are provided to give the reader some inspiration. This stands in sharp contrast to the previous icon chapter where little-to-no variation or creativity-inspiring options are presented, with boring text that at times (citadels) is directly in opposition to the drawing being displayed. This chapter is by far the worst example of the main problem with the book; that is, just stating the obvious about what is drawn. I have eyes and can see that that is a circle, I also know that the first step in drawing it is a circle, but the book explains that to me. I kept reading in the hope that some interesting fact or technique would be presented but none were (or very few at least). It’s still a problem, but much less so in other chapters where the drawings being directed are actually slightly complicated.

But that’s always been a problem art books have. They provide very few options because they can’t provide more. They don’t know exactly what you want, and when they start to provide the reader with options they lose their cohesiveness. Even this book, which is very straight forward and “constricting”, seems to be about how to make two very different styles of map, but they’re presented as one, in chapter order like you’re supposed to follow. But if you included each of the elements suggested in each chapter as you made the map, you’d have a hard time fitting everything in nicely and you’d end up with a graphically confused and cluttered map.

The book fulfills the purpose I bought it for in giving general inspiration and techniques for creating “fantasy” maps, and it’s an alright beginners tool. The author is a very good artist even if he wasn’t given the ability to flex his writing muscles (that may or may not be there) and the whole thing is nice looking and well produced. I think it would have been better served (like most art books) as a series of images to use as “suggestions” or to draw inspiration from, but if one knows about that (perceived) flaw in books like this going in it is no real problem. If one is looking for actual instruction, the sections on supplies, inking, and digital manipulation at the start and end of the book will do the job with little in the middle being particularly helpful. I am glad I got the book, but I’m not sure how much I could recommend it; it’s nothing special in the world of “how-to art” books and I’m not much of a fan of the (quite digital) aesthetic. So maybe take a look at all of that “free content” on the publisher’s website before making a decision (it just takes one to a page to enter their email address to get “wallpapers”, hardly worth it. I’d try and leaf through the book at the store or with an online “quick look” feature before considering it).

Board Game Creation Blogging Part 5 – Rethinking and Downsizing (w/ Making an RPG)

Where I last left off this series I was failing at Kickstarter, which was actually quite some time ago now. I’ve made two household moves and published a dozen books (of my comics) since then, among other things, so it’s kind of crazy coming back now. I definitely re-evaluated my position and have been looking into why I was unable get my game off the ground. I have made several games (and game-related items) since then, but they need some more polish before I blog about them.

I had mentioned at the end of my last post that I would be working on a smaller game; one that could more easily be kick-started for next time. And I have been (I’ve got a couple of good ones), but I thought as I was working on them, “why not go smaller? Or with less cost?” It was a hard thing to think about, especially since I’m a bit of a stickler for components (I want them to last a long time). I didn’t want to create a game that used a PoD service like the Game Crafter or one that was print-it-yourself as both of those would be “less than perfect” (don’t get me wrong, GC is a great product. I use them, and what they’re doing is really cool, but it’s a bit more expensive than I would like for the quality). It then occurred to me at some point (I will have a separate post about it) that a type of game that I would be interesting in making and that could be downloaded and printed by people easily was a role-playing game.

I had recently started trying to get more into role-playing, and since most of the major books are huge, intimidating messes (and I mean that in the best possible way, they are endearing messes) I went looking for short, simple RPGs online. And I found quite a few (22 is the number I currently have printed off in my binder, and that’s not counting all of the ones I found online). Most of them ranged from 1-10 pages, but one seems the most common length. There is a certain sense of satisfaction that I can understand would come from both writing and playing a “single-page” RPG. But none of these were exactly what I wanted. I wanted mechanics that were slightly more “intuitive” but still something you could “sink your teeth into”. I believed there was and is some room for something closer to my “perfect” version of a role-playing game, so I set about writing it.

bookcoverimage-rpglte

It took me far longer to do that than I had anticipated, but that was because it ended up much longer than I had thought. Not the rules, necessarily: they’re only 5 pages (though a bit cramped at around 7,000 words), but the “everything else” that comes with making an RPG. I’ve ended up writing 27 pages full of stuff for it, and in my excitement to get my ideas down I was writing some of the later pages before finishing the “necessary” pages, which would be: rules for playing the game, rules for running the game, and some pre-built enemies to go in the game (a “3-book” structure if you will, a-la D&D but with only 5 pages for each section). My plan was to put these “core rulebooks” up online and maybe a few “supplements” (1-page extras) after that, then combine them all into a book that would be the “beta” for the game. Hopefully. people would then play it and I would be able to gather feedback and write some extra stuff for the “first edition”. I still hope to do that, but I did it a bit backwards and finished the book first (it took me far too long to write this post), so now that it’s already out in the wild (though at the moment only purchase-able through me personally) I will be putting the PDFs up for download on the dragoncompany.org site.

Core Rules Beta (PDF)

Game Master Guide Beta (PDF)

Monsters/Bestiary Beta (PDF)

Beta Character Sheet (PDF)

I’ve been using a print-on-demand service to print my comic books for a few years now; so going with them for the beta version was a simple choice. Even with them being PoD I don’t anticipate the print version of the beta getting a wide release. I think it is good and playable, but I’d like to add a little more polish before putting it up on Amazon like my comic books. Also the PoD service only does paperback books, and I do hope that after I’ve put the contents up online and gathered some feedback and done some more playtesting to get everything collected for the first edition in a hardback (or likely both formats, as I want the game to be as accessible {inexpensive} as possible), not just to look like other RPGs but because I like the feel and longevity of a good hardback. In any case I’ve put the beta files up, and I hope you use them, play the game and let me know what you think.