Steve Jackson's Blog, page 141

January 16, 2022: A New Year's Resolution With Knave

The ever-expanding, always evolving indie RPG scene has produced more works of art than I can ever hope to get to the table, but there's one game system that has latched onto my mind, and I won't be free of its clutches until I get the game onto the table for at least a single session. Ben Milton's Knave , published in 2018, has everything I want from an old-school, rules-light, crawl through the dungeon and slaughter monsters sorta roleplaying game. The mechanics are similar enough to most fantasy dungeoncrawl systems that you can basically snatch inspiration – whether monsters, treasures, magic, or entire dungeons – from almost anywhere, while everything about the game is minimal without being so simple and full of holes that it leaves the GM and players to craft their own game from the bones of an idea.

One definite in 2022 is finally getting Knave to the table and running the game for a few close friends. We've already been spending time with other games over the last few months (the Adventure Begins game, a Dungeons & Dragons  boardgame, is light and remarkably has some fantastic ideas hiding inside the box), so it is only a matter of time until Knave officially drops on the table.

As part of preparing for a Knave session, I went ahead and bought a small stack of copies of the game in print from L.F. OSR, and it won't be much longer before we crack open the game and take a stab at it. (I may very well use the Deep Dark Wood hexcrawl from Crumbling Keep when I run  Knave , because there are enough fun ideas wrapped up in the Deep Dark Wood book that I just have to tackle them at some point . . . and it may as well be the adventure framework I use for our Knave session. I just hope none of the players are reading this!)

Have you got any personal experience with Knave and suggestions for how I can best use the game engine for a fantasy RPG session? Please email me and share your thoughts on how the game plays!

– Phil Reed

Warehouse 23 News: Visit Someplace Weird

If you're feeling cooped up, go someplace really off the beaten path, with GURPS Classic: Places of Mystery . This is your guidebook to some of the most unusual and interesting places on Earth, including the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, and much more. Your guidebook to strange places begins with a download from Warehouse 23!

January 15, 2022: Asmodee & Dark Horse Purchased By Embracer Group

The landscape of tabetop gaming (and comics) has seen a seismic shift with the acquisition of tabletop company Asmodee and comic company Dark Horse by Embracer Group, an investment firm. While it doesn't involve us directly, this is huge for the industry, with the Asmodee acquisition being in the range of $3 billion. If there was any doubt that the industry is growing rapidly, that doubt has evaporated. Eight years ago Asmodee was purchased for (only) $143 million. Dark Horse being under the same umbrella could prove for some interesting crossover as well.

Fortunately Embracer has a history of growing brands rather than holding and flipping, so here's hoping a rising tide raises all boats for us in gaming.

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: The Maritime Silk Road Awaits

GURPS Hot Spots: Sriwijaya is your guide to the Malay Archipelago, the legendary pre-modern trade region of land and sea. The largest GURPS Hot Spots installment to date, this supplement includes guides to the history, geography, and hazards of the region, along with cultural details to make it all come alive. Pack for adventure and set sail with a download from Warehouse 23!

January 14, 2022: Car Wars Dashboard Mat Preorders Open

Get a grip with the Car Wars Dashboard Mat , available for pre-order now on Warehouse 23! Taking the design of the new dashboard from Car Wars Sixth Edition , this soft neoprene playmat grips the table well, and adds even more functionality to your heads-up display.

Not only does it track speed and damage like regulation dashboards, but it also adds spaces for savvy autoduellists to lay out their car upgrades and spaces for Control and Ace tokens. It also has some handy charts for reminders on build totals for car customization and the turn phases to keep your games running smoothly.

Dashboard Mats are available in all four player colors (sold individually), and you can check them out in action on our recent #SJGamesLive stream! Pre-orders are scheduled to ship in March.

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: Store Your Dice!

This GURPS dice bag joins our ever-expanding selection of classic (and classy!) dice bags. It's a 7" x 7" satin-lined drawstring bag, big enough to hold over 100 dice, and it comes with three 16mm black pearlized dice with white ink just to get you started! Order the GURPS 4th Edition Dice Bag now on Warehouse 23!

