TSR Minigames

Tonight the oldest minion and I played Revolt on Antares. one of my favorite of the "Old School" TSR Minigames that came out in the 80's. It was a fun game but I forgot how damn small the game boards were. It really takes a decent Dex to keep the pieces from flying all over the place. I have almost all of them I just need Dracula and The Alamo and my TSR Minigame collection will be complete!

Savage Worlds Explorer Edition

Well now I guess we know it can be done. A game company can come up with a complete, high quality version of their core rules for under $10.00

Pinnacle Entertainment has done just that with their Savage Worlds Explorer edition- It’s the size of a graphic novel, full color, high quality, and yes it retails for $9.99. The gaming boards are abuzz with this product. Pinnacle has made an excellent marketing move; I bought two copies and am considering buying a third. I can throw them in my bag have a pick-up game at a convention and when somebody at the table says they don’t have the rules, I have extras. I really hope other companies see the success of pinnacles gamble and follow suit.

So, my new message to the bigger game companies: You want me to fork over $40+ dollars for your new “state of the art” campaign? Well then sell me the rule book with production values that match Savage worlds: Explorer’s Edition, for under 10 bucks, and let me take a look at your core engine. And don’t whine to me about costs, cause now I know you can do it.

The World of Broadsword

As I mentioned the other day, one of the projects I'm working on is an expansion of Broadsword.
The expansion will include:
* Additional advantages & skills
* A Sword & Sorcery campaign setting
* Rules and suggestions for running Sword & Planet Adventures
* A Sword & Planet campaign setting
* Several Sword & Sorcery Scenarios and several Sword & Planet Scenarios

Being a "visual" type person I needed some sort of map to make my way around the proposed "Broadsword World". I thought some of you might like to have a look at it. Like just about everything I do, this is a rough draft subject to change. Those of you who have bought Broadsword might recognize a few of the places on the map as corresponding to the scenarios in the game. And if you haven't bought a copy of Broadsword yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNet

Sunday Geekfest

My Geekfest today started with a trip to Wal-Mart where I found three of the five GI Joe adventure team figures. These are the Wal-Mart exclusives that I wrote about a few weeks back- Retro packaging, Kung-Fu grip, fuzzy hair and only $9.99 each!

I also picked up a DVD copy of “The Princess Bride”. I figured the Minions enjoyed ‘Stardust” so much last week they would enjoy this classic as well. I was right.

“She who must be obeyed” and I also shopping for clothes and books- her clothes, my books. We hit one of my favorite used bookstores where I scored a copy of Andre Norton’s Quag Keep.


Quag Keep is not one Norton’s better known novels, unless you’re a gamer, more specifically a gamer who cut his teeth on AD&D in the 70’s-80’s then you should know what I’m talking about. Few have the module, I suspect fewer still have the book, it was an awesome Geek boy find.

I also managed to plug some holes in my S&S book collection. I found #4 in the “Death Dealer” series- Plague of knives, and #3 in the Carson of Venus series- Escape on Venus. These incidentally bring my S&S paperback collection to 70 books.

I’m also working on a concept for a pulp game tentatively titled Mission: Adventure! That takes place in the cold war 60’s as opposed to the typical 1930’s pulp that everyone else is doing. I’m thinking a little “Jonny Quest”, little “Mack Bolan”, A little “Challengers of the Unknown”. I’m still in the early stages of development but I started collecting some research material to steal…er um…get inspiration from. I often do judge a book by it’s cover and this one looked fun. More reading!

No playing, but a lot of writing

I'm getting some great feedback on the latest write up of Legends of Steel. It looks like my attempts to make the rules more clear and concise have payed off. I'm also getting good comments on the examples of play that I wrote in to illustrate the concepts, they really do seem to add to the feeling of the game. I'm hoping to get a local play test group going. Anyone in the Sacramento area interested??

I'm still working on a Sword & Planet expansion for Broadsword. Rather than an alien world I'm going for a Dimensional shift thing-Bermuda Triangle and such. I'm also working on a Campaign World for Broadsword. I know that the 1PG system is designed for one-shot games and such, I was just thinking that it would be cool to have a uniform S&S world for them to take place on. It would also serve as incentive for me to work on more Broadsword adventures. James over at Heyoka Studios is doing great things with Star Legion, why not do the same with Broadsword?



On that same thought- I mentioned last week That Idyll and Stardust would be an excellent fit. Well today I ran across my copy of "The Mad King" by E.R. Burroughs. This is another type of adventure that would be fun to adapt to Idyll. Swashbuckling fun eh? I'm Brainstorming on that as well.

Friday funny

Payback is a bitch, Dumbass.



And in case Michael tries to skip out, my buddy MG has a couple of Bounty Hunters on call.

