Mad Brew Labs

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I voted, have you?

The 2010 ENnies Awards at GenCon should be called the Year of Pathfinder. While the very awesome Year of the Shadow Lodge event was taking place at Pathfinder Society, Paizo took home 12 awards (10 Gold and 2 Silver and totally swept the Best Monster/Adversary category) and non-Paizo Pathfinder related products took earned Pathfinder another 3 (KW, City Guide, & d20PFSRD) awards for a total of 14 Gold and 3 Silver ENnies! In fact, only a single product from Paizo, Campaign Coins, didn’t place.

The ENnies began with a special a Special Recognition Award to DTRPG for their efforts raising money for Haitian relief… which really recognizes the charity of all the gamers that bought the Haiti Bundle that allowed DriveThru to donate to the cause.

The following is the list of award winners. I’ve bolded winners that matched my picks, but congratulations to all the winners!

Fan’s Choice Best Publisher

Gold Paizo Publishing

Silver Fantasy Flight Games

Product of the Year

Gold Pathfinder

Silver Eclipse Phase

Best Game

Gold Pathfinder

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition

Best Supplement

Gold Mysteries of the Hollow Earth

Silver Player’s Handbook 3

Best Setting

Gold Day After Ragnarok

Silver Rome: Life & Death in the Republic

Best Monster/Adversary

Gold Pathfinder Bestiary

Silver Pathfinders Classic Monsters Revisited

Best Adventure

Gold Pathfinder Adventure Path #31: Stolen Land

Silver Trail of Cthulhu:  The Armitage Files

Best Regalia

Gold Cthulhu 101

Silver Battletech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction

Best Miniatures Product

Gold D&D Minis

Silver Gaming Paper

Best Aid/Accessory

Gold Pathfinder GM Screen

Silver Gaming Paper

Best Electronic Book

Gold The Great City Player’s Guide

Silver Pathfinder Society #29:The Devil We Know, Part 1: Shipyard Rats

Best Free Product

Gold Advanced Player’s Guide Playtest

Silver Lady Blackbird

Best Rules

Gold Diaspora

Silver Hero 6th Edition

Best Writing

Gold Eclipse Phase

Silver Victoriana 2nd Edition

Best Production Values

Gold Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary

Best Cartography

Gold Pathfinder City Map Folio

Silver Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing

Best Interior Art

Gold Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary

Best Cover Art

Gold Pathfinder Bestiary

Silver Eclipse Phase

Best Blog

Gold Kobold Quarterly

Silver Gnome Stew

Best Podcast

Gold Atomic Array

Silver All Games Considered

Best Website

Gold Obsidian Portal

Silver d20pfsrd.com

Listening to: Fear Factory – Obsolete – Edgecrusher

Blue Yonder Podcast

Blue Yonder is a podcast concerning general geekery like Star Wars/Trek, sci-fi/action movies, and general gaming. Wednesday, their 22^nd episode went live and it features an interview with me, where I talk about RPGs and Gen Con.

I did get some information wrong, due to not having it not readily available to me and speaking from memory (which mine can be rather hazy) and gut feeling. I’d like to clarify that GenCon didn’t come to Indy until 2003 and it’s I6 Ravenloft (not I9, which is Day of Al’Akbar). Most of anything else is just my opinion of whatever topic we’re discussing, so don’t take it as gospel truth.

Besides the interview with me, the guys at Blue Yonder have another cast focusing exclusively on Roleplaying Games. I’m also providing a list of their other episodes which many readers might find interesting too:

• 22: Interview with Mad Brew Labs
• 21: Inception
• 20: Game Collecting
• 19: RPGs
• 18: Ultimate Geek House
• 17: Geek Babes Draft
• 16: FPS
• 15: Massively Multiplayer
• 14: Practical Jokes
• 13: Madden ‘84
• 12: Geek Colorblindness
• 11: Iron Man 2
• 10: Wars vs. Trek, Part 2
• 09: Zombie Draft
• 08: Wars vs. Trek, Part 1
• 07: Gaming Ethics
• 06: Geek Bliss
• 05: Bad Asses
• 04: PAX East, Part 3
• 03: PAX East, Part 2
• 02: PAX East, Part 1
• 01: Geekdom

Listening to: Kingdom of Sorrow – Behind the Blackest Tears – God’s Law in the Devil’s Lan

I voted, have you?

