Steve Jackson's Blog, page 41

September 20, 2024: Coming Soon: Car Wars Orange/Purple In-Store Events!

On Saturday, October 5th and Sunday, October 6th, Steve Jackson Games and Double Exposure will be hosting in-store events at local game shops around the United States to introduce fans to the latest addition to the Car Wars Sixth Edition family: Car Wars Orange/Purple !  Car Wars Orange/Purple is a two-player starter set that includes two cars, Sawtooth and Pure Energy, plus dashboards, counter sheets, 100+ cards, 20 dice, and an updated rulebook with helpful tips on playing your first game.  Stop by any of the stores below to learn the game! Final Boss Games - Springdale, AR, 479-502-2600Off the Shelf Games - El Cajon, CA,  619-708-8142The Guild House - Bellflower, CA, 562-461-2729Game Kastle (Fremont) - Fremont, CA, 510-651-4263Imperial Gaming & Collectibles - Meriden, CT, 860-426-0033The Armchair Adventurer - Honolulu, HI, 808-843-1250Nerd HQ - Davenport, IA, 563-888-1852Tempest Games LLC - Cedar Rapids, IA, 319-390-6441Gaming Adventures - New Plymouth, ID, 208-649-4244Snakes & Lattes Chicago - Chicago, IL, 872-310-3999Pink Elephant Games and Cafe - Wichita, KS, 316-867-4411Black Sun Games LLC - Frederick, MD, 240-813-9174Portals Games & Comics - Easton, MD, 410-800-8787Games4Life - Lake Orion, MI, 248-929-8121Voss Media Board Game Cafe - Galesburg, MI, 269-377-0387Great Escape Gaming - Flint, MI, 810-422-9995Nostalgia, Ink - Jackson, MI, 517-784-8955Mission: Board Games (KC North) - Kansas City, MO, 816-214-8554Chaos Games LLC - Minot, ND, 701-240-6021New World Manga - Livingston, NJ, 973-597-0625Sorcery and Might Board Game Store - Santa Fe, NM, 505-629-5965Game Kastle (Reno) - Reno, NV, 775-657-8150Bard and Baker Board Game Cafe - Troy, NY, 845-787-4676Boardgame Bounty Hunters - New Windsor, NY, 845-787-4676Tabletop Game Cafe - Columbus, OH, 614-725-0328The Guardtower - Columbus, OH, 614-488-4311Capstone Games Store - Cincinnati, OH, 513-873-3123 ext. 2Board Bard Games - Portland, OR, 971-801-0583Double Looks Games - Ellwood City, PAWorldfire Games - Surfside Beach, SC, 843-650-0083Board to Beers - Memphis, TN, 901-347-2787Dragon's Lair - Houston, TX, 832-761-0072Dragon's Nest - Kilgore, TX, 903-987-2516Madness Games & Comics - Plano, TX, 972-943-8135Raygun Lounge - Seattle, WA, 206-812-2521Hobby Knights - West Bend, WI, 262-429-2229Four Horsemen Comics and Gaming - Morgantown, WV, 304-581-4461The Gryphon's Nest - Bridgeport, WV, 304-629-7590 Will you be heading to your FLGS to play a game of  Car Wars Orange/Purple ? Let us know!

– 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 19, 2024: Candy, Dice, And . . . Potatoes?

My local stores are stocking Halloween candy, which means that we're careening into autumn already. (Wasn't it just March?) While my husband and I don't do anything elaborate for the holiday, we do look forward to handing out candy for Trick or Treat every year. It's great fun to see creative costumes and to watch kids get excited about free candy. I often get ideas for additional stuff to hand out, but unfortunately this usually happens a week or two before the big day. I'm prepared this year, though. You see, I have a plan. While I'm not at all opposed to giving out candy, I want to try to have a selection of items that kids can choose if they have food allergies or other dietary restrictions. While most people go with pencils or small toys, I think I want to try something a bit different this year – namely, dice. Hear me out. Dice are shiny. Kids love collecting things, and dice are useful for games and fun to acquire. (Ask me how I know.) Dice also last longer than candy; it's a little way of ensuring that a little spark of Halloween fun is there long after the chocolate, gummies, and other sweets are gone. I'll be curious to see how kids react to seeing dice alongside candy in our big bowl, especially in light of a little experiment my husband and I did last year involving potatoes. Yes, potatoes. My husband and I read several reports last year about people placing potatoes in their candy bowls to see what kids would take first. We decided to try it ourselves – in the name of science, of course – and added some potatoes to our candy collection. It turns out that tubers are universally beloved and worthy of excitement. (Hearing a kid joyfully call out, "I got a potato!" to their friends is a surprisingly heartwarming experience.) This year, we'll get to see if our neighborhood gets more excited for math rocks, root vegetables, or sugar bombs. I can't wait!

