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Illuminated Site of the Week
Master munchkin (and translator) Birger Kraemer reports from Germany:
Munchkin was the most successful (e.g. played and sold) game at NordCon Hamburg (6,500 gamers). The local Crusade Tournament was won by all five finalists. They played with Munchkin sets 1-3, used the newly released German Star Munchkin bookmark to become Clerics, and then drew Divine Intervention. Absolute Munchkinism! :-)
Warehouse 23 News: More Laughs Than A Potion Of Mirth In A Hyena Cage
Knights of the Dinner Table: Tales From the Vault #2 collects all of the KODT strips that ran from 1997 to 1998 in various magazines. Laugh at the utter ineptitude, needless cruelty, rules lawyering, and general insanity that unfolds in each strip. It's humor any gamer can relate to. Sometimes, a little too well.
The Mount Diablo Buckwheat isn't as charismatic as the ivory-billed woodpecker . . . but it's still good news. The link is to CNN.
-- Steve Jackson
At Marcon. Having good time. Just listened to Ookla the Mok. Enjoyed seeing people encounter SPANC for the first time. Signed a lot of original Munchkin cards drawn by John Kovalic, who still doesn't visibly flinch when he sees a fan waving a blank at him. Have been watching the Chaos Machine grow larger and larger . . .
Woot, look at all the pirate costumes!
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Nobody Ever Said Being A Wizard Was Easy
Poor Pewfell. Between being hounded by demons and accosted by feminist gnomes, the guy just can't get a break. Of course, then the comic wouldn't be funny. So celebrate his suffering and buy a copy of Pewfell: Volume Two - Tentacles of Crwm!
New doings at our online store . . .
We've celebrated a few milestones over at e23, but this week we got to celebrate a milestone for one of our vendors. The talented, sometimes twisted, and always terrific Phil Reed of Ronin Arts sent us his 100th product for e23. Ronin Arts has material for every genre and every taste, and if you haven't browsed through what they have to offer, you're missing out.
We've also picked up a couple of good reviews for our newest e23 original PDFs. RPGnet had this to say about GURPS Casey & Andy:
Style: 4 (Classy & Well Done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
"A faithful and well-done adaptation of the Casey & Andy webcomic. Fans of the strip will find much to like here, as will any gamer that enjoys settings, characters, and adventures with a bizarre sense of humor."
Read the rest at: www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11293.phtml
And our biggest PDF hit so far, GURPS Mysteries, just got a smashing five-star review on ENWorld. Reviewer "Crothian" had this to say: "GURPS Mysteries is the ultimate in mystery role playing books. It is very useful to any genre and any game but obviously even more useful for GURPS players. I am very impressed with the research, the completeness, and the absolute great approach to mysteries for role playing games. This book is basically a must have for anyone planning on doing a mystery role playing game." Read the entire review for yourself!
-- Scott Haring
Warehouse 23 News: Swords, Sorcery, And Steam
The Iron Kingdoms World Guide: Full-Metal Fantasy Volume 2 presents the world of the Iron Kingdoms in all its gear-turning, steam-spewing glory. Take your players out of the dungeon and put them on the forefront of the d20 industrial revolution.
May 27, 2005: Illuminated Site of the Week: He Needs An "L" On His Chest
Man of Steel. Man of Tomorrow. Last Son of Krypton. What a jerk.
This site proves, through a series of old comic covers, that everyone's all-American hero is really, when you come right down to it, pretty much a . . . well, we won't say it in a family forum, but even Perry White doesn't have the full story.
-- Suggested by William B. Smith
Warehouse 23 News: Signs: Now With Portents!
Signs & Portents #21, Mongoose's masterful magazine of much mirth makes many games more merry. Might we mere merchants make a meal on this marvelous mag? "Deal." We meant "deal." No, really, we did!
This weekend I will be at Marcon, a large and ancient SF con in Columbus, Ohio. I was there many years ago, and had a great time. I'm looking forward to more of the same. Other guests include Larry Niven, Larry Elmore, Tom Smith, Ookla the Mok . . . and lots of others, including some fellow named Kovalic . . .
