NPR has an excellent interview with my friend Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games about Gary Gygax.
Good-Bye, Brett
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 …
Busy Weekend
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 …
Favorite Horror Game
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” …
Champions MMO
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 …
Storytellers Up for Stoker
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 …
Key Largo and Paul Randles
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 …
Michigan Bluegrass
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 …
Websites! Get Your Websites!
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 …
Day Late, But Still Great
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 …