That Rogue Trader Quick Start arrived in the mail yesterday and it looks very nice. I hope to get a chance to look it over closely later today, but the first flip through shows that (at least in production quality) this is a head above the older Dark Heresy quick start booklet.

Today is Free RPG Day, so you can find your own goodies at your local store.

I didn't know this was coming. Awesome!

Information at the FFG website.

Place your money down here. So far this isn't looking like they'll make it, since the money has to be in by tomorrow, but let's try anyway.

Hit it, guys. Chill was a great game and it would be nice to see a new edition.

First, I'm not. Not at all. I'm keeping very busy -- and happy -- at the office, and my creative outlet -- battlegrip.com -- is more fun than I had dared hope. But I do sometimes think about "what would I do if I had to find work?" and similar questions. That out of the way, here's what I would do if I was going to return to Ronin Arts and full-time PDF publishing.

• Publishing only 10-15 page PDFs, every single one of which would be priced at $3 regardless of page count or content.
  
• Create fantasy and sci-fi PDFs only. In my experience, no other genres sell quite as well as those two.
  
• Systemless PDFs only. I think that what sold those older PDFs so well was the fact that -- at least the best sellers -- were almost usable with any game system. I would embrace that and build on feedback I received when I was working on PDFs for 10-12 hours every day.
  
• Use a consistent graphic design that's both minimalist at heart yet still professional and attractive.
  
• Put together a team of four or five volunteer reviewers to read PDFs before release.
  
• Complete six PDFs before launch.
  
• Publish one new PDF every Friday, alternating between fantasy and sci-fi releases. On Friday, when launched, new releases would be priced at $2. The price would go to $3 on Monday.
  
• Publicly announce new products only on Mondays, after the price increase takes effect. The idea here is to reward the early adopters and most dedicated fans. Plus, front-loading sales into that first weekend should -- at least, this used to work -- move each new release into profitability in a matter of days.
  
• Launch a free website that's updated daily with content. This would support the PDFs and directly tie to the PDFs, but be usable without the PDFs.
  

And that's pretty much what I would do. It would be a lot of work -- I'd use something like Wordpress for the site so that I could pre-load weeks of content -- but I'm sure it would be a lot of fun.

Very good, in fact. I wish I could express myself as well as she does right here.

Until about the middle of next week you can grab Whispering Vault PDFs for half-price at e23. This is the first time in two or three years that these titles were offered at a discount; I just don't have a lot of time for PDF work these days.

If you're more a print sorta person, the Vault is also at www.lulu.com (but not at any sort of discount).

In my mail this morning:

"Wizards of the Coast has notified us that we may no longer sell or distribute their PDF products. Accordingly, after April 6 at 11:59 PM Pacific time, Wizards of the Coast PDFs will no longer be available for purchase on paizo.com; after noon on April 7, you will no longer be able to download Wizards of the Coast PDFs that you have already purchased, so please make sure you have downloaded all purchased PDFs by that time.
We thank you for your patronage of paizo.com. Please check out our other downloads at paizo.com/store/downloads."

The only thing that makes sense to me is WotC has figured out that they're better off selling the PDFs direct, and not through online stores.

Should be interesting to see the impact this has on the PDF market. I strongly suspect sales for many small publishers are going to drop dramatically, since -- at least, when I was focused on the PDF market -- most sales are add-ons to WotC PDF orders.

I hope some of the better PDF publishers find a way to survive this mess. (And it's gonna be a mess.)

I've gotta admit that even though I haven't played the game in years, the Shadowrun universe is loads of fun. So much fun, in fact, that it's one of those RPGs I often consider using for a one-shot.

And the new Anniversary Edition rulebook just makes the desire grow stronger. I already own the 4e rules, though, and have never used them for a game session. I don't see how I can justify buying this edition . . . at least, not if I don't play the game.

When the hell would I have time to play an RPG these days?

Life was easier twenty years ago.

