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Illuminated Site of the Week
September 30, 2008: That Cat Has Already Fallen Billions Of Light-Years
I have no current recollection of whether I have ever linked to xkcd.
But Monday he blew me away, so: linkage. Randall Munroe's strip usually makes me snicker. Occasionally it makes me cry a bit. One expects this from Broadway, perhaps, but we're talking about a webcomic.
Sometimes . . . like today . . . it is just boggling. The observable universe, on a log scale.
I hope he decides to sell this as a poster.
-- Steve Jackson
Later post script: Happy, happy, it IS available as a poster.
Warehouse 23 News: Not To Be Confused With The Red Dagon Inn
All too often the events of an adventurer's life that take place above sea level are given only cursory attention. You went through all the trouble to get all that loot, so now what? It's not like any rational human being (or demihuman being) would exit one hole in the ground and walk straight into another. There's an interim. A downtime. A party party. This rare look into the drunken social lives of heroes is the domain of The Red Dragon Inn 2. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out they're just as violent outside the dungeon as inside.
Sometimes the proof copies we get sit on the print buyer's shelf, kept for future reference. Sometimes we auction them off.
And sometimes the staff fights over them.
(That's the Christmas Chibithulhu, by the way.)
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Where He Gets Those Wonderful Toys
Dungeons & Dragons: Adventurer's Vault is your one-stop shop for crunch, stab, and chop. Bracers that create knives? In stock now! A shield that helps you swim? Second shelf on the right. Be it an exploding spear or a cape that prevents indigestion, you'll find all your level-appropriate problem-solvers here.
As some of you know, Ken Hite (Suppressed Transmissions, GURPS Infinite Worlds) has a column called Out of the Box, in which he chronicles products and events that attract his attention from both the "games" and "industry" sides of the gaming industry. Magpie-like, the column was irregular but clever, and always a pleasure to read. It's been away for a while, but has recently returned, cradled in the offbeat arms of Indie Press Revolution.
For his second installment posted to his new host, Ken has focused his sizable vocabulary on Sean Punch's best-selling series, Dungeon Fantasy. His analysis is excellent, looking beyond the "mere" quality of the product to the market forces that allowed it to be written and published.
Good stuff, whether you're looking for industry analysis, product reviews, or just find Hite's literary tempo soothing.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Say, Speaking Of The Realms . . .
But never mind our groveling, the Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms Player's Guide is out. Get out your oddly-named-yet-surprisingly-effective scimitars, don your best red wizard robes, and baulder the heck out of some gates! We don't . . . really know what we meant by any of that, but we do know that the book has the new swordmage class, and buddy, that's a compound word no gamer can ignore.
September 27, 2008: Illuminated Site of the Week: That'll Come In Handy
When you're lost on some isolated country road, your biggest concern shouldn't be the embarrassment of asking for directions - it should be whether you'll run afoul of a cult looking for new members. To mount an effective resistance, bookmark Apologetics Index, your one-stop shop for fighting mind control. Since they'll probably take away your Internet access, you'll want to order a book or two. The cult won't be expecting you to go analog.
-- Andy
Warehouse 23 News: Okay, Maybe It's Not That Bad
Maybe it's not as bleak a picture as we painted yesterday. However, we could still use the money. And it's not like you don't get anything out of it. Look, here, at this perfectly good book entitled Dungeons & Dragons: FR1 Scepter Tower of Spellgard. Hey, isn't that cool? Forgotten Realms! You guys are geeky-types, so you like the Realms, right? So, y'know . . . please buy something? Please? We'll be your friend, c'mon!
Samples of the counter sheet from the new print run of SPANC arrived the other day. They're larger than the old counters, which is hard to spot from the thumbnail image -- click through to the larger image to get a better view. Unfortunately, neither image really shows the linen finish very well. Rest assured, however, that when you're holding the counters in your hands, they feel significantly better than the old version.
The files are all at the printer, and should be arriving in time for the holidays. Now you know what to ask Santa for!
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: For Just Pennies A Day . . .
Working in the adventure gaming industry is exactly as glamorous and high-living as you might imagine. That is to say, many of us spend our nights in back alleys, empty bottle in one hand, staring with dead eyes at the pavement, wondering just where it all went so terribly, terribly wrong . . . So! Save the life of a Warehouse 23 employee today! Purchase, uh . . . let's say the Hunter: The Vigil - Storyteller's Screen. That sounds good. Please?
In addition to Munchkin Quest 2 -- announced earlier this week -- we'll also be shipping another bit of munchkinly goodness in January.