This may be the first public appearance of SPANC - it just shipped a few days ago, and we're going to make sure it's in the dealer room. I'll also be doing a sneak preview of Super Munchkin - the cards just went final. (In fact, as I type this, the disk is on the way to FedEx; it will be at the printers tomorrow). I'll also have some new stuff to playtest.
And I will be taking the wonderful and ridiculous Chaos Machine, and we'll see how big and noisy a Thing we can assemble between Friday evening and Sunday noon.
So if you're going to be around Columbus, come see me this weekend!
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: What's Better Than A Big Stack Of Rules?
More rules! Full of new rules, Babylon 5: A Call to Arms Rules Supplement 3 presents expanded Refit tables, new scenarios, and fleet lists for the Vree and Drazi. You know that two supplements isn't enough. Have another.
May 25, 2005: Ninja Burger Photo Contest
Are you a silly person who knows someone with a camera? Do you own any black clothes? Are you a Ninja Burger fan, or just a ninja fan?
If your answer to any of these questions was "Wasabi!", then you should definitely consider entering the Ninja Burger Photo Contest. Win fame! Win moderate prizes! Bring honor to your ancestors!
Warehouse 23 News: Romance! Intrigue! Psychic Animals!
Roleplaying doesn't have to be about beating up orcs, cheating your teammates, and seeing who has the bigger . . . Constitution. Take a step away from Tolkien and toward Lackey with Blue Rose, the roleplaying game of romantic fantasy.
Warehouse 23 has recently gained the ability to print 11" x 17" posters. Each is individually printed on high-quality photo satin paper, for bright, lasting colors and comes rolled up in a hard cardboard tube. We currently offer the following posters for sale:
We plan to add more posters frequently, so check back often. We've set up a new Posters Info Page to make it easy! The Posters Info Page allows you to browse both poster prints and art cards.
Don't have time to hit the site often? Sign up for the Warehouse 23 Announcement List. Each week we send an e-mail listing all the new products added to Warehouse 23, along with any new specials or news pieces.
-- Cyndy, Warehouse 23 Manager
No, they haven't gone rotten, they're built this way. The Black 20-Sider, Gray 10-Sider, Blue 6-Sider, and Blue 6-Sider With Pips are all officially endorsed by the Teddy Bear Roleplaying League. What, you honestly thought they were just having a picnic?
Flash games are good. Shooting zombies is good. This game would therefore seem to have more than its fair share of goodness.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability. Let's face it, the other players and the GM are misinformed about the rules. Grossly misinformed. Save yourself the trouble of pointing out their complete and utter wrongness every minute of every day by buying a Rules Lawyer T-Shirt.
Congratulations to Lisa Steele, whose GURPS Mysteries remains the e23 chart-topper, and has just broken 300 copies sold.
Does this mean we're going to go exclusively to PDFs? Not on your life.
On the one hand: if we had released the book on paper, it might have sold a couple of thousand in this time. Maybe less . . . the reason we went digital with it in the first place is that, though it is a great book, it is very, very niche. But still, we would have sold more on paper so far.
Of course, we're probably making a bit more on the PDFs. It gets complex here, because that depends very much on how many we printed. If we'd printed only 1,500, each one would have cost us a LOT more than if we'd printed 3,000. Let alone 5,000. But if we'd printed big numbers, we would still be in the hole on the total print job AND we'd have a lot in the warehouse. (Want to know what PAIN is? PAIN is throwing away good products because you overprinted. A book can be the finest treatment possible of its subject, and if you printed 10,000 and there have been only 8,000 people who wanted it after 10 years passed . . . ouch.)
With PDF, on the other hand, there is zero print bill, and no matter how many people want a copy, we always have one more for the next customer. But there are none in the warehouse, taking up shelf space and costing us inventory tax.
