Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts

Monday, July 14, 2014

The Other Side Nominated for an ENnie Award!

The Other Side has been nominated for "Best Blog" at this year's ENnie Awards!

http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/2014-ennie-awards-nominees/

I have to say I am quite excited  by this and even a little humbled.
I am not the biggest blog on the list of nominees. Nor even am I the best looking.  But I post what I like to post and it seems to click because people keep coming back.

I have some pretty serious competition, to be honest.  Gnome Stew is a blog I vote for every year (but NOT this year!) and has been one of my favorite reads for a while.  But I like to think I offer something a little unique, a little different, and a whole lot of entertaining.  So I hope you will consider me when voting begins next week.

To my fellow nominees, I am looking forward to being at Gen Con this year and wish you all the best.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Summer Cleaning

So making some cosmetic changes here at the ole' Other Side.

I moved my Kickstarter applet lower on the screen so people can still see it, but make room for my social media buttons.

I also have a great summer themed banner from old friend from the Kitten Board, Willow Ehrenreich.
Yes that is Willow and Tara up there. Yes I think it's cool.  Here is her untouched copy.


I like symbolism to be honest. Tara under the tree, Willow on a rock.  Fits well with how I have been running these characters for the last 12 years.

Posting might be light this summer.  Working hard on Strange Brew and other projects.  But don't worry.  I am not going anywhere.  In fact I have something special in mind for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Happy Birthday to The Other Side...sorta

March 10 is the unofficial birthday of The Other Side.

I say that because this is the day I set up my first website, also called the Other Side, back in 1996.  I remember working on it at work during the week and and scribbling down some code in class (I was still getting my Ph.D. then).
I finally got it up and live over the weekend.  I suppose I should say it was 11th. That was when I let people know.  But the 10th was when I uploaded my index.html page to make it all work.

It wasn't much to be honest, but it was mine.

So happy birth to my site which died and then returned as this blog.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Plays Well With Others

Starting a new semi-regular posting thing here.

I love all sorts of games. I love buying games. I don't always have time to play the games I want or I like things from one game and other things from other games.  So I tend to mix things up a lot.

Plays Well With Others will be my you-got-peanut-butter-on-my-chocolate (or fish fingers and custard) posts where I take two or more books or games and mix them up to my tastes.

I have done some things like this in the past here already.

Witch Girls Adventures + WitchCraft RPG
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea + Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
Cortex, Savage Worlds and Witch Girls Adventures

I am sure there are others. I know I combined Star Frontiers and Traveller in the past and talked about it briefly.

I have some more here to post soon. Hope you all enjoy.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 in review / 2014 preview

Seeing lots of year end / new year posts this week and that is always fun.

For myself, I'll keep it brief.

Highlights of 2013
- Eldritch Witchery was published in October and the Witch continued to sell very well.
- I got to play a lot of games this year which is always nice. 3.x and AD&D1 with my boys, the occasional Basic game and I even ran AS&SH.
- I also got to play in ongoing Pathfinder game and an occasional D&D4 game this year.  I am playing the same character (basically) in both games so it gives me the chance to compare and contrast the systems in a way I like. Which I also find fun.
- Got to play some Settlers of Catan again, which I enjoy.

On the other hand I am not sure if I networked as much I as I would have liked and I was slow getting involved with Google+ for the most part.
I did not get as many reviews in this year as I would have liked. Some at DriveThruRPG, a few at Amazon and one or two at RPG.Net.

Looking Ahead to 2014
- I have a few Victorian age supplements coming out which should be a lot of fun.  Not for Ghosts of Albion but for Gaslight.
- I have a big project starting up soon that I'll be talking about a lot here.  Nothing I want to say yet.
- White Dwarf Wednesday will draw to a close in 2014.  I am not planning on replacing it with anything just yet. The above mentioned project will prevent that.
- Looking forward to Gen Con this year and D&D5.  I am not as excited about it as I could be, but I will certainly be buying it.

I might not (still undecided) do the bloghops this year. The April A to Z or the October movie marathon.  I do have posts I could do for A to Z, but April is going to be busy for me and I didn't see the increase in traffic or interaction as I had in the past. Plus it is a lot of work.  A recharge might be in order.

