100 Years of RAH!

Yesterday was the 100^th anniversary of the birth or Robert A. Heinlein, one of the Trollsmyth’s favorite authors. I first came across his work in Boy’s Life magazine, where they serialized his novel, Between Planets as a comic. Unfortunately, these were old issues I was reading, so I never got to finish the story there. But I did pick up the book later. Before that, however, my father bought me Have Spacesuit, Will Travel on the recommendation of a friend. I loved the book, and buying a new Heinlein novel became a weekly thing for me. I still remember reading Starship Troopers by flashlight on a Boy Scout campout while my tentmate read one of the Dragonlance novels.

My favorite Heinlein story is still “Green Hills of Earth”. I’m a sucker for the Horatius-on-the-bridge sort of story, and that one has everything I love about them in spades. I've cruised the web a little bit for blog posts about Heinlein, and this has been my favorite post honoring the event of RAH’s birthday. If you haven’t read any Heinlein yet, do so.

If you’re feeling poor, however, or too lazy to get out, you may be interested to learn that much of H. Beam Piper’s work is now on Gutenberg. If you like RAH, you’ll probably also like Piper. I recommend Space Viking, Little Fuzzy, and Lord Kalvin of Otherwhen. For something a bit shorter, but still a great read, try Omnilingual.

Walrus Porn!

Um, ok, maybe not. But it is one of the cutest things I’ve seen in a while. Seriously, if naked breasts don’t cause you to blow a gasket, this not-safe-for-work pic by Fredrik K.T. Andersson will probably put a smile on your face. There are six new pics on that page, ranging from the charming to the disturbing. It’s all what we’ve come to expect from Mr. Andersson. While some of the pieces look a touch sketchy, they’re all infused with the character and expressiveness we’ve come to expect from his work. There's also the sense of continuing story, of lives actually being lived. I continue to look forward to his updates.

Håkan Ackergård has also updated his Playelf Gallery. Again, not safe for work, but rather sweet. And again, no surprise. In fact, this is classic Ackergård, with a cute, scantily-clad girl in nature. The clothing is especially daring in this one, and a touch bondagy. (Are those roses around her right ankle? With thorns? OUCH!) But there’s a touch of the whimsical and the mystical about it. The expression is great. And Mr. Ackergård proves once again you can be sexy without screaming SEX!

One thing I find interesting is my reaction to Mr. Ackergård’s more anachronistic pieces. They really rub me the wrong way. The Underdark sketch series is a good example of what I’m talking about. At first, I was thrilled to see the title, as it promised a fun romp through traditional D&D territory. And while the drow babe’s armour was silly, it was an excellent display of talent, juxtaposing the hardness of the metal with the softness of her flesh. I even appreciated the pieces with Syline, though I’m not really in to piercings.

But “Orc Leatherboy” really rubbed me the wrong way. Why? Because the anachronism really blindsided me. If you go back to my review of Larry Elmore’s work, you’ll notice that one of the things I really appreciate about his art is the sense of verisimilitude. The people look real, the clothing looks real, even the monsters look like they could be real. The landscapes, the rigorous anatomy, and the equipment in Mr. Elmore’s art all look like they belong to a real world, a place you could actually visit. It’s the same thing that really helped to set the LotR movies apart from most fantasy film.

Mr. Ackergård usually delivers this in spades. His anatomy may not be as exacting as Mr. Elmore’s, but it rarely offends or looks completely wacky. It often has a softer, more cartoon-like feel, but that only heightens the sense of the fantastic in his work, and it’s exacting enough to draw you in, rather than shutting you out of his art. As I’ve mentioned before, the clothing, backgrounds, and characters all have a sense of the real to them. You could wear that clothing, fight with those weapons, sit on the chairs and drink ale in the taverns. But that only makes things like “Orc Leatherboy” or “Hell – Moe’s Tavern” (NSFW either) feel more like a smack in the face. It would be like Mr. Elmore slipping Prince Valiant into the background of the Inn of the Last Home, or seeing one of the puppet Feebles characters at the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Which in the end, I think, says more about me, as a viewer, than it does about Mr. Ackergård or his art. Mr. Ackergård has an appreciation for the absurd, for juxtaposing our expectations of the “high” fantastic with the coarser, more commercial fantastic of store-brand fetish and prime time television. I turn to the “high” fantastic to escape such things, which is why my reaction to their inclusion is so strong. Very much a “you got your peanut butter on my chocolate” thing.

