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Author: Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Andrew Zimmerman Jones is the Physics Guide at About.com and author of String Theory for Dummies. His work, which includes fiction as well as non-fiction, has appeared in Black Gate, Pink Floyd and Philosophy, Heroes and Philosophy, Abyss and Apex, and various other publications.
Supernatural Spotlight – Season One Recap

Supernatural Spotlight – Season One Recap

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supernatural-season1If you haven’t been watching Supernatural, then I can completely sympathize. I actually didn’t start watching the show until halfway through season two, mainly because I didn’t care to watch a series that was nothing more than a mindless monster hunting show.

What I didn’t realize was that this was actually one of the deepest monster hunting shows ever on television. (Yes, that includes Buffy and Angel.)

I imagine that the people involved with the show didn’t necessarily always know how deep the show was going to become. The series was probably fairly easy to pitch:

Two brothers, who are demon hunters, travel on a roadtrip, dropping into a different horror movie plot each week.

I wouldn’t think that it would be hard to sell that premise, do you?

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Dare We Dream? – The Sandman Coming to Television?

Dare We Dream? – The Sandman Coming to Television?

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morpheusMany of my contemporaries believed that one of the most amazing comic book series ever was Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, which ran from 1989 through 1996 – formative teenage years for me and my peers – originally by DC Comics and (from issue #47) under their Vertigo imprint. Now it looks like The Sandman has been re-optioned for consideration as a television series. Though the series creator isn’t associated with the show, there’s still reason to be hopeful.

A Current Dearth of Viewing Pleasures

The last few years haven’t been great for science fiction and fantasy on television. Heroes started out great, but quickly collapsed for a variety of reasons. The quirky series Pushing Daisies – about a man who could re-animate dead people for 60 seconds – never quite found its audience, despite critical acclaim. Legend of the Seeker was pushing out some impressive storylines toward the end, but was ultimately canceled with its season 2 finale.

Among harder science fiction, great concept shows like Dollhouse and FlashForward suffered from some awkward initial storytelling and were ultimately cancelled, while the lackluster V will return for a second season.

In fact, going into this season there isn’t much in the way of science fiction or fantasy on television.

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Gen Con 2010 Reflections

Gen Con 2010 Reflections

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Kung Fu Fighting gameNow that Gen Con is done, it’s time to offer up some final thoughts, experiences, and, of course, games.

Art Show

One of the best areas to walk around at Gen Con is the art show. This is always fun for me, because I honestly don’t follow artists that much, so sometimes I stumble upon someone really famous whose work I’ve never seen before or who I’ve never heard of. Unfortunately, since the artwork is the artist’s main product, I really can’t reproduce it here without getting into all kinds of messy copyright issues. Fortunately, what I can do is link to the websites of some that I found most enjoyable:

Still More Games

While I covered some fun pulp roleplaying games in yesterday’s post, I didn’t get around to talking some fun games of other types. One publisher that I’d like to discuss is Slugfest Games, which has a wide assortment of card and board games which have a pulp feel to them. The one that I demoed this year was Kung Fu Fighting, a card game in which you play a series of karate moves.

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Gen Con – Day 3 Update

Gen Con – Day 3 Update

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Saturday was my last day at Gen Con, and it will be missed … at least for another year. Tomorrow, I’ll post a bit more in the way of reflections, but for now, let me cut straight to some of the games that I came across.

hollow-earthPulp Adventure Roleplaying Games

For gamers who lean toward pulpy goodness (which I imagine includes many Black Gate readers), there are a lot of great options out there.

One of the best games available for pure pulp action is the Hollow Earth Expedition game (reviewed in Black Gate #12), which is sort of like Indiana Jones meets Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow … with some other craziness thrown in. You really can’t go wrong with a setting that conveniently allows apemen, dinosaurs, Nazis, ninjas, sorcerers, zeppelins, and mad scientists to intermingle.

Since the original release of the game there are now two hardcover supplements available: Mysteries of the Hollow Earth and Secrets of the Surface World. Starting in fall of this year, the creators are planning to begin releasing a series of PDF adventure modules, which they refer to as the “Perils” because they’ll have names like “Perils of Morocco” and “Perils of Brazil” … and, perhaps, if we should be so lucky, “Perils of Scranton.” These PDF modules should be available through DriveThruRPG when they are finally released. In 2011, however, the word is that they’ll be releasing a Revelations of Mars sourcebook … so keep your eyes open for that, lovers of planetary adventure settings!

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Gen Con 2010 – Day 2

Gen Con 2010 – Day 2

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Author Nick Valentino demonstrates his steampunkiness, and his new novel, Thomas Riley.