“Crush your enemies. See them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”

My bud, Ed W. (known online as “the Chairman”) and his son Eddie Jr. represented Sacramento this year at GenCon, where Eddy Jr. took FIRST PLACE in the 2007 D&D Miniatures World Championship Tournament!


Along with World-wide gamer bragging rights Eddie gets an exclusive White Dragon trophy, the chance to design his own miniature, and $2,000.00 cash.



He also gets an elite cadre of bodyguard/bathers to attend to him 24 hours a day.

-Ok that part I made up…

CONGRATULATIONS EDDIE! YOU DA MAN!!

Check out Eddie's interview on the Wizard site!

The best damn supplements you’ll ever find for $1.95

The 1PG games are great fun. From the Old west to Hong Kong action movies, they cover just about any genre you could want.
Star Legion is the 1PG that handles science fiction adventures in space. Though intended to be a space opera style game, Star Legion is capable of handling every subgenre of interplanetary adventure from David Drakes “Hammers Slammers” series to Joss Whedon’s “Firefly”.
Heyoka studios has acquired the rights to expand The 1PG universe and are doing so with a vengeance. Earlier this year they came out with “Idyll” the 1PG setting for fantasy romance. And now they have released two expansion products for Star Legion- “Blastoff” and “Ignition”.



Blastoff is loaded with 28 pages of crunch for fans of military science fiction, specifically military ships. There is information on their size, propulsion systems, ordinance and crews. There is also a nice amount of fluff interspersed in the descriptions of the various ships and their classes. For instance, in a section on battleships the point is made that carrier and battle groups seldom ever make port on a planet at the same time for fear of the animosity amongst the personnel while on liberty. And also there is a part where a battleship from a decommissioned class is rumored to have gone rogue, officially it’s listed as “missing in action” but the truth of the matter is still unknown-Hello adventure! I wasn’t sure I would care much for “Blastoff!” since my taste in Science Fiction run mostly to planet-side adventures than to the doings of “The Fleet”, but I’m happy to report that I was able to take away quite a bit from it. The next time my hearty band of smugglers runs across a mysteriously abandoned Valdez class Frigate, I’ll have a healthy amount of information available to pull from.



As much as I ended up enjoying “Blastoff” I was absolutely blown away by “Ignition” sixteen pages of new character classes, expanded abilities, rules on subjects as diverse as planetary survival and alien impregnation. I don’t care who you are or where you are from; if you’re a gamer your mouth always waters at the idea of expanded rules for a system you enjoy. And there is a lot to enjoy here for $1.95-and not just for Star Legion- these rules are applicable to just about any other 1PG product. Add to all of that five Star Legion ready to run scenarios. Now where else are you gonna get more bang for your buck? Both can be found at RPGNow.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNet

Romance & Adventure at the Sunday Matinee

“She who must be obeyed” and I took the minions to the movies today. We ignored their pathetic bleating cries of “Underdog movie! Underdog movie!” and took them to see something worthy of the $45 plus dollars I was about to spend. We went to see Stardust. We were enchanted, we were amused, we saw Michelle Pfeiffer looking sexy as ever and Robert De Niro in a red feather boa. I took away a few ideas for gaming (flying ships that catch lightning, what a cool idea) the minions even got scared, but in a cool “Story book thrills and chills" way, not in a “Seeing the Exorcist by yourself when your 7years old" way.

It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and as we left the theater the minions were so busy talking about Stardust, they didn’t even notice the Underdog poster in the lobby.



By the way Idyll would be the PERFECT system to use to further the adventures in the land of Stormhold.

Cleaning out the image file

Friday funny

Blogs

One of my little online peeves is finding a good Blog on a subject I enjoy reading about and then find out the guy posts once every three months. Now y’all know I ain’t perfect, my Blogging is spotty but at least I try to post 2 or 3 times a week, hell I even do catch up posts when I find myself getting too far behind.

The following are a few of my daily “go to” Blogs. They consistently post new entries with interesting content. Now these aren’t really the big mega Blogs that get 1000 hits a day. I’m talking smaller more personal Blogs with a daily readership in the hundreds, but the quality of the posts is definitely there.

Heropress
Tim’s Blog has really taken off. He has a great mix of gaming and geek media. He gives reminisces, reviews and a bunch of Dr. Who stuff (I don’t really care for the Dr. Who stuff, but I waddle through it to get to the rest).

Jeff’s gameblog
Jeff’s place is familiar territory to many gamers on the net. He’s an old school soul when it comes to his gaming choices. And his posts reflect that.

