This is what happens when I play around on the computer for an hour:

About a week ago, I received an email asking me my opinion on the Kindle versus the Sony eReader for a particular situation. I offered some advice, and was asked to post the conversation on my blog here, for the world's benefit. So, here you go:

My girlfriend wants to buy me a Kindle. I'm about average to slightly above average on my level of reading; about 1 book a month.

I have done a bit of reading on the net, and I really can't tell if a Kindle or Kindle 2 or Sony reader or some other option would be best.

Doesn't Sony allow you to purchase ebooks from various sources and share it to other devices, while Amazon ebooks are only useable on Kindle?

I'll start with the final question. All of the ereaders support formats other than their store's standard format. For example, besides the Kindle Store's .azw format, Kindle supports .mobi, .prc, .rtf, .pdf, and .txt natively, as well as Word documents through a free conversion service. Sony's and B&N's have similar setups.

The Kindle's big advantage is its market share -- it offers a wide variety of current and older books, at (usually) lower prices than its competitors. Generally, more of your favorite books will be available for Kindle than the others.

As to which Kindle is best: For what it's worth, I've owned all three major versions of Kindle: 1, 2, and DX. I like the DX because of its larger screen size; it's like reading a hardback book compared to a paperback. It's just nicer that way. Most of the folks who prefer a Kindle 2 want to be able to put it in a purse, or just want something very lightweight; I personally don't have those needs. The DX isn't particularly heavy anyway.

As to whether you should get a Kindle at all: I'll say that I was a fairly heavy reader before getting my Kindle (several books a month), and I became a *heavier* reader after getting it.

Its free samples made it much easier to check out genres I never would have looked at before. If friends recommend a novel, I can easily check out the first chapter or so, without standing in a bookstore for 10 minutes.

Would you recommend the K1 or K2?

I prefer the K2 to the K1, as I find the K1's scroll wheel clunky. It works, but it's not nearly as convenient as the K2's mini-joystick.

A lot of people who like the K1 point to the SD slot and the replaceable battery.

On the SD slot -- it caused quite a few problems on the K1, as something that would often get stuck or otherwise confuse the OS. Also, there's no need to store tons of books on the Kindle; all the purchased books are backed up by Amazon, and anything else would be backed up on one's computer (I should hope!). One will never be away from a computer long enough to get through a thousand books stored on the device, if you get my meaning.

On the replaceable battery -- that type of battery (Lithium-Ion, I believe) dies even when it's not being used. So a replacement will age about as quickly as the battery in the Kindle, so when the Kindle's battery dies, the replacement will already be about dead. Moreover, Kindle 2 and DX battery replacements are done with overnight shipping, so one would only be without one's Kindle for a couple of days.

K1's a fine device, but I just don't think it's worth it when it has a clunkier UI. But that's just me!

Naturally, I've been thinking about Apple's iPad a lot lately.

It's a lovely device with several limitations. I can see four major markets for it, and each gives me pause.

Geeks have a chicken-and-egg problem. They have two options:

• Use it as a light laptop. Problem is, geeks need disk space for all their cool tools, and the iPad only has a few dozen GBs of storage. That's going to frustrate folks, as they realize they can't even download a full season of a TV show.
• Live in the cloud, with all data stored on the web. Problem here is the iPad's lack of Flash support. If you want to live in the cloud, you need that. (Five reasons: Hulu, Pandora, CNN video, FarmVille, and let's be honest, lots of porn sites.)

Moreover, the iPad is a closed system, not meant to be hacked. How much will that interest the average geek? Oh, quite a few will buy iPads just to look cool and to tinker with it, but I don't geeks massively turned on by it.

Retirees would be perfect iPad users -- they use computers infrequently, mostly for email and occasional light web surfing and shopping.

But imagine you're 65, you walk into an Apple store, and you tell an associate that you want an iPad. You'll have six choices. How big of a hard drive will you need? How will you know? You can't compare it to your current computer's hard drive; it'll be far less than that.

Then the associate will ask about whether you want the 3G modem with the data plan. How many retirees will be able to answer that question?

This assumes that the average retiree is willing to spend $500-$800 for an iPad. They're going to look at that price tag and remember the Best Buy circulars advertising $250 netbooks. Remember, they don't care about technology by definition (or they'd be using their computers for more than just email and light web surfing).

Students also seem like a natural fit, especially if there are textbooks. They can bring iPads to school, with all their textbooks on them, presumably non-3G models so they can't surf the web while in school.

