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RPGs

Revising Plans

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I’ve gotten some unsettling news, on top of all the pandemic induced issues of the last several weeks. My last two annual physicals my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) has been elevated. Since it stayed elevated, my doctor advised I see a urologist. The urologist said if it was him, he’d have a biopsy instead of waiting.

Companion Blog Post Here.

My decision was to do the biopsy, so after a few weeks of worrying about it, I finally had the in office procedure on April 29th. While it wasn’t pleasant, it was far from as bad as I anticipated. My mindset was to not worry until I knew I had something to worry about. Just over a week later, I had a phone call from the urologist with the results. So this past Thursday, May 7th, I found out that eight of the 12 samples have cancer. They use a sliding scale with 6 the least bad and 10 the worst. Seven of the 8 samples that were positive had a score of 6, and the other a score of 7.

This means that I have a slow growing, non-aggressive form of cancer. It’s the best kind to have, as it is easily treatable. Since my prostate is basically full of cancer and is self contained, from what they can tell, it should be easily curable. The two best options are surgery for removal, or radiation. Both come with their own benefits and side effects.

Currently, I’m leaning towards the option for surgery. However, I have to have an in office visit to go into more detail on the two options so I have all the facts before making a decision. Plus, I have to wait and heal up from the biopsy first before they consider any form of treatment.

Fuck Cancer

So while I heal from the biopsy, I have time to think and plan.

My head was swimming a bit after getting the news, but I’m OK. Knowledge is power.

This is just the big bad and I found out about him and now I’m going to foil his plans and kill him. I have time to formulate an effective plan with the right team to do the job. Just like in RPGs.

Revising Plans and Looking Ahead

The reality of having a life threatening condition that will lead to a painful and shitty death if ignored definitely gets your attention. I plan to be around for a long time, but I need to wrap up loose ends so that no matter what happens, it’s less crap to worry about.

I can’t do all the bucket list things due to travel restrictions with COVID-19. I can’t go visit all my relatives and friends for the same reason. I’m thankful that my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live with me.

So I have to work with what I’ve got. My job is secure and paying the bills. Less going out and about and the bank account is in good shape. No telling how big a hit treatment will be, so that’s good. I hope to avoid having to ask for help, but I need to hold that thought until I know just what my share will be after insurance. So I have to reduce spending and backing Kickstarters, etc.

I have enough games I’ve never played, let alone read. So I don’t know how much time I’ll have for reading and playing new games. That’s all on my radar of things to consider.

My Patreon has gone to the back burner as the whole lockdown and Gary Con going virtual and I ran a couple games for Gary Con, so I didn’t finish my March PDF. I did something totally different for April, I shared my Caverns & Cave Bears rough setting PDF along with the Simple Generic RPG that I made for any setting. I have only shared it with my patrons. I will share it with anyone who gives feedback so I can make it better. I’ll eventually have them available on DriveThruRPG [Affiliate Link].

So my Patreon got derailed by how I reacted to the chaos of lock down. I just got done with the busy season at work and was so looking forward to getting out of the house to go to Gary Con. I got into Minecraft to get my mind on something else, and I built a mountain top temple from one location in my AD&D Roll20 campaign, The Broken Lands. I am also working on another location from the same campaign, an underground temple. You can catch these on my Twitch channel since I streamed them there.

Sorry for dragging this out about my Patreon. I need to revise it to fit whatever my plans end up being to help me wrap up things and streamline for the time I need to heal up after treatment. At the moment, I don’t know what that will be.

What About The Card Game?

My final round of play testing I expected to do at Gary Con did not happen. I think where the rules are will work. My plan is to get the card layout done and just put it on DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link]. Kickstarters are not the thing to do right now, and they take a lot of work. I’ll put it together with the public domain and other art from my test decks. My artist is still producing art, but has a lot more pieces to finish before I can use that art. I can use the funds generated on DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] to help fund finishing the art, in case treatment eats up my savings. I should have enough in my business account to cover it, so I’m not worried about that. Once I have all the custom art pieces, I can think about a Kickstarter. But there is no way I have the time, energy, or the mental or emotional oomph to run a Kickstarter right now.

Running & Playing Games

I just re-started my AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign on Roll20. I plan to keep going and will only stop when treatment and recovery prevent me from running a session. I will have plenty of time to think and plan leading up to that point, and during recovery.

The Monday night B/X game [Affiliate Link] and Wednesday night Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link]game on Roll20 will get by without me for any time I am down. I intend to keep playing in both.

I may do a special weekend of running games I’d like to play, maybe for Memorial Day. Maybe I can get my brother to run a game online with the old gang. That would be a hoot.

Podcasting, YouTube, & Twitch

I will continue to podcast as I have topics I think are worth sharing. I will keep making YouTube videos about Roll20 and other things. I will keep streaming Minecraft and other things on Twitch.

I can make a quick update and post online following any treatment to give a heads up on making it through the treatment (surgery).

Other Plans

I’ve been trying to downsize all the stuff I have with the long term goal of my sons not being left with a bunch of stuff they don’t know what to do with it. Everyone should do that so their loved ones don’t have to. It’s been on my to do list for years, and it feels like I’ve only scratched the surface. I want to wrap up the things on my list of home projects, at least the ones involving organizing things, so I don’t have to look at them and be tempted to overdo it during recovery.

I also really need to do a will. Not to be morbid, but one never knows. I had a severe car accident 27 years ago, and that could have been it. I’ve got enough life insurance to pay off my mortgage, truck, and other debts with some left over. Plus my pension. It’s more than my parents were able to leave to my siblings and me.

I want to cover all the bases I can and do all that I realistically can to leave things as organized as possible to minimize my stress when stuck sitting or paying around for recovery. My brain will insist on thinking and worrying about stupid shit that doesn’t matter, so no matter how well I prepare, I’ll still have that to deal with. But maybe I can short circuit it a bit.