Yes, this has been somewhat of a ramble. The point is that PDF is definitely right for some products, and not for others. So we'll keep doing it for some, and not for others.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: They Only Smile Because They Have To
The thief is setting off every trap, the fighter has died four times, and you're not even supposed to be here today. That's okay. At least you have this cool Clerics T-Shirt.
But not in the vampiric way. No, this one is good news.
Glucose is the "blood sugar" that gives you your energy. A Japanese team has now created a tiny glucose-burning fuel cell that contains no toxic substances and can be implanted in the body to power (for instance) a pacemaker. So you'll never have to change the batteries. Just keep eating. Read the IOL story.
Old Bessie just hasn't been the same since she came back from Arkham. We're pretty sure those are tentacles, not udders, but that doesn't make us feel any better. Warn cow tippers the world over that some bovines are best left alone with the Cowthulhu T-Shirt.
May 20, 2005: Illuminated Site of the Week: Poetry In Motion
You may not want to visit this site if you're feeling down . . . it's only going to add grease to that slippery slope. But if you have a high tolerance for pain, this kind of art might appeal to you. Nobody Here but us chickens, goats, giraffes . . . -- Rene Kalverboer
Warehouse 23 News: Mechanical Monstrosities
With a name like DragonMech you expect to see the odd suit of power armor or two. DragonMech: Mech Manual gives you a whopping 50 new mechs to play with in your DragonMech campaign or to use as malignant automata in a fantasy d20 game.
This is the latest release from Steve Jackson Games, now on its way to distributors everywhere and soon to be on the shelves of a game store near you:
SPANC
SPANC Them All!
Life is good when you're a Space Pirate Amazon Ninja
Catgirl. Enjoy a life of larceny and mayhem as you embark
on one Caper after another. Defeat every challenge the galaxy throws at you,
from the Friendly Guard Puppies all the way to the Fiendish Death Trap. Pick up
Toys (and the occasional Poolboy), grab more Loot than anyone else, and watch
your tail . . . because the other catgirls want what you've
got!
Lovingly illustrated by Phil Foglio (GreedQuest, Strange
Synergy),
SPANC is a fast-paced card game of space
pirates, ninja, amazons, and catgirls. All at once.
Warehouse 23 News: The Big Death. The New World. The Desperate Hope.
Fifteen years ago, every adult on the planet was killed by a plague known as the Big Death. Left without parents to guide them, the children of the world grew up in a harsh, unforgiving world. This is the world of Jeremiah. The core book and Thunder Mountain form your gateway to a world in dire need of heroes.
May 18, 2005: Three Ideas Which Should Go No Further
Do you people imagine for a moment I WANT to think of this stuff? It just . . . appears.
(1) A Babylon 5 - MegaTokyo crossover: Sad Girl In Spoo.
(2) A Zen RPG. Monks compete to earn Merit Points, which entitle them to elaborate titles and increasingly gaudy robes, and (at the higher levels) fast cars and drugs.
(3) Buffalo Spleen Canyon. You've all heard the old saying that the Indians used every part of the buffalo. This is, in fact, not true. The Indians could find no use for the buffalo's spleen. This upset them deeply, and whenever they killed a buffalo, they set the spleen aside. For hundreds of years, all across the Great Plains, the tribes would send their couriers to a single holy place where, with regret, the unusable spleens were dropped into a deep and otherwise worthless ravine. They're still there. Buffalo Spleen Canyon has the distinction of being the only Superfund site in North America that is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: With The Center Removed, None Shall Stand
Swords are drawn, armies are raised, and clans rage against one another when the emperor of Rokugan goes missing. Legend of the Five Rings: The Hidden Emperor takes you back to the days of the War Against the Darkness (also known as The Hidden Emperor Arc to fans of the L5R CCG).
Our GURPS projects have not been moving along quickly for the past few months, but they're moving. Here's a status report on the ones at the front of the pipeline:
The GURPS Character Assistant is actually going quite smoothly. Armin is doing great work, the playtesters are giving feedback, and this should ship in early June.