+6 Bag O' Munchkins
Official Munchkin Plastic Bag!
Extra bonus -- free Munchkins!
These six Munchkin pawns are identical to those found in Munchkin Quest . . . the four colors found in the initial set, plus the Purple and Orange that you'll see in the first expansion. The obvious thing to do would be to keep this set around for the day one is lost.
But if you're truly evil, and your friends let you get away with it, you'll show the world just what a munchkin you really are by using these pawns in other games.
In Munchkin
Any time you are entitled to go up a level -- or when you do something that WOULD earn you a level if you weren't already Level 9 -- you may, instead, place a munchkin pawn in front of you. In any combat, you may discard it for a 1d6 bonus. You may only have one in front of you at a time. Unless, of course, you "lose" these rules and tell the other players that you're allowed to have more. Six is a good number.
In Other Games
Because you're a munchkin, you may claim a munchkin advantage for using these pawns in ANY game. For instance:
- In any roll-and-move game, if you use the munchkin as your pawn rather than one that came with the game, then once per game you may add or subtract 1 space to the move you roll.
- In any game in which you start with money, then if you use the munchkin as your pawn, you start with 10% extra. Round up, of course.
- In chess, a munchkin pawn can move forward two spaces at any time.
If you create your own official rules for using the Munchkin pawn in other games, please share your rules with us at the Steve Jackson Games forums.
Six plastic Munchkin Quest pawns, in six different colors, polybagged with a punched header card. Stock #5504, ISBN 978-1-55634-794-8. $5.95.
-- Paul Chapman
This announcement is written in rhyme. It's written in very odd time. The meter is strange, the purpose deranged, and Exalted: The East is just fine. (-Ed. That was terrible! Find out who reactivated LimerickBot 400 and fire them, preferably with actual fire this time. And then alert the MiBs that LB400 is loose again.)
The first 1,104 copies of Munchkin Quest have been loaded into a container with a couple thousand copies each of Star Munchkin and Munchkin Cthulhu. But those are just the start; the bulk of the MQ print run will take up two full shipping containers.
Assuming no major storms in the Pacific, and no surprise delays in customs Stateside, all the copies will arrive at our warehouse before Halloween. After that, the shipping department will be working overtime to get all the orders filled, and make sure your Friendly Local Game Store has copies on the shelf before Thanksgiving.
If you're lucky enough to be attending Speil Essen, we'll have advance copies for sale there.
Remember: Munchkin Quest will make a great gift . . . for the family or, in true munchkin fashion, to yourself!
-- Paul Chapman
Have we done the "we won't tell you what's in the book because the word 'secret' is somewhere in the title" thing? Yeah? Because, um . . . well, Call of Cthulhu: Secrets of Morocco is here. And, well, ah . . . that's the only joke we've got. Sorry. You'll still buy the book, though, right?
Does your GURPS fantasy campaign need a tower for your mighty heroes to clear?
How about a waypoint to stock up on some new spells?
A magically knowedgable patron who provides a base of operations?
Luckily for you, all three needs can be satisfied with just one product: The Tower of Octavius. This six-story tower and its inhabitants are fully detailed, with maps of each level and the basement, dungeon, crypt, and surrounding region. Full GURPS writeups are provided for its powerful, eccentric occupant – Octavius of Tyrvo, the Wizard-Baron – and his minions and allies. And topping it all off is a bundle of adventure seeds and ideas on using the Tower as a one-shot location, full-fledged dungeon, or a permanent home for your adventurers.
Written by Matt Riggsby, with maps by 01 Games, The Tower of Octavius is a location perfect for busy GMs with campaigns set on Yrth or any other fantasy world.
-- Paul Chapman
The Order of the Stick: War and XPs is out. Why aren't you reading it right now? Warehouse 23 can help you get halfway. We'll gladly send you a copy of the book in exchange for money. But reading it? Well, that's a road you must walk alone. Walk the road, man. Er, read this book. Whatever. It's awesome!
Back in the late Cretaceous, when I was growing up amidst the ferns and hadrosaurs, the very first TV show that ever ate my brain was The Man From U.N.C.L.E.I even collected the novels . . . I have them all except a couple of the rare juveniles and The Final Affair, which David McDaniel delivered to the publisher after the show's cancellation had been announced. Copies of the manuscript are apparently circulating fnord; sadly, I have never seen one. But, as usual, I digress.
