The Contemporary Quixotist

With less than nine days left, I just made a pledge to the Reaper Bones Kickstarter project, which is aimed at covering the costs for releasing new minis in their Bones line. They’re great looking plastic minis at reasonable prices, and at the $100 level, you get 117+ minis (potentially more if future stretch goals are reached). The best part of all is that the initial goal was destroyed long ago, so you don’t have to worry about the project not getting funding!

I’m thinking it’s a fairly inexpensive way to start a new collection of minis to replace the ones I lost in the fire. For you, it may be a great way to vastly expand your own collection on the cheap, and there are a bunch of options that you can add to your reward (extra minis, paints, figure cases, and more). If you’re interested in mini gaming at all, this is definitely worth a look – but do it quickly, there’s just a little more than a week left!

P.S. Oh yeah, a link to the Kickstarter would probably help, huh…?

Here’s a clever AND nifty tutorial for making classic blue-grid dungeon maps using Microsoft Excel and Paint – Drawing Dungeon Maps in Excel – A Quick Tutorial.

While I personally would probably use a graphics program instead, this is a great alternative for those who don’t have the experience with them, or find them to be too “fussy.” (And I agree quite a bit with that latter opinion, sometimes…)

Here’s a pretty exciting offering in the free old school RPG category – Hackmaster Basic is now available as a free download!

For those who aren’t aware, the HM rules offer some pretty interesting twists to the classic fantasy RPG model, and for the low, low price of absolutely free, you get 231 pages filled with spells, magic items, GM tips, and more. If that’s not enough, the combat examples are illustrated and demonstrated by B.A., Bob, Dave, Sara, and Brian from the Knights of the Dinner Table!

If that’s not enough, then just take a look at that flippin’ sweet Erol Otus cover. That should clinch it all, right there. If it doesn’t, then you’re reading the wrong blog.

You can download the Hackmaster Basic PDF at the Kenzer and Company website.

It’s not uncommon for me to let this blog go for a couple months at a time – after all, I warned of this possibility in the first post!

But this time around, the outage has been for two very big reasons – one good, and one bad.

First, the good – I launched a Kickstarter project for a children’s book I’ve been wanting to publish, got the funding, and have been doing a couple of local media appearances from it! If you’re interested in the details, you can find out more on my Awkward Labs website.

Second, the bad – Our house burned down on June 26th. Our family is fine – we weren’t home at the time – but we lost four of our pets (three cats and a guinea pig), and lots of personal effects. I lost most of my RPG collection (books, minis, terrain, paints & supplies, etc.) and two of my musical instruments (one of which was custom made for me). We’ve been spending the time since then trying to find a new place and rebuild our lives. There are more details on the Family Emergency page that I’ve set up on the site, if anyone is interested.

I’ll be pretty busy for the rest of the year, trying to sort our lives out while simultaneously trying to finish up my book – but when it’s all sorted out, we’ve settled in to our new home, and all of it is behind us, I’m planning to get some serious gaming time going on. That’s one of the biggest resolutions I’m planning for all of this.

I’ll try to keep posting here when I can. In the meantime, here’s another great Quixote moment: