Friday Updates

Well it seems to be a race now between Feedly and NetVibes.  The Feedly intetface is nicer and faster, NetVibes adds a lot of nice social networking features.

As many of you know I am participating in the A to Z challenge again this year.  I am also working as an Ambassador for the challenge.  This means I'll be going over sites and encouraging them to post, comment and the like.
You can read about that here, http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2013/03/meet-arlees-to-z-ambassadors-part-1.html

I also joined D.L. Hammons'  Blogging Blitz. This is an ongoing blog-fest to drive new visitors to your site.
I plan to use it in conjunction with my own "The Best Blog You are Not Reading" feature (which I am way overdue on) to get the word out on some cool, but under read blogs.

Here is the code to sign up!

Busy Day and other stuff.

Gotta a lot of stuff to get done before the next half of the spring term starts.  blah.

Also I have a post over at my other blog, The Freedom of Nonbelief about the "Gay marriage" bill in Illinois. Pop over there and give it a read please.
http://freedomofnonbelief.blogspot.com/2013/03/sb-10-and-culture-of-blindness.html

Thanks

Please Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself

I am a man of wealth and taste....oops. Wrong introduction.

Today (and I almost forgot about it) I am participating in the "Please Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself" blogfest. It is hosted by Stephen Tremp, C.M. Brown, Mark Koopmans, and Elise Fallson.  Plus I should mention I saw this first on L. Diane Wolfe's Spunk on a Stick blog.

The purpose of today's blogfest is to re-introduce yourself to your readers.  I think that is a great idea since The Other Side has gone through quite a bit a growth over the years.

So, hello. My name is Tim Brannan, and I have been running the Other Side blog now since 2007, though I really didn't get going till 2008.  The name "The Other Side" came my old website, The Other Side that I have been running since the mid 90s.  Back around 2003 or so my site began to wane a bit so I took it down.   Creating this blog was supposed to be a band-aid or temporary solution till I got my site back up.

Things didn't really happen that way.

I started to blog, and not run a website, so I could have a design journal for some of gaming books.  In particular The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.

I started playing RPGs back in 1979 with a copy of the Holmes Blue book.  My small group played during recess with that and a copy of the Monster Manual.  That Monster Manual changed my life.  I got into gaming hard core with the Molvay Red book and then later moved to AD&D.  I have played scores of games, but mostly horror games and versions of D&D.

I have been writing games and game books on my own for years. I "released" by first netbook back in 1999. It was every bit the amateur effort you would expect, but it was mine and based on things I had been working for years.  That lead me to doing some freelance work on some d20 products, including some work at Eden Studios.  There I worked on a WitchCraft book and then moved on to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
This lead to my big break, writing the Ghosts of Albion corebook.

Working on Ghosts was awesome. I got work with Amber Benson and Christopher Golden on their world. Plus get a lot of acclaim for it.  It has been great.

In my "other life" I was a university professor. I taught research design, statistics and ed psych.  I later moved to online teaching and now online curriculum development.

I live in the Chicago burbs with my wife and two great kids.

That's me.

Email blues

So I was talking to a few people this week and today  about email.
One thing that came up is that is hard to figure out what someone's email  is supposed to be unless you do some digging and very difficult without a Google+ account.

So to that end I created an "email me link".  I used an image to help stop at least some of the spammers.
You can click on it and email me now if you like.

Just another service provided to you, the readers of the Other Side!

Beginnings Blogfest

I am participating in the Beginnings Blogfest hosted by L.G. Keltner over at Writing Off the Edge.

The theme of this blogfest is to talk about why you started blogging in the first place.

I actually have two reasons, but the first was to start out as a design blog/journal for my work on Eldritch Witchery and The Witch.  I was going to talk about what I was doing, the playtests and the writing process.
I did do all of that, though not to the level I thought I was going to do.  Instead reason number 2 took over.

I used to be very active in online message boards. I spent a lot of time on Planet AD&D, Eden's Boards and various boards for other systems. I was also involved a lot in RPG.net and the Kitten Board forever.  Boards are fun, but rules over what you can post vary.  D&D boards don't want to hear about my Unisystem stuff, and visa versa.  Some boards have very strict mods while others don't.

With blogging I got to post what I wanted, the way I wanted to post it.
If I wanted to spend a week on vampire movies or anime or stats for various witches in various game systems, I can.

Getting to know other bloggers was just a really nice and totally unexpected benefit.

