Even before we began writing Things We Think About Games, Will had started noodling around with some sections of a book that he was calling “Dice Magic,” about the rituals and relationships we—gamers—have with our dice.

That book, now called The Bones, will come out early in 2010. We’re shooting for February. What excited me, personally, about Will’s pitch for the book was when he said he envisioned it as being like an episode of This American Life, but in the form of essays, where the unifying theme was “Geeks and their Dice.” Sure enough, each essay is about dice, but what it’s about… well, that’s a completely different question.

With The Bones, instead of hauling all the rocks ourselves, Gameplaywright Press is publishing in cooperation with Atomic Overmind Press. GPW will handle the creative aspects, while AOP does the heavy lifting of printing, distributing, and passing all the filthy money back and forth. Will and I have been friends with Atomic “El Hefe” Hal Mangold for lots of years, and we think it’s awesome to have a chance to work with him. Not that the partnership needs justification. Look at what Atomic Overmind has put out so far. It should come as no shock that we’d want to be in business with Hal. The hope is that he and AOP will push The Bones even further into the marketplace than the happy success that was Things We Think About Games.

What’s in The Bones? Here’s the blurbage as it just went out to the book trade:

The Bones: Us and Our Dice

160 pages * $18.95 * ISBN 13: 978-0-9818840-1-1 * ISBN 10: 0-9818840-1-6

This isn’t about math. It’s about unlucky breaks and victory against all odds.

This isn’t about percentiles and probabilities. It’s about late-night game-ending rolls where everything hinges on that climactic moment when one single die skitters across the table and determines the fate of a hero, a city, an empire…

The Bones gathers writing about fandom and family—about gamers, camaraderie, and memories—and ties them together where they meet: our dice. These are essays and anecdotes about the ways dice make us crazy, about the stakes we play for and the thrill we get from not knowing what the next roll will bring.

Step back and look at how we play with dice.

Contributors include game designers Mike Selinker, Kenneth Hite, and Keith Baker, writer/actor Wil Wheaton, writers Ray Fawkes and James Lowder. (Subject to change.)

Edited by Will Hindmarch.

Here’s something we want your feedback on: The main print run of The Bones will be a trade paperback, printed traditionally on an offset press, just like the grown-ups do it. We’re curious whether there’s any interest among GPW aficionados—that’s you—in a limited edition print-on-demand run of, say, 100 copies, that would be hardback, signed, and numbered. Lots of people were excited about the “First Twenty” promotion we did for Things We Think About Games, and if there’s enough enthusiasm, we’d love to do something similar with this book. It would probably run about $30, if that’s a relevant factor for you.

Mark your calendars! The Bones is coming!