Roleplaying Games
Atlas Games is 20 years old this month, and founder John Nephew has put out the word that they’re celebrating. If you’re lucky, you may still have time to get a free birthday gift box of Atlas Games stuff – the first 250 folks to order it and pay for their own shipping will get a semi-random assortment of games or game related items from the company. Even if you miss out on the birthday goodies, stop by the website and wish the Atlas crew a happy 20th, with many more to come.
Looking forward to the inevitable late-night recap episode, but here are our notes for the supposed last TJI of the year, with guests Monte Cook, Robin Laws, and Eddy Webb.
And that’s Gen Con. Hope you had fun!
Another group of new reviews has just been added to OgreCave’s collection, with items of interest for roleplayers and board gamers alike. First, Demian takes a look at two RPG resource books: Town, and the revised version of Points in Space, Volume 1: Starport Locations, both from Cumberland Games. Then Daron continues his quest to cover the entire Memoir ’44 game line with a review of the Memoir ’44 Terrain Pack. Enjoy the trio of product write-ups – we’ll have more soon.
After sweeping the ENnies, you’d think Paizo’s Jason Bulmahn would be ready to relax and celebrate. Not entirely: he’s currently running a contest challenging Pathfinder fans to push his Facebook page up to having 1,000 people “like” it before the end of Gen Con on Sunday. If the goal is reached, all of his Facebook fans will 12,000 words of free Pathfinder material. Even if his page doesn’t reach the 1k mark, Bulmahn plans to offer up some material to those who helped the effort. As of this post, 853 people “like” his page – head on over, click the “like” button, and help the Pathfinder community.
As Day 3 of the “Best Four Days in Gaming” winds down, we’ve got your show notes for the Saturday 5 pm TJI show. Guests Adam Jury and E Foley (aka @geeksdreamgirl) join hosts Ryan and Kevin for the Saturday evening show.
One show left, midday Sunday – pardon me, “Day 4”. Check back tomorrow!
Hyrum Savage at Super Genius Games has been teasing for a day or two that an announcement was forthcoming, and now we know what he’s been up to: Super Genius Games will take over management of Dungeonaday.com. Started by Monte Cook, the subscription-based website has provided dungeon crawl encounters and rules articles every weekday since its inception in early 2009, with most of the site’s content generated by Cook himself. Starting September 1st, Super Genius Games will take over the daily site updates and management, and update the site to be compatible with Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder RPG. Seems like a solid plan – Monte’s leaving the Dragon’s Delve, the massive Dungeonaday.com labyrinth, in good hands. (Full press release below.)
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Continuing the TJI adventure:
The annual Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (otherwise known as the “ENnie” awards) took place earlier this evening at Gen Con, and the internet is buzzing with celebratory blog posts and tweets. Paizo Publishing dominated this year, with Pathfinder taking home gold for Best Game, Product of the Year, Best Production Values, and several others. Here’s the winner list (the full nominee list can be found here):
2010 ENnie Award results:
Best Cover Art
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: Pathfinder BestiaryBest Interior Art
Silver: Shadowrun 20th
Gold: Pathfinder Core RulebookBest Cartography
Silver: Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing
Gold: Pathfinder City Map FolioBest Writing
Silver: Victoriana
Gold: Eclipse PhaseBest Production Values
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: PathfinderBest Rules
Silver: Hero 6th Edition
Gold: DiasporaBest Adventure
Silver: Trail of Cthulhu: Armitage Files
Gold: Pathfinder #31: Stolen LandBest Monster or Adversary
Silver: Pathfinder: Classic Horrors Revisited
Gold: Pathfinder BestiaryBest Setting
Silver: Rome: Life and Death of the Republic
Gold: Day After RagnarokBest Supplement
Silver: Players Handbook 3
Gold: Mysteries of the Hollow EarthBest Aid or Accessory
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: Pathfinder GM ScreenBest Miniatures Product
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: D&D MinisBest Regalia
Silver: Battletech
Gold: Cthulhu 101Best Electronic Book
Silver: The Devil We Know
Gold: The Great City Player’s GuideBest Free Product
Silver: Lady Blackbird
Gold: Advanced Players Guide PlaytestBest Website
Silver: d20PFSRD.com
Gold: Obsidian PortalBest Podcast
Silver: All Games Considered
Gold: Atomic ArrayBest Blog
Silver: Gnome Stew
Gold: Kobold QuarterlyBest Game
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: PathfinderProduct of the Year
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: PathfinderFan Award for Best Publisher
Silver: Fantasy Flight Games
Gold: Paizo PublishingJudges’ Spotlight Awards
Fiasco
Trailblazer
Chronica Feudalis
Ancient Odyssey: Treasure Awaits
Mindjammer
A hearty congratulations to all of this year’s nominees and winners!
