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.

New Interview up

I know this is akin to phoning it in, but I have a new interview up at a new blog Otyugh Talk.

http://otyughtalk.blogspot.com/2014/06/interview-4-timothy-brannan-ghosts-of.html

Check it out and give this new blog a look as well.

Guest Post over at The Insecure Writer's Support Group

I have a guest post over at The Insecure Writer's Support Group today.

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

I talk about game writing but also how we various "Masters" to serve while writing.  Just doing my own little bit of community outreach.

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/2014/06/the-art-of-writing-for-games-serving.html

Stop by and check it out.

Blogging A to Z Guest Post: Did I Survive?

This is a Guest Post I am posting today over at the Blogging A to Z Challenge.
IF you are a regular reader here then I do want to hear from you.  What would make the month of April more interesting for you?

Hello everyone. My name is Tim Brannan. I blog over at The Other Side where I primarily talk about games, RPGs and horror.  I am a game author so I use my blog as a platform to talk about my books, but also to share with others in my blogging community to sorts of things I like to write about.

I have been writing material for games nearly as long as I have been playing them.  I started in 1979 and my first "custom class" was a Healer. And....I am not afraid to admit my first new monster I ever wrote up was a "Smurf". Yeah. I was 10.  My first witch class was written sometime between 1985 and 1986.

This was my fourth year of doing the A to Z Challenge on the Other Side. I have also done it one year on my Atheism blog, The Freedom of Nonbelief and another years at Red Sonja She-devil with a Sword, a shared blog dedicated to the comic book character Red Sonja.  Plus I have guest-posted here before on how to use the A to Z challenge in your own writing efforts and the importance of having a theme to your posts.

One would have thought I would have been more prepared this year!

At some point in February I was still planning on doing an A to Z theme on Vampires.  I had started the posts last year when I did Demons. I had an idea for a book about vampires and I thought it would have been a good way to do some research.  It was. Till I shifted midstream.

My newest book is now at Kickstarter to get funding for art and printing.  "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock" is, well, the most complete guide to playing a witch in the Pathfinder game.  A bit of background.  Back in 2000 the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons hit the shelves with the "Open Gaming Licence" which briefly meant 3rd party authors could make their own books for D&D and not get sued or anything like that.  If you followed the admittedly simple rules of the Open Game Licence then you could do it.  Well I did and in 2003 I released "Liber Mysterium: The Book of Witches & Warlocks".  A friend of mine released a similar book for witched called "Way of the Witch". We liked each other books and we happy.  2013 rolls around and this friend, Christina, decides it is time we mixed our books together with the newest version of the D&D 3rd edition game, Pathfinder (it's not exactly, but close enough).  We added in the Pathfinder witch and some others and decided to kick start it as a project.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/962794554/strange-brew-pathfinder-the-ultimate-witch-and-war

So far things are going great!  But my extra writing time was taking a solid hit.  I have 13 years worth and 1,000s of pages of notes and material to go through.

So to save some time I switched over to the A to Z of Witches.

It was a good idea.  Go through notes, post ideas as they come to me.  I only managed to stay about 10 days ahead of schedule and that was no where near enough.  So much for my own advice about theme and planning!

I got a lot of great posts up and in fact have enough for another couple months of solid witch postings.
I got to participate in a "mini-hop" of people doing supernatural creatures during the A to Z as well and that was the best!  I have to give very special thanks to Tasha (Tasha's Thinkings) and Sophie (Sophie's Thoughts and Fumbles) for helping me with the idea and then doing all the heavy lifting afterwards.  THEY, and everyone in the Supernatureal mini-hop, really made this A to Z special for me.

If you look at my May 5th post I state I survived the A to Z challenge.  Survived is the right word. Not beat, not won, but survived.  Yes I posted everyday and still got in some of my other posts. Yes I visited my neighbor blogs, but didn't always comment on them.  Yes the material I wrote will find a home somewhere in Strange Brew.

But, I didn't get to interact with other bloggers as much as I wanted. I didn't visit every blog on the list like I have in years past.  And while I noticed that I was getting a good amount of traffic from the Supernatural A to Z and from the A to Z site itself, my regular readers dropped off.  So in that respect I didn't do as well as I would have liked.

