Forbeck.com

Pete Panzeri, the chairman of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, pointed out that the Origins Awards nominations list I posted a while back was a preliminary version and contained errors. Here is the official (and final) press release (reproduced also after the break). I’ve removed the other list from my older post.
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I just got a note from Patrick Williams about Gaming As Culture: Social Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games, a new book that he edited (along with Sean Hendricks and Keith Winkler) that treats fantasy roleplaying games as serious works worthy of study. It’s wonderful to see this relatively new field of entertainment get some respect from the halls of higher learning, and I’m looking forward to getting a chance to read it.

And that’s not just because it includes an article by the well-educated Michelle Nephew, my friend and one of the owners of Atlas Games. See the table of contents and back cover copy after the break.

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Playmates Toys has asked me for ideas on how to get Battle Dice into more players’ hands. I have my own notions, of course, but I wonder if you might have some of your own you’d be willing to share. What would get you to play a game like this? What would pique your interest? What’s stopping you now?

Consider this an informal market research quiz. Hit me with what you got. Think as far outside the box as you like. I’m looking for whatever fresh ideas you may have. Thanks!

John Malkovich has signed on to play opposite Tom Jane in the upcoming Mutant Chronicles movie.

Wow. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see this all come together. I worked many years on the Mutant Chronicles roleplaying game (as well as on the Doomtrooper collectible card game and the Warzone miniatures game). I helped breathe life into the characters that will be in the film, and even created one or two from whole cloth.

I can’t wait to see this.

According to ICv2.com, Playmates Toys has signed Organized Play to set up and administrate its tournament and demo program for Marvel Heroes Battle Dice. This means you should be able to learn how to play the game or find a tournament in which to play at a store near you soon!

This Saturday and Sunday (April 1–2, 2006), I’ll be at Concinnity, a gaming and science fiction convention held on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering. My tentative schedule looks like this:

Writing and Freelancing. Learn the basics of getting published and dealing with the challenges of writing fiction, RPGs and more. Featuring authors Matt Forbeck, James Lowder, and E.E. Knight. Saturday, 3 PM.

A Question and Answer Session with Matt Forbeck. Just what it says. Sunday, 10 AM.

If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there!

The rulebook for Marvel Battle Dice is now available as a PDF, both in lo-res and hi-res formats. Be sure to check it out!

Once you have the rulebook, you can get away without a starter if you like. All you need to do is to start picking up boosters (at least two for each player) and go!

MarvelBattleDice.com has a report on Playmates Toys‘ appearance at the recent GAMA Trade Show. I only spent a few hours in the booth, but I got to hang out even more than that with the team. They launched the organized play program for the game there, so if you’re interested in learning how to play, ask at your favorite local gaming store soon!

At EmeraldCity.com, novelist Karen Traviss has an excellent essay on what it’s like to be a tie-in writer.

According to an article in ICv2.com, WizKids has decided to end support for High Stakes Drifter.

WizKids also said that it will no longer support its High Stakes Drifter CCG, which did not receive enough support to justify continuing it.

This is no surprise to me. I had breakfast with WizKids’ CEO Jordan Weisman at the GAMA Trade Show last week, and he apologized to me for how the company had stumbled on the launch of the game. It was the first CCG that WizKids published, and there were some growing pains. However, they’ve learned a lot from it, and I suspect that their upcoming Battlestar Galactica CCG will profit from it.

For my part, I bear WizKids no ill will at all. We all wanted the game to sell better, and they risked far more on the venture than I did. Hopefully the game (or at least the best parts of its mechanics) will appear someplace else in the future. Jordan and his crew treated me wonderfully throughout the entire process, and I’d love to work with them again sometime soon.

Over at Cinerati, Christian Johnson explains all the in-jokes (and mistakes) in Stephen Colbert’s recent bit on Dungeons & Dragons Online.

When I was at the GAMA Trade Show last week, Paul Tevis grabbed me, sat me down, and interrogated me about all sorts of things. The recording of this somehow turned up on Paul’s excellent podcast, Have Games, Will Travel. (I suppose the large microphones should have been a clue.)

Give it a listen, and you can hear how I sound after staying up for more than 24 hours, grabbing two hours of sleep, and then holding a seminar on freelancing in the gaming industry. In other words, how you’d find me at most game conventions.

In today’s mail, I got my copy of Winds of the Wild Sea by my pal Jeff Mariotte. This is the second in his Marauders trilogy set in the Age of Conan series from Ace Books. I act as the Conan guru for this line, and it’s amazing how easy authors like Jeff make it to do my job.

The book should be on shelves in a bookstore near you next week.

Playmates Toys is launching an organized play program for Marvel Heroes Battle Dice at the end of the month. As usual, you can get all the details, including which figures will be available for prizes, at MarvelBattleDice.com.