Catching up after the one-two punch of delayed-then-released shows – here’s show notes for the Friday 5 pm show. Guests Steve Kenson and Ken Hite sit in on the Friday evening show.
The crew ends the show thinking forward to the evening’s ENnie Awards ceremony, which has happened by now – click here to see the 2010 winners list.
It seems the technical difficulties have been resolved, and shows are flowing again, so now we have show notes for the Friday 11 am show. Guests Darren Watts and Jennifer Brozek lend a hand for the Friday morning show.
I’ll have the next batch of notes up in a bit.
Sorry, I was in the bathroom. Here we go!
Can I just say how great it is to not hear Ryan Macklin again after so long? Nah, I’m just kidding. See you tomorrow!
I love contexts where you can just say “It’s Thursday, 11AM, 2010,” and everyone knows when you mean. So yeah, it’s on once again: This Just In From Gen Con is in live-from-the-show mode, and we’re doing notes. If you’re new here, shame on you! welcome! Here goes:
Subscribe to our feed if you haven’t, because we’ll be on top of the TJI notes for the whole show, plus any other tidbits we turn up.
As sometimes happens, one of our recent review targets has been updated, and Demian is on the case. As proof, he’s taken a look at two recent additions to the Wickedly Errant Game System from Gamewick Games. First, WEGS: Old Skool Redux tweaks and adds to the core fantasy RPG system, improving on the original edition. Then we hear about Dice Rule!, which is an enhancement more than an expansion, but certainly worth checking out.
It’s that time of year again: Gen Con draws ever closer, heralding the announcement of the Diana Jones Award and its shortlist for 2010. Each year, this independent award is bestowed on prime examples of “excellence in gaming” by the Diana Jones Committee (made up of past winners and other luminaries). The nominees are an interesting group, and are described thusly:
Follow this link for more details on what brought these four nominees to the committee’s attention. As always, the winner of the 2010 Diana Jones Award will be announced on the evening before Gen Con Indy gets started at the Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party in downtown Indianapolis.
[Update: The votes are in, and the winner has been announced!]
RPG Blog 2 broke the news that Precis Intermedia is the new home of the Masterbook, Shatterzone and Bloodshadows properties, which all formerly belonged to West End Games. Last month, it was revealed that WEG’s Eric Gibson had sold the rights to TORG, the precursor to the Masterbook system, to German company Ulisses Spiele – now it seems all WEG has left is the Junta board game. I’m sure someone can be found to adopt it.
We’re still awaiting a more official Precis Intermedia announcement (there’s just this fun hint so far). When we hear more, we’ll let you know.
Alderac Entertainment Group announced on July 9, 2010 that most of the Dust Games design library they have published or were going to publish (excluding The Adventurers) will be moving to Fantasy Flight Games. Some games involved in the transfer include Dust Tactics, City of Thieves, Arcana, and Mad Zeppelin. The increasing number of games on AEG’s release schedule was going to require the company to grow faster than it was prepared to, and may have forced AEG to release multiple titles per month to keep pace with both its own planned releases as well as those of Dust Games. AEG will cut the total number of scheduled releases to provide adequate playtesting and support for each product they do release. The company also plans to focus on its core product lines that are already doing well (such as L5R and Thunderstone), and may push some other new games back to 2011 release dates. GenCon 2010 events that were scheduled for the affected products will go on as planned, only to be run by FFG staff instead of AEG. (Full AEG announcement copied below.)
Demian has been busy looking over Strange Aeons 2, the recent Call of Cthulhu adventure collection from Chaosium. He’s prepared a review for us, which you should read. Or if not, you can read our other reviews. So the gist of this is, you’ve got reading available to you. You’re welcome.
Seriously, when there’s an adventure called “Three Days of Peace, Music & Tentacle Love” – I kid you not – how can you not be intrigued?
Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) has big plans for the gaming industry this summer. They have a strong list of games to be released between now and GenCon. All these products will be available at the AEG booth at GenCon, and there will be demos and scheduled events for their new board and card game products at the show. From Legend of the Five Rings to Mad Zeppelin, AEG has a full gaming plate for the next few months.
[EDIT 7/12/10: some of the releases below have changed due to AEG's recent arrangement with FFG to take over Dust Games releases. -Allan]
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Though the news trickled out in other ways, the 2010 Origins Award winners have finally been announced. Among the highlights: the rerelease of Space Hulk beat out Small World for Best Board Game; Looney Labs continues its streak with a Best Party Game win for Are You the Traitor?; the return of WizKids and HeroClix gets a nod for Best Miniatures Line; and Eclipse Phase wins for Best RPG. (Click through to read the full list.)
