So folks are probably wondering where we're at on the Dresden Files RPG development front, after the previous bit.

Chad U. is continuing his update of our setting components with material from Small Favor (and eventually the comic books and Backup). More about that, here: http://chadu.livejournal.com/tag/dresden

Lenny had semester finals up through Wednesday, and is now in the period of recovery. Starting next week, he goes full-tilt at the playtester feedback, doing revisioneering and expansion on spellcraft, conflict resolution, and supernatural abilities.

Other stuff is afoot too, but those are our two workhorses on the project, so that should give you a picture. As I've been saying, I'm hopeful we'll be able to kick off a second alpha round sometime in June.

 Interviews

I was just looking through the archives of montecook.com for an old photo and I came upon the interviews I did when D&D turned 30. (If you remember, WotC put out a book to commemorate the event. It was a nice enough book, with bits from Vin Diesel and Stephen Colbert, but very, very little from people who actually worked on the game. I tried to fix that.)

If you haven't read them, they're fun reading. And they're something I'm pretty proud to have done.

Today's Dork Tower is up! (About bloody time)



Click Here, there or anywhere to see it.

****

Ever wonder what it's like to watch someone hoist themselves by their own petard? And by "hoist" I mean "eviscerate." And by "petard" I mean "ignorance."


It'd be kind of enjoyable, if it wasn't so sickening.

Ganked from the ever-astute robin_d_laws

****

30 Years Ago in Kovalic History (AKA "Diary of the Artist, Age 15 and a half.")

"AO History test essay on Napoleonic War went well. Julius Ceasar OK, but spoiled by other people who were watching. Found 50p."

So I've kept the playtest application for the Dresden Files RPG open during the bleeding alpha period. During the playtest, we've taken in an additional 200+ applications. As of this time, the total number of playtest applications on file is over 850.

Think we have enough?

Anyway, I put this out there because I've gotten a few people saying "why haven't I heard back", and so on. We're looking at a TITANIC number of interested folks here, and we've only done one round of picks for playtesting so far -- maybe 30 applications at most. That still leaves over 800 folks who are *possible* for later-round picks.

But we can't send out 800 emails each time we do a round of picking to tell folks "sorry, you're still on pending status", not managably, and not without that eating into actual productivity.

BUT! Those of you who have applied and not heard back should know that at the least, we'll be contacting you once ALL playtesting is concluded and we're heading towards publication. We'll want to do right by everyone who took the time to apply -- we haven't quite figured out what form that will take, but it *is* our intention, and one I hope we can deliver on.

Cute baby is cute.

Whenever I take a break from work, I come down to that little face. :)

Anyone know if it's open again?

... Really resonates!

God, this looks brilliant.

We watched the trailer to start with and the other guys didn't know what it was for and, quite understandably, initially thought it was a trailer for an Elric movie.

I'd never heard of Rickrolling until I saw John Kovalic's latest Dork Tower strip the other day. Even then I didn't have a clue what it was so just put it down to the characters last comment referring to me ("I'm too young to be too old for the internet!") - especially as I'm now a year older than I was :p

Anyway, Sean just started talking about Rickrolling at work and Dave also knew what he was talking about.

I have now been informed, been shown Youtube footage or it and have managed to pull myself back into tune with todays internet youth it seems.

The internet continues to amaze me with all the little social phenomena that arise from it.

I'm sure the forefathers of science invention and science fiction would never have thought about the many uses it has these days and the fads it throws into fame for 15 minutes...

So who's going to the Nunhead Cemetery Open Day tomorrow?

Off to review this on Sunday... It's run by the lovely metalchick1979, who usually plays a great DJ set. Anyone fancy joining me?

"Sick of hearing the same old generic indie boy bands in every so called alternative night in the capital, Lesbian DJ Duo Rock n Ruin decided to start up their own night, to bring something truly unique to London’s Gay Alternative scene.
Rock n Ruin (Death By Stereo, Rocktronica) play their own unique mixture of
Girl Bands, Grrl Rock & Female Artists to SHE BOP a night FOR GIRLS, BY GIRLS!
From The Gossip & The Distillers to Peaches & Kate Nash...
Plus monthly LIVE bands, all female fronted!

