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As part of our effort to improve our ability to relate with others outside the XDM community, we offer the following educational and instructional film:

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Wizards of the Coast recently announced they would be producing D&D 5th Edition — or, as I prefer to call it, the NEW, New Coke for the Pepsi Generation. There have been a flurry of suggestions that they could save them selves the expense and trouble by simply basing the new version on the XDM XD20 system. We think that might be a better alternative considering this prophetic video…

Which is why we are now planning a special announcement at GENCON 2012!

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I’ve been playing games most of my life. From my childhood, my father and mother often would sit my brother and I down at the table in our family room or in our kitchen and break out the family board games and, somehow, it taught us about life. Of course, in once case it LITERALLY taught us about life because that was the game in 1966 that we got for Christmas. It taught us that we could be anything we wanted to be in LIFE — as long as we realized that our basic choice was between college and obscurity, that we were required to stop and get married (collect presents) and that whether we were a winner or not depended entirely on the size of our bank account.

This view, of course, was reinforced by that other family classic, Monopoly. There I learned not only that winning meant having the biggest pile of cash but that I had to crush everyone else into bankruptcy in order to achieve my win. This, in part, may explain the bizarre and repressive economic situation in which so much of the industrialized world finds itself today: too much believe that the Monopoly game was a model for success in life.

Nevertheless, that was how I was raised … which led me eventually to play, as so many of us did, the game called ‘Risk.’ This game taught me such basic principles as (1) you need to secure your boarders and (2) never start a land war in Asia (thank you  Vizzini) and (3) trying to maintain armies scattered all over the world was a sure way of losing them. I also learned that if you wanted to pretend you were the United States in the game you had better take over ALL of North America — including Greenland and especially Mexico/Central America. It is a bit unsettling to me as a game-player that the leaders of the United States have failed in every one of these lessons although I suspect we could take Greenland in a pinch.

It was recently announced by President Obama while in Australia (easily defensible on a Risk board, I would point out) that the United States was going to station a force in Australia to counter the threat of China. China? And, yes, my first thought was ‘Hasn’t he ever played a game of Risk? … or at least seen ‘The Princess Bride?’

In the mid-1980′s we played a ‘Risk-with-nukes’ game called ‘Supremacy’ by Robert J. Simpson and his group. This had a wonderful economic/market component for purchasing resources and, yes, little black plastic mushroom clouds in case things got out of hand. It was of particular interest to me that whenever anyone in that game developed ‘L-stars’ (the game equivalent of Starwars anti-ICBM systems) in the game, the likelihood of someone starting to lob nukes at the other guy actually INCREASED … and things quickly got out of hand.

All the games I played in my youth were highly competitive and reflected competitive ideals in the world of the United States in the last century. Laura and I both loved games and raised our own children playing them. However, we also recognized as we played them that the games were, indeed, teaching our children as they had taught us. This engendered a number of ‘house rules’ regarding all games in our Hickman House which we pass on to you now:

1. How many players will lose the game? We always asked this question at the beginning of the game. Everyone thinks about winning but no one thinks about the fact that for every winner at Monopoly there are going to be an equal to or, more likely, larger number of losers in the game. We like to remind everyone right up front that there can ONLY be ONE winner in Monopoly, Risk, and Milton-Bradley’s version of ‘Life.’
2. The Winner of the Game Cleans it up and puts it away: This proved to be the single most important rule we established in our household. The winner has the satisfaction of having been victorious — but then they have to deal with the mess created in their victory. The ‘losers’ of the game — the rest of us — may not have won the day BUT we are then all allowed to get up from the table and walk away from the mess saying, ‘Hey, at least we didn’t have to put that game away!’ And, in my household at least, you had better put the game away in good order! My children were raised on epic, hours long games of Talisman and when you were finished all those pieces had better be put away properly.

