Steve Jackson's Blog, page 40

September 30, 2024: Squeezy Is Not So Easy!

For those who enjoy daily word games in the vein of Wordle, Strands , or Connections , I found one recently that's different and fun, called Squeezy.

Basically, you have a selection of words on the right-hand side – such as BITER, CAD, ONCE, and RETIRE; and a selection of tiles on the lefthand side: say, E, R, T, U. You need to select those tiles on the lefthand side and put them in between the letters of the words on the right-hand side to form a new word.

So, using those tiles, the answers might be BITTER, CARD, OUNCE, and RETIREE.

The filled-in tiles all spell a word in their order . . . so, in this case, TRUE.

Each puzzle consists of three rounds (with the third round having one or more words that requires multiple tiles). The three resultant clues have some connection that isn't required to "solve" the puzzle but is fun to think about.

It's an interesting game that makes me realize how many words are close to other words but off by one letter.

If that sounds interesting, trying today's puzzle is just a click away!

– 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 29, 2024: It Really Is All A Game!

We all love tabletop games, no matter what the flavor, from Chess and Go to GURPS and Munchkin . But do you know about the ancient, storied history of boardgaming?  A fascinating book I've recently become aware of is It's All a Game, by Tristan Donovan. It chronicles gaming's past and present in an easy-to-read and often humorous way. Though I've adored playing at the table since childhood, I had no idea how important games have been throughout history. The book includes numerous stories that will grab your attention, such as the significance of games in World War II, some of which helped the Allied soldiers escape prisoner-of-war camps. You can also learn how Twister first met formidable resistance from department stores – on moral grounds! In addition, there is a captivating account of how one of the most popular cooperative games came about after the original SARS outbreak of 2003. I won't spoil which game it is, but serious players may already know, and it sure is fun to read all the details! There's even a section describing the role AI has played (and will continue to play) in the future of boardgaming.   One appealing feature of the book is that it does not need to be read sequentially; just pick it up and choose a chapter that interests you! I highly recommend this great read to gamers of all levels. It may not improve your gaming skills, but I'm sure you'll be entertained – and gain a deeper respect for the hobby. It's All a Game is available on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, or at your local book store.

– Michelle Richardson

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, 2024: Check Please?

I know they're kind of old-fashioned nowadays, but if you need a piece of cool evidence in your game (especially a campaign featuring  GURPS Mysteries ), nothing quite beats a check. A single (fake, of course!) check provides lots of clues that players can follow up on: addresses, names to and from that might ring a bell elsewhere in the investigation, signatures that can be compared with other evidence, customized designs that might be significant, routing numbers that can be tied to banks . . .

Even something as trivial as (say) the check number can be an interesting clue: "We found checks 1027 and 1029, both written on the same day, that tie into the larger mystery. Who or what was check 1028 for?!"

They're also good opportunities for would-be papercrafters to show off their skills, since checks run the gamut from plain to ornate.

As ever, anyone using this idea is welcome to share their thoughts 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 27, 2024: Foldit Is Citizen Science, Gamified

My parents were always fond of telling me that video games were a waste of time. While they might have been right on some level – I've dedicated an embarrassing number of hours to Baldur's Gate 3  – I don't think they can really make that argument for Foldit . The object of this online video game is to figure out how certain protein structures are folded together to maintain stability. What sets this free game apart is that the results don't just lead to a high score – they help scientists create new proteins for use in vaccines, environmental remediation, and more.  Foldit is a great example of citizen science – that is, scientific research conducted by members of the public. You don't need to have a scientific background to play this online game, though a knack for spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, and puzzle games may help. (I struggle with these skill sets, which is why I mostly stick with iNaturalist.) If you decide to try your hand at Foldit , you'll join a group of people who have helped researchers make numerous discoveries in fields ranging from viral research to synthetic chemistry. Not bad for a video game, huh?

– 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!