– 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 18, 2024: Make Lizardly History In Your GURPS Games!

When it comes to fantastic GURPS games, who you know goes a long way toward making your campaign memorable. Let us introduce you to  GURPS Fantasy Folk: The Reptilian Races . Now, you can add a whole swath of interesting – and quite alien! – entities to your game, from the dragon-blooded to lizard men to the sinister serpent-lords.

The Reptilian Races gives you everything you need to make these new colder-blooded kin come to life, with their GURPS templates, new styles of magic and martial arts, history, outlooks, and more. This volume joins the others in the GURPS Fantasy Folk series – where you can get to know elves, goblins and hobgoblins, kobolds, and winged folk.

With The Reptilian Races , you'll be ready with new friends or foes no matter what scale of conflict. And it's a download away, only from Warehouse 23!

– 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 17, 2024: Talk Like A Pirate Day

One of my favorite holidays! We'll celebrate with a piratical version of our weekly stream this Thursday. It will be at 11am this time, so I can make my plane to the Granite State Comicon. Please check in and see us!

Among other things, we'll be unboxing the beautiful pirate ship that Reaper gave me. This will be painted and played with. Envy me, ye blaggards!

Irene Zielinski will join us to talk about her new pirate RPG from 9th Level Games . . . Scurvy Buggers !

And I can show off a couple of Lego pirate ships from Evil Stevie's Pirate Game – for which a new rules set will be online Real Soon Now, honest.

We actually have a pirate-themed project of our own in the works, but I don't think I'm supposed to talk about it yet. Arrrrrrgh!

– 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!

September 16, 2024: Virtual FOMO?

One fun thing to do in RPGs that have a purchasing element is "limited-time offers" that induce that fear of missing out. For example, the adventurers are in a little shop, and they see a rare or one-of-a-kind magic item (or even not-quite magical items, such as those found in GURPS Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality ). Do they buy it?

This technique can even come up in more cinematic games. Maybe the spies of a GURPS Action game requisition their equipment, but the place they get them from has a couple of interesting items of unusual tech. The seller has other buyers lined up, but the heroes are here now, so maybe they can work out a deal . . .

Of course, this can crop up in the real world. For example, Warehouse 23 currently has fewer than nine copies each of Munchkin Pathfinder Guest Artist Edition , Flowerspeare pawns for Munchkin Shakespeare, and Munchkin Steampunk Kill-O-Meter sets. So keep that in mind as you're planning whether to pick up that impossible-to-find grappling catapult . . .

– 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 15, 2024: Steve Jackson Games: Fall 2024 Releases

Fall is coming soon, and with fall comes several great new titles from Steve Jackson Games!  Munchkin Shadowrun combines two classics: Munchkin and Shadowrun ! Access the Matrix. Dodge the Corp. Stab Your Buddy. Enter the world of Shadowrun with 193 all-new cyberpunk-themed cards. Also introduced in this game are Matrix cards, which can be used to win the game in a fun and unique way! In addition, we're excited to bring you two new Munchkin expansions: Munchkin Dead & Deader and Munchkin: Taken for Granite . Munchkin Dead & Deader features ghoulish ghosts while Munchkin: Taken for Granite is all about giant golems! Each one comes with 56 cards that can be combined with your favorite Munchkin base game.  Hack and Slash is a staff favorite, and now we've combined both the base game and the expansion, Hack & Slash 2 – Whack & Stash , into one epic box – Hack and Slash Deluxe ! While the game is suited for 2-6 players, you can download the solitaire rules on Warehouse 23.  Finally, we have not two, not four, but six new reload packs for Car Wars Sixth Edition to announce: Car Wars Aggressive Arsenal Car Wars Sonic Strike Car Wars Tailgate Trouble Car Wars Albert's Advances Car Wars Gonzo Gear Car Wars Offensive Ordnance These packs add additional cards to your autoduelling game and can be combined with Car Wars Blue/Green , Car Wars Red/Yellow , and the just-released Car Wars Orange/Purple . Stay tuned to this site and our social media accounts for more information about pre-orders and release dates!