GURPS Banestorm - I am editing this one myself and going back and forth with the authors about details. We have a very good manuscript that ran into some in-house problems; a number of editing changes were made in error and I've taken personal charge of getting them fixed. We now think you'll see this in August.
GURPS Powers is through playtest, is being edited by Andrew Hackard, and ought to be in your hands in September.
GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars will probably be a September release. It's not inconceivable that it will move up if one of the others gets delayed - the manuscript was excellent even in first draft stage. Wil Upchurch is editing it.
And other stuff is coming along, but those are the ones that will happen first.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Cruel, Yes, But Oh So Squeezably Soft
Sure, Moon Beasts are boneless, pale, toad-like creatures that worship evil gods, enslave anything that isn't bolted down, and consider torture to be their national pastime . . . but they're also kinda cute. In their own way. Sort of. You could always use it to scare the neighbors if you don't personally like the Plush Moon Beast.
Most documentation, of all kinds, is so bad that it makes my head hurt.
Game rules, in general, are full of ambiguities. They use the same word for different things and different words for the same things. And quite often they seem to assume that the reader already knows how the game works and just needs a reference for some of the details.
Computer game documentation, even for good games, seems to range from Pathetically Bad to Incomprehensible. Part of the problem is that the deadline for the printed docco is often earlier than the deadline for the game's final build. But you'd think they would go back and fix it after the first 100,000 or so copies are sold. Or at least put a comprehensible version online. Doesn't seem to happen.
Electronics equipment documentation is quite often written in a Japanese-speaker's idea of English and provides NO help in operating the device. Yet there is no mass outcry. We do not see the managers of WalMarts hanging in rows from streetlights, nor do we see U.S. Representatives set aside their frothing about steroids to mandate that imported devices have instructions that make sense. (Four different safety stickers, yes, but not instructions that make sense.)
Clearly there is idiocy at work here. But it occurred to me today that I might be blaming the wrong idiots.
Is it possible that the general level of literacy is so low that the average user does not EXPECT to be able to understand instructions . . . and doesn't even TRY to read them? Does the average user of a device or computer game just expect to poke randomly at the buttons until he gets a minimum function, and then pop a cold one and turn on the TV? If that's the case, then the purveyors of gibberish docco aren't getting many complaints about the junk they foist on us . . . which would explain why they don't think it's worth their time to do any better.
Grump, snarl, mutter.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Avarice Is A Consumer's Best Friend
Point that credit card toward these Something Positive: Happy Capitalist shirts! Buy the T-shirt version! Buy the baby doll version! Buy one for grandma! Buy one for your Turkish cousin! Buy one for the little boy who lives down the lane! Just buy something!
May 15, 2005: GURPS Author Quoted In Wall Street Journal
Lisa Steele, author of GURPS Mysteries (which is still the best e23 selling file ever), is quoted on the "CSI effect" on juries in this op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
It's the cephaloPod T-Shirt! Pried loose from the twisted mind of Aaron Williams, this shirt gleefully parodies the ads of a certain popular, white, fruit-logoed portable music player.
If you haven't seen the BBC story, you'll probably be interested. These self-assemblers are not going to turn Jupiter into a new star any time soon, or even a mortal paradise, but it's a start.
Warehouse 23 News: Bow Down Before The Master!
These paints rule! They are the Masters! Reaper's Pro Paints: Master Series possess the divine providence to hold dominion over all of paintkind! Purchase some today and seize control of the greatest paints in all the world! So it is decreed by the Master Series!
May 13, 2005: Illuminated Site of the Week: Just Deserts
Is Earth's natural machinery two-thirds gone? What's the story with evolution and intelligent design? And should we be concerned that there are seemingly too many New Mexicans for Science and Reason to make statisticians comfortable? They're a clearinghouse for all the ugly scientific truth that rears its nascent head. -- Suggested by Martin Brummell
Warehouse 23 News: Modern Fantasy . . . Noir?