Steampunk is vividly on display at Gen Con this year, which makes sense, based on the popularity of novels such as Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (a Hugo finalist) and Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. The industrial revolution of technomagick from the Privateer Press campaign setting of the Iron Kingdoms also shows us what steampunk can accomplish.

More game systems seem to be embracing it, like in some of the new supplements for the Victoriana RPG (a game I’ll be reviewing in the next issue of Black Gate) and the growth of weird science-based pulp games like Hollow Earth Expedition. Heck, even Disney is getting into the steampunk spirit. (Not surprising given all the times which, as Scott Westerfeld pointed out, they’ve dipped into steampunk in the past). In a recent posting on his blog, Bowing to the Future, science fiction author and editor Lou Anders discussed the growth of the steampunk sub-genre. It seems like there’s hardly a “best of” list out there which doesn’t contain at least one steampunk title.

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Gen Con 2010 – Day 1 Update

Gen Con 2010 – Day 1 Update

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Water Street Bridge entertains people as they head into the Exhibition Hall at Gen Con 2010. A comely wench sells CDs.
Water Street Bridge entertains people as they head into the Exhibition Hall at Gen Con 2010. A comely wench sells CDs.

Gen Con is packed full of entertainers, in one form or another, but some of the most visible are the singers. There aren’t many of them, but they do stand out … mostly because they’re playing musical instruments.

In this case, it was the musical stylings of Dan the Bard and Water Street Bridge, carefully positioned in the high traffic areas right outside of the Exhibition Hall. Dan the Bard seems to be taking a page from the Old Spice Guy promotional playbook, as his business card indicates that he is “Now accepting commissions for songs about characters and campaigns!” Now you, too, can have your half-elf bard

Dan the Bard entertains at Gen Con
Dan the Bard entertains at Gen Con

While the entertainment is great, it doesn’t look like any of the big media guests show up until tomorrow. Sorry, no Wil Wheaton or “The Guild” cast members today … although at one point, I did believe that I passed Mo Rocca in a hallway. (And, it turns out, I may very well have been right. From his Twitter feed, @MoRocca said, about 7 hours ago  “At #GenCon in Indianapolis. Far more authentically nerdy than ComicCon. That’s a compliment.”)

This gave me an opportunity to head into the Exhibition Hall and poke around the periphery a bit. I was able to check in with a couple of old friends from last year.

First, I talked with the folks over at the Shard RPG to see what fun they had coming. It turns out their game of Eastern mythology-based anthropomorphic animals (it’s a lot cooler than that just made it sound, honest) is going strong, and they’re expecting to have their new supplement, Magic and Martial Arts, out by Christmas. Their own website doesn’t even have this information yet, they said, but they had a preliminary copy of the book available. It looks like it will really expand the possibilities of the game in great ways.

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And Gen Con Begins

And Gen Con Begins

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gen-conAfter a hectic morning, my wife and I finally made the 45-minute drive into Indianapolis with our littlest, 8.5-month old Gideon. (The elder, 5-year old Elijah, will be joining us tomorrow.) Parking was crazy, but we found a spot finally and made our trek over to the convention center that is the home to Gen Con, the best four days in gamig (self-proclaimed).

This is the first year that Gen Con has offered free wi-fi access, but it’s not cooperating with my laptop too well, so this will be a short post. A lengthier post, with accompanying pictures will come later in the day, possibly in the evening when I get home to my computer.

In the meantime, follow my Tweets on the event (my iPad TweetDeck App seems to connect fine) at @azjauthor.

Prelude to GenCon 2010…

Prelude to GenCon 2010…

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hollow-earthIt’s that time of year again, when I’ll be slipping into full-on geek mode (as if I ever slip out of geek mode, of course) and reporting on this blog from Gen Con Indy, “The Best Four Days in Gaming.” This year, it’ll just be the best three days for me – Thursday, Friday, and Saturday – and while that won’t be enough time to see everything at GenCon, it’ll definitely be time to see plenty, photograph it, and, who knows, maybe even pulls together a video or two. (No promises on that last one.)

First, let me link back to some of my reports from last year, so that we can see what the big stories were:

Through these posts, you’ll see that I got introduced to a lot of great games last year: Colonial Gothic, Pathfinder, Hollow Earth Expedition, Desolation, Hero Mages, and the visually stunning Shard RPG.

I expect nothing less this year, with the most fun usually coming from the games that I’d never even heard of until I stumbled upon the booth. This year, I’ll also try to get some coverage of the other aspects of Gen Con, such as the writing panels by top fantasy authors and editors.