This year’s ENnies Awards are now open for voting! Below are my picks (second place entries in parentheses) and some commentary.

1. Best Cover Art – Rogue Trader Core Rulebook (Eclipse Phase)
   This year, I think the Sci-Fi settings had the best cover art, hands down.
2. Best Interior Art – Rogue Trader Core Rulebook (Warhammer FRPG)
   The dark gritty art of the Warhammer universe continues its legacy of powerful imagery.
3. Best Cartography – Pathfinder City Map Folio (Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing)
   I want big poster sized maps of Golarion. Paizo has some excellent cartographers.
4. Best Writing – Kerberos Club (Fantasy Craft)
   I have a really big soft spot for Victorian fantasy…
5. Best Production Values – Pathfinder Core Rulebook (Eclipse Phase)
   PFRPG is really top notch work, which seems to be a hallmark of Paizo products.
6. Best Rules – Hero 6^{th
   I’m a huge fan of crunch, and it doesn’t get more crunchy than Hero.}
7. Best Adventure – Pathfinder AP #31: Stolen Land (The Grinding Gear)
   Both of these are old school style adventures. Kingmaker marks the first sandbox style Adventure Path.
8. Best Monster/Adversary – Pathfinder: Classic Horrors Revisited (Pathfinder Bestiary)
   When it comes to baddies, the classic horrors don’t disappoint.
9. Best Setting – Kerberos Club (Gobling Markets)
   Remember that soft spot for Victorian fantasy?
10. Best Supplement – Rebellion Era Campaign Guide (Mysteries of Hollow Earth)
    The Star Wars SAGA went out with a bang when they released the sourcebook for the classic trilogy.
11. Best Aid or Accessory – Campaign Coins (Gaming Paper)
    I covet those coins, don’t know what I’d really do with them, but they’re shiny!
12. Best Miniature Product – Alkemy Minis (Fortress of Redemption)
    The Alkemy minis have some excellent sculpts.
13. Best Regalia – Grind (Buried Tales of Pine Box, Texas)
    A board game of steam-powered destruction!
14. Best Electronic Book – Shambles (The Great City Player’s Guide)
    It’s about time a game embraced being the zombie!
15. Best Free Product – Wayfinder #1 (Advanced Players Guide Playtest)
    Wayfinder is an excellent magazine made by PFRPG fans.
16. Best Website – d20PFSRD.com (Pathfinder Wiki)
    These sites have been essential for my PFRPG gaming needs.
17. Best Podcast – NewbieDM (Open Design)
    I think Newbie has a great format with his short mini-casts.
18. Best Blog – Kobold Quarterly (NewbieDM)
    KQ churns out a lot content, that I’ve actually used.
19. Best Game – Pathfinder (Hero 6^th)
    I think the combination of solid rules and great fan support from Paizo make PFRPG the best game.
20. Product of the Year – Pathfinder (Eclipse Phase)
    I’ve said enough about PFRPG, but Eclipse Phase is a close second because of how they published their rules.
21. Best Publisher – Paizo (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
    Paizo has captured many a fan’s heart through their dedication to their player base.

Congratulations to all the nominees and good luck in the voting.

I wanted to take a moment to look at how I collect and collate news and information about the tabletop roleplaying hobby. My target audience is those that have just plugged into the online element of the hobby, but I might even be able to show the old geezers who have been doing this since BBS ^[1] a new trick. It might be especially useful to new bloggers as staying abreast of the latest and greatest will either allow you to be a leader or at least abstain from contributing to the echo chamber ^[2].

Mad Brew's iGoogle

Tabbed Browsing

I don’t know if many people aren’t using a tabbed browser, unless you use an old version of Internet Explorer (and if you do, get a frillin’ update). I just happen to have a dual monitor set-up, so I keep a browser nearly maximized on one of the screens. I usually have anywhere between two to four tabs opened in that browser (#1 in the image).

