Since I was a kid playing my first role-playing games, I thought about writing my own gaming material. And of course I did; I still have binders of stuff I’ve written for campaigns, seen by no one but me and the occasional player. But I always had the idea I could maybe write gaming material other people might actually want to play with. What with one thing and another, however, I pushed that down and never followed through (and the “why” of that is a whole other blog).

But lately the idea is back in front of me. Two…events, let’s call them, have pushed me to the point I’m ready to jump into game writing with both feet. One was the back-to-back reading of The Nerdist Way and Just a Geek on my bus ride home from Gen Con. If you’ve never done it and you need an inspirational kick in the ass, I highly recommend reading both those books. The second event wasn’t so much an event as it was the first event clicking with something I’d been reading for a while.

I’ve talked about Johnn Four’s Roleplaying Tips before, because I think it’s one of the single best game resources on the internet. Seriously, if you game master at all and haven’t signed up for his mailing list, you do yourself a disservice. But Johnn also runs Gamer Lifestyle, his program to encourage and support gaming nerds like me who want to publish gaming material. Johnn had revamped the course this past year and as one his original beta members I had access to the new course material. I had been reading through it, making half-hearted efforts to follow some of it.

After the bus trip, though, things clicked and a plan sprung up. Unlike previous plans where I’d had either the inspiration or the nuts and bolts, this plan had, and has, both. I’m inspired and I have a plan for the way forward.

Copyright TSR

Long story short (too late!), this post is the soft launch for my new venture, Prairie Dragon Press™. PDP is my imprint for the gaming material I’ll publish over the next several months. I’m starting with a series of game master resources, each one focusing on an inn/tavern located in the Pathfinder RPG’s world of Golarion. One of my favourite 2nd Ed. D&D game resources were the Volo’s Guides, and even now I’ll still read through them for fun. So I’d like to publish something like those, so other game masters have cool inns and taverns for their players to experience.

The hard launch will come November 7. Why November 7? Because that is the official completion date for Gamer Lifestyle’s RPG Bootcamp, starting October 7. The Bootcamp is designed to help a nerd like me (and maybe you) bring a product from idea to published in 30 days. I’d still have started without it, but the timing was too perfect to ignore. I think the Bootcamp is just the boost I need to get PDP on the go, and I’m really excited to get to work. So excited, I’ve actually started working on a few things now.

I’ll post updates of my progress and maybe a few sneak-peeks at the final product(s), along with a link to the Prairie Dragon Press™ page when it’s ready to launch. And if you want to give game writing a try I highly recommend joining me in the Bootcamp. If nothing else it will be a lot of fun.