Question to OSR publishers and authors

I have been getting a couple of products ready to go for release and I am not getting the look and feel I want.

So a question to OSR publishing community from the professionals all the way over to the enthusiastic amateurs.

What desktop publishing/layout program do you all use?

I have tried a few myself including picking up a new one this weekend.  I am hoping to get some better results than what I have had been getting.

Sherlock Holmes

So I have been on a Sherlock Holmes kick of late.

I downloaded the recordings from Librivox.org. Grabbed some radio shows starring Sir John Gielgud, and I picked up a DVD of old TV shows starring Peter Crushing . 

I am rather looking forward to all of these.

Zatannurday: Young Justice returns

So last week marked the return of Young Justice and young Zatanna.

Interestingly enough is not that she was back, or even made a permanent part of the team, but that YJ now airs on a Saturday morning.  Yup no longer a prime time Cartoon Network show like Adventure Time, it has been moved to that slot of our youth.  I am of mixed feelings about that.  First I think it is cool that the new DC toons are all in a block during the times I was watching The Super Friends and Batman.  But I also can't help that the show will get ignored a little here.  Time will tell I guess.

So Zee is back in "Misplaced" and it is a magic filled epsiode.  We have Zatara, Klarion, Felix Faust, Wizard, Wotan and even the return of Dr. Fate.  I liked the attention to detail in this episode too.  They had Klarion casting his spell at a crossroads for example.  I also like how it was Captain Marvel that could move between the different realities.  Not just because he could be both an adult and a kid, but but because so much of Capt. Marvel is about being in between worlds; adult/child, magic/mundane, mortal and god.

There is a nice bit of dialog between Batman and Zatara and it made me for the first want to see more about him.  I should spend some time learning more about Giovanni Zatara.

 Long story short (and there are spoilers ahead) all the adults disappear from the world due to magic (yes we saw this before in Justice League Unlimited) and Young Justice has to figure it out.

One part I felt was particularly good was when Zatanna had to use her father's locator spell.  She talked about how it wasn't as easy as just talking backwards, that was just the end part.  There was prep and power and she didn't think she was up to her father's level of skill to do it.  Of course she does do it, easily in fact.  The animators did a great job of showing the disappointment on her face when the spell worked.   Why?  Because it was proof that she was up to Zatara's level now. She was growing up. It was the theme of the episode, but it hit home with her then and there.

We discover that there are two worlds, one of kids and the other of adults.  Both sides debate on whether or not it is time to use the Helm of Nabu and call on Dr. Fate.  Both sides agree that it is not yet that desperate.

Each side battles the magical baddies in their respect dimensions.  Klarion and Zatanna have it out, but Klarion is much more powerful, that is till Zee pulls out the Helm of Nabu, unknown to all her teammates.  She puts it on and Dr. Fate is back.

They manage to destroy the magic whatzit holding the worlds apart with Fate/Zatanna and Zatara working together to destroy it.  Once the world is together again though Fate doesn't want to give up Zatanna's body.
Zatara pleads with Fate to let his daughter go, stating that he will don the Helm of Nabu.  Batman promises to look after Zee.  Zatara dons the helm of Nabu and without a word flies away.

Zatanna moves into Mount Justice in to a room next to Miss Martian.  We end the episode with Zee asking to be alone.

There is more going on in this episode than just this of course.  There is the ongoing "Light" arc (which I won't detail here) and more details of what was going on.

This was a watershed episode in Zatanna's development.  We see for the first time that she may in fact be up to Zatara's power level.  Both in terms of her magic and Zatara's own assessment of her.  We also get a Doctor Fate that is more powerful than anything we have seen before. Kent Nelson in the YJ universe was just a normal human, albeit a long lived one.  Giovanni Zatara was already a master of magic and world class magician.  His power, plus that of Nabu would make Fate very, very powerful.

It also ties up one little issue.  How do we separate Zatanna from her father.  In the comics he was just "missing" and then later dead.  Here we have a clean (cleanish) break.  Zatara could always come back of course.

Again, like I said this episode really makes me want to read more about Zatara.  Maybe even put up some M&M3/DCA stats for him.

Later today (depending on when you read this) we will have a Wally West focused episode, but I am sure there will be some Zatanna bits in it.

