Mar 04
NPR has an excellent interview with my friend Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games about Gary Gygax.
Mar 04
My pal Rich Dansky ruined my morning by pointing me to the news that Brett Favre is retiring. As a lifelong Packer fan, I recognize this as the official end of the greatest era in the NFL since the Lombardi years.
As I told Rich, though, I think this is the right thing for Favre to do. He came back last year—after flirting with retirement for months—because he didn’t want to leave his beloved sport on a bad note. This year, he broke all sorts of records and brought the Packers back to the playoffs. He’s not likely to top that again, so now’s the time to go.
Favre might have been erratic at times, but when he was on his game he was truly great. The saying around here has long been, “As Favre goes, so go the Packers.” Here’s hoping they can find their way without him.
If you read my Blood Bowl books, you might recognize Rhett Cavre, star blitzer of the Bad Bay Hackers. He’ll still live on, I think, even after his inspiration retires. I’ll miss the original though, every damn game.
Feb 26
On Saturday, Marty and I caught The Spiderwick Chronicles film, based on the books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. Tony and Holly are both tabletop gaming refugees, and I got to meet them and sit on a panel with them at the 2006 Comic-Con.
Marty and I both enjoyed the film. I haven’t read the books yet, but we have an autographed copy of Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide, complete with a sketch from Tony. The movie only whetted my appetite for the books, which I hope to pick up soon. It had fun characters, good action, and some excellent moments of suspense, plus a cool ending.
On Sunday, I moved out of my old office and brought everything into the house. Don Perrin and Dan Schooff showed up and gave me a hand. I couldn’t have managed it without their help.
Now, of course, I’m surrounded by boxes. Eyeing all of it, it’s clear most of it can’t stay. There may be a pallet headed for eBay or Hobby Hearse in the near future. I’ll let you know when.
Feb 24
The fine people at FlamesRising.com are running a contest about your favorite horror game. Just write it up in 250 words or less, send it in, and wait for a tentacle-faced Ed McMahon to show up at your door. There are only 16 entries as I write this, so your odds are much better than in the “Facing Down Cthulhu” Sweepstakes.
Feb 22
My friends at Cryptic Studios just announced the Champions MMO, as well as the fact they’ve purchased the property and licensed it back to previous owner Hero Games so they can keep making the tabletop RPG.
Jack Emmert, who’s in charge of Cryptic, has loved superhero RPGs forever. I remember chatting with him about my Brave New World RPG before it even hit shelves, and he just glowed with the superhero love.
I’m thrilled for Steve, Darren, and Tina at Hero, especially Steve, who broke into RPG writing many years ago with Dark Champions. This should be a good shot in the arm for them, and I’m looking forward to many more great things from them.
Many years ago, the original Hero Games crew set itself off on a course to create a Champions computer game. They even asked me to write some of the adventures for it once it got off the ground. Sadly that day never came.
Ray Greer, one of those original Heroes, had vowed not to shave his beard or cut his hair until the game shipped. He looked awful shaggy for a long time. I knew for sure the project was dead when I finally saw him looking trimmed again.
Now, though, it looks like it’s going to happen and be better than ever. This is a great teaming of creators and concept, and I’ll be first in line to play.
Feb 17
Storytellers Unplugged, the communal writers blog to which I contribute a monthly piece, just snagged a nomination for a Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association. If the website wins, the award will go to our founders/moderators/organizers Joe Nassise and David Niall Wilson. These two put in a ton of work to make the website sing, and they deserve every accolade they get. Here’s hoping they get the big nod too.
Feb 14
My pal Mike Selinker just had his latest game published: Key Largo. Mike’s a wonderful and imaginative designer and has created a number of excellent games, but this one is something special because of his co-designers: Bruno Faidutti and Paul Randles. Bruno is one of the great European board game designers, but Paul’s the one that makes this project something Mike cares about so much.
Mike and Paul were the best of friends, but Paul died of pancreatic cancer just over five years ago. At the time, they were working on Paul’s final game design, which eventually became Key Largo, a game we can now all enjoy. Anyhow, Mike can explain it all far better than I. It’s a poignant story, of course, but rather than being a tale of woe, it ends up being a tribute to a great friend.
Feb 07
One of my former college roommates, Dr. Mike Harmeling, plays banjo in a bluegrass band called Horton Creek. One of our mutual friends sent me the band’s latest CD a few months back, and it’s great stuff. I’m not huge into bluegrass, but it sounds fun all the way through. It also brings me right back to the days of hanging out with Mike in the house on State Street in Ann Arbor, while he picked his banjo and talked about his other hobby, refurbishing classic tractors.
