More Shotguns, More Sorcery

The rights to Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game reverted back to me earlier this year, and I’ve been working to get the things promised to backers in the 2015 Kickstarter off to them ever since. The core book–based on Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System–finally released to the public this summer, and in the past couple months, I managed to get three other things for the game out the door:

  • The Player’s Guide: A cut-down version of the core rules, offered up on the cheap so you can get a taste of the game–or have a spare reference copy at your gaming table.
  • Encounter Cards: A set of 52 monsters and NPCs, each on their own poker-sized playing cards. They come with an illustration on one side and stats on the other, complete in a snazzy tuck box.
  • Monsters & Mean Streets: A 64-page book of creatures and NPCs for use with the game, which just came out today. My son Marty–who just graduated from college in May–wrote this one, and I love it.

You can buy all of those right now, and as a special bonus, I have a limited number of copies of the first printing of the core rules still stacked in my closet. If you grab one of those, I’d be happy to sign it for you before we ship it out.

We have four more Shotguns & Sorcery products still in the pipeline:

  • A 32-page (at least) adventure. I have the text for this in, and it’s currently in layout and waiting on some art.
  • The Wizard’s Wife. A full-length comic book. The pages for this are done, but we still need lettering and a cover. See the first two pages below.
  • A Pathfinder 1E rules conversion. I just got the edited text in for this, and it’s heading into layout after the adventure.
  • An art book. Which I’ll start collating once I have the art for all the other books in.

Whew.

Once all those are out, though, that’s not the end. I have plans for more Shotguns & Sorcery things, which I should be able to announce in 2021.

Stick with us. There’s more fun on the way.

Blood Bowl Books Are Back

Today, the Black Library released two new editions of books based on Blood Bowl, Games Workshop’s game of fantasy football. In this case, the fantasy doesn’t involve NFL teams but elves, dwarves, vampires, and other fantastic monsters having over-the-top hyper-violent pun-filled battles in between slaking their thirst on ales like Bloodweiser and Killer Genuine Draft.

This was one of my favorite games back when I worked at the Games Workshop Design Studio in 1989-1900, and I had the honor of helping out Jervis Johnson with the writing on one of the game’s early supplements, The Blood Bowl Companion.

In the early days of the Black Library (GW’s fiction division), founding publisher Marc Gascoigne asked me to pitch him ideas for novels set in GW’s worlds. I tossed him something like ten one-paragraph ideas, and to my shock, he chose the jokey one I’d tossed in for a Blood Bowl novel.

Over the years, I wound up writing four novels, five comic books, and one short story for Blood Bowl. They went in and out of print over the years, but as of today, you can pick up all of the novels and the short story once again.

The Blood Bowl Omnibus contains all four of my Blood Bowl novels: Blood Bowl, Death Match, Dead Ball, and Rumble in the Jungle. An earlier edition of the omnibus came out back in 2007, but that version only contained the first three books, as Rumble had just been released. This is the complete thing, and it weighs in at almost 900 pages.

The only other prose I’ve written for Blood Bowl is a single short story called “The Hack Attack,” which came out back in 2017. It was collected in the Blood Bowl anthology Death on the Pitch in 2018, which has since gone out of print. Today, a new, expanded edition–Death on the Pitch: Extra Time–is out, featuring two new stories added to the bunch.

So, get yourself to your favorite bookseller and stock up on all the funny football mayhem can you manage. You’ll have a ball!

Fox Cities and SAM

Like most people, I’ve been staying close to home and hunkered down in these pandemic-plagued days. If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have spent more time at C2E2, which wound up being the last convention I attended this year. While some of those shows have been canceled outright, many of them have gone virtual, so I’ve been joining in via Zoom rather than in person.

For instance, look for me on a couple panels at the upcoming Storytelling Across Media convention held by the Comic-Con Museum. Those have been pre-recorded and should premier on October 24. One excellent panel run by Ross Thompson features him talking with Sen-Foong Lim, Elisa Teague, Banana Chan, Jon Cohn, and me about how stories and games dovetail together.

The second is a spotlight on me, which is always a little more unnerving, as it’s a solo event. The folks at SAM asked if I knew anyone who could interview me for it, and I suggested my son Marty. They loved the idea, so you’ll get a chance to watch my college-graduated kid grill and rib me for the better part of an hour.

