A day of gaming in Wacko, Texas?

Okay Texans, I want some feedback on this idea/plan...

The idea came up a while back to do a 1-day game meetup in Waco, so folks from Austin and DFW would only have a 90m drive in and home. And only slightly longer for Houston-ites and San Antonians.

TENTATIVE PLAN FOR CONSIDERATION:
BRAZOSRCon -
Saturday January 14th,, 2017, 10am-10pm
Comfort Suites Waco North

I've looked into the following: getting the meeting room at the Comfort Suites Waco North. It would accommodate 6 tables w/ 8 players each. I'm looking at getting the room from 10am to 10pm (which should pretty much allow two 5-hour-ish gaming sessions for the day with a break between at mid afternoon).

They would also arrange a block of rooms at a discounted rate for Saturday night (they can't do a block for Friday because they have a baseball group that comes in weekly and leaves Saturday morning).

If 40 people committed at $10 each for the room (I would do something like Eventbrite, so there might be a small surcharge on that) we could get the room paid for.

Also, the hotel would have no problem with people brining in their own food. I looked at the possibility of bringing in food (from non-hotel source), but don't think it's financially worth it, but there are plenty of close-by places to eat.

And now Waco isn't so dry anymore. The hotel actually has a "bar" (beer/wine; doesn't normally open until 5pm, but if they knew we were interested, they could arrange to have it open as early as noon; I'm not sure how much earlier we could arrange than that).

Could possibly do a 2-day deal if there was enough interest (for an extra $10/person).

Thoughts?

Today is 5 years minus 1 day. Tomorrow is 5 years.

I'll keep this short and sweet for now (as I hope for a longer post tomorrow morning).

Tomorrow (Tuesday October 11, 2016) is the 5-year anniversary of my very first post at this blog. And it is 5 years to the day... it was a Tuesday on the day I first blogged, and it is a Tuesday tomorrow.

In honor of this occasion, I will be running a crazy special at RPGNow. Starting at midnight tonight (Monday night at midnight), and running through tomorrow at midnight (Tuesday night at midnight), PDFs of the following titles will be on sale for $1 each (but only for the 24 hours that are Tuesday, October 11, 2016):
– d30 DM Companion
– d30 Sandbox Companion
– Creature Compendium
– Basic Psionics Handbook
– Valley of the Five Fires

That means you can get all the major NBD titles for a total of $5! And, as a special bonus, Module PA1: Vault of the Faceless Giants will become free indefinitely.

SALE PRICING STARTS AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT (MONDAY) AND ENDS TOMORROW NIGHT (TUESDAY) AT MIDNIGHT!

Free PDF Download: New BX Character Class - Half-orc

Almost a year ago, I mentioned that the Character Class Codex would include a half-orc, which I saw as a way "to fill in the BX need for an assassin (but using a race class to do it)."

This statement last year was not how I envisioned a BX half-orc, it was how I'd already written it. Yes. This class has existed for about a year, and I'm just sharing it now. That being said, I do believe I made this an option during my "Cold Fingers of Fate" game at NTRPGCon this past year (and IIRC, somebody actually played it; I just don't have my notes from the game handy to confirm).

Enough of my jibber-jabber. Onto that link...

Click here to download the
Half-ord character class PDF.

Really Old Old-school Artist: Austin Molloy (aka Austin Ó Maolaoid, AóM)

Many of you may notice that the art of today's featured artist Austin Molloy (1886–1961) bears a striking resemblance to illustration legend Harry Clarke. So it may come as no surprise that Molloy was friends with Clarke; they met at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (now named the National College of Art and Design) as students, then Molloy went on to teach there. Tell me the last image below doesn't reek of Harry Clarke.

Molloy (aka Austin Ó Maolaoid, AóM) had a pretty prolific career, serving An Gúm (The Scheme), a government initiative in Ireland started in 1925 to publish books in Irish, as his main client for many years. All the images below pre-date 1925, but many of them could have been done in the last 40 years by someone like Russ Nicholson (specifically the boy fighting the hound, or the Grummsh-looking mother-effer below it).

I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across his work, but I do know it was during a recent "Archive.org expedition" (what I call those times I sit front of the TV with my feet up, my laptop in my lap, and I just keep poking around Archive.org until I find something relevant-but-previously-undiscovered-by-me).

SO DIG THIS STUFF!!!

New Oe/1e/BX Monster: Ambler

This is something I drew a while back and shared on Google+ as an illustration only.
Now it's a fully-statted creature.