January 13, 2022: Indiegogo Projects Update

Projects, yes. We have two open projects at Indiegogo, both of which have been manufactured, and we're now just waiting for them to arrive so that we can ship the project perks to the supporters. Indiegogo doesn't get a lot of our attention – the userbase is a fraction of Kickstarter, and the site has been best for our smaller crowdfunding efforts – but we have found it is a useful platform and plan to keep turning to it for the occasional new projects and ideas.

At the moment, our two active Indiegogo projects are:

Car Wars Sixth Edition Double Drum Arena Playmat Our first 4' x 6' playmat for use with the new Car Wars Sixth Edition game brings one of the old Arena Book favorites to the new game system . . . and scale! We printed a handful of copies of the playmat over what we needed to cover the Indiegogo supporters and Warehouse 23 pre-orders, so there's a good chance that these won't be available for long once we do open up sales to the wider world. As much as we would like to keep these on hand at Warehouse 23 for several months, the playmats are just too big to have laying around and cluttering up the place.  Circuit d6 Dice Set These custom six-sided dice feature a circuit board pattern running across the edges of five of the six sides. (Manufacturing limitations prevented us from crossing all six sides of the dice with the continuous pattern, so we made the "one" side unconnected from the other five.) The dice have arrived, and Warehouse 23 will ship the packages to project supporters just as fast as they can fit the work into their schedule. Remaining dice sets will be offered on Warehouse 23 in the future.What's next for us at Indiegogo? We're not 100% decided, but we do have a few ideas and will make an announcement once our next Indiegogo campaign is open and ready for your support.

– Phil Reed

Warehouse 23 News: Keep Your Dice Safe!

Keep the goblins away from your dice! This satin-lined drawstring bag features  Munchkin Pathfinder  artwork by Mike Luckas. Measuring 7" x 7", it holds more than 100 dice of all shapes and sizes – which will come in handy during your (mis)adventures. Pre-order  Munchkin Dice Bag: Munchkin Pathfinder now on Warehouse 23!

January 12, 2022: Warehouse 23 Is Open For 2022!

Now that we've enjoyed our holidays and completed our yearly inventory, Warehouse 23 is back in action for the new year! We're going to spend a few days working through the holiday order backlog we got in while we were closed, but after that we'll be all caught up and back to full speed. That means all your favorite games and accessories are at your fingertips, plus all those bonus promos you get with your orders!

It's also a good time to remind our brick and mortar retailers that we offer direct sales options with retailer discounts. If you can't find something through normal distribution, or if you would like to stock one of our direct exclusives, now is a great time to sign up for a retailer account! Simply email retailers@sjgames.com and we'll be happy to set you up. 

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: Left, Right, South, North?

Which way should we go? Where is that noise coming from? What is that missing symbol on the map? Roll the die and find out! The  Direction Die  is fun for any roleplaying game. Its faces show the four cardinal directions, plus Up and Down to give you "direction." Order now on Warehouse 23!

January 11, 2022: FnordCon 5 Live Coming April 29 - May 1

FnordCon 5 . . . is Live! The Steve Jackson Games convention returns April 29 - May 1, and this time, it's live here in Austin! We'll be at the Austin Southpark Hotel, with panels revealing upcoming games, hobby tutorials, demo games, and more (and we'll have an awesome swag bag). We've been all digital for a very long two years now, and while FnordCon Virtual won't be going away, we wanted to bring back the live events when we could, and planning ahead we felt like this was the best time frame to make that happen.

We know that not everyone can attend, or is ready to back to live events, so we do plan on having some live-stream integration as well. Stay tuned for more specific event information.

For in-person attendees, we have a hotel block with signups opening soon, but we wanted to reveal the date now so you have time to get ready. Safety-wise, we will require proof of vaccination and masks from attendees. Of course, with rising cases of COVID and the ever-changing local ordinances, we will keep everyone up to date if anything shifts, but the hotel is officially booked, so this is moving ahead as if it's happening.