The week before that, on October 17, I’ll also be at guest at the Fox Cities Book Festival that same day. I was originally scheduled to be at the physical show, but I’ll now be Zooming into the virtual event instead. Tune in at 1 PM Central Time to see for another spotlight on me, during which someone I’m likely not related to grill and rib me instead.

I mean, my mother was born in raised in Menasha, which is one of the Fox Cities, so it’s not impossible I’ll be related to the interviewer, but it would be one hell of a stretch. Unless it’s me interviewing myself…

It’s getting a little Inception-y this year.

Either way, I hope you can set aside some time on a couple Saturdays this October to watch me blather on about what I do for a living. It’s going to be a fun time.

A Return to Dark Eden

Decades back, in the mid-’90s, I was the developer for the Mutant Chronicles roleplaying game for Target Games in Sweden. It’s a dark future setting in which corporations rule the solar system and strive to protect us from demonic/alien forces of mind-bending evil invading from beyond. It’s been featured in RPGs, board games, and collectible card games and was even the subject of a 2009 movie starring Tom Jane and Ron Perlman, for which I wrote the novelization.

It also made its way to comic books in the form of a miniseries for Acclaim, called Mutant Chronicles: Golgotha. My old roommate William King (from when I lived in Nottingham, working for Games Workshop) wrote it, with interiors by Davide Fabri and covers by Simon Bisley.

What isn’t widely known is that I was contracted to write a follow-up miniseries based on Dark Eden, the new name for the spoiled Earth in the Mutant Chronicles setting. My college roommate Bryan Winter designed a collectible card game for this new region, based on his Doomtrooper game, and Target and Acclaim were eager to cross-promote a comic with it.

They hired me to write a four-issue miniseries set in Dark Eden, based on a concept that Jeff Connor and Nils Gullikson concocted. I finished all four scripts as was paid for them, but unfortunately, the comic never saw the light of day. Paolo Parente (for whom I wrote a novel–Blood and Thunder–for his miniatures game Dust) was slated to draw the interiors, and I saw some of his work for it at one point. It was flat-out gorgeous.

People in the know have asked me about this countless times over the years. Some of them have even wondered aloud if I could share the script with them. Because Target owned those scripts wholesale, I didn’t have the rights to do that though, so the scripts simply sat on a series of computers for all that time.

Recently, though, I was chatting about this with Fred Malmberg, the original owner of Target Games and the current owner of the Mutant Chronicles through his new company, Cabinet Entertainment. There’s a shocking bit in that first issue’s script that he still remembers and talks about to this day. (You’ll probably know it when you see it.) He said, “Go ahead and put the first issue up on your website. See what people think.”

So… I actually managed to excavate the script, but I discovered that I’d written it in a version of Word that’s no longer supported. Despite that, I managed to extract the text from it, and then I reformatted it in Scrivener and exported it as a PDF. It took a bit of doing, but it’s complete and reads much like it originally did.

Because of all that, if you click on the image below, you can now–for the first time ever, 24 years since I wrote it–read the script for Mutant Chronicles: Dark Eden #1 and (I hope) enjoy it.

Minecraft Dungeons Novel on Sale!

On July 7, my latest novel hit shelves. Rise of the Arch-Illager is an officially licensed novel based on the brand-new hit video game Minecraft Dungeons. It’s for ages 10 and up, and it focuses on the origins of the villain of the game, the legendary Arch-Illager himself.

The book is already selling well. It debuted as the #1 children’s ebook on Amazon. It doesn’t hurt that Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time.

I had a wonderful time working on this book with my editor, Alex Davis, over at Del Rey, and with the fine folks at Mojang, the company that created the game. They recently interviewed me for Minecraft.com, and you can read all about the development process there.

You can tell I’m busy when I don’t have time to post about a book’s debut until after it’s actually out. Despite being hunkered down at home – or perhaps because of that – I seem to be busier than ever.

Besides the novel, this month I also released Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game, which has also been selling well. You can get it through DriveThruRPG, or – if you want one of the few remaining copies left from the first print run, we’re selling those through eBay. I’m happy to personalize and sign those when we ship them out too.

Anyhow, I hope you’re all hunkered down and keeping safe. I’m going to miss seeing many of you on the convention circuit this summer. Shows like that have been a huge part of my life since the early ’80s, and giving those up is like losing out on summer camp, family reunions, and the best parties of the year all at once. But as I’ve been telling lots of people over the past few months, better to miss you this year than to miss you forever.