Thanks!

I want to thank everyone who has messaged me words of support and encouragement. Those mean more to me than you can ever know. I plan to beat this thing. Cancer is one of those things for which I had a fear. Mostly about it being too late to do anything about it, or being the kinds few survive. So I’m not as affected as I would otherwise be. I’m now worried about the side effects of whatever treatment I choose. There may be none. I know I’ve internalized some of my stress, as I’ve snapped a bit at family. So I know it will be a challenge to be the positive and encouraging person I try to be. I plan to be around a long time.

RPGs

A “Return” To Gaming

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Last night, I re-join the group I played with in a four year AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, Graveyard of Empires, Wednesdays on Roll20. We transitioned to Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link], in the campaign A Plague of Angels, after the conclusion of the AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign. I had too many life things going on and stepped away last year. I will pick up with the same character I had. I guess some other players who came and went either played him or the party used him and he leveled up. He also has a clone running around that is a level higher and with different physical stats. I look forward to getting back into the swing of things. [Companion podcast episode here.]

Sunday I resume my AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign on Roll20 that went on hiatus 2 year ago this past December. The players are the GM and other players from the Wednesday night game. It is set in my campaign world in an area called The Broken Lands. Coincidentally, I’ve been playing in a B/X game in the official Mystara based Broken Lands setting, The Orcs of Thar [Affiliate Link] , on Mondays. I had no idea that TSR had its own setting called Broken Lands.

I’ve spent the past few days organizing the notes I have in various text files into a Wiki on CampaignWiki.org. This has made things much more organized and I am refreshed on many things.

My biggest struggle with my campaign is verifying the in game date we left off. If I made a note of it, I’m not finding it.

There will be 3 new players bringing the total players up to 7. One of the new players will have a monk, so I’m making some notes to fit him into the setting. Another has a ranger, and the third is playing a magic user subclass for which I’ve only got the basic outline and a few spells, the Vexillologist that I first posted about on my blog nearly four years ago. This will force me to finish it and refine it in play. I hope to share it.

I’ve also organized the player notes and GM notes in Roll20 with a Player’s TOC and GM TOC that I’ll discuss in my Friday Twitch stream on Roll20 For Beginners. [It’s related to my YouTube series, Roll20 For The Absolute Beginner.]

I recommend planning the TOCs to easily build them as you grow so you can make them look neat and organize information in a logical fashion to find it when you need it. My goal is to be able to play with minimal reference to physical notes & books.

One of my players wants me to stream my AD&D game to Twitch. If all the players agree, it is relatively easy to do. We use Discord for audio and I’d sign into the game as a player, or make a second acccount to sign that into and show the map, etc. I’m not sure how interesting it would be. I had planned on recording things for my own use, as I like to use it to improve my GMing.

Tonight was fun and now to wait and see what Sunday’s session brings.

I’m hoping to have something to talk about on the podcast more regularly. My time spent with a change of pace and backing off some things has been good.

I also need to get back on track with my monthly PDFs, as March’s didn’t get done, and April hasn’t been started. I foresee some changes to my Patreon when I get back on track with it.

The card game got interrupted big time with the pandemic situation. I wasn’t able to playtest the current test deck to ensure it works, as Gary Con went from live to virtual. Also I can’t get fulfillment of printing as some printers of cards are shut down due to lockdowns. I think I’ll just put it on DriveThru Cards with the free art and get the word out that way, and will do a Kickstarter for the version with the art I’m having made. I’ll revisit this and settle it once things return to a more “normal” state of commerce, etc.

RPGs

Helping Others Game Online

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I am starting a regular Twitch stream on how to do things in Roll20. I will be making things that I can later add to my Roll20 Series, Roll20 for the Absolute Beginner. The first session will be tonight, Friday, April 3, 2020 at 7:00 PM EDT (-4 UTC). So come watch and learn and ask questions. I will make a note of any questions I don’t get to for future episodes. If there is no interaction, I will work on recording information for the next few episodes of my series. Here is the companion podcast episode. [EDIT: 5 April, 2020 – New YouTube video announcing Friday night Twitch stream How to Roll20.]

I plan to do other things close to the topic of RPGs but not directly RPG related on Twitch. I encourage you to follow me on Twitch and interact.

I had wanted to start a new campaign, but I’m still not in the right head space to run a new campaign. I am geared to help others, and while running a game for others will help, I need something that is more flexible and open to doing as I have the desire. Hopefully, it helps me as much as it helps others.

Prior Efforts.

A couple of weeks ago I attempted to write a post of what I could do for this time of isolation. It was long and involved and just too much.

I enjoyed Virtual Gary Con where I played in one game, ran two games, enjoyed some seminars, and helped a few people get their games going in Roll20.

I then went into a funk that did no one any good. I have worked from home for 4 or 5 years and just finished the busy time of year at the day job. I was so looking forward to going to Gary Con and a change of environment. Not getting that much needed break didn’t help my outlook. I had to do something different.

Part of what I did was stream on Twitch the reading of Frozen Hell, a short story by John W. Campbel, Jr. It is the short story that inspired the novella Who Goes There? Filmed as The Thing From Another World in 1951 & 1982s The Thing by John Carpenter.

I read it over 3 different sessions. Sadly, the last session, for some reason, I put on my work headset, so there is no sound. I will have to re-do the last two chapters.

I also got into Minecraft. The mindless simplicity of playing in creative mode where I can make what I want when I want and not have to avoid monsters is what I needed. My initial project was making a dwarven fortress. It is far from complete. I had intended to make locations from my various RPGs and finally did that the other night. I shared pictures of the mountaintop temple location of my original map and what I made in Minecraft.

What can you do?

In my prior post that died in draft, I encouraged others to make a list of what they can do to help others. I encourage all of you to do the same.