The games we play shape our lives. For both Laura and I, they are some of the clearest memories we have of being with family around a board game on holidays. We even designed our own holiday board game called ‘Santa’s Sleigh Ride‘ just so we could recapture those memories we carry from our childhood and pass on new memories to our children and grandchildren. Visit our little website there and download the demo game for free so you can make a few memories of your own.

I have often thought that it might be a good idea to require people who are nominated for public office to play a competitive game of ‘SimCity’ or ‘Civilization IV’ just so we could see how they would do under test conditions so that we could properly evaluate their performance BEFORE entrusting them with real armies, navies and economies. In more recent years, games have gotten much better at dealing with cooperation rather than competition. One of our favorite games in our household today is ‘Forbidden Island’ which is the best designed cooperative game I’ve ever played.

Maybe our politicians should play that one, too. There’s nothing like having an island sinking out from under you to motivate a little political accord.

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I have been sitting in my own version of the batcave (my office) for the last two weeks beating my fingers against the keyboard and my head against the monitor as I followed Batman through the subterranean bowls of Gotham in our modern day and his father’s own dark journeys through the Gotham of 1958. Then last Friday evening about 9:30 local time, I called Laura down to my office, had her sit in my office chair and type the words ‘The End’ on the manuscript. It was the final ritual end to the journey of this book — at least until I get editorial notes back.

Interestingly, I awoke at 2am the next morning, my mind in a fever of activity regarding the book that I had just finished. I had to tell myself that the book was complete and that I should just lie back down and go to sleep.

It was difficult to do because I’ve been living so deeply in Gotham for so long now. I’ve tried to see the world through the eyes of Bruce Wayne and that perspective, I can tell you from experience, is a very strange one. More than that, there was a tight-rope to be walked on this journey unlike any I have had to walk before.

Usually the characters in my novels spring from my own mind and experience. They are shaped by the story that is being told and the world from which they come. This is a process which is familiar to me — albeit not always comfortable.

But with Batman, I had been entrusted with an ICON. Here was a character whose story people all around the globe seem to know. I have to say SEEM to know because his own history over the last fifty years has changed so many times that establishing any consistent background requires considerable mental gymnastics.

More than that, came the problem of writing something that ‘was the same … except different.’ What is a ‘batman’ novel? Well, it has to have the Caped Crusader in it, of course, and all the familiar trappings of ‘batmobiles’, ‘utility belts’, batcaves, stately Wayne Manor, supervillains, Alfred and Commissioner Gordon. But if it ONLY contains those familiar things and says nothing new or interestingly different about Bruce Wayne and the world of Gotham City then it isn’t particularly interesting. No one wants to read what they already know. On the other hand, if the world of Batman is so drastically altered that it breaks the ‘trust’ with the audience to provide them with a story about the Batman they know — then no one wants to read THAT either.

So for the last few months I’ve been walking a tight rope trying to find the delicate balance between homage and derivative. It’s the difference between shedding new light on the legend and ruining it.

So in the course of my journey I’ve met a pantheon of characters and had to give voice to each of them. They ranged from the obscure to the infamous — Commissioner Gordon, Lewis Moxon, his father Julius and his daughter Mallory, Query, Echo, Fay Moffit and Scarface, Harley Quinn, Alfred, Joker, Thomas Wayne, Martha Kane, Denholm Sinclair and Celia Kazansakis. All of them from the past and the present woven into a seamless story of fate, destiny and choice.

My hope is that I’ve achieve ‘homage’ — especially to all those great talents down the last fifty years that have contributed each in their way to the vision of a man driven to use any means to achieve justice for those who cannot find it for themselves.

Take a look for yourself in the sample chapters I’ve just posted for our Tracy Hickman newsletter subscribers … and let me know in our forums how you think I’ve done.

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James Stowe is a a full-time (and freelance) illustrator, husband and father of two who has produced RPG fantasy and horror illustrations for over 10 years now with more than 100 published works.