The Shotguns & Sorcery RPG Is on Sale!

Hey, folks! Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game is officially on sale! That means if you missed out on the Kickstarter that Outland Entertainment ran years ago, you can now grab your very own copy of the game and join the fun.

The game is based on my fantasy noir novels and stories and powered by Monte Cook’s Cypherâ„¢system. It’s written by me, with rules by legendary game designer Robert J. Schwalb. It contains everything you need to launch a full-fledged campaign.

You have two basic options for purchasing the game.

First, I have 120 copies of the original printing for the Kickstarter available, and those are currently up for sale on eBay. Those books are boxed up in my garage, and if you zap me a note at matt@forbeck.com when you buy one of them, I’d be happy to personalize and autograph your copy before we ship it out to you. (Don’t dally with that email though. My kids – *COUGH* shipping assistants – move fast.) If you ask, I’ll also toss in a PDF of the game for you for free.

Once those copies of that printing are gone, they’re all gone, barring a few that I’m keeping on hand for myself. If you want one, get on it so you don’t miss out.

Second, you can grab a PDF of the current version direct from me via Gumroad, or you can order one through DriveThruRPG. You can also order a print-on-demand version of the book from DriveThruRPG, which comes with a free copy of the PDF too. (Since those printed books don’t ever get anywhere near my house before they reach you, I can’t sign those directly.)

The two versions of the book are nearly identical. In the latest version, I fixed a few typos, made a couple minor graphics changes, and added an index in the back of the book. Other than that, they’re the same. It’s up to you which version you’d like more.

We have a number of other Shotguns & Sorcery RPG products in the works that should be coming out later this year, so don’t be shy. Go grab the game now, gather up some friends and dice, and get playing!

Black Lives Matter Bundles

My friends over at DriveThruRPG have set up a number of bundles of gaming goodness, through which you can get loads of games for cheap and support some amazing causes. Seriously, there are way too many things there for me to list, and the money goes to causes like Black Lives Matter, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the National Police Accountability Project. They’re also highlighting all sorts of Black creators and donating the DriveThruRPG portion of the profits to the charity of the creator’s choice.

If you grab the Black Lives Matter 2 Bundle, for example, you get nearly $600 worth of TTRPG PDFs for only $10. Among those is a copy of my dystopian supers RPG, Brave New World, which is normally $10 all by itself. Go stuff your storage with gaming goodness and do some good for the world at the same time.

The Super StoryBundle

StoryBundle just launched a new collection of superhero books curated by my friend Kevin Anderson. With StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay for a crate full of ebooks. For a minimum of $5, you get the basic bundle of five novels. These include:

  • Captain Nemo: The Fantastic Adventures of a Dark Genius by Kevin J. Anderson
  • Cynetic Wolf by Matt Ward
  • Working Class Hero by James Robert Smith
  • Dove Season by Robin Brande
  • The Superhero’s Test by Lucas Flint

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular books, plus eight more more books, for a total of thirteen. These extra ones include:

  • Playing a Hunch by Dean Wesley Smith
  • Fid’s Crusade by David Reiss
  • The Enlivening by Ashlyn Frost
  • Nobody’s Hero by Mark Leslie
  • Morning Sun by Jeremy Flagg
  • Overlook by Jon Mollison
  • Hellbent by Tina Glasneck
  • Brave New World: Revolution by Matt Forbeck (hey, that’s me!)

This bundle is available only for a limited time. All books are provided as DRM-free ePub and Mobi files.

Also, when you make your payment, you have the option of donating 10% of your purchase to the Challenger Center for Space Education. It doesn’t cost you a penny extra, and the money goes to a good cause.

Even if you already have my Brave New World novels, this is a great deal on a lot of wonderful read. If you don’t have Brave New World: Revolution already, it’s even better. Be sure and check out the sale soon. It won’t last long.

Shotguns & Sorcery: The Omnibus Is Here!

Hardcopy editions, clockwise from top left:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, DriveThru hardcover, and DriveThru softcover.

Today you can finally get the new ebook and hard copy editions of Shotguns & Sorcery: The Omnibus. This 610-page book contains all six Shotguns & Sorcery stories written to date, including:

– “Friends Like These” (short story)
– “Goblintown Justice” (short story)
– Hard Times in Dragon City (novel)
– Bad Times in Dragon City (novel)
– End Times in Dragon City (novel)

Plus, a brand-new story written for this book, which you can’t get elsewhere at the moment:

– “The Job Never Ends” (novelette)

Early sales can really help a book, so please grab a copy soon if you’d like. Either way, I’d appreciate you spreading the word to your friends and neighbors. Every little bit helps.

