James Wallis @jameswallis@dice.camp

I'm blown away by your positive response to These Are Animals. I've now given it a permanent home as a free download on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, which also means there's a space for reviews and comments--which I would welcome. It's here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/244973/These-are-animals

You remember that 200-word RPG I wrote for a competition last month, 'These are animals', about being a kid taken away from their mother by officialdom?

Hundreds of shares on social media.

No comments from the judges.

Didn't make the final 50.

There's more information about the nominees and the award in the full press release, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CbtKTggoqbc61G2I7g3xRsLn1gTQDIdoJTDlQf-co3Q/edit?usp=sharing

The committee of the Diana Jones Award has announced its five shortlisted nominees for 2018, 'for excellence in gaming'. They are:
* The 200 Word RPG Challenge, a competition organised by David Schirduan and Marshall Miller
* The Actual Play movement
* Analog Game Studies, a journal edited by Aaron Trammell, Evan Torner, Shelley Jones and Emma Leigh Waldron
* Charterstone, a board game by Jamey Stegmaier
* Harlem Unbound, a roleplaying game sourcebook by Chris Spivey

I have designed a new game for the #200wordRPG challenge. See what you think.

It's called 'These are animals'.

If you missed my latest RPG Alas Vegas, it's a frankly ridiculous $6.38 (down from $15.95) in the Deal of the Day at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow for the next few hours. Check it, and/or tell your friends. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199713/Alas-Vegas

Last chance to book a place on my game-design masterclass tomorrow. It's a crash course in creating board games, from first concept to twice-tested prototype in three hours. Fun! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/games-design-workshop-draughts-board-game-cafe-tickets-45028760234

Well there's a thing. Twenty years ago, in 1998, my company Hogshead launched a line of unconventional short-form RPGs that we called New Style. We released five in all.

This year, two of them (in new editions) are up for Best RPG in the Origins Awards.

Honoured to be nominated for an Origins Award, for The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen 3e, along with everyone at FFG who worked on it, particularly my editor Tim Huckelbery and artist Omar Rayyan.
http://www.originsawards.net/current-origins-awards-nominees/

ARE WE ALL READY FOR #EUROVISION???!?

no wait sorry as you were wrong social media platform

I did a lovely podcast with the charming chaps from Tea & A Chit Chat. If you get the chance, I can recommend their hospitality and selection of biscuits very highly. https://youtu.be/sbq4BdmALlQ

Learn how to make games in an afternoon! The Games Design Masterclass will be running on Weds 23rd May at Draughts in London, led by me. It's a lecture, a workshop and a playtest all in one. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/games-design-workshop-draughts-board-game-cafe-tickets-45028760234

#aprilttrpgmaker 24: Most notable achievement?

Inventing the entire field of GM-less single-session narrative games now known as "story games", by accident.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 23: People who have helped you

Too many to name, but I owe particular shout-outs to Nicole Lindroos, John Nephew, Marc Gascoigne, Simon Rogers, and to Ken Hite for being the John the Baptist of the New Style games.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 22: How do you document ideas?

I carry a fistful of blank playing cards in my pocket, and I jot notes on them. Best note-taking tool I've ever found and yes, I do also use Evernote.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 21 - How many playtests?

Once Upon a Time was in playtest for two and a half years before we pitched it to Atlas. Baron Munchausen, two. Not two years, two playtests. Some designs need it, some don't.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 20: What tools do you use?

A small form-factor computer. I wrote Munchausen and two Warhammer novels on a palmtop. Buy a cheap second-hand netbook, install Linux, Libreoffice, Dropbox and nothing else, then use it everywhere.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 19 - Game most essential to your design

Sandman: Map of Halaal (Pacesetter, 1985). It was a game that tried to change the entire concept of what an RPG was and could be. It had some brilliant ideas. It failed completely in the market, but it still intrigues me.

#AprilTTRPGMaker 13: Major influences on my games design thinking. Impro by Keith Johnstone. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Dungeons & Dragons by Gygax and Arneson. TAZ by Hakim Bey. Life: a User's Manual by Georges Perec. Cell Z.

I had a mentor, an experienced and innovative designer. He derailed my career for four years, and continued to try to derail it after I told him to shove it and started my own company. Get me drunk, I'll tell you the story