Normal fantasy has elves and dwarves. Modern fantasy has elves and dwarves with guns. But what of noir fantasy? The spell-slinging, cigarette-smoking, black and white world of D6 Bloodshadows is just what all you undead Bogarts, shapeshifting femme fatales, and mystic private dicks have been waiting for. Here's lookin' at you, daemon.
Steve Jackson Games announces for release in September, 2005:
GURPS Powers
Save the World . . . or Destroy It!
GURPS Powers is the ultimate book for the ultimate characters in the new Fourth Edition of GURPS! Here's everything you need to know to create every kind of amazing, off-the-chart superhero you can imagine . . . as well as high-powered fantasy "spellcasters," wuxia fighters, shamans who command spirits . . . even gods!
Written by GURPS Line Editor and Fourth Edition co-author Sean Punch, GURPS Powers will have some new rules, but it is mostly about using the rules that are already in the GURPS Basic Set to cover superpowered characters, megawizards, and earth-shattering psionics. GURPS Powers also include guidelines for "special effects" and several different ways to vary a power on the fly -- two crucial concepts for comic-book superheroics.
GURPS Powers is a Fourth Edition GURPS book that completely replaces the Third Edition books GURPS Supers and GURPS Psionics. Like our other Fourth Edition supplements, it's a gorgeous 240-page, full-color hardback.
If you've got a high-powered campaign – or high-powered players – you want GURPS Powers!
Studies show that children who have stuffed monsters grow up with the super powers required to defeat evil creatures. Godzilla Origins: Plush Gigan is scientifically proven to stimulate the latent monster-killing abilities in babies. Okay, that's a complete lie, but it is a neat plush for Godzilla fans.
May 11, 2005: "Wait . . . Was 2005 BEFORE The Calendar Reset?!"
As we reported last week, there was a Time Traveler Convention on May 7th on the MIT campus. There is now an update online as to what happened.
Sadly, there were no confirmed time travelers attending, although there was a DeLorean.
Why did this convention fail to produce any actual time travelers? Who can say? Perhaps their luggage got lost. Perhaps there was an event of such import and magnitude happening on May 7th, 2005 that, in hindsight, there was somewhere else much better to be on that day. Perhaps the Y3K bug wiped out all records of the event. Perhaps time travel to the past just isn't possible. (Admittedly that last one is pretty farfetched.)
Regardless, the only thing we can do in this era is to make sure our hard drives are filled with material these future time travelers would find interesting, when they uncover these primitive 300-gig storage arrays amid the rubble of Precycled Earth, so they'll have reason to come back and visit. And we happen to know that they'd most especially love the time- and dimension-hopping antics detailed within the GURPS Casey & Andy sourcebook, available only through e23.
And we're not saying that out of any vested financial interest or anything; it's just good advice.
-- Steven Marsh
Editor of Pyramid Magazine
Warehouse 23 News: Buy Low, Sell High, Own Everything
Featuring the art of Phil & Kaja Foglio, Empyrean Inc. is the interstellar card game of monopolizing markets, grabbing goods, deciding deals, and otherwise conquering the galaxy with the might of your economic fist! Not that Warehouse 23 would endorse such rampant commercialism. You're gonna buy a copy, right?
Lawrence Watt-Evans - author of a lot of good SF and fantasy; if you don't know his name, visit Amazon, spend some money, and thank me later - is trying an experiment in online publishing. I, personally, am a fan of his "Ethshar" series, which started with The Misenchanted Sword. . . and, as so often happens, that series has an enthusiastic following which is just not large enough to induce the publisher to contract him for more books.
So . . . he's inviting the fans to, in essence, pay him his advance on the next Ethshar book, The Spriggan Mirror. For every $100 he receives, he is posting a chapter from the first draft; as long as the money keeps coming in, he'll keep working. The plan is that eventually he'll take it to a small press that can't afford an advance, or publish it himself, and those who have donated significantly will get a special deal on the finished trade paperback.