Return of the LGS?

The Troll Family is blessed with a number of great gaming stores, like this one, within easy drive of where we live. We don’t frequent them as often as we’d like to, but we enjoying stopping by when we can, even if we can’t buy anything. Each visit is like a mini-convention, hanging out with like-minded nerds, chatting about games, anime, comic books, and cool movies. Where else can you find people who think “The Chronicles of Riddick” is an underrated movie?

It has long been a perceived truth that gaming stores are dying. Their ranks have been dwindling for some time now, and even cash cows like "Magic: the Gathering", "Pokemon", and D&D’s 3^rd edition have done little to stem the tide of store closings, at least in the US.

But something you might have missed has happened in the US Supreme Court. Luckily, Ryan Dancey had his ear to the ground, and has this to say on his blog:

Luke Peterschmidt & I in our consulting practice, have considered the full-service hobby game store model to be unsustainable, and have long believed that such stores were doomed. We have been advising our clients to pursue as many diverse retailing strategies as they can, to avoid being “trapped” in a failing business model. At the heart of our analysis was the knowledge that discounting, especially e-commerce discounting, was a clearly superior business model to full-service retail store support, and that given enough time, the e-commerce discounters would eliminate most full-price retailers.

Leegin changes everything. EVERYTHING. Suddenly, the fate of the retail tier is in the hands of the publishers. And the publishers already know that the full-service retail model is the best way to grow their businesses. Given the chance to “save the retailers”, the manufacturers are almost compelled by the logic of the situation to do so.

This is pretty exciting stuff, and ought to have significant impact on the RPG and other gaming hobbies. What Mr. Dancey is predicting is the end of online discounts. (Notice I don’t say online discounters. They’ll still have a place as dealers to folks who don’t live near a gaming store. But the price difference between brick-and-mortar stores and online stores will vanish, which means there’s less incentive for you to buy online what you can get at your local store.)

Read the whole thing. Mr. Dancey discusses the common objections and doomsaying in the article, as well as in the reader comments following. Since he’s done a great job of dealing with those issues already, I’ll jump off what he wrote to other topics.

Assuming Mr. Dancey is correct, and assuming we do see a rebirth of the local gaming store, what does that mean for the hobby? At first, I thought this would accelerate the trend towards more Ptolus-like products. Listen to this special interview on “Have Games, Will Travel”. Without the discounters, will customers be more open to spending a lot more money for higher quality or more expansive products? Doesn’t this encourage the return of the boxed set?

I think it does, but that’s only half the picture. The big thing browsing through a store does is encourage impulse buying. You go to the grocery store for a dozen eggs and milk, and end up coming home with a box of donuts and a bag of chips as well. Gaming stores are the same way. You go to pick up the latest expansion of your favorite game, and you end up buying something else too that caught your eye. This is a huge boon for folks that make small, fun games. Things like “Kobolds Ate My Baby”, “Munchkin”, or pretty much the entire “Cheapass Games” line, are the sorts of things that could really benefit from this sort of phenomenon. This could be the shot in the arm that the independent game publishers really need to push the current small-press revolution to the next level.

Things could be on the verge of getting very exciting again for the gaming industry.

Update: For those of you thinking that this is an excuse for the manufacturers to hold retailers and customers over a barrel while they rifle through their pockets for loose change, read this thread over at RPG.net. Ryan Johnson explains how Guild of Blades is taking advantage of this situation. Notice that there’s a sunset provision, after which discounting is permitted, and even before that kicks in, the price floor isn’t SRP, but a percentage of that, allowing retailers to offer loyal customer discounts and the like. There are also provisions for returns as well. This isn’t manufacturers twirling their mustaches and cackling with avaristic glee. This is manufacturers telling retailers that if the retailers will take a chance on new products, the manufacturers will have their back, and not let them get screwed by deep discounters.

