Brainfart Press

You may know all the famous barbecue joints of Kansas City and Memphis, but have you ever visited Amoral Abattoir? Pork By the Pound? UnderArby’s? Have you ever sampled the decadent delicacy known as the Bar-B-Cone? No, you haven’t, because technically they don’t exist; but no matter, because this guidebook will tell you everything you need to know about them, and other absurd, esoteric, and idiosyncratic barbecue joints across this great nation. Steve Johnson (Obscure Early Bluesmen Who Never Existed, So You’ve Decided To Run a Role-Playing Game) and Leighton Connor (The Rosamund Trap, The Flaxman’s Anomaly) have joined forces to lovingly craft this travelogue of imaginary barbecue joints that is frequently hilarious, usually dumb, and always entertaining.

Everybody’s heard of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), but unless you’ve actually played one you probably don’t know how they work. You know RPGs have something to do with nerds sitting around a table pretending to be elves and rolling funny dice, but the details are a little fuzzy. Even if you’re an experienced RPG player, most game manuals spend more time explaining rules and genre trappings than offering practical advice for first-time Game Masters. Whether you’re a wannabe gamer who’s never rolled a twenty-sided die or a long-time player who’s decided to take the plunge and run your own game for the first time, So You’ve Decided To Run a Role-Playing Game teaches you how to go from thinking about running a role-playing game to actually doing it. So You’ve Decided To Run A Role-Playing Game starts by describing what actually goes on during a role-playing game, then provides step-by-step advice for organizing and running your own RPG campaign, from finding a gaming group to plotting your ongoing story. So You’ve Decided To Run A Role-Playing Game is geared toward first-time Game Masters, but contains lots of practical advice and helpful tips that even veteran Game Masters are likely to find helpful.

The true purpose of management is a mystery. As far as most American workers can tell, their primary function is making signs. The value of these signs to the continued operation and profitability of the company, much like the value of management itself, is unclear, but the signs themselves can be fascinating. Sometimes they’re incomprehensibly bizarre, sometimes they provide insight into the almost alien attitudes that management has towards the rank-and-file employees, and sometimes they’re unintentionally hilarious. Dispatches From The MGT.: Curious Signs from the American Workplace collects some of the strangest workplace signs from all across this great nation.

HAIL ERIS! ALL HAIL DISCORDIA! Did you know that God is crazy? And a girl? If not, you should probably go read the Principia Discordia, or, How I Found The Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her. Otherwise, this book won’t make much sense to you. The Callipygian Grimoire contains ancient Discordian spells like “The War Song of Thule” and “The Assmonkey Curse,” along with parables, mystical wisdom, and answers to questions such as “are middle managers real?” and “where do all these 23s come from, man?” Plus fun activities like mazes, word searches, and coloring pages to pass the time if you get bored on your journey to enlightenment!

You know all about Son House and Muddy Waters, but have you ever heard of Eraserhead Morgan? Lester “Proudfoot” Jackson? Hootin’ Jack Wilson? Probably not, because technically they never existed. The fact that they’re imaginary does not mean that their stories aren’t worth sharing. Obscure Early Bluesmen (Who Never Existed) helps to fill in the gaps left by music historians who refuse to acknowledge the important role played by fictional performers. Inside this book, you’ll find accounts of seventeen entertainers who, had they existed, may very well have had some impact on modern music.