Steve Jackson's Blog, page 3

September 29, 2025: You Like Fighting Fantasy As Much As We Do!

A couple of weeks ago, after delays and hiccups we're still learning from, the slipcases for the first set of Fighting Fantasy 's triumphant return to the United States arrived (as we proclaimed in a Kickstarter update). Since then, we've been steadily shipping the thousands of orders to eager fans.

Those orders are starting to arrive, and folks seem really happy so far. Given how diligently everyone has worked across both sides of the pond getting the text, layout, and production values right, we're thrilled that our efforts have paid off – especially because we've started making the next books!

I'll offer only a selection of the accolades, but my heart's grown three sizes reading some of the comments on the Kickstarter:

Dennis: "Wow, very impressive quality. I couldn't be happier with the set."

Robert: "The books and slipcase are great! Printing, binding etc. all beyond my expectations. Thanks and I look forward to more releases."

Jonathan: "Just received mine in Indiana today. Amazing quality and brings back memories. Slipcase was worth the upgrade. I wish I could post my picture of the reprints next to the originals. I will be reading these to my sons this evening just like my father did with me."

And there are more. We're so grateful for the reception so far. (Shout-out to fellow Hoosier, Jonathan! I hope your sons have a great time . . . and feel free to let me know your favorite game store(s)!)

I wish I could point you to an appropriate link for the next batch of Fighting Fantasy books, but we don't want to start a new campaign until we make sure we've fulfilled all orders on our end. The staff in Austin is working tirelessly on that. Thank you for your patience! (I will cry if Darryll, James, Sabrina, Bridget, and/or Susan are crushed under a tower of heavy shipping boxes.) You might want to periodically peek at our Kickstarter page; there's a "Follow" tab that may prove useful . . .

In the meantime, we hope everyone loves these portable fantasy adventures as much as I do. To everyone who's helped make this possible, if I may borrow from Fighting Fantasy itself: You are the hero!

– 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!

September 28, 2025: "Edited By Steve Jackson" . . . Wait, What?

A lot of companies have produced what might be seen as uncharacteristic products in the past. For example, Alfa Romeo – yes, the car company – once briefly manufactured stoves. And Mitsubishi, another well-known car company, was formed from the automotive division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, perhaps best known as the manufacturers of the famous WWII Zero fighter. Steve Jackson Games is no exception. No, SJ Games didn't build stoves or fighter aircraft . . . actually, it was cross-stitch patterns!

This was back in the early 90s, when counted cross-stitch was enjoying considerable popularity among crafters. Unlike TSR's purchase of an embroidery kit company (for rather dubious reasons) years before, this was an in-house project.




And the designs weren't just any random art, either. They were based on the work of Real Musgrave, both his Pocket Dragons and his teddy bears. Because of course, if a game company starts making cross-stitch patterns, dragons will be involved! And since SJ knew Real Musgrave, whose Pocket Dragons have always been popular (and rightly so!), naturally those dragons were involved.

The cross-stitch pattern division, called Crafty Capers , only existed for about a year. I've been trying to chase down the old designs on eBay since before I worked for SJ Games – I'm one of the very small overlap between gamers and cross-stitchers. And yes, in the credits in the pattern booklet, it says "Edited by Steve Jackson."

Do you know of any other game companies that produced interesting non-game things? Tell us on the forums!

– Jean McGuire

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!

September 27, 2025: The Joy (And Curse) Of A Large Library

As I noted in August, we've been hard at work at (top-secret) Fighting Fantasy stuff. I'm starting to look at 2026 plans and found myself needing to figure out what to track down used copies of for research purposes. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that I already owned all but one of the books I didn't think I had.

These are my own personal copies I've bought over the course of decades. Some of these were purchased as they came out; others were collected along the way as I found them at used bookstores. (As an aside, since I've been heavily in writing/editing mode lately, I'm realizing that "used bookstore" is an odd phrase . . . everyone knows what it means, but it implies that the bookstore itself is used rather than its contents. But I digress.)

One of the delights of having this large library is getting periodic reminders of goodies I've bought in years past, which I stumble onto in the present. And the curse? Well, it's more or less the same thing . . . not realizing what I already own and could be enjoying.

If this sparks any personal anecdotes of your own, please feel free to share tales of your own library over on the forums!

– 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!