VOODOO HUSSY are the Live Band for the Launch Party on Sunday 18th May

The Launch party is Sunday 18th MAY 2008 at THE REDSTAR, 319 Camberwell Road, London SE5 OHQ
(then EVERY 3rd SUNDAY OF THE MONTH THEREAFTER)
9pm-2am
£3 Entry all night
www.myspace.com/shebopclub
www.myspace.com/voodoohussy"

With pleasure I present the first images from

davecharsley's 'Whitechapel Gods' Steampunk Shoot.

The Engine Society



Also features giselle_bour, iwilldietonight, belle_fille1982 and araminta

The Whitechapel Gods



With giselle_bour

 

There is another image from the set to been seen here  http://davecharsley.livejournal.com/75629.html

I must say this shoot was enormous fun and having done Vampires quite a lot it was really good to try out something different and become another character for the day.  Kudos to Dave's propmaker, Paul Smith, for knocking up a fantastically convincing wood and brass minigun.

  

Kate's substitute bus driver failed to pick her up for the second day in a row and I had to drive her to school this morning. We were significantly late because I had a conference call scheduled for exactly when she should have been arriving at school to be on time.

Pramas and I drove together so we could talk over the conference call. We stopped at the Columbia City Bakery for americanos and baked goods. We also made a stop at the bank before heading to Queen Anne.

I stopped at Arvey for shipping supplies, where the older gentleman who works there was keyed up about something and kept muttering "Oh no, don't do this to me, no no no," and calling me "precious" and "sweetheart" and thanking me profusely for waiting. He's a nice old guy and I love going in there and letting him check me out so it was no trouble at all to wait patiently while he sorted out his morning crisis. I hope his day went better.

The afternoon was filled with mail orders and invoicing. I put together over 40 invoices today, and a couple of bins of mail.

Tonight was, in theory, game night. Only Evan could join us but I cooked anyway. We had an improvised white bean and chicken soup in homemade fennel broth that I whipped up in the pressure cooker. Adding chicken to the fennel broth adds a bit too much chicken flavor (and takes away from the subtle-but-luscious fennel flavor of the unadulterated broth) but everyone seemed to like it okay anyway.

We even busted out with Thurn und Taxis and got a whole game in. I'd never played before but I won the night's game so I guess I picked it up successfully. A couple glasses of wine, a little chocolate, some fresh strawberries, and a new board game on a warm spring night! Pretty successful if you ask me.

Tomorrow we have doctor appointments to attend, plus I'm intending to get up for 6:30am yoga. I also have to drive Kate up to drop her off for the weekend with her dad. We have a busy weekend planned. Here's hoping I feel up to everything.

[32min 44sec] This finishes up the conversation with Lenny from our chat at the GAMA Trade Show 2008 in April. In this episode, you'll hear more conversation about the Dresden Files RPG, as well as a discussion about differing perspectives on Vincent Baker's In a Wicked Age.

You can find the episode here:
http://thatshowweroll.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=339804

I saw the 30 second version of this commercial a while back and -- well, honestly, I can't remember if I've shared it before. But! I don't think I've seen the 60 second version ever, and I just love the weird they crammed into a minute here:



Food for Don't Rest Your Head, I think.

Just as we reach the climax of tonight's scenario, I have to rush to catch the train back into Birmingham.

Otherwise a successfull Call of Cthulhu scenario. Managed to find a Mythos expert who aided us in dismissing a beast all the whilst keeping what little knowledge we possessed from the loon that is our Mr. Warburgh, being played by a grandstander if ever these was one. Whilst I have as a player a tendency to horde items of interest, I was desperate here that they not fall into his hands and his misuse... Hopefully there will be SAN rewarded next week.

A decent number of posters, several of whom I don't know. Nice to see that the NM contigent is keeping their end up.
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