The story thus far is, of course, on his site.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Heavy Metal Gladiators Of The 31st Century
You've fought for honor and glory, but what about fortune and fame? Classic BattleTech: Map Pack - Solaris VII takes you to the Inner Sphere's premiere gaming world and lays out its big event: BattleMech combat. Suit up, MechWarrior, and smile for the crowd. It's game time.
May 9, 2005: Best. Google. Map. Ever.
Gotta love the Google Maps. Nothing like saying "Hey! I can see your house from here!" to the WHOLE WORLD.
But this one is the best. Need we say fnord?
Warehouse 23 News: Fewer Calories, Same Insane Taste
With all the same nightmare-inducing horrors, all the sanity-bending rules, all the Lovecraftian darkness as the hardcover, it's the Call of Cthulhu Softcover. We'd tell you more about it, but even second-hand arcane knowledge will cost you 2d4 sanity, and we wouldn't want that, would we?
If you're a Black Op, anyway. Or running a GURPS Black Ops campaign.
We don't know exactly what U.N.I.T. is. Or if we do, we're not admitting it. No doubt it's better that way. But check out their very useful publications page.
Warehouse 23 News: GURPS, The Final Frontier
Boldly go where no GURPS book has gone before! Seek out new adventures with GURPS Prime Directive, your GURPS Fourth Edition powered guide to the Star Fleet Battles universe. Explore strange new worlds, encounter alien love slaves, and uphold the Prime Directive (even if other captains ignored it with reckless abandon).
May 7, 2005: e23, Warehouse 23 Join Forces
The folks at The CaBil put e23's online PDF business and Warehouse 23's online mail order business together in a new way we hope we'll see more of our vendor partners try in the future.
The CaBil has a miniatures game called Budget Battlefield, and a strange game world for it called The Way of War, and some cool miniatures, all for sale on Warehouse 23. So they decided to do up Budget Battlefield stats for their Way of War miniatures, put 'em on Battle Cards, convert 'em to PDFs, and then give them away on e23! It's a free game aid as a thank you to their loyal customers, and it just might get a few more of you taking a look at what they've got.
Anyway, the Battle Cards come in two sets: the Aztecs and the Circus of Terror (I told you it was a strange game world . . .). You should check it out, especially what with it being free and all.
-- Scott Haring
Warehouse 23 News: Warehouse 23 Top Ten
Check out Warehouse 23's top selling items for March and April at the Warehouse 23 Top 10 page.
May 6, 2005: Illuminated Site of the Week: If You Want Fries With That, It Means More Scripting
Want to know what's worse than the nine-to-five grind? Watching someone else's nine-to-five grind. How can something that requires this much work be so unimaginably dull? He needs to Wake Up, because even worse than watching boring is programming boring. -- Suggested by Richard Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Half-Drow, Half-Lich, All Evil
Designed to test the very limits of a player's skill and cunning, Crypt of the Devil Lich was the module used at the Dungeon Crawl Classics Open at Gen Indy '04. It even includes the rules for tournament scoring. Try Dungeon Interludes for something a bit less intense: six adventures that can be played apart or as a grand campaign.
May 5, 2005: Just A Bit Of Reorganization
As of today, some of our people have traded hats. Despite the old saying, a change is NOT as good as a vacation . . . but sometimes a bit of change is good, and I'm hoping that this little redeployment will let people play to their strengths a bit better.
Wil Upchurch is moving from Production Manager to Editor. He was, last time I looked, a 14th-level freelancer, with equal mojo in Quark and writing, so this should work out.
Monica Stephens moves from Print Buyer to Production Manager. She's already been spending a lot of time dealing with production issues, so this just makes it official.
Moe Chapman had been supervising the Production Manager and various editorial people. She'll move upstairs, take over Print Buying, and not have to worry about any direct reports.
It's crazy, but it just might work.
-- Steve Jackson
She's dressed in black, she hangs out with "vampires," and she's anything but mopey. She's Gilly, the perky goth of Dork Tower fame. Take your days from "black" to "slightly less black" with this Gilly Plush. Glee!
