Goodman Games DCC rpg is up for Free Beta test

You can get the free open Beta here

I have downloaded the Dungeon Crawl Classic Beta from Goodman games and am reading through it. Its interesting thus far but I'll have more to say later, likely on the Goodman Games forum as much as here.

A Great Gaming Quote for D&D

From Old Geezer, one of the original Gygaxian players and whose real name escapes me, from over on Big Purple. Paraphrased very slightly

Abstraction, is the font of realism.

For D&D this perfectly suitable and true. Better armor is more effective, more skilled people are harder to kill (more HP) , better weapons are better at killing, combat is sometimes random.

Its not a reality simulation but it provides perfectly playable results that are not that far off from the haphazard nature of a real fight.

This is why I think that despite tons of excellent more "realistic" systems D&D endures. Its good enough and its fun, and thats plenty.

Send Me You Poor, Your cool Your Huddled Products Yearning to Be Seen

This is an open promotion call for freebie games for any edition of D&D, any retro clone and anything else that you think the readers of a blog thats mostly about Pathfinder and the OSR might like.

If you have something you think someone might like and you think is not getting enough attention, reply to this thread and send me the link.

After I get enough cool links, I'll post them all in one big post. If I really get enough I'll tweak the page to show em.

So hows that for you? Free adds for free products.

The only rules are

#1 The promoted download needs to be free and legal (obviously)

#2 I get to decide what is interesting enough to be posted

Beyond that. Post away

Dr Kromm on how to Make Money Writing Games

Dr. Kromm is of course Sean Punch, the line editor for GURPS one of my favorite games. With 15 years of game experience the man knows what he is talking about .

When the question came up (on Big Purple again) about making money in game writing Dr. Kromm answered with this bit of wisdom.

The way for publishers to make a buck in 2010 is to offer fair royalties to writers, not to stint on editing, and to keep everything in print perpetually as PDF. The way for writers to make a buck in 2010 is to work quickly and efficiently so that their hourly rate (the measure used by everybody else in the world) is fair; they can improve their lot greatly in this regard by accepting that they're technical writers and learning their publisher's style.

Since its a two man shop here the 1st point doesn't apply to us of course but the rest of the points especially the part about us being technical writers are very important.

We are not creative writers making fluff nearly as often as we are technical writers. The works I sold to SJG some time ago were by some standards antiseptically dry and crunchy as pea gravel but they sold, were read and decently rated.Its what people want and we had best give it to them.

Our goal here at 5stone is more than that . Its also to make stuff you can actually use in your games. Not theoretical books or coffee table books, but stuff that gets played an enjoyed at your table. I believe that if we give you what you can use, you'' come back and support our endeavor with you scare gaming dollars.

And if we don't? We deserve to fail.