In other Zatanna news, DC Adventures, Heroes & Villains Vol. 2 is now out with write-ups of Zee and Zachary Zatara.

What Does "The Dragon and the Phoenix" sound like?

What does the first season of my Willow & Tara game, "The Dragon and The Phoenix" sound like?


Episode 0



Episode 1





Episode 2



Episode 3



Episode 6





Episode 7



Episode 8





Episode 9



Episode 10





Episode 11



Episode 12









A little like that.

Random updates, links and posts

Hey.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks with home, work and stuff.  I have been neglecting you, my blog audience and that is not fair.

But don't expect it change yet today. ;)
I am though posting some half baked posts I have started over the last two weeks into one big random update. Might not be the best post ever, but it lets you know I am still here.

• First up my friend Elizabeth J. Kolodziej has a kickstarter up for her new book.  She is the author of the "The Last Witch" series and I reviewed the first book here a year ago today.  Kickstarter seems to be the way to go these days for starting authors.
http://www.facebook.com/events/200302106741659/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960643778/help-publish-the-last-witch-series

• Need a demon? Demonicpedia then is the internet's version of the Demoniomicon of Iggwilv.
http://www.demonicpedia.com/
It is still a little new and not very full yet, but like all -pedias out there based on the media wiki software this one can be edited by you.  My readers here are diverse, but horror is something most of you have in common.  So I see you all as being more contributor types than just passive readers.

• A couple years back I got a book of Sherlock Holmes stories from my friend Greg Littlejohn.  I am finally getting around to reading it and I am enjoying the hell of it.  Watch out Ghosts of Albion players my mind is boiling over with ideas!

• Thanks to the recent GMs day sale at DriveThruRPG I bought a bunch of stock art for my upcoming books.  Now I just need to make enough money off of these to cover all the costs!

• Speaking of Kickstarters and ongoing works in progress. The Player's Companion to Adventure Conqueror King is underway.  I can confirm now I did a little bit of work on the Witch class.  The author of the class also drew on my 3.0 witch as inspiration.  The ACKS Witch is very different from either my withes in "The Witch" or from "Eldritch Witchery" but all three are largely compatible.  Once all three are out expect a post.

More soon!

Designers & Dragons

I have been wanting to pick up Designers & Dragons now for sometime.  With the final hours of the GM's Day Sale going on, I figured that today was that day.

This book is everything you need to know about the history of RPGs.  Shannon Appelcline, of RPG.Net fame


This is massive (440+ pages), well researched tome is perfect for reading straight through, picking up a year or company at random or even looking things up.

The style is easy to read and it's almost informal in tone.  One can easily picture Appelcline sitting down ans saying "let me tell you a story, you see it all started 1974..."  Like a storyteller the story takes turns and twists and doesn't follow a chronology,  but that is fine since it does follow a narrative.
They layout is clean and simple.  The story is the key here, and there are plenty of color photos of the games being talked about, though not all games have photos.

While there is a lot of information there is a lot of material to cover too.  So sometimes some topics get a little shorted, but I can't blame the author for this to be honest.  There is just so much to cover.   That been said there is a lot that is in this book.  I consider myself very knowledgeable about RPGs and I was nodding along with the text going "yes I remember that" but I still found myself going "wow, I didn't know that!" quite often.

In a nice feature each chapter/part ends in a "What to Read Next" that can lead you in many different directions.  Like coming to a crossroads in a dungeon do you go right, left or straight ahead.  The choice is yours.

This book is so full of information that it will take me weeks to digest it all and I am sure I'll be coming back to it often.

This book is the most comprehensive history of RPGs and the companies that produce them to date.  I was even happy to see my own name in these pages (even if is spelled "Brannon" and not "Brannan").

One thing I am looking forward to doing is use this as another source to help out the Wikipedia articles on RPGs.  For the longest time the RPG articles on Wikipedia were the target of an editor on a crusade.  I am not sure what his motivation was, but it was obvious he had no clue what he was talking about.  In any case it did lead to the improvement of many articles.

You can also see what Kurt Wiegel has to say about it at Game Geeks.

White Dwarf Wednesday...oops!

Sorry folks!!

I just realized that today is Wednesday and I forgot to post my White Dwarf Wednesday post.

I'll do a special run of it tomorrow.