We're excited to host a FnordCon in person again, and hope to see many of y'all here this spring!

– Hunter Shelburne

Warehouse 23 News: Style Your Game Up!

From Dungeon Fantasy and The Fantasy Trip to Munchkin Quest and more – no matter what your RPG or boardgame of choice may be, these hex bases will hold your characters and game pieces securely in place. Includes 14 plastic bases, two each of seven different colors. Preorder Hex Bases now on Warehouse 23!

January 10, 2022: Now I'm 3D Printing (Part 3)

Well, the skeletons came out! All nine of them. My, there are a lot of supports to clip. But they are well designed, and the points where they touch the figure snap off easily at the right place once the rest of the support is clipped away. I can use my fingernail, or sometimes just the "sandpaper" surface of my fingers!

With no failure to clean up after, I was free to try again quickly. So I went back to the skeleton file and mirror-imaged (or "flopped") all the skeletons. That will give me a reverse image of each one to bulk up the army with no obvious duplications.

And it worked! Nine out of nine printed cleanly. So I set up the stretch goal skellies; there are only four of them, so I did the flopped versions of the same plate, along with some spare tentacles that might be fun later. 11 out of 12 builds worked; on one, a support did not appear, and the sword above it was as limp as a piece of pasta. No obvious reason why. So I'll save that skelly as a source of spare limbs or something, and move on.

Printed a bunch of bases next. They print quickly and are easy to pop out. When taking the supports off a skeleton, you need to work carefully with a clipper and think about every cut. With a solid base, you just use your thumbnail to crunch all the supports off. But I did learn not to put them too close together! It's not enough to have the bases separate on the screen – there is a bit of cantilever to allow for.

Now I need to paint a lot in order to catch up with my building. So the painting skills are what needs to improve next. I'll update next time I learn something interesting about the printer. The report now is just "Hey, neat, it works."

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Bored? Generate Your Own Fun!

Fast-playing dice games for groups of all sizes, ages, and gaming experience. All you'll need to add is paper and a pencil for keeping score. Grab some friends, pick a page, and get rolling! Order  Random Fun Generator now on Warehouse 23!

January 9, 2022: Now I'm 3D Printing (Part 2)

I have now successfully printed Saint Ick, the Christmas octopus that was the extra gift in the Foes campaign. The road was not completely smooth. My first attempt failed because I did not install the spacer properly (okay, exactly backwards, if the truth must be known) and did not rezero the machine after installing it. My second attempt failed because I, err, forgot to tighten the screws after setting up the print plate; this produced very distorted figures. I washed and cured them anyway, for practice (and to get something to test paint colors on).

My third attempt mostly worked. The Saint Ick figure has two parts, and I printed in triplicate. Five of the six parts worked perfectly; the sixth just didn't build as it should have. It could be that I left a dirty spot on the print plate. It could be just, as Jean says, the phase of the moon.

It took me about 20 minutes to cut the supports off one St. Ick and prepare it for priming. I'm going to use the Army Painter "Uniform Grey" primer. (Do not bother trying to paint resin minis without priming. I tried, just so I could write about the results. One word: Pathetic.)

Then I set up a batch of skeletons for printing. The Chitubox setup process is not hard at all – it's just not documented. I got nine skellies onto the print area. (A thing to know about resin: Print time is determined only by the height of the job. It takes no longer to print a full plate than it does to print the single highest item on it. This is different from filament printing, in which a big job takes longer because the printer head has to move.)

More on this soon. Will the skeletons come out grinning, or will I be boned? Stay tuned.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Here's Cheers To 20 Years!

Celebrate "20 Years of Munchkin" with us. This elegant pin in classic  Munchkin  colors says it all. Order the  Munchkin 20th Anniversary Pin now on Warehouse 23!

January 8, 2022: Top Ten At DriveThruRPG

Although most of our time is spent promoting our PDF titles listed at Warehouse 23, there are days when it helps to remind the world that digital versions of many of our RPG books are also available at DriveThruRPG. As of this writing, we have over 700 digital titles on offer at DriveThruRPG, the top ten of which are currently: Discworld Roleplaying Game Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game The Ogre Book GURPS Basic Set: Characters Warlock's Workshop GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game GURPS Magic How to Be a GURPS GM Hexagram #8 For a look at our current catalog at DriveThruRPG, please visit this page for links to the different product lines.

