Highmoon's Ponderings

The Gama Trade Show, the premiere trade show for the Hobby Gaming Industry, will be Las Vegas next week, April 23-26, and as much as I want to attend, it just won’t happen, at least not this year.

It is being made increasingly clear to me that Highmoon Media Production has the potential to become a good-size player in the gaming industry, but I need to treat it as such and behave as if it were already. My visit to Gen Con this year will mark the sort of official start to this plan, but it’s something I have already begun to implement, the most obvious effort being the start of The Gamer Traveler Podcast.

At this point it doubtful I will have a new product to launch at Gen Con, but I do intend to use that opportunity to promote the hell out of HMP and the podcast so I can increase my brand awareness. Later in the year I will purchase a membership to GAMA, and then start making plans to attend GTS next year. Whether I exhibit or not is not that important at this point; being in an industry-only atmosphere where I can both learn from and connect with other industry professionals is. I very much look forward to that already.

Besides, there’s good kosher options in Vegas, so I should be fine.

• Going tn morning prayers. It is 55 degrees in Miami this morning! #
• Dude, this is crazy. It’s 54 degrees in Miami, actually colder at 9 am than it was at 7:30 am when I left the house. Digging it, though. #
• Home now. Long day spent at the hospital with a friend. Cat went to the vet and all’s fine. Maybe I can get some work done now. #

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• Storm falling & power’s been cut off… #

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Last Thursday I went to check RPGnow.com as I normally do, and one of the new releases immediately called my attention due to the big Israeli flag on the cover. It was a d20 Modern Advanced Class from Skortched Urf Studios called Scion of Masada. I went to the publisher’s site, listened to the audio commentary (a very neat idea) and bought the product. It was just simply great: the class presented a special operative of Israel’s MOSSAD agency called Scion of Masada who, armed with very unique blades and esoteric Torah learning, could defend Israel against regular and supernatural enemies. On top of everything, the class demanded the character be an Orthodox Jew and stick to Halacha (Torah Law) lest he loose access to his abilites.

Dude, where do I sign up!

There were, however, some minor issues with the class where the abilities and description did not match with Halacha, so I sent an email to Skortched Urf’s Mark asking him if he’d mind me pointing these issues up. He didn’t, so I sent him a very detailed rundown of things that needed to be changed along with suggestions on how to implement those changes. Mark surprised me by asking me to write up the edits myself, and I worked hard overnight so I could send him the edited file early on Friday. My main objective was to simply change the little things that did not match Halacha to version of the same idea that did, because I though Chris A. Field’ idea was just brilliant. I think, in all modesty, that I achieved that goal, and already the updated file has been uplaoded to all the RPG e-tailers and sent out to all early buyers.

Thanks to Chris Field for writing such a cool class in the first place, and for making it be an Orthodox Jew specifically, and to Mark and Skortched Urf for publishing it. I am honored to have had a small part in the project. As an Orthodox Jew and a gamer, this product is dear to me and gives me something I can play at the table that fully allows me to bring in my heritage to bear.

In the end, I get to play an Orthodox Jew who gets to kick terrorist and supernatural ass in defense of Eretz Ysrael.

Seriously. I mean, it’s such a hard life he leads!

• Surfing around Flickr.com & adding minitotoro and mightymur to my Friends. #
• I really wonder, do people actually keep track of all these tweets during the day? Is work such a thing of the past? #
• @sambearpoet, @MRrandom: I sometimes have it open at work, but most of the time I just don’t have the time to catch everything. #
• cont: the days I do keep up with Twitter I end up doing very little at work (not that that’s a bad thing…) #
• @MDrandom: not really. I have Twitter Tools so my tweets go to my blog, but that’s about it. #
• Not being able to keep up with Twitter is not such a bad thing, if you know what I mean… #
• @MDRandom: Checking it out. #
• @sambearpoet: That seems like a very personal question! #
• @sambearpoet: I imagine lip syncing an entire iTunes library would also take a long time. #
• Oh wait, Mario already beat me to that joke. Doh! #
• Ok, folks, enough for one day. Gonna listen to the new preview of Tori Amos’ new album and go to bed. ‘Night. #

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