I will be doing some 80s Sword & Sorcery movie marathons though.  Not sure how those will work out, but it could be fun.

Until then, have a safe New Years Eve and here's to a great new 2014!


Sunday, November 17, 2013

Spamming Hyperborea

So I was going back over some AS&SH posts in prep for today's game and I saw this as a comment:
I am Alan from Finland and I have always look forward for this day to tell the world about the the great powers of Dr.Zabaza. This great man called Dr.Zabaza was able to bring back my lover who left me, And within the space of 48 hours Dr.Zabaza brought my lover back and since then my love life have been more lovely and peaceful than i ever had. You can also strengthen your relationship or get your lover back by contacting Dr.Zabaza on zabaza.logan@XXXX.com or call him on +XXXXXXXXXXXXX and i assure you that you will get a better relationship after the help of Dr.Zabaza

You can read the original here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-weekend-in-hyperborea.html

I think Dr. Logan Zabaza needs to become my next evil NPC.  Obviously some sort of evil wizard. Given that "Alan" is from Finland maybe some LotFP influences should be added!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Favorite Witch Contest!!

Well the contest ended last night while I was out with a migraine.
I have emailed the winners and waiting for confirmation.

But I hate waiting so here they are!

Grand Prize, winning a copy of both Eldritch Witchery and The Witch is:
Mark Craddock

Winning a copy of Eldritch Witchery is:
Justin Ryan Isaac

And a copy of The Witch is:
Chris Copeland

Thanks you everyone that participated!  I hope to some more fun things soon.

So who did you get in witches?
Willow was an early favorite, no surprise.
Medea, classic is always good.
The Sanderson Sisters
Glinda, Elphaba and other variations of them from Oz and Wicked
Helena Markos (Suspiria)
Howl (Howl's Moving Castle)
Tenkar's Sister! ;)
Baba Yaga (a fave of mine as well)
Gandalf's versions got a few nods
Julian Sand's Warlock from Warlock (which I will admit I enjoyed too)
Tara, of course!
We got a Harry Potter (but no Hermoine)
Thulsa Doom from the Conan movie.
A couple for Practical Magic (also a fave)
Krabat (have not heard of this guy)

THANK YOU everyone for participating!
I loved reading your choices.

For anyone that has already picked up Eldritch Witchery the file was updated last night to include some errata and the newer cover.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Post 2000!

Welcome to the 2000th post at The Other Side!

I wanted to take a little time here for some brief introspection.  I started this blog back in 2007 with no idea what I wanted to do with it. I based the name and style on my older website, also called The Other Side, and this was supposed to be integrated into that.  Well I never rebuilt the old website and instead parsed out material I had written for that here.

In 2008 I decided that this would become a design blog where I would talk about the projects I was working on.  The first of those two projects died on the vine as the case with a lot of freelance work.  While that is too bad, I have been allowed to reuse some of the work in my own projects.
The second project quickly morphed.  I had started Eldritch Witchery back then for the Spellcraft & Swordplay game. In the process on working on that I also came up with the idea of doing The Witch.
They were the reasons I kept this blog going in those early days.
Soon I discovered more blogs and the rest, well here are now. Sadly many of the blogs I started with are not around, but the ones are happen to be quite good. So I feel I am still in very company.

It took me over three years to get to 1000 posts, and then just under two years to get to the next 1000.

With Eldritch Witchery and The Witch now complete the original emphasis for this blog is now gone.  But despite my early thoughts of "not having enough to say" I find that I often can't keep quiet!
So I am expecting to have another 2000 posts. It might take me longer since I am not sure what future blogs have to be honest.  Don't expect video blogs from though, just not my thing really.  But I have more projects on the way. More characters to stat up and more games to talk about.

Of course none this is possible without you, the reader and commenter.
To show my appreciations, I am running another contest.

You can win a copy of Eldritch Witchery or The Witch?  Simple, follow the rules below and in the comments section please post who your favorite witch (or wizard) is.

Grand Prize gets a copy of BOTH books.
First Place Prize gets a copy of Eldritch Witchery
Second Place Prize gets a copy of The Witch.

You can enter every day for more chances.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!!

Friday, August 16, 2013

Not Going to Gen Con, but here are some winners

WOW.

That was a lot of people.

