My 200th post, on delves and a D&D love letter

So, I’ve decided what to do with the downloadable delves idea.  I think I’m going to host them right on my site, with the following restrictions:

• No WOTC art.
• No WOTC monster stat blocks from books. A created stat block from the Monster Builder is okay, unless I’m told otherwise.
• Thumbnail images of maps created with tiles are okay, as long as they are of a low resolution, ans serve to describe what tiles are needed.
• Has to be for 4e D&D.

Obviously, original monsters and maps are preferred and encouraged. I will host the delves here, as long as they are on pdf format. It will have to be a fully playable  3 encounter delve in order to be part of the archive.  You must also include in the email a description of the delve along with the level it’s meant to be for.

I’m sure I’ll post a more detailed article soon, but for now put on your thinking caps and think about what you’d like to contribute.  There were many great ideas thrown around by you guys in the last article, but ultimately, I decided to host these on my site, rather than on an external one, primarily because of the nature of my website’s target audience, new dm’s.  More details will soon follow, and there are some of you that have chimed in that will be hearing from me, as I may need help with the project.

Now… on to a more pressing matter, and one that has my interest at a fever pitch.  I’ve been wrecking my head trying to figure out how to announce this other project I want to work on without giving much away, and it is incredibly difficult.  It’s one of those situations where you either announce the whole thing and gather major interest for it, or you hold it close to your vest and hope for the best.  My fears being that someone would take my idea and run with it on their own, along with killing the surprise of it if it were to come to fruition.  But I guess I’m only going to get a major response if I make it public, so here goes nothing.  I spoke about this via my twitter account recently, but haven’t made it public via the site.  A few people actually know what the project is, and right now I think I have some people on board.

I work as a television producer when I’m not a huge nerd.  I’ve been in the industry for about 14 years now, and I’ve produced countless hours of live TV, taped TV, and everything in between.  The other day I had an idea, I wanted to create a documentary called “The State of the Game” where I would get interviews and footage of people playing D&D, talk to the gamers, DM’s, store owners, to sort of get a feel as to where the game is right now almost 40 years after its creation.  I put out a call on twitter asking my followers where they were from, to see if I had enough followers in enough states to ask for volunteers, and the response was fairly large.  But then, international people starting chiming in, and I stopped and though about that for a bit.

That night I spoke to my friend Daniel Perez, he runs the Highmoon Media website, along with the Gamer Traveler podcast.  He’s also here in Miami, where I am.  He gave me an idea that just seemed perfect, make the documentary about how people play D&D around the world.  Nobody has ever done that.  He was right, forget the state of the game.  Let’s make a documentary celebrating D&D around the world, together, a true global effort.

Here’s what I’m proposing:  If you are interested, and can handle a video camera better than the average folk, shoot yourselves while playing D&D.  Sit down and interview a DM you know and ask him how he got in the game, and why.  Let’s do a really collaborative love letter to D&D. A movie shot by the global D&D community. Only have video on your phone? Send it my way, I’ll figure out how to make it work. Guerilla film making by gamers from around the world.  I want to hear stories, what got you into gaming? Were you the social outcast, or are those dumb baseless stereotypes?

The idea is for you who are reading this and are interested, to volunteer as a freelance cameraman for the project, find your subjects, shoot them, shoot interviews, and get me the material.  I’ll produce, edit and put it together here.  There will be some legal issues involved, like for example, me not wanting minors in the film, and making sure everyone involved signed a release to appear on tape, but I’ll take care of these things in a future post.  Right now I just want to gauge interest in the project, then I’ll move from there.

Also, note that the idea is for this to not be a financially motivated project, so don’t expect and money for it.  I know I’m not expecting any money from it,  so neither should you.  My plan is to hopefully debut it at Gencon next year, if at all possible, along with obviously debuting it online as well.

So there you go, if you have been following me on twitter, that’s my secret plan.  A love letter to D&D on film, where gamers from around the globe tell us in their language, and with their groups, why and how they became gamers.  Created by the community, for the community.  This was called  “staggering in scope and both fundamentally genius and stupid.”  by a certain chatty dm who shall remain nameless. He gave me great criticism and insight, and it will be taken into account, nameless chatty dm.  😉

I want to prove to him that it can be done, and I look forward to reading reactions to this.

And so that closes my 200th post.  It’s been real fun running this site, and I can’t believe it’s been 200 posts already.  It started off as a way for me to learn wordpress, and it’s become a real big thing for me.  When I got back into D&D with 4e, I never expected to ever be featured in the WOTC home page, have countless numbers of new dm’s emailing me thanking me for what I guess has been a job well done, or be linked to from countless sites and message boards out there on the web.  Thank you guys for making this blog worthwhile for me, I truly, truly mean that.