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Art of the Genre: The Old School Renaissance

Art of the Genre: The Old School Renaissance

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When old is new again, the reprints of 1E AD&D by WotC
When old is new again: The reprints of 1E AD&D by WotC
Almost two years ago I got fed up with rules. Well, sure, I’ve probably never been one to take rules seriously anyway, but in RPGs they can become cumbersome very quickly. This is probably one of the biggest knocks on D&D 3rd Edition, although I was still taken with the game the moment I laid eyes on it.

Since 2000, I’d regularly played 3rd Edition in some form or other, either in 3.5 or Pathfinder, and found the boundless customizations, prestige classes, skills, and feats an addictive agent as my gaming world grew. Still, at some point, all the calculations begin to wear on you and you long for the ‘good old days’ when leveling up a character meant rolling for hit points, checking every third level to see if your saving throws went down, or adding a spell or two.

This feeling of being overburdened came to a head in 2011 as I decided I’d take down my long unused and dusty 1E AD&D tomes from the shelf where they looked longingly at me day after day. There, amid the wonder of my youth, I rediscovered the simplicity of the original Gygax and Arneson texts.

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New Treasures: Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue

New Treasures: Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue

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menzoberranzan-city-of-intrigue2One of my favorite RPG settings of all time is Menzoberranzan, the 1992 boxed set from TSR that drew liberally from R.A. Salvatore’s best-selling Drizzt Do’Urden novels. Written by Ed Greenwood, Salvatore, and Douglas Niles, the box detailed the famous City of Spiders, the subterranean birthplace of the drow ranger, in three thick books and a set of gorgeous maps. Packed with 20,000 drow inhabitants, hundreds of thousands of humanoid slaves, and countless secrets and simmering rivalries, the home of the drow was an ideal adventure site for intrepid (and suitably high level) players.

Released nearly 20 years ago for second edition AD&D, Menzoberranzan has not seen an update since and has been out of print for over 15 years. It was featured in the popular Menzoberranzan PC game from SSI/DreamForge, part of their Forgotten Realms product line, in 1994, and very prominently in the six volume War of the Spider Queen novels, but it’s been far too long since my favorite underdark city-state appeared in a new edition.

The wait is finally over. Wizards of the Coast has released an updated version in Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue, now available in hardcover:

The profane beauty of Menzoberranzan reflects the true nature of the drow and Lolth, their vile spider queen. Within sculpted palaces, factions vie for dominion, spin webs of conspiracy, wage war on the surface realms, and spread poisonous rumors. Meanwhile, predator stalk the twisted streets, plotting murder and mayhem. The city has no pity for fools and weaklings.

Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue breathes new life into the fabled home of Drizzt Do’Urden and leaves no stone unturned. This book explores the city, tells the stories behind important drow houses and factions, and peeks at the mysteries waiting to unfold in the deadliest city of the Forgotten Realms world. This product is compatible with all editions of the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game and features a poster map of the city.

Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue is 128 pages in hardcover, heavily illustrated in full color. The poster map is rather colorless, but large and extremely detailed. It was released on August 21 for $29.95.

You can see all of our recent New Treasures here.

The English Civil War with Clockwork War Machines: an Introduction to Clockwork & Chivalry

The English Civil War with Clockwork War Machines: an Introduction to Clockwork & Chivalry

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cc-2nd-ed-cover-smallHi Folks,

I’m Peter Cakebread. Along with my friend and co-writer, Ken Walton, I run a small company, Cakebread & Walton.

With a company name like that, it has been suggested that we could have been undertakers, or perhaps owned a quaint little coffee house, or even been nineteenth century grave robbers – “There are no Peelers out tonight, Mr Walton, so pass me the shovel, if you would be so kind.” Instead, we write tabletop RPGs (Role Playing Games), and fiction, although we are always looking to diversify, so keep the suggestions coming!

To date, our games are mostly published by Cubicle 7 (who also publish The One Ring and Doctor Who RPGs, alongside a host of other titles).