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If you missed our interview from KublaCon, you didn’t hear Aldo Ghiozzi of Impressions talk about today – that is, Free RPG Day ’10. Yes, it’s today. Hopefully, you’re at a participating store right now, or you soon will be. If not, listen to our interview, try not to weep over the fun and freebies you’re missing, and if we hear of any other free goodies today you can take advantage of, we’ll post ‘em here.
I never thought I’d hear first about a D&D organized-play initiative from CNN. (Well, I guess technically I heard from Mike Mearls’ Twitter feed, but that’s 2010 for you. I sure don’t mean to suggest that CNN is relevant in the bigger scheme of things.) This piece completely reads like it was pre-assembled and delivered in the manner that PR firms do, but A) it’s frankly reassuring to see that Wizards can still manage to get that done, and B) I’m actually impressed by the specific content they’re doing it with. D&D Encounters is a way more strategic move than it looks like.
Time has been one of the key things plaguing the public perception of D&D since the ’80s. Along with the need to study tomes of minutiae, the long playing time which D&D demands by default leads more or less directly to non-players feeling like D&D is either some sort of cult or an all-absorbing lifestyle rather than what it is: a fun hobby that doesn’t noticeably hurt anyone. Directly attacking the time issue is strategic on WotC’s part in a very specific sense of the word: it makes things better on multiple fronts. It makes D&D take an amount of time that people expect a game to take, and thereby says “hey, this is just a harmless game,” much more effectively than, well, saying so in a press release. It addresses the needs of older gamers, and thereby gets word out that D&D players are older than they used to be. It puts a very much non-digital D&D game into the media, to help repair the PR debacle that was the Virtual Play Table announcement. And on and on.
I think the fact that CNN picked up this story at all, even just on the web site, lends a lot of credence to the idea that playing time is, or was, a major squick factor for the mainstream. That is my theory, which is mine. And for the rest of us, hey, a series of bite-sized Dark Sun previews.
We’ve returned from our annual pilgrimage to KublaCon (well, it was a week ago, but you get the idea), and we have a Gaming News Update interview to share from the event. Take a few minutes to check out our talk with Aldo Ghiozzi of Impressions on Free RPG Day ’10. He gives us the rundown of what to watch for at this year’s event (at a store near you on June 19th), and we discuss Free RPG Day’s success so far, the state of the roleplaying hobby, and sweet dice towers.
Planning to hit your local Free RPG Day this month? Willing to write a couple paragraphs on how it turns out at your store, and maybe send a photo or two? Drop me an email at sven (at) ogrecave (DOT) com with the subject of “Free RPG Day recruit” to help us cover the fourth annual dice-rolling free-for-all. You could see your name up in lights on the Cave wall. Actually, it’s kinda dark in here…
What’s amazing is how much difference some room makes. I’ve grown accustomed to reading games on digest-sized pages or not much bigger; a full-sized book gives rules text and (crucially) examples the opportunity to be next to each other. It’s a small thing, but it really makes a text easier to get into your head. (It’s a bit unfair, this thing of reviewing the layout and the reading experience. Some days I’m just in a thick mood and I’m not going to be able to comprehend anything. I have the impression that the text in DFRPG v1: Your Story is just the right balance of getting-to-the-point and spicing-things-up to get through my thick old skull, but maybe I just got lucky. To make matters worse I read most of it on my new iPod, so this is hardly objective data: maybe I was just mesmerized by the shiny.)
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Let’s start this week around the Cave with an interview – specifically, an interview with Gareth Hanrahan about The Laundry RPG, due to hit stores this July. No, you won’t find stain removal tips in the details Gareth reveals. Instead, we present a far more useful briefing on what rookie agents can expect in this Delta Green-like system based on Charles Stross’ Laundry Files novels. Covert ops meets bureaucratic red tape all wrapped in a candy shell of Cthulhu Mythos – sound interesting? Then read on.
Once again, sad news has surfaced regarding an early champion of the roleplaying hobby – Cyclopeatron reports that J. Eric Holmes, author of the first D&D “blue box” set, has passed away at 80 years old. A former associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, Holmes was also a fantasy and science fiction author who was well known to fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the early days of RPGs, Holmes had several articles in The Dragon (or Dragon Magazine to you and me), and wrote the book Fantasy Role Playing Games – Dungeons, Dragons and Adventures in Fantasy Gaming (see his Wikipedia page for the list).
The staff of OgreCave wishes the best to the Holmes family.
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