The primary tab is my iGoogle home page, which I’ll cover in depth next. The other tabs tend to be aggregator sites that I don’t really want cluttering iGoogle all the time. I suppose I could add them to a separate iGoogle tab, but these work for me just fine. Some examples sites that you might find useful include:

• Role Play Media Network
• RPG Bloggers Network
• Savage Bloggers Network
• 4e Bloggers Network
• Reddit RPG
• Delicious RPG Tag
• Google News
• EN World
• RPG Site

iGoogle

If I’m married to Microsoft, Google is my mistress and I think their “web 2.0” homepage is the bee’s knees. What is exactly is iGoogle you ask? Well, it’s a customizable homepage that you can add widgets (Google calls them gadgets) that retrieve information and interacts with other web services. It also loads Google Chat just as if you were in Gmail.

As you can see from the screenshot of my iGoogle page (residing in Chrome, which I highly recommend), it is customizable. You could create your own theme if you wanted, but I’m using the official Dungeons & Dragons theme. I’m not sure if you can make the header any thinner, but I’d prefer information to eye candy.

You can create numerous tabs within iGoogle (to the left of #2 in the image, this is my “Networks” tab) and fill them with the gadgets of your choice. On my iGoogle set up, I have a Google Group gadget where I can keep tabs on new messages in the mailing lists I subscribe too (I dislike cluttering email with group messages).

Below Google Groups is my Gmail gadget (#3). It displays the 5 latest emails. Below Gmail is my Facebook Gadget (#4), which is basically an iframe of the mobile FB site. Again, I like to keep the inbox clutter free, so I don’t allow a lot of email traffic from Facebook. This gadget also lets me see updates from RPG related pages I have fanned and updates from friends involved in the industry.

In the right hand column I have my Google Reader gadget (#5) which allows me to follow my favorite blogs (not necessarily RPG related). You may have noticed I use browser tabs to visit feed aggregators instead of subscribing to them. I find that is the best method to keep a high signal-to-noise ratio of relevant information in my feeds. I sort of browse the aggregators to see if anything catches my eye from time to time (and to make sure I’m not contributing to the echo chamber).

The final piece of my iGoogle experience is TwitterGadget (#6). It’s an excellent Twitter client, and while it doesn’t support fancy crap like grouping my connections, it is still feature rich. I utilize Twitter more and more every day as a source of news and information. Twitter excels as an information broker.

Conclusion

I highly recommend iGoogle to organize your information sources, and I totally encourage you to find new gadgets that get the job done better than the ones I have (been awhile since I set up my iGoogle page). In fact, if you’re code savvy, try your hand at making one.

I also welcome readers and fellow bloggers to share your own methods of hunting and gathering information. Post your tips in the comments or write your own articles and post a link here.

References

[1] A precursor to the World Wide Web. Go read the Wikipedia entry.

[2] This happens when you have multiple sites reporting the same tired crap.

Listening to: Dr. Steel – People of Earth – Atomic Superstar

Open Game Table Participant

I’m proud to be able to announce that Mad Brew Labs will be appearing in the second volume of the Open Game Table, along with 32 other blogs. The Labs also participated in the ignagural edition of the OGT last year. Being honored twice in row is astonishing to me because not only were there far more nominated blog posts this year, I actually had TWO articles make the cut!

• Villainous Vivisection
• Gamer Elitism

I actually nominated a couple of posts myself, but neither of these were the ones I submitted. That’s really cool since I that means I had at least one fan nominate me. So thanks anonymous fan(s)!

I’d like to thank Jonathan for being insane enough to continue the hard work he started last year when decided to jump into publishing with nary a clue of what it entailed. His experience with OGT is certainly a benefit for our shared endeavor, Nevermet Press (shameless plug: if you’re not subscribing to the NMP RSS Feed, Twitter account, or a fan of our Facebook page, you SHOULD be).

I would also like to thank all the participating artists, reviewers, and editors for the work do doubt most of them are doing for nothing more than pleasure of helping the OGT become a tradition in the RPG Blogosphere.

Call for Artists

If you’re an artist looking for some exposure, Jonathan is looking for artists to help illustrate the Open Game Table Volume 2.

Other Nominees

I would like to recognize all the fine articles that were nominated this year. I know that 375 posts made it very hard for the editors to narrow it down to the final selection.

Disclosure

I should note that while I was a reviewer for the Open Game Table, Jonathan’s process keeps people from reviewing their own stuff and other than Jonathan, nobody knows who the other reviewers are until the process is finished. And from the caliber of many of the posts I reviewed, it makes it that much more significant to me that Mad Brew Labs was selected to be included.