Upcoming updates

Below are some things I've planned for the next few months.

Free design advice now available: Be Awesome at Dungeon Design

Have a look at Creighton Broadhurst's (Raging Swan Press) collection of eight dungeon design essays, now available for free! See here.

RPGSS presentation material

Here are the slides I'm using today for my RPG Superstar presentation at Ropecon. I may make edits later if something interesting comes up during the presentation, of course.

3PP Interview: Jason Nelson of Legendary Games

Before the scheduled break from 3PP interviews, I'm interviewing Jason Nelson of Legendary Games. Personally, the interview may be the one I've been looking forward to the most because Jason was also a top 4 contestant in RPG Superstar. After his run in RPGSS, he has become a very well known contributor with many Paizo credits, and of course, the publisher and CEO of Legendary Games.

3PP Interview: William Moomaw of Mór Games

Today I'm interviewing William Moomaw of Mór Games. Read on to learn more about the Imperiums Campaign setting, self-publishing, and more!

3PP Interview: Morgan Boehringer of Forest Guardian Press

Today I'm interviewing Morgan Boehringer of Forest Guardian Press. He's also the founder of Yggdrasil, a fanzine for Kobold Press' Midgard campaign setting. Read on to learn more about Morgan's experiences in self-publishing!  

3PP Interview: SagaRPG

This week I'm interviewing three guys from SagaRPG: Curtis Edwards, Lars Lundberg and Nick Johnson. I posted an interview about their Kickstarter just the other day, please check out that one too!

Interview: The Deft and Deadly Print Kickstarter

Here's a Kickstarter interview about the Deft and Deadly Print Kickstarter, starting in July 2014!

On July the 5th, I'm also publishing an interview about the company behind the Kickstarter: Curtis, Lars and Nick of SagaRPG will tell you more about their company. Please check that one out too!

3PP Interview: Bret Boyd of Tricky Owlbear

This time I'm interviewing Bret Boyd, who discusses his company Tricky Owlbear Publishing, freelancing, and more!

3PP Interview: Michael K. Tumey of Gamer Printshop

This week I'm interviewing Michael K. Tumey, a cartographer who's also known as the creator of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror for PFRPG. Michael discusses his work and his company, Gamer Printshop.

Also, please check out Michael's cartography portfolio on Gamer Printshop's webpage!

3PP Interview: Steven D. Russell, Rite Publishing

This week I'm interviewing Steve Russell of Rite Publishing. Read on to learn about how Steve and Rite Publishing got where they are now, how you can freelance for Rite Publishing, and more!

Sellsword, part II: May-June 2014

It's been an interesting few months since the conclusion of RPGSS 2014, to say the least. Below is an update on what I've been up to recently. :-)

3PP Interview: Jeremy Smith & Andreas Rönnqvist, Dreamscarred Press

This week I interviewed Andreas and Jeremy of Dreamscarred Press. Read on to learn more about publishing, psionics and more!

Interview: Joshua Wardrop & Arcknight Fun Virtual Tabletop Tokens Kickstarter

This time I'm posting a Kickstarter special -- not strictly a Pathfinder product but these tokens (and also the maps Joshua mentions) can be used with the PFRPG as they are cross-compatible.

3PP Interview: Richard Develyn, Four Dollar Dungeons

This week I'm interviewing Richard Develyn, the man behind the Four Dollar Dungeons product line. Thanks to Richard for sharing an inside view of his experiences in self-publishing!

Here's a link to the product page of the Four Dollar Dungeons. You can also follow Four Dollar Dungeons on facebook.

Interview: Marc Tassin & the World of Aetaltis Kickstarter

In my second Kickstarter interview, Marc Tassin discusses the World of Aetaltis: The Temple of Modren Kickstarter. There's three more days to go, so read on to learn more about it and go check out the official webpage.

Presentation about RPG Superstar @ Ropecon confirmed!

Earlier this spring, I sent a pitch about a presentation on RPG Superstar and RPG design to the organizers of Ropecon (Finland's biggest RPG convention). Today they sent me their approval.

I hope to meet many people there who are interested in the contest and RPG design. Two years ago when I gave a presentation about magic items and RPG Superstar, there were probably about 20 people in the audience. One of them made the top 32 after that. Twice. :-)

3PP Interview: Marc Radle, Kobold Press

This time I'm interviewing Marc Radle, Art Director at Kobold Press. Most of the people I interview in my blog have a writer/designer background, so I'm very delighted to get to interview him and hear about the RPG business from a different perspective. Not to mention, now that Kobold Press is designing the first two adventures for the new edition of D&D, Marc is no doubt in a uniquely interesting role in the partnership between Kobold Press and Wizards of the Coast. Read on to learn more about Kobold Press and Marc's work! 