September 26, 2024: Hear The Call With Choose Cthulhu Books 7-10

Imagine: A world of eldritch terrors. A world of bizarre mysteries. A world of extraterrestrial beings.  This is the world of Cthulhu! Based on classic tales of cosmic horror,  Choose Cthulhu is a series of stand-alone game books that take you on a solo journey through the Miskatonic Valley. Each page offers a chilling challenge to make decisions that ultimately decide your true fate. The first six books in the series launched on Kickstarter in 2023. Now Choose Cthulhu returns to crowdfunding on October 1 with four more terrifying tales:  The Arkham Madhouse : You find yourself locked in the most notorious asylum in the Cthulhu mythos. Will you find an escape or succumb to insanity?  The Color Out of Space : On a farm near Arkham, a meteor has crashed down to earth. You'll need to uncover information about the unimaginable threat that now resides on our planet. Before it's too late.  The Festival : You've been called back to your ancestral city for the Yuletide Festival which takes place only once a century. What is this mysterious cult, and why are giant rats and dreadful creatures lurking around every corner?  The Whisperer in Darkness : You've traveled to Townshend, Vermont, a small town in the rural hills where extraterrestrial life has just been discovered. Or so it seems. Learn the secrets of the occult while observing strange and disturbing occurrences.  Choose Cthulhu Books 7-10 come to Kickstarter October 1, but you can sign up today to be notified the moment the project goes live! Where will your decisions lead?

– Michelle Richardson

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, 2024: Today's Half-Baked Idea: Failure?

I've been experiencing the joy of roguelike games on my Nintendo Switch, which deliver a bite-sized batch of fun on the portable console.

For those who aren't familiar, roguelikes are – very briefly – dungeon-crawl-type games with more or less randomly generated environments. One element in some of the genre is the assumption of frequent failure combined with the promise of power-ups: You explore, you find (say) coins or gems, you die, you use the loot to buy upgrades and new abilities, which help you explore more. Each time you die, you (hopefully) have made some forward progress in the overarching game.

This general cycle of gaming seems like it'd be suitable for a tabletop RPG: You're underpowered, you explore/fight, you die, you get points that help you power up . . . and then you face the same (or similar) dungeon with the goal of eventually getting powerful enough to overcome the entire adventure.

The challenge I'm facing on my napkin-noodling is that I'm not sure how fun it is for players to face more or less the same threats over and over until they power up enough to beat the final boss. As a video-game genre, roguelike games are partly appealing because they're rather fast (especially at the beginning, when you're weak). However, spending 15 minutes alone on a run through a dungeon only to die and get more powerful is less to ask than spending a three-hour RPG session with a tableful of players to accomplish the same thing.

That's why this idea is half-baked for the time being. If you have any brilliant insights along these lines, feel free to share them 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 24, 2024: Pew Pew!

I haven't had a chance to play Star Wars Outlaws yet, but I have been amused by early reports of the in-game pet Nix, who has a "pet" command and can be made jealous if you give attention to other animals. I was especially delighted by online reports about what happens if you point your blaster at Nix. Here's one YouTube video, but there are several others (apparently, there's some variation as to what exactly happens).

– 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 23, 2024: CL-CLICK Whirrrr . . .

I just realized how straightforward it would be to recreate classic "instant camera"-type pictures as props for a game. Here's some info on Polaroid photo dimensions to get the right sizes (or use the details as inspiration for your game universe's equivalent). To craft something durable like the originals, I'd use double-sided tape to adhere photos to thicker cardstock.

The idea is definitely developing in my mind . . . and I might even speed up the process if I shake it a bit.

– 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 22, 2024: Are You Sure That's What Attacked You?!

I don't think I've shared this story . . . or, at the very least, I haven't shared it here – and it's continued to delight our family for about a decade now, so why not inflict it on you?

