Mongoose Publishing‘s Matthew Sprange sent out a notice to the company mailing list which showed just how evil he can be when he wants to. Sure, the email let us know that the Babylon 5 RPG will be there in case we don’t have it already, and that several other
Roleplaying Tips Weekly #179
The latest issue of Roleplaying Tips Weekly features a guide to player types, a popular theme that comes up now and then in various forms. However, this list actually has useful suggestions on how to deal with those Munchkins, Power Gamers, Rules Lawyers and the like. Other than killing their
Origins 2003 hangover: BESM me, BESM me mucho
New at the show from was BESM D20, and the big news was that the whole rules content of the book is Open Gaming Content, not just the five percent or whatever demanded by the D20 System License. I had a long conversation with Mark MacKinnon about parallels between how
Saving Private Checkers
Invisible City Productions has done it again with a new free checkers variant as the latest of their free game of the month offerings. In Saving Private Checkers, a regular game of Checkers is played on a pattern of face-down poker cards. These cards can cause pieces to get blown
Origins Awards: are they broken, should we fix?
Ryan Dancey has floated a very specific set of proposals to change the voting process for the Origins Awards, and they’re eliciting unusually active discussion on GamingReport. I like the vote-count suggestions, but if the goal is to make the awards less of a flavor-of-the-month popularity contest, why eliminate “outdated”
Origins 2003 aftermath: better living through tiny giant robots
A friend ordered me to find out about something called Solaris VII at the WizKids tournament space at Origins. Turns out that it’s a set of unofficial alternate rules to make MechWarrior a fast, brutal game for mechs only. It’s named after the BattleTech universe’s “arena planet,” written into the
Spiel des Jahres 2003 winner announced
Winners and nominee lists are here. Most of this year’s nominees are relative unknowns here in the states, although I’ve seen Amun-Re get plenty of play on the strength of the Knizia name. Shortlist nominee Clans is the only other one with an identifiable English edition. This is the second
Gamebooks on the Rise?
These are good days to be a gamebook fan, it would seem. Just a couple of days ago, I noticed that the forthcoming American reprints of the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks are starting to show up in major online bookstores, and this morning, an informant let me know that Troll is
ENnies Nominees Announced
EN World has just posted the for this year’s ENnies (aka The 2nd Annual Gen Con EN World D20 System Awards). Voting will soon begin on the popular prize, and as with last year, the winners will be announced at GenCon. Notably absent from the nominees this year is Mystic
Origins 2003 aftermath: the dirty details
Anthony Valterra showed me a 36-page-or-so preview of the upcoming 192-page Book of Erotic Fantasy. From that small sample, I can say that the book seems about 50% relatively lame fan service (a Command Orgasm/Masturbation spell, with color photo illustration. Did the world need that? I’m thinking not), and 50%
Price tag for WizKids: $29.5MM
More details on the WizKids deal and the rest of Topps’ financial picture.
Live from Origins 2003: Samurai Communist Assault!
When I saw the Kanji and the black and red motif, I thought Tenjo had a booth again and got all excited, but instead, it’s another intriguing board game with a samurai theme. Senjutsu, from a startup publisher called Salvador Games, puts your samurai guys on little octagonal bases that
Live from Origins 2003: we can make a game out of anything, even pickles
Couple of quick D20 bits: OtherWorld Creations has Mercenaries: Born of Blood (I think that’s the title) new at the show; it includes rules for making a mercenary out of virtually any creature in the Monster Manual. I’m thinking shambling mound. Mystic Eye has a new Foul Locales book, Behind
Live from Origins 2003: the rock precedes the roll
Played Creepy Freaks. Some folks don’t know that John Kovalic did some of the better character designs for this game, as well as Bazooka Joe-like comics for the boosters. I was surprised – this game has real meat to it, while still being totally approachable for its target market. Wiseman
Live from Origins 2003: a spy in the house of Wa
Yes, I actually did go to the WotC booth and look at the D&D3.5 books. I’m not intimate enough with D&D to be able to say what’s changed – I can verify they still have lots of rules in them – but the new covers are nice. Also for sale