Try to change focus from the difficulties of your particular situation to how you can help others.

If your situation is such that you can’t do much to help others, then focus on things that lift you up. Movies and shows, books & comics, art, etc. Whatever it is you do for fun and entertainment.

If you need time to immerse yourself in something to distract from your own thoughts, take it, but don’t get lost.

For me, the sun finally coming out yesterday was a major boost. So much rain and clouds felt oppressive. I hope you all get the sunshine you need.

Conclusion

I hope you are safe, sheltered, fed, and your time occupied. If you need a positive activity, come check out my Twitch streams. I’ll be glad for positive interaction with others.

Cards

Prepping A Card Game To Order Sample Deck

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For the past couple of weeks I have been working on building the deck for my card game to order play test deck number four.

I have icons that a play tester from Gary Con 11 made for me that I wanted added to the cards to see how they look. I also wanted to add new text to some cards to clarify how they work or to give them additional functions that are still within the card’s scope.

Now that I’ve finally built the 4th play test deck of my card game and ordered it from both GameCrafter and DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link], I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned. I tried doing that via live streaming on Twitch the other night, but I made some minor missteps and it was not as helpful as I intended. I will be making a YouTube video showing all these steps once I get the time to do that. In the meantime, here is a blog post with a companion podcast episode going over my experience and take-aways.

NOTE: I will be sharing a sample Affinity Publisher template on DriveThru RPG [Affiliate Link] for those wanting to create their own card decks and games. I’ll include a PDF with some of my processes.

Ordering The Decks

I’ve used GameCrafter for all the prior play test decks. It is easy to use, you just upload images in either PNG or JPEG format. First you upload the back. If all cards have the same back, then there is only one image needed. If there are multiple backs, then you need to follow the naming convention they suggest for your files so it all makes sense once it is uploaded. Then you upload the images for the fronts. Finally, you specify the number of cards if any should be multiples.

There is a proofing option that requires you to verify each card. Then you finalize the deck and can order it.

GameCrafter also has templates for the card boxes and recommends a size of box based on the number of cards in your deck. I have not built a box, since I’m still play testing. So that will be a topic for another day.

DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] has a similar process of uploading the image for the back(s) and then the fronts. Their naming convention to handle multiple backs is to have a back for each card with back001 to go with front001, etc. While I have multiple backs for my cards that have rules and other explanatory information, I did not do multiple backs for either order to keep it simple.

DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] suggested I buy their large deck box [ Affiliate Link ] that is a flat $1.00. I have one that I use for the 3rd playtest deck from GameCrafter, and I ordered one with the 4th playtest deck I ordered from DriveThru Cards. I like this box, my deck just fits. It is 130 cards and the box is rated for 120 cards. I like this because it means I don’t need to design a box. While DriveThru Cards does print tuck boxes, they are limited to 120 cards. While 130 cards will work in their large plastic deck box, I’m not certain it would fit in the 120 tuck box.

DriveThru Cards has a getting started page [Affiliate Link] that explains what they can do. NOTE: They only offer a PDF of the rules books and don’t offer that as a print option. They suggest putting the rules on a card, such as the front & back.

The big difference with DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] is that once you have all the images validated, the site builds a PDF of your deck in the form it needs to be if you build and upload a PDF according to the specs. Based on how long it took to create the PDF and have it available so I could order it, it may be faster to build the PDF and upload it. NOTE: With the PDF upload, it works the same way as uploading a PDF for a PDF only or POD product. My upload failed, and I’m not sure why. I’ll have to do some checking to figure it out.

I ran into issues with my first attempt to build a PDF to upload into DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] . It was through my ignorance of the process and I will be making a template and a YouTube video to explain what I’ve learned and what works for me.

The biggest differences between GameCrafter and DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] the image sizes are identical 825 pixels x 1125 pixels, but GameCrafter wants the images in RGB and DriveThruCards wants images in CMYK. GameCrafters estimated 3-1/2 weeks for production, but DriveThru Cards is a flat 2 weeks. GameCrafter has an option to expedite production, which is basically doubles the cost. DriveThru Cards does not have that option. Shipping options vary a bit, but one tier up from the cheapest shipping option is about the same. GameCrafter does not appear to have a limit on deck size. DriveThru Cards has a maximum deck size of 130 cards. GameCrafter is more expensive for a single deck and one has to sell a lot to get the deck cost down to the cost it takes me to get a deck to review.

Both have a volume discount. For DriveThru Cards all decks have to be shipped to a single destination.

The only thing I don’t know is quality differences. I might get the DriveThru Cards deck prior to GaryCon. I know that GameCrafters has a good quality card. If DriveThru Cards are a good quality I will use them to fulfill my Kickstarter. DriveThru Cards should have printers in other countries like they do for DriveThru RPG [Affiliate Link], so it should make shipping affordable and save on that headache. NOTE: Someone, not staff, answered my query on the DriveThruDiscord that cards are currently only printed in the U.S. I’m waiting for a link to a page that says this explicitly, as it’s not in the FAQ and so far I haven’t found it. I’ll post a link to that if such exists. That’s a major bummer, as I was hoping it would solve that issue.

I Found It (Not The Answer I Wanted)

Q: Who prints my cards?

We have partnered with On Demand Technologies, Inc. (ODT), an industry leader in digital printing and a premier print-on-demand company. When customers order print titles on our site, we transmit the order electronically to ODT’s print facility in Kansas City, where the order is printed, packed, and shipped.

https://onebookshelfpublisherservice.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/227867647-Card-Printing-The-Basics

I grew up near Kansas City, Missouri, so I googled and ODT is based in Shawnee, Kansas. That’s southeast of Kansas City. One major problem that I thought I had solved. This answer really ought to be on the FAQ page on DriveThruCards and NOT on a separate OBS (OneBookShelf page).

