Steve Jackson's Blog, page 21
April 6, 2025
April 6, 2025: Does Anyone Speak Shark?
I had no idea that sharks didn't make noise, but apparently they don't. No, wait; they do. But it seems scientists just figured that out. Anyway, here's an article from the website Science that explains what they've discovered, including an audio recording of these first known sounds.
Personally, I think it kind of sounds like the shark in question is rolling a Shark d6 Dice Set around in their tummy . . . but I suspect that's because it's the sound my tummy makes when I swallow a Shark d6 Dice Set .
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
Personally, I think it kind of sounds like the shark in question is rolling a Shark d6 Dice Set around in their tummy . . . but I suspect that's because it's the sound my tummy makes when I swallow a Shark d6 Dice Set .
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
April 5, 2025
April 5, 2025: Homebrew Inspiration With Weird Ireland
My husband and I love worldbuilding for our TTRPG campaigns. Part of the fun of creating a setting is making it feel lived in – creating cities, towns, roads, and vistas in between. And while there's nothing wrong with A Great Legendary Place Beyond The Mountains, there's also something to be said for the fantasy equivalent of The Corn Belt . . . and for quirky landmarks that make you laugh.
Weird Ireland is an Instagram account hosted by Brinsley McNamara. Each post gives you a glimpse of the oddities that underlie everyday life on the Emerald Isle. Some showcase Ireland's mythic past; others are simply fun. (For example, my husband's home county of Louth is featured both for Cu Chulainn's Stone and a potato vending machine.) My favorite post so far is about Donnelly's Hollow, where a monument commemorates a bare-knuckle brawl for the ages.
– Katie Duffy
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
Weird Ireland is an Instagram account hosted by Brinsley McNamara. Each post gives you a glimpse of the oddities that underlie everyday life on the Emerald Isle. Some showcase Ireland's mythic past; others are simply fun. (For example, my husband's home county of Louth is featured both for Cu Chulainn's Stone and a potato vending machine.) My favorite post so far is about Donnelly's Hollow, where a monument commemorates a bare-knuckle brawl for the ages.
– Katie Duffy
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
April 4, 2025
April 3, 2025: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now
On April 5th, a 54% tariff goes into effect on a wide range of goods imported from China. For those of us who create boardgames, this is not just a policy change. It's a seismic shift.
At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can't absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We've done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.
Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.
Some people ask, "Why not manufacture in the U.S.?" I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn't meaningfully exist here yet. I've gotten quotes. I've talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren't.
We aren't the only company facing this challenge. The entire board game industry is having very difficult conversations right now. For some, this might mean simplifying products or delaying launches. For others, it might mean walking away from titles that are no longer economically viable. And, for what I fear will be too many, it means closing down entirely.
Tariffs, when part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing, can be an effective tool. But that only works when there's a plan to build up the industries needed to take over production. There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make. This isn't about steel and semiconductors. This is about paper goods, chipboard, wood tokens, plastic trays, and color-matched ink. These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives, and it's going to cost American consumers more at every level of the supply chain.
We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We're still determining how much and where.
If you're frustrated, you're not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don't.
We'll keep making games. But we'll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.
– Meredith Placko
Warehouse 23 News: Why Is The Darkness Blinking?
They're trapped between the realm of the living and the dead . . . and they're not too pleased about it. The Book of Unlife adds 44 unliving monsters to your The Fantasy Trip campaigns, along with a complete adventure setting. Live like there's too many tomorrows thanks to Warehouse 23!
At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can't absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We've done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.
Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.
Some people ask, "Why not manufacture in the U.S.?" I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn't meaningfully exist here yet. I've gotten quotes. I've talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren't.
We aren't the only company facing this challenge. The entire board game industry is having very difficult conversations right now. For some, this might mean simplifying products or delaying launches. For others, it might mean walking away from titles that are no longer economically viable. And, for what I fear will be too many, it means closing down entirely.
Tariffs, when part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing, can be an effective tool. But that only works when there's a plan to build up the industries needed to take over production. There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make. This isn't about steel and semiconductors. This is about paper goods, chipboard, wood tokens, plastic trays, and color-matched ink. These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives, and it's going to cost American consumers more at every level of the supply chain.
We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We're still determining how much and where.
If you're frustrated, you're not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don't.
We'll keep making games. But we'll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.
– Meredith Placko
Warehouse 23 News: Why Is The Darkness Blinking?
They're trapped between the realm of the living and the dead . . . and they're not too pleased about it. The Book of Unlife adds 44 unliving monsters to your The Fantasy Trip campaigns, along with a complete adventure setting. Live like there's too many tomorrows thanks to Warehouse 23!
April 4, 2025: Lorescape Campaign Ends Today!