– 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 14, 2024: Now Available On Warehouse 23: Hexagram #12

For those who missed the successful Kickstarter in April and lived in sorrow, regret no longer – for now the wonders of Hexagram #12 can be found on !

This latest zine for The Fantasy Trip has 10 new articles: a complete introductory scenario, tables to generate town markets, nobles to meet, and even a short story. Hungry for more? No worries; it also includes new rules for hunger and thirst!

Pick up Hexagram #12 as a pulse-pounding print item, or an immediately deliverable PDF. Adventure is just a mouse-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 13, 2024: Quip It Good

I've talked before about how I . . . err, I mean, some writer friend envisions the world in gaming terms. Our household watches shows with a similar eye. We recently saw an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine where the handcuffed hero – being held at gunpoint – hits the captor in the face with the villain's laptop. It's mildly effective, but not so much that the antagonist can't reassert dominance with the gun . . . at which point the hero, still holding the computer, asks, "Would you like to buy a laptop?"

When we saw it, our kiddo – who's been playing a super-charismatic conman for a few years now in one of his campaigns – said, "I am so stealing that line!" And, knowing his character, he may well pull it off.

Anyway, I know I'm a few years late to the party, but Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a really fun show to view through the lens of "RPG characters making decisions and rolling skills successfully or poorly."

– 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 12, 2024: Hacker Deluxe Print-And-Play

Hacker Deluxe is out now as a print-and-play! That's right – with a printer, a few craft supplies, and a little bit of hacking and folding, you can recreate the classic Hacker experience right at your table.

Okay, official promo hat off. Irene here. I need to tell you a story.

I first played Hacker on a drizzly Wednesday night at my college gaming club. I was able to find the exact date – January 7, 2015 – because I immediately posted about it on Instagram. Twice. My verdict:



"it's . . . really good?"

I was a computer science student and a huge fan of '80s and '90s cyberpunk. I loved Neuromancer and Hackers (1995) . Hacker was right up my alley in theme, and the mechanics didn't disappoint – jumping from system to system through indials, squeaking past ICE on government servers, and distinct turn phases to phreak and nark? I felt elite. Finding out that the guy behind my favorite roleplaying game had also created this demented period piece was just too cool. I played again every chance I could

After I left the school (and the club's magnificent library), I didn't get to play again – or even see another copy IRL – until FnordCon 5. During one of my first actual conversations with SJ, I remember gushing excitedly about one of the other MIBs bringing Hacker . When I called it my favorite game, he raised an eyebrow and said "now that's a deep cut."

A few months later, I was helping Steve out at Dragon Con 2022. When I very self-consciously invited him to play a game, I was not expecting him to immediately accept, much less to agree to what I suggested next:



Teaching Steve Jackson my second favorite card game about computer hacking.

Getting to step up as a developer to help prepare Hacker Deluxe for a 2024 print-and-play re-release has been very cool. I love this game, and I'm thrilled to introduce it to a new generation and give it a second life on the Net. While we kept it as close to its original form as we could, there have been a few edits – the cards originally appearing in Hacker II: The Dark Side are now clearly marked for easy removal if you want to play the original version. And some cards and rules have been clarified, making this more like a remaster than a new edition.

Get Hacker Deluxe on Warehouse 23, and let me know what you think!

– 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!

September 11, 2024: Ogre Miniatures Set 4 Now Available On Warehouse 23

If you missed out on the Ogre Miniatures Set 4 crowdfunding campaign back in January, you're in luck – the fourth and final set of Ogre minis is now available over on Warehouse 23! This set features over 100 unpainted minis, including:Mk I - x2Mk II - x2Combine Ranger Heavy Tank - x8Combine Banshee Missile Tank - x6Combine Raptor GEV - x8Combine Roadrunner GEV-PC - x6 (with 3 infantry each)Combine Gremlin LGEV - x12Combine Minotaur Howitzer - x4Combine Bigfoot Mobile Howitzer - x4Combine Yankee Light Tank - x12Combine Alamo Superheavy Tank - x6Combine Infantry - x14 bases with three minis each (total of 42)Doppelsoldner treads (can be used to replace the treads from Set 3 ) - x2 Ogre Miniatures Set 4 uses the same scale as both the Ogre Sixth Edition and Ogre Designer's Edition games, so now you're even more prepared for epic battles with cybernetic tanks. Grab a set. Tell your friends to grab one, too! 

– 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!