My Experience So Far

The biggest things I’ve learned is that one should plan out some things for their deck that one may not think about – I know I didn’t – before diving in and making a deck for Print On Demand (POD).

My Hard Won Checklist

  • Figure out how many unique card faces you need.
  • Figure out how many backs you need.
    • For example, a rules card with the rules on both sides to avoid micro print.
  • Determine the card order in the (freshly) printed deck.
    • For example a standard poker deck is Ace, the number cards in ascending order, jack, queen, king for each of the four suits in suit order: spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts. The Ace of Spades it the first card.
  • Make a list of all of this stuff in a spreadsheet with a column to track the BACK, Count, and FACE of each card.
    • This is useful in verifying that you have the correct number of each card. My first attempt to order the 3rd play test deck from GameCrafters was short, because I put in the wrong count for several cards and had to order another deck with the right count.
  • If your game involves text on the cards, have a spreadsheet or worksheet in a common spreadsheet with the name of each card and the text on each card.
  • Use a graphics program like Gimp (free) to prepare images. If using Public Domain art, clean it up and get it in the right ratio of dimensions. If buying art, have the artist(s) create it in the right ratios to fit. The final “safe” space is 2.5″ x 3.5″ 2.5 / 3.5 = so the width should be 71.429% of the height so that it will scale properly.
    • While the card template calls for 2.75″ x 3.75″ 1/8″ (0.125″) is the bleed. Another 1/8″ (0.125″) on all sides are the margins.
    • All critical text and images have to be inside the margins
    • Trimming 1/8″ on all sides reduces the card by 1/4″ to 2.5″ x 3.75″.
    • If using free art, be sure to lock the aspect ratio to avoid skewing the image, unless that’s what you want.
    • Put a border around it that covers the bleed and the margin so you know how much space you have.
    • I used Gimp to make the images for the front & backs of cards in my third play test deck.
  • Use Inkscape (free) to make vector graphics for icons you may use on your cards, like spades, diamonds, clubs, & hearts, and the Numbers. Save them in SVG format so that they are legible when resizing.
  • Use Affinity Publisher (c. $50.00) to make the deck. This allows you to make a master page with the card layout you need. You can use one for the most common back and use it as the master page for all the odd pages. Duplicate the master page for the backs before you add the image for the backs to it. This assumes you have created two pages for each card, the odd number page is the back and the even numbered are the front. Plan the layout on each master page where any icons will go, where numbers, text and other elements will go. Set the Font for the document.
    • I found if you don’t create a page for all the cards in the deck first, it is a pain to add them in later.
    • Understand how the layers and other features work to get the main image to the back and the text and icons over the image. There are lots of video tutorials on the Affinity site.
  • Use the list of the card order to put the art and assets on each card.
  • Copy & paste the text for each card from the spreadsheet. Set the spreadsheet to use the desired font for the cards and it will save any possible fiddling with fonts in Affinity Publisher.
  • Once each card has a back (odd pages) and a front (even pages) save it as a PDF with the specs from DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] . Review the PDF vs. the spreadsheet with the order and count of each card.
    • What I like most about Affinity Publisher is that one simple change on the master page updates all the pages based on that master page.

ORGANIZE!

  • Have art assets in one folder. You might have subfolders for different categories to minimize traversing the directory structure. For example, one director for icons & another for face images.
  • Have a consistent naming convention for each file so you know what it is from the file name, or change the display of the file to medium or large so you can make out the image.
  • Have all art for faces in the proper size ratio to avoid fiddling with it in Affinity Publisher when placing it.
    • Figure out your layout in Affinity Publisher for things that are common to all cards, groups of cards, or unique cards.
    • Save your Affinity file as an Affinity Template.
    • Save your file often.
    • Export to PDF often to check how it looks.
    • Get someone else to look at it and catch the simple things you missed, like leaving off a number or a typo. Copy & pasting from a spellchecked and proofread spreadsheet helps avoid this. Always copy paste, don’t re-type. [I hate having to re-type something that I know exists in electronic format. copy & paste avoids so many errors. Paste it into Notepad or other plain test editor removes fancy formatting to get the raw text so you don’t have to fight with formatting it.]
    • Order a preview and go over it with a fine toothed comb to spot any layout or other issues. Get others to review it too.
    • Take your time and know that EVERY SINGLE STEP of getting to the point of clicking confirm on the purchase of a deck will take longer than you think.
  • Don’t be afraid to start from scratch with a new layout if you are having speed issues or other problems. Sometimes starting over is the quickest and easiest way forward. That is what I have found. I get faster every time I start a new file in Affinity Publisher from scratch.

What I did for the current play test decks I ordered.

What I don’t yet know:

  • I don’t know if the speed issues I found in my first file from which I created all the images used to order the test decks will be resolved by full layout in a new file. However, I suspect that it will.
  • That is something I plan to do AFTER I determine if the PDF I made in the format DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] wants will upload without issues. If it does, I will definitely be working on a new Affinity Publisher file with all the layout.
RPGs

Registration Chaos For Gary Con 12

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Today, February 22, 2020, at Noon Central U.S. time, Silver Badge registration opened for Gary Con 12.

The server almost immediately had issues and no one could stay logged in. The company that runs the online even registration service, TableTop Events indicated that their Cache servers had an unanticipated issue, even though they had prepared for the load of all the badge holders signing up simultaneously.

Sadly, that effort was short-lived. A few individuals, such as myself, were able to select events into their carts and complete checkout.

Thankfully, the decision was made to allow those few who checked out to keep their registration.

Later the decision was made to keep items in the carts of those who did not complete checkout. Normally, they expire after two hours.

