Quartermaster Blues

Ha I just had a great idea for March, 2009!

Good solid week this past week despite a bumpy Monday. Sometime around Tuesday the nature of the week changed as several items were brought to my attention. While boxing up some emergency orders Mark asked me to bring over some larger shipping boxes. I noted we were out, we checked the various and sundry places we have attempted to store our shipping boxes...the Blue Room, Storage, Mail Room (very crowded), Shop, Todd's Attic...and we couldn't find any but for one mangled, oil covered box that must have survived the Exxon Valdez spill. Being cheap and noting that this was an outer shipping box, we used it.

Mark taped it with Duck Tape.

"Mark, what are you doing?"

"We're out of packing tape."

"Ahh."

Making a mental note I went on about my day. Later while nosing around in the shop for more boxes I saw two garbage cans full of scraps. There were no liners in the can.

"Mark, why aren't we putting liners in the can?"

"We're out of liners. So I'm using the large wraps the Upper Works bundles came in to catch the scrap. Its not really working."

"Ahh."

This led me to the inescapable conclusion that we might be running short of supplies.

Its been a busy 6 weeks, what with getting Crusader 13, Upper Works and Towers of Adventure out as well as work on non TLG projects. Mark and I have been running pretty constantly. And inevitably we run out of supplies. Which is, I think, a good thing.

So Wednesday, in the midst of whatever else it is I was doing I began compiling a list of material and supplies the Trolls will need. Its the perfect time, with Christmas and end of year, so its the perfect time to resupply and get ready for January 1 and 2009 which promises to be an interesting year.

Here is the short list of what I came up with.

Large Shipping boxes...50
Outside Shipping boxes...100
Inside Shipping boxes...100
USPS FRB2 boxes...100
USPS large flat rate...100
USPS priority Mail shoebox ...100
USPS priority stickers...100
39 gallon garbage bags...4 boxes
light bulbs...4 cases
packing tape...12 rolls
6 100 round belts of M80 ball with M62 tracer rounds
Paper....22000 sheets
Toner....4 cartons
Ink for small printer...1 cartridge

The list goes on.

So Thursday I set myself the task of traveling around Little Rock and gathering these supplies. We buy much of it locally, the boxes and what not, but its a bit of a drive to go get them. And I think for the better part of the entire day I was either ordering stuff or driving and picking up stuff. Its a good thing I have a full size truck.

I'm about 3/4 of the way to resupplying the company. And I'm glad to report we are preparing ourselves for whatever 2009 brings us. And who knows what that will be?

In thinking about Castles & Crusades. I wonder sometimes, is it a Crusade we lead? Or is it a Civil War? We crossed the Rubicon to find what had been lost . . . .

Enjoy your weekend. Do not be troubled... (Around miniute 3.52, is a great scene)

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Last Train to Midnight

Well, here it is deep into December. I think I've forgotten about the blog entries for a few weeks. Of course, the busier I get the less time I have to put out announcements. Not really the best of situations as . . . well you understand.

Things have been moving very fast around here. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm actually managing to keep up with paper work. I've fixed IRS problems that have posted since 2005 (or I think that I have). Mark is working through some issues in the shop which have led to some quality issues (and we hope not released into the general pubic). Peter is doing some freelancing while hammering on a bunch of covers and interiors. Jason has been busy on cartoons and interiors. Davis has turned over 2 complete modules (3 if you count A5) and James Ward had been hammering on Of Gods & Monsters. This doesn't even count Mike doing some extra work on Arms and Armor, Casey on Halls of Adventure, Liz on the Crusader (14), and Cory editing two books. And we top all this off with Brian working over the webpage and trying to get us a gallery up of past pictures and events and McBain on conventions, Breakdaddy on the computers (which I have some questions for him come Monday...he loves hearing my hair brained questions).

(I know some of you are asking Who are all these people? I have the same question . . . . Mark assure me he know them!)

It seems that each day begins with simple tasks and ends in harried confusion. Take today (friday) for instance. I plopped down in front of the computer around 8:20 or thereabouts. Liz needed some material for Crusader 14, pictures and such. I had a few small task to tackle as well, a contract and financial statement to the bank. I figured about 2 hours and then I could wrap up the final read of A5 before it goes to Cory for editing. I thought, okay, before I get started I'll clean this desk up a little. I filed some papers, found some unpaid bills. Logged on paid those, filed those papers. Went through the in box a bit, noticed that I had a new solicitation sheet from Alliance. I cross checked that with my announcements. Noticed that some annouced projects hadn't been put up on the boards. That led to a sheet of inventory needs by Aldo Ghiozzi. I pulled print sheets and called him for an update inventory sheet so I could see what I needed to send him. He was out of lots of material. So I begin to go through the mail room and my stock room inventory to see what we had on hand.