As I recall, most of the novels started with some really horrible thing happening in an out-of-the-way place. It was always, of course, a plot by the sinister THRUSH, the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity. THRUSH typically tested its new superweapons and mass-murder techniques "covertly," e.g., by wiping out remote villages. However, U.N.C.L.E. always spotted the weird news items that started "Dozens Dead in Mysterious (whatever)," and would send Napoleon and Illya to blow stuff up and save the world. THRUSH employed a great number of evil geniuses guided (if not ultimately ruled) by the Ultimate Computer, but they apparently never figured out that U.N.C.L.E. read the newspapers.
All this sprang instantly to mind when I read about Nashville running out of gas. Clearly, someone is testing a technique to paralyze a whole city. Now that daytime radio has been supplemented by the Net, rumors can spread really fast. Just start a story that the supply of gas is about to run out, and wham, it will.
Worked pretty well, didn't it?
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Repel Tiny Invaders!
The FN Battle Squadron, the Haifeng Battle Squadron, and the SV Shokoladki Battlepack are all for Attack Vector: Tactical . Voidstriker: Terran Defense Force is for nothing in particular. But together, they represent more than a simple marketing ploy to get you to purchase all four. Together, they are . . . ah . . . really . . . um . . . well, they're awfully cool lookin', don't you think?
Note: Objects in image may not be accurate representations of the relative sizes of Chibithulhu and the ship carrying it. Also, we're pretty sure this batch isn't actually coming to us on a pirate ship, but one never knows.
Our first plush release, Chibithulhu, is headed to our warehouse. Apparently, the recent hurricanes delayed the cute little fellow in the Caribbean for a few days. Rumors of psychics having nightmares about an awakening are unfounded.
Watch for this insanely cute form of Cthulhu to hit store shelves in early November.
-- Paul Chapman
Who's There? Dumb Joke. Dumb Joke who? Dumb Joke to get you to buy the Labyrinth: Plush Door Knocker. So, uh . . . did it work?
September 20, 2008: You Must Go To Memphis And Destroy The Blue Cow. Fnord.
Out of the fnorder and into the headlines; our thanks to Eric Jordan, who was the first to point this out. Here's a fellow who pays too much attention to his messages from the Illuminati.
"Awe." American Heritage says it is "a mixed emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might." Hm. Sounds appropriate enough to us to describe the inhabitants of Champions: Monster Island. As in, "I was in awe of its nuclear fire breath. Until it stepped on me."
September 19, 2008: The Massive Munchkin Preorder Promotion
Munchkin Quest!
And now the long version: The time of Munchkin Quest is nearly upon us. And while quite a few of you have already pledged your various monies to our store (that you might secure for yourself a copy of this fine product) I sense there are those among you who yet feel apprehensive about forking over the cash. You wish your pots sweetened. Pardon me a moment, then, whilst I reach into the cabinet and find that over-large cannister of sugar I raided from a hill giant's kitchen.
Starting right now (well, starting somewhat sooner than the precise moment you read this, but close enough), anyone with the pluck to plunk down a Warehouse 23 preorder on a copy of Munchkin Quest will recieve a Munchkin Quest Gold Piece for their trouble. This high-quality promotional item is made of pure, honest-to-goodness, 100%, gold . . . -colored brass.
Not enough? Of course it isn't! Which is why I'm not foolish enough to stop there. No, I'm here to tell you that you'll also recieve the Munchkin Quest Promo Coaster. It, too, is not made out of gold! And folks, I'm gonna bust out that favorite little marketing chestnut on you, so brace yourselves: That's. Not. All. You will also receive, for your preordering troubles, Munchkin Quest Promo Set 1! Wow!
. . . You're probably wondering what the heck all that stuff is. Okay, fair enough. The Gold Piece is the brassier cousin of the Silver Piece, and basically grants you the power to never be broke while playing Munchkin Quest. (We should always be so lucky.) The Promo Coaster sits under your drink. It has no power of its own. But the power it gives your drink, well . . . that's different. It will infuse, invigorate, and interpolate! Plus, it looks cool. And finally, the Promo Set adds the Troll Booth to your game (along with the appropriately monstrous Troll card and standee). Troll Booth! Hah! Comedy gold.
There. Enough sucrose for the pot to rot the teeth right out of a kobold's head. (Which, bonus, makes him even easier to kill.) But what's that I hear you cry? "What if I already preordered? I want promo stuff, too! Why do you hate us so?!" Fret not, my munchthren, for anyone who's preordered from Warehouse 23 is already signed up to get all the neat promo stuff. Who loves ya, baby?