This time, I thought I’d chat about Clockwork & Chivalry, our clockpunk RPG set in an alternate Seventeenth Century.

Clockwork & Chivalry is a RPG set in the time of the English Civil War. The English Civil War was fought between the Royalists (the Cavaliers) and Parliament (the Roundheads). We haven’t veered away from most of the real history, it’s simply too interesting, but we have added a couple of rather big twists – in our setting the Royalists use magick, and the Parliamentarians have giant clockwork war machines.

But, Woah! Go back! Where did this idea come from?

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2012 ENnie Award Winners Announced at Gen Con

2012 ENnie Award Winners Announced at Gen Con

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ashen-stars2The winners of the 2012 EN World RPG Awards (“ENnies”), an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying, have been announced at Gen Con in Indianapolis. The winners include:

Best Adventure

  • Madness at Gardmore Abbey (Wizards of the Coast) *Silver Winner*
  • Streets of Zobeck (Open Design) *Gold Winner*

Best Art, Cover

  • Cthulhu by Gaslight (Chaosium Inc.) *Silver Winner*
  • Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box (Paizo) *Gold Winner*

Best Game

  • Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game (Margaret Weis Productions) *Silver Winner*
  • Savage Worlds Deluxe (Pinnacle Entertainment Group) *Gold Winner*

Best RPG Related Product

  • Lords of Waterdeep (Wizards of the Coast) *Silver Winner*
  • Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design (Open Design) *Gold Winner*

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GenCon 2012 – Dungeons & Dragons Next Keynote Liveblog

GenCon 2012 – Dungeons & Dragons Next Keynote Liveblog

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Waiting for the D&D Next keynote to begin at GenCon 2012. Check it out on the big screen!
Waiting for the D&D Next keynote to begin at GenCon 2012. Check it out on the big screen!

For the first time in GenCon history, the week began with a keynote event on Thursday evening. And who gave the keynote? None other than the folks behind Dungeons & Dragons.

For the last several months, Dungeons & Dragons has been undergoing a transformation into their Dungeons & Dragons Next format (which they are loathe to officially call 5th edition).

The event was delayed a bit due to rain and venue change, but once things are moving, I’ll be liveblogging about the event. I know I won’t catch everything, but I’m sure there’ll be a link to video of the event online shortly and I’ll post it (and other background links) in an update over the next day or so, when I have more stable net access.

The Event Begins

7:25 pm – Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of the Coast, runs onstage and discusses how this inaugural keynote came into being. Basically, Adkison strong-armed Greg Leeds (current CEO of Wizards of the Coast) into doing it, and made it clear that he expected Greg himself to get on stage and start the event off. So, with that ….

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Mindjammer Press Publishes Sarah Newton’s Mindjammer

Mindjammer Press Publishes Sarah Newton’s Mindjammer

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mindjammer2I first encountered Sarah Newton in 2010, when Howard Andrew Jones mentioned how impressed he was with Mindjammer, a far future transhuman space opera setting she wrote for the Starblazer Adventures RPG. I picked up a copy of her massive Legends of Anglerre fantasy roleplaying game on the strength of his rec and wasn’t disappointed. It was a gorgeous and inventive game based on the popular FATE system and we reviewed it in detail in Black Gate 15. I was especially impressed with Sarah’s crisp prose and attention to detail.

We don’t let talent like that get away if we can help it, so we recruited Sarah as a BG contributor last year. Her detailed appreciation of a classic urban setting, Pavis – Gateway to Adventure: The Classic RPG City is Back! (parts One and Two) was one of the most popular gaming articles we’ve published on the website this year.

Now Sarah has published her first novel, Mindjammer, through the brand new Mindjammer Press. Mindjammer Press, a new roleplaying and fiction imprint, has announced plans to publish both the Mindjammer roleplaying game and a new line of associated fiction. Their publication schedule includes the upcoming second edition core book, Mindjammer: The Expansionary Era — with vastly expanded content, new and detailed background material, and all new artwork — in spring 2013. It will be followed by the Solenine campaign pack, based on the setting for the first novel, a new and revamped Black Zone campaign, and the second novel in the Mindjammer series, Transcendence. Here’s the description for the first novel:

IT IS THE SECOND AGE OF SPACE… In the seventeenth millennium, the New Commonality of Humankind is expanding, using newly-discovered faster-than-light travel to rediscover lost worlds colonised in the distant past. It’s a time of turmoil, of clashing cultures, as civilisations shudder and collapse before the might of a benevolent empire ten millennia old.