Seriously, people, the manufacturers we’re talking about make games for a living. You think they don’t know how to min-max? ;)

Painful Dragonlance Update

Haven’t said much about this movie lately. There hasn’t been much to say, honestly. And now, what I have to say is disheartening.

There are four new pics up. These are labeled as “production shots”. I’m not entirely certain what that means, but there appears to be some confusion. Ms. Weis is quoted as saying the stills are over a year old. But it seems odd that they’re releasing year-old pics, and as I understand it, production shots are supposed to be from the actual, working production of the film, as close to final as you can get. So there may be some hope here that these are, for reasons I can’t even begin to guess, very incomplete and not very representative of what the final film will look like.

God, I hope so!

Let’s start with the pic of draconians on the march. Not bad, nice and atmospheric. But look closely. Notice that the two scuffed-up shields that we get a good look at are identical in every detail. That seems to hold true for every detail of the draconians in this picture. If you just see a flash of it, a few mere seconds, I suppose that will fly, but it is worrisome.

Even more worrisome, this is the best picture of the new quartet. Much has already been made of the fact that all of Takhisis heads are breathing flame in the still labeled “Takhisis vs. Paladine”. The juxtaposition of 2d and 3d elements is annoying, but not a deal-breaker for me. I’m afraid lots of that sort of thing handled with varying degrees of success in anime has already inured me to it. But take a look at Takhisis. Look at the shape of her chest and belly, or how her right arm attaches to her body, and the angle it’s being held at. She looks misshapen, like she was put together by someone who has a poor grasp of anatomy. She almost, kinda-sort, looks like an alligator. Sorta. But that is one ugly looking dragon.

Look at the close-up of Pyros. This is supposed to be a villain? Does he look sinister or comical to you? Notice the lack of texture, the lack of bump-mapping, the lack of shadow. Also notice the lack of teeth. I guess he lost his dentures somewhere?

Finally, and most horribly, we have Pyros in flight. Again, notice the arms. It appears the artist started with a snake and then tacked very human arms onto the sides, without consideration for or inclusion of such details as shoulders. Look how the limbs are splayed all akimbo, feet and arms going every which way, making the dragon look about as aerodynamic as a brick. This awkward pose is only exacerbated by the duck-like feet, hanging straight down rather than tucked up close to the body. Also notice that Pyros has apparently found his dentures, and now has fanglike canines. These are very ugly dragons that wouldn’t pass muster in your average MMOG, forget a movie.

There is a ray of sunshine in all of this. Karl Preusser’s Q&A has some very heartening things to say. In addition to a live orchestra, female choir, and female vocalists, he’s also drawing on the talents of a medieval instrument ensemble. He talks about building themes around characters as well, themes that take into account action from later books. If nothing else, we might get another cool and inspirational soundtrack to play at the gaming table.

More Green Ronin Goodness

The Fates have been unkind to Green Ronin. First, they had issues with the printer for their Free RPG Day stuff. So they made their freebies available on their website (which was better for you and me anyway, because there just wasn’t enough dead-tree freebie material to satisfy demand, from what I’ve heard). Only, the demand was so large, lots of people couldn’t get in to download the goodies. A real mess.

But Green Ronin, as I’ve said before, is a class act. They’ve turned Free RPG Day into Free RPG Week. Here’s the schedule for goodies listed on their web page:

Tuesday: The Mutants & Masterminds Beginner's Guide will be free once again for 24 hours. The following Mutants & Masterminds PDFs will also go on sale for the rest of the week: Mutants & Masterminds Second Edition for $15, Agents of Freedom for $10, and the Masterminds Manual for $13.50.

Wednesday: At long last the Pirate's Guide to Freeport will debut. The full price of the PDF is $19 but for this week we're offering it for only $17. The following Freeport PDFs will also go on sale for the rest of the week: Freeport Trilogy 5-Year Anniversary Edition for $12, Creatures of Freeport for $10, and Crisis in Freeport for $8.50.

Thursday: Bleeding Edge Adventure #5: Temple of the Death Goddess will be free once again for 24 hours. The following Bleeding Edge PDFs will also go on sale for the rest of the week: Mansion of Shadows, Beyond the Towers, Dirge of the Damned, and A Dreadful Dawn.

