Something is wrong with the Oraculator.  It works on my computer, but it won't download for some reason.  I presume I did something wrong when publishing it.  I'll try to figure it out in the near future.  Till then, I suppose you'll have to rely on tarot cards and bird entrails for all your divinatory needs.

David G.

Things are still quiet around here.  We're leaving for Gen Con on Wedensday.  I've barely had time to keep up with my usual responsibilities, which leaves no time for blog entries.  But here's one thing - a picture from Shiftways.  (It'll probably show up on shiftways.com eventually)

Photographed live on Tim's big honkin' battle mat.  This very set (along with 9 others) will be on sale at Gen Con.  I can't, however, promise to sell you this specific one.  They all look pretty much alike.

It's been quiet around here lately, but not from lack of me working.  It's just that stamping hundreds of wooden blocks doesn't make for good web content.  I believe I've mentioned that I developed a board game here.  (If not, I'm mentioning it now.)

Shiftways is an innovative stone-capturing game that's been lurking in the back of my mind since the early 1990s.  Tim Rayburn (the same guy who keeps my blog running) liked it so much he convinced me we should sell it.  (He also did a huge ammount of work helping me take it from basic concept to finished game.)

We're launching (completely unofficially) at GenCon 2007.  Tim and Kate Rayburn, myself, and our friend Chris Jackson will be at the con with copies to demo for anyone who's interested, and with copies to sell.

Our product website, http://shiftways.com/, is live, if not very pretty.  In the next few days, we'll try to pretify it with some photos, rules to the game, and background.  A checkout system should also be forthcoming.  (But don't expect your orders to be delivered until after GenCon.  We're taking our whole stock with us. :) )

I'll try to get something else up here for your entertainment, but it may be a couple weeks.

An error with the blog yesterday seems to have been resolved - probably through the tireless efforts of Tim Rayburn.  Or maybe it was just one of those things.

Either way, I don't know if my hordes of subscribers (okay 6) got their RSS feeds, so I figured I'd throw out an announcement.

I have added a new spell, "Bio-protective Aura," to the Cinematic Unisystem Spells section, and a new enchanted item, "The Colt," to the Cinematic Unisystem Enchanted/Superscience items section.

Enjoy.

I have added two new Qualities to the Unisystem Qualities section: "Gift of the Gab" and "Natural Born Killer."  (I really gotta stop with the humorous Quality titles)

Both were inspired by Jack of All Trades from One of the Living.  As I am now running an All Flesh Must Be Eaten campaign, you can expect to see more of this kind of thing.

If all has gone well, the Cinematic Unisystem Enchanted/Superscience Items section now has a new entry, "The Caster Pistol."  Yes, I liked Outlaw Star.  Thanks for asking.  I don't love you all enough to go catalog all the different shell types, though.  If someone else has a catalog of them, I'd be glad to see it, and I'd write them up.

Victory was actually mine five days ago, at 10:45 PM central time.  I finished the first draft of my NaNo.  I'd technically "won" two days earlier by breaking 50,000 words, but I didn't consider the job finished until I got to the end of the story.

Now I'm letting it sit for a while before I decide what to do with it.  I think it's a decent beginning of a book, but it needs a lot of work.

In the meantime, I'm not sure what I'm doing next.  Probably just focusing on the very slowly progressing webcomic I'm working on with Lisa.

I'll try to come up for something to amuse my legions of fans before too long, though.

Hi y'all.  Things have been quiet here for a few weeks, and now I'm ready to tell you why.  I've been getting ready to write a novel.  Every year, on November 1st, thousands of people join in the task of trying to write a short (50,000 word) novel in 30 days.  Since the inception of National Novel Writing Month, every year previous to this one, I remembered that fact some time after November 12.  But this year someone reminded me ahead of time and I have decided to go for it.

During the past several weeks, I've mulled over ideas and pulled together an outline and some character descriptions.  And today, about four hours ago, I started writing.  As of right this minute, I have 1230 words or so.

I'm trying to decide if I want to post the novel here, or leave it more private.  At the very least, I think I'll get around to writing up some of the characters in Unisystem, just for the amusement value.  Since I'm not exactly using the Buffy setting, there will be some compromises, but they might still be useful as NPCs.

But mostly I'll be writing like mad, since I need to write about 1667 words a day, seven days a week, to finish on time.

We will return to our (ir)regularly scheduled gaming content in about a month. :)

I have just added "The Hellrider" to my Unisystem Qualities collection, completely suitable for an Angel or Buffy game.  Enjoy.

Tim has now fixed the posting identity issue.  Yea Tim!

David G.

Due to some odd glitch in the blog software, posts to this page all say they were posted by Tim Rayburn.  That's actually true of the "Play's the Thing" entries.  He loaded them up after he set up the blog so there'd be some initial content.  But we don't know why the blog still thinks all the posts are from him.

We'll figure it out eventually.  Till then, I suppose you'll just have to trust me that it's me and not Tim.  Or perhaps you don't really care, so long as the content is good.  Or, for that matter, for all any of you know, "Tim Rayburn" is just my alias.  (But he's not.  Honest.)

Identity on the internet is so ephemeral.

Anyway, despite what the blog settings might say, everything posted after the columns were entered and backdated has been by me, David Goodner, and not by Tim.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast, already in progress.

Technomancer Press Arms RPG Players
August 8, 2006

Technomancer Press, LLC (TCM) is launching a new RPG Theory line-- books about playing beyond just win/lose or min/max. The first book, due November 23rd, is "The Play's the Thing", a collaboration with columnist David Goodner, RPGnet, and TCM. "The Play's the Thing" features 100 pages of advice for players and GMs looking to get into character.

David writes, "The Play's The Thing is about a player's job in an RPG", and provides an interesting way of looking at playing RPGs.
This collection features entries from David's long-running RPGnet column and makes for ideal late summer reading. "We feel that gamers
are also readers" gambles TCM's Sandy Antunes, "and gamers will want books about playing a more enjoyable RPG."

Sneak peek copies will be on sale at GenCon, and the book will be available via retailers and at the PAX convention on November 23.
Information on Technomancer Press, LLC is at www.technomancer-press.com, RPGnet is of course rpg.net, and retailers and distributors can get our books via their Studio2Publishing account. Subsequent RPG theory books are planned for 2006-2007.

And with that, please permit me to do the dance of joy.  :)

It is my great pleasure to announce the imminent publication of The Play's the Thing by Technomancer Press.

With any luck, it will be available for GenCon in a couple weeks.  I will now dance with glee.

(Fortunately for you, the site doesn't come with video)

Greetings and salutations.  Welcome to the Astounding Mr. Goodner's Amazing Electric Widgets.

Mind you, Mr. Goodner is only particularly astounding to those who are easily astounded, and his Widgets are only amazing to those with a low threshold for amazement.  They are, however, electric, since otherwise you couldn't read them with your electrical calculation engine.

We're really just getting started here.  Expect a few changes over the next several days.  I'll be posting bits of fiction, gaming content, and possibly artwork for you to enjoy.  Most of it will be stuff I couln't publish professionally for one reason or another.  The most common reason being "I don't own the source IP."

I will, of course, also use this space to advertise any professional work I do or any other projects I work on.  Advertising may be gauche, but it puts food on the table, cokes in the fridge, and electrons in the wires: all things I have come to rely upon heavily.