In the Solenine Cluster, things are going from bad to worse, as hyper-advanced technologies destabilise a world in chaos. Thaddeus Clay and his SCI Force special ops team are on the trail of the Transmigration Heresy. What they find is something beyond even their imagining – something which could tear the whole Commonality apart…

Mindjammer is receiving a lot of positive press from readers both inside and outside the gaming industry. Here’s what Stargazer’s World said about it:

What I also enjoyed tremendously was that Mindjammer is a science fiction story that really deserves the name. The technology described sounds plausible and the Commonality era feels “real.” And even though Mindjammer is highly entertaining it also makes the reader ponder a couple of philosophical questions like what makes us human and is there a way to cheat death? In my opinion good SF should not only entertain but make us ask questions. Mindjammer does that all the time…

Mindjammer is a very exiting and intelligently-written novel that should be on the reading list of every SF fan!

Mindjammer is available now in Kindle format for $3.99 and in print for $15.95, both from Amazon. Check it out.

KenzerCo Announces HackMaster Basic is now Free

KenzerCo Announces HackMaster Basic is now Free

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hackmaster-basic2Free stuff!

When I was working at Motorola in the late 90s, the lawyer whose office was just down the hall had his own game company. His name was David Kenzer, and his company was Kenzer & Company. Tuns out they published one of my favorite comics, Jolly Blackburn’s hilarious Knights of the Dinner Table. Once I made this discovery, Dave and I collaborated on a bunch of projects, one of which became Black Gate magazine.

One of the most successful products Dave and his team of geniuses ever produced was the HackMaster role playing game. Conceived as a clever parody of Dungeons & Dragons — and a fully functional RPG — it was published under a license from Wizards of the Coast and won the coveted Origins Award for Game of the Year 2001. It was a huge labor of love for all involved, and I was drafted to write the “HackMaster Smartass Smackdown Table” (HSST), a simple tool to help Game Masters discipline unruly players.

For the last ten years, HackMaster has been expanded with over fifty supplements — including the brilliant Annihilate the Giants (a parody of Gary Gygax’s classic adventure module Against the Giants), Little Keep on the Borderlands, and my favorite, the out-of-print The Temple of Existential Evil (new copies of which currently sell on Amazon for north of $500). HackMaster Basic, a 192-page single volume collection of the essential rules, was published in 2009 and helped introduce a whole new audience to the game.

I left Motorola in 2006, but kept in close touch with Dave. For the past few years, KenzerCo has been working in secret on a complete revamp of HackMaster, and the results have been at last unveiled with HackMaster Fifth Edition. The Hacklopedia of Beasts, a 384-page full color deluxe hardcover and one of the most visually gorgeous game books I’ve seen, arrived first. And now KenzerCo has announced The HackMaster Player’s Handbook, a 400-page leathered book that includes everything you need to play.

To celebrate the arrival of Fifth Edition, KenzerCo has announced that they’re making the PDF version of HackMaster Basic completely free. This book serves as a gateway to the dynamic thrill of the HackMaster game, and I highly recommend it.

Why not check it out? You can learn more, and get the free download, at the KenzerCo site here.

New Treasures: Wizards of the Coast Releases Dungeon Command

New Treasures: Wizards of the Coast Releases Dungeon Command

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dungeon-commandI’ve been relieved and gratified to see the resurgence in fantasy board gaming over the last decade.