And let us not forget the abundance of media guests, including the majority of the cast of the gamer-based web television series “The Guild.” (Dare I dream that I might get my DVD copy of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog autographed by Miss Felicia Day?) Actually, now that I think about it … I’ll have to find a way, if the opportunity arises, to present Wil Wheaton with an autographed copy of String Theory for Dummies. If I pull that off, rest assured, a picture will be posted!

Feel free to offer up any other tips on what you’d like to hear about.

Gen Con 2009 Report #5 – The Free Blog Edition

Gen Con 2009 Report #5 – The Free Blog Edition

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I read a lot of geeky books. And I don’t just mean science fiction and fantasy, I mean books that make even many normal geeks raise an eyebrow at my choices, such as books on game theory, economics and business, philosophy, and so on … things that have nary a laser rifle or robot or sword or sorcerer in sight. Right now, I’m reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine. (An abridged audiobook version is available for free.)

It seems like when I read these books, the principles they espouse often show up all over the place, and that’s certainly happening at GenCon. In fact, the principles of “free” described by Anderson have always, in some form, been at the heart of every industry of sales. (Early on in the book, he explains how free cookbooks made the failing Jell-O company thrive.) And the gaming industry is no different.

For example, many roleplaying games have for years offered free little booklets that allow you to get started with a game, try it out in a limited way, and see if you enjoy it before you invest dollars and hours into playing it. But the problem is that these books were not actually free. There was a trade-off, because the publishers still had to actually print out the booklets and distribute them and so on. There was a cost to this, so it wasn’t just that they wanted to make money – if the gambit didn’t work, they were actually out money! Now, with the online world, PDF versions of books can be distributed (virtually) free of cost! That’s how Black Gate is able to offer reviews and commentary for free through these online blogs, for example.

Many of the gaming companies at GenCon have also embraced “free,” such as Hero Mages, an online board/strategy game that is completely free to play, but which allows players to pay a price to access certain premium characters and options (such as the ability to create and save your own map designs). (Anderson calls this business model a “freemium” model, where a portion of the users spend money for upgrades, which supports the site for everyone.)

shard

Another company that is brilliantly using “free” as a means of promotion is Shard Studios, who have created the Shard RPG. This game is based on the Hindu mythology of India and allows you to play a number of animal-based races. The setting doesn’t have any metal, but their weapons and equipment are built from gems of various types that can be used to power magical items, such as flying airships, or forged into weapons (such as the swords in the pictures above) with different properties. The books are beautiful and the setting is truly enthralling … it is one of a handful of games that I left GenCon knowing I would definitely want to try out by running a full game with.

How is Shard using “free”? Well, on their website, if you go to “The Game” link you can choose to download a “Welcome Booklet.” This booklet contains the entire game mechanics of the system, setting information, some introductory character templates, and so on. It is essentially the bulk of the main core rulebook … except for character creation, for which you need to buy the actual book. But, by checking out the Welcome Booklet, you can be sure that you really want the game before you shell out the money for the entire set of rules. And, if you just want to play the game and never create a character, I suppose you could even do that (although, as most gamers know, character creation is one of the most fun aspects of any game).

Gen Con 2009 Report #4

Gen Con 2009 Report #4

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I don’t know how many attendees are making it to GenCon this year, but the place is certainly packed. For example, here’s one of the game rooms. Not a dealer’s room, but just a room where people are playing board games.

hpim2450

The rooms that house the miniature war games – WarMachine, Hordes, HeroClix, Dark Ages, and the like – are typically even larger than this one. They’re spread throughout the building, in rooms both large and small. And, of course, some of the attendees choose more elaborate clothing.

hpim2451
Now, back to the games. This time I’m just going to focus on one – Colonial Gothic from Rogue Games. This is a secret history setting that takes place during the early days of the American Revolution. Among all of the historical events of the American Revolution, there also exist monsters, demons, and witches prowling the colonies. Your character is aware of their presence and fights against these forces.
colonial_gothic
One nice feature of the game is that it has three play styles: High Action Style, Occult & Mystery Style, and Supernatural Style. So, depending on how your GM and players prefer to play, you can run scenarios that fit the style of story that they’d all most like to be involved in. These styles are not firm – you can have an Occult & Mystery game that has High Action elements, of course. The overall design of Colonial Gothic is to provide the setting information and game mechanics, but to provide the player with a wide range of approaches for how to actually construct a storyline. The creator of the game is also extremely proud of the amount of research that went into the setting, so this might also be a good way to play with younger players who need to learn about this period in American history.