RPG Bloggers Anthology

The release date for Open Game Table: The Anthology of Role-Playing Game Blogs, Volume One was announced last week. I've been eager to see it since the project started rolling on The Core Mechanic. And even more excited because the majority of posts that I nominated made it into the book!

Sample bits, including the table of contents, are available on its Lulu product page, and a preview was just posted to Wired's GeekDad blog.

It might seem odd to collect blog postings into a printed book, but I think it's great. Much of the most creative work going on in the RPG world is happening on blogs -- not just those of the professionals, but normal players, too. It would be a shame for the best of this writing to get lost in the intertubes. Granted, I'm one of those people who love the printed page and the artistry of a well-designed book, so I'm going to enjoy reading these posts in convenient off-line paper format.

Also, since one of the intentions behind the project was to get exposure for the RPG blogging community's work out to those folks who might not know about it (the people who buy their gaming books at the store with no other real contact with the hobby-at-large), I really hope we see this in the distribution chain and on store shelves.

My stack of partially-read books

Recently I've had a few people ask me what I've been reading. I haven't been able to give a straight answer. Much of the reading that I have done lately has been gaming-related, for the Freeport campaign -- rulebooks and sourcebooks -- but I've also tried to read some "real world" books.

We've been so busy and scattered around here lately that I find myself in a very unusual position. I'll pick up a book and start reading, then a real-life problem distracts me and I don't get back to it right away. When I get back to reading, another book attracts my attention and I start on the new one. It seems like a bibliophile's particular form of ADD.

At one point in the last couple of months, I've found myself somewhere in all the following books:

• World War Z by Max Brooks (which is returning back home soon, E.)
• The Nature of "a Work": Implications for the Organization of Knowledge by Richard P. Smiraglia
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
• Flying the Black Flag: A Brief History of Piracy by Alfred S. Bradford
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters by William Tsutsui
• The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe (I plan to review this soon)
• Watchmen trade paperback
• Shadows over Baker Street

That's only a sample of the to-be-read stack. I don't want to think about the DVD pile...

Speaking of Watchmen, here is a comparison between Watchmen and The Incredibles by Baltimore Sun movie critic Michael Sragow.