It hit me then that i hadn't even gotten to Liz's Crusader needs yet. So I stopped, went through some art files from the old Codex, got some pictures. I couldn't find the original cover as she had asked for so I had to go into the storage boxes, dig out the old CDRoms, transfer the original cover over and save it the file type needed. I scratched that off her list. I noted that some of this art hadn't appeared in the Codex, so I moved some files around to get it where I could get to it later (or more likely forget about it). I then laid out an ad for Winter Dark. Doing this led me to the discovery that several of Jason's digital originals were not where they were supposed to be. I hunted them down, moved them, finished the ad and sat back. It was already 1015 in the a.m.

I sat back to see to some contracts I needed to do and Mark sauntered in. He needed the days assignments and wanted to go over some minor issues. We discussed these and got him set up and he wandered off to the Shop after we both cussed the governement and various technoligical devices for a few minutes.

Back to work.

So I worked over the contracts. As I was finishing those I wandered up to answer email on the lap top and process some orders. I had there a letter from Luke Gygax and I fired him off a couple of bone headed responses (to which he hasn't yet answered). The phone rang and I chatted to a Canadian customer for a bit. Back to the main office and the financial statement that the bank needed back in November. I stared at the tiny boxes for a minute and thought it best to dig out an old one and copy it instead of digesting another years worth of tax returns and other crap. And of course it had been a year since I needed one of these and I couldn't find the old ones. I searched for a bit and quit, to take up another task and wait for my old brain to joggle around. It was 11:20 so I had me some lunch. Two P&J sandwiches. Watched the news and cussed the tv.

Conversation with Peter, Casey Christofferson and the wife and then back to work. I busied myself for a minute noted that Amazon was down and worked on its password for awhile. Checking the boards I noted that I hadn't announced the Christmas sale.

Off to do a press release, realized that my email addyes were destroyed and thought up a way to get the word out. This meant extending the sale to RPGNow, something that I should have done anyway, and off to work over that sale page. This took the better part of an hour to make a new logo and design the bundles and upload all that. I returned to the file where I remembered I filed my financial statements and tackled that. Of course it was more painful that I remembered and it took too long. I remembered that I hand't signed and shipped the contracts and I stopped on that project, hit the contracts, made out the envelopes and booked off to the post office. The christmas cards, addressed, but unstamped were in the seat of the truck. So I gathrered all this up and dumped it on my local post master. Glenda laughed at me and gave me two books of stamps. I spent a good while stamping post cards. Got all that done and back to the office.

It was 3 in the afternoon. HOLY CRAP. So I finished the financial statement, faxed it to the bank. Answered a few emails and headed upstairs to get my work in on A5. I sat down and worked through a paragraph and the phone rang. Took an order. Worked and the phone rang again. It was Patrick, the latest bundle of Upper Works and StarSiege boxes were ready for pick up. Crap. Called Mark, he was elbow deep into some jobs that he couldn't quit. We decided to pick them up on Monday.

Mail arrives and a big check is there that I need to pay some bills with. Off to the bank. Back to the computer. Balance books. Pay some bills, leaving the freshly balanced books unbalanced. Head back to A5.

Its now after 4. For the next hour I struggled with A5 and managed to get through a few pages. Several interuptions and a VALA moment where I remembered a way that I might salvage my email addys from the pre-flattened computer. I wandered down to the old computer, searched them and found some original LDIF files Jason and I had saved long ago when we ported out of netscape. I imported these and they looked live.

Well. Long Train Ride later. I didn't get A5 done, but will this weekend. I managed to get alot of small stuff done and put some fires out. Strangely though it seems that every day has its own little litany of things that need doing. What's up with that??

Well, after that, we all deserve a little music. Here ya go you '70s freaks!!

Heavy Metal.

Thanks for playing.
Steve

For you listening pleasure.

Ole Paint.

Have a great weekend!
Steve

Well Hell's Bells

I hadn't realized how long it had been since my last post until I noticed someone's posting on the message boards. Time moves quicker than we like sometimes me thinks. I'm only going to take a moment to give a quick update so folks can get a better idea of what is going on.