Direct Link to Facebook post with the link contents below plus a screenshot.

https://www.facebook.com/GaryConLLC/posts/2791721214229655

Full Text:

Greetings Seekers,

Today, TTEs server had an unprecedented error and were disabled. We suspended sales at that time to take the load off the servers while they were repaired. No tickets were able to be sold before then, to our knowledge. The president of TTE released a statement regarding the error at that time and repaired the error. We attempted to reopen, but more errors kept popping up and the servers, despite adequate load, were still not functioning.

At this time, it seems our best option is to reschedule the launch. We understand that this is incredibly inconvenient and disappointing. We don’t quite know when we will reopen, but we promise to notify you by update through TTE at least 24 hours in advance. Some attendees were able to get tickets. We are unsure whether we will reset tickets at this time, but we promise to give you notice on our decision soon.If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me. It may take me a little longer than normal to answer as I have many, many emails to sort through already, but I will personally respond to each and every email I receive.

Update @ 1:43pm: The staff has made a decision regarding tickets already sold: you will certainly get to keep those. We believe very few were actually able to accomplish this feat and it seems inequitable to take those tickets away from the lucky few. TTE normally empties carts after 2 hours, but TTE has disabled cart expiration, so events in your cart right now SHOULD stay in your cart.

Thank you,
—
Caroline Burks
Director of Guest Relations
Gary Con Gaming Convention
Caroline@garycon.com

History

Registration for Gary Con has had issues in the past. They have used TableTop Events for the past several years. This year’s issues have been the worst that I’ve seen it. The history of past issues has not helped.

When the registration failed the first time, Table Top Events shared this through the Gary Con Facebook page. Direct Link.

https://www.facebook.com/GaryConLLC/posts/2791673430901100

Full Text:

An explanation of the TTE problem today and an apology from the head of TTE, JT Smith. Thanks to JT and his crew for their quick response and resolution today.

“Tabletop.Events were prepared well in advance of the launch of Silver tickets today. We had fired up over 20 extra web application servers and nodes to the database. Unfortunately, something we could not anticipate was that our cache server was about to be overloaded. The cache server is used to maintain user login sessions. We’ve handled conventions double the size of Gary Con on it, and even Gary Con itself on it without issue in the past. We’re still trying to diagnose what went wrong there. Needless to say we have replaced it with larger servers that are 12 times the size of the current servers just to make sure that it can’t happen again.

“Even though we had done everything we thought we could do in this case, Tabletop.Events still takes full responsibility for this outage. We are sorry we caused a delay in your registration. We apologize to both Gary Con and the attendees. Moreover, as the owner of Tabletop.Events, I am also personally sorry for this mishap. We will do better.

-JT”

All Over Again

Unfortunately, the re-try at 1:00 PM Central had issues again. Thankfully, as mentioned above, those with successful completion get to keep their registration. Also those with items in their cart will keep their cart when it goes live again.

On top of issues with the hotel overbooking some rooms that lead to confusion and anger among some, this has lead to a lot of harsh criticism across social media.

My Experience

My first Gary Con was number 8, and I’ve been every year since. Registration hiccups have been minor, to me. Other things, like no alert of cancelled games, table service being slow or occasionally not happening. Overall, they have been great experiences and the minor issues are fairly easy to overlook.

Growing Pains

This year, Gary Con is the biggest ever. It has morphed from a con focused on older games and miniature war games to having a large contingent of newer D&D 5e with Adventurer’s League and official Wizards Of The Coast support. Some have called this selling out to the big money, or big names, as more D&D celebrities are attending.

D&D 5e and all the rest is not a problem in itself. The real issue is that the family is committed to keeping it in Lake Geneva, home to D&D and the original TSR. This results in the reality that there is only one location big enough to hold it, and that location has exceeded capacity to house it under one roof.

It is a huge roof with the boonies at the far end of connected structures. This year, some events are occurring on the grounds of the venue but in detached buildings that are 20 minutes by available transport away. Some comments online indicated they were not sure if there was a walking path available for that.

This year will be a real test for Gary Con. Will it be capped at a certain size? Will Gary Con really be able to stay in Lake Geneva?

I certainly hope it can stay in Lake Geneva. I really like going to Gary Con as I get to see some people I don’t see anywhere else, other than other similar cons. Sadly, there is a limit to how many cons I can attend each year.

Suggestions For Improvement

I suggest getting the word out across all social media, and not just Facebook. There are lots of people who avoid Facebook and were left in the dark on other social media until those of us on Facebook could fill them in.

Such instances of “telephone” can lead to inadvertent misinformation being introduced.

Gary Con is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and perhaps others. I suggest coping & pasting the message from one social media to all the others so those who only follow on one get it.

Also, Table Top Events should have a way to put up a message on the website so we all see it.

I’m no expert on running a busy website, but I know there are ways to deal with this. I hope they can keep a list of the issues that occurred this time, and all prior times, and verify that all of those issues are resolved before trying again. It makes both Table Top Events and Gary Con look bad.

I’ve gone to other, smaller cons that use Table Top Events and had no issues. Table Top Events handles conventions larger than Gary Con. I am not aware of the other cons using Table Top Events having these types of issues.

KUDOS

Caroline is the Director of Guest Relations and she is the best person for that job. She remains cool under pressure and handles the chaos of stressed out gamers. We should all show our appreciation to Caroline, as she is a key member of the Gary Con team. We should all chip in and get her something nice, like a vacation in a place without internet, or at least a gift card to a business she wants to patronize.

RPGs

How To Stream With OBS

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I mentioned online that I finally figured out how to stream and that it isn’t difficult, there’s just a lot of moving parts. I had one person ask me to share what I know. You can see the companion YouTube video here.

First, let me be clear that I am not an expert and have only live streamed on Twitch a half dozen times at most, and never for more than a few minutes until today, when I streamed for an hour. I recorded three new episodes for my YouTube series, Roll20 For The Absolute Beginner.