If you liked the look of the
Lorescape
project for injection-molded hex terrain tiles, it's time to do the backer thing! The campaign has gone amazingly well. The €450,000 stretch goal – a generous one! – is in sight and very achievable. (They did a very good thing and declared that €500K would be the last stretch goal, rather than risk being oversubscribed and delaying delivery for everyone. I don't know if €500K will be hit, but I know that they are being both smart and responsible by saying they will push it no further even if they can.)
This system will let everyone have a game board as pretty as their miniatures. We just keep getting better at this stuff!
– Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
This system will let everyone have a game board as pretty as their miniatures. We just keep getting better at this stuff!
– Steve Jackson
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
April 2, 2025
April 2, 2025: Diplomacy And "Rules Elide"
I've been playing
Diplomacy
, finally, although I've wanted to play it for a while. I'm France, and to secure my Northern border I've worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I've left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak la perfide Albion has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany.
It's a fantastic game, and also a stressful one, as I'm sure players of Diplomacy can attest.
It has gotten me thinking a lot about "Rules Elide," a claim made by some members of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement about the nature of how TTRPGs work. Their argument is that rules serve to abstract the parts of the game we're not interested in so we can focus on the parts we care about. An example given is that we don't care about precisely modeling the trajectory of an arrow, so we use a dice roll to see where the arrow lands. But we care very deeply about social interaction, so in their games they don't enjoy rules that abstract social interaction. Sam Sorenson's New Simulationist Manifesto is a call to action regarding this exact topic, and it's something I come back to a lot.
Ultimately my conclusion is that elision is one of the functions of rules, but not the only one. That said, is there a better example of how rules can be used to elide than Diplomacy ? It's a game with (simple, but consistent) rules governing the movements of troops and positioning of resources. But let's be honest, that's not what Diplomacy is about. In Diplomacy , the actual compelling part of the game comes from conversing with your fellow players, making alliances, backstabbing them, and sending press out to various parts of the world. It's a conversation first, and a board game second. In that way, despite being very different from a TTRPG, Diplomacy has a lot of philosophical overlap with TTRPGs.
I don't know if my poor heart can take that many more games of Diplomacy . But it's been a fantastic game to learn a lot more about elements of game design and game philosophy that can be overlooked in more complex games. By boiling it down to the fundamentals, it exposes the core of what it means to play a game.
– Jay Dragon
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
It's a fantastic game, and also a stressful one, as I'm sure players of Diplomacy can attest.
It has gotten me thinking a lot about "Rules Elide," a claim made by some members of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement about the nature of how TTRPGs work. Their argument is that rules serve to abstract the parts of the game we're not interested in so we can focus on the parts we care about. An example given is that we don't care about precisely modeling the trajectory of an arrow, so we use a dice roll to see where the arrow lands. But we care very deeply about social interaction, so in their games they don't enjoy rules that abstract social interaction. Sam Sorenson's New Simulationist Manifesto is a call to action regarding this exact topic, and it's something I come back to a lot.
Ultimately my conclusion is that elision is one of the functions of rules, but not the only one. That said, is there a better example of how rules can be used to elide than Diplomacy ? It's a game with (simple, but consistent) rules governing the movements of troops and positioning of resources. But let's be honest, that's not what Diplomacy is about. In Diplomacy , the actual compelling part of the game comes from conversing with your fellow players, making alliances, backstabbing them, and sending press out to various parts of the world. It's a conversation first, and a board game second. In that way, despite being very different from a TTRPG, Diplomacy has a lot of philosophical overlap with TTRPGs.
I don't know if my poor heart can take that many more games of Diplomacy . But it's been a fantastic game to learn a lot more about elements of game design and game philosophy that can be overlooked in more complex games. By boiling it down to the fundamentals, it exposes the core of what it means to play a game.
– Jay Dragon
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
April 1, 2025
April 1, 2025: Begin April With The Tardigrade d6 Dice Set
We at Steve Jackson Games are always looking to bring more fun into the world, with innovative products that expand our audience in new and creative ways. To that end we proudly present . . . the Tardigrade d6 Dice Set !
Unlike the popular Shark d6 Dice Set , Kitten d6 Dice Set , and other animal-themed dice that have delighted human gamers, the Tardigrade d6 Dice Set is specifically designed for the tardigrade gamers in your life!
This set of 300 dice includes four each in 75 different colors, such as puce, fulvous, and black. Measuring at the standard 5-micrometer scale, these dice are perfectly balanced to roll regardless of which of your body's limbs you use. Each die has had its "6" replaced with the familiar Eye-in-the-Pyramid logo, while the included hangcard helpfully explains what an "eye" is.
Believe us: The Tardigrade d6 Dice Set is like nothing you've ever seen!
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
March 31, 2025
March 31, 2025: Happy 20th Birthday, PlayStation Portable!
I'm something of a portable video-game geek. So I was pleased to remember – yet dismayed to be reminded of the passage of time – the recent 20th anniversary of the PlayStation Portable, released in North America on March 24, 2005.