I write about games.  That is who I am and what my readers want.  I tried to keep the topics I posted very relevant to gamers, but also to the non-gamers.  Most people in the world don't care if some beastie has 5 HD or 15 HD, you just want to know how tough it is. To gamers that is a big deal. It's a big deal to me.

I love doing the A to Z and I am taking my own advice to heart and starting my 2015 posts this summer.  I am still considering doing vampires. So to make it work there needs to be plenty of material for gamers (what we in the RPG biz call "crunch") and plenty of narrative material enjoyed by everyone else (what we call "fluff").

So what is my plan?

• Start my post writing early.  Crunch takes longer to write than Fluff. I'll need the time.
• Keep enough crunch to keep my regular readers happy. Especially if it something new.
• Keep the fluffy interesting to keep the A to Zers coming back.
• Visit and interact with more of the bloggers in the A to Z. If I write all my posts this should be easier.
• I would LOVE to participate in another mini-hop like I did this year. That was awesome.

Looking forward to it!

About the Author 
Timothy S. Brannan is the author of The Other Side blog, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/
He has worked on a number of games including the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG", and is the author of “The Ghosts of Albion RPG”, “The Witch”, “Eldritch Witchery” and the upcoming “Strange Brew” which is currently in a Kickstarter Campaign. Please stop by and see if this is something you would like to support.

Interview with David Martin

Black Gate has an interview with artist with David Martin.
http://www.blackgate.com/2014/04/23/art-of-the-genre-an-interview-with-david-martin/

Long time readers here will know I am big fan of his work, but in particular the witch cover to Dragon #114.

Pop on over and have a read.

zatannurday: Sunday Special Joe Quinones Sneak Peaks

This Zatannur--er--sunday.

With the April A to Z going on every day I thought I could let Zatanna have the day on Sunday.

Joe Quinones has been posting some sneak peaks of the Zatanna/Black Canary crossover "Bloodspell" over at his blog, http://joequinones.blogspot.com/

Really looking forward to this.

April A to Z Challenge Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is April 1st.  To many that mean jokes, pranks or the sobering reminder that taxes are due in two week.

For me and many others (at least 2000) it means the start of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.

This next month I am going to posting the A to Z of Witches.  Not a stretch for me I know, but I am planning on making it special really. I am going to go deeper into the subjects I normally talk about here.

So please join me tomorrow for the A to Z Challenge.

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/
https://www.facebook.com/atozchallenge

New Blog on the Block: Traveling Spellbook

James Michael Spahn is not a new name to the OSR scene.  His company Barrel Rider Games has been producing material for Labyrinth Lord now for a couple of years.

Well he is entering the blog arena now with Traveling Spellbook and he is doing some reviews of his favorite Labyrinth Lord/Basic Era compatible products.

http://travelingspellbook.blogspot.com/

In fact one of his first reviews is on my Witch book!
http://travelingspellbook.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-witch.html

James is huge Tolkien fan so I am hoping to see some posts on that as well.

So go to his blog, add it to your RSS reader or watch list.
I am expecting some really great things from him.

An Interesting thing happened in the Theme Reveal

So an interesting thing happened today in the Blogging A to Z Theme Reveal.
I was clicking through some links and noticed that this one blog was doing an A to Z of Vampires, which is what I had been thinking of doing myself.  Her sister is doing A to Z of Ghosts. And another is do Supernatural creatures.

So we all have decided to get together and do a mini-hop inside the larger one of Supernatural A to Z posts.
Really we are not doing anything extra here, but helping increase the attention of like minded blogs.

So here are the links I have now. I'll add more.

Tasha's Thinkings, A to Z of Vampires
Sophie's Thoughts, A to Z of Ghosts
A Creative Mind, A to Z of Supernatural Creatures.

Here are the topics I am planning to cover in my A to Z of Witches.  Links are not live yet. They are set to be posted at 5:00am Central time.