-- Fox
Warehouse 23 News: Both, Sure, But Not At The Same Time
Traders go here. Barbarians over there. Both? At the same time? Settlers of Catan: Traders & Barbarians seems to think it's a good idea. We have reservations. Something about the whole "chopping off heads and putting them on pikes" thing that barbarians seem to have going. What's a trader supposed to do against 300 muscly pounds of naked fury? Haggle?
Never before, as far as we can remember, have we been both confident enough and organized enough to send a supplement to the printer before the core game was even out. Well, there's a first time for everything. All the previews of Munchkin Quest went so well . . . and we were so full of perverse ideas that didn't fit in the first set . . . and our Game Development staff is so unprecedentedly large and competent . . . that we are able to announce:
Munchkin Quest 2 - Looking for Trouble
Trouble Is Good!
Trouble means gold. Trouble means leveling up. And with Munchkin Quest 2 -- Looking for Trouble, you can find trouble with up to six players. More help against the monsters! More friends to backstab! More competition for the loot! Whoops, forget we said that last bit.
And now the dungeon has Traps. Axes and arrows, flames and falling rocks . . . Maybe you can dodge. Maybe you can push your buddy in front of you.
Explore 18 new rooms . . . the Tomb Room! The Doom Room! The Chamber of Horrors! If you survive, spend your gold at Ye Swankie Donjon Shoppe . . . or Ye Cheape Donjon Shoppe, if you're not picky. Shake off those pesky monsters in the Sun Room, and get healed at the Temple of Generic Niceness.
And new monsters! Flee the stomping power of Bigfoot! Fear the tiny terror that is the Fright Sprite! Fight the sticky menace of the Gummi Golem! Plus more weapons, scrolls, and potions to equip your character, new curses to inflict on your fellow munchkins, and a new kind of passageway that lets you grab gold between rooms.
Munchkin Quest 2 -- Looking for Trouble was designed by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic, the troublemakers that brought you Munchkin and Munchkin Quest.
5.75" x 11.75" x 3.5" box, with nine 3.5" square heavy cardstock room tiles, over two dozen link connectors, 100 full-color cards, six monster standies, dice, rulesheet, and enough tokens, level counters, and sculpted plastic pawns for two additional players. Stock #1471, ISBN 978-1-55634-780-1. $34.95.
-- Paul Chapman
PS - Yes, we ARE already working on Munchkin Quest 3, probably for release sometime during 2009's convention season. No title yet. No official date yet. But if you see us at conventions, ask us about it, because within a week or two we'll be playing with the first prototype set here, and OF COURSE we will bring it with us when we travel.
Warehouse 23 News: Better Late Than Never
The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is here! Now you can enjoy the film event of 2006 in 2008! You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll seriously overuse exclamation points to get across how excited you are! You'll probably be thrown out of all the best parties! But, hey, at least you'll be having a good time! Woooooo!
In honor of the upcoming release of Munchkin Booty, we are proud to celebrate with a special Talk Like A Pirate Day rule. During "Talk Like A Pirate Day," any player may choose to start any game of Munchkin as a Pirate. Here's the card (click through to the larger, printable version).
This class may be lost normally, but anything that causes it to be discarded just makes it go PFFT - your virtual Pirate card does not go into the discards.
Because any real munchkin would insist on the most liberal interpretation possible of when TLAP Day is, this rule goes into effect the instant after midnight, Greenwich Mean Time on September 19, and lasts until midnight (2400 hours) in the GMT+23 time zone. As long as it is TLAP Day anywhere, this rule is in effect.
The lucky munchkins who bought an advance copy of Munchkin Booty at GenCon (or those who game with them) may take advantage of an even better rule, which has two parts:
(1) During TLAP Day, as described above, you get +1 in all combats for each item of pirate regalia (clothing, pins, hoop earrings, parrots, fake parrots, etc.) you are wearing. The maximum bonus for this regalia is +3. T-shirts referring to piracy, and ANY clothing items bearing a skull and crossbones, also count as regalia.
(2) If you e-mail a photograph of yourself in your pirate finery, holding or touching a Munchkin Booty box, and give us permission to post it with your name, you may claim this bonus ALL YEAR . . . from the beginning of TLAP Day 2008 to the beginning of TLAP Day 2009. That's right . . . up to a +3 combat bonus in every combat, in every game you play. Only those pictures we actually post will qualify for the bonus; you will be able to confirm the bonus to your jealous friends by visiting that page and showing them your name and piratey image. We reserve the right not to post any photo we receive, for any reason . . . so try to keep it Safe For Work. We also reserve the right to REALLY LIKE a photo, and keep a copy in our Unsuitable Munchkin Ideas file, even if we feel it's not suitable to post, so be warned. Arrrrr.