The GSL PDF has been updated and, well, it's still not great. Section 2 is still a deal killer for me:

"2. Updates or Revisions to License. Wizards may update or revise the License at any time in its sole discretion by posting the updated License on its website page located at http://www.wizards.com/d20. Wizards will indicate on the License the date it was last updated. Licensee is responsible for checking the License regularly for changes, and waives any right to receive specific notice of changes. Licensee’s continued use of any Licensed Materials (as defined below) after the “Last Updated” date above, including without limitation any publication or distribution of Licensed Products (as defined below), confirms Licensee’s acceptance of any changes to the License and Licensee shall be bound by such revised terms. If Licensee does not accept such changes, the License will terminate pursuant to Section 10.1."

The ability to change the license at any time, and that you must agree to all future versions of the license or stop using the license, means that anything published is at risk.

No thanks.

Despite the fact that I’ve stated my intention to review every release in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay series, I again find myself deep in another release in the Dark Heresy series. The guys over at Fantasy Flight Games were kind enough to ship me a copy of the latest book in the series, Creatures Anathema, and I just can’t resist the desire to review a new book of monsters. I’m sure I’ll get back to the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay reviews but, for now, I’ve gotta share my thoughts on Fantasy Flight’s latest release for the Warhammer 40k roleplaying game, Dark Heresy.

( Click here for the review. )

Fantasy Flight, and especially developer Ross Watson, deserves a huge thanks from Dark Heresy fans. Not only did the company step in and save the roleplaying game from extinction they’re proving – with both this release and Disciples of the Dark Gods – that they fully intend to produce only the best materials possible.

I’m looking forward to their next release in the series.

Fantasy Flight has posted a preview of the next Dark Heresy book. Monster books are almost always fun, so this should be a treat.

Reportedly it will launch mid-February, which is almost exactly one year since the game was released to stores. It's been a strange, troubling roller coaster ride for the game since it was releaaed and it's good to see that everything appears to be back on track.

The latest book in the Dark Heresy series, and the first published under Fantasy Flight Games (not counting the various reprints), Disciples of the Dark Gods is a massive expansion to the Dark Heresy roleplaying game. Weighing in at 256-pages, this gorgeous hardcover book is, as the introduction say:

“. . . your guide to the foul, horrific, and bizarre cults who hide, often in plain sight, amidst the citizens and organizations of the Imperium.”

( Click here for the review. )

This was announced a few weeks ago but, with everything going on, I haven't taken much time to look into it. Basically, the idea is a new logo that allows Green Ronin to keep selling their d20 products under a new logo. Smart and good for the community.

The really nice news in the press release has to be:

" . . . and print versions will be available from Lulu soon."

Good news for fans of print products and a great way to use Lulu. I've purchased several books from Lulu (most recently Cartoon Action Hour, but also, in the past, Spione and Don't Rest Your Head) and the quality has always been excellent. As more publishers offer books through the site, and we're seeing more signs that this is happening (even White Wolf sells on Lulu), Lulu will become a more useful site for gamers.

There’s a lot of garbage and noise on the RPG.net forums (as is true of any webforum) but, despite the fact that thousands of people are posting to the site, many of the posts start to look the same. Rants about games. Which system is best for (insert this week’s hot movie)? Rants about rants about games. Game theory posts. Polls. Sixteen thousand different threads about the RPG.net Darling-of-the-Moment.

You get the idea.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about some of my favorite types of posts at the site and, after chewing on breakfast (tasty, tasty leftovers) I decided to sit down and write up short descriptions for what are (at this moment) my three favorite types of posts that pop up quite often at RPG.net.

• Sell me on . . . – I’m not sure when the very first “Sell Me On” thread was started at RPG.net but, these days, this type of post is extremely common. The basic idea is that you’ve seen a game that looks interesting, read all of the reviews, religiously read every forum post about the game that you could find, and – even after all of that – you’re still not convinced that the game is right for you so you post a “Sell Me On” thread and wait for the game’s supporters to finally convince you that you need this game.
  
  
• Let’s read . . . – Another fairly common type of thread at RPG.net these days, the “Let’s Read” thread comes about when someone grabs a product (or entire line) and starts posting his thoughts on it (from beginning to end). A well-done “Let’s Read” thread will uncover some things about a specific product that may have been missed in casual reading; the idea here is to go in-depth on every single paragraph in the book.
  
