2019 Free Tools Pledge Drive Prize Winners!

As usual, I’ve been floored by the support of the DCC community for the free tools! I’ve just spent the last three hours sending out download codes for free adventures. If you haven’t received yours (and they’re not in your spam folder), just contact me (and include your DriveThruRPG email address!)

I wish everyone could win a special prize, but saying that, I’m thrilled by the amazing variety of cool stuff the community provided for this year’s drive. If you’re a winner, I’ll send your email address to the person providing the prize if there is some sort of coordination (like getting your address) required.

Without further ado, here are the prizes for the 2019 Free Tools Pledge Drive!

Special Treasure Winners

First off, both Hector Cruz and Matt Couch went above and beyond in supporting the drive this year, contributing the same amazing amount. Of course, they both had their eye on the DCC Table Flag built by Keith Nelson. Keith has stepped up and will be creating a 2nd flag, so that both Hector and Matt will receive both a DCC flag, and a Dark Trails flag! All three of you are amazing, and went a long way in making this year’s drive such a success!

• Signed Copy of Check this Artifact provided by Jim Wampler: Bruce Cunnington
• £50 Credit to Bruce Cunnington’s Etsy Shop: Keith Nelson
• MCC Journal donated by Keith Nelson: Richard Ohnemus
• Original Art donated by Keith Nelson: Allen White
• Lankhmar Box Set provided by Goodman Games: Tom Shulruff
• Signed 1st copy of Sunken City Omnibus v2: Marc Plourde
• Sanjulian DCC Rulebook provided by Goodman Games: Jim Kitchen
• Signed Star Crawl & Vehicle Mayhem provided by Jonathan Snodgrass: David Bendit
• Signed original production maps provided by Terry Olson: Isaac Eccles
• The Horde of Special Treasure Purple Ticket Winners: Joan K Troyer, Wayne Petersen, Kevin Heuer, Todd Bradley, Jim Cox, Stephen Murrish, David York, Clea Bennett, Larry Haught
  

Random Prize Winners

• Purple Ticket Winner: Donald Kalinich
• The entire lineup of Purple Sorcerer adventures: Pete Doroshenko, Joshua Macy, Gabriel Meister
• Print copies of Lesser Key to the Celestial Legion provided by Donn Stroud: Steven Simmons, Gabriel Whitehead, Jeff Jeppesen, Jonathan Perkel
• Nebin Pendlebrook Battlemaps PDF’s provided by Frank Turfler: David Aughinbaugh, Steven Kleinknecht, Mirko Froehlich, Edward Stanek, Fatfish Comics
• Print copies of Working Class Alphabet & Night Soil #1 provided by Jon Wilson: Justin Carson, Paul Kensler, Zachary Hall
• Print copies of Night Soil #0 & The Bailiff provided by Jon Wilson: Ken Mclennan, Cameron Bradford, Tom Colley
• Print copies of Night Soil #1 & The Bailiff provided by Jon Wilson: Jon Hammersley, Marlene Whitmer
• PDF copies of The Star Wound of Abaddon provided by Marzio Muscedere: Alexandria Emmer, Lucas ‘Fuzzbang’ Kuntz, Steve Hartmann
• PDF of Attack of the Frawgs! provided by Stephen Newton: Cory Welch
• PDF of Haunting of Larvik Island provided by Stephen Newton: Robert Nemeth
• PDF of Stronghold of the Wood Giant Shaman provided by Stephen Newton: Inner Ham
• PDF of Children of the Fallen Sun provided by Stephen Newton: Reese Lloyd
  

Whew! Thanks to everyone who supported this year’s Free Tools Pledge Drive: you truly make it all possible.

Thank You, One and All!

Everyone,

Thank you. You astonish me with your generosity. Before the Free Tools Pledge Drive started, I thought we’d see a large drop-off from last year without the benefit of the central Google+ hub, but so many of you shared the drive and spread the word that in the end we got within spitting distance of last year’s record haul: 123 backers raised over $4200, making this the 2nd most successful drive yet!

This means that EVERYTHING in terms of server fees and other tools expenses have been paid for for the year, I have a lovely new iPhone to test on that should last for years, I’ll be purchasing a new iPad shortly to aid in both testing and development, I have funds to pick up some nice extras, and put in the ‘rainy day emergency fund’… and my boy and I will be coming to GenCon in 2020!