With the demise of the great board game companies of my youth — SPI, Yaquinto, Avalon Hill, FASA, GDW, Metagaming, Task Force, and many others — it looked like the hobby that fired my imagination and gave me such pleasure for decades was headed for extinction. But Fantasy Flight, Wizards of the Coast, Days of Wonder, and a handful of other companies have turned that around in the last few years, releasing terrific titles that have rejuvenated the entire genre, like RoboRally, Small World, Ikusa, and the epic Conquest of Nerath.

It hasn’t happened in a vacuum. Part of the credit goes to the explosion of interest in miniatures. Games Workshop’s Warhammer, Privateer Press’s WarMachine and Iron Kingdoms, Wizkids’s HeroClix, and collectible miniature games from Wizards of the Coast and many others, have made table top gaming cool again, getting young gamers to put down their game controllers and pick up dice.

Wizards of the Coast has really been at the forefront of fantasy board gaming, especially recently. Just in the past few years they’ve released a surprising number of innovative and successful titles, including Lords of Waterdeep, The Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, and many others.

Now they’re at it again with a major new launch: Dungeon Command, a head-to-head miniatures skirmish game designed for two or more players.

It looks like a lot of fun. And best of all, the components of Dungeon Command are 100% compatible with other popular Wizards of the Coast games: the miniatures and dungeon tiles can be used with the D&D RPG, and the unique cards provided with each miniature can be used with D&D Adventure System board games like Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and The Legend of Drizzt.

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New Treasures: Clockwork and Cthulhu

New Treasures: Clockwork and Cthulhu

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clockwork-cthulhu-smallI don’t know much about this little artifact; but the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew I had to blog about it. It combines two of my favorite things: Cthulhu and Clocks.

Okay, not really. Would you believe Cthulhu and role-playing games? How about Cthulhu and giant clockwork war machines that lumber across the land?

Clockwork and Cthulhu is a supplement for the 17th century alternate historical fantasy world Clockwork & Chivalry, one of the most innovative settings ever produced for RuneQuest 2. And yes, I realize that if you don’t play RPGs, that sentence will not parse no matter how hard you mess with it. Just go with it.

England has descended into civil war. The earth is tainted by alchemical magick. Giant clockwork war machines lumber across the land. In the remote countryside, witches terrorise entire villages, while in the hallowed halls of great universities, natural philosophers uncover the secrets of nature.

War, plague and religious division make people’s lives a constant misery. But even greater threats exist. Witches whisper of the old gods. Royalist alchemists pore over John Dee’s forbidden translation of the Necronomicon, dreaming of powers that will allow them to win the war. Parliamentarian engineers consult with creatures from beyond the crystal spheres and build blasphemous mechanisms, unholy monuments to their alien overlords. Vast inter-dimensional beings seek entry into the world, while their human servants, corrupted, crazed and enslaved, follow the eldritch agendas of their hidden masters.

Clockwork & Cthulhu brings the horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the 17th century alternate historical fantasy world of Clockwork & Chivalry.

You have to admit that sounds cool. Don’t you wish you played role-playing games now?

Clockwork and Cthulhu was written and designed by Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton, authors of Clockwork & Chivalry. It is 156 pages, and sells for $29.99. It is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment; you can find more information here.

Art of the Genre: The GameMaster Series Covers

Art of the Genre: The GameMaster Series Covers

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axisandalliesboxBack in the mid-80s, I would go out to my dad’s house in Las Vegas and spend a few weeks of every summer seeing how he lived his life in the city of sin. It always had its ups and downs, but certainly even twenty-five years later I’ve got some lasting memories that bring a smile to my face.

One such memory is that of going to my first Toys “R” Us, at age 14, with my father to look for a game to bring to his cabin in Utah. Even to this day I can see a ‘wall of games’ in my head, so much bigger than life and beyond what I’d ever thought possible for a kid from the small town cornfields of Indiana.

The game my father and I chose was a huge one, the box seemingly larger than a board game had the right to be. It was called Axis & Allies and it had the most brilliant painted cover you could imagine.

It was produced by Milton Bradley, part of their GameMaster Series, something that took a step beyond what any other company in those days dared to do, make a mass market adult game. To this point, games were almost exclusively for children, and the graphics of such games were similarly geared.

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