(3) This rule IS open to employees and MIBs of SJ Games, if they qualify by sending an appropriate photo. You think we're going to rule ourselves OUT? No way.
Send pictures to webmaster@sjgames.com. The photos we get will be posted at www.sjgames.com/munchkin/munchkinbooty/piratepix2008. We will close this page to new entries on September 30 . . . Munchkin Booty will be at your friendly local game store in early October.
Warehouse 23 News: Dude! That Chick Totally Has A Lighting Bolt Coming Out Of Her Arm!
Here, on the cover of Fantasy Hero: The Atlantean Age! Check it out!
Recently my bank sent me an offer for an "identity theft protection" service offered by a company called Intersections Inc., an "industry leader in identity theft protection." According to the flyer, Intersections would "monitor my credit with Equifax . . . every business day for signs of fraud and identity theft." How much would this cost me? Why, it was FREE. Yes, FREE, all caps, underlined. All I had to do was "call today."
So I called. A nice lady on the phone confirmed that yes, the service was courtesy of my bank, and that it would be free as long as I had an account there. She took down my information. Then she said "One more thing," and rattled something off. She asked me to agree to it.
"Wait, sorry, I didn't get all that." I said. I could tell that I was giving them some kind of formal permission to look at my file - that was the point - but what were the terms, exactly? And why didn't I hear anything in their formal agreement about what they would or would not charge?
She repeated it. The parts that I'd gotten the first time, including the one-more-thing-we-need intro, seemed word for word. Okay, she was reading from a script!
So I said. "I'd like a copy of this agreement."
"We don't send out copies."
"Oooookay - May I talk to a supervisor?"
Long story short: The supervisor confirmed that they didn't send out copies of their agreement. She said, quite condescendingly (not an exact quote) "This is free. You don't need to worry about it." I said "But what's the record of our agreement, if I'm not signing anything?" She responded "We're recording this."
Is it unreasonable of me to want a written agreement with anyone who's going to be accessing my credit file regularly? Is it naive of me to think that it's a very one-sided little "FREE" agreement if they have a recording of the customer agreeing to their script, and the customer has nothing? Is it a bit paranoid of me to tell them "No, thank you, I don't think I want you reading my file without an agreement, and I'm going to talk to my bank about this?"
Anyway, I said "No thanks." Imagine my surprise, at the beginning of this week, to get a letter telling me how happy they were to have signed me up! It did include a sheet entitled "TERMS OF USE," which ran a full page in small type - quite a bit longer than the script the lady had rattled off on the phone. And it included the magic phrase "At any time without notice to you we may modify these Terms or the fees for the Service, or modify or cancel the Service."
Yes, that's right. They had signed me up anyway. After I had explicitly declined their service.
The good news is, 30 minutes after I called my bank officer, we were in a conference call with a supervisor at Intersections, and I am now awaiting a letter from them confirming that I am UNsigned-up and that they have not been into my file.
(You're wondering why I don't blow the whistle on my bank, by name? Well, first, because when I told them what had happened, they dealt with it as quickly as I could have wished - and second, to protect my own privacy.)
Identity theft is a real problem. It happened to one of our staffers recently. But after this experience, I think "services" like this are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: Go Ahead, Unearth The Conspiracy
We dare ya. Here, read Delta Green: Eyes Only. Go on. We'll wait . . . Oh dear, blood seems to be shooting out of your ears. Now will you leave the Things Man Was Not Meant to know well enough alone?
Randy has run quite a few Munchkin Quest demos this summer. That isn't a surprise -- I mean, it's a major new release, from our flagship game line. You've got to expect us to push it a little, right?
At PAX, no pushing was necessary. Gamers ate it up, and asked for seconds. Every session was full, and some waited over an hour to play. During the last game on Sunday -- when everyone knew that if they didn't play now, they weren't going to be able to play at all -- each pawn had two players, working together to kick down doors and level up. Plus, the normal crowd of observers was double the normal size.
Here's to Munchkin fever!
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Pigeonholed, Perhaps?
With a name like Dr. Destroyer you're pretty much set in your vocation. Nobody's gonna hire "Dr. Destroyer's A/C Repair." So Champions: Book of the Destroyer is about pretty much what you'd expect. If only his parents had had a little foresight. If only.
Now, around here we like Munchkin. And we know lots of you, out there, like Munchkin. What we weren't prepared for was the concentrated Munchkin frenzy at PAX.