Friday: True20 Adventure Roleplaying will be free once again for 24 hours. The following PDFs will also go on sale for the rest of the week: True20 Bestiary for $12, True20 Companion for $10, and True20 Worlds of Adventure for $9.

I can certainly recommend True20. Hell, I’ve been recommending True20 when you had to pay for it. Getting it for free is really a no-brainer, folks.

At the risk of sounding like a shill (and seriously, I don’t work for ‘em and they don’t pay me for this), thanks again to the GR folks for stepping up to the plate and once again demonstrating that they are the sort of company I want to do business with.

Oops! Almost Forgot...

This Saturday, June 23rd, is Free RPG Day! Participating stores will have free rules, adventures, and other goodies. Check with your local gaming store to see if they're participating, then go out and learn a new game, or get excited again about an old one. :)

Nazis. I hate these guys...

Just in case you haven’t heard, the SciFi channel’s next big project, now that they’re winding down Battlestar Galactica, is Flash Gordon. Of course, they feel a strong need to reinvent it, reinterpret it for modern audiences. They certainly seem to have struck gold with that technique on Galactica.

I’m thinking this is one of those lightning-doesn’t-strike-twice things. Seriously, what do you think of when you imagine Flash Gordon? This is planetary romance, descended from the Barsoom novels of E.R. Burroughs. It’s two-fisted action, with a ray gun in one hand and a sword in the other. It’s exotic locals, wild costumes, beautiful women, aliens based on animal motifs, and the struggle of larger-than-life heroes against fiendish tyranny. For a hint of what I’m talking about, look here.

The folks over at SciFi have released some still photos from their shoots of the new Flash Gordon series. So far, I’m less than thrilled with what I’m seeing. Most of the sets appear claustrophobic, or dark with a few props under spotlights. Black leather abounds. Everyone appears to be human (though additional effects both in scenery and costuming may be planned for digital insertion). Many of the costumes look more mundane and commonplace than what we saw on Babylon 5. And I don’t see a single sword anywhere.

Clearly, the SciFi folks are shooting from the three-point zone, but I’m thinking their footwork is all wrong. They want to make Flash more edgy, and more relevant. Edgy might work, but what Flash is about is wild, escapist adventure. Relevance, while not antithetical to Flash, is something you have to be subtle about. When Ming’s goons bear a disturbing resemblance to the police who yanked Elian Gonzalez out of his relative’s home in Miami, something is out of kilter. Planetary romance this is not.

Now, I haven’t seen an episode yet, and it’s possible this thing will be really good, or wildly popular with folks who are dealing with Galactica withdrawal. But right now, I’m not seeing anything I might want to schedule my evenings around.

Ziggurat Con a Success!

Even such matters as a small war won't stop geeks from gettin' their game on.

Pictures and roundup here.

Congrats to everyone involved, especially those who sent stuff. Very cool.

Making a Game?

Some of you may be coming over from an RPG.net discussion I started about reward systems. Yes, I am making a traditional tabletop RPG. It’s a fantasy heartbreaker with stats and elves and most of the usual elements you might find in most commercial games. The genesis really came from me trying to modify existing games for play with the Trollwife, and being inspired by the Basic Fantasy RPG and the no-longer-recent string of Fear the Boot episodes on making your own game. It’s kinda grown into something bigger than was originally intended, and I’ll probably publish it in some form or another. Why? Because I think it does a few things differently enough, and in ways I haven’t seen before, that it warrants sharing with the public. Believe me, if it was just another “better than D&D” Frankenstein’s monster, I wouldn’t bother you about it. I’ve made a few of those in my time, and they’re fun, but hardly worth getting excited about. So yeah, I’m excited about this new one, and taking it far more seriously than I have other gaming projects in the past. But I really don’t have much more to say about it just yet.

Yep, that’s right. After a long spell of silence, I just posted a blog entry to tell you that I’m not going to tell you anything. ;)

Wayne's Worlds

And another dry spell comes to an end.