May 4, 2005: The Time Traveler Convention
is set for this weekend at MIT.
It might seem to you that this is rather late notice . . .
but, of course, anyone who reads the announcement later can still come, as long as they've got a time machine. Right? Right.
Warehouse 23 News: Big Barbarians Come In Small Packages
Now you can take everyone's favorite barbarian wherever you go! Conan Pocket Edition has everything the full-sized rule book contains, only much smaller. On the other end of the spectrum is Aquilonia - Flower of the West, with a page count as mighty as the nation itself.
Ever since I could read, I've known the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker . . . the largest North American woodpecker, and red-black-and-white monster with a wingspan of nearly three feet . . . which, as far as anyone knew, had gone extinct just a few years before I was born. So all my life I've been following purported sightings and thinking "Wouldn't it be great? Naaaah, won't happen. Gone is gone."
Except . . . it looks like there really are a few left. And clearly there are a whole lot of people who grew up, like me, wishing previous generations had been just a bit smarter. Serious protection efforts got underway LONG before the public was told. Excellent!
This really makes me very happy. Yes, we have lost a lot of our natural world, and we'll lose more, but every so often something goes right.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: And So It Ends . . .
Season 5 was the last of the Babylon seasons. There would never be another. Which is why it's a good thing we have the Babylon 5 RPG, with books like Babylon 5: Wheel of Fire. This sourcebook covers every episode of the final season, providing everything you need to run your B5 campaign in the year 2263.
I've had a very scattered few days, so here's a scattered Illuminator.
Shuffling Along
Finally got my iPod Shuffle (I know Apple insists on decapitalizing it, but that's stupid and I'm not playing). My Shuffle isn't playing either. It is just a bit too wide to fit in one of my USB ports while the other one is occupied. Trying to do so interferes with the connection, so the Mac complains and the iPod flashes its little "I'm hosed, start over" sequence, and it seems that the problem has now wedged iTunes so badly that Force Quit won't make it stay dead. I'm going to try rebooting, but not until I quit work for the night. So I have had this thing for 48 hours now and haven't heard any music. But at least the battery seems to be charged.
A Convention Report I Didn't Write
Usually I'm on the WRITING end of convention reports, so it was fun for me to hit the page today and find Howard Tayler's report on Penguicon. A large part of said report is devoted to the Chaos Machine setup which he supervised there. It went well. If it looks like fun . . . I'm going to have it with me at Marcon in Columbus at the end of this month. Come see!
And speaking of Howard . . . he recently had an amazingly bad experience with a webhosting company, and just because reading stories like that makes me very grumpy, the above link points to his narrative. So just in case you were looking for a webhosting service, there's one NOT to use.
GURPS Lite
You'll remember that a few months ago we asked for volunteers to translate GURPS Lite into various languages. Well, it's happening. A lot of people and teams are partway along, and a few have actually made it back here for layout. Layout in an unfamiliar language is . . . challenging. But we'll be posting at least one translation very soon, I do believe.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: You've Played The Game, Now Play The . . . Other Game
Why should "leet doods" with "phat loot" have all the "fun"? For those looking to go questing on Norrath without worrying about monthly fees or getting "pwned," check out the EverQuest II Roleplaying Game: Player's Guide. It's like an MMORPG, only without the lag, bugs, and other players!
May 1, 2005: Illuminated Site of the Week: E.T. - He Never Calls, He Never Writes
Some "advanced civilizations" we have in this galaxy. They've got all the technology, but they make us do all the heavy lifting. They're not calling us, so we have to leave a message with them. At the sound of the tone, TalkToAliens. -- Suggested by Jeffrey Bernard
Warehouse 23 News: Because One Variant Is Never Enough
Your choice of player's handbook may be good, but is it good enough? Bring your d20 game to a higher level of consciousness with Arcana Evolved. Use it as a game unto itself or with another rulebook to add a little spice to a current campaign.
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