Phil, in walking around the tabletop gaming area, found many, many, many such games being played. Nearly one group in every ten on Saturday night was backstabbing and cursing, killing the monsters and taking their treasure. And when we broke out the Munchkin Quest prototype . . . oh boy. Folks were stacked two or three deep, watching and helping play.
I know we're always saying Munchkin is popular, based on our sales numbers. But seeing it, live and in person, provides a different sort of feedback. In some ways, it's better than sales numbers, because a number has to be pretty big to jazz Phil up the way that room of gamers did.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad
No, it's Munchkin! See, because two new Munckin T-shirts just came out, and a third one is on the way! Hah hah! Hah. Hah . . . just go buy our shirts . . .
I really like the idea of software maintained by a community. Therefore, I wish to be a Firefox loyalist. But they sure made my head hurt with their latest release.
Version 3.0 features what they call a "smart" location bar. I would call it a very stupid location bar. With the 2.0 location bar, if you typed an S, you got all recently visited sites whose URLs start with S. Well and good.
Now, you seem to get all recently visited sites with an S in the URL!!
So I promptly switched back to the old version. This involved downloading an archive that unpacked into a disk image on my Mac. So I opened the disk image, and what did I see? One word: "Firefox," repeated twice. Two instances of the Firefox logo, one color, one black and white. And an arrow pointing to a folder marked with what I recognized as the symbol Apple is currently using to mean "Applications."
Well, I figured it out. What they were trying to say was "This disk image contains one item. Grab it and move it to your applications folder."
Would it have killed them to SAY that? It's only 15 words.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: On The Other Hand . . .
Then again, maybe you haven't heard of Traveller. That's okay, it happens to the best of us. Fortunately, Traveller: Book 0 - An Introduction to Traveller will correct this situation quite nicely.
Jerry and Mike, the Geek Generals who lead PAX into the nerd-flavored future, were kind enough to stop by our Munchkin area during the show. They're the webcomic artists who create Penny Arcade, and the brains from which both PAX and Child's Play (an awesome charity, BTW) spawned. After signing a couple of Chibithulhu and getting a quick picture, they were wisked away by the tide of activity that is the largest geek gathering on Earth.
We'll definitely have a presence at PAX next year. To what extent that presence will be retail, marketing, or just hanging out will be determined . . . soon. We've got Top Men working on it.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: 30 Years Of . . . Wait, 30 Years?!
So, yeah, Traveller ain't no spring chicken. But you can spin that around, and think of it like a Crockpot. The game slowly cooked to perfection as the years slipped by. That means that the latest iteration of this tasty classic is a juicy morsel, able and waiting to fill your gamer palate with rapturous sci-fi delight. And certainly not the bitter flavor of your advancing years.
We might just have a place for you!
Steve Jackson Games has an immediate opening for an experienced bookkeeper - someone who can help our Controller see that everyone we owe is paid and everyone who owes pays us!
Does this sound like the sort of thing you might enjoy? If so, take a stroll over to our Job Opportunities Page to find out how you can apply.
(And if finance isn't your area, you should take a look anyway; we have several job openings at the moment, and one of them might just be what you're looking for!)
-- Shadlyn Wolfe
Warehouse 23 News: No, Seriously. Everything.
Sure, we mentioned the Atlas Games d20 price-gutting yesterday, but we felt it worth pointing out something else. This drop in price includes the Northern Crown and Nyambe lines. The previously mentioned Penumbra is not alone. If you can summon forth ten bucks from your wallet, 256 pages of African myth awaits your dungeon-diving crew. How cool is that? Too cool.
As previously noted, a couple of lucky staffers made the trek to the Penny Arcade Expo over Labor Day weekend. Games were played, fun was had, and photos were taken.
Here we see Will showing off the prototype of Revolution! We mentioned this great little abstract bidding game a couple days ago . . . well, actually we pointed you at a review of it. Right now, it looks like you'll see the game in February. Trust me, it's worth the wait.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Everything Must Go!
And we're not talking about that troublesome biological imperative we waste-producing mammals must obey. No, we're talking about an Atlas Games markdown of twenty-sided proportions. Point your web browser this-a-way if you've ever wanted to buy a Penumbra book but only had two dollars in your gaming budget. Today, truly, is your day.
Steve Jackson Games is seeking a Production Assistant to join our production team. The job entails pouring text and laying out books in Quark 6.5, minor Photoshop work (coloring art), as well as advertisement design and graphic work on miscellaneous marketing projects.
Candidates must have experience in multiple-page layout in Quark, and understand basic coding for Quark. Experience with Photoshop is a must. This is a full-time job, with health benefits and paid leave, and requires relocation to Austin. For more information, or to send in your resume (in ASCII or PDF format), please contact Philip Reed at phil@sjgames.com.
