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Thursday, August 9, 2007
Cthulhu dice coming from Q-workshop
Normally we don’t post about unusual dice, but these are just cool (and may provoke a SAN check). To quote the Q-workshop website: “Cthulhu Fhtagn ! The stars will be right in September, as Q-workshop and Chaosium Inc. unleash the Cthulhu Dice upon the mortal world. Available in all standard designs and color schemes, these dice will be a great asset to all servants of Great Old Ones.” The dice are pictured here if you think your mortal mind can withstand perceiving them. As with most announcements this time of year, these will be available at Gen Con Indy (booth 924).
Monday, August 6, 2007
Paizo blazes a trail to Pathfinder
Pathfinder, Paizo Publishing’s post-Dragon project, is expected to ship the first volume next week, but another early peek is available. Paizo is offering up a free PDF download of Pathfinder: Player’s Guide to Rise of the Runelords, a 16-page character-building aid that will get players ready for the Pathfinder adventures to come. As Joshua Frost of Paizo mentioned in our podcast recently, a print version of the Player’s Guide will be available later this month, singly ($2) and in five-packs ($10) to supply whole gaming groups. Note that gamers who subscribe to Pathfinder before August 13th get a Player’s Guide for free. Paizo still offers free downloads of the Free RPG Day module D0 - Hollow’s Last Hope as well, so D&D players have no excuse to be unprepared when Pathfinder rolls for initiative. Click below for a look at the Pathfinder release schedule. Read More…
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Mongoose to publish Traveller
After resurrecting a number of other RPG lines (including Paranoia and Runequest), Mongoose Publishing has announced today that it will now turn its attention to Traveller. Stating that its goal is “to halt the fragmentation of the Traveller game, and reintroduce one solid system (based on Classic Traveller)”, Mongoose went on to promise their new core rule book Traveller: Science-Fiction Adventures in the Far Future by February ‘08. The Traveller ruleset will power licensed sci-fi titles as well, including Strontium Dogs and the returning Starship Troopers, and will also be available under an Open Gaming License. The press release (below) gives details on the long awaited Traveller5 as well, so click through for the lowdown.
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BSG RPG, Dragonlance trailer at GenCon ‘07
Gen Con announcements have started rolling in, and Margaret Weis Productions sent a pair of good ones. First, a reaffirmation that the Battlestar Galactica RPG will make its debut at Gen Con, as will a Quickstart Guide which contains a full adventure. Second, the animated movie trailer for Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight will be shown Thursday night at the show, along with behind the scenes footage from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. More details in the press releases below.
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Friday, August 3, 2007
Taste the fearsome beak of critical standards!
I’m kind of excited about The Owlbear, a new group blog devoted to RPG criticism, founded by some denizens of story-games.com and other such haunts. Before you assume that this new venture is going to be a big fat hippie-gaming love-in, read their introductory post in detail: “Those who are best informed on the state of the art are least willing to speak frankly about games they think are flawed. Some fear taking a dollar out of some one else’s pocket, others offending their peers. The result is that flawed, weak games make it onto the shelves of stores and onto the tables of gamers, who conclude, understandably, that the role playing industry is doomed. We believe that this well-intentioned self-censorship is doing no one any good.” That’s right, people; it’s time to do some choppin’ with the sword of truth. (It’s startling how similar that introduction is to this great essay, that should be read by anyone who cares about judging cultural artifacts of any kind, from issue 1 of populist lit mag The Believer. To half of it, anyway.)
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