Things seem to moving at an almost feverish pitch here, I'm not sure why. We've finally gotten Upper Works into the channel. It shipped out last week and was announced as available starting this week. That's good news. Restocks and reorders came in for Star Siege. Mark has begun the full release run of Towers of Adventure and it will be out in early December. In the meantime we've finally wrapped up Crusader 13, it will ship out to subscribers on Thursday.

NOTE MANY OF YOU MADE SIX MONTH SUBSCRIPTIONS, THEY ARE RAPIDLY ENDING. SO BE ON THE WATCH OR GIVE US A CALL.

Arms and Armor was delayed as its waiting its turn to print. Should be late this week. I'm wrapping up text for Crusader 14 and Jim is laying out the prospects for the Crusader 15-17.

In exciting news Jim Ward has turned over the first 2 chapters for Of Gods & Monsters. So that book is in advance of schedule. I'll turn them over to Peter for art direction tomorrow.

Peter in the meantime is working on the cover for M&T, 3rd printing, which will be announced in the next couple of weeks.

I have been working on the CKG, amidst the hordes of technical problems we've had around here (thank you Jason for fixing this cluster #&#@).

On a more relaxed note, the wife and I have rearranged the living room so that we have our large pine desk facing the fire place. The cold has at last arrived here in Arkansas and I've been spending my evenings (once everyone goes to bed) sitting at the desk, writing and working by the light and warmth of a crackling fire. It really helps the writing mood.

Thanks for playing.
Steve

Onward

I worked on the schedule for the better part of the day (though I have to confess I took an extended lunch break and watched an episode or two of Trailer Park Boys...that show just makes me happy!). I have laid out the next 6 months. I'm presently parsing through the covers and ad copy. Hopefully I'll some of this up and over to Brian for some much needed updates over the weekend. We have info on CKG, A6, A7 Halls of Adventure and Crusader 15 up first. That's December, January and February. March will bring A8, Casey Christofferson's Black Librum and April is a big one with Players Handbook (4), Monsters & Treasure (3), A9 and an unknown book but one you'll be much excited about when I finalize it.

I would link all those but I'm too tired. I'll go back through and link when we have new info on them. :)

Swords and Sorcery is going to be a whole lota things. We are in the concept stages of a comic strip and an RPG. So look for more along those lines.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Riding the Line

There’s a great movie with Charlton Heston in it called Will Penny. If you’ve never seen it you should check it out some time. It’s basically about a old cowboy whose job is to ride the line and repair and fix fences that have fallen. Along the way he has several adventures and a few shoot outs. Very good stuff all told.

With that in mind its time to repair a few fences here at TLG. We’ve been very busy since Gencon and I’ve not had time to keep up with the message board or this blog as I should. Our schedule has been turned upside down, Crusader has gone monthly and my box maker had a near brush with fiscal collapse which directly impacted our new game marketing approach. Couple all this with normal day to day grind, some burn out on my end and various and other sundries and your left with a fence that needs some fixing.

So let me be my own Will Penny. There’s good and bad coming down the pipe. Lets start with the bad as well, its bad, and its best to take one’s medicine before the ice cream.

Gygax Games has withdrawn all licenses from Troll Lord Games. This includes Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds, Gord the Rogue, King of England King of France, C&C Adventures as well as Castle Zagyg. This is a note from Gail:

“A fond farewell from Gail Gygax:

I want to thank all at Troll Lord Games for the joy, laughter, and support they gave my late husband these past eight years. Many of you are wondering what is in store for various worlds created by Gary. To that end, I have, with TLG’s good wishes and blessings, embarked on a new journey.

Gygax Games will now take up the mantle as the vehicle for the continuation of Gary’s unfinished works, plus the Lejendary Adventure™, Castle Zagyg™, and Gygaxian™ Fantasy Worlds product lines. There are lots of fun surprises ahead!

This does not preclude Gygax Games from working the Troll Lord Games and I hope to do so in the future. To that end, I look forward to seeing everyone in Lake Geneva in the summer of 2009 for the convention!

So to Steve, Davis, Mark and Peter – I thank you.”

I cannot really comment on the whys and wherefores of this decision. Obviously TLG had planned on publishing Gary’s material for several years to come, but this is not to be. TLG and Gary had a great run I think, and I personally am very proud of our achievements and still marvel at what we, Gary and the TLG crew, managed to do in the past eight years. On a personal note working with Gary was always a pleasure and I looked forward to his emails, sitting on his front porch, having a smoke and chatting the world away. He was a good friend to me and I’ll always remember the first toast we made in the Old Town Serbian Café. Here’s to you Gary!

So now what for TLG?