So I expanded my winners.
I pulled out my dice and did this old school.

Congrats to:

F. Douglas Wall.
John Harp
David Cutts

and since demand was so high I did some more.

faoladh
Thaumiel Nerub
Anthony Hunter
Tim Shorts

Seven is a good number!

Honestly that was fun.  I am working on more material for a variety of things (vague much?) so I am going to give more stuff away in the future.  Certainly in October, but maybe sooner.

Thanks everyone for participating!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

New banner

Thought I needed a little change here.
Course I am only about 9 months late on getting a John William Waterhouse Magic Circle themed one up.
But I figure it is still less self-indulgent than my last one.


Sunday, August 4, 2013

Monday, July 1, 2013

July? That can't be right?

Today is July 1st.

Wait-What??  That can't possibly be right.

Work is kicking my ass at the moment (I just picked up a new school to re-design their entire curriculum) so I have not had the time for fun things since most nights have me working till about 11:00pm.

So the time I do have to work on things, around 6:00am after my morning run, I am usually too brain dead to come up with anything. In fact I have pretty much been staring at this screen (of and on) for the last 4 hours.

So....
Let's see.

Google Reader is dead, or soon will be.
I could get some reviews up while re-charging my creative batteries. I have been itching to review Monsterhearts and Otherverse America.

I have been thinking about picking up one of those Chromebooks to just use for game writing.  Though I love my MS Word and have been a user of it since Edition 1.1.  Google Docs, while nice, is just not the same.  Anyone use one of these?

Monday, June 24, 2013

Monday Monday

So nothing really to post or chat about today.

The day job is kicking my butt this week.  Our next Summer term starts next week so I am busy getting ready all this week.

In game news I am re-reading "The Silmarillion" for the first time since high school.  I am loving it and enjoying it on a completely different level than I did 30 years ago.  It's just fantastic really.  I had just finished reading "The Children of Húrin" and loved it.

I should have some game reviews up sometime.

Something interesting.
Tenkar has a post about advertising and marketing the OSR.   Go over there read his post, watch the video.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/06/marketing-your-rpg-panel-on-air-with.html

Me. I am happy with beer money (I make enough at my day job to pay bills and get the things I want).  Or rather, I use the money I make to buy more games or material for new game books.  It's a crazy little eco-system that I am happy with.

Maybe something will motivate me later today.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Winners, Losers and the Tomb

Winners
Wow!  What a day yesterday.  All I wanted to do was celebrate my birthday and give out some free stuff. ;)

Well I have emailed the two winners, I am just waiting for them to confirm their emails.  (ok both have gotten back to me!)

So congrats to John Harp and Michael Bolam!  You can thank the d20 and d6 I rolled!

Honestly that was a lot of fun and I need an excuse to do that again soon.

Losers
The big loser of the week is (or will be) Tracey Alley for publishing Mystara books.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip_13.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/
I did not set out to ruin her week but seriously folks, IP is IP is IP.

I have seen a lot of comments of "well WotC isn't doing anything with it".  Sorry, but there is no such thing as "Abondon-ware" in fact the Mystara property is alive and kicking with the release of the "Dungeons & Dragons Chronicles of Mystara Game" out next week.
Or even "She is not making a lot of money on it". The amount made (lots, little or none) doesn't matter.  I bought those books (but got a refund) because I thought they were official Mystara books. There are lots of people that would love to make more Mystara products, people that I would love to support.  But they don't make them because they know they are not allowed too.

Of course the other loser in this is me.  I thought I had found a new series to read and instead I have to drag all this out into the light.

The Tomb
The best news though is for my birthday and Father's day I am going to play some D&D with my kids!  YEAHH!

Since it is also D&D day I think a classic is in order.   So Liam and Connor will be headed to The Tomb of Horrors!


I have copies for every version of D&D (well 1st to 4th) so I am not sure which system to run it yet.  1st ed is the obvious choice, but the boys are playing 3e now and their 1st ed characters are only 1st level.

I am expecting it to be a lot of fun!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Happy Birthday to Me! Here's a Gift for You!

Today is my birthday!

The great thing about being this age is I am pretty much at the point where if there is something I want I go out and get it.  So all I asked for this year was some time to play some D&D with my kids.

But someone needs a gift.