4/1	A	Aradia	a-to-z-of-witches-a.html
4/2	B	Baba Yaga	a-to-z-of-witches-b.html
4/3	C	Coven, Circe	a-to-z-of-witches-c.html
4/4	D	Dianna	a-to-z-of-witches-d.html
4/5	E	Enchantment	a-to-z-of-witches-e.html
4/7	F	Familiar	a-to-z-of-witches-f.html
4/8	G	Gris Gris	a-to-z-of-witches-g.html
4/9	H	Hex	a-to-z-of-witches-h.html
4/10	I	Incantatrix / Imbolc Mage	a-to-z-of-witches-i.html
4/11	J	Ju-ju	a-to-z-of-witches-j.html
4/12	K	Kiki / Kikimora	a-to-z-of-witches-k.html
4/14	L	Lilith	a-to-z-of-witches-l.html
4/15	M	Morgan Le Fey	a-to-z-of-witches-m.html
4/16	N	Nox / Nicks	a-to-z-of-witches-n.html
4/17	O	Obeah	a-to-z-of-witches-o.html
4/18	P	Prue, Piper, Phoebe and Paige	a-to-z-of-witches-p.html
4/19	Q	Queen of Witches	a-to-z-of-witches-q.html
4/21	R	Rachel Morgan	a-to-z-of-witches-r.html
4/22	S	Shaman	a-to-z-of-witches-s.html
4/23	T	Tarot	a-to-z-of-witches-t.html
4/24	U	Underworld	a-to-z-of-witches-u.html
4/25	V	Voodoo	a-to-z-of-witches-v.html
4/26	W	Warlock	a-to-z-of-witches-w.html
4/28	X	Xothia	a-to-z-of-witches-x.html
4/29	Y	Yama-uba	a-to-z-of-witches-y.html
4/30	Z	Zatanna	a-to-z-of-witches-z.html

Here is the Sign-up list for the Supernatural A to Z. Sign up for this only if you are already doing the A to Z Challenge.  Hope to see more!

A to Z Challenge Ambassador

I am signed up for the A to Z blog Challenge again for this April.

Not only that, I am once again one of the "Ambassadors" for the challenge. Basically this means I am a cheerleader. It will be my job to go through the sites in the challenge and give them encouragement.  I am once again working with Master Blogger Arlee Bird over at Tossing It Out.
In addition to the list of sites that my group will monitor I am also going to be hitting all RPG sites in the hop.

I think this is a great outreach opportunity. My hits increase by 300% and some of those stay on.  It is my version of evangelism.  If you are part of my regular set of readers and you are going to do this let me know!  I will make sure I add you to my list.

I mentioned here and here that this year I am doing an A to Z of Vampires.  This hopefully will support two different projects I am working on.  These projects are still in draft phase now, in fact one is not even in that yet.  But Vampires are something I have always enjoyed.  In fact in most circles before I was "the witch guy" I was "the vampire guy".

Like last year there will be plenty of RPG stuff, but there will also be more general horror posts too.  Trying to please all my audiences.

Hope to see you in the Challenge!

A to Z Blogging Guest Post

I have a guest post up over at the Blogging from A to Z site today.
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2014/02/how-to-use-atozchallenge-to-help-your.html

I am going to participate again this year. Like last year I am doing "posting with a purpose" and will be doing the A to Z of vampires.

It should be fun!

Custom Classes from Thoul's Paradise

One of my favorite Dragon articles of all time was from Dragon #109 dealing with customized classes for the D&D Basic game. We of course adapted it over to AD&D, though to be fair we played a combination of D&D and AD&D back then.  From that article came the Riddlemaster, Shadowmaster and Beastmaster classes from my DM and the Healer, Sun Priest and Death Mage classes from me.  I had already started notes on the witch including an XP by level that I was fond of and didn't want to change it.

Last week Perdustin over at Thoul's Paradise posted a reflection on this article and got me thinking about the custom classes I had made then.  This week he posted a little on his analysis of the the classes with his tweaks.
I thought I would have a look at my Witch class as well.

Here are his posts:
Customized Classes (part I) and
Customized Classes (part II)

Here is my attempt.



So the biggest issue for me is that the Witch advances to Spell level 8, not 7 like the Cleric or 9 like the Magic-User.  So I roughly split the difference on the Magic cost, rounding up for the more Magic-user like nature of the Witch spells.

