Something Awesome

I was going to talk about what not to do today, but some awesome things happened, and I think I'll talk about them first.

First, Ryan Macklin and Elizabeth Sampat put together the Random Kindness Bundle, a bundle of games to raise money for a friend who needs to field the bills that come from fighting cancer. This is a really, really sweet bundle of game pdfs, and it includes:

• Elizabeth's "Blowback", which is basically the Burn Notice RPG. I have this in print form, so the PDF is a welcome addition to my library. This is a clever, badass game and worth putting in your brain.
• Vincent Baker's "Murderous Ghosts". I know _nothing_ about this game, except that A) some people on twitter really dig it and B) It's Vincent Freaking Baker - how is that not a win?
• David Hill and Filamena Young's "Maschine Zeit" which is a fantastic sci-fi/Horror game. I've still got a cool ass USB stick from when it came out.
• Joshua A.C. Newman's Shock and Human Contact. If you know these games, you know why they're awesome. If you don't, you're in for a treat - Shock is a brilliant game that I don't play, but I steal from shamelessly. It's core engine is an awesome implementation of Heuristic Ideation Technique (the fancy name for 5x5 grid design) which should be in every designer's toolbox.
• Adam & Sage's Dungeon World Compendium - This is new for the bundle, and I haven't even looked at it yet, but I'm excited. Dungeon World is a Hack for Apocalypse World for playing D&D kind of games, and that's cool and all, but what has impressed me more is that it's been (in many ways) a clearer presentation of the things that make AW awesome, which is no mean feat. Anything these guys want to add to that body of work is welcome indeed.
• A collection of Josh Roby's "Rooksbridge" fiction. Josh is cool and all, but unrelated to that, the mofo can _write_.
  
• Ben Lehman's "Clover". I have no idea at all what this is, but I know Ben (the brain behind Polaris and Misery Bubblegum) so my prediction is that it's totally weird, breaks all sorts of preconceptions of how a game should, and provides a host of new tools for looking at games. That's pattern recognition.
• Jason Blair's "Little Fears" nightmare edition, a game that is on my list of "this game is brilliant, but I will never run it, because I like having friends" games, which is where the really, really good horror games go.
• Plus, if they get $4000 in donations, then Macklin will pony up and release his white whale, Mythender, into the world.

This is, needless to say, a great bundle, and well worth picking up at whatever price you're comfortable with.

But that's only half the story.

See, they launched this yesterday, round about noon eastern. And then proceeded to totally blow the doors off it. It's been less than 24 hours, and the $10,000 mark has already been crossed.

I am so damn proud of this hobby, sometimes.