For some vampires, it's all black shirts and bad poetry and the backs of hands stuck to foreheads. "Woe!" "Woe?" "Woe . . ." And so on. Other vampires run about naked, shouting at the moon and sinking their fangs into anything with erythrocytes and a beating heart. Guess which group Vampire: The Requiem - Gangrel: Savage and Macabre is about. Yeah. Bring a napkin. Or maybe a towel . . .
September 8, 2008: Illuminated Site of the Week: It's The Size Of The Fight In The Dog
Boston Dynamics would like you to know how far they've come with the BigDog. This quadraped robot traverses difficult terrain and makes a sound like a cross between a leaf blower and a cricket doing Tibetan chants. It won't be sneaking up on enemies any time soon, but it can carry packs uphill - and it keeps going even when some cruel scientist kicks it like it had rabies. Check out the video to see it walk through rocks, skid on ice, and dance.
-- Suggested by Freya
Warehouse 23 News: Roll The Bones, Scare Your Friends
The Dwarven Stones: 12mm Bone Polyhedral 7-Die Set is made of real, honest-to-goodness bone. Hm. Mayhap "goodness" is the wrong word to employ here. Probably "honest-to-kinda-creepiness" or "honest-to-that's-really-cool-but-also-sorta-unnervingness." However you describe them, they serve as quite the conversation piece at your next polyhedral undertaking.
Boardgamegeek has yet another review from our GenCon previews . . . this time for a stealth release coming out very early next year: Revolution. Phil found it being self-published, and felt it deserved a wider audience. After playing it, we all agreed.
It's an elegant little bidding game . . . well, I'll let David's review describe it. That's why we linked to it, after all.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: It's Not A Witch Hunt
It's a witch find. The book is called Hunter: The Vigil - Witch Finders because a word like "hunt" suggests the possibility of never actually encountering a witch. No, these people do not simply "go looking" for witches. Their dispensation of righteous downward smacks to the fell arcane forces of the night is simply a matter of time. Or that's what their morale-boosting exercises reinforce, anyway.
Remember last month, when I mentioned the possibility -- no, actually, the probability -- of price increases? For at least one product, it's here.
The first print run of Munchkin Quest will be priced at $49.95, just as advertised (and solicited to retailers). However, the second print run, which is expected to be needed around the middle of next year, will jump to $59.95. Shipping costs are rising quickly, and we expect to announce other price increases before the year's end.
But we thought you'd appreciate a warning before this one happened.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Warehouse 23 Top Ten
Warehouse 23 has posted an updated Top 10 Page for August. Check it out, and see what all the cool kids are buying . . .
September 5, 2008: Illuminated Site of the Week: Actual Falsehoods
It's been observed that if you go to Wikipedia for your "facts," you're relying on the argumentative members of the general public to get things right. The beauty of The Arcana Wiki is that you're getting information about stuff that's already not real. The site is building up a storehouse of fantastic, unknown, or just plain entertaining information about people, places, and things. Some of these are imaginary, but there's real stuff, too - it just gets steeped in legend or boiled down to the most amusing bits. Use it for everything from writing fiction to developing your RPG campaign, and hey, you can even help write more of it. Just try to get your facts straight, okay? Otherwise people have to use Arcana's links back to Wikipedia and the irony might kill someone.
-- Jürgen Hubert
Warehouse 23 News: Sometimes, We Do Things
Warehouse 23 is not chiseled into stone. It's more like a block of clay that we constantly reshape and retexture to suit our whimsy. Oh sure, sometimes little bits of it fall off and then we have to get out the scrubber and clean the carpet. And sometimes cat hair collects on it and we have to take one of those lint brushes to it. But sometimes, we add cool things like the rpg browse page. And, uh, lose our metaphor.
What I needed today, and did not get, was somebody to rub my neck and tell me that everything is okay.
If I could run for president on the platform that everybody would get that, I'd win.
"My fellow Americans. I have today established the cabinet-level posts of Secretary of Neckrubs and Secretary of Reassurance.
And it'll be all right."
Alas.
-- Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: The Big Book Of Scary Stuff
The Roll of Glorious Divinity II is your Exalted guide to ghosts, demons, and all the wacky hijinks they have messing with the Solars. It also has a cover that's given us nightmare fuel to last the rest of our lives. Cool, huh?
"Don't try to make games something they're not. To borrow a phrase, it wastes time and it annoys the pig. Likewise, don't play Munchkin unless you're willing to be royally shafted by (and royally shaft) your friends, and if you ever have the opportunity in Illuminati to use the Girl Scouts to control everything, do it."