If you look at the XP values for the Witch and compare them to Thoul's my Witch is coming up a bit short on needed XP. But that is based on MU magic.  The adjusted Magic cost puts mine and Thoul's a little closer together (see Delta Col).

I'd like to try this again with my old Healer class and see how it worked out.

Bloghops

February brings us the D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop challenge from d20 Dark Ages.
If you have a D&D-related blog I would like to see you sign up. I think it will be very interesting to see everyone's stories.

You have plenty of time to sign up.

Also coming up is the big April A to Z bloghop.  I have participated in this every year now for a while. Sometimes while doing my Atheism blog and the Red Sonja blog I participate in.

I will be honest.  The April A to Z has gotten huge. Maybe way too big. Plus I am not sure my enthusiasm is there for it this year.  I do have things I can post.  That is not the issue. The issue is one of time really.  I have a lot of projects I am working on now for myself and other publishers, so I think I might not do it this year.  Or least not do it to the level I had been.

Wait and see I guess. If I get a lot done the next couple of months I might change my mind.

PWWO: Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts + The Witch

Here is one of my first "official" Plays Well With Others posts.

Recently I spent some quality time with Dyson's Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.

• Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
• AS&SH and Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts: Plays Well With Others

Well I rather enjoy this book and I have been looking for more ways to use it. It occurred to me while reading over the Pact Bound and Enchanter that many of the spells would work great with my Witch class and a number of my spells would work great with these classes.

So I went through the book and my book and figured out which "witch" spells would work good for the MT&DP classes.  You can see the fruits of my efforts here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aus4EyYHejOidFlsQVhVUVJPcDhIYWpoQ1RyYmFQMXc&usp=sharing

All my witch spells and the MT&DP classes, with levels.  I want do the reverse later as well, which new MT&DP spells can be used with the Witch.  If you pop into that sheet you might actually see me working on it live.  I am getting rather fond of Google Drive for collaboration.

Dyson is also talking about his book today, looking at some of the Elven classes and subclasses.   Worth checking out and adding in a bunch of new spells.

This book also works quite well if you use his "d12 subclasses" idea.  Here are his tables for the Wizard, Cleric, Enchanter and Elven Warder.

I could do something like that with the Witch, using the Traditions as a guide.

1. Amazon: +1 to all hits, able to use a sword, spear and bow as weapons. See also. 
2. Aquarian (from the Witch)
3. Classical (from the Witch)
4. Craft of the Wise  (from the Eldritch Witchery)
5. Faerie (from the Witch)
6. Family (from the Witch)
7. Gypsy (from the Eldritch Witchery)
8. Maleficia (from the Witch)
9. Tradition of the Magna Mater (Great Mother)  (from the Eldritch Witchery)
10. Venefica: Bonus to creation of potions, poisons and balms.
11. Eclectic: Mix
12. Choose one or make up a new one.

Certainly works for me.

d20 Dark Ages: D&D Blog Challenge

Stelios V. Perdios  over at d20 Dark Ages is going to be hosting a D&D themed blog challenge for February.

It is worth checking out.
http://d20darkages.blogspot.com/2014/01/d-40th-anniversary-blogging-challenge.html

Tentative list

I am going to be on board of course.  I love things like this.  I am also looking forward to seeing what everyone else does as well.

We get some grief in the old OSR for being nostalgia soaked.  Some of that grief is actually warranted. But this is a big anniversary moment in the age of this hobby of ours and a little self reflection is fun and appropriate.

Now if I can only remember everything I did!

The 12 Days of OSR-Xmas

Tenkar over at his Eponymous Tavern will begin his "Twelve Days of OSR Christmas" where he will be giving away a TON of great OSR products.  Included in the mix are a copy of the Witch and Eldritch Witchery.
That tomorrow is also Friday the 13th makes it doubly fun for me.

So please make sure you stop by and give it a look.  Hopefully you will win something cool.

Dyvers: Best Reads

This has been making it's rounds and I even posted a little about it on Friday.