First we finish the last two projects we are working on for Gary and tie up the rest of the loose ends. Upper Works is still being produced and sold through TLG. We’ll ship a limited number of copies into distribution on the 13th of November. We will continue to sell them through our website. They will not be available on Amazon as the time to get it entered and the trouble it takes to remove items is too much and our number of copies that we can sell is too limited. The reason we have not released this into distribution is we keep selling into our distribution copies. I have to ship a minimum to meet demand or ship none at all. This plays into our Box maker which I’ll get to shortly. The second items of Gary’s we are wrapping up is the series of articles How it all Happened. These we’ll finish in Crusader 13 which should ship out this week or early next.

Once these two items are done we’ll have only the back stock on existing GFW titles and Gord to move or sell.

Everything has to be moved out by December 31, 2008.

So what’s next for TLG. With the removal of so many titles from the roster, about 20 or so, what does that do to our schedule? Obviously it negatively impacts it in the short run as we have to fill in the many holes. This isn’t such a bad thing. Its allowing me to move all manner of projects up on the table that really just considered before as Gary’s material was more important.

Much of what is coming is retooling from products to personal. Here’s what we have:

Up first our some personnel issues. Todd gray actually came back to work for us, picking up bi-line work with me on several of my projects. Of that I’m very happy, Todd and I work well together so hopefully we can pick up some of the old magic and make some sweet books like Heart of Glass and Winter Runes. Mac Golden has come out of hiding with a load of magic items and monsters for the upcoming M&T 2 and M&T of Aihrde. James M. Ward has offered all manner of assistance and with the soon to be released Towers of Adventure we are happy to oblige him. And of course Casey Christofferson, Casey Cannfield, Robert Doyel and Mike Stewart have all jumped forward with various projects and offers of assistance. Presently I have these writers on several scatter shot projects, work here and work there. Much of it to fill areas in projects now removed from the schedule. In the coming days I’m going to email each one of them personally and discuss their strengths and weaknesses and give them projects that will prove mutually beneficial.

Up next is the projects:

First up is the C&C game. I am a little stunned to announce that the 4th printing is upon us! Suddenly I find myself with only a 3 month supply of Players Handbooks and surprisingly a 3 month supply of Monsters & Treasures, 5 months at the outset. Peter and I will begin working on the layout today as he has finished up Arms and Armor and I’ve managed to wrap up some of my paper work that has been outstanding for several months. Once done we’ll be able to recharge the whole line. It won’t be anything tremendously different, but I am investigating looking into a few new format approaches. More on that as it comes to me. These new printings will coincide with the release of the CKG and the new hardback book by Mike Stewart and Casey Cannfield: Halls of Adventure. All this in early 2009. There may be some price increases but we’ll have to see how that goes. I hate to raise prices in a coming recession, but we’ll see.

All the scheduling issues have allowed us to bring a project we’ve long cherished back to the fore, the re-release of Ernie and Luke Gygax’s The Lost City of Gaxmoor. This project has sat on a back burner for a long time and we planned to couple it with other projects, but now we can give it the full attention it deserves. In some ways this if full circle for us as Gaxmoor came out before even any of Gary’s projects. I’ve talked to both Luke and Ernie and there is even a chance we’ll see more from them in the future. Peter has already started on the maps (remember peter likes to work on LOTS of things at the same time).

Beyond this we intend to grow the C&C line tremendously. Monsters and Treasure 2 by Robert Doyel and other writers is well under way as it Monsters & Treasure of Aihrde. We are going to couple these with more Siege Gear books in the same style as Engineering Dungeons and the soon to be released Arms and Armor. There is a great deal of room to grow the C&C brand and with you continued support and help we will do it. 2009 should be a very exciting year for all this.

The Siege Engine games are moving along as well. These items have been stalled for a very long time as we worked out the logistics of how to bring them to the public. We discovered this in the box making talents of good sir Partrick Nehan of Diamond State Specialty Box company. By controlling costs and working with TLG, DS gave us a golden opportunity to bring box set games to market. With this we able to release Starsiege and make plans for Victorious, Harvesters and Pulp Siege. All these are in the schedule and set for a quarterly release beginning next year.