-- Wil Wheaton, from his introduction to Things We Think About Games
Another bit of fun at GenCon was Things We Think About Games, by Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball (with a foreword by Robin D. Laws and introduction by Wil Wheaton). Presented as a collection of knowledge and thoughts about games, including some "knowledge" that I completely disagree with, the book covers game design, game publishing, playing games, and pretty much anything the pair feels is important to games. Will and Jeff asked me to contribute, so I wrote one "thing" in the book (my thing was inspired by both reading and writing game rules and no, I won't tell you what set of game rules I had in mind at the exact moment that I wrote my "thing," so don't ask) which means that I can't be trusted when it comes to talking about the book. (Though it is a book that all gamers should own, if only so that they can put some thought into how they play games. This means that you should own a copy because you're a gamer. Right? Right.)
When Will and Jeff contacted me, one of the requests was for comments on the things they had written for the book. They didn't use a few of the short bits I sent them, so I'm going to post one of the unused bits here. (It's not good to let unused writing sit for too long, even my own mad rambling text.) I'll probably e-mail the other unused bits to someone random. (Is there a market for gamer spam? I'll have to research that.) Anyway, in response to the thing in the book titled "Take your turn, already," I wrote:
"Game Designers and Developers: This means you should, during playtesting, keep a very close eye on the length of time from when a player finishes his turn until the action comes around to him again. In a perfect world, each player turn will take one to two minutes, with total time between a single player’s turns lasting no more than five to ten minutes. Any longer than that and you risk losing players to the TV or another distraction. If individual turns are taking longer than one or two minutes, explore ways to allow simultaneous play or reduce the number of player options each turn."
I'm sure that there's no reason for me to explain why short player turns are important to a game. Each and every one of us has been in the game with so many options that the turns take five to ten minures each (and this really isn't fun when there are five other players). Think back to that game where you finished your turn and then ran off to the gas station for a snack -- "if I hurry, the guys won't have to wait more than a minute or two for me to get back," you thought to yourself -- and returned twenty minutes later just in time to . . . see the player to your left still taking his turn? Who wrote these rules?
Do you remember that rambling problem I mentioned? I'm doing it again. I'll go back to work now.
-- Phil Reed
I also picked this book up at GenCon. I don't write in books -- I'm something of a purist when it comes to the printed page -- but several of the comments had me scribbling retorts on the flight home. A couple of them were just plain dumb I disagreed with strongly, and a couple were genuine epiphanies. But every one made me think. As Phil says, this is a book all gamers should own.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: Actualize Your Inner Awesomeness
It's not a +2 fiery sword. You are a +2 fiery person who happens to be holding a sword. Sure, you can make that sword feel special for a bit, but later you might be holding a glaive. Or an axe. Or a table leg. Making them them all fiery and plus-two-y is as simple as buying a copy of GURPS Power-Ups 1: Imbuements. And, ah, perhaps a pair of flame-proofed underpants.
At GenCon, many things fall into the "want, but out of budget" category. The king -- dare I say, the Sultan -- of that category was the gaming table offered by Geek Chic. They call it "The Sultan."
Drink holders, dice rolling trays, a dry erase board that's lit from below, and more nooks and crannies than you can shake a stick at. This thing is made of beautiful material, with a ton of drawers for organized storage, as well as a reversible cover for the white board -- felt on one side, wood or copper on the other. There are too many features for words; they really need a YouTube video tour of the thing.
I'm in love.
The price tag is ten grand, which is a darned sight out of my gaming budget, even if I did have a place to set it up (which I don't). But for that price, they deliver it to your door.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: What You Do In Private Is Your Business
When someone like Kromm presents us with a book, we don't ask many questions. When it's called Dungeon Fantasy we ask even fewer. Fortunately, it was about swords & sorcery and not . . . sordid-ry.
Thanks for checking the Daily Illuminator, but we're not in right now. Everyone is out of the office, in observance of Labor Day.
Which, perhaps ironically, involves doing less labor than normal. Unless you -- like me -- are at a convention, then "normal" is a laughable fantasy, a story told to children as you tuck them into their cots.
Man, I need to get off the road.
-- Paul Chapman
Warehouse 23 News: There's No Order Like Pre Order
We were going to tell you how great TheOrder of the Stick is, but you already know that. We were also going to tell you that we carry all the books and the board game, but you probably already know that. So. News? We're now accepting preorders for The Order of the Stick: War and XPs. You know what to do.
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