Wayne Reynolds is, in many people’s eyes, the Man when it comes to fantasy gaming art right now. He’s recently updated his web page and reorganized it a bit to take better advantage of his latest projects. While many will decry his embrace of the “dungeon punk” style, his attention to atmosphere and personal details really is second to none right now. And his trademark “wall o’ action” style really embraces the feel of many mainstream RPGs today.

Be sure to check out the updates to his Eberron work, Gallery 2. I know I’m tweaking some of his fans by saying so, but ClawsotTiger_02 (closet tiger?) certainly cements his place as one of the best furry artists in the business. His ability to seamlessly integrate the dramatic with the realistic with the absurd (as he does so well with Paizo’s goblins), really sets him apart from most of the rest of his field.

Paizo's Goblins

So now there's a Pathfinder blog. The second entry is all about goblins. These goblins are a touch... odd. There's an obvious cute-and-sinister vibe going here that reminds me a bit of "Nightmare Before Christmas". And this song is way too trolly:

The Goblin Song

Goblins chew and goblins bite,
Goblins cut and goblins fight,
Stab the dog and cut the horse,
Goblins eat and take by force!

Goblins race and goblins jump,
Goblins slash and goblins bump,
Burn the skin and mash the head,
Goblins here and you be dead!

Chase the baby, catch the pup,
Bonk the head to shut it up!
Bones be cracked, flesh be stewed,
We the goblins—you the food!

Gungir Comics and D&D Stuff

From Joseph Rossow (I think) comes a new gaming and art blog, Gungir Comics. The author is also an artist, and has included origional sketches and drawings with most of his entries. But unlike most artist blogs, almost all the original art is there to support original gaming content. He has a D&D adventure posted, and some character concept sketches.

My favorite part, however, is "The Magical Shop of Fiddeus Crackpot":

When adventurers stop at Crackpot’s Shop, they are often in need of specific things. A wizard browses for a scroll of Detect Invisibility, a rogue looks for a pair of Slippers of Spiderclimbing, but never in Crackpot’s shop do they find quite what they are looking for.

What follows is a description of four non-standard magical items that might, or might not, work like your players expect them too. Much fun!

A Sad Day

Tis a sad day at the Troll Cave. News came yesterday of two passings. The first, and certainly less tragic, is the news that the magazines Dungeon and Dragon will soon no longer be published. The first issue of Dragon I ever read was a present to me from my brother. I loved it. I still have the poor, battered, thing. Among other goodness inside, it had an article by Ed “Forgotten Realms” Greenwood called “Seven Swords” that rocked my world, and changed the way I play RPGs. The Trollwife is currently earning her DM’s spurs by running me through an adventure in an old issue of Dungeon.

Apparently, WotC will be featuring Dragon and Dungeon-like content on their web page, possibly behind a for-pay gate. It’s a bold move for them, and it’ll be interesting to see if the possible benefits outweigh the loss of a presence on magazine stands.

Paizo, for their part, are replacing the magazines with a monthly book. That’s right, a perfect-bound, softcover book weighing in at 96 pages. The book, called Pathfinder, focuses in on their biggest success from their five years of running the D&D magazines: the Adventure Path. Adventure Paths are like those series of modules that were released in the heady early days of 1^st edition AD&D. Things like the Temple of Elemental Evil series, or the Giants, Underearth, Drow series, adventures that could take your PCs from lowly neophytes to seasoned heroes ready to save the world. Pathfinder will be published every month, and six issues will constitute a complete “path”, taking PCs from 1^st to 15^th level. They’ve got heavy-hitters like Wolfgang Bauer (who gave the Trollsmyth his first professional game-writing rejection letter) and Wayne Reynolds (who is quickly becoming 3^rd edition’s Larry Elmore) to work on the first six books. I think this is the ultimate expression of the subscription model of RPG publishing. Its success or failure could be significant for the RPG industry.

