A Role Playing Games Blog
Open Game Table
Get the Open Game Table for $4.99 until November 30th
1November 27, 2009
Jonathan Jacobs has reduced the price of the PDF version of the Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Vol. 1 to just $4.99 until the end of the month! If you don’t own a copy, yet, this is your chance!
And if you don’t know what the OGT is about check out the product information from Amazon.com:
Open Game Table is aimed at bridging the gap between the RPG blogging community and the broader table-top gaming fan base by showcasing the best talent the community has to offer. Within these pages are 47 blog posts from 32 top-quality RPG blogs, plus a Foreword written by RPG luminary Wolfgang Baur.
Packed with juicy content and over 60 illustrations, this book is Pure Gold. The book chapters include:
1 – Play Style;
2 – Game Play;
3 – Characters & Players;
4 – Monsters & NPCs;
5 – Encounters, Settings, and Locations;
6 – Adventure Design;
7 – Campaign Setting Design;
8 – Classes, Action, and Equipment;
9 – RPG History & Commentary; and
10 – The RPG Toolbox.This anthology is the result of the hard work of nearly 100 volunteers, authors, editors, judges, artists, and designers. A true grass roots effort; it is a tour de force of the RPG blogging universe.
This book contains the articles of many members of the RPG Bloggers Network including my very own post about Firearms in D&D 4th Edition. If you are still unsure, if you want to buy it, check out what WIRED Magazine wrote about the OGT:
The Open Game Table Anthology is a treasure trove. A tome worth slaying a few orcs for. Because it had such a diverse range of material to choose from it has been able to collate not just quality writing and ideas, but a real breadth of discussion that you don’t get as often as you would like in role playing materials. There are chapters for GMs and DMs on Play Stlyle, Monsters and NPCs and Campaign Setting Design. There are articles for players such as "Advice On Being A Good Player". My favorite chapter was Chapter 9 which details some great historical moments and commentary on how RPGs have become what they are today. Open Game Table has two clear strengths: content and content. The quality of the content and the breadth of the content make this anthology worth the money. The amount of ideas for GMs on how to handle player conflict, managing scenes, improving your role playing are well chosen and topical. In many ways, this book is like a continuous improvement handbook for RPG groups across the globe. It has ideas and tips throughout each article that can help you create better games and engage better as an RPG Group and ultimately have more fun – which is what it is all about, really. Braunstein I personally would buy the whole book for just the section on RPG History. The article that describes a young Dave Arneson taking all before him in "Braunstein" – the world’s first ever role playing game – is delightful. The passion with which the author, Ben Robbins encourages us all to talk to those who were at the beginning of it all, and to capture and learn from that history is what an anthology like this is all about…
Check out the full review here.
To get your discount, please use this link: http://is.gd/548Ox
Open Game Table now available as PDF
0August 25, 2009
Yesterday Jonathan Jacobs, editor of “Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Vol. 1”, and co-founder of Nevermet Press has let us know that the OGT is now finally available as PDF on Lulu (RPGNow will follow). So, if you haven’t ordered a copy yet, because you were waiting for a digital version, now is your chance.
The OGT is a compilation of the best roleplaying game blog articles of 2008 and if you ask me, every gamer should have at least one copy on his or her bookshelf! If you want to learn more about the OGT, why not check out my review?
UPDATE: It’s now available on RPGNow, too!
OGT available at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de
2July 2, 2009
This morning I noticed that the “Open Game Table” is finally available at Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk! This is good news for us Europeans, since shipping from the US not only takes ages but also can be pretty expensive.
I’ve also posted my review I wrote for the Amazon.com product page on both sites as well. Perhaps this helps to increase the sales and we’ll see an OGT Volume 2 after all. :)
If you have no idea what the OGT actually is, check out my review.
OGT will finally go retail!
