At Last!

Please visit the books page to see my wares! 50% of the profits made from sales until Jan 5th will be donated to the Office of Letters and Light, the charity that runs National Novel Writing Month.

Getting There

Okay, so volumes 2 and 3 are now visible in the United States. Volume 1 will be visible... er... any time now. Apparently the books take a little while to become visible in other countries. Being UK-centric, of course, I am really only concerned about the visibility in .co.uk

Links to be posted here, in case you want to buy a copy, as soon as they are available.

I never imagined that "direct" publishing would take, er, days. That's really not so direct now, is it? Still, it's more direct than the "regular" publishing industry. Keep it tuned, look for new pages.

Today's The Day...

I'm wondering if I mentioned that I was enrolling the Chicago Shadows trilogy in KDP Select.

I probably didn't.

At some point in the past I railed against Amazon attempting to monopolise self-publishing with its Select programme. I still think it's a bit iffy, but not as iffy as I first thought.

1) In 90 days the trilogy will be de-enrolled from KDP select and released to other channels. For this flexibility Amazon get my exclusivity until spring.

2) All the numbers say that the greatest number of sales come through Amazon so as a starving artist I really have no choice.

Now to go and make a "Books" page.

Yikes!

So RoboJoe stole the show... *sigh* worst X Factor winner Evar! (relatively speaking, Leon Jackson was a massive anti-climax but he wasn't up against talent like Olly, Danyl and Stacey, he also wasn't following talent like Alexandra and JLS).

I've been creating a wiki for No Dice. This will replace the soon to be extinct No Dice Forums. Have a look around. There's already a bunch of stuff in System Hacks.

Also Random Encounters is out! The ideal Chrimbo gift! Buy one now! ;)

Have a good Monday!

Things Are Getting Desperate

Only a couple of days to go until No Dice debuts at Beer & Pretzels. I'm really looking forward to taking some games out for a trundle. Justin, Mrs Monkey and myself had a war council last night and it all is looking quite exciting. I think it's fair to say that hopes are high for this enterprise. Sure we won't be filling a Global Stadium Tour any time soon but I hope people can get behind what we're trying to do here.

One thing that struck me in the paper-riffic character sheet production bonanza that took place yesterday was that we really do have a vast array of different rules and features that swap around in a dizzying number of ways to create an awesome powerhouse of role play variety.

It was part of the design all along that there would be a Vanilla system onto which features would be bolted as suited the needs of the scenario but I never expected there to be so many subtle shades. For example Con of the Dead is the exemplar of cheap and cheerful, four character records to a sheet of A4, 8 stats, a suit, a character name. Extremely efficient.

At the other end of the scale Marauders: Pirates of the Kamuri Kandam has 12 stats and a whole separate grid for fighting. Shadow Cities two meters for combat (ranged and melee and a huge wash of skill slots). Revelation Point, our slasher one off, employs a completely gimmicked system for making Slasher one offs where injuries are micromanaged and obssessed over much as they are in the genre they attempt to emulate.

Despite what could be a dizzying array of different rule sets the system remains, at heart, pretty simple. The scores on the sheets are only ever chucked in when needed. In fact there are sub variations of the rules for certain situations, the Marauders one off we're taking to B&P has almost no role play in it, well, very little that would require role play tests. In response I've stripped the 12 attribute skill grid out of the one off sheets and presented players with a character history and a fighting style.

Anyhow, all of this variety is intended to impress and I hope it does. After this piece of work we're looking forward to a launch party next week and then, well, the launch. A rest can't come soon enough to be honest.

Word of the week has been traction. What we're all really hoping is that this product will create some space for us to get some traction, buy a little time to do the work and get on with writing up the twelve books we've got planned so far (not counting anthologies of one offs). I predict a lot of hoarsely telling people that if they had a good time please to spread the word in the immediate future.

Oh well, off to think about fliers to hand out this weekend...

Looking Ahead To Zero Hour

Work to be done on the actual core "No Dice" book is all about the spit and polish now. I'm chewing my way through putting up our first lines of "No Dice" gear in the shop. The Doodler is frantically creating the illustrations for the book. I have to turn my attention to the website.

We're looking at a publishing date for the No Dice Core Book of 1st June 2009. First time in my life I have ever been nervous-excited about publishing a book.

Let's get one thing straight herrs and frauleins, this isn't just a book. I designed a game. And not just a game. An evolution. A revolution. A new type of social experience. I am expecting big things.

So, will I be hugely disappointed if it doesn't fly? I don't think the concept of disappointment does this justice. I will be shocked, surprised, gobsmacked, awestruck.

You see, I'm a writer ghost writing a product that is more the product of every good time I've enjoyed with every close friend I've ever had than it is of my brain in glorious isolation.

I'll be sticking some bells and whistles on it using my own talents, just as the Doodler will draw up associated images to make these words pop. In the end though No Dice is about helping people who never really had much time for ardent dice rolling during a storytelling experience get out those all important creases.

The whole thing is about helping a Host to Host and about turning the intensity dial up on the player's experience. If I'll say one thing for people who've been role playing hitherto it's that they have incredible powers of imagination.

That's the thing. Role Playing, as it stands, is hard. You have to be so in to what you're doing to make it fly sometimes, and when it's good it's great. Still, it would help if everyone had a chance to enjoy the peculiar specialness of the role playing experience.

No Dice is designed to reduce some of the brainwork that is currently de rigeur for GMs and Players. Playing No Dice should allow the hobby to become more accessible.

Yup, No Dice is a heady brew, to be sure.

The last closed Beta of the various systems is starting a week on Friday when the long-adored Games Weekend is due to commence. I have all manner of escapades planned for that event from the crunchiest to the lightest. We shall see how they all go over.

The current archetypes that need to be written, illustrated and then added to the catalogue are the aforementioned Martial Arts game, a cop game and a fairy tale game. I'm also rolling out something experimental to see how it plays.

Following that, it comes to me that the only thing that should really be done to fill the intervening time is to open the Betas up for a sort of "Final Run" leading up to the big launch. Actually now I come to think about it a launch *event* might even be appropriate... Hmmm.

Changing gears between creating and marketing, even when that means a bunch of RP events, is kind of bizarre. What I'm keen to avoid is huge costs in printing etc. when we've got no money coming in. Anything I spend now has to be recouped by donations and so on later. To date I've spent precisely no money on getting this ready to go. I was hoping to continue in that trend.

As that's probably not going to be possible (and I realise a few quid on ink and paper for character sheets and other stationery hardly breaks the bank) I guess it's time to draw attention to the "donate" link over on the right there. 'Nuff said.

Expect to see the website spring to some kind of life in fairly short order. I'll restrict specific discussion of any participatory events people may or may not be interested in news of to that forum.