I hope that doing this has improved my own writing and opened up a new avenue of social networking for me.

Note:  White Dwarf Wednesday will appear later today.

Merry Christmas and Happy BOXing Day

We are celebrating Boxing day a day early here at the Other Side.

I am opening up Box.com functionality for all my free downloads.





So please expect some more content here as I am working on gathering up material and getting it out to you all.

So Happy Boxing Day!!

Year 2012 in reveiw

It is just about that time to get reflective on the year we have past and look forward to the new year.

Kickstarter
2012 might well go down as the Year of the Kickstarter.  Sure we had Kickstarters in 2011, but this was the year that everyone seemed to be getting on board.
We saw the introduction of the RPG Kickstarter Group on Facebook and I'd wager we will get something similar on Google Plus Community soon.    One of the more useful sites though has been Tenkar's Tavern and his round up of late Kickstarters.

Movies
I mentioned the Hobbit already, but 2012 was a great year for movies.  All sorts of Superhero action, with the Dark Knight Rises as my favorite super hero movie of the year.  I also enjoyed Brave quite a bit.

Games
Not much came out this year that I had to have. My Witch book came out and I was quite pleased with that.
In terms of running games, well it has been a busy year.
I am still running the D&D 3.x with my two sons, the Dragonslayers.  We had hoped to finish up this year but various things got in the way.  I started a new 4e game with my sons and some of their friends.  That one is more intermittent, but still enjoyable.   At Gen Con we also started a new 1st Ed game, designed as a "Next Generation" of our 3.x game.  I introduced my oldest son to Ghosts of Albion and he enjoyed it.  I want to introduce Doctor Who to them both since I think my youngest would like it as well.

The Edition Wars seemed to end, more or less.  WotC is working on 5e and printing 1st Ed material.  The OSR and Pathfinder is still chugging along.

Blog Traffic
So far this year I am sitting at 540 or so posts compared to 511 for last year.
My total traffic is down 109,747 visits (as of this writing  this year compared to 121,509 visits last year.  This is a general trend I think most bloggers are seeing.  While this is all down there is not a huge change in the patterns of traffic, just less of it.  One thing I have yet to figure out is why Google Analytics gives me different numbers than the Google Blogger stats.  For example if I just look at Blogger stats I got  over 300,000 hits this last year.
Regardless of the amount, the trends are about the same.

Here are my Top Ten Referers for 2012:

1. rpgbloggers.com
2. dreamsofmythicfantasy.blogspot.com
3. rpgba.org
4. tenkarstavern.com
5. facebook.com
6. networkedblogs.com
7. hillcantons.blogspot.com
8. dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com
9. matt-landofnod.blogspot.com
10. theoreticalgm.blogspot.com

Google+
A lot of what is going on with Blogger and Bloggers is Google Plus. A lot of bloggers have been spending more time on talking and posting Google Plus.

Reviews
By the end of last year I had written a little over 200 reviews for DriveThruRPG.  This year I reached my goal of 500 and hit 531.  Not sure what my goal should be for 2013.

2013
Not sure what the new year will bring to the Other Side yet.  I want to continue White Dwarf Wednesday and Zatannurday.  More games and reviews to be sure.  I have a few WiPs I can alos talk about more next year.

What's It Worth to You?

Or to me for that matter.

Stumbled on on a website that calculates the worth of other websites.
http://www.worthofweb.com/website-value/

Where does the Other Side rank?


http://www.worthofweb.com/website-value/http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/

The whole thing is worth $1,971 (at the time of this post).

That's a little depressing.  I would have hoped for more.
Well that's just money, I am sure the Other Side is worth far more XP!

So go there and see what you are worth on the web.

Halloween Hangover

Well.  That was the most postings I have ever done in one month.
 Please don't expect that for November!

I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.

The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales.  I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules.  There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.

I have a few WIPs on my harddrive.  A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there".  I will share more about those in the next few weeks.  Gotta see how they shake out.  Maybe I will release them for free.

I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.

I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on.  Have to get those done too.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A lot going on here today!!

First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html

I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).

Also White Dwarf Wednesday.

Foremost though Happy Halloween!  The Best of all holidays!

Slasher Flick: Jenny Two-Bags

I am a fan of Shon Richard's Erotiterrorist site.

If eroticism or even mostly R and X rated stories bug you, then don't go.  But among many other things Shon has a great imagination and can write a good tale.