  My favorite “Let’s Read” threads are those in which an insane fan (I love those) decides to tackle the entire run of a magazine or a large game series.
  
  
• Stat Challenge – A “Stat Challenge” post is pure game geekery at its best. In just a few words you issue a challenge to the community that goes something like this:
  
  “Stat Michael Jackson for your favorite game!”
  
  And, as long as you’re a known entity at RPG.net – or have issued a particularly interesting or bizarre challenge – you should start to see responses within the hour. This kind of thread can be fun to watch, if only to see how a variety of different game systems (according to fans of those systems) would handle stating up the character (or vehicle, or thing, or . . . don’t limit yourself).

What are your favorite types of posts at RPG.net? Do you even read RPG.net or, like many, have you decided that life is too short to wade into those waters?

At the excellent Grognardia blog, written by James Maliszewski, you can find a Christmas gift list. It's pretty much too late to order physical gifts for anyone but there are a number of PDFs (many free) on the list so you could always download a PDF and then print/bind a nice copy to give out as a gift.

I’ll admit it, I own a lot of RPG books; hundreds of books, many of which haven't been opened in years. Last weekend, while Gina and I were adding more shelves to the game room and moving some games and books around, I started thinking about all of the books on the shelves and trying to remember when I had last looked at some of them.

Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I know I’m sitting down with a mission. I’m going to pull ten books at random and look at each of them, just to remind myself of what’s on those shelves. The only guidelines I set for myself were:

• No core books. If I pulled a core book down it went right back on the shelf.
  
  
• Not entirely random. I pulled books from different categories (my books are kinda organized).

And that’s it. Following those guidelines, the first ten books I pulled down would be the ten I would look at. Here’s a list (in alphabetical order) of what I pulled down as well as some thoughts on each book. In addition to thoughts, I decided to also note whether or not I wanted to keep the book or if I would be willing to trade it away. Not surprisingly, most turned out to be keepers (though not always because they were good books.)

( Click here for the list. )

So there they are, ten random books from my RPG collection. I’m not sure if there’s anything in the list that surprised you, but I can say that this little exercise was fun and definitely reminded me of some old games and friends.

If you’ve got the time over the holiday break I recommend that you try doing this same thing with your own RPG collection.

I should really try this with comics, but I'm scared to take a close look at exactly what is in some of those boxes.

Anyone who has heard me talk about the current roleplaying game format of big, hardcover books has also heard me say -- many times -- how there need to be some boxed RPGs on the market for one simple reason: huge hardcovers do not look like games to mom and pop. At Christmas time (hi, Santa!) or birthdays a parent looking to buy a child a game won't look at the books in your mainstream book store.



And we all remember the greatest box set of our generation.

Well, there's another thread at RPG.net about box sets. It's a lot of the usual chatter and, again, I pop up to say how there needs to be a good introductory RPG in a box set.

Sure, it would be expensive and a risk, but there are some lines out there that have a large enough following that they could make a box set work. Right?

. . . about the upcoming -- and no doubt greatest -- new edition of GURPS Horror. Both dr_kromm and princeofcairo have posted about the new edition in their blogs, which means that I no longer have to keep my mouth shut about this project.

As to things that I'd like to see Ken tackle this time around, I have to say that expanding the bibliography (yet again since, as Ken notes in his designer's notes to 3rd edition GURPS Horror, the bibliography was already " . . . nearly doubled in size . . . ") is first on my list of "wants."

After that -- and if that's all he does (in addition to his planned changes, of course) then I'll be happy -- I'd also like to see more suggestions on running horror campaigns and scaring the hell out of players. Ken's Nightmares of Mine was a real inspiration for me when it was released (and even got a mention in my vs. Monsters) and seeing him return to that well wouldn't disappoint me at all.

I think this is the first time that I've ever posted an "I'm selling something on eBay" entry, but since I'm selling two copies of the Everway Spherewalker Sourcebook I figured that some of you may be interested.

Amazingly, I found both of these last night when Gina and I went into King's Hobby. As many times as I've been to the store this is the first time that I noticed these. That place is loaded with treasure.

The Gaming Report website has several entries that just say "hacked by mould." That can't be a good thing.