Makes sense, but Robert Scoble's son, a high school student, doesn't think so. He points out that he would never put a $500-$800 device in a bookbag (and risk damage), nor bring a device that expensive to school where it would attract thieves and soon be stolen.

And that's assuming strong textbook support. Textbook companies are not known for their technological savvy.

The most interesting market, to me, are organizations. If you want to make your millions, make an iPad app to store and display medical records, synced to a local data server. Every doctor's office would have a couple. Imagine a factory manager with one of these. Or a meat inspector.

The problem there is that organizational adoption tends to be slow and unpredictable. You can't make a success off a few organizations, either.

But that gets to back what the iPad is, the first commercial proof-of-concept tablet computer. This is the first reasonable tablet, but we're not quite there technologically; nobody can cram absolutely everything onto a tablet yet. This is not The Tablet.

This is the kick-off. This version of the iPad may not sell like the iPod or iPhone did, but we've now entered the age of the tablet computer.

Thanks very much to FOX5 for inviting me to talk about Apple's iPad on their morning show today. It was a thoroughly professional environment with friendly people. I hope I can come back soon!

Here's the video:

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One primary design goal for Gunwave is simplicity. I want players to be able to pick up the game and start playing very, very quickly -- without needing hours to absorb the game's rules.

When I first wrote the Gunwave rule set, its D&D roots showed clearly -- each player chose a Race and a Specialty, just like D&D's race and class. Each Race and Class came with a menu of powers, from which the players could select a certain number for their character.

Players enjoyed this process, but I discovered several problems:

• Players spent quite a bit of time reviewing their options. They wanted to pick just the "right" powers.
• Players quickly became critical of powers that didn't seem useful, dismissing them out-of-hand.
• After one game session, players complained about having picked "useless" powers (sometimes simply because those powers hadn't been used in that session), and wanted to swap out their powers.

So I built a number of archetypes, common character profiles with a simplified menu of powers. Players now had a smaller menu of powers to choose from, but each power was tailored specifically to that character's role and purpose in the game.

Did I succeed? No; I just lessened the above effects. Players still worried over their power choices, criticized "useless" powers, and wanted to swap powers.

So I pre-built a dozen characters. Early in the main game document, the players are presented with stats and powers for these characters, and are encouraged to use them for their initial sessions. Straight. The archetypes now reside in an appendix to the document.

This works extremely well for playtesting -- players just choose a character and go. I've no idea how it'll work for regular players, though; will they appreciate this structure?

Either way, this solution satisfies my design goals, so I'm going to use it until it breaks. May seem counter-intuitive, but that's sometimes what happens with specific goals.

Now to try it out.

Not long after D&D 4th Edition appeared, Saalon pointed out during a chat that the basic D&D 4E system would be ideal for an RPG simulating giant robot combat, like Gundam or Robotech. It could emulate the feel of those shows, with rapid action and cool powers.

This idea so inspired me that I grabbed my laptop and wrote a few pages of a system just like that. To my surprise, not only did I enjoy writing it, more material came easily. Soon enough, I had a player's guide several dozen pages long.

Fortunately, I also had a group of role-players who were interested in the system, and they were willing to playtest the game. So we played it, and I collected pages of notes.

And here's where things got dicey: I started incorporating those notes.

As I incorporated notes, the game diverged from D&D 4E. That helped the system insofar as it removed elements that didn't fit into a mecha war universe. However, D&D 4E's design is surprisingly tight. Rules reinforce other rules. Adding new elements--or removing existing ones--can easily unbalance the game.

It's like making a stew. Anyone can throw a lot of ingredients into a pot, but the results may taste terrible. Testing helps determine what works. But a knowledge of flavor balance ensures a good soup (and game) every time.

I don't have an easy answer to this. I'd like to think the key is a relentless focus on the kind of game one is trying to play. It's not that simple, though -- some rules are more true to the mecha experience, but ruin other parts of the system.

Games must be very carefully designed. I'm realizing, increasingly, that there are no easy answers.

I subscribe to a bunch of role-playing blogs: Musings of the Chatty DM, NewbieDM, Some Space to Think, At Will, The Core Mechanic, Gnome Stew, Trollsmyth, and others.

I first started reading them in late 2008, when they were full of fire about role-playing. D&D 4th Edition had just come out and debates raged about its advantages and disadvantages compared to 3rd Edition. Cool indie games were getting attention, like Dogs in the Vineyard and Dread. Bloggers wrote about interesting subjects: how to adapt D&D concepts to other genres, how to get more players, how to organize one's materials, etc.

