Monte Cook's Blog, page 83

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 45-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Holiday Shipping Deadline is December 10th If you want your order from the MCG Storeto arrive in time for Christmas or the start of Hanukkah, you must place your order by 1 p.m. Eastern Time on December 10th. (We’re still able to process orders after that date, but we can’t guarantee they’ll arrive in time for the holidays.) New Items at the MCG Store The Thief, the Clave, and the Ultimatum is a new instant adventure for Numenera.It works well as a on...

January: Rustycon

Rustycon is an annual science fiction and fantasy convention held in the Seattle area. We’ll have MCG game events, and our own Bruce Cordell will be hanging out.With multi–track programming, a dealer’s room, an art show, and a hospitality room for the general membership, it’s a focal point for northwest science fiction and fantasy fandom, withsomething of interest for everyone. If you’re in the Seattle area, come by, play a game or two, and say Hi to Bruce!

Sciencing Up Predation

For the past few months, I’ve been hard at work on Predation, our upcoming Cypher System game about time travel and dinosaurs. Predation takes place in the Cretaceous period. When building the game, it would be easy to take what we currently know about the Cretaceous period and make that everything that we know of the world of Predation. But the truth is that, despite being a setting full of dinosaurs and prehistorical plants, Predation actually takes place in the far future. The first commut...

The Thief, the Clave, and the Ultimatum

You Could Be Playing Five Minutes From Now with this Instant Adventure! A powerful entity of the prior worlds threatens to destroy the clave of Naraderan unless the people turn over an artifact called the Raft. But there’s a problem: Someone has stolen the Raft, and it’s up the PCs to track down the thief in a vast and ancient ruin. In return, the Aeon Priests of Naraderan promise the PCs a single use of the Raft—a vessel that can venture beneath the seas, into the stars, and even through to...

The Strange Playmat

A Beautiful and Handy Centerpiece for Your Gaming Table In The Strange, players roll all the dice. And there aren’t a great many tables or charts a GM needs to reference during play, so while we offer a traditional GM screen, many gaming groups prefer a solution that removes the barrier between GM and player. This beautiful playmat for The Strange puts handy information out where everyone can reference it, and the pleasant fabric surface with non-slip rubberized backinggives you a great die-r...

Deadline for Christmas Shipping is December 10th!

The holiday season is incredibly busy for everyone, with planning travel, last-minute shopping, and using old fruitcake to insulate your basement. We want to remind you that if you want your order from the MCG Storeto arrive in time for Christmas, you must place your order by 1 p.m. Eastern Time on December 10th—that’s the last day we can guarantee Christmas delivery. (We’re still able to process orders after that date, but we can’t guarantee they’ll arrive in time for Christmas.) Looking for...

January is New GM Month!

What do you call someone who’s thought about GMing—who’s maybe always wanted to give it a shot—but who hasn’t quite taken the plunge? Come February, you’re going to call that person a GM! Because this January is ourthirdannual New GM Month! (formerly known as National New GM Month, or NaNewGaMo) Creating New GMs! What, you ask, is New GM Month all about? Well, we’re reaching out to those people we just described—folkswho have been thinking about GMing, but don’t quite know where to start—to g...

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 44-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! 2016 Holiday Gift Howcan yougive $5 to a great charity—without actually spending a dime? It’s easy: We’ll do it for you! With the MCG Holiday Gift, we give you a $5 coupon, which you can use at the MCG Shop to make a donation (at our expense) to charity. Or you can take $5 off a gift for a loved one—or a little something for yourself. You can find all the details here. Numenera Starter Set Know someone looking to give Numenera a try? The Numenera Star...

Invisible Sun Design Diary 2: Acquiring Different Abilities with Different Experience Points

Depending on your point of view, it’s either enlightening or disheartening to look behind the curtain of a game’s design. Enlightening perhaps, because you see why things work the way they do. Disheartening, on the other hand, maybe, because it takes some of the magic out of it. Case in point, in a game like Numenera, we want to think of things like the Glaive’s ability to pierce foes with a sharp weapon to be entirely different than a Nano’s ability to scan, because one is skill and the oth...

Numenera Starter Set

Discover the Wonders—and Dangers—of the Ninth World There have been eight previous worlds. Each world stretched across vast millennia. Each saw civilizations flourish before dying, scattering, or transcending. Those that ruled these worlds spoke to the stars,reengineered their bodies, and mastered form and essence. But now they are gone. The people of the new world—the Ninth World—live amongthe ruined majesty of an unimaginable past. Are you brave enough to seek adventure, fortune, and discov...