On his blog, he posted the following FANTASTIC piece including his AMAZING character sheets:

For my son’s 8th birthday party he convinced me to run Dungeons and Dragons for four 2nd graders… I decided to take actual characters made in the DND Insider and simplify them us that the boys could have fun without much of a learning curve. Here are the six characters I made from scratch for the game. I am happy to report it was a huge success, each boy had a fantastic time… and so did I. I would happily do it again.

We happen to think that James has demonstrated the true spirit of an XDM. Visit his blog and see all the wonderful character sheets he created for the game. We think you’ll enjoy them as much as we did!

From my good friends at Dead Gentlemen Productions …
something to which we can all singalong!

Could this be the next XDM franchise opportunity? I think NOT!

As we are gearing up for the launch of our Scribe’s Forge Online Writing Seminars and Workshops, we wanted to share a small, sneak-peek piece of the first video seminar in our six-week series. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into our secret seminars, where you create the next great story … and we provide the tools to forge it’s reality.

Join us at Scribesforge.com!

We all want to know the answer to the question that was posed by Douglas Adams in his wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide and perhaps we may get a glimpse into that this weekend when I attend ‘Life, the Universe and Everything 29′ behind held at the BYU Conference Center at BYU in Provo, Utah starting today and running through Saturday (February 17th – 19th, 2011). I’ll be joining again with friends including James Dashner, Dave Farland, Jessica Day George, Stacy Whitman and Lisa Mangum. Howard Tayler, our partner in crime for XDM: Xtreme Dungeon Mastery will, of course, also be attending — we having first met at this conference some years ago.

The events in which Tracy will be participation are as follows. Howard will be in some of these same events … and I trust will post his own schedule in the associated forums if he has time — since he is already AT the conference:

Friday, February 18th, 2011

10:00 AM: – Deconstructing Hobbits: An exploration of the four foundational through-lines of plot and their relationship to character archetypes, as revealed in the Lord of the Rings — and how those principles can be applied to your own writing. (Tracy Hickman)

Noon: -Charisma is not a dump stat: The real world importance of personal appearance and social skills in achieving your creative dreams. (Howard Tayler, Jake Black (M), Tracy Hickman)

2:00 PM: – Characters’ morals/theology vs. authors’ (Aleta Clegg (M), Hickman, Brad R. Torgersen, James Dashner)

3:00 PM: – Collaboration (Blake Casselman (M), Brian Hailes, Jake Black, Tracy Hickman)

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

9:00 AM: – Killer Breakfast (Tracy Hickman)

11:00 AM: Main Address: James Dashner

Noon: Signings in 1188: Jake Black, Larry Correia, David Farland, Paul Genesse, Tracy Hickman, Dan Wells

1:00 PM: – Writing Excuses Podcast (Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, Dave Wolverton, Tracy Hickman)

4:00 PM: Why write about worlds that don’t exist? (Michael R. Collings, James Dashner (M), Tracy Hickman, Michael Young)

If ’42′ just isn’t enough of an answer for you … come join us!

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The Grand Masters are looking for a few good men (or women or ‘gamers’…)

If you are going to be attending the Gencon Game Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana this year and want to save cash to buy more interesting things than your convention pass, you might consider participating in an official XDM Killer Breakfast gaming tournament!

Here’s how it works: Tracy Hickman personally will be organizing this event. You, as the Gencon-attending XDM will run six games (three 2-hour games on Thursday and three 2-hour games on Friday) for eight players each. You will then choose from your group one (or more) participants whose cleverness, XDM savvy, quick thinking and entertainment value, in your sole judgment, exemplifies the ideals of Killer Breakfast gaming and turn in those names to me at the booth. Winners in each of your games will be given awarded a free-pass to the next Killer Breakfast and guaranteed a place onstage during the game!

For your noble sacrifice of six hours on Thursday and Friday, you will be awarded a free GM pass to the convention AND as a special bonus a pass to the Killer Breakfast of your choice.

The number of XDMs we select will determine the number of tournament rounds we post. Interested XDMs should respond through the forum discussion on this offer.