When the PSP first came out, it seemed almost magical, and some of my favorite video-game experiences of all time have come about from the portable device. It still seems magical in some ways, although – with the advent of the Nintendo Switch seven years ago – it is perhaps less so. Nevertheless, I'll still remember carrying a whirring, disc-reading gizmo and feeling like I stepped out of a golden-age science-fiction story.
Oh, and as I was researching this, I wanted to get some context as to what was happening at the company 20 years ago, and discovered that the 20th anniversary of the release of GURPS Mysteries is also around that time (April 13, 2005, to be exact). Between GURPS Mysteries and the PSP, I'm not sure which one has given me more gaming goodness . . . but I do know which one makes the players nervous if I start flipping through a printed copy in a moment of downtime.
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
When the PSP first came out, it seemed almost magical, and some of my favorite video-game experiences of all time have come about from the portable device. It still seems magical in some ways, although – with the advent of the Nintendo Switch seven years ago – it is perhaps less so. Nevertheless, I'll still remember carrying a whirring, disc-reading gizmo and feeling like I stepped out of a golden-age science-fiction story.
Oh, and as I was researching this, I wanted to get some context as to what was happening at the company 20 years ago, and discovered that the 20th anniversary of the release of GURPS Mysteries is also around that time (April 13, 2005, to be exact). Between GURPS Mysteries and the PSP, I'm not sure which one has given me more gaming goodness . . . but I do know which one makes the players nervous if I start flipping through a printed copy in a moment of downtime.
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
March 30, 2025
March 30, 2025: So It Begins
In the last few weeks, two great gaming channels on YouTube ran battle reports replaying one of the most epic battle scenes in cinema history. The siege of Helm's Deep from "The Two Towers" film is something that many minis gamers imagine doing, but rarely do we get to experience anything like this battle. These two channels are living the dream.
The first channel I want to bring to your attention is Zorp of the Rings. Lachie has multiple channels and posts scenery builds on his main channel, Zorpazorp. All of his builds are gigantic and the Helm's Deep board is no exception. You can watch the game here.
The other channel was a bit of a surprise. Little Wars TV almost exclusively creates historical content, replaying famous battles from throughout history. They've decided to explore some other genres, and Helm's Deep is a great place to start. You can watch their video here, and they've posted related videos about building the board and the rules they used.
– Will Schoonover
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
The first channel I want to bring to your attention is Zorp of the Rings. Lachie has multiple channels and posts scenery builds on his main channel, Zorpazorp. All of his builds are gigantic and the Helm's Deep board is no exception. You can watch the game here.
The other channel was a bit of a surprise. Little Wars TV almost exclusively creates historical content, replaying famous battles from throughout history. They've decided to explore some other genres, and Helm's Deep is a great place to start. You can watch their video here, and they've posted related videos about building the board and the rules they used.
– Will Schoonover
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
March 29, 2025
March 29, 2025: Daily Game Recommendation: Raddle
If you're a fan of daily puzzle games, I can recommend Raddle, from puzzle-maker Sandy Weisz.
The core premise builds off those word ladders you've probably seen in the past:
CAT
HAT
HAG
HOG
DOG
(That's obviously a very simple example.)
Now imagine if each "next step" of the ladder was a clue to figure out, the answers can be anything . . . and you're given all the clues at once . . . only the clues are out of order.
It sounds complicated, but I find it's the right sweet spot for me, with a number of "Eureka!" moments each day. It starts out challenging (because there are a dozen clues that could fit with the next answer!), but you quickly realize you can eliminate a lot of them: "Oh, it says add a letter to make the next word, but the next word has fewer letters than the current one, so that word can't be it . . ." And so on. Often you can even work up the ladder if you get stuck – letting you pair up some clues with words that way.
I might recommend starting with the puzzle from February 25, since it seems pretty fair and explains the concept. But, honestly, I've found them all enjoyable so far.
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
The core premise builds off those word ladders you've probably seen in the past:
CAT
HAT
HAG
HOG
DOG
(That's obviously a very simple example.)
Now imagine if each "next step" of the ladder was a clue to figure out, the answers can be anything . . . and you're given all the clues at once . . . only the clues are out of order.
It sounds complicated, but I find it's the right sweet spot for me, with a number of "Eureka!" moments each day. It starts out challenging (because there are a dozen clues that could fit with the next answer!), but you quickly realize you can eliminate a lot of them: "Oh, it says add a letter to make the next word, but the next word has fewer letters than the current one, so that word can't be it . . ." And so on. Often you can even work up the ladder if you get stuck – letting you pair up some clues with words that way.
I might recommend starting with the puzzle from February 25, since it seems pretty fair and explains the concept. But, honestly, I've found them all enjoyable so far.
– Steven Marsh
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
March 28, 2025
March 28, 2025: SJ Games Connections Puzzle
I'm a big fan of the NYT Connections puzzles, and the themed puzzles in Slay the Spire's "Neowsletter" have been tugging at me for a while to create one for SJ Games. Play online by clicking through the image or following this link!– Irene Zielinski
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
Steve Jackson's Blog
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