It was not the best looking stream, nor the best sounding. Proper lighting and audio are two entirely different topics for which I am not the best example. I figured out how to make it work, I didn’t say I do it well. As with anything, practice and familiarity, plus an effort to improve will yield results.

In my experience, you want to use OBS, Open Broadcaster Software. It is open source freeware that is quite sophisticated and can handle both recording your screen, or your webcam, or both, plus the webcams of others.

I have long wanted to record games I run online. Mostly for playback to analyze my GMing or to record how I explained something because I really liked how I said it, but can’t recall the specific words from memory. But getting the audio from other players to record at a volume one can easily hear always seemed always to be missing a step.

Between a combination of a few different videos and my own trial and error, I finally hit on the right formula to record the audio of another person from an online meeting software. This also allowed me to make sense of how to get the right hardware settings on my PC and get the right results for recording a small overlay with my webcam displayed over my web browser displaying Roll20 or other browser window.

I recorded about a half dozen short videos and played them back until I got the sound right. For me, I found that using the headset speakers and microphone prevented the microphone from picking up the sound from external speakers and causing an echo. There is probably a way to do sound so that it doesn’t cause an issue between all the pieces, but this was a solo operating for me to do streaming.

The same settings that allow me to stream a browser tab will also let me stream a video game. Again, none of this is hard, it is just a matter of figuring out the right combination of hardware settings and settings in OBS to get the results you want. Once you get it working, improving the lighting and sound is the next natural progression. There is a lot of information online about those topics which are beyond the current scope.

The hardware settings are going to vary by Operating System. Windows 7 is now outdated and no longer updated by Microsoft. Windows 10 is different in how you get at the hardware than Win7. Linux may vary on the GUI controls that are available with different window managers, or the command line. MAC OS, since it is a UNIX variant, should have both a GUI and command line option for configuring sound and microphones.

Once you have the hardware defaults set correctly, you can use the settings in OBS. OBS can rely on the default speakers and microphone, or you can specify the exact one of each you wish to use.

One can live stream a game or other activity to Twitch, YouTube, or other streaming service.

One can also use it to simultaneously record for editing and uploading to YouTube or other VOD (Video On Demand) service.

Obviously, this means that one can also either stream and not record it, or record it and not live stream it.

If you want to live stream an RPG, I recommend the three videos that Jacob Noorman of the Mini Terrain Domain YouTube channel put together.

Zoom is an online conferencing service that has a free option that is unlimited for 2 people and limited to 40 minutes for 3 to 100 people. There are two tiers of paid service that allow hours of use. Only one person, the host, needs a paid account. One could just as easily use Skype or other similar service.

How to Stream D&D and Other RPGs using OBS & Zoom
https://youtu.be/AvmdQaToSZw

How to Make Overlays and Stream Assets (Part 1)
https://youtu.be/3EAKW1lfucE

How to Make Overlays and Stream Assets (Part 2)
https://youtu.be/xN6YDCsfDTU

RPGs

Professional Online RPG Technology Training

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I may not be the first person others have paid to train them how to use technology to allow them to play RPGs online, but it is a new concept and experience for me. [Listen to the companion Podcast here.]

The other day, I got an email out of the blue asking if I’d be interested in training someone how to use Roll20, and he was willing to pay me for it.

I was a bit shocked. I tried googling the name to see if it was a prank or something to be taken seriously. I couldn’t find any obvious prank or troll, so I replied asking all kinds of questions. Why me? What exactly do you want to know? Do you know how to play D&D already? and so forth. We had an exchange of questions, I proposed a fee, he agreed and we scheduled some time.

He had seen my YT series, Roll20 For the Absolute Beginner, and he wanted someone to get him started running a game for his group, as they are all interested, but none of them have experience in using Roll20. He thought, “Why not see if I can find someone and pay for training.”

He said I was the first person he asked. I found that very flattering.

Friday night we had our first two hour session. Creating a sample game and going over settings and the basics. There are a lot of little things that are hard to recall wihtout using them. So I suggested he just play around with what I’ve showed him so far, and that will help him become familiar with it.

We’ll do another session in a couple days, and maybe a follow up session later, if needed.

I’ve known about professional GMs for a few yeas, but this seems like something that might pan out for players who are not tech savvy who want to use technology to play D&D and other RPGs. There’s lots of different programs for different things, and some people want the answers of how to get started in a format they can absorb and put to use without having to wade through manuals, etc.

As someone who currently plays mostly online, excpet for cons, I love RPGs and if I can help people get over the hump of using a program to help them enjoy their favorite RPG with their friends, I’m glad to help. My YT series, Roll20 For the Absolute Beginner, is very popular and gets hundreds of views a month. I can go much more in-depth one on one than I can in a video that is best kept to 15 or at most 20 minutes.

Peronally, I don’t think it’s hard, but I love technology and have been using internet technology for over 20 years and using Roll20 for 6 years. I’m a dig in a figure it out kind of person. It’s why I’m so good at my day job. As with anything, once you know the answer, it’s easy.

Our first session went well, and he asked for another session, so I think I did well. I was up front about the features I’m not familiar with, like some brand new features, but mostly the paid features, as I still have a free account. So I’ve got some homework to do to help explain some paid features. I’ll probably get a paid account so I can use them and not just rely on the online documentation.

If this ends well, then I may make myself available on a regular basis for paid training. That’s not the way I thought I’d get fame and fortune in RPGs, but teaching how to use the tools is analogous to the merchants in the gold rush. There are lots of people of all ages who are not tech savvy or with the patience to figure it out, or want to start playing right away. Not everyone can luck into a group with a knowledgeable and helpful person to show them the ropes with Roll20.

RPGs

Happy 45th Anniversary D&D

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I got very serious about blogging in 2014 when Jon Peterson posted that January is the month D&D was published. There is no precision on the dates, as he once again makes clear in his own 45th Anniversary post.