0April 15, 2009
Good news, everyone! Jonathan Jacobs officially announced today that he entered a contract with Studio 2 Publishing:
I am very pleased to announce that as of today, I have entered into a contract with Studio 2 Publishing for the exclusive retail distribution of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs (Vol. 1). S2P currently publishes and distributes games such as Savage Worlds, Deadlands, The Edge of Mignight, and many many more. It’s very likely you already have many games they distribute on your game shelf. [...]
That’s really great news! The Open Game Table will finally be available at retail stores all over the US (and hopefully sometimes even in the rest of the world)!
By the way, it will probably take a few more months until you can get a copy of the OGT at your local shop, so why don’t you order a copy from Amazon.com or Lulu in the meantime?
Get your copy of OGT now!
0March 23, 2009
The Open Game Table is finally available from Amazon and Lulu for just $22.95! It will also be available from Indie Press Revolutions soon. The 140-page book is as Jonathan Jacobs, editor in chief, put it, “a true grass roots effort; it is a tour de force of the RPG blogging universe”!
So, what are you waiting for? Head over to Amazon or Lulu and get your copy now!
UPDATE: The review @ WIRED Geekdad is now online. Check it out!
Quick reminder: OPEN GAME TABLE available for preorder at amazon.com
4March 18, 2009
I just wanted to remind everyone that the upcoming “OPEN GAME TABLE: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1” is now available at amazon.com for preorder. The 140-pages book will also be available in local stores and at Lulu.com as well.
The official release date is March 23rd, which is next monday! 
Preview: “Open Game Table, The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs”
6March 11, 2009
If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few months you have probably read about the upcoming “Open Game Table, The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs“. The 140-page book will be available on Lulu, Amazon, Indie Press Revolution and local dealers for only $22.95 on March 23rd, 2009. And if you ask me, it will be worth every penny.
As one of the contributing authors I was provided with a PDF of the final draft (only cover and foreword were missing). And so I had the chance to have a look at the book weeks before the actual release. So, let’s now have a look at the content:
The book consists of ten chapters: Play Style, Game Play, Characters & Players, Monsters & NPCs, Encounters, Settings & Location, Adventure Design, Campaign Setting Design, Classes, Action and Equipment, RPG History & Commentary and The RPG Toolbox. I won’t go into much detail here (I don’t want to spoil anything) but suffice to say that each chapter contains a couple of excellent articles from blogs all around the RPG Bloggers Network.
And that’s probably one of the great things about this book. You don’t get articles written by detached game designers sitting in some emerald tower but every article was written by one of us, a roleplaying game fan, who writes about his hobby on the internet. So you probably ask yourself why you should buy the book when you can read the posts on the ‘net for free. In my opinion there are several reasons: you get a beautiful book that you can read while commuting, sitting in your garden or wherever you like without the need of a computer or internet access, the anthology also contains only the very best RPG blog articles of 2008 and it is organized in a clear and sensible manner. You’ll probably find many awesome articles you’ve missed on the ‘net, mainly because trying to follow everything that has been written on the network is like drinking from the proverbial firehose.
I especially want to congratulate Jonathan Jacobs on how he has managed to transfer blog posts into print form. A feat that is probably much harder than you believe. Each post is properly credited and a link to the author’s blog and the relevant post is provided with each article in the book. Referenced URLs are listed in footnotes if necessary.
The book also contains quite a lot of artwork, something that I didn’t expect before. Most of the images used in the anthology have an old-school feel to them (especially the cartoon-style drawings) but that’s not a bad thing. The illustration in the book are black and white, but if you expect the RPG blog anthology to be a full-color book with artwork on par with WotC’s recent releases you will be probably disappointed. But in my opinion the artwork is top-notch and it never seems misplaced or out of context.
All in all I am very excited about the whole project and I can’t wait to get my print copy of “Open Game Table”! And I really hope that it’s just the first book out of many that will bring the wonders of RPG blogs to the unenlightened masses … or so to speak. 
And perhaps it will help to spread the word about the quality content you can find in RPG blogs these days.
And perhaps we’ll finally get a proper blog category for the ENnies 2010! *shakes fist at the organizers of the ENnie Award*
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