What a thrill: to know that you find value in the tools, and are willing to put your passion for them into action! And that I’ll be able to finally meet many of you in person. I couldn’t be happier. Thank you to those who provided fantastic prizes. Thank you to those who gave so generously. Thank you to those who lacked resources, but still shared the word. You all rock!

Jon

(If you missed the drive, you can still join in the fun until tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon: I’ll start tabulating and cross-referencing all the info from the drive early Monday, and follow up emails and codes should start going out Monday and/or Tuesday).

Final Day of the Free Tools Pledge Drive!

OK friends, we’re down to the last day of the Free Tools Pledge Drive! We’ve had fantastic support from the community, and we’re looking in this last day to ‘fill in the gaps’ and provide some flexibility in the purchase of the next iPad, beef up the main server, and do a variety of other small helpful things, and see if we can match the total from last year. Thanks to everyone who has supported the drive!

Keith Nelson has been incredibly generous in expanding the special treasures pool: including the final treasure just added this evening: an awesome takedown DCC table flag! If you’re running DCC at a con, I don’t think you can do much better to announce your intentions than this flag. 🙂

Goodman Games Rocks

Yes, it’s a bit embarrassing, but Goodman Games recently interviewed me about the development of the tools. It really is incredibly how supportive they are of what I do, sharing info across the interwebs to push the drive. I just don’t know of any RPG company like them. They rock: and they produce fantastic stuff to boot. So go buy their stuff!

Generator Updates

Made a few updates to the zero and upper level generators this evening:

Someone on Reddit pointed out a bug with the number of non-human languages at zero level. That bug’s been squashed, and I added the option for dwarves, elves, and halflings to always get their racial language, regardless of their intelligence score.

While I was messing around inside the guts of the generators, I also added the option to auto-reroll (or not) low rolls for important stats for upper level characters.

Previously the upper-level generator always ‘sweetened’ bad rolls for each of the classes two most import stats: such as intelligence and perception for wizards, and strength and agility for warriors. (Below 11 for the first, 8 for the second).

This was primarily so the generator didn’t have to deal with ‘edge-case’ characters like Int 3 wizards that couldn’t cast spells, etc. But it also reflected the greater likelihood that characters with at least serviceable stats in their most important areas would survive to upper levels.

Now you can choose for yourselves.:)

(At some point in the future, I’m planning on adding a much more elaborate adjustable ‘weathering’ option to the upper level generator that will commit all sorts of mayhem (and mercy) on the characters based on how many levels they climb).

https://purplesorcerer.com/create_party.php

https://purplesorcerer.com/create_upper.php

Zero Sheet from RageCon Posted by Randy Andrews!

First Hardware Purchase

Made the first hardware purchase: an iPhone XR. Gut churning indeed to hit the ‘purchase’ button at Apple prices, but oh well. It was surreal to order the thing, and then have a courier deliver it to my door in under a half an hour. I know things like ‘door dash’ exist, but my brain still hasn’t processed that we’re starting to do stuff like that for non-food things.

I got it all set up, and I’ve already put it through it’s paces testing the upcoming HTML5 version of the Crawler’s Companion in a variety of browsers. Everything looks good so far. 🙂

As always, thanks to one and all: you make it possible!

dav

Level 2 Has Been Conquered!

Thanks everyone, your support of the Free Tools Pledge Drive continues to amaze me.

We’re now delving down into Level 3, which is focused on helping raise funds for my long talked about trip to GenCon 2020 with my son. Yes, it will give me an opportunity to talk about the tools with many of you, and learn more about how you use them, and how you think they can be improved. But mainly, it’s a chance to finally meet friends I’ve known for up to seven years, and yet never looked in the eye. To share a cold drink with (in my case root beer, if they’ve got it!), and talk about this hobby we love. This community has enriched my life in so many ways, and it seems strange I’ve never had a chance to shake even one of your hands. I’m thrilled that that might change.

And I’ll be doing it all with my boy just before he leaves the nest for good. No, I’m not misting up, it’s just dusty in here…

If we conquer Level 3, I’ve got some great things we can do on Level 4…

Thank you: you do make it all possible.