Back in 2014, I participated in the D&D 40th Anniversary Blogging Challenge, which I wrote about here. This link is a tag to that topic. I also did a YouTube video series going over each topic from the challenge, which I mentioned here.

This makes 2020 the 43rd anniversary of Holmes Blue Box, which TSR still has not released the PDF. You can get a cool 5e conversion of the dungeon, The Tower of Zenopus used as an example of play. It is called The Ruined Tower of Zenopus [Affiliate Link] done by Zak Howard of the blog Zenopus Archives over on GM’s Guild.

Since I started with Holmes Blue Box, this summer, will be my 43rd anniversary of playing D&D. See the links above if you want to read or hear the video series of my start with D&D.

You can listen to the companion Podcast episode here.

RPGs

2019 – Year In Review

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Since we’re about out of year, I decided to hurry up and put together my post for my year in review. I’ll be comparing to 2018, which you can see here.

You can listen here to my 2019 in Review and 2020 & Beyond Podcast. It’s got a slightly different focus than this post.

Conventions

I didn’t do as much playing or running RPGs or playing any games as I had hoped. While I did attend Gary Con, Marmalade Dog, Grand Con, and UCON, I had a larger challenge than normal getting in the mood to plan and run games. I did manage to submit games to run for the usual conventions I attend, Gary Con, Marmalade Dog, and UCon. As always, it went well and both I and the players had fun.

I also participated in Procrasticon I. A bunch of Anchor podcasters threw together an impromptu 24 hour online con. I signed up to run a game, but no one signed up. I played in a couple of games and had a blast. One is the Monday night game I play in now.

Barrowmaze using Delving Deeper was an online game I played several sessions. My first character, a fighter, died, carried off and eaten by ghouls. My current character is a 4th level cleric. We’re on hiatus til spring.

B/X in the Broken Lands with the Orcs of Thar Mystara supplements. I play a 4th level hobgoblin Monday nights.

Playing & Running RPGs

It wasn’t until the middle of September that I managed to get the bug to create a new campaign that I actually ran an online game. I settled on Delving Deeper, and created a campaign that I called Delvers’ Deep. The name Delvers’ Deep comes from the only thing I ever submitted to the One Page Dungeon Contest, The Dire Druids of Delvers’ Deep. I’ve run that at a few conventions. Only the name so far, exists in the campaign world. I ran it as a drop-in/drop-out game, sort of a modified West Marches. After 9 sessions players were unable to commit and then my work got busy.

Sadly, the amount of work for the day job has gone off the charts. I ended up cancelling games, and finally putting my campaign on hold until things return to “normal”. I’ve used up so much of my creativity that I also broke the pace of my regular podcast. I went from 3 episodes a week to none. I went over a month without a podcast until I had an episode on December 6th. This has also affected the frequency of blog posts and my drive to work on my monthly PDFs.

Card Game

I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to do some more hard work on the card game. Playtests have been very informative, but I haven’t done as many as I wanted. I have added some detailed notes for some additional rules based on feedback from the last few playtests. I need to build test deck 3. The amount of work that is is a mountain, that I have yet to climb. I can do it in a long day. I had hoped to have it in my hands by now. I really want it in time for Gary Con.

What about the Kickstarter? I’m really torn about this. I don’t have the new art as fast as I want. I’m also burnt out with Kickstarter, and get the impression many are. That is in addition to the way Kickstarter treats it’s workers. Also the Kickstarter user interface is very crude. I built a dummy campaign to figure out how to do what I want, and it is not easy. Part of me wants to just put the game out on Game Crafter, which is very easy. But I want to make it easily available worldwide. So I’m also considering DriveThru Cards. I need to order a deck from there to see what sort of quality it has.

Part of me just wants it done. I’m sure many other creatives hit that same wall. I just need to persevere and do the best job I can to make the rules and the cards work. I had an idea for a Halloween themed deck of cards about 6 weeks before Halloween. I’ll see about maybe doing it for 2020, if everything comes together for the game.

Publishing

This time last year, I had 5 PDFs on DriveThruRPG. Currently I have 17 since I have yet to complete the PDF for December. I will finish up my December PDF and publish it before the end of the year. This will give me my first calendar year of publishing and sales.

I now have 2 Copper Best Sellers and 2 Silver Best Sellers on DriveThru RPG. My first PDF, Locks, Vaults, and Hiding Places [Affilate Link] is only 19 paid sales away from Silver. My first Copper and then first Silver, Caravans & Trade [Affilate Link] , is 77 paid sales away from Electrum.

You can check out my full list of titles at my DriveThru RPG Publisher Page. [Affilate Link]

By The Numbers

Publishing:

  • All Time Grand Totals: 6389 total downloads for 678 paid sales $840.85 $588.60
  • 2019 Grand Totals: 5171 total downloads for 471 paid sales $585.77 $410.04 (All included in the numbers above.)
  • T-Shirts on TeeSpring – Still 0 sales beyond what I’ve bought for friends and family.

As a DriveThruRPG Affiliate, I’ve made $113.56, all but the last $25.00 spent on new purchases. Just waiting to spend it on another game or supplement.

On Patreon, I have 5 followers, up from 3 last year. I had 6 at one point, and would have 7 had 2 not had to drop off. $137.00 before fees. I’ve seen none of it since my personal and business accounts linked, it minimizes how much I pay each month for all the other Patreons I back. I really appreciate my patrons and their feedback and encouragement.

A few months ago, I decided to enable ads on my podcast. I have yet to go through the back catalog and insert a spot for ads. I’ve made a whopping $14.67.

Amazon Affiliate. I’m an Amazon Affiliate, but have yet to have anyone buy anything. They give you 180 days for a qualified purchase or they drop you. This is my second go around at this. I don’t expect to get rich, but would love for enough to negate my expenses for web space, domain name, art, etc. I’ve got 12 years give or take before I retire, and I need to achieve at least a net 0 expenses to maintain all the things I hope to be doing when I can give up my day job. Here’s a link to games. I’d greatly appreciate anyone using this link as it helps me out without any expense to you.