Formats

Left to right: Amazon, DriveThru softcover, DriveThru hardcover, Barnes & Noble

You can get Shotguns & Sorcery: The Omnibus as an ebook just about anywhere you want. If you prefer to buy it directly, I take payments for that via Gumroad, but please get it whatever way you like.

Most ebook vendors sell the ePub edition of the book. Amazon sells the Mobi/Kindle edition. Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble have the ePub version. If you buy through Gumroad or DriveThruFiction, you get a zip file with the ePub, Mobi, and PDF editions. I don’t use DRM on any of the versions.

You can also find paper versions in three different places. Amazon has a thick paperback edition with a matte finish. DriveThruFiction has it in a glossy paperback and a gaming-style hardback, and Barnes and Noble has it (currently on pre-order) in a traditional hardcover with a dust jacket.

The Barnes & Noble dust jacket edition.

Prices

It can be hard to parse all the costs and such out, so let me break down the prices for you.

  • Ebook: $9.99 (no matter where you buy it)
  • DriveThruFiction softcover: $19.99 (comes with ebooks)
  • DriveThruFiction hardcover: $24.99 (comes with ebooks)
  • Amazon softcover: $24.99
  • Barnes & Noble hardcover with dust jacket: $34.99

These vary as they do because of the printing prices the vendors charge. DriveThruFiction charges me less to print, and I pass that savings on to you. However, DriveThru charges for shipping, and you might be able to snag yourself free shipping at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It roughly balances out.

Editions

Outland Entertainment released a paperback version of this book in 2019, but only in limited numbers, and it’s now out of print. You may find a few copies still in stores, but they won’t last long. You can tell it by the slightly different cover, which has a lot more words on it.

I personally polished this latest version, making a few minor corrections here and there and laying it out in a more open format, which bumped it from 448 pages to 610. If you’re one of the lucky ones who snagged that earlier release, there’s no need to replace that version with this latest, definitive version. If you liked it, though, don’t be shy of leaving a review at your favorite booky places. Thanks!

The Best Decision I Ever Made

There’s a long version of this story that I like to tell at conventions, maybe over beers, and that I’ll someday write down properly for my memoir. Here’s the short one.

Thirty-some years ago – fresh out of college and on a student work visa – I somehow miraculously landed a dream job as an editor and game developer at the Games Workshop Design Studio in Nottingham, England. That’s where they make legendary games like Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, which countless people around the globe play today.

While I was there, I worked on games lines like Space Hulk and Blood Bowl, among many others. I had the time of my life and made many amazing friends, including especially my roommate at the row house we found in the Meadows. You might know him as bestselling author William King now, but back then he was just my best pal Bill. As for the rest of them, well, I’d list them all and the effects they had on my life, but this is the short version.

After six months, my visa was about to expire, and Phil Gallagher – the head of the studio at the time – offered to make the job permanent. Despite that, I longed to return to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to be with my girlfriend, who’d already suffered through six months of a long-distance relationship with me. She still had years to go to get her Masters in Social Work, and if I was going to be in the UK during all that, she rightly informed me that we’d have to break it off.

This was back in the pre-internet days of 1990, when things like FaceTime were dreams of science fiction and the letters I wrote to her every evening took days to make it across the ocean. Phone calls were $3 per minute. It wouldn’t last.

Even then, though – young as I was – I knew that I could always hunt down another dream job, but I’d have a hard time finding someone I loved nearly as much. I gave Phil my notice and – after an epic farewell pub crawl that began at the oldest pub in England and staggered about under a full lunar eclipse’s blood-red moon – I headed home.

I arrived back in Ann Arbor thirty years ago today – just before Valentine’s Day – and that long-ago girlfriend is now Ann Forbeck, my wife of 27 years and the mother of our five fantastic kids. My hero, my rock, and my love.

Far and away the best decision I ever made.

This is the goodbye card the folks at the studio made for me. It’s a copy of the cover of the Space Hulk supplement Deathwing, my first major project I worked on there. It’s glued to one of the paste-up boards we used in the days before desktop publishing, and it’s signed by just about everyone I worked with. My father had it framed for me, and it hangs on the wall of my office to this day.