His Halloween feature this month have been tales from the Succubus, Sukubeth.  Today's tale was about this serial killer that comes back from the dead.  It is a great mash-up of Carrie, Friday the 13th and any nameless college-age porno.  Of course in my twisted mind I think it would make a a great Slasher Flick bad guy.

I reviewed Slasher Flick a couple of weeks back (here) and even posted some characters.  What I never posted was a Killer to go along with the story.

So, presented here, is the horrific, but ultimately sad, tale of of a Girl known as Jenny Two Bags.
You can read her story here, http://erotiterrorist.blogspot.com/2012/10/fiction-jenny-two-bags.html
I will not attempt to retell it.


Appearance: Jenny appears as young women, roughly college age.  Her body would be the envy of most supermodels and she usually does not spend much time covering up.  Her face though is completely hidden by a sexy red devil mask.  If you were to remove her mask (which is a suicidal idea) you would see her face.  While Jenny was not attractive in life, death has done nothing to improve her.  In fact she bares the marks of every kill and every time she has been killed on her horrific face.

Components: Fearful Visage, Feeds on Fear, Hard to Kill, Linked Location (the cemetery where her body was dumped and the nearby colleges), Punish the Promiscuous (this is her Raison d'être), Superhuman Strength

Plot Hooks:
• Jenny Two Bags only shows up on Halloween.  If there is a high school or college party with alcohol (which means EVERY party) then expect Jenny to show up.
• Don't call her that! If a character calls Jenny by her name "Jenny Two-Bags" then she will go into a mindless killing frenzy.
• Last Boy.  If one of the last characters is a somewhat average male (the Nerd Archetype works best here) and he tries to be nice to Jenny she will forget why she is there.  This is treated as an attack.

Jenny can be killed by normal weapons and has been killed many times.  But she is always back by next Halloween!

Read about Jenny Two-Bags here: http://erotiterrorist.blogspot.com/2012/10/fiction-jenny-two-bags.html
Get Slasher Flick here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/82728/Slasher-Flick%3A-The-Director%27s-Cut?affiliate_id=10748

Fear Not the Monsters...

“Fear not the monsters, but that which the monsters fear.”

Monstrous Monday is coming soon.

MONSTROUS MONDAY!

This year I wanted to do something extra for Halloween (which in my mind is the entire month of October).  So I am going to be hosting the MONSTROUS MONDAY Blogfest!

The rules are really simple.

1. Sign up below
2. Grab a button and link back to my site
3. Post your Monster on Monday October 29th 2012!

That's it!

What kind of Monster?  Well that is up to you really.  I am going to be posting Monster stats.  You can do that, or post a monster you like/love/hate, or tell us about the monster in your new book coming out.  Anything would be great really.

I will be posting some more soon.

Here are some banners for your use with some code to link back here.

Code:

<a href="http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/"><img alt="MONSTROUS MONDAY!" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAY1PhNSBQ3RI5jgrciNyNqoS7fLZay3QLI5C73SjQpRXu4VybZTk9ftDUATfsZHyfYI7IP1LC0QcEbNDZrT2OhkEUxjPmuWC7R5O4Zfk9M0CICN5g7_ImhltCmcLVwPbRWExrfS290Es/s1600/MONSTROUS_MONDAY1.png" /></a>

Code:

<a href="http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/"><img alt="MONSTROUS MONDAY!" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0cncKUv7DNEZfBdyDZegS9sXHpDVOglPL5L664rcMlzqPZcYyhpkUYiqjsNhoIpk43DIJMIzOv_as2Exwc7JqFE7fJXPm3Tl7q9ncdr9c1Rgw6AQSvBli4RwDBehi-eJEgC6qSNJzkM/s1600/MONSTROUS_MONDAY2.png" /></a>

Code:

<a href="http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/"><img alt="MONSTROUS MONDAY!" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4x9_A5q-bmXO4aLnhNT2FT_xuLjxK85rE4iCPTCXEWrtd9cALHohSeR-LEB8oivYF00kygA7jtPvL_2yi5qAP4_P4jjaoe9vR9az8zL27zJxZocWx-vp7aiSU13i9WyoiiGvU3mugwyk/s1600/MONSTROUS_MONDAY3.png" /></a>

OR Right-click on the picture you want and re-size as needed.

You can sign up here now.

