No gaming related material today (and no gaming, sadly, although I may set up my new Wii), just a quick note in celebration of Independence Day. Sad to say, very few holidays actually get me into the spirit of the day, but July 4th certainly does. I was reading essays on James Madison last night just after midnight, and I’m looking forward to a picnic and festivities later in the day. There won’t be any drinking at the picnic, just hopefully some great discussion about our country’s past. I find that July 4th is the one day of the year I’m truly able to forget whatever woes I may see in modern American culture and politics and just focus on what has and does make this country great.

New Address: http://thegamerdome.wetpaint.com/

Sorry for the confusion, but it’s a new project and so there are bound to be some bumps.

Wikidot turned out to just be too confusing and fiddly, with its custom formatting code and confusing navigation structure. A friend of mine happens to work for Wetpaint, a wiki startup in Seattle, so I decided to give it a shot. It’s great!

The editing tools look like a word processor (or blog), and the navigation system is *so* much better. To create a subpage, you just add a new page to whatever page you’re on and blam! The navigation sidebar shows it in the tree structure, and changing the order of things in the navigation is as easy as pie.

Also, in addition to a forum page, there is a forum-like thread structure for comments on individual pages…they remind me of blog comments.

Now, one big drawback is the lack of an auto-ToC (table of contents). This will really be glaring once we get a bunch of house rules and 4e to 3e conversion stuff in there, since in-page navigation will be limited. But, perhaps they’ll be adding that soon, and in the meantime it’s just so much cleaner and easier to use that I couldn’t help but switch.

I hope you’ll join us there!

I recently surpassed 50 posts (cheer!) after being online for a little over two months (man, it seems like longer!). There have been an influx of new readers lately, and so I thought I’d do a little intrasite speedlinking. These are the posts I feel like best represent what you can get out of subscribing to The Gamer Dome.

• I kicked the site off comparing fantasy adventure board games: Talisman, Runebound, and Descent.
• Then I gave a ton of 4e D&D product information live from the GAMA Trade Show. 4e/DDI/Gleemax Info, More 4e/DDM info, 4e Product Rundown. The product rundown is still quite useful if you’re not sure what’s coming out and when over the next year.
• I get my fair share if industry scoops, like this one about the Upper Deck layoffs, or the sad news of the passing of Robert Asprin.
• Lately I’ve been talking a lot about Dungeons & Dragons theory: Game Balance in D&D, Why Charisma?, and Getting Back to the Dungeon.
  
• I announced The Gamer Dome Wiki! This project is exciting and I’m hoping by the end of the year you’ll have joined us, added stuff, and helped make this a thriving community of amateur game designers!
• Heck, I even talk about personal projects, like my building 3D terrain for all of the maps in Keep on the Shadowfell! (Update coming soon, I promise.)

Have any favorite posts that didn’t make the list? Tell us in the comments!

And I hope that if you haven’t already subscribed to The Gamer Dome feed or bookmarked us, that some of these posts convince you it’s worth doing!

Things have really taken off since I launched the Gamer Dome Wiki last week! I launched with three projects, but now we’re up to six thanks to Rauthik (Thousand Mountains setting), Micco (Fallcrest Expansion - expanding the base setting in the 4e DMG), and Michael Phillips (Coverage - an alternate game to play with your chess set).

We’re up to 48 members! I consider this a pretty big acheivement, since as Yehuda pointed out, the registration process is a bit onerous.

We’re still dusting the place and moving the furniture around, so there’s time to jump in and leave your mark on how things are run at the Gamer Dome Wiki. I’m especially looking for people with experience at wiki syntax and collaboration.

There’s still a few days left to join up, prove your worth, and win the Talisman 2e board game or A Game of Thrones d20 book (or if neither of those suits you, we can see what else is in the goodie bag).

My fellow blogger, the Geek’s Dream Girl, is moving to Charlotte, North Carolina and she’s looking for a gaming group. If any of you Tar Heels have a lead for her, drop by her site and give her a shout.

I’d like to call out something from the last post (announcing The Gamer Dome Wiki)…namely, what to do to get a chance at some free games!

Community Game Design Spoils

Given the recent demise of The Spoils CCG, I figured I’d offer some of my own to kickstart the project. Of course, we all know that participation is its own reward.

I’m going to be rewarding members of the wiki regularly for both the quality and the quantity of their participation on the wiki, with the winners getting sweet gaming swag out of The Gamer Dome Swag Bag. What’s in the bag at any given time is always changing, but I’m sure that we’ll be able to find something in there for anyone that wins something.

The first giveaway starts immediately, and you must do three things to be eligible to win:

1. Subscribe to this site’s RSS Feed
2. Register at the Wiki
3. Make yourself known by posting in the Forums or contributing to one of the open projects.

I’m going to choose two winners, who will mud wrestle for the choice between a beautiful copy of the Talisman 2e board game and the d20 A Game of Thrones RPG, by Guardians of Order.

(If you want a leg up on the competition, get in early and invite people often. The site has a page where you can invite other people and make them your contacts. One of the prize-winners will be the person with the most contacts who have gone through the three steps above.)

The big day is here! Lots of people have been emailing me to ask what’s going on with the site, and especially when they’re going to be able to cash in on the free games I’ve been talking about. The answer is…now!

(NOTE: This is a long post. If you’re just here for the password or the contest info, scroll to the bottom, where you’ll also find my contact info.)