Jan 29
My friend Rich Kummer, former owner of ACD, pointed me to a new gaming blog a friend of his is writing as part of a class. Brandon is clearly a sharp guy asking intriguing questions. I may not always agree with his terminology or his sentiments, but it’s fun to watch him wrestle with various issues either way.
Meanwhile Matt McElroy tells me his excellent site, FlamesRising.com, has gotten a facelift, and it looks great. He’s also provided updated links to an interview with me, a review of Dracula’s Revenge (the board game), and a review of World of Darkness: Ghost Stories too. The site’s much more readable and has a fashionable Web 2.0 feel to it. If you enjoy horror or dark fantasy at all, give it another look.
Jan 29
There’s a heartwarming story going around the web about Patry Francis and her book The Liar’s Diary. Patry busted her hump writing the book, which got rave reviews in hardcover. Then she was diagnosed with cancer, making her unable to do much if anything to help promote the book.
Yesterday, the book came out in paperback, and over 300 bloggers banded together to flog it for she who could not flog. I had planned to join in but had a relatively insane day yesterday in what’s been a nutty year already. But me being a day late doesn’t make the book any less good.
Be sure to check it out if you can. Even if it’s not your type of tale, make sure to read Susan Henderson’s excellent encapsulation about how this all came together.
Jan 29
Tommy Lee Edwards, the fantastic artist who provided covers for my Dracula’s Revenge comics from IDW, is taking part in the Ride for Kids on May 4,2008. For this event, thousands of motorcyclists ride to raise money for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, which funds research for a cure for brain tumors in kids.
This is a great, worthy cause all by itself, but to sweeten the pot, Tommy lined up permission from Lucasfilm to provide limited-edition prints to the first 300 donors who contribute $30 or more (plus shipping costs). Appropriate to the event, these feature a squad of stormtrooper biker-scouts from Star Wars, and Tommy signs and numbers each print. Be sure to check it out.
Jan 17
Last year, a group of marketers decided to try to sell a package of Mac shareware by means of an alternate reality game (ARG). To that end, they launched MacHeist, and for every mission you went on (puzzle you solved) you received a discount on the package. (Wikipedia has a good article on it, including the criticisms of the concept as well.)
The game part of MacHeist 2 is over, but the package is now for sale. I didn’t have time to play through most of the missions, but I stopped by to watch how the community of players tackled the intricate puzzles together to solve them as a group. This reminded me a lot of how Cloudmakers.org formed to solve the riddles in the first ARG on which I worked: the Beast.
No matter whether you play the game or not, the package is an insanely good deal—assuming you have a Mac and don’t already own much of the software. For myself, the cost of CSSEdit and Pixelmator alone is worth it. (I already have and use 1password, which rocks.)
Plus a quarter of your purchase price goes to a charity of your choice. If you buy through this link, they’ll toss me a couple more apps as a referral bonus, but don’t let that sway you either way. I’m just intrigued by how a small group can successfully use an ARG to help make them a lot of money. The deal’s only been going on for just over a week, and they’ve already sold over $800,000 worth of packages on the site.
I wonder, of course, if you could manage the same sort of promotion to sell games, perhaps in conjunction with a site like Tanga.com (which is like Woot.com, but with a heavy board game rotation). Any takers?
Dec 30
I forgot one:
My pal Jason Blair just had his first comic book hit stores this month: The Long Count. Jason wrote the words, Leanne Buckley drew the pictures, and Mark Smiley of Archaia Studios Press presented it to the world.
I gotta get me to a comic store fast.
Dec 30
A few of my friends have bits in the works that might interest you.
First up, Rich Dansky’s first creator-owned novel, Firefly Rain, is due out January 8. This is the debut novel for Wizards of the Coast Discoveries, the new all-original imprint from Wizards, and knowing Rich it’s bound to be great. I don’t know any more about it than what’s online and a few private hints from Rich, but I’ve already pre-ordered my copy.
Next, fellow Alliterate, Open Design for RPGs originator, and former Dragon Magazine editor Wolfgang Baur is running a special promotion for his young but fantastic magazine of d20 gaming goodness, Kobold Quarterly. Those who subscribe soon can pick up a free set of Q-Workshop dice along with their first issue.
Finally, another fellow Alliterate and author Steve Sullivan has a new book of Blue Kingdom novellas out from his Walkabout Publishing. Blue Kingdoms: Zombies, Werewolves & Unicorns covers an unusual range of topics in a pair of dark fantasy tales guaranteed to keep you flipping pages.
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