Regular Posting

Resumes tomorrow.

Sorry.  Been one of those weeks.

Posting this week

My regular posting is going to be off this week due to Gen Con.

I have some reviews of some books I have been using for years , so I have those queued up and ready to go.

There might the random/odd post from Gen Con itself.

But otherwise I am going to be enjoying the Best 4 Days in Gaming!

Blog Roll clean-up

First of the month, time for clean up.

I want to add some new sites, but Google puts a limit on how many I can follow, so some have to go.
Normally it is very easy.  But as I deleted older blogs and replaced them with newer ones I have added more than fall out naturally.

So have to make some hard cuts.  I am not lobbying for one site or another, I am just bemoaning that Google limits how many I can follow.

London Map updates

So a while back I learned about Banners On The Cheap and their desire to "get into" the RPG map biz.

There was no single tabletop map I wanted, but I have always wanted a large map of Victorian-era London for my game room.  I finally settled on a map.

Click for a really, really big version

It is London of 1890, rather than my preferred of 1838, but that is cool.  This is the "classic" Victorian London and good enough for me. It will work great for nearly all the Victorian games I own.

The process could not have been easier and frankly the prices were a lot cheaper than I expected.  I'll get this one by the end of the month and I will let you all know how it works out.

If you want to try them out for yourself then here is the link.

Custom Bandit Signs

I have pretty high hopes for this.  If it works out well, and takes dry-erase or water markers well, then I have a bunch of others I'd love to do.

LinkWithin, part 2

Well I am going to stick with LinkWithin this time around.

Not only is it working better now it is also pushing up the hits on some of my older posts and that is a cool thing.

It looks like I could expand it to 4 or 5 links per page instead of just 3.   Will have to see how that works out.

ETA: Tried it, was a snap.  Is 5 too much?

Tales of Woe

It is a sad day here at The Other Side.

My hard drive died a couple weeks ago.  Normally this is a cause for panic, but I didn't because having been doing this for a while I thought I had everything backed up.  Well.  I didn't.

I didn't lose any of my PDFs save for maybe the most recent ones I bought since May, but I can always go back to DriveThruRPG and re-download those.  My current OSR/Old-School books were in the hands of editors, so they were saved.

I did though loose all my documents for my Ghosts of Albion adventures Blight, Obsession, Wilderness and Synchronicity.  I have printout of Blight and Obsession, so that isn't too bad.  And I lost all my personal emails from 2011-2012.

Figuring it was the circuit board (given the errors I was getting) I worked with a company that specialized in this brand of hard drive (Seagate Barracuda) called PCB Solution.

I worked with Kevin to find a new board for this drive and in truth my hopes were high, even if he felt (and he did tell all this upfront) that my drive might be further gone that I thought it was.  Undaunted I picked up their repair kit and got it in a couple of days.  It easy easy to do as long as you have no fear of cranking open your computer or drives.  I got it in installed and slapped it into a new external drive enclosure and ... nothing.

I worked on a few other tricks I have picked over the years.  Back in the day I ran the official usenet alt.sys.pc-clone.gatewat2000 FAQ, so I consider myself a bit smarter than the average bear in this respect.  But if there is one thing I have learned, there is always someone smarter.  And it will take someone smarter than me to fix this one.

Here is what I have learned (and should known already):

1. It doesn't matter how much you back up.  Back up more.
2. Stop buying Seagate drives.  Every single one has died on me and took much valued data with it.

So that is what I know.

I do want to publicly thank Kevin at PCB Solution.  He really went above and beyond the call of duty to help me.

LinkWithin

Well I have been trying out LinkWithin on my blog for the 3rd time (or maybe the 4th) and this time it seems to work much better.

In earlier versions of the Other Side layout I had written large parts of my own CSS. The new Blogger layout now gives me the advanced features I wanted without needing to muck around with coding.  That is nice since my own coding also has disabled some of the nicer comments features.  It also was not very compatible with LinkWithin.

Well now it seems to work better.  I am not seeing how the algorithm works; for example how a post on the Zatanna and Hex Girls will also direct you to Dracula, Shakespeare, and D&D Basic.  But I guess in my world that makes sense.

The one thing I am noticing that my hits for older pages are way up.  That is a good thing.  I have over 1200 posts here now, some of that older stuff has to be good too!

Do you like the LinkWithin widget?  Are you finding any hidden treasures, not just here, but any blog that uses it?