September 26, 2025: This Robot Is Just My Type

YouTube channel Ancient has the coolest video I've seen all week: an automaton that lip-syncs by rotating a ball with various mouth positions, not unlike an old-fashioned IBM Selectric typewriter ball. In other words, the lips aren't making the proper shape, but the whole mouth is. It's kind of hard to explain, but you'll understand immediately once you see it. This link will take you to the demo of the effect in motion, though the whole video is really interesting if you enjoy seeing the process and . . . um . . . prototyping.

And if you'll excuse me, I have a new idea for a totally different way to design an interesting mechanoid for a 1950s GURPS Atomic Horror campaign . . .



-- 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!

September 25, 2025: I Don't Know Who Needs To Hear This . . .

Did you know you can find tiny, Bluetooth speakers cheap? Like, I've found some for less than $10 online, they might be at various discount stores, and we've gotten them free as promo items before when we've attended trade shows.

And did you know that, if you charge them ahead of time and pair with them, you can easily tape such small speakers under chairs or otherwise hide them discreetly – where they would almost certainly not be noticed – until an appropriately interesting moment in a game?

Also, Halloween is coming, and that's a great time for unexpected noises . . .

– 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!

September 24, 2025: Roll20Con 2025

Roll20Con 2025 is coming September 26-28, 2025, to an internet near you! The online convention plans a variety of roleplaying games.

This convention is Roll20's ninth. Those who play for at least 2 hours in the online event have a chance to win a year's Pro Subscription. While joining the site itself is free, there is a charge for the convention game sessions – to help others. Through the convention, the website has teamed up with Darrington Press, Free League, Modiphius, and more. Every dollar raised goes to The Trevor Project to help with suicide prevention. Roll20 says both it and StartPlayingGames will match convention donations to "triple the impact."

I first got on Roll20.net in 2018. Living in the middle of nowhere, I joined the site looking for GURPS campaigns. I found some . . .

If you're searching for worlds and adventures, or want to share one of your own, Roll20Con can be a great place to go. Have you used Roll20, played or run VTTRPGs, or are you at least thinking about it? Feel free to share your experiences and/or plans on the forums!

– Alden Loveshade

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!

September 23, 2025: A Tribute To A Hidden Gem

Not all that far from the bustle of downtown and the university, past the tech companies on the surrounding hills, and just down the road a bit from some barbecue joints and the picturesque Pennybacker Bridge, lies a hidden Austin gem. A throwback to the early 17th century sits tucked away on the shores of the Colorado River: The Curtain Theatre.

The Curtain Theatre is an Elizabethan outdoor theater in the style of the Globe Theatre in London, scaled down to about a third of the size. Built by video game developer Richard Garriott and located on private property on the shores of Lake Austin amongst a large pecan grove, it seats up to 350 patrons in two gallery levels and one ground level. The intimate "Wooden O" design ensures that no seat in the house is farther than 25 feet from the stage. This allows audience members to directly connect with the actors on stage, and vice versa, upping the energy and making shows that much better.  The original Curtain Theatre that is the namesake of this local one was London's second playhouse and the venue for several of Shakespeare's plays during the years that the main theatre was closed, including Romeo & Juliet and Henry IV Part I and Part II. The original Curtain was not a "Wooden O," though. That would come later when The Globe was built, and the Lord Chamberlain's Men would move there instead.  Since 2005, the Curtain has been the home of The Baron's Men, a theatre company that presents plays in the time and style of ancient Greece until about 1650 in a manner that is as historically accurate as possible.  The troupe, of which I've been a member since 2009, primarily performs the works of Shakespeare, but occasionally does things from some of his contemporaries or predecessors, and the occasional original work set in those time periods. While we're not a fully 'original practices' troupe, we do keep things to their period settings and language, and we take delight in showing that these plays can be enjoyed and understood just fine in their original forms if they are presented well.   Having The Curtain as our stage to bring these works to life has been unlike anything else. Despite being able to host a few hundred people, the experience still feels intimate from both sides. With the thrust stage and the close gallery, the audience is never far from the actors – and all around them. Actors in the groundling area are literally close enough to reach out and touch the audience, fourth-wall-breaking asides can be delivered conspiratorially directly to faces you can see in the audience nearby, and we generally encourage light-hearted cheers and boos toward the heroes and villains of the stories. All of this blurs the line where the stage ends and makes for a special experience. 

