I also learned today that Masks has joined Eureka on DriveThruRPG’s Gold bestseller list, putting it in the top 1% of all products there. Engine Publishing is a miniscule hobby publisher (hobby in the sense that I have a day job, and this isn’t it), and we’re rubbing elbows with some of the biggest and best publishers in the industry.

Whoa doesn’t begin to describe today.

John Arcadian, who art directed our first two books, also art directed Never Unprepared. Working with John were our two interior artists, Matt Morrow (who also did the cover) and Christopher Reach. Everyone involved knocked this out of the park, but don’t take my word for it — see for yourself!

Artwork by Christopher Reach

Chris was our primary interior artist, and he did half-page pieces as well as several full-page illustrations.

Artwork by Matt Morrow

In addition to doing Never Unprepared’s cover, Matt also contributed several interior pieces.

I have one final preview coming up this month: sample pages from the book. If you’re undecided about whether you need Never Unprepared in your GMing library, that preview should help you make up your mind — and hopefully convince you that you do!

The cover

Our cover artist, Matt Morrow, supported by our art director, John Arcadian, and our graphic designer, Darren Hardy, did an amazing job on this puppy:

What I love about this cover is that the central figure looks like an interesting character to play, or to meet in the game. Whatever she’s preparing for, it looks dangerous — and fun.

She’s also more than just a pair of big boobs, which is important. I could talk all day about gender and racial inclusivity in our books, especially this one, but suffice to say that it’s an issue that bugs the shit out of me and this team has done an awesome job of ensuring that Never Unprepared’s artwork bucks the trend.

You’ll also find this same theme — preparation in all its forms — in the interior artwork by Matt Morrow and Christopher Reach. I’ll share some of those pieces later this month.

Foreword by Sean Patrick Fannon

You may know Sean Patrick Fannon as the creator of Shaintar, the author of The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer’s Bible, as the man behind OneBookShelf (best known for DriveThruRPG and RPGNow), his love of Savage Worlds, or his sprawling convention games. Sean is awesome, and Phil and I were ecstatic when he signed on to write the foreword for Never Unprepared.

Here’s an excerpt from his foreword — one that does double duty as a great summary of what the book is about, and what makes it unique, summed up as only Sean can:

Phil, on the other hand, has taken his expertise as a project manager and his genetic predisposition to nigh-obsessive preparedness and applied these qualities to an entirely systemic and effective treatise on the matter. He’s broken down the whole of the concept, applied a step-by-step presentation of all of the factors you need to consider, and presented it all in a clear, concise, easily grasped way.

Most importantly, he’s demystified the whole concept of “game prep.” It’s no longer the boogie-man waiting at your desk a couple of hours before game time, ready to stress you out beyond measure before people start showing up for your game. It’s also no longer that arduous, tedious task you have to force yourself to close the latest MMORPG or YouTube video to drudge through during the week. It’s a reasonable, manageable task that will actually be fun to perform, and it will take a lot of stress off of you by the time that first player arrives.

The best part of this book is that Phil doesn’t just lay out a list of steps that every GM must follow to the letter. Honestly, that would be fairly useless as well as pretentious. A wiser man, Phil, in that he instead guides you in evaluating your needs as a GM, based on your style of play. From there, he helps you figure out the steps that make the most sense for you.

Without beating you over the head with them, we’ll be doing a couple more previews of Never Unprepared this month. Stay tuned!

If 100 people circle Engine Publishing by March 26, 2012, I’ll give a PDF copy of Masks and Eureka to one randomly selected circler (person, not page), plus a PDF copy of both books for them to give to a friend.

If 200 people circle us by March 30, 2012, I’ll give away 5 sets of our books in PDF format, plus an extra set to each winner to give to a friend (same rules as above).

If that sounds good, spread the word!

Update: We’ve crossed 200 circlers in less than two hours — thank you to everyone who has spread the word and circled us!

On March 26, I’ll give away 6 sets of our PDFs (plus an extra set for each winner to give to a friend). Because I also mentioned 3/30 as the cutoff for 200+ circlers being reached, but we’ve already hit that number, I’ll give away ANOTHER 6 sets (plus an extra set each) to randomly selected circlers then.

AND because this has gone so swimmingly, I’ll up the ante one more time: If we’re circled by 500 people as of March 30, 2012, I’ll give away another 6 sets of Masks and Eureka PDFS (plus an extra to each winner) in the evening on 3/30.

This spontaneous giveaway has been a lot of fun for me, and I hope you’re enjoying it as well.

The book is Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first gaming book devoted entirely to preparing for your game.

100% Prep Advice You Can Use

Prep usually gets a few pages in larger works, or the occasional article online, but it’s a huge topic and one that deserves a book all to itself. It’s a book I would have loved to have when I was learning to GM, and one I’m just as excited to have now despite having been a GM for over 20 years.

Why? Because it’s jam-packed with things you can use right now. And because Phil is a veteran GM, and an excellent author, who has thought deeply about prep, experimented with a wide range of techniques, and developed a flexible approach that is practical, accessible, and useful to other GMs.

Never Unprepared will include material Phil developed over the course of his Prep-Lite article series on Gnome Stew (parts one, two, three, four, five), but there’s a lot more in the book on prepping light and all aspects of prep in general.

I’m going to use the hell out of this book myself, and I think you will too.

About the Book

Never Unprepared is illustrated by Matt Morrow and Christopher Reach and art directed by John Arcadian, with graphic design and layout by Darren Hardy. I’m doing the editing, Phil and I will be working together on the index, and Daniel Milne and Bob Everson will be doing the proofreading. I’ve worked with everyone on the creative team before, and they all rock.

Like Gnome Stew’s first two books, 2010′s Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots and 2011′s Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs, Never Unprepared will be published by Engine Publishing. And like Masks and Eureka, I’m publishing it because I wished it existed and it didn’t, and now that Phil’s written it I and many, many other GMs will get to use it.

It will be digest-sized (6×9), softcover, packed with artwork, and 100+ pages. Print copies will come with a free PDF version. The manuscript is complete, artwork is nearly complete, and editing is well underway. We’re aiming to open preorders this June, with books going out to preorder customers in July and available at GenCon 2012, online, and in retail stores worldwide thereafter.

If you have questions about Never Unprepared, I’ll be happy to answer them (limited only by the publishing process — there are things we won’t know until the book’s in layout, for example) in the comments.

There are currently just 131 Gold products on the site, 0.61% of DTRPG’s huge library of titles. Crazy! But awesome.

Eureka just received a new five-star review over on DriveThruRPG, and Masks received two new reviews as well. You can check out all of our DTRPG reviews for Eureka and for Masks to see what customers have said about our books.

As a longtime KoDT fan, this is totally awesome. Thanks, Brian!

I use G+ regularly, and almost exclusively for gaming. (If you want to link up with me personally, I’m on there too.) I look forward to sharing Engine news and other tidbits on G+!

That means that your local retailer should as well — or if they don’t yet, they will shortly.

Masks makes a great gift for the holidays, and if you pick it up from your FLGS you’re entitled to a copy of the book in PDF for free, courtesy of our PDF guarantee.

If your local retailer doesn’t stock Engine Publishing products and you’d like them to, just let them know that they can order them from their normal distributor. All major distributors carry our products.