If you look up at the top right you’ll see a banner linking you to The Gamer Dome Wiki, the community design project I’ve been hinting at for what seems like months now. I’ll let the wiki speak for itself:

Alone, we’re just voices on a forum, but together we can recreate the gaming world in our image!
–Propagandroid

What are we doing here?

You are here to share your knowledge, enthusiasm, imagination, and skills with the gaming community at large. I’m here to facilitate and direct the design challenges that lay ahead of us.

What is here anyway?

This wiki is a shared design space and homebrew archive for roleplaying games, board games, card games, and collectible card and miniature games. Most of the projects will be community-driven, and I’ll have final say over inclusion and rules disputes; however, regular contributors have the opportunity to become admins themselves, and private development space may become available!

Some of the possibilities I’m envisioning include:

• Roleplaying Games: Community-built campaign settings; community-driven rules subsystems; a central depository for homebrew rules for all editions of D&D, as well as other games as we get interest from the community.
• Board Games: Community-contributed rule variants; unofficial expansions (I’d love to host some complete Runebound sets using the templates found here); links to files around the Web for various games.
• Card Games: Community-created custom cards; links to online resources and manufacturers.
• Collectible Games: Community-created projects like new sets for defunct games, links to content (especially links to content for dead games that may be hard to find). The fan-created sets for Dreamblade Miniatures on the WotC forums are a perfect example of this.

This site is also a bit of an experiment in multi-platform communication and development for hobby gamers. Those of you who follow my blog know that I agree with The DM when he says that hobby gamers are behind the times when it comes to online communication. I say that doesn’t have to be so. I’ve set up forums here on this wiki, and I’m going to be discussing our ongoing projects often at The Gamer Dome blog. I hope you’ll join me there to participate.

Positivity and Constructive Enthusiasm Are the Rule
I’m not going to post a long list of rules and such, as I don’t like them. But there is one thing that I’ll enforce above all else: positive feedback and forward progress are the keys to our success. Flames, negativity, and the users who bring them will be subject to immediate disintegration.

Open Projects
I am opening three projects to start this site off.

Cinematic Sands - A timer-based cinematic resolution system for use in roleplaying games.

Scourwind Valley - A drop-in campaign setting (a campaign set?) for use with a low-level campaign arc, or with E6.

4e House Rules Central - A 4e D&D houserule repository.

Other projects can be opened by request, and I’ll be inviting some scattered projects across the Web to join forces with us here to create a massive community of creators.

Click here to join The Gamer Dome Wiki!

Whew, there you have it! I have no doubt that new projects are going to spring up rather quickly, especially when you tell all your online gaming friends (hint hint) about this great new community. I’ve already got one pro-hopeful game designer interested in iterating his designs on the site, and I hope to get more. The best projects and contributions will be featured here on the blog. If you’d like to be a featured designer on the wiki, email me and let’s talk.

We Need People!

• System wonks
• Storyline writers
• Game designers
• Wiki experts
• Hobby game lovers of all kinds

If you’re thinking that there’s nothing there for you at the wiki, think again! All skillsets will be useful as long as you’re dedicated to helping out projects.
I know what you’re thinking by now: what about those free games you keep talking about?

Community Game Design Spoils

Given the recent demise of The Spoils CCG, I figured I’d offer some of my own to kickstart the project. Of course, we all know that participation is its own reward.

I’m going to be rewarding members of the wiki regularly for both the quality and the quantity of their participation on the wiki, with the winners getting sweet gaming swag out of The Gamer Dome Swag Bag. What’s in the bag at any given time is always changing, but I’m sure that we’ll be able to find something in there for anyone that wins something.

The first giveaway starts immediately, and you must do three things to be eligible to win:

1. Subscribe to this site’s RSS Feed
2. Register at the Wiki
3. Make yourself known by posting in the Forums or contributing to one of the open projects.

I’m going to choose two winners, who will mud wrestle for the choice between a beautiful copy of the Talisman 2e board game and the d20 A Game of Thrones RPG, by Guardians of Order.

(If you want a leg up on the competition, get in early and invite people often. The site has a page where you can invite other people and make them your contacts. One of the prize-winners will be the person with the most contacts who have gone through the three steps above.)

Ok, I hope you’re as hyped as I am about getting in on the ground floor of the next big gaming revolution on the Web. The last piece of information you’ll need is the password to join the wiki:

Wiki password: gamerkings. Register here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at thegamerdome@gmail.com, or post on the forums at the wiki.

See you on the other side!

Come on, you know you do, and starting tomorrow The Gamer Dome is the place to get them!

I’m not talking about some crappy cast-offs, either, I’m talking GURPS 4e, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, and a ton of other premium RPG titles.

What’s that, you say? You want to get your grubby little hands on that sweet Talisman 2e set I picked up a few weeks ago? Oh yeah, that’s on the chopping block as well!

Tuesday, May 27th…tomorrow…all will be explained, and the giving will begin!

Amateur designer? Committed DM? Board game house ruler?

Then be here on Tuesday, when the next chapter in the story of The Gamer Dome begins…

Site Update

First, sorry for the weird blank feed. Apparently creating a new Archives page triggers a feed. *rolleyes*

Second, I’ve put a new theme on the site! I also added Sexy Comments to make things a little better on that front (although xMark theme has pretty comments all by itself). So, sorry if things break over the next day or two, or if I’m missing some features. Rest assured I’m working to get them all back.