I'm still subscribed to all those blogs, but I realized today that I only glance at them every week or two. And I've been in that mode for several months now Partly, that's caused by my growth as an RPG player, runner, and designer; I need less hand-holding. On the other hand, the content of those blogs has begun to pale.

Much of the recent blogging in the RPG community has been very inwardly focused. "Here's what I want to accomplish in the RPG industry." "Here's the kind of game I like to run." "Here are some things I've been thinking of buying." "Here's my quick review of source book X." Nothing wrong with any of this, but it's not particularly helpful, and it's thin gruel, especially considering the RPG blogging I'm used to.

I'd like to see more practical advice culled from real experience. I'm not referring to campaign logs with a few comments; I mean building a blog post around a key concept illustrated during a play session.

I'd also like to see a lot more blogging by game designers about the game design process.

While I can't change others, I can change myself. So I'm planning to write those sorts of blog posts myself in the upcoming weeks and months, centering on the design of Gunwave.

Watch this space.

Found this lying face-up in a grocery store parking lot. Decided to give it a good home.

Haven't tried the recipe yet.

I think this warrants a blog post: Two days ago, I released a WordPress plugin. It's called Latest YouTube Videos, and it displays the most recent 1 to 10 videos from a given YouTube account in the sidebar of a WordPress blog. Requires no extra plugins or frameworks; just install and use (it uses HTML and a bit of JavaScript).

I wrote it for the classic reason: I needed that functionality, and no existing YouTube plugin would provide it. While there were a bunch of YouTube plugins, they weren't for the sidebar, required some framework or other plugin that I couldn't get working on my version of WordPress, or just plain wouldn't load the videos properly.

So, my plugin. Simple and effective. Learned quite a bit about the WordPress API, too, which like most APIs at first seems bizarre and inscrutable, then feels surprisingly elegant after some use.

About a year ago, I published two role-playing PDFs, an adventure (War in the Deep) and a sandbox setting (The City of Talon). I posted my earnings-to-date six months ago. Here's what I've earned since then:

Sales For The Past Six Months (June-November 2009)

Product	Number of Sales	Gross	Net
War in the Deep	4	$20.00	$13.00
The City of Talon	3	$15.00	$9.75
TOTAL	7	$35.00	$21.75

Sales For The Past Year (November 2008-November 2009)

Product	Number of Sales	Gross	Net
War in the Deep	19	$90.00	$58.80
The City of Talon	22	$100.00	$65.00
TOTAL	41	$190.00	$123.80

I won't bother charting the month-to-month sales, as they've obviously tailed off dramatically.

Web Traffic

Total hits for War in the Deep on DriveThruRPG: 6,649.

Unique pageviews for War in the Deep on the Musaeum in past six months: 7

Total hits for The City of Talon on DriveThruRPG: 3,852

Unique pageviews for The City of Talon on the Musaeum in past six months:

Source	Pageviews
bluedwarf.co.uk	32
ENWorld.org	11
Direct	7
Google searches	8
DriveThruStuff.com	4
Others	3
TOTAL	71

The keywords used to find Talon: "the crimes of talon" (7!), "brent p. newhall", and "d&d quest ideas"

bluedwarf.co.uk appears to be a text adventure inspired by Red Dwarf. No idea how that links back to Talon; maybe somebody linked to it on their forum?

Advertising

None.

Marketing

I described each project here on my blog in a couple of different blog posts. I'm a member of the RPG Bloggers Network, so those posts showed up there.

Analysis

I'm happy to have made over US $120 on two PDFs, though it's still not that much considering the amount of time I put into them. Even so, $120 is at least a return on my time spent on this hobby.

Plans

I now want to publish more supplements, of course.

In my last "Plans" section, I wrote about my intention to publish two settings and one adventure by...now. That hasn't happened, though one of those settings is now about 80% complete.

So. I will make that 80%-complete setting a focus, and will ramp up work on an adventure to publish.

I would like to develop an overall theme for my adventures, so I'm not just publishing random ideas. So, I've decided to build a broad campaign idea, and set each adventure somewhere within that campaign. Each adventure can be played alone, of course.

I'm also thinking about expanding into systems beyond D&D 4E. Everyone's building for that. Imagine a series of adventures just for Star Wars players, for example.

Hmmmmmm.

Miniature picture courtesy adobemac on Flickr