The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.

This technology is something that I can picture every gamer buying into it when it becomes more mainstream. Short term, it would get rid of the need to haul dozens of books to and from the gaming table. Long term, this will allow you to game anywhere at anytime using apps like OpenRPG or Fantasy Grounds. As Scotty would say, “I like this [future]. It’s exciting!”

Chapter 1

The first chapter deals with the basic rules such as degrees of success and drinking. Degrees of success are in competition between people. It’s a different mechanic that can be used rather than “roll a d20 and whomever gets the highest number wins.” The drinking rules are fun not only because it helps you apply the effects of alcohol on a person but it also gives remedies for drunkenness.

Chapters 2 – 6

The next few chapters deal with the specific games themselves. Rules for games such as Arm-Wrestling, Archery, Trollbridge, Conjuration Combat, and Squashgoblin are all included. My personal favorite is Crazy Ernie’s Bear Wrasslin’ for Crazy Folk. It’s bear wrestling run by a guy who’s, more than likely, clinically insane. It’s always fun to throw the players into the situation.

Chapter 7

The last chapter gives advice on running games and how to create encounters during the festivities. It has some sample groups that the PCs may run up against during the celebrations.

Conclusion

All in all, this book is well worth cost. As I wrote previously, I bought it almost 7 years ago and I still get a lot of use out of it. You’ll definitely get your money’s worth from it.

I highly recommend these little gems and, if you want to get them, you can click here. They run $9.95. For some reason, on the RPGNow page, the demo doesn’t work. Here are a couple of pages from it so you can take a look and see what it’s like (you can’t print or edit it).

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart’s content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings – new and old, well known and completely obscure – to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

If you’ve never used Pandora Radio, I highly recommend you create an account right now. Essentially, you create radio stations based upon your favorite artists/songs. For example, you can create a station by entering Howard Shore as your favorite artist (Shore scored the LotR movies) and it will play music that is similar to his. This way, you get good music within the same genre. Now, not every artist is going to be on there. For example, it couldn’t find Basil Poledouris, who scored the class movie Conan the Barbarian.

Regardless, there’s a lot of good fantasy music out there. With Pandora Radio, you just need to know one or two of the artists in the genre and it will return a whole slew of artists who fit the bill.

Image via Wikipedia

In my years playing RPGs, I’ve always been envious of those who are able to put together models of locations for the players. I’ve tried it myself but I’ve found that a) I don’t have enough time to make everything I want, b) it’s really, really expensive, and c) the stuff you make isn’t very recyclable and is usually only used for a session or two. So I was wondering, are there any products out there that 1) aren’t terribly expensive and 2) are easily reusable? And then it hit me; Lego. While Lego may be a bit pricey, the reusability of them makes them pretty cheap in the long run. And if you have kids, you probably already have some lying around the house!

There are a lot of websites out there for inspiration to create Lego scenes. Below are a list of some of the better sites I’ve found.

LEGO.com – The official website allows you to search for building instructions by keyword.

LEGOAT.COM – The main aim of the website is publishing numerous building instructions for LEGO® sets. Here you can find step by step instructions for many LEGO® models. All of them are available for free download (jpg, ldr, mpd, dat).

Classic-Castle – Committed to providing you with all the resources for building not only castles, but all sorts of creations ranging from farms and livestock, to magical towers and beasts.

Brick Town Talk – A showcase of creations and designs build in the same style, creating its own small town.

Classic-Space Lego – The place on the web for all things LEGO space.

MOCPages – The community includes children, teens, adult hobbyists, LEGO company employees, LEGOLAND employees, artists that use LEGO as a medium, engineers that use LEGO as a robotics platform, and more!

I’m sure there are many more, but these should work for a while. Lots of good creation in there.

What about you? Have you ever used Lego in your game? Got pictures?

Once again, Wizards has failed to make good on its electronic product. No, they didn’t promise anything with Tiny Adventures but it’s indicative of their plans regarding electronic products. I don’t know if they set unrealistic goals internally or just don’t understand their own popularity but, either way, they really need to get their act together. As it stands, they look nothing more than incompetent and like a company that is having problems catching up to the electronic age.

Yesterday, Wizards released the final version of the D&D Character Builder. I happily downloaded it on a computer that did not have the beta version installed on it. I then loaded it and it told me that there were updates. I input my D&DI user name and password. I then clicked the Update button. It told me that the “files did not verify correctly.” I was miffed but I decided to try it on a different computer, just in case. This one did have the beta version installed on it. So I uninstalled it, deleted the directory, and installed the new version. Once again, “files did not verify correctly.”

And, apparently, I’m not the only one to have this problem. You can check out this thread at WotC if you are also having problems. I recommend putting in a Customer Service ticket with WotC. The more problems they’re aware of, the better. However, and this is not unexpected unfortunately, some people are having problems with the Help System!

BTW, don’t expect a helpful response from WotC on this. It’s good to let them know for their records, but the answer they gave me doesn’t give me faith that it will be fixed soon.

Thank you for reporting this bug. It is already a known issue.

Occasionally we already have a fix or a workaround for a known issue. To view these and other known issues, click the following link: Known Issues.

Ryath
Online Response Crew
Wizards of the Coast

Yeah. No warm fuzzies here. And the Known Issues “link” didn’t work. It was just blue text not an actual link.

I was willing to give Wizards a break on D&DI. I even wrote, early on, that the price was right. I signed up for a year when they first went live. I’m not regretting my decision, yet, but I’m pretty much 100% certain that I will not be renewing when the year is up. I’ve already stopped the auto-renewal of my account.