Here’s one for Dungeon Crawl Classics. [Affiliate Link]

[^ Affiliate Link ^]

So I’ve made $1,106.08 before fees, leaving $849.98. That does not cover the expenses it took to earn it and I waited to collect the publishing payout for 2018 until 2019 for tax purposes. It’s pennies per hour for all the effort and still less than the net of one regular paycheck. This should illustrate why it is so difficult to make money online, even just a little extra.

YouTube – 474 subscribers up 240 from last year, 71 videos up 7 from last year. With over 40,000 lifetime views. My series Roll20 For The Absolute Beginner is the most popular. I started a new series in 2019 – How To AD&D 1e. I plan to keep adding to each series. Over 425 subscribers to go until I can think about ads, since one of the criteria is a minimum 1,000 subscribers.

Twitter – 1092 followers up 372 from last year.

FB – 143 Likes up 79 from last year and 145 Followers up 80 from last year.

Reddit – Karma of 480 up 408 from last year.

Instagram – I started Instagram on June 26, 2018, but didn’t mention it in last year’s post. I ended 2018 with 67 followers and am up to 128 followers.

Blog posts 52 published posts, down 69 from last year, and 2 new drafts, down 4 from last year for a total of 25 drafts.

Total blog posts 797 counting this one you’re reading.

Podcasting

I have 11,886 total plays among my 170 episodes, for an average of 69.9 listeners per episode. 6 episodes are over 100 listeners. My first episode is at 150 listeners. I plan to do a year end podcast so the final 2019 numbers will change.

Last year’s hiatus due to work and family drama saw my podcast’s trend for growth smacked down. The proliferation of new RPG podcasters on Anchor has made it easier to get lost in the noise. No one has time to listen to all of them consistently.

I wonder how much longer I’ll maintain the effort.

Kickstarters I’ve Backed

I still backed way too many Kickstarters in 2019. 5 that should have delievered in 2018 arrived in 2019. Of 10 Kickstarters that should have delivered in 2019 that did deliver in 2019, 1 was early, 1 was on time, and 8 were late. This is the source of my disillusionment with Kickstarter. I want it when they say they’ll deliver, not months or years later. I go in for Kickstarters that I’ve never used or read the game. I know I’m not alone in this.

12 more Kickstarters are supposed to deliver in 2019, and only 2 of those appear on track to meet that goal or only be a couple weeks late.

I have 19 overdue Kickstarters. I hate to think how much money that is. I have not updated my page here on the blog where I track the Kickstarters I’ve backed. I want to help my friends with their projects, but when so many of them are late. Some do a great job of explaining things and are late for good reason, and do a great job of making sure things go at ASAP. Others do a terrible job of communicating and are late and when they do communicate, it is sometimes more frustrating than silence. I’ve learned which publishers/creators I’ve backed that I’ll never back again because of how late they were.

My Tips For Those Running Kickstarters:

I’ve backed 77 Kickstarters that funded, and only 3 that did not. So my track record of picking the ones that will fund is very good. As for picking those that deliver on time, not so much.

  • If you’re always 6 months late on delivery of a Kickstarter, add 6 months to the delivery date of future Kickstarters.
  • If you’re not good at communicating and keeping backers informed. Don’t launch a Kickstarter. If you do a Kickstarter anyway, suck it up and communicate.
  • Don’t wait to deliver bad news.
  • Do the work BEFORE you click Launch!
  • Pay the artists, layout and others as soon as you have agreed to/when the money arrives.
  • When the money arrives, pay all the bills/vendors to minimize the tax burden.
  • Get along with your team until delivery is complete. Don’t have interpersonal, legal, whatever nonsense. Get it done. Be Professional.
  • Minimize the points where things can go wrong.

Final Thoughts on 2019

I didn’t meet all my goals. That’s a realistic occurrence. However, I did well on the goals I met. I’m still here and I’m not quitting. The nature of my day job with it’s busiest time of year in December and more so in January forces me to pull back from spending time on my hobbies.

I’m also working on a review of the stats of the blog, such as the most popular topics in 2019. That will be another blog post that will take a bit to pull together.

One of the coolest RPG things I ever did was participating as a player and DM for the first ever livecast of a D&D game (5e) from Gary Gygax’s old house to benefit Extra Life. Having a video of all four games allows me to relive it a bit. Seeing how I run a game is also a helpful teaching tool to help me get better.

What’s Ahead in 2020

  • Release my card game whether through Kickstarter or directly via Game Crafter or DriveThruCards.
  • Continue one PDF a month for my Patreon that is also released on DriveThruRPG.
  • Evaluate my podcast and determine if it is worth my time to resume when work slows down.
  • Attend conventions and run and play games.
  • More regular blog posting.
    • I’d like to read more blogs like I indicated at last years round up post, but I didn’t do very well.
  • More videos on YouTube.
  • Run and play more games in person and/or online.
  • I’ve been invited back to the next round of live cast RPGs from Gary’s old house, so I’m letting ideas tumble in the back of my mind.

2019 was overall a great year. I let my thoughts and self-judgement get in the way of enjoying it as much as I should have. The older I get, the more I realize, no one else will ensure I have fun. It’s up to me.

For 2020 Gary Con, I’ll bring my card game for pick up games, and bring some stuff to run or play pick up games. I will focus on playing some wargames and a few other things. I don’t want to pack my schedule, as I want to enjoy things as much as I can with the con more crowded than prior years.

As with last year, I look forward to the changes and opportunities that lie ahead in 2020. I hope it is a great year of growth and opportunity fulfilled for all of you. May you play often, roll well, grow rich and powerful, and save or destroy the world as is your wont.