To celebrate this and recently reaching 1,000,000 hits I want to thank you my loyal readers.

Here's the deal.  I am gong to give away a $5 DriveThruRPG gift car and a $5 Amazon gift card.

What do you need to do to get it?
Almost nothing!
Just post below!

Make sure I have a way of contacting you (email is best) and I'll pick two people at random.
That's it.

Post. Get lucky. Win.
I'll email you and you tell me which of the two prizes you want.

Thanks so much for making the Other Side as much as it has been and here's to the next 1,000,000 hits!

Monday, June 10, 2013

1,000,000 Other Side Views Can't Be Wrong

I want to do a bit of celebrating here at the Other Side.

I just went past 1,000,000 hits here and had a pretty successful fundraiser.
Plus it's my birthday in a couple days.

Let's do something special.



I am going to give away some things.

Not sure what, not sure how, but something. and soon!

Keep an eye out.

(if you don't get the image, try here)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Bloghop and Giveaways

Hey everyone!

May is winding down but there are still plenty of things to do here at the Other Side.
First things first.

I mentioned on the first day of the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia that I would donate all the money this site made to charity.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/05/blogfest-hop-against-homophobia-and.html

And the total is...$15.37 in affiliate sales and $5.90 in sales of the Witch for a total of $21.27.
Not bad for this site, I was hoping for some more.  I will likely round it up to an even 25 or 50.

There is also the business of giving away a copy of the Witch!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/05/bloghop-giveaway.html

Waiting to hear back from the winners (yes winners!) now.

I must be crazy because in June I am going to do some more giveaways.
Yes to celebrate 1,000,000 hits here I am going to give away copies of my books, gift cards and who knows what else.  No contest. No promotion. Just me giving stuff to you as a thank you for supporting me over the years.

That's coming in June.  So stayed tuned.

EDITED TO ADD:  The winners have been notified.  Rachel Ghoul and RQRobb both received a copy of the Witch!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

1,000,000 Page Views!

I hit 1,000,000 pages views earlier today!


Not too shabby really!

Planning some stuff to celebrate! Keep an eye open.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Blogfests

Doing the A to Z was not enough for me so I am signing up for a few more blogfests.

I like these things.  They help me stretch my creative muscles and give me something special to work for.
Plus it exposes my blog and work to others that might not seek me out.

May Monster Madness
http://littlegothichorrors.blogspot.com/2013/04/second-annual-may-monster-madness-blog.html
http://www.anniewalls.com/2013/04/may-monster-madness-sign-up-linky-list.html
http://wickedwaysproductions.blogspot.com.au/


I love monsters as you might be able to tell.  So I am going to try to post something each day of this.  My hope would be to post something to promote Eldritch Witchery some more.

The Best and Worst Remakes Blogfest
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-to-z-challenge-memento-meant-to-live.html


From the King of Blogfests, Alex Cavanaugh.  I am not sure what I going to do here yet, but I am certain it will be horror related.

Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia
http://hopagainsthomophobia.blogspot.com/2013/03/hop-against-homophobia-and-transphobia_15.html


I have never been shy about the fact that I support equal rights for everyone. In particular I have been a strong supporter of gay rights and freedom to marry rights.  So I am very pleased to be part of this one.  Since this hop is focused on authors I am going to talk about some characters.  Honestly no idea who yet.

Towel Day Blogfest
http://lgkeltner.blogspot.com/2013/04/announcing-towel-day-blogfest.html


This one is easy.  I am going to talk about what is the best RPG to play a "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" game.

May ends with:

The Obscure Fantasy RPGs Appreciation Day
http://mesmerizedbysirens.blogspot.com/2013/05/announcing-obscure-fantasy-rpgs.html
(no image yet, but here is one from the site)



This will be a bunch of blogs talking about their favorite pre 90s fantasy RPGs.  I think I know which one I want to do.


Heroes & Villains Blogfest 
http://danibertrand.blogspot.com/2013/04/u-unfair-ultraviolet-blogfest-unveiled.html


This one is very new to me.  I am sure I can come up with something in the next month!

There you have it!  Watch for these over the next month.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Stop CISPA


CISPA is bad for the internet, bad for people.
Learn more at https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq

Regular post continues later today.