(And click on the pics on the main Paizo page. Each expands into a larger picture. I am especially intrigued by the fighter, the middle piece. Yeah, the sword is still too heavy, but both of his blades look functional, as does the armour. His hair is mussed, and his face looks dirt-smeared and maybe even scarred. In short, while there are clear “dungeonpunk” elements to the piece, there’s also a very strong “old school” vibe. Very interesting…)

The sadder news came via RPGnet. Apparently, Tom Moldvay, the man who wrote the Basic D&D book that started the Trollsmyth in RPGs, passed away last March 8^th. I got the boxed set (I think most folks refer to it as the purple one) with the Erol Otis cover for Christmas many years ago now. He’d also written many adventure modules that are now considered classics.

Powered Armour in Betatesting

Well, sorta. Much of this I’d seen before, like the helmet with the heads-up displays and translation capability. The four-barreled gun, however, is new to me. The work on artificial muscles is real (in spite of the somewhat cheesy-looking web page) and absolutely fascinating. It’s the real deal, and promises the artificial limbs of our dystopian cyberpunk games, as well as a huge leap forward in robotics. The War on Terror may be the best thing that’s happened to nanotech, as it promises to solve all sorts of problems, from sniffing out and neutralizing bombs to more comfortable, full-body body armour.

Even if you don’t believe in the Singularity, the next decade promises to be pretty exciting.

Maps and Cabbals

Jürgen Hubert, author of the exceptional D&D campaign setting Urbis, has started a thread on EN World to be a cartography workshop. It’s really taken off, with many amateurs and professionals chiming in with neat techniques and step-by-step instructions on how to use various graphics software to make striking and useable maps. Not only that, but you may also learn the well-guarded secrets of the mysterious society of Photoshop users:

I just wanted to tell you THANKS for this thread. I've been begging someone to show me how to use Photoshop for years and all I've ever gotten was a suggestion to just start playing around with it and figure it out for myself. You've taught me more about photoshop in one night than dating four animators and two years of film school ever did.

THANK YOU!!!!!

- Dykstrav

Be sure also to peek at the still rather tiny stub Mr. Hubert has created on RPGnet dealing with the same topic.

Housecleaning

The RPG Blog is on hiatus, so I've removed it from my list of active links on the left side of your screen. However, I've replaced it with a new one, of Dice and Dragons. Scot Newbury is the proprieter,and, unlike a certain troll, he appears to update daily. He's got a lot of interesting topics on the most recent page, like a discussion of climate and a link to a neat world-building climatology page, and using OpenOffice for tracking character info. Be sure to check it out.

Vogel Reviews the Magic Item Compendium

Over at Kill the Wizard First, Mr. Vogel's given us a very brief review of D&D 3.5's latest official book out of Wizards:

D&D 3.5’s recent Magic Item Compendium is a useful book, mostly for compiling and updating the six hojillion magic items and weapon/armor properties, as well as introducing a bunch of new ones, with the primary aim of making utility magic more accessible, particularly to lower-level characters. I have a few balance complaints, particularly weapons that land a no-save dimensional anchor on hit for a +1 equivalent bonus. But overall, good book.

What follows is an interesting comment on the trend of D&D towards MMOG conventions. Can't say I'm really comfortable with that, but I also can't say I'm really surprised, either.

The IRS Wants Your Phat Lewtz!

"Dude, I'm sorry, but if I go on one more raid, it'll bump me into a higher tax bracket..."

(By way of Instapundit.)

Romancing Mars

Adamant Entertainment has finally today released their long awaited Mars: The Roleplaying Game of Planetary Romance.

Not Mars as it is – airless, most likely lifeless, with only the faintest hints of what might have once been a damp, if not necessarily lush and living, world billions of years in the past. No, this is Mars as it should be and as it was once imagined to be – an ancient, dying, but not yet dead world, a world where a vast canal network reaches from pole to pole, bringing water and life to vast and fantastic cities. A Mars where albino apes run a vast empire in the last surviving jungle, a world where warrior tribes of Green Martians raid the outlying cities of the canal dwellers, a world where, in places dark and quiet and forgotten beneath the surface, ancient and terrible intellects plan dark and dire deeds.

Looks like fun to me. And a perfect match for these cool miniatures.

101 Uses for a Space Opera Campaign

Neat thread at RPG.net on alternate ways to run a space opera campaign. Just ignore my incessant whining about the lack of Alternity being played in the Trollcave.