A hitch was thrown into our long term plans as well as the release of Upper Works in August/September. Diamond State suffered some serious problems (clients failing to pay and one major injury) from which we were not certain if they could recover. This impacted our production of the Upper Works boxes as well as Towers of Adventure. I could have jumped ship on Patrick and found another box maker, but it didn’t seem right. Patrick had given me great prices and service in the past (if you own HOMP, LA Essentials you have his handy work) and we had a well laid out plan for the future. So I decided to brave the storm and stick with him to see if he could pull his business out of the slump. It was probably not the best business move, but if any of you know me well, you know loyalty is a word with meaning. “I’d rather die blind and ragged” . . . . And yes this meant the delay of Upper Work’s release to the general market and for the fans and retailers who are eagerly waiting for this, I apologize, but I stand by my decision to wait for Patrick to recover.

And it seems that DS has managed to recover and is back in business, if much reduced from 5 months ago. They are producing more Upper Works boxes as we speak to cover the shortage mentioned earlier. As well as that we are laying out the next box set for them. So wish them luck and if you’re inclined send a short prayer. They’ve had a rough ride.

There’s lots of work to do here at TLG. The C&C game hasn’t even entered a complete stage yet as the CKG isn’t finished. Tons of supplements, monsters, game aids and adventures are waiting for the light of day and need developing. There’s much to do and we’ve got to get to doing it. Siege Engine is on the cusp of being born and we are working on a Swords and Sorcery brand as well.

So I leave you all this information to digest, certain that I’ve raised many questions and not answered many more. But rest assured TLG is adjusting to these latest developments (remember I’ve had some time to adjust to them personally) and will move forward as we always do, but for now I've a little more fence to ride.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Ps: I’ve only just discovered the Trailer Park Boys. Oh my lord. Best show I’ve seen in a long time. Its actually begun to impact my work schedule!! Check it out if you have time.

With the Shirt off My Back

Its good to have clothes.

Thanks for playing.
Steve

Old Dock Boggs

Well here it is a Tuesday again and we're no closer to the finish than when we started. I'm not sure what that means but I think it has something to do with publishing books and such.

We've just released Shades of Mist in pdf format over on RPGNow. I'll get the word out as the day progresses.

Friday was a bumpy day as Todd's house was robbed and Mark and I took the day to help him clean up and put a new door in. If you've ever seen the movie Dodge Ball and heard the comment about Monkey's and a door knob, it was a little bit like that. They stole his computer which we had just reconnected to the internet and set up his todd trollord address. Ha! Its fate I told him. Unlucky bastard if ever there was one.

So yesteday was mucho catch up on paper work and bills and orders, this to make up for Friday's loss.

Today we are off and running

Mark is doing some printing work on some outside jobs for Otherworlds Creations and other various and sundries.

Liz is working on Crusader 13. Wrap up we think.

Jim is working on Crusadser 14. Trying to get me to turn over stuff I suspect.

Peter is working on Arms and Armor. Cover is finished and prepped and he is working the guts.

I'm hammering away on the still unfinished NPC section. Should be able to wrap it up today however and get it tooled and playtesting.

Check yourself out some Dock Boggs. GREAT Hill music. They have a little sample on Youtube.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Of Monthly Beginnings

Today a bit hectic here...

Mark is working over an outside project.

Peter continues to slog away on Arms and Armor.

I released a press release about Crusader going monthly. Of course the address books proved a problem and didn't port correctly into Thunderbird so I spent too much time unraveling that little problem. Finally abandoned it and began using Outlook for the PR. More scheduling work as I look where to fit the (tentatively) titled Halls of Adventure, C&C Hardbook into the roster as well as Victorious and Pulp Siege.

I'll also wrap up Book 1, Chapter 6 on NPCs for the CKG and finish the opening for Book 1, Chapter 1, Multi-classing. Davis is going over Book 1, Chapter 1 the Classes. I think he is working on the Rogue together.

I also had a long talk with Davis, Todd, Mark and err myself...about the Monsters & Treasure 2 and Monsters and Treasure of Aihrde books. We laid out some guidelines for the Treasure section in MT2. So that was all good.

Liz is bothering me about final art pieces for Crusader 13, so we suspect that is wrapping up shortly.

Also I hope to debut the T-shirts this weekend.

Thanks for Playing.
Steve

Darkest of the Hillside

In the thick of it now.....

Mark is finalizing Upper Works, will ship it tomorrow probably. This to distributors.

Peter working on cover for A7, maps for A6 and final interiors for Arms and Armor.

Jim and Liz are working on Crusader 13. Should be ready for print this week.

Brian updating the store for the Crusader subscription options.

I'm on scheduling this morning, updating cover files and new announcements. Will turn my attention to CKG, NPC section and Muliclassing section. As well as work on some new monsters...Mogrl I think. Prep and release Shades of Mist as a PDF.

Steve

Thickets

CKG.

Steve