This Week: Aesthetics, Funding, Vampires, and Kobolds!

Welcome to This Week, a weekly series where I discuss all the gaming (both video and tabletop) content I've played, made, prepped, run and seen that's cool this week.

Let's jump in with what I've done This Week...

What I've Made

Well, as you can probably see (unless you're on mobile, in which case, not yet) there has been a significant visual overhaul of versamus! This is being done for several reasons: to celebrate reaching 50,000 views, to homogenise my online presence, and to give my mailing list somewhere to go (sadly, the old layout I was using was very limited in add-ons).

(Image from William McAusland, used with permission.)

I'm going to be doing some work with a few artist friends of mine to make everything even better - getting a new favicon, maybe a logo, who knows? But this whole process has resulted in me re-learning CSS which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that I can once more do this sort of thing, and curse in that I'm now spending too much time doing this sort of thing...

Anyway, as I mentioned, I have now set up a mailing list! The mailing list at present will send you out a copy of each article posted, in case you missed it being posted, and will later send out some extra goodies... But more on that later!

(Image from Blackpowder & Bloodlines.)

This week also saw the IndieGoGo for Blackpowder & Bloodlines, the LARP I've been writing with an amazing team of friends, hit 100% funding! That means our basic plans are all going to go ahead, full steam. We still have a lot more we want to do, so if you like late- / post-Renaissance Age-of-Sail LARP, and you're in or around Melbourne, check us out!

To build upon this, on Friday night the team got together and did a whisky and rules session. Basically, we drank a lot, and argued well into the morning of the next day. We made some amazing progress, and I had more fun than I have in a long time. Hopefully, in the near future, I can show you what we've done.

What I've Run

Whilst I haven't run it yet, this evening I will be doing a character creation and "session #0" for a new Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign: the Curse of Strahd. I wasn't planning on running more D&D yet, or perhaps ever, after Ameshirel: A World Undone, but the lack of GMing was getting to me... So I started this up with some very enthusiastic players!

(Image from Wizards of the Coast.)

I intend to share what we do, and how it goes via a Trello that I will set up. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.

What I've Seen

A colleague of mine at EA Firemonkeys (click the link to check out our awesome new office!) lent me a print copy of the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, so I've been getting stuck into it. If you're unfamiliar with Kobold Press's Guide to series, you should really check them out. Each one is filled with essays and articles by some pretty big names in game design, roleplaying games, and writing in general. My personal favourite is the Guide to Worldbuilding, which is a frequently used tome on my digital shelf.

(Image from Kobold Press. Just look at this cute little guy...)

Whilst I'm not really in the habit of making board games, the lessons taught in the Guide to Board Game Design are widely applicable, and I'll be using much of that advice as I ramp up design on Do or Dice!

That's all for This Week this week. I'll talk to you next week, and tell you of all my adventures again! In the mean time, fill your own week with as much awesome as possible.