Over the years, the Curtain has been host to many other events as well, from Austin Shakespeare's children's summer programs to a number of weddings and proposals to court events for the Society for Creative Anachronism, and more. Many memories, shows, and good times have graced the stage here. "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,so do our minutes hasten to their end" –Sonnet 60  Sadly, nothing is forever, and this fall marks the final season that The Curtain will be operating. If you happen to be in Austin during October, the final show will be Much Ado About Nothing, presented by The Baron's Men, and we'd love to share the experience with you one final time. If you aren't local, enjoy the pictures and memories here (or look the theater up on Google Maps and see many people's photos in the reviews). It will be sad for me to say goodbye to the place, and I'm thankful for the years that we've been able to walk those boards and play there. Our shows will go on elsewhere, but we'll always hold a place in our hearts for that "Wooden O." 

"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
the brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
But pardon, and gentles all,
the flat unraised spirits that have dared
on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
so great an object." –Henry V, Act 1

 

– Jimmie Bragdon

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!

September 22, 2025: Drivers Can Just Be Terrible!

For some reason, Facebook thinks I really like watching terrible drivers – and no matter how many terrible-driver videos I watch, they just keep coming.

While I try to figure out why that's happening, I can't help but remember folks making illogical turns across multiple occupied lanes of traffic, blazing through red lights to disastrous consequence, or crashing full-on into vehicles – probably because they were on their phones, watching Facebook "terrible driver" videos.

Which leads me to this tip for tabletop gamers (and Car Wars games): Drivers can just be terrible! You don't even need a plot reason; it's no problem at all.

Is an otherwise straightforward chase getting a bit too predictable (or is the bad guy getting too far ahead)? Have someone decide they really need to get off at the next exit – six lanes over – to get a milkshake.

Looking for a different scenario for  Car Wars ? Figure out how to have a neutral car or two driving as much on "autopilot" as possible . . . then allow for the possibility that they just do something bone-crushingly foolish (say, roll a pair of six-siders each turn, and on double 6s, the driver does the most-chaotic thing imaginable).

The idea came to me because – as a writer/editor – I'm often trying to make things as logical as possible. But as the Internet has shown me, it's perfectly acceptable to do something completely illogical . . . like continuing to watch an endless stream of "terrible driver" videos.

– 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!

September 21, 2025: True Vape-rware?

Here's a blog post about how a disposable vape was turned into a website server. If you want to see the same page actually loading off that vape cartridge, this URL should do the trick.

The techie in me appreciated info on the stats, such as 24KiB Flash storage and 3KiB of RAM.

Mostly, from a tabletop RPG standpoint, I never considered the gaming possibilities of the heroes trying to track down, not a thumb drive/CD/data chip of some MacGuffin, but of the entire web server. The whole cyberpunk "we've got to hack into ConGlomCo's gargantuan data server" is turned on its ear when you're trying to track down something the size of a vape . . . "Good luck, agents; the 'server' you're trying to hack into is in the pocket of one of the attendees of this rave . . ."

– 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!

September 20, 2025: On My Bookshelf: September

Hi folks, this month I'm starting a new irregular DI sub-blog called "On My Bookshelf," where I'm going to talk about the books I'm reading and which ones I've just finished.

I recently read The Rule Book (2024) by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros. It's a book of game studies about the function of different kinds of rules in different kinds of games. It's a fascinating and thorough reference point for the fundamental differences between videogames, boardgames, and TTRPGs (along with sports, playground games, and others to boot!).

I have two books I'm planning to read next. The first is The Monster Baru Cormorant (2018) by Seth Dickinson. It's the sequel to one of the most riveting and engrossing fantasy political thrillers I've ever read, The Traitor Baru Cormorant . The main character is an accountant in a fantasy empire who harbors dark, unspeakable secrets. The first book is the best fantasy I've read since Gene Wolfe, and while I've heard the sequel isn't as good, I'm still hyped to dig into it. The other book I'm looking to read is The Interface Effect (2012) by Andrew Galloway. It's a book of theory on the way people engage with interfaces, including computer screens, books, and control panels. My dear friend Che recommended it to me for its potential applications in thinking about games.

What are you reading right now? Let us know on the forums!

– 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!