– Phil Reed

Warehouse 23 News: Be The Boss Of Munchkin!

You're pretty good at  Munchkin  – stabbed some friends, looted some rooms, killed a few monsters, won some games – and now you think you're ready to take on the boss monsters. Well, look no further: we have all of the epic monster boosters and munchkin buffers to provide any player with a battle royale (with cheese). Preorder Munchkin Bosses now on Warehouse 23! 

January 7, 2022: Now I'm 3D Printing (Part 1)

Our Foes campaign for TFT miniatures (which ended with 611 backers!) pushed me over the edge into getting a 3D resin printing system at home. This will kill two birds with one stone. It will increase our capacity for producing figures when we need a lot – such as for FnordCon giveaways. It will also increase my own knowledge as we move ahead with other STL printing projects. Plus, I expect it to be fun!

I ordered the equipment last week. It's based on the starter recommendations we give in the campaign, but I found a bundle deal with the Elegoo Mars 3 printer (instead of the Mars 2) and the Mercury X wash-and-cure system (instead of the regular Mercury). I can already tell that the Mercury X is more than I need at home, so I'll probably swap it with the old Mercury system at the office, which works perfectly well but has less throughput.

The printer arrived within 20 hours of ordering – with a big torn dent in the box! Fortunately, when I opened it, I found no damage. Elegoo uses lots of heavy foam for packing, and the package damage didn't get through to the machine inside.

I'm setting it up in the garage workshop, which was being used for random storage. After a lot of cleaning and throwing away, I had a long counter area with shelves above and drawers below. The light is good and when I pour resin, I can turn on a window AC next to the counter, or just open the outside door, or both. Ventilation is important – liquid resin is toxic to breathe and irritates skin. Not as bad as bug poison or Clorox, but have respect for it. And gloves are a must.

I was greatly aided in setup by the telepresent advice of Jean McGuire, our STL Coordinator, who has done all this before, many times (as the saying goes, backward and in high heels). If you can find a guru to help you . . . do! The documentation is sparse, the drawings don't always match the reality, and the English, while better than that in many manuals from China, is not always clear. The machines don't need a great deal of assembly, nor is the printing process itself complex, but it has to be done right. There are YouTube videos that are helpful if you can sit through to the useful parts, and then find them again when you need them.

The biggest challenge I have at this point is with the program that controls the printer. Generically, this sort of app is called a "slicer" because it slices the 3D STL figure into many layers for printing. The one I am using is the free version of Chitubox. It is recommended by Elegoo and included with the printer. It works, but it is not configured like most Mac programs, it is hardly documented at all, and the words and symbols on the screen are teeny. Jean says the Windows version is just as bad. Apparently you are just supposed to hack around until you figure it out. There needs to be a Chitubox for Dummies. (There is a Pro version of the software, but I'm not touching it until I need it, and I may never need it.)

The first thing I printed is a part for the printer! An improvement that many people make on their resin printers is a flexible build plate, held onto the original build plate by magnets. When a build is done, you just take off the magnetic plate and flex it to pop the pieces off – easier and safer than scraping them. (Details on this are in the README file which our project supporters will get.) At any rate, the addition to the build plate means you need to change the Z-axis of your printer, and the easiest way to do it is by installing a precise little spacer 2.1 mm thick, and the easiest way to get that spacer is to print it! Seems fitting.

Will I blow up the whole garage when I print a real miniature? You'll just have to wait and find out.

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Kick Down The Nursery Door, Loot The Playroom!

Munchkin Babies  delivers 168 cards full of sweet, adorable baby adventurers . . . who are just as good at backstabbing and loot-grabbing as their elders from  Munchkin . Play a cute Orcling, Dwarfling, Elfling, or Quarterling (half a Halfling). Preorder now on Warehouse 23!