Marc has also written a number of blog posts about monster art for dungeonmastering.com. Have a look at them as well. Here's one about a very classic D&D monster, the roper. 

Interview: Mike Myler & the Snow White Kickstarter

In my first Kickstarter interview I'm interviewing Mike Myler about the Snow White Kickstarter. It sounds pretty amazing, and judging by the promo pictures it's also going to look pretty fantastic. Read on to find out more about it!

And don't forget to check out the Snow White Kickstarter's Facebook page! If you like it, Like it! ;-)

3PP Interview: Frank Gori, the Flying Pincushion

My first third-party publisher interview is with the Flying Pincushion's publisher, Frank Gori. Read on to learn about the Flying Pincushion's inspiring story, open editing and reviewing approach, and more!

Loot & Experience, part IV: Designing scary, creepy monsters

The monster round was perhaps my favorite in this year's RPG Superstar, and I think it went rather well for me. The immured, an undead creature who died of slow suffocation, was generally liked for being "flavorful", "creepy", "scary", "evocative", "original" and "dark". There were some mechanical concerns, and there was no strong tie-in to Golarion, but its origin story, flavor and perhaps most notably the monster's usefulness in encounters was praised by the judges and voters alike.

I got a trifecta from the judges and 3rd place (out of 32) in exit votes, though of course the exit votes were just a small sample. Perhaps most interestingly, no other monster from round 2 was used in as many round 3 encounters as the immured. As many as three out of my 15 fellow contestants chose to use it, so I think it was seen as an interesting monster to build an encounter around.

In this installment of Loot & Experience, I'll revisit the monster and try to analyze what kind of things are useful for creating creepy, flavorful monsters.

LPJ's monster design contest

Check out Louis Porter Jr. Design's contest, deadline May 30th.

Interview with a Designer: Victoria Jaczko

This time I'm interviewing this year's RPG Superstar, Victoria Jaczko! My thanks to Victoria for taking the time to answer my questions. :-)

Broken Freelancers II top 8 announced!

I just heard that the top 8 finalists in Raging Swan's Broken Freelancers II contest have been announced. The top 8 includes many Blazing 9 regulars, which I think shows that practice makes perfect. :-) Congratulations to everyone who made the top 8! Here are the finalists:

Sellsword Special: Non-disclosure agreements

In my day job, I've been working under NDAs for nearly 10 years. The main reason for NDAs in my line of work is outsourcing/subcontracting/partnerships between companies. The client companies, which may be in IT, healthcare, telecommunications, military technology, and many other fields, outsource some functions to other companies so they can better focus on their core competencies.

With most customers, I don't have to sign a separate NDA because the company-level agreement already covers everything. Some customers, however, have much stricter policies, and they may require not only an NDA but also a background check.

In the RPG industry, it's also common to outsource work to freelancers. The work often involves confidential information, such as details about future products before the products have been released or even announced. This article discusses NDA both within and outside the RPG industry.

Loot & Experience part III: Making of House of the Serpent's Son map

In this article, I'll discuss the process of making the map for my round 3 entry in RPG Superstar 2014. While round 3 was by far the most stressful round, and a round full of self-doubt, in the end, the encounter took the round by storm.

This is not a tutorial or an advice article (though there are some design tips there too), but rather, a description of some parts of the process I went through while designing the encounter and location. 

Serpent's Stash, part V: Spellcracker's Tools

Here's a bonus post for this Saturday! I recently posted it in the Nine Blazing Months thread. Wink wink, check out the link on the right. -->

Serpent's Stash part IV: Fleshbinder

In 2011, I made the "top 36" in RPG Superstar, i.e. I was an alternate. Just like everyone in the top 32, the alternates also created archetypes and the judges commented on them. Around that time there were no official summoner archetypes, so any similarities between my entry and the synthesist archetype published later that year in Ultimate Magic are coincidental. Which archetype do you think is more balanced, this one or the official synthesist?

Sellsword, part I: March-April 2014

In this new series of articles, I'll discuss actual freelancing projects and other related things I've been up to. I'll probably be posting these updates rather randomly, whenever something new and interesting happens.

Upcoming updates

So, recently I've been slowing down the pace to just one post per week so I can keep up.

Here are some of the upcoming articles I've been planning and preparing (they won't be necessarily published in this order):