A nerd’s country journal
Another Jeff. Jeff H. of Heromachine fame went out and bought a farm in Texas. From there he writes about the trials and tribulations of country life. He sprinkles it with geeky goodness to keep me interested. He sometimes goes all political on me and then there is the occasional "I’m an atheist" post. But he’s not one of those over the top fundamentalist atheists, at least he’s not when he’s Blogging. He’s a nice normal God fearing atheist. Jeff’s Blog is a welcome change of pace from all the gaming drama and action figure angst that fills my day.

Hank's Journal
On the other end of the spectrum we have Hank. Hank is a pulp fan so naturally he’s a kindred spirit. Hanks also a Chaplain in the Salvation Army. He doesn’t do much preaching on his Blog though, he mostly keeps it focused on pulp gaming and anything genre related.

Pith helmet
The Pith Helmet Blog has great color and style. When you see it you’ll know what I mean. It’s like opening a pulp magazine. Lots of interesting snippets. Occasional political rants, but nothing too extreme. I always find something fun there.

Dungeon Mastering
This is the “new kid” on my daily Blog route. I found it quite by accident. It was a link ad on my Gmail account. It’s fun, informative and light. It’s a solid 3.5 D&D site but the links and advice are applicable to gaming life in general. Good stuff!

Do yourself a favor and give these guys a visit. drop a comment, we love comments. Blogging isn't rocket science but finding cool stuff to write about daily can be a chore sometimes.

Legends of Steel characters (Draft)

Below are some draft pages from my Legends of Steel game. The write ups still need some work I just wanted to get something out there to prove that LoS is still being worked on. You gotta love that line art from Mister Heromachine himself- Jeff Hebert!Click to see them bigger.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGnet.

Vote for Zach!

The Ennies are awards given to the best gaming has to offer. the nominees are judged by a panel of gamers selected for their love of gaming and experience as players and referees. My buddy Zach H. Is running for a seat on the panel for next years awards. Zach is a stand up guy, a positive presence on several gaming forums, plus he would bring a fesh perspective. Some of the current judges have been there for a while, personally I think they should have term limits for the position- two years at the most. So vote for Zach! out with the old and in with the new.

Doc's Podcast

I may be a week late but it's the thought that counts. Doc Rotwang has released Podcast number 2. In it he throws some love out for Broadsword (yay!). Actually since the games been out his is the only review I've seen (not sure if that's a bad thing or not). Anyway the show is slick and he pronounced my name correctly, so whats not to love? Go download it and learn about what rocks Doc's world.

LoS update

Legends of Steel just went through a second screening process with some of the fine folks over at Midnights Lair. Once again I had thought I was nearing completion only to be shown that there were still significant issues to address. I’m currently in the process of addressing them. There were some changes suggested that I think will really streamline clunky areas and add to the enjoyment of the game. There was also a lot of discussion on clarifying certain areas to make the mechanics flow better. As with the last group to look over LoS, there have been calls for more examples-which I’m working on as well.
Overall the opinion is positive, with a few of my innovations even earning little praise. The game was good, after this go around I think it’s going to be even better. After this revision I will send out copies to both LoS review teams for one final overview and then I‘ll proceed to the play testing portion.
It’s really interesting to me how long this is all taking. I officially started this project in 2005 and here we are halfway through 2007 and it’s still being worked on. Of course there are reasons for this, primarily the fact that I’m a one man show. Also toss in the fact that this is a part time endeavor. I also took some time off from it to do Broadsword, which I have come to think of as Legends of Steel (light).
“Legends of Steel” is important to me. I want it to be the best I can make it and I guess that takes time, so I suppose in a way, we are right about where we should be.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to Midnight's Lair

The A/T Joe's are showing up at Wal Mart

A few weeks ago I posted about a set of Wal Mart exclusive 12” Kung Fu grip Adventure team GI Joe’s. It's been fun watching the boards light up regarding these latest Wal-Mart Joe's. The figures are being offered in vintage style packaging and run about $11.00 which is an excellent price not only for the collector but also for the casual buyer who may want to pick one up for nostalgia's sake, but doesn't want to pay $29.99.

I love hearing the excitement of all my fellow “Joe heads” out on the hunt, it reminds me of the late nineties when 1/6 scale figures were hitting the shelves in force. Good times.

I think that the strategy for Wal-Mart is they have the Joe's, but they are waiting for the weekend to display them. Of course some stores may be putting them out early just to get a jump on the weekend display assignments. As far as Wal-Mart management is concerned its just another toy that has to be put on the shelf by X date. I checked two stores here in Sacramento and nothing yet. But many of the shelves are cleared so I think there may be a major restocking and re configuring of shelf space coming before Saturday. Friday evening may be a good time for another Recon.

My prediction is that we'll see the Joe's on display this weekend.

It would be interesting to see how many Wal-Mart haters are gonna quietly break ranks to snatch up a set of A/T Joe's.