Forbeck.com

This may not interest most of you, but I know that some folks local to me read this blog too.

One of my stepbrother Dan Schooff’s best friends is Steve Shea, and Steve’s wife Sallie is in serious trouble. You can read the details after the break, but the upshot is that Sallie needs a lung transplant. Dan and his wife Alyssa, along with some of Steve and Sallie’s other friends, are hosting a fundraiser in Milwaukee tomorrow night. Of course, if you can’t make it there, you can always donate directly to the cause instead.

As I said, details are below. After that, we return you to your irregularly scheduled blather.

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ICv2.com reports that Cryptic Studios, makers of the hit MMORPGs CIty of Heroes/City of Villians, have the license to produce an MMORPG set in the Marvel Comics universe. Yowza!

The new games industry trade show, Games Expo, has its website up. It looks like they have a great lineup of exhibitors and speakers already, and the show’s not until March 18–22, 2007. It’s mostly only open to professionals involved in the industry, but I hear they will have some days open for members of National Games Week (which runs November 19–25 this year) who can make the trek to Las Vegas.

I don’t know if I’m going to attend Games Expo, the GAMA Trade Show (which is April 23–26, also in Vegas), or both. I think both shows have great staffs, and I’d love to be able to spend a couple weeks in Vegas this spring, but with all the running around I do with my kids, getting away from home this school year will be tough.

Yesterday, a copy of Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian showed up at my house, courtesy of Fred Malmberg of Conan Properties. This is a gorgeous book, and best of all it’s written by Roy Thomas, who wrote most of Marvel Comics‘ issues of Conan.

If you’re a Conan fan, run right out and pick this up. I saw a preview of it at this summer’s Comic-Con, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the real thing.

The fine folks at WorldsofDnD.com have set up a book club for The Queen of Death, the climactic novel in my Eberron trilogy. It should start just as soon as the book hits shelves (October 10, I’m told), but it will go on for the entire month of October.

I’m eager to find out how people like the trilogy now that it’s all wrapped up. If you can, read the book fast and stop on by to chip in your two bits.

I’ve seen a number of reports today that John M. Ford died yesterday. I never knew John (or Mike, as his friends apparently called him), but I enjoyed his work. While he’s probably better known for his fiction these days, he also did a fair amount of game design, mostly for GURPS. He co-wrote GURPS: Infinite Worlds with Steve Jackson and my pal Ken Hite and also wrote the foreword for Ken’s Suppressed Transmissions 2. I best remember his hilarious The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues for West End Games’ version of Paranoia.

Farewell, Mr. Ford. We’ll miss you.

Fall officially came crashing in over the weekend, and I’m missing the summer already. I like warm weather, barbecues, having the kids home from school, going to conventions, and all the other hallmarks of the summer months.

One of the best memories I haven’t written much about is the week or so I spent with my wife and kids at my wife’s family cabin up in the U.P. (That’s the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for you Midwestern-challenged folks.) It’s an old, two-room hunting shack, and when I first started going up there with my wife, we had no electricity, no phone, and no running water. It was paradise.

It’s still paradise now, even though we have electricity in now, and our cell phones work if we stand under a pair of trees on the short walk down to the lake. Ann’s uncle even installed a pump to bring wash water up from the lake. And, of course, we now have five young kids joining us—along with two teenage babysitters who make that possible.

Here’s a shot I took of the lake this past August. I use it as the desktop on my computer, and we had it blown up for a framed print on our dining room wall. Until next summer, it’ll have to do.

Another of my Alliterate pals, Jeff Grubb, announced that the MMORPG he’s been working on (Guild Wars Nightfall) is available for free play all weekend. Woot!

If you’re interested in getting a copy of Steam & Brass—the results of Wolfgang Baur’s experiment in game-designer patronage—you have until September 30, 2006. That’s less than two weeks from now, so if you’ve been on the fence, now’s the time to leap off it and get your hands on a very exclusive and excellent adventure by one of my fellow Alliterates.

Back in 2004, Thom Talamini of Excelsior Entertainment asked me to write a forward to an upcoming book in his company’s new (the third) edition of Warzone, the Mutant Chronicles miniatures battle game. I’d edited the first edition and had been in on the Mutant Chronicles since just after its first roleplaying game book was published, and he thought the fans of the game might like to read my perspective on it.

Flattered by the request, I wrote a short essay about how I got involved in the game and what a dream of a gig it was. Excelsior has since suspended operations, and I understand that Prince August Miniatures now has the remaining Warzone backstock. I don’t know if the essay ever got published. Either way, I thought some of you might like to read it (as a PDF). Enjoy!

I just transcribed and submitted my interview with Anthony Zuiker to Games Quarterly Magazine. Anthony made for a fantastic subject. My favorite quote from the whole thing:

My sights were set so if I could just one time walk in and buy a game that had my name on it, I could’ve just died there.

Brant Guillory writes:

Hey there!

Back in the Spring, you guys graciously helped get the word out about the GAMA-Wargamer-Ohio State games research survey.

I’m happy to report the first of the non-academic articles is now available at Wargamer.com.

Thanks.

Take everything you read anywhere with a shaker of salt, of course, but this shows some intriguing results.

I’ll be at this year’s Wisconsin Book Festival, wandering around beautiful downtown Madison on Friday, October 20. I’ve been scheduled for a short reading and signing as part of the Wisconsin Publishers Showcase. You can find me in the Memorial Library Auditorium from 2:30 to 2:45 PM. I’m happy to sign anything you might bring, although I should have a few copies of my books on hand if you need one.

Robert Farmer wrote to ask:

I’m a longtime fan of yours, in fact dating back to your work on Mutant Chronicles when I was just getting into the hobby. I was wondering what your thoughts were on the upcoming movie and the new RPG being developed by Center of Gravity.

Ah, thanks for the name. I’d been told the RPG was in the works, but I didn’t know the name of the new publisher or if it was public information yet or not. Glad to see things are moving along on that front.

Given the wildly different take on MC that the movie seems to be working from (judging from the 7 web documentaries currently posted), are you still looking forward to seeing it in the theaters?

Very much so. I know it won’t match up with the original property from the early ’90s, but it’s many years since the game went out of print, so I expected as much. Also, any translation of a setting into another medium requires changes to make it fit the new medium better. I’m not put off by that.

And how do you feel about the re-imagining COG is taking? Are there any phantom pains from the game you put so much time into, or is it a case of “your job is done”?

My job was done a looooong time ago, and I never was the game’s publisher. As much as I loved it, it was never truly mine. Also, no matter what happens with the movie or the new game or anything else, I still have the original books on my shelves. I can always take them down and read or play with them as much as I like.