We had purchased the Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game and were trying to learn the rules as we played it. It's not a terribly difficult game; basically, it's a light boardgame experience where you play fantasy heroes on a randomly generated board, drawing tiles for rooms you explore, cards for monsters you face, and so on.

We thought we had set up the first game well enough, and we proceeded to take our first turn. We flipped over the tile, which triggered a monster to spawn, which we dutifully drew from the deck. And the very first card we drew . . . was the gargantuan red dragon Ashardalon.

We all went "yikes" as we dug up the huge miniature from the box and plunked it onto the board. Looking at the stats for the thing, I noted: "This is going to absolutely kill us all." I also noted that this didn't feel right; the box was named after this guy, so just drawing Ashardalon on the first turn in the first scenario seemed kind of anticlimactic – in a "we're all going to die" kind of way.

Looking over the rulebook again, we realized that there were certain "boss fight" cards that were specifically tied to certain scenarios – for example, the titular Ashardalon was part of the last adventure the group would face. We hadn't noticed that in the scenario instructions when we set up the board; we just shuffled all the cards together.

So we dutifully rewound the game by half a turn, taking the huge chunk of death-dealing plastic off the board and replacing it with a new monster: a kobold.

Which we promptly defeated.

For the rest of the game, we joked that the giant dragon we thought we'd seen was actually three kobolds in a trenchcoat. To this day, any threat we face which turns out to be much easier than we originally expected is "three kobolds in a trenchcoat."

That's probably my family's funniest "we didn't understand the rules" story; if you have any, I'd love to hear about them 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 21, 2024: Newbie Quest: Adventure Prep For First-Timers

Despite playing RPGs since 1976 and writing for the industry since 1980, I've never managed to get family members to go on a tabletop adventure. That changed in mid-July, when a trip to a WiFi-less vacation cabin provided an opportunity to run a game for my sister, my brother-in-law, and my two 20-something nieces. It was a likely group. My sister and her husband loved the D&D movie, GOT, and LOTR, and my older niece the same . . . plus she's into anime, is loving the wonderfully daft RPG comedy Delicious in Dungeon, and plays Legend of Zelda while her dad kibitzes.

I ran my Quick Quest, Incident at the Golden Badger , using just the Melee rules. I hand-wrote notes on character creation on notepad sheets. Because Golden Badger has a few tough monsters, I gave them the option of choosing one enhancement:

• Add one point to an attribute.
• +1 damage and +1 to hit for one particular weapon type.
• Add a vaguely defined "acrobatics" talent ("climbing and jumping").
• Add a vaguely defined "thief" talent ("sneaking about and lockpicking").

They all had some trouble grasping how armor and shields affected both Dexterity & MA, but they got it right in the end.

I made a sketch of the exterior of the warehouse where most of the adventure occurs, plus freehand, non-hex maps of the warehouse's two stories. I made map props (barrels, crates, a table) out of Post-It notes, and mentally rehearsed the introduction and how to describe the NPCs and settings.

The adventure, played out over two nights, went well. Going Melee -only worked just fine. Combat was unexpectedly easy to teach.

The party made some great and unexpected use of the warehouse layout, shooting at one pair of "creeps" from an elevator platform and bottling them up in a stairwell after the creatures finally caught on that they were being shot at from above. One niece didn't seem super-engaged, but her character, a dwarf "tank" with a 2-handed sword, plate mail, and adjDX 6, saved the party by getting in the monsters' grills while archers wore them down. She managed to hit with her weapon just once, but that thoroughly demolished a "creep."

The Boss ("Boss") took out the Tank in two blows, but the sacrifice allowed a swordsman and two archer elves to kill it. I said the dwarf was unconcious and in need of urgent care instead of outright dead. The final monster was locked away, ending the adventure. I had fun describing the local Sorcerors' Guild doing clean-up.

They seemed happy to have finally tried an RPG. Might try again at Christmas. Maybe I'll add wizards and run "The Circus Job . . ."

– Stefan Jones

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!