An ambler (a contraction of the words “armored” and shambler”) is an elemental creature created from the massive sphere of armor and weapons located at the center of the Demi-plane of Electro-magnetism. When one of these anomalies escape their home plane (e.g., ported in by a powerful magic-user), the ambler appears as a shambling mishmash of mismatched pieces of armor in a vaguely humanoid form with 1-4 usable limbs, each of which has a 75% chance of holding a small-to-medium weapon (hand axe, dagger, 1-handed sword, etc.). Because producing an ambler requires it to be summoned (as opposed to being conjured from existing material), control of the ambler is not automatic, nor will it serve any creature (even its summoner), so it will not follow orders unless compelled to do so my some additional force (e.g., a charm or control spell). The ambler can understand any language that was possessed by the previous owner of any piece of armor used in its composition, or weapon it holds (usually this will include common, dwarvish and elvish, though it is not unheard of for this to also include halfling and orcish; other languages known are at the discretion of the DM but is suggested that there be a 90% chance of the ambler knowing any common language, 30% for any uncommon language, 10% for any rare language, and 1% for any very rare language, assuming the language in question is spoken by species that normally wears armor). The electromagnetism in the ambler is so strong that should a successful melee strike be made against the ambler by a normal (i.e., non-magical) weapon made of a magnetic metal (e.g., steel or iron), there is a 50% chance that the weapon will become “stuck” to the ambler, and useless by the attacker. Amblers are affected by protection from evil spells, and can be returned to their home plane by dispel magic, but can also be dealt with using extraplanar dismissal or banishment. If dismissed or banished, any weapon stuck to the ambler will be transported with it.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Very rare NO. APPEARING: 1 ARMOR CLASS: 0 MOVE: 6" HIT DICE: 5-8 % IN LAIR: Nil TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 1-4 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 or by weapon SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 or better needed “to hit” MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Low ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: M-L PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 0-3 HIT DICE: 5-8* MOVE: 60'(20') ATTACKS: 1-4 DAMAGE: 1-6 or by weapon NO. APPEARING: 1 SAVE AS: Fighter:5-8 MORALE: 10 TREASURE TYPE: Nil ALIGNMENT: Neutral

One Crazy Summer

Well, I haven't sailed in any regattas to save a singer's grandfather house, or been buried up to my neck on the beach beneath a guy in a folding chair eating chili, but it has been one crazy summer.

Nothing terribly bad, mind you, just a summer full of distractions. Just as summer began (you know, during the week of NTRPGCon), my wife quit one job, started a small re-sale business during June, then took a new job at the end of June. That meant a lot of furniture moving for me (3 carloads out of her old classroom, 3 carloads to the antique mall/mercantile space, and 2 carloads to her new classroom). July and August saw me dealing with a small, but annoying medical thing (just a small sore on my leg that is taking forever to heal properly which is eating up my schedule with trips to the wound care specialist). Not to mention a super-hectic workload all summer-long; in addition to a couple of sizable paying projects, I've been working with a couple of start-ups with a personal ownership stake. (In the 16 years I've been working for myself, I have never before contributed time to start-ups for two reasons: 1) I have heretofore not had faith in any of those proposed to me to be successful, and 2) the motto of all designers should be, "Fuck you. Pay me." However, the 2 start-ups in question are: 1) both being started by past clients who have brought me a lot of business/income, and 2) I do truthfully believe in the possibility of their success.)

So that brings me to the real point of this blog post... I'M BACK BITCHES!

My wife is back on a regular school-year schedule, which means I'm back on a regular schedule. I've already got three new blog posts loaded for the upcoming week, and Welbo and I are back full-force on the final preparations for Steve Marsh's Shattered Norns 5e book. And for those who've been waiting patiently, we'll soon be adding a batch of the Classic Edition GM Screen for sale on the New Big Dragon Storefront.

It's good to be back!

Typographic Pet Peeve #3: Inch Marks and Foot Marks and Apostrophes and Quotes (Oh My!)

Today's post (compared to post #1 and post #2 in this series) will be short and to the point. It has to do with the differences between (and the correct usage of) inch marks, foot marks, quote marks and apostrophes.

So here are the basics...
Quote marks and apostrophes are curved. Inch marks and foot marks are not.



Again, AS ALWAYS!, it comes down to the fact that the computer thinks it's smarter than you, and "smart" quotes are only as smart as the person typing.

If you leave smart quotes "on" in your software, then every time you type a measurement, it looks like this...



If you leave smart quotes "off" in your software, then every time you type a quote or apostrophy, it looks like this...



Now, I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to online things (e.g., this blog), I use the default marks (" and ') instead of the more proper marks ( “, ” and ’), because hand-adjusting the html code with the proper ascii codes is a pain in the ass. But I think people are generally forgiving of this. However, when it comes to layout, I do not tread lightly when it comes to the differences between the marks. In fact, on one proofing review of the Creature Compendium (print copies of which are now on sale for 20% off at Lulu.com), I did nothing more than check the foot marks, inch marks, quotes and apostrophes for proper formatting (yes... one entire round of proofing just to check those marks).

BE IT KNOWN THAT NOT ALL FONTS INCLUDE PROPER QUOTE MARKS AND APOSTROPHES! In these instances (usually for the title type of a book), I will try to find the visually-closest font that includes them, and just change the typesetting for those individual characters in the title type. And if I can't find anything usable, I create the type element as a standalone image (e.g., in Adobe Illustrator), then use the comma from the typeface and move it, copy it and rotate it as necessary to make the type work. That may sound like a lot of effort, but it's these little things that make the difference between "average" and "superior" graphic design (and prove how much/how little the designer cares).

So that's it. And before you start asking "How do I turn smart quotes off and on?"... here are some resources for you.

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Key combo for proper (curly) quotes on mac (assuming smart quotes are off):

• for left/open quote: Option-[
• for right/close quote: Option-Shift-[
• for left/open single quote: Option-]
• for apostrophe/right single/close quote: Option-Shift-]

There is no key command for foot and inch marks on Mac. You will need to make sure smart quotes are off to type these.

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Turning smart quotes off/on in Adobe InDesign >>

Turning smart quotes off/on in Adobe InDesign (Scroll down to "Use Smart Punctuation")

If you want to know how to turn smart quotes off and on in Photoshop, you won't get any help from me. Photoshop shouldn't be used for type. (Sorry. That's one of those places where I won't back down on my design snobbery.)

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Changing quotation mark format in Microsoft Office Products >>

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