At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take Wizards seriously on any online initiative they announce in the future. It’s sad, really, but I have no faith in them to get it right. I really hope they do, but I doubt they ever will.

Foldup Paper Models – Wizards of the Coast

Figures, Tiles, and Buildings (Scroll down) – MicroTactix

Space Fighters and Rockets – Erick’s Paper Models

Ghost House, Coffins, and More – Raven’s Blight

Star Wars/Star Trek Models – Some Guy

Buses – Some Guy

Star Trek Minis – The Marvelous Mechanical Mini Maker

Medieval Markers – Arion Games

Miscellaneous Markers – OverSoul Games

Dr. Who Paper Minis – Miniature Wargaming

I hope that’s enough for you.

One of the players, Luke, decided that it was so much fun, he would make t-shirts with their superhero group’s name: Team Fail! Today they came in the mail and he and his wife modeled them for the camera. I am still in awe that they even did this. If you want to order one for yourself, you can get them here:

Black, front only
Women’s Black, front w/ “Go Team Fail!”
White, front and back

Luke

Danielle

Tact-Tiles

Unfortunately, Tact-Tiles are no longer available for purchase by the original creators and are difficult to find used; mainly because no one who owns them wants to sell them.

Tact-Tiles are laminated, interlocking tiles that come etched with one-inch square black lines on them and have about 144 squares on each. The set I purchased came with 12 tiles total, so I can place them all in a row or make a 3×4 tile board.

Pros

• Durable – These things are very durable and have held up to almost constant use and abuse for the last couple of years.
• Dry-erase capabilities – These things are made for dry-erase markers. The markers easily erase. Just like with any item that allows for dry-erase markers, you don’t want to leave them on for a prolonged period of time else the marker may not erase fully.
• Portability – Since each tile is only about one square foot, it’s easy to stick a few in your bag to tote with you.

Cons

• The company who made them no longer exists. This is a shame because every single person I know that has either seen Tact-Tiles or who owns Tact-Tiles raves about them. They were pricey, though, so I’m not surprised the company is not around any more.

Magnetic Dry-Erase Board

We have mounted a magnetic dry-erase board on our wall. With it, we can write campaign notes as well as use magnets to keep track of initiative.

Pros

• Easy to see – The board is in a centralized location, so it’s easily seen by everyone in the group.
• Dry-erase capabilities – Just like the Tact-Tiles, the board can be used to draw on and erase writing easily.
• Magnetic – We use markers with each persons first initial on them and put them in order of initiative on the board. That way, people know when their turn is coming up in combat.

Cons

• Cost – The boards can be expensive, especially if you try to get a large size.
• Where to put it? – We use our furnished basement to host our games, so we have a wall to hang it on. Some folks might not have that luxury.

D&D Miniatures

We use the D&D mini’s almost exclusively.

Pros

• Cheap – Compared to Reaper mini’s, D&D mini’s are very cheap. You get a handful of mini’s for a reasonable cost.
• Durable – They’re made of plastic, so the chances of you breaking them are lessened.
• Purchase duplicates – There are a few places online, like eBay, where you can buy duplicates. So if you need five skeletons, for example, you can buy them from eBay instead of buying multiple complete packs and hoping you get five skeletons.

Cons

• Art – Compared to Reaper mini’s, the art on D&D mini’s isn’t as good. They’re massed produced plastic and they look like it. But, honestly, I don’t care.

Condition Markers

With 4E, it’s more important to keep track of the condition of PCs and enemies; things like bloodied, cursed, slowed, etc. To do this, I purchased mini-poker chips which are 1″ in diameter. We’ve assigned each color chip to represent certain conditions, red means “bloodied,” for example. We stack the chips under the mini and they work very well.

Pros

• Cheap – A set of sixty chips costs $3.

Cons

• Absolutely none.

Dr. Wizard’s Patented Elevation Indicator

We used to use the clear plastic boxes that dice sets come in the indicate height if someone were flying or levitating. The problem was that the box took up too much space on the board and didn’t give a good indication of exactly how high the character was above the ground. One day I saw an ad in Dragon magazine for Dr. Wizard’s Patented Elevation Indicators and decided these would be perfect. They’re clear columns of hard plastic that are 1″ in diameter and a mini easily sits on top of it. You use two colored bands to designate height; the bottom band can be put on any number from 10 to 100, and each increment of 5, and the top band indicates the amount by which you multiply the bottom number. For example, if the PC is 55 feet above the ground, you place the bottom band on the number 55 and the top band on the “x1″ muliplier. If the PC were 550 feet above the ground, you place the bottom band on 55 and the top band on the “x10″ multiplier.

Pros

• They fit – They fit easily into a 1″ square and don’t cover up any other mini’s in the area.
• Durable – They’re made of hard plastic so they’re not going to break any time soon.
• Ease of use – You can quickly figure out exactly how high someone is off of the ground based upon the placement of the bands.

Cons

• Cost – The columns go for $10 apiece. For some, it’s not worth it when they can just use the box their dice came in or other markers that designate the PC is at a height above ground.

Conclusion

That’s everything we have at our table. With these accessories, we’ve found it very easy to keep track of people and places in the game. Notes where everyone can see them, such as effects in place, being able to tell exactly how high someone, or something, is off of the ground, and being able to tell what condition a PC is in have all been lifesavers more than once.

So what about you? What accessories do you have at your table?