Charles Akins has posted, and updated, his massive list of all the "OSR" blogs.
http://dyverscampaign.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-great-blog-roll-call.html

Here is what he had to say about your truly:

An OSR blog that's biggest cause is the Witch class in Dungeons and Dragons style role-playing games. The author is quite persuasive and will make you jump on his bandwagon if you give him half a chance. Updates: An average of 45 times per month. Wow! An amazing amount of out put!

I wholeheartedly concur!

While some may claim that the blogging community is loosing steam, I prefer to think of it as gaining focus.  Instead of 25 posts a day on roughly the same thing we now get 10 posts a variety of topics.  It also shows that there is more going on than I even knew.

So stop by, read his massive list and stick around to read the rest of his blog.  It's some good stuff.

The Other Side, the First 2000 Posts!

How is everyone tonight?

Me? I Am gearing up to give away a few copies of Eldritch Witchery and The Witch to my readers here!
Yup that time again.  But this time it is going to coincide with some other big milestones.

This is my 1,999th post here at the Other Side.
The next post is post #2000.

I have also set up a Facebook page for this blog.
https://www.facebook.com/OtherSideblog

So how can you 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


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!!

Lazy Sunday

This is really more of Twitter post than a real blog posting.

Checking out blog posts from around the gaming blogs.

So much cool stuff going on!  Just great fun stuff.

More thoughts later, making more more coffee and reading more.

My RPG Person Profile

This was cooked up by +Zak Smith over at his blog Playing D&D With Porn Stars.
It's a pretty cool idea really. I have seen a few others (linked below) so I figure I throw in my 2cents.

I'm currently running (at home):  D&D 3.5 Epic level game and AD&D 1st Ed start up

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (at home) include: See above.

I'm currently running (online): nothing

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (online) include: Pathfinder

I would especially like to play/run: Basic D&D, WitchCraft, Mutants & Masterminds, Monster Hearts, Vampire the Masquerade, any version of Mage, Call of Cthulhu (any ed), Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space.

...but would also try: Feng Shui, Victoria, Victoriana 3rd Ed.

I live in: The NW Burbs of Chicago

2 or 3 well-known RPG products other people made that I like:  AD&D 1st Ed, WitchCraft, Chill

2 or 3 novels I like: Dracula, Lord of the Rings, most horror

2 or 3 movies I like:  Too many to name.  Most all horror, especially horror from the 70s.

Best place to find me on-line: Everywhere. Facebook, email, my blog Google+

I will read almost anything on tabletop RPGs if it's: Horror or Victorian

I really do not want to hear about: Nothing. I am pretty much open to everything.

I think dead orc babies are ( circle one: funny / problematic / ....well, ok, it's complicated because....): Depends on the game. In D&D they are usually collateral damage, in ShadowRun they are a plot point, in Orkworld they are a campaign about taking their souls back to wherever John Wick thinks Ork souls come from.

Game I'm in are like (link to something): Little guy or Anti-hero taking back the world from the grips of evil.  Plenty of monsters and over the top action, metal music and roots deep in the 80s  Or Trippy weird, gothy magical stuff or Sword & Sorcery with a bit of tongue in cheek humor, also with roots deep in the 80s.

Free RPG Content I made for OSR and Unisystem are available here on my Downloads page.
Also the Ghosts of Albion Quick Start Rules.

You can buy RPG stuff I made at DriveThruRPG, Amazon or at your FLGS

• Liber Bestarius (d20)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG (Cinematic Unisystem)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Slayer's Hanbook (Cinematic Unisystem)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Magic Box (Cinematic Unisystem)
• Ghosts of Albion (Cinematic Unisystem)
• The Witch (Basic Era OSR)
• Eldritch Witchery (Spellcraft & Swordplay) 
• Dr. Challenger's Guide (Gaslight RPG) Coming Soon
• Darwin's Guide to Creatures (Gaslight RPG) Coming Soon

If you know anything about Dragons it'd help me with a project I'm working on

I talk about RPGs on mostly my blog and Facebook under the name Timothy S. Brannan or Tim Brannan. You  can find me on some forums (RPG.net) and going back to the Usenet under the name Web Warlock.

• My Blog
• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter
• DeviantArt
• My reviews at DriveThruRPG
• My reviews at RPG.Net
• My RPG Bio at LeGrog (in French)