I would be remiss in my duties as Skirmisher’s PDF editor if I didn’t point out that Skirmisher now has dedicated forums up and running. If you’re looking to discuss Cthulhu Live, Little Wars, or any of Skirmisher’s d20 productions, be sure to drop by and check it out. Tell ‘em I sent you, and that the password is, “I’m looking for a safehouse.”
I received word from publisher Dark Skull Studios this week that Fate’s Guidebook, the GM book for New Gods of Mankind, is finished and ready for the printer. I did a lot of work on this book (the bestiary, the monsters, the sample adventure, and some other odds and ends), alongside some top-notch writers like Luke Johnson and Robert Hansen. The publisher sent a PDF of the finished product, and it looks fantastic. My buddy Brad McDevitt, who was art director on the project, did an awesome job. I can’t wait to see this thing in stores.
Speaking of NGoM in stores, the New Gods Handbook (the player’s book) should be available shortly from the game’s distributor, Key20. If your local game store doesn’t have a copy, ask them to contact Key20 and order it.
In my dreams, I wandered through a large game store so packed with gaming tables, it was hard to walk. There were a couple games of Tide of Iron being played, and even more being set up as I watched.
“All Tide of Iron, all the time?” I asked one of the gamers who was setting up.
“The two top winners here go on to the next round,” he said. I nodded, and wandered off.
Some time later, a woman – a ToI player, most likely – questioned aloud how and why units that are separated from the rest of the troops get “panic” tokens. Someone tried to explain it to her, but she just didn’t get it, and was becoming frustrated. I tried to explain it from the human, rather than game-design, angle:
“These guys – maybe it’s just four, maybe it’s a dozen, maybe as many as 40 – they’re by themselves, behind enemy lines. They’re lost in the woods. They’re running out of food. They’re running out of ammo. And they don’t know if they’ll ever see their families again. So they’re a little freaked out. Thus, the panic token.”
That seemed to satisfy the woman, and the dream moved on.
I’ve never actually played Tide of Iron. I have read the rules, though, and I don’t believe there’s anything in there about unit cohesion. I’ve never liked unit cohesion rules. I find them restrictive, no matter how realistic. But maybe my subconscious likes them better than I do.
Has it really been a year since I left Fantasy Flight? Let’s see, I left as of… September 30 last year… So yeah, it’s been that long. Plus a couple weeks.
Hmmm. Guess I missed the anniversary. Not that it’s something I want to celebrate per se – I enjoyed my years there, and it wasn’t easy to leave – but it feels like I should at least acknowledge that it’s been a year.
…And now I have.
My five year-old daughter (aka “Thing One”) has taken yet another step on the path to becoming a full-fledged gamer. She’s touched on board games, miniatures (well, a stripped-down version of Heroscape), and now she’s tasted roleplaying games.
We played Faery’s Tale from Firefly Games. We didn’t really use the system (it’s too complicated for a kid whose just started kindergarten), but embraced most everything else: the fairy tale “Brightwood” setting, the different types of fairies, and the fairy social system (which I think is one of the coolest parts of the game).
Thing One chose to play a Brownie, which meant she worked in a peasant’s cottage, could turn invisible, and work simple “household magic” (i.e., simple repairs and construction). She named her Brownie “Lena,” which is actually one of most normal names she’s made up. For our first outing, I kept it simple, so it was the two of us playing on a Saturday afternoon while everyone else was napping.
It turns out my daughter is like me in that she can’t roleplay sitting down. We started at the dining room table, but she didn’t really get into it until she got to feet and started essential LARPing the scene. Whenever the scene changed, she’d lead us into another room: the living room was the forest where she freed a fellow fairy from a spider’s web; the kitchen was a clearing outside the night-troll’s cave; the basement, of course, was the troll’s lair.
My proudest moment (in a session full of proud moments) was when Lena tricked the troll into walking into the sunlight (and turning to stone) by secretly moving his clock ahead. In true gamer fashion, after I described the scene of the troll’s lair, Thing One asked, “Does he have a clock?” So yes, of course he did.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience for both of us. I was impressed with my daughter’s creativity and imagination, and she had a blast with her fairy tale adventure. The game took a little over an hour, which seemed about right. Thing One’s still a bit short on the attention span, and nap time runs two hours at the longest, so it’s best to keep these things short.
Most importantly, she’s looking forward to playing again. And to tell you the truth, so am I.
Man, you put your head down to work on some hard-core projects, and when you look up, you’ve misplaced a whole month. It was here just a few days ago. Where did I put it?
Yeah, I’m a little behind on my updates. When I start running silent like this, it’s a pretty good indication that I’m up to my eyeballs in projects, which pushes website updates to the back burner. For the three of you who’ve been waiting with bated breath… Sorry. I’m not quick eye-deep in the work at the moment, and I have some catching up to do, so there should be some new posting here pretty soon.
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